316 posts tagged “western”

Whoo-hooo! Great picture, that!

Now this was absolutely excellent. I used to think of this as "fiskeKrateng" because I'd only ever heard of it — I never saw it written down. My hearing is possibly a little impaired. But "fiskeGrateng" — hey, that makes sense: it's that French au gratin thing, isn't it? Well, I had a try at it a little while ago, and it turned out shit. Well, the "inside" — the filling — was good, but the topping wasn't. And the topping really is the key here. It's gotta be nice and crispy and whatnot.

This time around, I really got it right. The topping, I mean. And (as is often the case, of course), I accidentally used a much bigger pan that required, and ended up with far more crust, than filling. (As a child, I would always try to snag a little more than my fair share of the crispy top, than the filling.)

But the real deal about this dish isn't the "au gratin" part. What makes this a really unique dish (well, as far as I know) is that you mix eggs into the thing — and not just that: you whisk the egg whites separately (to stiff peaks) and then fold them in. So you end up with something that is almost souflé-ish in texture. I've not seen anything similar in any other cusines.

This is very cool. It's my mother's food, and I had to ask my sister for some very vital details on this one. I mean, it is a conseptual thing, and it's so rare to find food that makes use of any radically interesting methods — but this ones does. And what's more, it was part of my childhood.

A simple meal, served cold, for someone going on a long car journey — not heavy, but tasty. Salad with garden tomatoes, and breaded strips of chicken breasts, that were flavored with my own curry powder. I used no dressing on the salad, but in retrospect I think I could, or even should, have done something more to the salad part of it all. But you do what you can, with what you've got. Looks good, though.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and the wee little donkey, too.

I used to make some really horrible looking meals, way back. But I kinda figured I'd gotten good at this cooking thing, now. Good enough to not make anything that looked this nasty. I stand corrected. Damn. It tasted good, though. The bacon was nice and crispy, and the chicken breast nice and moist. The corn was good also. And the sauce was reasonable — not great, but reasonable.

But holy shit, that is one awful looking meal.

It's been a while since I've updated this blog. These are meatballs that quite frankly weren't as good as I hoped for — the Thai peanut dipping sauce I made came from a meatball recipe that was much better.

It doesn't present very well either, in spite of a fancy-pants little dipping sauce cup on the plate.

The broccoli in oyster sauce (with some bean sprouts) don't present very well either, but oh well. I'm serving veggies, and that can't be bad.

The best bread I've baked to date. From an America's Test Kitchen recipe that utilizes a Dutch oven, to try create a similar environment to the professional ovens that regulates steam.

There were three problems, but I've only got a solution for two. First off, it didn't have the complex flavors that I get when I retard the dough in the fridge for a few days — easily corrected. Secondly, the bottom was burned a little, and I believe I can correct that by moving the oven to a higher rack — and failing that, I can put a water bath underneath it (this will have no effect on steam of course, but would shield the oven from excessive heat from below. The third problem, I have no solution for: The dough was very wet, which made the crust go all soft as it cooled — even if it was extremely crispy right out of the oven. The only thing I can think of right now, is to try cut bigger slits in the dough before baking, which should help the steam escape from the bread.

One thing that I'm extremely happy about, is the crumb. It has just the right mixture of big and small bubbles, and looks great. So does the crust, but sadly, it's rather chewy, than crispy.

Christ, what a mess... I saw a show — Molto Mario I think — that featured a fish fillet with pancetta, wrapped in parchment or foil, and baked. It also reminded me of a Jamie Oliver salmon with lemon thyme, wrapped in prosciutto. So I sprinkled some lemon thyme over tilapia fillets and wrapped them in thin bacon, and in tinfoil. This was done on the grill along with some pre-cooked potato wedges. Served with a salad. The salad adds to the mess, but obviously, the worst looking thin is the fish and bacon. Not a good idea, that. It could have worked with prosciutto, but with bacon, I shouldn't have wrapped it in tinfoil, but just cooked them as is. Not that that's an easy task on a grill, with thin fish fillets. Oh well, I did learn a few things though.

I'm hooked on bison, as far as burgers go, now. The last time I made one, I had a small burger patty left over, and ended up eating it as a (very) late night snack, with toast. I'd made some pretty nice buns (and I think the bun is the most overlooked part of a burger), but I had too many extras, and didn't taste the bison very much. With plain toast, I really could taste the stuff. So this time around I abandoned my homemade burger buns and just went with toast instead. And that doesn't look very photogenic, so I ended up taking the picture like this.

And the potato wedges, well they turned out so-so. I cut them into quarters (rather than six pieces), and cooked them for what I thought was the perfect amount of time, but I think my earlier, slightly overcooked attempts were better — not just soft and well cooked inside, but with far crispier a texture.

I think I put too much oil on them though. You get flare ups that way. And smoky residue.

Oh dear.

I've been trying to recreate a fish au gratin dish from my childhood. I loved the crispy crust on this dish so much that I always tried to scoop up a bit more than my fair share... But I'm having problems recreating the crust. Last time, the filling was too wet, and I poured too much oil over the crumbs, so they ended up completely soggy. So this time I left the filling (the sauce) a little thicker, and used a lot more breadcrumbs. Way too much breadcrumbs. And not enough cheese.

The breadcrumbs did far more to spoil the look, than the taste (well apart from the crust, which obviously was a complete failure), so overall it was really very tasty.

I sautéed some lightly floured potatoes to brown the edges (the crispiness would obviously fade, but that browning does create a little extra taste) and set them aside — same with a small dice mirepoix and chopped tilapia. This was put in a baking dish with a thick Béchamel sauce flavored with dill, thyme, Dijon mustard, white pepper and salt. Topped with lots (ie., far too much) of homemade breadcrumbs, and some commercial Italian seasoned breadcrumb, and finally some grated Jarlsberg.

Steak au Poivre is my favorite tenderloin method — with a great sauce made from deglazing the pan with brandy, adding cream and a touch of Dijon mustard. I wanted to try do something similar, but on a grill. That means I couldn't do the traditional sauce of course, so I decided to try a red wine reduction sauce. It worked out pretty good, except it was far too salty. The reason for that was that I reduced a can of beef broth to about 1/3 of a cup. The broth was low sodium, but whatever sodium was in it, never evaporated.

The steaks were only cooked for about 7 minutes in total, over very hot and very close coals. This created a really nicely charred layer of pepper crust, leaving the inside nice and red — rare, not medium rare. Bloody and mooing.

Served on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes (rustic style, with the skin on), and a simple salad tossed in a little Thousand Island dressing, along with some freshly picked tomatoes from the garden.