This is a classic English dish and it's really easy to see why it's amazing.
Short answer = umami.
The CC has always ranted about the lack of respect given to English cooking.
This is another one of those neglects. It's totally ironic since the recipe is entirely vegetarian and yet it's not well known. In an era of "avocado toast" — which fucking sucks! — one should be shouting this one from the rooftops.
(If you do put an avocado on top of this, the CC really doesn't need to know in exactly the same way that he really doesn't need to know about your bowel movements!)
What is it?
A vast amount of mushrooms gently roasted in butter to which fresh herbs are added along with a judicious amount of both Worcestershire sauce and cream. The last two with an extraordinarily light hand.
Why does it work?
The insane off-the-charts umami — mushrooms, animal products (= butter + cream), and Worcestershire sauce (which is basically umami-central!) The toast adds all the wonders of the Maillard reaction.
How does it work?
You make some toast and put this stuff on top of it. DUH!!!
Ingredients
(serves 4 (= 8 toasts))
1 lb assorted mushrooms (the more varieties the better!)
2 dried shiitake mushrooms
butter
salt
pepper
thyme
parsley (finely minced)
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp cream
Note 1: You can totally substitute the Worcestershire sauce. Its goal is to add umami. Soy sauce will do the trick. Fish sauce will also do the trick. (You'll need a dash of vinegar and pinch of cayenne with the last two alternatives.)
Note 2: The thyme goes well with the mushrooms. Don't get hung up. They wouldn't have been in old England. Chives will work as would most herbs. Tarragon would NOT work. Too much anise flavor.
Note 3: The CC is going to amp this up one more notch by using dried Chinese shiitake mushrooms because why not? Once you grasp the principles, it's hard not to.
Note 4: You can totally gild the lily by adding parmesan. Why not? We've already dialed it up to 17. By all means, go ahead and dial it up to 29.
Note 5: Yes, the barest amount of lemon would rock this dish. The CC knows. One surmises the "limeys" didn't have access to fresh lemons?
Note 6: The CC knows what you are thinking. One pound serves four people? Yep. Talk to me AFTER you make the recipe and everyone wants more.
Recipe
Pour boiling water over the dried shiitake mushrooms. Not too much. After 10 minutes, pull the mushrooms out and filter the water through a paper napkin. Reserve the water.
Cut the reconstituted mushrooms into lengthwise pieces.
Cut the other mushrooms into lengthwise pieces.
Heat the butter until just under foaming. Toss in all the mushrooms and let them reduce at a medium heat. Add the water from the mushrooms. Add the thyme, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and cream towards the end and let cook until almost dry.
Salt to taste. (The sauce already has a ton of salt so check before salting.)
Make some toast.
Top the mixture on toast with the minced parsley as topping.
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Sunday, September 3, 2017
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
The Medieval Myth
One of the most pernicious lies about medieval cooking is that cooks used spices to cover up the smell of rotting meat (or fish.)
It just persists and persists and persists and it's just ludicrous on the face of it.
If we can distinguish between these things via smell, surely our fore-bearers were equally talented at it.
Also, spices were not cheap. The Arab and the Venetian middle-men had a stronghold on the supply and they charged pretty hefty premia for these things.
The upper classes who could afford the spices could obviously also afford the best meat and fish that money could buy since it was all local back in those days.
The idea has been thoroughly debunked by scholars like Paul Freedman but the popular imagination keeps it alive. It's absolutely amazing that so silly a meme has persisted for almost a few centuries at this point.
It's very clear to see the antecedents of medieval European cooking in modern terms. Just pick up a Persian or an Indian cookbook. They still have the same relation to spicing that would be expected in Europe in the middle ages.
Nobody in history has ever wanted to eat rotting meat. We have extraordinarily sophisticated tuned apparatuses in our systems to detect against poisoning. They even go into complete and utter overdrive to prevent us from doing so (e.g. vomiting during pregnancy, etc.)
