Grub

Did anyone catch this show on Fox? I didn't, but heard it was basically uh, WYSIWYG -- Chefs attacking people, and/or things. Screaming, shouting, throwing things, beating people up. Anthony Bourdain was interviewed for it. Basically, the show was about as idiotic as any When so-and-so Attacks, but some footage was supposedly hillarious.

Meez, that beet salad is truly inspirational. Beautiful. That's going on my to-do list right away.

Oh, so the audience got to see Tom Arnold's creamed corn? Did they get to see his "Property of Rosanne"-tattoo also?

Thank you! The colors seemed to come out really nice -- which was completely accidental and unplanned. The saffron was added a little later. (I'm no saffron expert. The recipe called for ground saffron, which I've never come across. I had saffron threads which I ground. I'm not sure if that was what I should have done, or if I should just have used the threads as they were -- they seem so fragile that perhaps that would have worked fine too. I've just never cooked with saffron before). Basically, I cooked the onion, added some garlic and then the rice. Then, some wine, and after that was cooked off, I repeatedly added stock, which cooked off. I think I added the saffron after the first bit of stock. Maybe I should have added it later on, towards the end when the cheese was added, to retain the flavor of saffron, because there wasn't too much taste of it left. First time I've used the stuff. In fact, I had no idea what risotto was until the other day -- I had the impression that it was uh, something different, like a whole, complete one-dish meal. I realize it IS that, but it can also just be a rice side-dish. And I've done rice in similar ways before -- with onions, celery, garlic, and lots of different spices. When I looked it up in that grand old "Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery," it just described it as rice, Milanese style.

Wasn't there another survey in the media recently, indicating that Americans now seem to be transferring their neurosis from sex, onto food? It claimed that women tended to less guilty about cheating on someone, than eating a "sinful" desert. Methinks there's an interesting parallel between these two fields, because Americans tends to have a rather Victorian attitude towards sex -- ie., upholding a puritan stance, while privately being quite obsessed by it. Same thing goes for food: insisting they don't enjoy it, while secretly consuming larger quanteties of cheap junk, instead of openly enjoying good stuff...

Ooooh nice ones! I can particularly relate to the first one, cause I love sauces, but pouring them over things rarely comes out looking good in a picture. I try placing the protein on top of the sauce now, if I can remember it. White sauces just tends to look particularly gooey. Ugh. Great fun to watch.

Safron, pancetta and mushroom risotto with chicken. Didn't have any parm for the risotto, so I went with some Gryere cheese, which turned out really nice -- the nutty flavor was great with the mushrooms (portabello and shitake). Safron made for an interesting color...

Corn on the cob is always great. I've heard it said that grilled corn on the cob means taking the husk off, because otherwise it isn't grilled corn -- it's steamed. Well, if that's the case, I guess I prefer steamed. Because the husk gives it a really nice smokey flavor. And if you use welder's gloves, you can just de-husk it while hot, and grill it sans husk towards the end. And yeah -- what Ling said... Corn on the cob never struck me as a typical Indian dish, but I did see a recipe in an Indian cook book once, that did corn on the cob, seasoned only by rubbing it with a lime wedge that you sprinkle with cayenne pepper. Very simple, very good.

I think Freddy Rogers of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood was a friendly and loving person -- just like our fellow eGulleteers. But if someone showed up at Mr. Rogers' dinner party with a typed out list of 38 objectionable ingredients, I'd fully expect him to take his cardigan and garotte them with it.

Who the hell writes this stuff? Who in their right mind would say such a thing while meeting a potential employer? That's about as useful as "Beware of anyone who wears a William Shatner masks to dinner, appears to have asthma and kills the waitstaff with a big sharp pointy, stabby knify thing."

I wonder if an upcoming episode of Bravo's Top Chef will feature a challenge like this? I also wonder if an upcoming episode of Food Network's Next Celebrity Personality (or whatever it's called) will feature a challenge like this. Except, of course, instead of cooking anything, the contestants will be tasked with interviewing the cooks, and displaying their sparky personality, wit and charm.

