How Do You Gild the Lily?

[scordelia]

Well, I like my french fries with mayo. Mayo is good on a cheeseburger too. And one should always put a little butter into your peanutbutter and jelly and bacon sandwich.

[WHS]

Well, I like my french fries with mayo. Mayo is good on a cheeseburger too. And one should always put a little butter into your peanutbutter and jelly and bacon sandwich.

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French fries with blue cheese dressing. (We just bought some black truffle butter--the possibilities are mind-boggling...)

[NulloModo]

Well, I like my french fries with mayo. Mayo is good on a cheeseburger too. And one should always put a little butter into your peanutbutter and jelly and bacon sandwich.

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French fries with blue cheese dressing. (We just bought some black truffle butter--the possibilities are mind-boggling...)

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All of the local sub/steak/italian joints here serve up some variation of the same french-fry concoction -

French fries, bacon, mozerella, cheddar (and if they're good, cheeze whiz too) with ranch dressing or blue cheese dressing for dipping... ah, good stuff

[Carlovski]

I've mentioned this before, but I often look at mu dinner and think 'That's good, but it would be even better with an egg on top' - so on goes a poached or fried egg (Or 2 or 3).

Butter is good (My patented 'Cholesterol' eggs especially) and I'm a big fan of the supposedly passe drizzle of Evoo.

If I'm cooking indian I can't help frying up a load of onions garlic and chilli and dumping it on top at the last minute - whether the recipe really needed it or not.

Other thing is the crunchy garlic and chilli mix I love to sprinkle on thai curries, noodle dishes, anything actually. Picked it up from a Simon Hopkinson book - simple quickly fry a load of sliced garlic and chillies until crispy, but not burned (You need quite a bit of oil - a small wok is best - or you can make a single serving lot in a ladle if you are VERY careful). Keeps for about a week in an airtight jar (Probably fine for longer, but loses the crunch)

[CharityCase]

I'm both impressed and somewhat blown away by these levels of gilding. Fortunately I make my own contributions:

1. Scrambled Eggs: Guilty! The dash of cream, the three kinds of cheese, the vegetable melange, cured meats galore. I love them to death when they have a mix of flavours, and hate them when they're plain.

2. Stir-Fry: I know that's a generic title, but we don't make it with meat as my gf is a veggie, which means almost everything gets cut up and put in, along with a mix of nearly every asian vinegar, sauce and paste we own. With 6 or 7 veggies as long as we do them seperately you can in fact have a crunchy finished product.

3. Mashed Potatoes: Give me butter, sour cream, garlic, chili sauce and green onions. Or give me skin-on, cream cheese, cream, a little butter and pepper. Or give me sweet potato/potato, cumin, chili oil, pepper and a bit of yogurt.

[divalasvegas]

Wow! It's good to know that I'm not the only lily gilder out there. I was beginning to think I was a bit strange.

I think I'm in trouble though. I'm very impressed by the incredible amount of gilding you all do, but especially NulloModo, HollyGroveFarms and Marlene, the three of you are downright dangerous

So as my waistline and hips continue to expand I can at least put part of the blame on all of you for giving me even more lily gilding ideas.

[Susan G]

Two days ago, on first reading this topic heading, I thought, "I don't do that" and read elsewhere.

I found myself adding sherry, chives, extra cream and grated nutmeg to my mushroom soup.

My scrambled eggs got hit with *three* kinds of hot sauce.

My dinner salad had pecans, goat cheese, five kinds of veggies, and dressing I made myself.

.........and the I realized I use a tablespoon or so of some sort of alcohol in most of my desserts. And I have five finds of nuts in my freezer. Nine types of herbs growing in my kitchen garden. Three kinds of butter in the fridge.

I guess *all* my lillies are guilded!

[divalasvegas]

Two days ago, on first reading this topic heading, I thought, "I don't do that" and read elsewhere.

I  found myself adding sherry, chives, extra cream and grated nutmeg to my mushroom soup.

My scrambled eggs got hit with *three* kinds of hot sauce.