Consider this idea as debunked.
It just persists and persists and persists and it's just ludicrous on the face of it.
If we can distinguish between these things via smell, surely our fore-bearers were equally talented at it.
Also, spices were not cheap. The Arab and the Venetian middle-men had a stronghold on the supply and they charged pretty hefty premia for these things.
The upper classes who could afford the spices could obviously also afford the best meat and fish that money could buy since it was all local back in those days.
The idea has been thoroughly debunked by scholars like Paul Freedman but the popular imagination keeps it alive. It's absolutely amazing that so silly a meme has persisted for almost a few centuries at this point.
It's very clear to see the antecedents of medieval European cooking in modern terms. Just pick up a Persian or an Indian cookbook. They still have the same relation to spicing that would be expected in Europe in the middle ages.
Nobody in history has ever wanted to eat rotting meat. We have extraordinarily sophisticated tuned apparatuses in our systems to detect against poisoning. They even go into complete and utter overdrive to prevent us from doing so (e.g. vomiting during pregnancy, etc.)
Consider this idea as debunked.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
The Irritating Clichés Strike Again
Here's a list of phrases that the CC believes should be banned from reviews or food writing in general.
They suggest a lazy approach to writing. A lack of a thesaurus and/or a complete absence of a deep pool of metaphors from which to draw upon.
They suggest a lazy approach to writing. A lack of a thesaurus and/or a complete absence of a deep pool of metaphors from which to draw upon.
sinfully rich - Who the fuck made it "sinful"?Feel free to add your own in the comments.
extravagant tipples - Nobody below the age of 70 calls them "tipples".
cooked to perfection - As opposed to "cooked with numerous flaws"?!?
meltingly tender - If it's not fondue, don't use it.
pillowy - Have you bitten down on your pillow lately?
-tastic - Completely -tackalicious!
toothsome - Nobody enjoys dental work.
yummy - NO!
heavenly - There's no such place and no such thing.
to die for - Would you really? Really?!?
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Avocados
Something about avocados in the markets sends the CC into a apoplectic rage.
The culprits are the little stickers that say "Ripe".
Are you fuckin' shittin' me? This is complete and utter horseshit!
If they were ripe, we'd know it so we don't need you to hustle us because your avocados suck. In fact, the CC has never found an avocado that needed less than 10 days worth of "ripening". More like 15 days.
They just sit on his counter radiating guilt about how fucked up the supermarket system actually is.
What is the problem?
Supermarkets assume that shoppers want "green" avocados because "green" is the color of "fresh" which in this case means totally unripe. A ripe avocado is almost black and melting and supermarkets want stuff that doesn't spoil but that's not going to work for the avocado.
So it sucks. And we put up. And rant endlessly.
Such is life.
The culprits are the little stickers that say "Ripe".
Are you fuckin' shittin' me? This is complete and utter horseshit!
If they were ripe, we'd know it so we don't need you to hustle us because your avocados suck. In fact, the CC has never found an avocado that needed less than 10 days worth of "ripening". More like 15 days.
They just sit on his counter radiating guilt about how fucked up the supermarket system actually is.
What is the problem?
Supermarkets assume that shoppers want "green" avocados because "green" is the color of "fresh" which in this case means totally unripe. A ripe avocado is almost black and melting and supermarkets want stuff that doesn't spoil but that's not going to work for the avocado.
So it sucks. And we put up. And rant endlessly.
Such is life.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Things that make you go hmmm ...
Have you ever read a recipe in a cookbook and said to yourself, "There's no fuckin' way that can work!"?
Happens to the CC all the time. He then ends up yelling at the book which classifies him as one of the crazies but that's him, isn't it?
It comes with experience to all cooks even if you are not familiar with the cuisine in question. It's frequently just a matter of timings which have clearly not been tested and/or are more than a touch speculative. The amount of the sizes could also be all bollocksed to high heaven (tablespoons instead of teaspoons is all too common), or the proportions could be upsized and upchuck-worthy. (4 cups of water in 1 cup of flour will not yield a dough — it will yield a liquid mess!)
