eG Foodblog Tag Team IV: Marlene, Dave, snowangel - Cold Turkey, Three Ways

[Dave the Cook]

I apologize for my absence last night -- I had a little disagreement with Microsoft: I wanted to blog, and it thought I should reinstall Windows. (Guess who won.)

Before I say anything else: I'm really proud of you guys for getting back on track, and I'm grateful for the support of everyone cheering us along.

[fifi]

Oh dear. Disagreements with Microsoft can be more brutal than nicotine withdrawal. I was sucked in for about 6 weeks one time.

And, don't beat yourself up for a one or two cigarette slip. You are still on the road. And, you didn't slide into a ditch. You hit a pothole and you can keep on going.

[gini]

By the way folks, I still need recipes for broccoli gratin.  I'm going shopping, and I'd rather not go twice if I can help it. 

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How about a Jarlsburgh, mashed potato, bacon, broccoli gratin? I saw it on an Oslo foodblog...click!

Otherwise I'd vote for a bluecheese and broccoli gratin.

[fifi]

Marlene . . . On the brocolli gratin . . .

I do impromptu gratins ever since I got my Le Creuset gratin pans. You know the saying . . . "When all you have is a hammer, every thing looks like a nail."

Well, one time I had this brocolli and a red onion was staring at me. The gratin pan was still out. I actually sliced the brocolli like I would have a cauliflower for the infamous Roasted Cauliflower. I layered the brocolli with the red onion slices, added some herbs and grated cheese (aged provolone?) and drizzled with a bit of whipping cream. The cream broke into milk solids and butter. The whole thing was incredibly good and rich. Sorry, no recipe. It was one of those made-up things.

[snowangel]

Linda, that sounds great. I think one reason that there probably aren't more broccoli gratin recipes is that broc can get mushy so much faster than something like cauliflower. I like the idea of guyere with broc, Marlene.

[snowangel]

Back to my char sui. How low and how long?

Edit: Is a paperclip food safe?

[fifi]

I can't think of a reason why a paper clip wouldn't be food safe.

[fifi]

Linda, that sounds great.  I think one reason that there probably aren't more broccoli gratin recipes is that broc can get mushy so much faster than something like cauliflower.  I like the idea of guyere with broc, Marlene.

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Well, sometimes "tender" (another word for mushy I suppose) brocolli is ok with me. I think of it as a whole 'nother thing. It actually tastes a bit different. A little sweeter, maybe? I see a parallel with green beans. There is the long cooked Southern style and the quick cooked saute of maybe the tender little ones. They are entirely different vegetables in my opinion.

[Marlene]

Marlene . . . On the brocolli gratin . . .

I do impromptu gratins ever since I got my Le Creuset gratin pans. You know the saying . . . "When all you have is a hammer, every thing looks like a nail."

Well, one time I had this brocolli and a red onion was staring at me. The gratin pan was still out. I actually sliced the brocolli like I would have a cauliflower for the infamous Roasted Cauliflower. I layered the brocolli with the red onion slices, added some herbs and grated cheese (aged provolone?) and drizzled with a bit of whipping cream. The cream broke into milk solids and butter. The whole thing was incredibly good and rich. Sorry, no recipe. It was one of those made-up things.

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This sounds like an interesting plan. I'm sure I could wing this. Question. I did find a recipe for brocoli gratin in the Company's Coming Cheese cookbook. But, it says to add 2 eggs to the mix. Wouldn't eggs make the dish more cake like? I'm looking for something creamy. Sort of like broccoli and cheese sauce but baked int the oven so the top gets brown and bubbly. Like a really good mac and cheese. Hmmmm, mac and cheese sauce and broccoli. This also has possibilities.

The eating machine rolled out of bed early (10:30) and promptly made himself two peanut butter and jam sandwhiches before I had the opportunity to offer to be motherly and cook breakfast.

[snowangel]

My char sui is in the oven (set to 250 degrees F). Paperclips to the rescue!