Andrea -- when the judges try to inspire the contestants with words like "sinful," your best strategy is probably not to shill rabbit food and the benefits of taking a really nice dump... In the words of the Danish poet Piet Hein, "People who knows what's best // Rides the world like a pest" -- or, of course, there's Julia: "I just hate health food." Edit: There's something rotten in the state of my Danish translations.

Can't remember where I saw this, but... "The only animal I can eat without feeling guilty, are chickens -- because I think they're evil geniuses who are planning to take over the world."

Blood type?! What the hell is next? "Sorry, I'm a Libra. I can't eat tacos." Uh?

mizducky, that's great info -- thanks a bunch!

Hm, I used to think of pancetta as bacon that had to be cooked, but the suggested usage on the packaging includes salads, which clearly indicates that it is ready-to-eat. I tasted this dish the other day, and it was excellent. Maybe prosciutto and veal is the classical, or original dish, but chicken and pancetta works extremely well too. Maybe the increased amount of fat in the pancetta helps keep it moist. And by the way, the chicken breasts were simply cut in half, lengthwise and the two halves placed on top of each others, with the pancetta and sage leaves in between them -- essentially becoming a stuffed chicken breast. So it took far longer to cook, than a flattened veal scallopi. The pancetta appeared to have been cooked, but I couldn't tell if it could or should have been cooked more...

That could be. But I think it's just as likely that we've created such a clean and sterile world for ourselves, that our immune systems aren't building up enough resistance to things anymore... Every cleaning product is anti-bacterial this or that. There's a TV commercial with a kid playing the piano, and then sneezing, and another kid coming along to play on the piano too -- but momsey intercepts the action by wiping down the piano keys with some kid of a cleaning prodct, lest Junior comes down with a case of ebola, rabies and/or scurvey. If human evolution is to be taken into perspective here, I'm thinking the people of Industrialized societies might be getting the shaft on this one.

Marcella Hazan's "Marcella Says..." is an excellent book, but I recently came across a recipe for "Chicken Breasts Saltimbocca style," that lists pancetta as an ingredient -- not prosciutto. Checking up on this, I've found about a dozen different recipes for both the veal and chicken variant, and while one listed Parma ham and a couple simply required "ham," the rest all called for prosciutto. None called for pancetta -- or any similar bacon-like product... This book seems to be extraordinarlily well researched, so I can't see how this could have been a typo, but I don't understand why I can't find any other recipes that uses pancetta (or bacon) for this application... I mean, it's a pretty significant difference -- between using uncooked bacon, and cured, ready-to-eat ham, right? What do you make of this?

That part-of-the-family vs. livestock canibalism taboo observation makes a lot sense to me. I don't know what countries eat cats and dogs, but I'd be interested in hearing if they keep them as pets at all. Not that I'd expect any uniform behavior on that part for an entire country -- there are people in this country who'd eat squirrels and snakes and fluffy bunny rabbits, and others who'd keep 'em as pets... Incidentally, a friend of mine grew up on a farm, where the kids were allowed to name the animals. This sounds like disasterous idea -- I can just envision the kids crying their eyes out because daddy is about to kill Pinky the Piglet or Henrietta the Hen... Well, that's not how it worked -- the kids were only allowed to name the animals after the appropriate cuts of meat, or meals that the animals would eventually become. It might sound a tad macabre, but apparently it worked well.

Canteloupe-lime granita, with mint garnish.

This wasn't perhaps not the worst looking, or worst tasting meal I've made, but measured against my expectations, it was truly depressing. Smoked Salmon Croquettes with Roasted Cauliflower and a Mournier Sauce: I love classical sauces, so I was really looking forward to the Mournier (Bechamel with Gryere cheese) sauce. Also, I made another sauce from the Bechamel, where I used Norwegian goat cheese instead of the Gryere, which got a nice dark color (Norwegian goat cheese is dark brown) and they weren't bad, but that white sauce just didn't look right on the cauliflower at all. Obviously, way too thin... The croquettes were made from leftover mashed potatoes and smoked salmon -- not the thinly sliced (and very red) stuff, but the thick stuff, which isn't so red. I'm not sure what the difference is, but the taste was quite overpowering. Perhaps I should have used less salmon and more mashed taters, or something else. Or perhaps I should not attempt to make croquettes anymore until I figure out how to do it... Was thinking, some thinly sliced English cucumber and tomato wedges migth brighten up the visual impact a little. Ugh.