Here's a classic blooper from Lathika George's "The Kerala Kitchen".
(In the parlance of our time, this bitch be smokin' some serious crack!)
It's a classic egg curry found all over India. You hard-boil some eggs and separately make a curry. At the end, you cut the eggs length-wise and mix with the curry, re-heat and serve. Hardly complicated.
The trick that makes this specific recipe work is the same trick that makes classic French Onion Soup work. It requires a mass of onions to be browned and then a whole ton of spices and tomatoes are added to it. This turns into a dry curry.
The recipe in the book calls for the onions to be fried for 2-3 minutes and after that, the tomatoes to be cooked for two minutes.
In your fuckin' dreams, lady!
Even twenty minutes is too little for this to work. The last time the CC made a French Onion Soup, it took more than an hour for the onions to do their magic.
This is the principle of IST (Indian Stretchable Time) applied to cooking where five minutes really means fifty. (A lot of cultures have this principle encoded as a joke. There is even the concept of NST used by the "suitable in-crowd" and the CC will not translate that particular one.)
Now admittedly, this stuff is cooked at medium-high heat instead of the relatively gentle burble of the onions for the soup and the soup calls for a vastly larger number of onions but still. There is absolutely no fuckin' way in hell a mass of onions plus tomatoes is going to give up all that moisture in a total of five minutes. Incidentally, that's what frying really is — a precise way to remove moisture.
A significant fraction of this can squarely be blamed not on the author but on the editors. You needn't look towards the travesty of Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee. They are just the logical culmination of something that has been going on since Edouard de Pomiane in La Cuisine en dix minutes, ou l'Adaptation au rythme moderne.
We like speed. We like convenience. Cooking can be a chore even for the most committed amongst us. We are, alas, all too human.
Except that Pomiane was a genius. He clearly states what can and can't be hurried up and his entirely elegant solution for "hurrying up" is that if a recipe can't be hurried up, you shouldn't make it or serve it to your guests on a weeknight. Genius!
Pomiane's book is hands-down a work of a master and someone deeply steeped in the art of cooking. You will learn better from him how to make a classic sauce hollandaise than from all the textbooks and French chef's of the world. He has idiot-proofed something that is considered a "junior chef's challenge". (Science is why his technique works and since he was a physician and microbiologist, chances are that he understood in detail what he was doing.)
Editors, listen up! There is no shame in saying that something takes thirty minutes instead of three. There's no fuckin' shame in explaining in simple terms the science behind a recipe. People are smarter than you think and those that are likely to buy an obscure cookbook are much more likely to spend thirty minutes than three.
So don't try and push it. Not only do you get a travesty of a recipe but also you get an inedible fuckin' mess!
Isn't this entirely obvious?
So here's the classic egg curry from Kerala reworked for your benefit.
(And yes, the CC used a timer to time it as opposed to the gormless Ms. George who clearly did not test worth the proverbial Indian dam!)
Egg Curry
Ingredients
6 eggs (hard-boiled)
3-4 cups onions (very thinly sliced)
2 tomatoes (finely diced)
12 curry leaves
1 tbsp ginger (chopped into very thin slivers)
4 cloves garlic (sliced thin)
3-4 chillies slit lengthwise
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder (or to taste)
4 tbsp black pepper
salt
Recipe
First make the eggs. Cover them in cold water. Bring them to a boil and turn the heat to low. Cook for 8 minutes. Remove and immediately dunk into an ice-bath to cool off.
You will get perfectly hard-boiled eggs without the yolk turning chalky and none of the green sulfurous ring around them.
Peel them and set aside.
Combine the turmeric, salt, chilli powder and black pepper with a few tablespoons of water to make a thick paste. Don't add too much water.
