The "Just make yourself a dang quesa-dilluh!" line from Napoleon Dynamite was good, but it pales in comparison to how Jamie Oliver pronounced it. In one of the Naked Chef episodes, he cooked for the cast from a successful police TV series called The Bill. There aren't many Mexicans in England, so their knowledge of Mexican food is pretty limited*. At some point, you could slap a Mexican label on just about anything, and people would go crazy over it, because it was considered exotic — even a bottle of Coronas with a freakin' lime wedge on top.
So when Mr. Oliver slapped a tortilla in a pan and started grating cheese all over it, these actors went "ooh!" and "aaah!" a lot. They'd never seen such strange and exotic fare. And when Oliver announced what this amazing, from-a-far-away-land dish was, he pronounced it something like "Kwaizy-dillo." Heheh. Now, don't get me wrong — I'd never fault an ordinary person like you and I for doing that, but dang it, that's a bit unprofessional, for a professional.
*(Sadly, Americans' knowledge of Indian food is equally delinquent. We should have a cultural, culinary exchange.)
Ever heard of Nando's? No? Me neither. Until I ran across it, trying to figure out what this African Piri Piri dish was all about. Apparently, this chain restaurant was opened in South Africa and is famous for its hot and spicy chicken, but also for its wacky advertisments.
One of which depicts a blind woman walking out of a Nando's only to be led into a lamp post by her seeing eye dog. Her food falls to the ground, where the dog eats it. There were of course, complaints, causing the government agency that oversaw advertising to call for it to be taken off the air. I don't know if it was taken off or not, but damn, that's pathetic. What harm could possibly come of this? Do they think seeing eye dogs are gonna watch it and raise up in revolt? Will they coordinate their efforts through Twitter?
Idiots. It's called comedy.
I'm not glad, but rather sadly relieved, that the US isn't the only nation who's thrown away their old national pasttime, for the new one: Finding More Stuff To Be Indignantly Offended By.
What bugs me the most is that they're never personally offended. They're always offended on behalf of others: "How dare you use the phrase 'spelling nazi' — my cousin's grandfather's uncle's niece's teacher once knew a man who knew a man who heard about someone who died in the concentration camps!" I mean, it's not as if those blind bastards would even see the ads.
Not bad, not great. Whole trout smeared in a mixture of red Thai curry paste and peanut oil. A sauce made from the same, plus tomatoes, coconut oil, chili peppers, red onions, and garlic. And a mixed salad. Grilled whole fish makes some people feel weird, because it isn't presented in the form of fish sticks or breaded Mickey Mouse-shaped paddies — but screw 'em. They don't know about life in the great outdoors. They don't know about spending hours throwing a stupid lure around and getting it hooked on the bottom and losing it. They don't know about what a bunch of assholes fish are to people to suck at fishing. So I've got no problem with devouring the flesh off arrogant, douchebag trouts. I'm eating; screw you.
Still, I prefer my trout a lot simpler than this. Trout has a really great flavor. And it's just about the most common fish available as a whole fish around here. And I never went wrong with that adage about how you should prepare the best ingredients in the simplest ways. I hope to do a lot more of whole trout, but I'll be doing it a lot simpler next time around.
Whenever summer arrives, I get kinda antsy about all the great winter food that I should have cooked. We've had a couple of 90°F+ days, but it's eased off a bit now, and today was extremely windy, so I went with a soup. I've been hankering for a split pea soup with ham hocks, that I had great results with. But that requires a bit of planning, so I went with this curry soup instead.
This was a real spur of the moment thing, but it turned out great. Making soup isn't exactly rocket science, but I'm still pretty pleased with this.
First off, I wanted to make my own curry powder. I've never had much luck with that (and I have a couple of pre-made ones from the Indian store), but this time I got it right.
Curry powder:
1 tsp each of cumin, fenugreek, mustard and fennel seeds, and black pepper corns, 1 tbsp coriander seeds toasted. 3 birdseye chilies and 1/2 stick of cinnamon — all ground up and mixed with 1 tsp turmeric.
Curry soup:
Sauté one diced onion, half a dozen gloves garlic and 2" garlic. When softened, mix in 3 tsp curry powder, 5 diced potatoes, 1 can coconut milk, two cans vegetable broth, half a dozen torn kaffir lime leaves and a bay leaf. Simmer till the taters are soft, remove bay leaf and hit the soup with a stick blender.
Garnish with cilantro and a dash of sour cream. I didn't do the latter this time, but instead — well, I try to be reasonably frugal, so whenever I can make use of things that would otherwise go to waste, I'm always happy. In this case, I had an old loaf of French bread that was hard as a rock. So I threw that into the soup.
May it sounds kinda trashy to some people, but there are plenty of examples of this sort of things from classic Italian and French cookery.