My dinner salad had pecans, goat cheese, five kinds of veggies, and dressing I made myself.

.........and the I realized I use a tablespoon or so of some sort of alcohol in most of my desserts.  And I have five finds of nuts in my freezer.  Nine types of herbs growing in my kitchen garden.  Three kinds of butter in the fridge.

I guess *all* my lillies are guilded!

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Dear God SusanG when can I come over for dinner?

What delicious ideas.

Your scrambled eggs remind of how I like my omelette: three eggs (two will do but I prefer three), two or three kinds of cheese, sauteed onions, bell pepper, and mushrooms, chunks of ham, cooked until just a little underdone, sprinkled with a bit of Tabasco sauce. No tomatoes ever. Can't stand tomatoes or ketchup (blech) near my eggs.

Glad to know yet another lily gilder. Maybe we should all start lily gilding club, where we can exchange ideas over how to become more excessive than we already are! But then again, that's what eGullet is for.

[Sonia]

My husband puts petrified candied fruit, dates, nuts and brown sugar on pie.

[ludja]

Butter, syrup and sugar on pancakes.

Butter and syrup on waffles

Butter and sour cream and bacon bits on baked potatoes.

Butter, sour cream and parmesan on pasta

Butter and gravy on mashed potatoes

butter and cream cheese on a toasted english muffin

Butter and peanut butter on toast.

Cream and whipped cream in a Bailey's coffee

Cream and brown sugar on oatmeal

Hmmm, do you think I eat to much butter?

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Sounds like work as usual to me...and I'll add:

saltines w/butter and peanut butter

It 's classic, but arguably gilding the lily, to add a pat of butter to the top of a bowl of New England Clam Chowder.

[canucklehead]

It 's classic, but arguably gilding the lily, to add a pat of butter to the top of a bowl of New England Clam Chowder.

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oooh yeahhh - I love a little pat of butter on almost any soup. I made oxtail soup the other night and a little butter on top - yikes!

In the cereal department - and I only did this when I was a kid: chocolate quick AND strawbery quick (it tasted like neopolitan ice cream to me) in my milk with frosted flakes. Then settle into 3 hours of a cartoon induced coma.

Edited June 24, 2005 by canucklehead (log)

[Derek]

My girlfriend thinks I'm crazy when I pour heavy cream on top of ice cream, but somehow it's deeply satisfying.

[racheld]

Sink the back of a spoon into a bowl of hot mashed potatoes, skins on or off; continue making a dozen or so little divots. Gently lay a pat of butter into each, Sprinkle top with crumbled bacon, chopped chives, snowing of cheese. Wait a moment for butter to melt into little golden lakes; carry it carefully to table.

Make a lovely cheeseburger to your own specifications, WITH a nice slice of chilled sweet onion. Garnish plate with about a dozen half-slices of cold crisp onion, which you will segment into crescents and eat crunchcrunch like chips, between bites of juicy burger.

Empty a can of Eagle Brand milk into a microwaveable bowl. Heat one minute, or til steamy. Stir in eight ounces of Valhrona dark, chopped. Leave it alone another minute. Let it rest and get acquainted. Stir briskly until it coalesces into a silken, flowing mass of chocolate, folding back upon itself and beckoning with its shining wiles and enticing fragrance. Spoon over ice cream. Lick the spoon. Dip fruit. Take a bite. Double dip.

If there are leftovers, chill and dip onto parchment by teaspoons. Roll into truffles and do not tell that they're of such humble birth. Or reheat at midnight and eat without ice cream.

Make Stroganoff. Cut a cream cheese into one inch squares. Drop all over top of sauce; cover pot and leave five minutes. Stir cream cheese into sauce.

Do the same for a pot of cooked, drained potatoes; drop in a stick of butter and a whole cream cheese...put lid on, let soften, mash.

Make favorite brownie recipe; add a cup of chopped chocolate and pour into pan, reserving one cup. Stir reserved batter into 1 pack softened cream cheese--drop onto batter, swirl with tip of knife. Bake, cool, frost with chocolate frosting. Pipe lines of lighter or darker frosting on top; feather.

