Cookin again

[Dannyalcatraz]

Did you pick the chicken out or did they cheap out on the butter chicken?

We had actually eaten all of the chicken at the restaurant, but liked the sauce & rice so much we took it home as leftovers anyway!

 

[Zardnaar]

Apparently theres "vegan" and "vegetarian" dishes. Beats me why had to Google it.

Some aren't awful. Allowed a sanity day on Sunday. Probably have to combine with a 2 hour hike.

Sigh.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Apparently theres "vegan" and "vegetarian" dishes. Beats me why had to Google it.

Some aren't awful. Allowed a sanity day on Sunday. Probably have to combine with a 2 hour hike.

Sigh.

Yep. And not understanding the difference can lead to hard feelings.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

We had actually eaten all of the chicken at the restaurant, but liked the sauce & rice so much we took it home as leftovers anyway!

Tangent: this has happened to us before.

We got an onion & fish curry at an Indian restaurant that was that good, but when we took the leftovers home, we didn’t know we’d eaten all the fish.

And then there was a shrimp & eggplant dish we’d ordered at a Burmese place that we mostly finished at the restaurant. It was a big dish and we knew we’d finished off the shrimp, but again, it was so good we took the leftover veggies & sauce home anyway.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Accidental Inspiration

Just the other day, I was dining in a French bakery’s bistro with my Mom, who struck up a convo with the couple at the adjacent table.* I was having a mushroom risotto and some French Onion soup (one of my favorite soups); Mom ordered Eggs Benedict

As the meal ended, I noticed Mom had only eaten one of the eggs. Not a surprise: it was an odd time for her to be eating, but she had meds she needed to take with food.

So, good son that I am, I graciously grabbed the hollandaise covered egg from her plate so it wouldn’t go to waste and had it with the dregs of my FOS.

…it was decadent! The poached egg & hollandaise blended with the onions & broth to create a silky smooth spoonful of deliciousness.

I’ve been wanting to learn how to do a good FOS for years, and have read at least half a dozen recipes, but haven’t actually TRIED making one. Now I have an additional reason to learn, because this variant is super tasty!

I did some research, and there’s an Italian soup that combines poached egg and a broth similar to FOS. But there’s no hollandaise, it includes pancetta, and uses Parmesan instead of Gruyere or Provolone.

(Which is still pretty awesome.)







* Voice actor David Ankrum and his novelist wife, Barbara.

 

[Whisper-Kitten]

I am obsessed with everything J Kenji Lopez does in terms of food. Literally everything of his that I have made goes down like gold. Of course I give him full credit when people ask where I got that from. Very low credit....under my breath as I walk away.

Accidental Inspiration

Just the other day, I was dining in a French bakery’s bistro with my Mom, who struck up a convo with the couple at the adjacent table.* I was having a mushroom risotto and some French Onion soup (one of my favorite soups); Mom ordered Eggs Benedict

As the meal ended, I noticed Mom had only eaten one of the eggs. Not a surprise: it was an odd time for her to be eating, but she had meds she needed to take with food.

So, good son that I am, I graciously grabbed the hollandaise covered egg from her plate so it wouldn’t go to waste and had it with the dregs of my FOS.

…it was decadent! The poached egg & hollandaise blended with the onions & broth to create a silky smooth spoonful of deliciousness.

I’ve been wanting to learn how to do a good FOS for years, and have read at least half a dozen recipes, but haven’t actually TRIED making one. Now I have an additional reason to learn, because this variant is super tasty!

I did some research, and there’s an Italian soup that combines poached egg and a broth similar to FOS. But there’s no hollandaise, it includes pancetta, and uses Parmesan instead of Gruyere or Provolone.

(Which is still pretty awesome.)







* Voice actor David Ankrum and his novelist wife, Barbara.

It's pretty easy honestly. The hardest part is sitting around stirring the onions constantly as they caramalize.

 

[Jahydin]

It's pretty easy honestly. The hardest part is sitting around stirring the onions constantly as they caramalize.

I don't have the patience, so I do it Chef John style:


For those that want to do it "right" though, Jason Farmer does a good job showing how it's done:

 

[gnarlygninja]

That dude hit my entire tolerance for insisting your food is "correct" and "proper" while calling other people's "gimicky" and "inferior" by the 30 second mark.

 

[Jahydin]

That dude hit my entire tolerance for insisting your food is "correct" and "proper" while calling other people's "gimicky" and "inferior" by the 30 second mark.

Sorry if you took offense, but he's not wrong if you want to caramelize onions correctly.

Also note: take being "talked down to" by professional chefs (or any profession, really) lightly; they've been drilled repeatedly to speak that way.

 

[gnarlygninja]

The world is full of very knowledgeable people (many of whom have far more accolades than Jason Farmer) who communicate about their field without insulting their peers or condescending to their audience. Without leaving cooking channels there's Jacques Pépin who grew up in restaurants, came out of the classic brigade kitchen, cooked for kings and presidents but does not insist other people are "incorrect", whether he's cooking at home or in La Technique. So I do not accept that being an expert requires, expects, or excuses it.
And uh correct according to whom? It's certainly the traditional way, and I know that parts of the cooking world treat those as interchangeable words. But is Lan Lam wrong when she starts off the onion slices in a cold pan with water, or is Kenji wrong when he uses baking soda and sugar to speed up the Maillard reaction and caramelization? It's certainly not how Escoffier* would have done it. But there was a time adding Mornay to pasta wouldn't have been traditional, and no one is insisting that the only correct thing to put on macaroni is Parmesan cheese and cinnamon. Chris Young's 6 dollar chicken stock is another great example of how a person can create a fantastic end result and not follow the rules of how to do something "correctly".



*I actually don't know how Escoffier would have done it, I didn't see anything in my brief glance through Le Guide and didn't feel like actively searching.