Tag: play

Normally, when I cook, I like to find a recipe online, then cook something completely different. That way, every time I make something, it's an organic, unique recipe, and different whenever I make it. The few times a recipe comes out perfect, of course, I prepare it the same way; however, usually I'm trying to find a new way to make food.

And so today's recipe comes into play. I'd been browsing the chicken recipes in the wikibooks cookbook, and found my way to a recipe for Garlic Lemon Chicken. The thing that drew my attention was a Lebanese sauce named toum. So, after glancing at both recipes for about half a second, I was off.

The first goal was to make the toum. I knew that it involved garlic, olive oil, salt, and lemon juice; it was only about halfway through the recipe that I realized it required the oil and lemon juice to be added to the macerated garlic-salt mixture in small doses, to increase the volume. I'd also added cayenne to the recipe; the first taste, before I thinned it out with the garlic and oil, was like a garlic nuclear bomb.

I started by shucking two full bulbs of garlic and running them through the processor, then adding salt, pepper, cayenne, sesame oil (I was out of olive), and lemon juice, until I had a mighty bowl of deadly garlic paste. At this point in the recipe, my plan was to saute the chicken breasts, slather them with this liquid kryptonite, and then braise them for a scary long time.

Things changed when I noticed that the original chicken recipe called for a completely different marinade, and for the toum to be used as a dipping sauce for something else entirely. Funny how the little details kick in at the last minute. To make up for the lack of moisture (I doubted that the toum would keep the chicken moist during a long cooking time), I deglazed the skillet I cooked the chicken in with a can of chicken broth and some gin. I didn't bother reducing because (1) I needed moisture, and (2) I wanted to find a way to weaken the gargantuan garlic heat in the toum. In order to justify my decision, I found a recipe online labeled Shish Taouk Toum, which involves making chicken kebabs after marinating in a liquid that included (a tiny amount of) toum. Alright. Somebody made chicken and let it touch the Garlic Death. I was treading in somewhat charted territory. Onwards.

I put the chicken breasts into the oven, slathered with toum, and poured in my deglazing liquid, setting the temperature to 250 degrees. My plan was to make the chicken, taste it, and see if it was too strong to eat. At this point, if it were indeed too strong, I'm pretty sure my plans to fix it involved making rice.

After a couple hours on low heat, I opened the oven. The house smelled like garlic for three days. We eventually served it over orzo. Not the best garlic chicken ever, but not bad either.

Tonight, I'm doing lamb chops and tzatziki sauce. In fact, it's broiling while I type.

I started the tzatziki last night, draining some plain yogurt, grating a cucumber into it, and mixing in some dill, grated garlic, red wine vinegar, and pepper. It has been sitting in the fridge for a full day, but not without several inquisitive spoonfuls being borrowed...

Tonight, I mixed a stick of melted butter, some fresh thyme and mint, a couple squirts of dijon mustard, a quarter of an onion (chopped), some cayenne, and some black pepper and dill into a mess, then dipped the lamb chops in it and rolled them into breadcrumbs (pouring the rest of the mess in between them).

After broiling on both sides for five minutes apiece, I put a baguette from a local bakery on the bottom rack and turned the oven onto three-fifty. Give me a second to check on it...

Alright. The lamb is going to come out pretty soon; pictures (hopefully) at eleven.

...

Update: Rare is definitely the way to do lamb; it got barely any oven time after its broiling and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

The tzatziki had a little too much red wine vinegar; I'd suggest tasting it regularly and adding the vinegar (especially) at a slower pace. Remember that the tzatziki is going to be a bunch of separate flavors before it goes to the fridge, and taste accordingly.

Lamb is an interesting ingredient. It plays better with those obscure herbs in your spice rack than the standard American meats do; lamb with a little tzatziki is certainly a complex and wonderful experience.

Just a note: before tonight, I've had lamb three times and hated it each time.

These went over really well. They were super easy to make and are great for a party because you can make them ahead of time. Being that I don't eat chocolate, I experimented with a few of them using carob in place of the chocolate. I am used to the bittersweet taste of the carob and felt that it worked nicely, but Savory's wife didn't find them as yummy being that she is not accustomed to the flavor. However, she was all over the chocolate ones.

8 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped,
3/4 cup chopped and toasted pecans
20 sheets phyllo dough (14 in by 9 in)

Melt chocolate in the microwave. Stir in pecans.

Lightly brush on sheet of phyllo with butter, place another sheet of phyllo on top and brush with butter. Keep remaining phyllo covered with a damp cloth to keep it from drying out. Cut the two layered sheets into three 14 in by 3 in strips.

Place a heaping teaspoonful of chocolate mixture in the lower corner of phyllo strip. Fold dough over filling, forming a triangle. Fold the triangle up, then fold the triangle over, forming another triangle. (Note: if you used to play "football" with a little paper triangle and finger goals you will know exactly how to fold up these little triangles). Repeat with remaining strips of dough and remaining sheets of phyllo.

Place triangles on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 15-17 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. Sprinkle with confectioners sugar. Yield:30 servings.

One sushi bar ingredient I have a love-hate relationship with is kappa, known in English as the cucumber. Apparently, the Japanese term is based on a river goblin, named Kappa, who has a fondness for cucumbers. Nice circular logic, there; if I were going to name members of my family for the things they ate, I could name my daughter Random Scraps Of Paper and my wife Tasteless Vegan Filth. But I digress.

