15 posts tagged “us”
The most overlooked part of a hamburger — in my opinion — is the bun. Same deal with the bread, when it comes to pizza. Before you even start thinking about selecting cheese and toppings, you must make sure that the bread is good enough to be edible on its own: if there are pieces of uneaten crust left on the plates, you've failed — in my opinion...
From "The Breadmaker's Apprentice," I used three-days-in-the-fridge pâte fermentée, and managed to time the proofing well enough to be able to consume the thing at a reasonable hour. I was very well pleased with that.
What I was less pleased with, is that this is the second, or possibly the third time that I've managed to burn the basil. For some reason, I cannot get it into my idiot head that the basil is supposed to be added after the pizza comes out of the oven...
And as proud as I am of my bread, I sliced the tomatoes far, far far too thin... Culinary speaking, I come from that most sad and depravedly ignorant belief that the more toppings, the better the pizza: "One with everything — including anchovies. Double cheese. Hell, double everything! Pile it on, baby. And bring me a shovel. And a trough." And then I end up doing this. Ough. That pizza needed three times as much toppings. That's a depressing result, from all that effort. Dang.
(And yeah, I decided to add some thinly sliced Jalapeños to half of the Margherita pizza — which made it a bit more picturesque, and thus I took a picture of that part of it.)
Buffalo meat is very lean, so I decided to grate some yellow onions into the mix. I had to dry the grated onion out a lot, since it is so moist, and tends to ruin the (uh, sorry to get all Star Trek Next Generation here, but) structural integrity of the burger patty. Thus, I got some breadcrumbs, and shifted it through a fine sieve, so that only the smallest, most dust-like bread particles came through — to bind things together. I lucked out, and got just the right amount (eg., not enough to dilute the taste of the meat itself, but enough to keep it together). I didn't properly season the burger patties though. They needed a little salt and pepper.
Then, there's the buns... Bread making is magic. Black magic; the dark arts. I don't think Alton Brown could make sense of this stuff.
Making your own bread is kinda like Linux: it's okay for the newbie, and for the expert — but a real struggle for anyone in between. The newbie (or in the parlance of our times, the grandma user) is the primitive user, who checks emails, browses and buys things on ebay. Her mistakes are obvious, and easy to rectify. The expert nerd can make Linux do almost anything. But the dudes in between — well, they just might be better off with some off-the-shelves Microsoft or Apple product.
The whole bread vis-à-vis computer operating systems is like this:
Windows: Buying supermarket garbage wonder breads.
Apple: Buying pretentious, overpriced "artisan breads."
Linux: Baking your own breads. These users, in turn, can be segmented into three further factions: the novice (ie., bread machine), the intermediate, and the expert. I'm barely above the bread machine people. But dammit, I'm gonna keep trying.
Finally, there's the fries. A good burger deserves good fries. Deep frying is impractical — you have to cool the oil down, and then you have to dispose of it properly (you should never pour that stuff down your drain). So I go for oven fries. And they're good. Except I have a really hard time getting a crispy texture.
Homemade smoked salmon from my buddy's father, homemade pizza bread, mozz, green and purple onions, and a little parm on top. Very tasty. I do so like making my own pizza dough. Or any bread dough, that is.
This is just a crying shame, how bad these ribs look. 'Cause they were amazing.
People talk about how really tender ribs come off the bone... It does not impress me that you can pull a bone out, and leave all the meat behind. I literally want the meat to fall off of the bone. I want the rack to fall apart like a big salmon fillet — unless you handle it with sweet, tender care. These are my kind of ribs. Pig pickin' ribs. Yehaaw.
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.)
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.
So I got the beef patties right, this time: some cumin, coriander, black pepper and salt (although I did use a little too much cumin — that stuff really stands out; you've gotta be careful with it). But the fries, they still weren't crispy. They tasted nice, but they really would be far more enjoyable, if they were crispy. Oh well, I'll figure it out, one day.
I always add some grated onion to the meat mixture, but this time I added far too much, and the patties suffered from a lack of internal integrity because of it. Oh well, you live and learn. 'Twas a bummer, because I got some great grill marks on the patties, as well as the buns.
But the fries look great, though. And they were great. Not perfect. Nothing is. But they were very nice. I do my fries in the oven, because I generally tend to avoid deep frying (I deep fry certain things, but well, if I can get a reasonable result without deep frying, I tend to go that way). I toss them in some peanut oil, flour, and various flavorings like garlic salt and cayenne pepper, or chili powder, or whatever I feel like; this isn't a fixed recipe. It' is a variation of something I saw Heston Blumenthal describe on egullet. Heston's recipe was far more refined and elegant, but dagnabbit, my spicy baked fries are tasty.
Chili is one of those standard, classic American dishes that I want to learn; to comprehend; to understand; to be able to cook reasonably well, and if possible, well — even to perfect (as best I can, with my abilities). Well, screw that. You gotta pick your battles.
Chili is overblown.
Yeah, I said it. Seriously, I see no difference between cooking a good chili at home, and simply heating up a can of supermarket chili. It takes a lot of work to create a decent chili. And it takes a lot of work, and a lot of experience and knowledge, to create a good chili. And you need a helluva lot of experience (ie., a lot of bad chilis) to create a really great chili.
Chili is hard work, and trying to create one, has given me renewed respect for those that are capable of doing it. But as far as I'm concerned, the law of diminishing returns comes into play at this point. I think this was an okay chili — or if you're very generous — perhaps even a halfway decent chili. But I'd stretch the truth if I were to say that it was a good chili. It certainly wasn't a great chili. And I'm realizing that while I might technically be capable of creating a truly great chili, it would take far too much effort and time.
I mean, chili isn't a food. It's a religion. It reminds me of the whole "PC vs. Mac" thing, to be honest. It's all very angry, deranged, and generally crazy. People say things like "If it has beans in it, it isn't a chili — it's a damn bean stew!" and "If it doesn't have beans in it, it isn't chili — it's a damn meat sauce!" It's all far too fanatical for me; it's really put me off the whole thing to be honest. As far as I can tell, chili can be a stew, and chili can be a sauce — and whatever else you want it to be.