This was excellent. Got my hands on a book about African food, and having no experience with that cuisine, I ended up making an extremely irrational choice, picking Piri Piri Shrimp just cause well, I dunno, it sounded interesting. Like a tropical disease — possibly, a sexually transmitted one. Obviously, I must be somewhat prejudiced — Europe, I think of fancy sauses and elegant table settings, Asia, you've got a kaleidoscope of fresh ingredients and spices, with as much detail being paid to the presentation as the food. Africa — well, that's just a kid with a bloated belly, starving to death, covered in flies, trying to reach the UN aid station before the vulture picks her off, right?
Piri Piri is the Swahili name for very hot, birds eye chilies. But it's also the name for Mozambique's national recipe, which consists of meat marinated in a mixture that uses these chilies. In this case, it was half a cup each of lemon juice and olive oil, equal parts of cilantro and parsley (that's a combination I haven't seen before), garlic and a few ground, dried, very hot chili peppers. After half an hour in the fridge, I skewered the shrimp up, drained the marinade and brought that to a boil. In the meantime, I grilled the shrimp for about two minutes per side, over very hot coals.
At the table, a lettuce leaf was smeared with some of the cooked, reserved marinade, which was then wrapped around the shrimp.
It reminded me of a Thai fish cake wrap I've done a few times, with great results. But I regretted not having any cucumber, of preferably, some apple to serve along with it. Still, the marinade was so fresh that I actually didn't miss it at all. Nonetheless, I can't stop thinking about how to modify this. I think it's important — no, imperative — to not forget the "classics." But to stick to 'em like an old stick in the mud, well that's no good either. I don't like Luddites; even culinary ones. Marco Pierre White said something about how there is no perfection, and that there's always something that can be changed and improved, as time flows. I agree with that.
All that aside, I think Africans are pretty weird people. I mean, they're always starving to death and whatnot, in spite of their food being absolutely excellent. Picky bastards. (Uh, what's this handbasket, and were are we going?)
These non-flash shots of the grill always make me smile. Hand-held, I've gotta make about a dozen exposures to have any hope of getting a single decent shot. But that's no problem with these new-fangled digital thingamajigs, though.
A friend of mine has a severe addiction to fancy-pants, expensive glossy cookbooks. He won't even shy away from celebrity chef cookbooks. It's atrocious. Still, most of them are actually very good, mind you — and he's a better cook than me, so I can't really give him too much stick because of it. Happily, he'll lend me something, almost every time we have dinner together. This time, he brought over a really fancy looking, $40 thing about African cuisine:
This is just a beautiful book. Really stylish and elegant. The typography and overall design is simply immaculate. The recipes look pretty interesting, so I'll definitely have a go at a few things. But the overall impression I get from this, is a a spectacularly elegant coffee table book.
It is endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with an almost Charlie Mansonish rant about God, Adam and apartheid. It struck me as slightly odd to have Tutu endorse a cookbook — what the hell does he know about food? I guess they just decided to go with the most famous African they could get ahold of. I mean, Idi Amin was an insane, murdering despot, but at least cannibalism is culinary related, you know?
But what got me was the signature... This is just too damn funny. In this fantastic, immaculately beautiful book, they used a horrible, low-quality image that just screams amateur and/or idiot:
This is hilarious. What the hell were they thinking? I'd really love to know who were responsible for that one, because it surely must have cost someone their job, or at least a really stern talking to...
It is endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with an almost Charlie Mansonish rant about God, Adam and apartheid. It struck me as slightly odd to have Tutu endorse a cookbook — what the hell does he know about food? I guess they just decided to go with the most famous African they could get ahold of. I mean, Idi Amin was an insane, murdering despot, but at least cannibalism is culinary related, you know?
But what got me was the signature... This is just too damn funny. In this fantastic, immaculately beautiful book, they used a horrible, low-quality image that just screams amateur and/or idiot:
This is hilarious. What the hell were they thinking? I'd really love to know who were responsible for that one, because it surely must have cost someone their job, or at least a really stern talking to...
Don't ask me about the sausages. It wasn't my idea. It wasn't a bad idea, mind you. It just seems odd to eat something so very savory, along with something as sweet as blueberry pancakes. But I readily admit that my opinions just might be a tad tainted from my encounters with British bangers and mash. Many unjust criticisms have been levied against British cuisine up through the years, but the English breakfast sausage deserves all the hatred mankind can muster.
The sausage has a great and noble history, and countless, delicious current-day representatives, from salami to bratwurst — and from this great and admirable heritage, the English breakfast sausage is spawned? It's like Beethoven teaming up with Hootie and the Blowfish, or a Vestal Virgin becoming a crack whore. I'll eat a full English breakfast no problem, black pudding, ham-ish "bacon" and all. But not that. Werner von Braun was right to lob those V2s at 'em on account of the English breakfast sausage alone.
It's been a long time since I came to the conclusion that a really good burger doesn't need cheese. But I decided to try some Swiss style Jarslberg out, just for the looks. And I think it looks nice. But it didn't improve the burger. Now bacon — that's practically cheating. That DOES improve the burger. But I'd like to be able to do a great burger without too much accoutrements. Of course, once I've figured out exactly how to create the perfect burger, I'll start adding bacon to it — just so that I know that I'm adding something to it all, instead of covering up an imperfect burger. But I won't be adding cheese.