Ah, yes -- that's exactly where my quote comes from: "Eye the pork lovingly, as if to say 'see you soon!'" That scene isn't actually part of the movie proper, but comes from a book that the sidekick reads to the main character as they ride along in their truck. In the book, a young apprentice is shown how to properly enjoy it, by a stereotypical master with -- what's the Zen expression, "too much tea"? Heheh.

Excellent post, alvis. Have always wanted to try make some after watching Tampopo.

Some really nice (ie., very nasty ) entries here! I really do try very hard to make every single one of my dishes look good enough to post in the proper Dinner thread -- and I rarely succeeed, but just "Ah what the hell" and post it anyhow hehe. It's been a little while since things really went haywire now, but it did tonight. Salmon is one of my favorite dishes. I mostly do it in the oven, slightly fancy baked in puff pastry ala Coulibiac/Wellington, or in phyllo pastry, and also very simple -- broiled, just with a few toppings like salt, pepper, ginger and orange zest -- I especially love the combination of gigner and orange zest. This time, I wanted to do a crust, and I've got this great ginger-wasabi sauce (Robert Rotschild Farm) that I really like, but can't seem to find any other use for, other than for sandwiches or as a general condiment -- but I want to cook with it. It looks like a mustard (and tends to be stocked amongst the exotic gourmet mustards) and basically tastes like a sweet mustard with a really flavorful kick to it. Also, I've got some panko breadcrumbs that I'm trying to put to good use, so I ended up with a crust of ginger-wasabi sauce, panko crumbs, soy sauce and parmigiano... In the back of my head, there's a slight thought of worry that I'm just dropping random things in, but I trot along, assuring myself that this is a wacky, edgy crazy Asian-Italian fusion thang... So I mix it together, and the soy and ginger-wasabi sauce instantly makes the panko crumbs soggy -- but the cheese should help make it crusty, right? Nope. The snap peas were sauteed briefly with a honey-soy sauce glaze, and were really very nice, and sort of fit into the semi-Asian theme. But the creamy mashed garlic taters with chives didn't fit in at all, of course. And those creamy ones never look as photogenic as the fluffy ones -- but they're way easier to make, and taste just as good, I think. But uh, I'm rambling. Here's the result: This was one big salmon... So to get the fillets down to a sensible size, I had to cut them really narrow -- they barely fit onto the plate. I mean, that doesn't look good in its own right. But the crust, oh dear... Salmon with a ginger-wasabi-dog turd-crust. Ugh.

Drawing comparisons between Bravo's Top Chef and FN's Next Star is depressing. Clearly, the Top Chef contestants were of a higher quality -- yet the FN judges violently browbeat their contestants every time they accidentally made the monumental mistake of using even the simplest culinary terminology... It's as if the Food Network are worried that unless they provide detailed step-by-step, fool-proof instructions of how to thinly slice up some basil, their audience just won't get it. Mention chiffonade, and there'll be an epidemic outbreak of brain haemorrhages. One of this season's earlier shows really nailed the Food Network's attitude towards cooking, and their audience... Form over function, man: This show had a wonderful and really promising concept -- the contestants had to demonstrate their abilities in three fields: Knife skills, plating a meal, and deconstructing a meal (figuring out what went into it; how it was cooked, and what it contained). Part of the knife skill challenges involved filleting a fish, and one of the contestants clearly had no idea how to do it... After first saying a few inane things about "Oh, I don't want to cut it's head off!" and "Oh, I don't want to cut it's tail off!" she mutilated the fish with a few hapless slashes, and promptly gave up... For this, she was brutally reprimanded -- not for having worse knife skills than Stephen Hawkins -- but because "You. Never.. Ever... Ever... ... STOP TAPING!" The contestant was actually told that it would have been better to keep smiling and pretending she knew what she was doing, even if she was destroying the fish. Now, I don't think they'd put a demo on how to mutilate a fish on TV, but still -- -- this is like a talent show contest where someone sings off key and forget the lyrics, with the judges gesturing for the contestant to just keep pretending, because they can edit in the sound later.