Make burritos, wraps, anything with flour tortillas. Serve with salsa, guacamole and Ranch. Hubby likes homemade "pink" dressing, made with mayo, ketchup, garlic, and a special-recipe vinegar/sugar spice mixture that we make by the quart. He likes it so well I smuggle a bottle of it into Mexican restaurants in my pocket.

Crisp-fry thin-sliced onions; drain, salt, and sprinkle on already-loaded baked potato.

Center bowls of chilled gazpacho with several spoonfuls of lump crabmeat or half a dozen peeled, tails-off shrimp. Center ANY hot soup with a dollop of sour cream, garnish of chives, grated cheese or buttered toast crumbs.

Kindergarten lunch: Allow them to peel a slice of American cheese and center it in the bottom of an empty soup bowl. Allow them to tear it into fanciful shapes if they wish. Ladle in soup or chili.

[divalasvegas]

Sink the back of a spoon into a bowl of hot mashed potatoes, skins on or off; continue making a dozen or so little divots.  Gently lay a pat of butter into each, Sprinkle top with crumbled bacon, chopped chives, snowing of cheese.  Wait a moment for butter to melt into little golden lakes; carry it carefully to table.

Make a lovely cheeseburger to your own specifications, WITH a nice slice of chilled sweet onion.  Garnish plate with about a dozen half-slices of cold crisp onion, which you will segment into crescents and eat crunchcrunch like chips, between bites of juicy burger.

Empty a can of Eagle Brand milk into a microwaveable bowl.  Heat one minute, or til steamy.  Stir in eight ounces of Valhrona dark, chopped.    Leave it alone another minute.  Let it rest and get acquainted.    Stir briskly until it coalesces into a silken, flowing mass of chocolate, folding back upon itself and beckoning with its shining wiles and enticing fragrance.    Spoon over ice cream.    Lick the spoon.      Dip fruit.    Take a bite.    Double dip.   

If there are leftovers, chill and dip onto parchment by teaspoons.  Roll into truffles and do not tell that they're of such humble birth.    Or reheat at midnight and eat without ice cream. 

Make Stroganoff.  Cut a cream cheese into one inch squares.    Drop all over top of sauce; cover pot and leave five minutes.    Stir cream cheese into sauce.

Do the same for a pot of cooked, drained potatoes; drop in a stick of butter and a whole cream cheese...put lid on, let soften, mash.

Make favorite brownie recipe; add a cup of chopped chocolate and pour into pan, reserving one cup.  Stir reserved batter into 1 pack softened cream cheese--drop onto batter, swirl with tip of knife.    Bake, cool, frost with chocolate frosting.  Pipe lines of lighter or darker frosting on top; feather.

Make burritos, wraps, anything with flour tortillas.  Serve with salsa, guacamole and Ranch.  Hubby likes homemade "pink" dressing, made with mayo, ketchup, garlic, and a special-recipe vinegar/sugar spice mixture that we make by the quart.    He likes it so well I smuggle a bottle of it into Mexican restaurants in my pocket.

Crisp-fry thin-sliced onions; drain, salt, and sprinkle on already-loaded baked potato.

Center bowls of chilled gazpacho with several spoonfuls of lump crabmeat or half a dozen peeled, tails-off shrimp.    Center ANY hot soup with a dollop of sour cream,  garnish of chives, grated cheese or buttered toast crumbs.

Kindergarten lunch:  Allow them to peel a slice of American cheese and center it in the bottom of an empty soup bowl.  Allow them to tear it into fanciful shapes if they wish.  Ladle in soup or chili.

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Okay racheld this is official. Stop. Please. I'm begging you for mercy, I'm crying uncle. You and your delicious suggestions are going make me do a run on cream cheese the next time I go shopping.

You know it's amazing how cream cheese can be used so many different ways. My favorite is to use it when I make a spinach/artichoke dip. I used to make a bechamel, but thought that there had to be a better way. Well there is: add cream cheese to the cooked spinach after you've drained the spinach and while it is still warm. I add a whole bunch of other stuff, but the cream cheese trick really helps out. I have never seen a tv chef recommend this. All of them make a bechamel sauce.

