Attitude-Transforming Dishes

[Chris Amirault]

At dinner last night, I served brussels sprouts that had been roasted at 450F in salt and lard (thx, again, Linda, for this recipe!) then tossed with sage and white pepper and roasted a bit more. I then dumped in the roast chicken drippings for good measure.

As we ate these delectable morsels, I realized that a sauteed brussels sprout dish I made two decades ago utterly changed my feelings about the lil cabbages. There was something wonderfully nutty about the browned leaves, sage, and white pepper, and it was as if I were eating a different vegetable.

Did you have any similarly transformative dishes involving broccoli? duck? okra? squid? liver? or some other notorious ingredient?

[chezcherie]

fried oysters with blue cheese at (R.I.P?) uglesich's in new orleans. love raw oysters, don't care for cooked ones. love le fromage bleu, but with oysters? well, damn if it wasn't ethereal. also a good lesson for me, miss "i can taste it in my mind's palate and know if it works"...the dish humbled me...i'm much more open to trying before judging because of those deep-fried beauties.

[weinoo]

The first good salsa and guacamole I had in Santa Barbara about 30 years ago changed my mind about cilantro.

[Verjuice]

Great topic, Chris. I remember falling in love with brussel sprouts myself about three years ago. I was converted after savoring them in a dish where they'd been halved and sauteed until crispy-brown in butter, pecans, soy sauce and maple syrup. I was ravenous after a long hike and the sprouts were salty, robust, greasy; the most satisfying thing I thought I'd ever tasted.

I also remember being very, very young (two or three years old) and not understanding why anyone would ever feel compelled to order a vanilla cone when they could have chocolate. Didn't they realize that they were short-changing themselves? Vanilla was inferior, neutral, boring, flabby, blank, empty, nothing, zero. Those who voluntarily consumed it when given the alternative option of chocolate seemed patently absurd. If you must have white, put whipped cream on your chocolate. My first vanilla cone was a stubborn negotiation, a soft-serve cone at a beach when I was four (they were out of chocolate and my older cousin pressured me into giving vanilla a whirl by promising that it would "taste like candy"). I was instantly reformed. And I have a special place in my heart for mister cheapy soft-serve vanilla cones at the beach. I like to have tabula rasa in my mouth.

I wouldn't touch tuna until I was seven and observed my uncle's girlfriend (now his wife of 15 yrs), who was beautiful and generous and also the most skilled cook in our whole extended family prepare herself a tuna salad sandwich while we were all sunning about in bikinis at their cabin on the Cape. She made tuna salad and ate it on perfectly symmetrical wedges of toasted whole wheat pita with romaine lettuce and dijon mustard, Vlassic dill pickle spears alongside. I remember thinking, "Susan is smart and has the best taste of all, and she looks like she's really enjoying that sandwich, so I might have to give it a try...". Susan made me a tuna salad sandwich every day for lunch that summer.

I was sixteen when I ate pork for the first time. At home, my parents' religious convictions had branded it forbidden, but during my first year away at college, I spent winter break with friends in Somerset. The hostess was a classically-trained chef who had planned every meal for the five of us (just her immediate family and I) over the nine day period; at least 50% of the dished contained pork. My first taste was actually an accident; I took a huge bite out of a sandwich that was handed to me when I first arrived at the dairy barn, the resonant snap of the sausage was revelatory, epiphanic, but I was so startled that I actually started to cry. For dinner, I ate three servings of gammon (joint) and wept again, this time with pleasure rather than remorse. For breakfast, I ate bacon and black pudding and I knew that I would die content.

[Pookie]

Moving away for College I went to a sandwich shop in the basement of the St Lawrence Market in Toronto. Where I ate the most sublime veal and eggplant sandwich at the insistance of one of my newfound friends. It completly blew my mind. I thought I hated eggplant! It was crispy and juicy and meaty. It opened my eyes up to the possibility that eggplant might just be good......

[Luckylies]

roasted cauliflower from egullet was quite the epiphany. also whoever fried capers for me for the fist time was smart...or sneeky. Deep frying a food is really the best way to introduce it to me.

"hey em, try this golden batttered hairbrush"

" really? what kind of sauce? "

[ludja]

fried oysters with blue cheese at (R.I.P?) uglesich's in new orleans. love raw oysters, don't care for cooked ones. love le fromage bleu, but with oysters?  well, damn if it wasn't ethereal. also a good lesson for me, miss "i can taste it in my mind's palate and know if it works"...the dish humbled me...i'm much more open to trying before judging because of those deep-fried beauties.

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I love raw oysters, but also agree about the surprisingly good combination of fried oysters and blue cheese. The time I had it was at The Red Fish Grill in New Orleans.

