Food Porn
Some weeks ago I was at a restaurant and ordered a tuna sandwich. Said sandwich was said to be made with a caper aioli.
It was very good.
So... I decided I had to attempt it.
While visiting![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
akirlu and libertango I gave sardines a try (fish and I are acquainted, but most are not real friends. Salmon should be raw, mackeral is nice, tuna is good, whitefish are tasty; butterflied and broiled, dusted with parmesan and drizzled in butter, trout can be nice... that starts to run out the list. But I read of fish, turbot, Dover Sole in lemon butter, planked shad, and I drool. Frustrating). Sardines, it turns out, are a fish I don't mind. Even sort of like. With practice I might even make them a small staple.
So
Open two tins of tuna, and one of sardines. Drain the oil (never buy such fish in water)
Pulverise some white pepper into this macerate four cloves of garlic with enough capers to make the paste a sort of dirty grey.
One egg yolk.
Add olive oil to the drained oil, until one has half a cup total.
Some pinot grigio vinegar.
The trick to mayonnaise (and aioli is just a thin mayonnaise) is to get the egg and oil incorporated well before one adds the waters. So, beat the yolk into the macerated garlic stuff (this will take more work because the capers are pickled, and the vinegar is water) Traditionally this is all done in a big mortar, I use a bowl and a small swedish whisk.
Add some oil. Add some more. Do this until half the oil is in, and the texture is thickish. Like really heavy hollandaise.
Add some vinegar. Beat like blazes (this is where the work comes in... emulsifying the water and the oil). Add some more. Drizzle in some more oil. Switch from oil to vinegar until all is in.
In the mixer I tossed the sardines, and made them smooth. Add more capers, and the tuna. When all is an even texture, add the aioli.
Spread on bread, and put in a pan, a la grilled cheese.
TK
It was very good.
So... I decided I had to attempt it.
While visiting
akirlu and libertango I gave sardines a try (fish and I are acquainted, but most are not real friends. Salmon should be raw, mackeral is nice, tuna is good, whitefish are tasty; butterflied and broiled, dusted with parmesan and drizzled in butter, trout can be nice... that starts to run out the list. But I read of fish, turbot, Dover Sole in lemon butter, planked shad, and I drool. Frustrating). Sardines, it turns out, are a fish I don't mind. Even sort of like. With practice I might even make them a small staple.So
Open two tins of tuna, and one of sardines. Drain the oil (never buy such fish in water)
Pulverise some white pepper into this macerate four cloves of garlic with enough capers to make the paste a sort of dirty grey.
One egg yolk.
Add olive oil to the drained oil, until one has half a cup total.
Some pinot grigio vinegar.
The trick to mayonnaise (and aioli is just a thin mayonnaise) is to get the egg and oil incorporated well before one adds the waters. So, beat the yolk into the macerated garlic stuff (this will take more work because the capers are pickled, and the vinegar is water) Traditionally this is all done in a big mortar, I use a bowl and a small swedish whisk.
Add some oil. Add some more. Do this until half the oil is in, and the texture is thickish. Like really heavy hollandaise.
Add some vinegar. Beat like blazes (this is where the work comes in... emulsifying the water and the oil). Add some more. Drizzle in some more oil. Switch from oil to vinegar until all is in.
In the mixer I tossed the sardines, and made them smooth. Add more capers, and the tuna. When all is an even texture, add the aioli.
Spread on bread, and put in a pan, a la grilled cheese.
TK
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K. [like.... how thick is it?]
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TK
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1: Come on over, I have more than enough to make a couple for you (and a very nice beer to go with it).
2: Propose. If you're nice enough Maia might be willing to share.
3: "Go thou and do likewise"
Of those, the last is the easiest.
TK
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2. I appear to be married myself. Damn, forgot that!
3. I will -- you should write a cookbook!
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The third.... maybe. Cookbooks are hard work. I'm not possessed of the bona fides to make my writing on the subject inherently interesting (I want to know how that lawyer got the gif writing the food column for Vogue. Now he sits around the house and cooks, they pay him and every now and again he gets to travel (with no small part of it tax-deductible) to wonderful places and peer into the corners of restaurants, wineries, little nooks of gourmand heaven. To add insult to injury, he gets paid to eat. Grump), which means I'd need some hook.
I am not going to write a cookbook on low carb desserts. First, it's not my kind of cooking, second, there is a swell one out there (even if she did self-publish, and is now having some hassles with the publisher, as well as having to do all her own PR).
Which means I'd have to pay a lot more attention to the definite method (mash garlic, beat with egg yolk, adding in half the oil. After that start switching between the watery stuff and the rest of the oil may be fine as a general rule, it makes a lousy recipe).
If I did, as Maia does, and kept a cook-book of my own (rather than a handful of tools and ideas in my head) it might be easier. That I'd be more concrete in. As it is, I know how things work, so I may pull down a technique book to check something. I might pull down a cook book (esp. for things like pastries and tortes), but mostly I just pull it out of thin air.
The same thin air Mozart used. I play with ideas for food all the time. Taste the combinations in my head (and then find out I was wrong, or not) and when the idea is polished, out come the pans.
TK
TK
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The books all say the better grades of fish get packed in oil. I know tuna in oil (though I have to pay more for it) has more flavor. I don't know if this is the quality of the fish, or the oil.
I suppose I need to get some raw tuna, and can it, one piece in oil, the other in water, and see how they differ.
TK
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