I may have to hide out at your home when you make that Beef Stroganoff. Hell, I'll even do the dishes.

[Chris Amirault]

Welcome, Derek, to eGullet!

My girlfriend thinks I'm crazy when I pour heavy cream on top of ice cream, but somehow it's deeply satisfying.

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She's right. You're completely off your rocker, man.

By the way, I find that scrambled eggs cooked in lots of European butter in which you've sauteed some garlic aren't as good as they should be. I find that adding a 1/2 cup of chunk lobster meat just before the eggs really helps make that dish sufficiently rich.

Ahem.

[judiu]

Ohhh, yummy stuff here! My favorite gilding is to make a big thick hamburger with chuck, fried in butter to the "black and blue" stage and eat it on well-buttered white toast. Iced coffee with cream, not milk. Heavy cream over peach cobbler (peach ANYTHING, for that matter) Butter and brown sugar on oatmeal. Cheddar cheese goldfish crackers dunked in blue cheese dressing. (Dammit, I've made my self hungry!)

[canucklehead]

Ohhh, yummy stuff here! My favorite gilding is to make a big thick hamburger with chuck, fried in butter to the "black and blue" stage and eat it on well-buttered white toast. Iced coffee with cream, not milk. Heavy cream over peach cobbler (peach ANYTHING, for that matter) Butter and brown sugar on oatmeal. Cheddar cheese goldfish crackers dunked in blue cheese dressing. (Dammit, I've made my self hungry!)

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Wow - that reads like a last meal request. All you are missing is some homemade fried chicken and biscuits. Actually - clear some space for me. And save me a rootbeer float.

[petite tête de chou]

Each bite of steak dipped in melted butter, sprinkled with salt and washed down with a shot of scotch. Meat, butter, salt, booze, again. Meat, butter...

[aliwaks]

i am not much of a gilder in general , like omlettes with no more than three ingriednts etc ..preferr only one type of sauce however;

the other day I bought a loaf of rhubarb bread at the farmers market and ate some with butter and cherry preserves

now that I think about it:

I need butter and scallion cream cheese on my bagel with jareslberg cheese and nova and lettuce

I need butter and peanut butter and honey on whole grain toast

There's nothing wrong with a buttered hamburger bun, with a cheese burger with mayo and ketchup and mustard and pickles and thin sliced onins and shredded lettuce

On occasion I will stir extra butter into scrambled eggs after removing them from heat and sometimes a drizzle of truffle oil..and some chives

Baked potato: Butter & salt & pepper & chives & sourcream mash into potato, when only skins are left add more of same

any pasta that does not have tomato sauce will benefit from a fried egg, or one stirred in at the last moment and all pasta does well with an extra drizzle of evoo ...or sometimes truffle oil.

butter on one side and mayo on the other, thinly sliced ham, cheddar cheese, sprouts white bread

Buttered toast with mayo and avocado and bacon and a ripe tomato

actually butter and mayo on any sandwich with squishy bread...I do like to be able to feel the butter...

Hi my name is Ali and I GILD WITH BUTTER

[racheld]

On the above cheeseburger I mentioned: Five minutes before sitting down to the table, melt a pat of butter in a skillet, put the two halves of the bun cut-side down, leave for a few minutes to turn golden and crisp.

If doing more than one at a time, lay all tops or bottoms into butter, turn other half cut-side up on top to be heating, let crisp, reverse. We had these tonight, and our two guests kept telling Hubby what delicious burgers he grills. I can keep a secret.

There's a family joke about this kind of burger: Once when Hubby and I had to make a long drive and be at our destination in a hurry, I made us each one of these, each wrapped in a paper towel so as not to get soggy before we hit the Interstate and could begin munching. We drove over to say goodbye to his parents, left the cardoor open, and returned to find one of the burgers on the ground, being eagerly chewed, paper and all, by one of the ever-underfoot garage cats.

