Another installment of food porn
May. 10th, 2005 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumIt's Tuesday, which means there are people coming over for dinner.
Rumor has it this week may number as many as a dozen guests, which, in light of the planned menu seems appropriate, because where we tend to count lots in groups of ten (a score, a hundred) the Russians are more fond of the casual dozen.
That means the vegetable stock I put up last week, with the expectation of feeding 8-10, is stretching a bit. Not a big deal. Some more beets, another bunch of kale, a leek, an onion and a head of cabbage, it ought to be all right.
Cabbage. I like cabbage. I like when it's fresh. Sliced up and put into slaw. I like it steamed around some rice, a bit of ground meat, some caraway seed (maybe some poppy seeds to sweeten it differently) and simmered in a pan with some tomato sauce (thin, not a marinara, but a loose, almost soupy sauce, slightly sweet, flavored with fennel). I like it with corned beef, or in colcannon.
But I really like it on the cutting board.
I like a host of "manly" toys. All manner of things which go boom (save hand grenades, they scare me. I don't know if it's the nature of how they work [a constellation of fragments meant to rend flesh] or the uncertain nature of the fuse [the TM says the fuse will burn for, "3-5 seconds" a pretty hefty dose of uncertainty, or the sense they might go off haphazardly, and I'll do myself in, all unawares. I qualified expert with them in Basic but hand grenades, of all the explosives I ever played with scare me) rifles, bombs, rockets, det-charges.
I also like cutlery. I own a fair selection, from paring knifes, to swords (real swords, not the stuff coming out of Toledo, with pattern names like, "El Cid" or "Edward IV") to a couple of axes and hatchets.
And a cleaver. Cleavers are funny knives. Heavy, even when they are light. No good balance. And not good for slicing. Once one learns the trick they'll joint a bird or a leg or split ribs but they don't really seem all that fun. Until one needs to chop a cabbage.
Set the cabbage head on the block, raise the cleaver and "Twonk!" the cabbage is in twain. A crisp noise, just a bit of resistance and then the board. With almost no practice one can make like Yan (the Chinese chef) and turn the halves into strips in a staccato of crunching and slicing.
Right now I have a head of cabbage rendering to more stock. I'm cheating. My pasta cooker has the veggies in it. When they are done, I just lift it and let it drain. Then the glop goes into a colander and the juice which collects goes back into the pot.
I also have a loaf of bread rising. I have no great hope for it. It's rye, and it seems I did something wrong. It didn't feel good beneath my hand, seems to be rising slowly (despite a well-proofed sponge) and is heavy as all get out. I know rye loaves are heavy, that they don't rise well (less gluten in the rye) and all the other quirks (I've made it before), but this load my be very dense.
I still have to blanch, peel and cut the beets. I've already creamed a bunch of dill into a half-pound of butter (and placed it in a stilton crock. It looks nice and Maia will go, "eeeew," because she hates, "stinky," cheese.
I'll cut the lettuce around the birdshit grape, and perhaps boil some potatoes. That ought to do it.
Yesterday I made a mistake. Two actually.
We bought a half-flat of strawberries last Friday. By yesterday it was either, freeze them, make shortcake (for many more than we had to eat it) or make jam. I opted to try for the jam. I had decided on this Sunday, whence I hied myself to the local hardware store for a bottle lifter and some pectin. I was also followed home by 15 pepper plants (6 Ancho, 4 Gypsy [a sweet, frying, pepper. I like such in omelettes] and five Hungarian Wax). A pair of seed packets also fell into my cart. Pasilla and Pepperoncini peppers. (I happen to think them handsome plants) Somehow an African Violet (which I don't care for much) also ended up in the cart. Oddly it was of the deep purple color Maia likes them in, of a frilly sort she doesn't have.
When I got done planting them I started hulling and slicing berries. I was trying to make a "speed" recipe (it called for using a microwave, and being done in 15 minutes) into a more normally paced one. It seems I failed to let it cook enough, so now I have a jar of ice cream topping.
While I was waiting (fruitlessly) for it to set, I decided to make some ice cream topping. This had no pectin, less sugar and a trifle more lemon juice (one of Maia's riding partners has a Meyer Lemon tree. I will be making one ofxoper_vh's Shaker lemon pies, and some lemon curd, either tomorrow or Thurs) and a tsp of powdered ginger and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.
Cooking things like this is always a tricky proposition. There is a lot of moisture, and a lot of sugar. For awhile this is insurance, and one can let them just simmer away on the stove. But they hit a point at which the sugar and water combine to raise the temperature (this is the secret to jams, jellies and candies) after which things can get very hot, very quickly. I got distracted. I think I may have scorched some of the berries.
This morning I found the it most decidedly jammed up. A perfect tecture and, wonder of wonders, (because peanut butter won't save strawberry jam) it didn't taste burnt. A tad carmelly in the undernotes, but strawberry and a hint of spice.