Heat up some oil and when heated (7 mins) dump in the mass of onions. Let fry on a medium-high heat until they change color but are not blackened. Roughly 17 minutes.
Twenty-four minutes and counting.
Dump in the curry leaves, ginger, garlic slit chillies, and let fry for a bit (3 minutes.)
Add the tomatoes and spice paste. You may need to add some water to make sure it doesn't burn. Let cook at a low heat for about 8 minutes until the tomatoes turn saucy.
We're up to 35 minutes now, you clueless bitch!
Cut the eggs length-wise into halves and add them yolk-side up and let them gently heat up to the sauce. About 3 minutes. Serve.
So nearly 40 minutes not counting the time to make the hard-boiled eggs.
Happens to the CC all the time. He then ends up yelling at the book which classifies him as one of the crazies but that's him, isn't it?
It comes with experience to all cooks even if you are not familiar with the cuisine in question. It's frequently just a matter of timings which have clearly not been tested and/or are more than a touch speculative. The amount of the sizes could also be all bollocksed to high heaven (tablespoons instead of teaspoons is all too common), or the proportions could be upsized and upchuck-worthy. (4 cups of water in 1 cup of flour will not yield a dough — it will yield a liquid mess!)
Here's a classic blooper from Lathika George's "The Kerala Kitchen".
(In the parlance of our time, this bitch be smokin' some serious crack!)
It's a classic egg curry found all over India. You hard-boil some eggs and separately make a curry. At the end, you cut the eggs length-wise and mix with the curry, re-heat and serve. Hardly complicated.
The trick that makes this specific recipe work is the same trick that makes classic French Onion Soup work. It requires a mass of onions to be browned and then a whole ton of spices and tomatoes are added to it. This turns into a dry curry.
The recipe in the book calls for the onions to be fried for 2-3 minutes and after that, the tomatoes to be cooked for two minutes.
In your fuckin' dreams, lady!
Even twenty minutes is too little for this to work. The last time the CC made a French Onion Soup, it took more than an hour for the onions to do their magic.
This is the principle of IST (Indian Stretchable Time) applied to cooking where five minutes really means fifty. (A lot of cultures have this principle encoded as a joke. There is even the concept of NST used by the "suitable in-crowd" and the CC will not translate that particular one.)
Now admittedly, this stuff is cooked at medium-high heat instead of the relatively gentle burble of the onions for the soup and the soup calls for a vastly larger number of onions but still. There is absolutely no fuckin' way in hell a mass of onions plus tomatoes is going to give up all that moisture in a total of five minutes. Incidentally, that's what frying really is — a precise way to remove moisture.
A significant fraction of this can squarely be blamed not on the author but on the editors. You needn't look towards the travesty of Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee. They are just the logical culmination of something that has been going on since Edouard de Pomiane in La Cuisine en dix minutes, ou l'Adaptation au rythme moderne.
We like speed. We like convenience. Cooking can be a chore even for the most committed amongst us. We are, alas, all too human.
Except that Pomiane was a genius. He clearly states what can and can't be hurried up and his entirely elegant solution for "hurrying up" is that if a recipe can't be hurried up, you shouldn't make it or serve it to your guests on a weeknight. Genius!
Pomiane's book is hands-down a work of a master and someone deeply steeped in the art of cooking. You will learn better from him how to make a classic sauce hollandaise than from all the textbooks and French chef's of the world. He has idiot-proofed something that is considered a "junior chef's challenge". (Science is why his technique works and since he was a physician and microbiologist, chances are that he understood in detail what he was doing.)
Editors, listen up! There is no shame in saying that something takes thirty minutes instead of three. There's no fuckin' shame in explaining in simple terms the science behind a recipe. People are smarter than you think and those that are likely to buy an obscure cookbook are much more likely to spend thirty minutes than three.
So don't try and push it. Not only do you get a travesty of a recipe but also you get an inedible fuckin' mess!