BBQ Oysters

A Red Fish Grill Signature...Half dozen P&J oysters flash fried, tossed with a Crystal BBQ sauce and served with housemade blue cheese dressing

I had it served in a sandwich po' boy style and it was really an unexpectedly good combination. As a side note, Red Fish Grill is apparently one of the few restaurants open (at some level of service) right now in New Orleans.

[dockhl]

Growing up in Pittsburgh, PA, mustard was always a bright yellow concoction that simply made me gag. While in school in Philadelphia, I had the most delicious chicken (Sesame Pecan Crusted Chicken) with a delectable sauce.

I asked the owner of the restaurant (long gone Under the Blue Moon in Chestnut Hill) , Gene, for the recipe and was HORRIFIED to see dijon mustard in the cream sauce ! How was it POSSIBLE that it was so good??

So, I made the sauce without the mustard, tasted it. .........and never looked back !

Eye opening.........

[Chris Amirault]

I had it served in a sandwich po' boy style and it was really an unexpectedly good combination.  As a side note, Red Fish Grill is apparently one of the few restaurants open (at some level of service) right now in New Orleans.

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ludja beat me to it.... After years of having really, really bad fried oysters every now and then here in New England (where oysters are treated as inferior to clams), a po' boy I had on a trip to NOLA was a revelation.

[BarbaraY]

For years I was afraid to try Southeast Asian food because of the fish sauce and shrimp paste becaus so many said it was disgusting. My first meal in a Thai restaurant changed that permanently.

[pam claughton]

My mother was always a meat lover and often cooked it for us at home. But even though I vaguely recall her ordering it cooked medium rare when we were at restaurants, for some reason she was unable to do that at home, and all of our meat, steaks, burgers, etc. were cooked until they were brownish gray all the way through...totally well done. I assumed that all meat was like this, since it was all I knew, and hated it....until I was 20, and waitressing during a college summer break. I went out to dinner with a few co-workers to a great steakhouse. The other three girls all ordered prime rib medium rare, and since I'd never had prime rib, I ordered the same, though I expected not to love it.

Well, it was the first time I experienced pink beef, and I was blown away at how delicious and completely different it was from well done. I've been a meat lover ever since.

Pam

[Chris Amirault]

For years I was afraid to try Southeast Asian food because of the fish sauce and shrimp paste becaus so many said it was disgusting. My first meal in a Thai restaurant changed that permanently.

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Kinda like anchovy paste in a putanesca sauce: doesn't make any sense if you taste it outside of the context of the dish, but it provides a foundational element that is wonderful.

[I_call_the_duck]

Speaking of shrimp paste, when I was growing up, my dad made eggplant with shrimp paste--a very homestyle Chinese dish. Now I liked things made with shrimp paste, but for some reason, I hated this dish, mainly because it made my throat itchy. In college, I was invited to dinner at my friend's house, and his mother served this Turkish eggplant stew. Out of politeness, I ate it, and lo and behold, I loved it. It was so delicious. Tasted nothing like what I had before. After that, eggplant became my friend--even with shrimp paste!

[lesfen]

Does having a preconceived notion count? I'm country folk, you know. I thought sushi was the grossest thing that I could ever imagine... until I tried it. My (now)husband introduced me and it's been an absolute addiction ever since. I'm going to credit the restaurant (Golden Dragon, Cuyahoga Falls) because, even tho' it was the first, I still think it's the best. I've been around the block since then , but I haven't found anythign that comes close to Chai's amazing creations.

[Wendy DeBord]

Eating some chocolates from a demonstration I attended from Norman Love several years ago.......transformed my attitude on pairing flavors. I had been tied/stuck to traditional flavor pairings with chocolate, ah traditional pairing with most foods. He rocked my world, made me realize there was alot I was missing holding on so tightly to tradition.

[KatieLoeb]

A month on the Riviera eating Nicoise salad at the source convinced me that I'd misjudged beets for the previous twenty or so years of my life.

I already sort of liked cauliflower, but I must agree that the eGullet Roasted cauliflower recipe was an epiphany.

I had a bad first uni experience at a sushi bar that put me off it for a long time. I thought it was nasty and approximated the sensation of waking up face down at the beach. Then I had well prepared uni and totally understood what the fuss was about.

[snowangel]

It would have been my 9th birthday, and my first day in Thailand. My dad's peers cooked a special meal for us. Included was a squid salad (think larb squid), with lime leaves, lime juice, cilantro and a mess of slivered bird chilis.

I will add that up 'til that point, my life had been pretty much cream of celery or mushroom casseroles.

I was ripe for the picking!