So, there it is; I'm a cheese denier. Wutcha gonna do, kill me? (Sorry, I ran across a nice review/rant of my favorite burger joint where the author declared her love of Nationwide (Sacramento, CA, US and A), but offered a beautiful rant about how cheese had to be part of a great burger, and that she didn't trust "cheese deniers," and although she had nothing against them per se, she said something like, "I just don't trust you cheese deiners. Stay away from my house." You gotta like a good rant.). So oh yeah, I don't think cheeseburger is better than hambuger.
Couldn't resist getting another shot, to show off some grill marks on the buns. And yeah, these were home made buns. Oh yeah.
Oh yeah, and I've completely given up on using sesame seeds on the buns. It looks neat, but the damn things fall off as soon as you look at them. Not much taste in them either. Just a mess. So bollocks to that.
Also, the greenery really has to be proper lettuce. Salad mixes and spinach just doesn't cut it. I've tried a lot of things — including cabbage mixes, but nothing can quite measure up to that plain old lettuce.
Saag is most often interpreted as spinach, but it can also mean other greens like collared greens. In this case, I used frozen spinach, and for whatever reason, it turned out very badly. I can't remember if it was the frozen spinach itself (I know I've done this dish before, but I can't remember what I used) — as opposed to using fresh spinach (if that was what I was using), or if the frozen spinach had gone of, or maybe it already was bad when it was packed? I don't know. But it didn't turn out good at all. A real bummer.
Well, enough about the bad stuff. I remember dopiaza from English Indian restaurants. But I can't remember if I had any. Ironically enough, it turned out to normally be a meat dish, but in this case it uses potatoes. It's ironic because I've made some vegetable meals lately that had meat (the recipes called for it), while trying to find some good vegetarian stuff. This time, I lucked out. This was excellent. With taters, no meat. Hence the irony.
It was very simple: stir-fry onions chopped until browned, add two diced tomatoes; 3 hot chili peppers finely diced/crushed; 1 tsp roasted, ground cumin; 3 roasted, ground cloves, 1 tsp roasted, ground black peppercorns and the seeds from 3 green cardamom pods. Stir-fry for 5 minutes more and add enough water to cover and 1 lb. small red new potatoes, or just cubed potatoes. Cover and let simmer for 15-20 minutes. Serve with cilantro.
A note on vegetarianism: I've had a nagging desire to make more vegetarian meals. I think a vegetarian meal once a week would be perfectly reasonable, for an omnivore of today — no one's gonna think you're about to become a Petard just because of that. Meat was mostly something for special occasions, up until very recently in our history as a species. Or actually, until a few centuries ago. Meat was expensive. Today, it's cheap, and people eat it every day.
I'm a realist, and I hate the maudlin and/or hysterical "meat is murder" idiots. But if people ate meat a little less frequently, they might be able to buy "humane" meat, from animals that weren't treated a Matrix meat electro popsicle. This wouldn't make me feel all fluffy and fuzzy, and sleep well at night in its own right, but meat from animals who are raised in those factory conditions is inherently dangerous.
You've got Gordon Ramsay swearing at a Hell's Kitchen contestant because the chicken was undercooked, and Mr. Angrypants wants to know if the cook intended to murder his customer. And then you've got the original Iron Chef where they serve turkey sashimi. Chicken meat is not inherently dangerous if undercooked — but the factory produced stuff, is. I think that's a good argument for slipping a few more vegetarian meals into your calendar.
All that being said, I'm gonna hunt for some meat dopiaza next.
The biggest fishie I ever caught was a four pound cod. I thought I'd hooked some seaweed, or possibly that I'd run into a retarded fish or something, since it offered very little resistance. A week later I caught something that almost yanked the pole right out of my hands — I thought I had the Loch Ness monster's angry cousin on the line, but it turned out to be a freakin' one pound trout. Those buggers can really fight. I can't imagine what it'd be like to land this salmon, cause it was something thirty pounds.
Grilled up very nicely, though. With nothing but oil, salt and pepper — good quality ingredients calls for simplicity, I think. The asparagus was grilled along with the salmon, but the hollandaise had to be made indoor, of course. I'm extremely happy with the luscious and velvety appearance. I've spent an awful lot of time trying to figure this sauce out — the difficulty is overblown, to the point of making people overly intimidated by it, which in turn actually makes it harder to create.
But I've come up with a method that's a mixture of Escoffier's (no double boiler — keep it simple), the CIA's technique (simmer shallots or purple onions and crushed peppercorns in vinegar till dry, add water and filter it, to create an underlaying flavor), and a stick blender (to whip the egg yolks up). I'm not sure whether I love hollandaise more than I love being able to create the sauce itself, heheh.