Isn't this entirely obvious?
So here's the classic egg curry from Kerala reworked for your benefit.
(And yes, the CC used a timer to time it as opposed to the gormless Ms. George who clearly did not test worth the proverbial Indian dam!)
Egg Curry
Ingredients
6 eggs (hard-boiled)
3-4 cups onions (very thinly sliced)
2 tomatoes (finely diced)
12 curry leaves
1 tbsp ginger (chopped into very thin slivers)
4 cloves garlic (sliced thin)
3-4 chillies slit lengthwise
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder (or to taste)
4 tbsp black pepper
salt
Recipe
First make the eggs. Cover them in cold water. Bring them to a boil and turn the heat to low. Cook for 8 minutes. Remove and immediately dunk into an ice-bath to cool off.
You will get perfectly hard-boiled eggs without the yolk turning chalky and none of the green sulfurous ring around them.
Peel them and set aside.
Combine the turmeric, salt, chilli powder and black pepper with a few tablespoons of water to make a thick paste. Don't add too much water.
Heat up some oil and when heated (7 mins) dump in the mass of onions. Let fry on a medium-high heat until they change color but are not blackened. Roughly 17 minutes.
Twenty-four minutes and counting.
Dump in the curry leaves, ginger, garlic slit chillies, and let fry for a bit (3 minutes.)
Add the tomatoes and spice paste. You may need to add some water to make sure it doesn't burn. Let cook at a low heat for about 8 minutes until the tomatoes turn saucy.
We're up to 35 minutes now, you clueless bitch!
Cut the eggs length-wise into halves and add them yolk-side up and let them gently heat up to the sauce. About 3 minutes. Serve.
So nearly 40 minutes not counting the time to make the hard-boiled eggs.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Tomato-Flavored What Now?
We haven't had a good rant around these parts in a while so presenting ... tomato-flavored vodka.
The CC couldn't think past the obvious "bloody mary" but supposedly, it will "inspire" ideas.
Inspire away in the comments section!
Saturday, October 8, 2011
The Yikes Meter!
Seen today on a menu, "pad thai tacos".
There is so much wrong with this the CC can't even begin to enumerate. Perhaps there's a reason that those two countries are so far apart?
This is the kinda bullshit that gives "fusion" a bad name.
There is so much wrong with this the CC can't even begin to enumerate. Perhaps there's a reason that those two countries are so far apart?
This is the kinda bullshit that gives "fusion" a bad name.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Active Dishonesty in Food Blogging
Of course, food bloggers aren't saints. They are trying to make a living off of it. The CC happens to be an exception.
However, one must be intellectually honest. One shouldn't delete criticism ever. The answer to criticism is a response not censorship.
However, most are not capable of doing so largely because they don't have the intellectual chops.
One such is a David Leibovitz whose blog the CC used to love until he realized that he is in the business of deleting criticism.
Sorry, David, but criticism is good for you. It takes you away from the adulators, allows you to learn new things, and enhances your reputation. Rising to a challenge is part of being intelligent. You're an EPIC FAIL when you squash criticism rather than rise to it.
The CC posted on this particular posting, and the comments (mild as they were) were deleted.
The proof of the offending comments being deleted (they are long gone!) is presented below:
However, one must be intellectually honest. One shouldn't delete criticism ever. The answer to criticism is a response not censorship.
However, most are not capable of doing so largely because they don't have the intellectual chops.
One such is a David Leibovitz whose blog the CC used to love until he realized that he is in the business of deleting criticism.
Sorry, David, but criticism is good for you. It takes you away from the adulators, allows you to learn new things, and enhances your reputation. Rising to a challenge is part of being intelligent. You're an EPIC FAIL when you squash criticism rather than rise to it.
The CC posted on this particular posting, and the comments (mild as they were) were deleted.