FIL came outside, scolded the cat, retrieved the burger, and offered to go inside and cut off the catbit part, but we declined. He just kept saying, "There's nothing wrong with the rest of this burger," as he unwrapped, took a bite, made a delighted face, and snarfed down that cat's dinner, murmuring his enjoyment, and keeping the bitten part carefully away from his mouth. The mangled side finally disappeared between his fingers, as he got as much of that burger for his money as he could reasonably consume.

He STILL says it was the best burger he ever ate. It's all in the buttery toast.

[divalasvegas]

I'd like to add an "unintentional" gilding of the lily this past weekend. I'd been craving just a simple toasted bagel, with a bit of butter and cream cheese, maybe a little lox. That's really all I wanted. Just a quick trip to the grocery store.

Well, I bought of the above (except for the butter, which I already had at home), but since it was Sunday I decided that maybe I could fancy it up a bit. So, in addition to the lox I bought smoked trout and whitefish. Then I decided that some tomatoes and onions might be quite tasty on the side. So I got those too. Orange juice and a couple of other things and I'm on my way home. It's early afternoon by now so I'm thinking, well this is really brunch for me so I definitely need some eggs but I wanted something more special than just scrambled eggs. Better get some cream and chives for what I had in mind. I think those eggs called for caviar as well, but forget about the good black caviar on my budget so I got salmon caviar.

I remembered a recipe I saw demonstrated by David Rosengarten. He was the guest chef on Sara Moulton's long gone (and very missed) Cooking Live show. Essentially it's eggs that are beaten with cream and a bit of salt--fresh pepper is added when plated--poured into a metal bowl over boiling water in which butter has been melted first. And then you gently stir and stir and stir in a back and forth and folding type motion until the eggs become luscious and curd-like. He gave the name for these eggs but I can't remember it. Anyway before doing the eggs I got everything else ready: sliced the tomatoes and onions, sprinkled them with some capers since they looked a little "naked" and set them aside, plated the fish with the cream cheese. Moved on to the eggs. I'm doing all of this from memory so maybe that's why the cooking process for three eggs took ALMOST 20 MINUTES! I'm sure they weren't as good as David Rosengarten's but they were damned good, all curdy and rich and kind of pretty, too.

So here's what my simple bagel, cream cheese and lox mutated into:

Creamy, curdy eggs topped with snipped chives

Toasted bagel (plain, of course) with butter AND cream cheese

Lox, smoked whitefish and trout

Salmon caviar

Sliced onions and tomatoes with capers and homemade vinaigrette and a dollop of mayo

Orange juice and coffee, with Sweet 'n' Low, of course (just kidding)

Whew. All eaten at a very leisurely pace with the Sunday paper. Yum.

Any other lily gilders out there tonight?

[rooftop1000]

Butter, syrup and sugar on pancakes.

Butter and syrup on waffles

Butter and sour cream and bacon bits on baked potatoes.

Butter, sour cream and parmesan on pasta

Butter and gravy on mashed potatoes

butter and cream cheese on a toasted english muffin

Butter and peanut butter on toast.

Cream and whipped cream in a Bailey's coffee

Cream and brown sugar on oatmeal

Hmmm, do you think I eat to much butter?

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Mmmmmmmm Butter

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=60498&hl=

tracey

[inny]

Hi, I'm inny, and I'm a lily-guilder...

I must have melted cheese in mashed potatos - the sharper, the better (bleu is my favorite). Toss in a little sour cream, lots of butter, and the stuff barely makes it to the table.

I almost always finish blanched veggies in a quick sautee of bacon. Heck, everything is either finished with bacon or butter or cream.

For a midnight snack, prosciutto on buttered toasted crusty bread with a thin slice of brie, a slice of peach, and a drizzle of very old balsamic vinegar.

Now I'm hungry. I wonder if there's any prosciutto in the house...

[Ling]

I slathered my brownie with a mountain of Nutella yesterday. Mmm...mountain of Nutella....

[divalasvegas]

Oh thanks everyone for adding to this thread. I was inspired to post because of a recent reference to lily gilding by racheld goddess of lily gilding.

Keep 'em coming.