[Chris Amirault]

That meal didn't just change your attitude about one item, Susan -- it started you on the path to the Susan we all know and love! It's fascinating to learn that you can trace that to one dish.....

[PassionateChefsDie]

Over the years I've had so many starting life as a vegetarian gave a wonderful amount of surprises, slowly weaning my self away from vegetarian food with burgers and sausages. I'll never forget being around a freinds for dinner, taking what was being offered as it was put down in front of me the gasp and but your vegetarian, going in boldly how could Lamb be different to burgers! Still have a soft spot for lamb.

Still dealing with the flesh aversion it was mainly a texture thing, that lamb was well done, but slowly my hand kept reaching into the oven eating the chops as they cooked. Until one day it came out just a little bit to pink oh for that day it rescued me from an aversion to pink meat for ever more.

Then back to oysters I avoided them for years mainly because of my flesh aversion, smoked salmon, and smoked raw ham use to make me gag. Then one day bravely venturing where I'd never been I tried one after discovering the delights of smoked salmon and ham, still can't eat them raw. But one day using the fantastic cold water natives up the chef lightly cooked them in garlic butter what a delight, I've never looked back. The same chef cured my aversion to brussels seem to be reucurring theme these, he cooked them with chestnuts and bacon and still crunchy. Also oily fish mackerel I thought this was nasty until the day it came in so fresh had you put it in water I reckon it would of come back to life, cooked simply with a little tomato, cant really remember exactly how.

[thecuriousone]

For me, the magic came from Saigon Bahn Mi in NYC. Now I am sure it helped that this was new years eve, 1999, we were on our way to spend the evening in Times square and New years day was my birthday.

BUT...

The shredded port Banh Mi we stuck in our pockets to see us through the evening were the perfect balance of sweet, salty, sour and crunchy. It still ranks as one of th 5 best meals I have ever had in life.

I dont know what that little lady does to pork, but I could die happy if I could replicate that flavor.

[fud]

As a kid: French Fries and Strawberry Milkshake

Now: Hamburger Sundae (1/4lb patty with three scoops of ice cream).

Seriously. It was wonderful just dont let it sit too long.

[Chris Amirault]

Now: Hamburger Sundae (1/4lb patty with three scoops of ice cream).

Seriously.  It was wonderful just dont let it sit too long.

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More information -- and photos, if possible -- please!

[Zach Holmes]

At dinner last night, I served brussels sprouts that had been roasted at 450F in salt and lard (thx, again, Linda, for this recipe!) then tossed with sage and white pepper and roasted a bit more. I then dumped in the roast chicken drippings for good measure.

Thanks a lot, I have never liked brussels sprouts and have recently been searching for a good way to cook them, i will definetely try out this recipe! I tried separating all of the leaves and sauteeing them in white wine, butter and salt, kinda like wilted spinach that was bearable, but roasted sounds a lot better!

[fud]

More information -- and photos, if possible -- please!

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No pictures! It was an unexpected item on a menu at "Sodas" which I believe has since pulled it (a real shame!).

Ok so the deal is simple. Take a savoury meaty hand made patty and grill it like you do a regular burger. Then you plate it, and while it is still hot, you dollop really cold ice crem on top (three scoops - vanilla is good) and then add nuts and drizzle with chocolate and strawberry sauce.

When it comes, the ice cream has just started melting and you take a chunk of meat and a bit of ice cream/toppings and eat. What you get is this crazy explosion of sweet and savoury, cold and hot, creamy and chewy, crunchy and smooth. All in one bite.

It's like taking every opposite and combing it in one. The mere mention of it to my friends causes them to gag. But really, you have to try it before you can slog it.

I actually ordered it on a bit of a personal mission to prove that odd things could work out together.

[Mooshmouse]

  No pictures! It was an unexpected item on a menu at "Sodas" which I believe has since pulled it (a real shame!). 

Ok so the deal is simple.  Take a savoury meaty hand made patty and grill it like you do a regular burger.  Then you plate it, and while it is still hot, you dollop really cold ice crem on top (three scoops - vanilla is good) and then add nuts and drizzle with chocolate and strawberry sauce.

When it comes, the ice cream has just started melting and you take a chunk of meat and a bit of ice cream/toppings and eat.  What you get is this crazy explosion of sweet and savoury, cold and hot, creamy and chewy, crunchy and smooth.  All in one bite.

It's like taking every opposite and combing it in one. The mere mention of it to my friends causes them to gag.  But really, you have to try it before you can slog it.

I actually ordered it on a bit of a personal mission to prove that odd things could work out together.

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I know that I like some pretty unusual food combinations, Wes. But this? This seals the deal for me, my friend: you are, indeed, certifiably nuts.