The proof of the offending comments being deleted (they are long gone!) is presented below:
Bold Radical Idea
Whenever the CC flies — which he loathes with a vengeance only reserved for the worst of the worst of food — he frequently muses why there isn't a category whereby you could fly Coach and get the food catered from First Class?
Surely some people would be willing to pay a premium for not eating plonk, right? And it can't be that much more work given that this is just an extension of the "special meals" category (which exists currently, one may add!)
Fancy restaurants do this all the time — they open a (very) lucrative "casual bar" that features their greatest hits without the obsequious service and stratospheric prices.
It surely fits into all the right economic categories:
Unbundling? CHECK.
User experience? CHECK.
Predictability of demand? CHECK.
This has to be one of the most obvious of ideas.
So what's the freakin' holdup?
Surely some people would be willing to pay a premium for not eating plonk, right? And it can't be that much more work given that this is just an extension of the "special meals" category (which exists currently, one may add!)
Fancy restaurants do this all the time — they open a (very) lucrative "casual bar" that features their greatest hits without the obsequious service and stratospheric prices.
It surely fits into all the right economic categories:
Unbundling? CHECK.
User experience? CHECK.
Predictability of demand? CHECK.
This has to be one of the most obvious of ideas.
So what's the freakin' holdup?
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Official Status
In a historic vote, aligned with another historic bill, the New York Senate has voted "sweet corn" as the official vegetable of the State.
Which is ironic since corn is a grain not a vegetable. If it were a vegetable then we should probably debate whether Medicare vouchers, and "pulling the cord" apply to it.
(No corn (or corny) jokes please, we're skittish.)
It's probably a good thing that they didn't have to debate over the official "fruit" (which already has been deemed to be "apple") since that would've been just way too weird!
Which is ironic since corn is a grain not a vegetable. If it were a vegetable then we should probably debate whether Medicare vouchers, and "pulling the cord" apply to it.
(No corn (or corny) jokes please, we're skittish.)
It's probably a good thing that they didn't have to debate over the official "fruit" (which already has been deemed to be "apple") since that would've been just way too weird!
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Taking the Short Bus
Today the new USDA "food chart" was released.
Hello? Anybody home?!?
"Protein" is not a "food substance".
You can eat fruits, you can eat vegetables. you can eat grains. If you blink, you can even eat "dairy" (which really refers to "dairy products") or substances "high in protein" but there's no fuckin' thing such as eating "protein".
Not unless you have a liquidizer and a spare high-speed centrifuge lying around, and even then the CC doesn't really recommend it.
If you needed further proof that the USDA is basically filled with a buncha utterly corrupt, mouth-breathing retards with oatmeal-for-brains (yep, oatmeal and brains - both real edible substances) then you need look no further!
Hello? Anybody home?!?"Protein" is not a "food substance".
You can eat fruits, you can eat vegetables. you can eat grains. If you blink, you can even eat "dairy" (which really refers to "dairy products") or substances "high in protein" but there's no fuckin' thing such as eating "protein".
Not unless you have a liquidizer and a spare high-speed centrifuge lying around, and even then the CC doesn't really recommend it.
If you needed further proof that the USDA is basically filled with a buncha utterly corrupt, mouth-breathing retards with oatmeal-for-brains (yep, oatmeal and brains - both real edible substances) then you need look no further!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
No, it isn't!
We already know that Indian cookbooks screw up the translation of "lemon". They really mean lime which is what is actually used.
They also screw up the translation for tej which is frequently translated as cinnamon.
There's only one problem.
What you really get is cassia not true cinnamon. Admittedly, they are related but the distinction is real. In most of the world, what is actually called cinnamon is really cassia (since it's cheaper) so perhaps a relabeling is in order?
Worst of all, what gets translated in Indian cookbooks as "bay leaves" is anything but. If you start using true bay leaves à la Mediterranean in your Indian food, you are doomed.