It goes beautifully with coffee on buttered toast.
Rumor has it this week may number as many as a dozen guests, which, in light of the planned menu seems appropriate, because where we tend to count lots in groups of ten (a score, a hundred) the Russians are more fond of the casual dozen.
That means the vegetable stock I put up last week, with the expectation of feeding 8-10, is stretching a bit. Not a big deal. Some more beets, another bunch of kale, a leek, an onion and a head of cabbage, it ought to be all right.
Cabbage. I like cabbage. I like when it's fresh. Sliced up and put into slaw. I like it steamed around some rice, a bit of ground meat, some caraway seed (maybe some poppy seeds to sweeten it differently) and simmered in a pan with some tomato sauce (thin, not a marinara, but a loose, almost soupy sauce, slightly sweet, flavored with fennel). I like it with corned beef, or in colcannon.
But I really like it on the cutting board.
I like a host of "manly" toys. All manner of things which go boom (save hand grenades, they scare me. I don't know if it's the nature of how they work [a constellation of fragments meant to rend flesh] or the uncertain nature of the fuse [the TM says the fuse will burn for, "3-5 seconds" a pretty hefty dose of uncertainty, or the sense they might go off haphazardly, and I'll do myself in, all unawares. I qualified expert with them in Basic but hand grenades, of all the explosives I ever played with scare me) rifles, bombs, rockets, det-charges.
I also like cutlery. I own a fair selection, from paring knifes, to swords (real swords, not the stuff coming out of Toledo, with pattern names like, "El Cid" or "Edward IV") to a couple of axes and hatchets.
And a cleaver. Cleavers are funny knives. Heavy, even when they are light. No good balance. And not good for slicing. Once one learns the trick they'll joint a bird or a leg or split ribs but they don't really seem all that fun. Until one needs to chop a cabbage.
Set the cabbage head on the block, raise the cleaver and "Twonk!" the cabbage is in twain. A crisp noise, just a bit of resistance and then the board. With almost no practice one can make like Yan (the Chinese chef) and turn the halves into strips in a staccato of crunching and slicing.
Right now I have a head of cabbage rendering to more stock. I'm cheating. My pasta cooker has the veggies in it. When they are done, I just lift it and let it drain. Then the glop goes into a colander and the juice which collects goes back into the pot.
I also have a loaf of bread rising. I have no great hope for it. It's rye, and it seems I did something wrong. It didn't feel good beneath my hand, seems to be rising slowly (despite a well-proofed sponge) and is heavy as all get out. I know rye loaves are heavy, that they don't rise well (less gluten in the rye) and all the other quirks (I've made it before), but this load my be very dense.
I still have to blanch, peel and cut the beets. I've already creamed a bunch of dill into a half-pound of butter (and placed it in a stilton crock. It looks nice and Maia will go, "eeeew," because she hates, "stinky," cheese.
I'll cut the lettuce around the birdshit grape, and perhaps boil some potatoes. That ought to do it.
Yesterday I made a mistake. Two actually.
We bought a half-flat of strawberries last Friday. By yesterday it was either, freeze them, make shortcake (for many more than we had to eat it) or make jam. I opted to try for the jam. I had decided on this Sunday, whence I hied myself to the local hardware store for a bottle lifter and some pectin. I was also followed home by 15 pepper plants (6 Ancho, 4 Gypsy [a sweet, frying, pepper. I like such in omelettes] and five Hungarian Wax). A pair of seed packets also fell into my cart. Pasilla and Pepperoncini peppers. (I happen to think them handsome plants) Somehow an African Violet (which I don't care for much) also ended up in the cart. Oddly it was of the deep purple color Maia likes them in, of a frilly sort she doesn't have.
When I got done planting them I started hulling and slicing berries. I was trying to make a "speed" recipe (it called for using a microwave, and being done in 15 minutes) into a more normally paced one. It seems I failed to let it cook enough, so now I have a jar of ice cream topping.
While I was waiting (fruitlessly) for it to set, I decided to make some ice cream topping. This had no pectin, less sugar and a trifle more lemon juice (one of Maia's riding partners has a Meyer Lemon tree. I will be making one of
xoper_vh's Shaker lemon pies, and some lemon curd, either tomorrow or Thurs) and a tsp of powdered ginger and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.Cooking things like this is always a tricky proposition. There is a lot of moisture, and a lot of sugar. For awhile this is insurance, and one can let them just simmer away on the stove. But they hit a point at which the sugar and water combine to raise the temperature (this is the secret to jams, jellies and candies) after which things can get very hot, very quickly. I got distracted. I think I may have scorched some of the berries.
This morning I found the it most decidedly jammed up. A perfect tecture and, wonder of wonders, (because peanut butter won't save strawberry jam) it didn't taste burnt. A tad carmelly in the undernotes, but strawberry and a hint of spice.
It goes beautifully with coffee on buttered toast.