Cucumbers aren't exactly my favorite sushi ingredient, mostly because the fresh taste and crispness seems somehow wrong inside something made of raw fish; it tends to make me think I just bit willingly into a bone left in by some sadistic itamae, getting revenge for me not pointing my chopsticks towards magnetic north when I put them down on my plate. But in cucumber salads or sunemono, they come into their own.

Looking at online recipes, I saw an awful lot of recipes that include sake and rice wine vinegar. Since I'm too lazy to drive to Chinatown for one ingredient, and my children don't really need any extra sake in their diet (says the woman; personally, I believe that drunk children are sleepy children), I decided to play with the recipe a bit. And by 'play', I mean get retardedly creative.

I like rice wine vinegar, and I use it in an awful lot of foods. In fact, it's my second favorite vinegar upon God's slightly fermented green earth. However, I do hold true to the belief that the Japanese would have never invented rice wine vinegar if they'd had the miracle that is balsamic vinegar. I'd gush and all, but I believe the Masochist detailed his unending love for the purple here.

Now, people who know stuff about cooking, like to complain, and have way too much time on their hands to search the internet for blogs may interject that "balsamic vinegar is nothing like rice wine vinegar", on the basis that the first is sweeter, thicker, and much more complex. Thanks. Gee, I didn't know that. Of course balsamic and rice wine vinegar are different. Read the previous paragraph.

However, there is a very important factor here- the differences mean that you can't adulterate balsamic vinegar with salt and sugar in the same proportions as rice wine vinegar and end up with a similar salad topping. In fact, Italian cuisine purists might even argue that to adulterate balsamic with anything at all is akin to blasphemy, like some massive malediction called down upon Vatican City.

Luckily, I'm Protestant.

After cubing two cucumbers and mixing them with alfalfa sprouts (no mung beans... darn), I contemplated the balsamic like some sort of scrying pool. And the oracle revealed to me that mixing the vinegar with one third its volume in sugar and microwaving to combine was, as it were, All Good. And there was a tiny amount of salting and peppering, but not enough so as to offend the NeoRomans.

For a final flavor kick, I put about two tablespoons of sesame seeds on foil and put it under the broiler on high for about four minutes, just to toast them for salad purposes. And you know what? I thought it was superawesome. Our resident Tartologist thought it even better the next day (today).

So maybe I'm crossing roads that aren't meant to be crossed. The point is, make do with what you have, be aware of subtle (or blatant) differences, and always smile like a killer when someone else takes their first bite.

Zabaglione. It sounds like a post-modernistic WWII dictator running about the house screaming of Germans and meatballs. (note: I can make fun of Italians, because I am, in fact, Italian) But in reality is an Italian custard that is many times used as an appetizer or a component of many of the fabulous and artery assaulting desserts that make up Italian post meal cuisine. Notably, this is a side component of quite a few Tiramisu and Zuppa Inglese recipes. Although its not the real way you're supposed to make Tiramisu, just a faster way.

My personal favorite is to make this custard in ramekins and top with fresh berries, as a breakfast or dessert concoction. Of course, there are hundreds of ways to bastardize this custard, substituting Auslese or other German Eiswein, Sherries, or Ports for the Marsala. you can let your imagination run wild.

(Dammit. Every time I write an article I try to put as much schtick as I can into it, but it always inevitably falls back down to a hum drum cooking article. I could emulate tourrettes and just stick a random obscene word in the sentences somewhere I guess. Maybe I'll write a filter.)

Anyway, back to the custard at hand.

To make Zabaglione, one needs the following stuff from your local grocer (or, if you live in Vegas, your local 7-11):

• 5 egg yolks
• 1 whole egg
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup Marsala

Easy, no?

1. In a batter bowl, whisk the egg yolks and the egg together with the sugar, beating until it turns a lemony yellow color.
2. Whisk in the Marsala, until fully combined.
3. Microwave (?!) for 30 seconds.
4. Whisk
5. Repeat steps 3-4 until it is desired thickness.

But it has raw eggs! I'll die!

If your eggs aren't pasteurized then you just may. But if you're living somewhere that doesn't have pasteurized eggs, you may want to move. Or at least get checked out for tapeworms.

Microwave?! BLASPHEMY!

True, Microwaves are evil. They are the incarnate of Lazy Americans(tm) everywhere, and they usually botch things up like no tomorrow. However. This prevents you from having to make it the old fashioned way, using a double-boiler (or a glass bowl on top of a boiling pot of water, my favorite). You can still make it that way, just be careful it doesn't cook too fast, otherwise you'll have an omelette. And a nasty omelette at that.

It is dark here!

You and your custard have been eaten by a grue.

That about sums up Q&A. I hope I've enlightened you, the viewer, to a world not unlike that of custards. Perhaps someday we will be privy to a custard takeover and have to bow to custard, and when that day comes, you can say you helped birth the enslavement of the human race. Until then, custard will remain our friend as ...

GOOD EATS

swanky music plays

(GOOD EATS is copyrighted somewhere by Food Network or Alton Brown, and because I love them like family, I hope they don't get mad)