The etymology gives it away. They are tej patta in Hindi (quite literally: leaves of cassia.) That's what you need. And that's why rice flavored with tej patta is a totally different beast from rice flavored with the bay laurel leaf.
The CC is a fan of all of the above but one must keep the ingredients correctly and precisely defined.
They also screw up the translation for tej which is frequently translated as cinnamon.
There's only one problem.
What you really get is cassia not true cinnamon. Admittedly, they are related but the distinction is real. In most of the world, what is actually called cinnamon is really cassia (since it's cheaper) so perhaps a relabeling is in order?
Worst of all, what gets translated in Indian cookbooks as "bay leaves" is anything but. If you start using true bay leaves à la Mediterranean in your Indian food, you are doomed.
The etymology gives it away. They are tej patta in Hindi (quite literally: leaves of cassia.) That's what you need. And that's why rice flavored with tej patta is a totally different beast from rice flavored with the bay laurel leaf.
The CC is a fan of all of the above but one must keep the ingredients correctly and precisely defined.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Detrending Trends
There seems to be a deplorable trend among cookbooks published by "author-scholars". They are increasingly being made in a coffee-table format.
Firstly, the CC doesn't possess the above vaunted table. Secondly, these things are heavy. Thirdly, if they weren't so excellent, one would just ignore them but they are indeed outstanding.
But you can't cook out of them. You can't even haul them around, and you certainly can freakin' forget about reading them in bed. (Yes, the CC does that.)
This is a trend, and a terrible one at that!
Firstly, the CC doesn't possess the above vaunted table. Secondly, these things are heavy. Thirdly, if they weren't so excellent, one would just ignore them but they are indeed outstanding.
But you can't cook out of them. You can't even haul them around, and you certainly can freakin' forget about reading them in bed. (Yes, the CC does that.)
This is a trend, and a terrible one at that!
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Oh, The Horror, The Horror!
Today, while idly searching the web, the CC came across recipes for "no-rice risotto".
Really people?!?
Heck, even the Italians have experimented with variations with barley and spelt (and generally treated the results with various degrees of horror) but seriously?!?
No-rice in risotto which quite literally is etymologically related to rice?
Next up: roasted chicken minus the roasting or the chicken.
Really people?!?
Heck, even the Italians have experimented with variations with barley and spelt (and generally treated the results with various degrees of horror) but seriously?!?
No-rice in risotto which quite literally is etymologically related to rice?
Next up: roasted chicken minus the roasting or the chicken.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Cutting Cauliflowers
Far too many people don't know how to cut a cauliflower correctly.
The cauliflower is a fractal as has been explored repeatedly on this blog.
Hold the thing upside down and slice into the florets at a 40° angle. The outside florets will fall off. Keep rotating and doing this.
Now, do this again to each large floret cluster. That's what fractal means!
The cauliflower is a fractal as has been explored repeatedly on this blog.
Hold the thing upside down and slice into the florets at a 40° angle. The outside florets will fall off. Keep rotating and doing this.
Now, do this again to each large floret cluster. That's what fractal means!
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Basil Baseline
So the CC bought some basil at a grocery store, and it had roots and was clearly vibrant so he planted it and verily, after a few hiccups it took root and has been flourishing ever since.
A tad surprising given all the brouhaha about "commercial agriculture" (as opposed to what, jackasses? "loss-ridden agriculture"?!?)
Results, fellow gastronauts, results!
A tad surprising given all the brouhaha about "commercial agriculture" (as opposed to what, jackasses? "loss-ridden agriculture"?!?)
Results, fellow gastronauts, results!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Pick a Lane, Any Lane!
One of the worst things that you can do is go to a restaurant that serves multiple unrelated cuisines - pan-Asian, Thai and Vietnamese, French and Thai, whatever. They tend to be confused in their menu trying to please a "generic" crowd. They are likely to serve lackluster meals or even outright garbage.
An exception could be made for French and Vietnamese on the grounds that the latter was a colony of the former for a while.
Of course, there's this particularly egregious specimen that simply makes the mind boggle!
An exception could be made for French and Vietnamese on the grounds that the latter was a colony of the former for a while.
Of course, there's this particularly egregious specimen that simply makes the mind boggle!
Monday, May 25, 2009
Authors
The CC rarely comments on food writers but rest assured that Michael Ruhlman is one of the absolute worst food writers that ever lived and ever will live. He's clearly made his career by sucking the right cocks!
His book, The Making of a Chef is an absolute disaster. How it got past the editor's table is a fuckin' mystery!
It's filled with dangling pronouns. How can that work? You have no clue who "his/her/he/she" refers to. It's unbelievable that an editor actually let that book past the editing table. It's total garbage. The chapters are incoherent. You have no clue who did what to whom and what food substance in what order!
And they let him write a sequel. Un-fuckin'-believable!
It's shit, shit, shit -- shit, shit, shit, shit.
And the blogosphere is all over blabbering over his man's latest book? The CC shits over his book just on general principle.
Jeebus Cripus, if this man can "write", then Nixon's presidency is a bloody masterpiece of politics!
His book, The Making of a Chef is an absolute disaster. How it got past the editor's table is a fuckin' mystery!
It's filled with dangling pronouns. How can that work? You have no clue who "his/her/he/she" refers to. It's unbelievable that an editor actually let that book past the editing table. It's total garbage. The chapters are incoherent. You have no clue who did what to whom and what food substance in what order!
And they let him write a sequel. Un-fuckin'-believable!
It's shit, shit, shit -- shit, shit, shit, shit.
And the blogosphere is all over blabbering over his man's latest book? The CC shits over his book just on general principle.
Jeebus Cripus, if this man can "write", then Nixon's presidency is a bloody masterpiece of politics!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
The Chez Panisse Cookbooks
This is definitely flat-out heresy but the CC has never actually liked any of them. He still owns most of them, and plans to hold onto them but they are NOT recommended for the average person.
What would be the problem?
For starters, many are just badly edited. You read a recipe, and you end up screaming "No Way!" while everyone looks at if you were a madman. The proportions are clearly wrong. You can't just scale down stuff from a restaurant as explained here.
Then, there's the obvious problem that nobody but nobody can achieve that in an average kitchen. Either it's a question of BTU's, baby, or the cost of ingredients since we're trying to run a tight ship over here. We don't like to eat the same crap the next day either so least counts matter.
Then, there's the Francophilic-lovefest which is soooooooo passé. We don't eat that way any more. Nor do the French, incidentally.
In a world awash in excellent Thai food and and Senegalese food and Sichuan food, the Francophilia sticks out like a cram in your craw.
So suck it, bitch, this ain't no one-dimensional world no more. Even over in Paris, they went ga-ga over Vietnamese four decades ago. Long before the CC was born!
Overall, the CC would just say "Skip it! There be better books out there. Their time and cultural importance has passed."
What would be the problem?
For starters, many are just badly edited. You read a recipe, and you end up screaming "No Way!" while everyone looks at if you were a madman. The proportions are clearly wrong. You can't just scale down stuff from a restaurant as explained here.
Then, there's the obvious problem that nobody but nobody can achieve that in an average kitchen. Either it's a question of BTU's, baby, or the cost of ingredients since we're trying to run a tight ship over here. We don't like to eat the same crap the next day either so least counts matter.
Then, there's the Francophilic-lovefest which is soooooooo passé. We don't eat that way any more. Nor do the French, incidentally.
In a world awash in excellent Thai food and and Senegalese food and Sichuan food, the Francophilia sticks out like a cram in your craw.
So suck it, bitch, this ain't no one-dimensional world no more. Even over in Paris, they went ga-ga over Vietnamese four decades ago. Long before the CC was born!
Overall, the CC would just say "Skip it! There be better books out there. Their time and cultural importance has passed."
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