[Toliver]

By the way folks, I still need recipes for broccoli gratin.  I'm going shopping, and I'd rather not go twice if I can help it. 

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Here is a gratin from Epicurious.com:

"BROCCOLI GRATIN WITH MUSTARD-CHEESE STRUDEL"

[fifi]

It may just be me but I don't like eggs in my gratins. The LCs are known for getting good browning. I don't like browned eggs. The whole reason I got the cast iron LCs was Jeffrey Steingarten's experiments with Potatoes Dauphinoise where he proclaimed the LC superior at the browning bit. He was right.

[Marlene]

I'm really liking that mustard struesel topping Toliver, but I want a cheddar cheese sauce. So, I think I can play with this enough to use the topping, make a mac and cheese like sauce and fifi I agree, no eggs.

[Dave the Cook]

Oh dear. Disagreements with Microsoft can be more brutal than nicotine withdrawal. I was sucked in for about 6 weeks one time.

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At least it kept me occupied!

Here's last night's cocktail, an Aviation:

The mental flakiness that Susan and Marlene were reporting yesterday hit me last night, starting about here. Note that I didn't bother to let the glass clear so that you could see the Toschi cherry garnish, and though I managed to crop most of it out, you'd think I'd know by now to clean the cutting board before taking a picture. Let's not even start on that humongous shadow.

So, first thing to go: food styling skills.

I take that back. (Second thing to go: sequential reasoning.) The first thing was shopping acumen. I didn't lose it all, but I was sufficiently confused that instead of heading to one of the amazing Asian food megamarts (here, instead of small markets, we get our Asian groceries from stores in buildings abandoned by Kmart after Wal0Mart and Target put them out of business. I'll try to get by for some pictures tomorrow), I stopped at the Publix on the way home. Not a fatal mistake, unless paying $4.65 for a can of straw mushrooms is akin to a death blow, but still, not a smart move when you're making Chinese scallops and snow peas.

On the other hand, I had counted on speed-thawing the excellent IQF scallops that Publix carries, so I rationlized the $4.65 as the cost of not having to make an extra stop. Of course, I couldn't find them. The neighborhood where this store is located has a different demographic from the one hear home, so I considered the possibility that this store didn't carry them. And yet, when I strolled by the fish counter (which I had avoided, because while they do well on some things, the scallop offering is usually limited to $18 a pound wet sea scallops and calicos labeled as bays), I saw a sign that said "Sale: Sea Scallops/$10.99 (previously frozen). This was great. Not only on sale, but thawed for my cooking pleasure. Right next to these moist pink-ivory pillows were the usual snow-white soakers -- a perfect picture of good scallop/bad scallop. Cool, I thought, a nice educational moment for the blog. But alas, I'd forgotten my camera. Third thing to go -- or was it fourth? -- memory.

Of course, they weren't completely thawed. I winced as the fish guy pried the icy mass apart. He finally managed to assemble twelve ounces of semi-frozen, untorn scallops for me. I asked if they had the bags of IQF in the store, since from the look of what I was buying, I was pretty sure all Publix had done was rip open a few bags of the retail pack into a dish. "Sure," he said, and pointed, his finger draped with the sticky printed price tag, to an open cooler I'd walked past three times. Fourth thing: hunting acumen.

I think the cooking thing is still viable, but those of you more familiar with the dish in particular or Cantonese cooking in general will know better. Scallops and snow peas:

I do have a couple of questions:

• What is "velveting"?
  
• Is it me, or does Chinese cooking not have a middle sort-of heat? I guess I mean this in two ways. First, the dishes seem to be either delicate or screechingly spicy; and you have soprano heat like ginger and chiles, but there doesn't seem to be anything like the baritone of black pepper, which I thought really improved this dish. Am I just uneducated?
  

Next to go (five) was sense of proportion, though it seems to be offset by a certain esp-like synchonicity. Once I got through my struggles with Microsoft, I was either hungry or wanting a cigarette; I couldn't tell. Rather than concentrate on the latter, I went to the pantry. In anticipation of quitting smoking, I had loaded up on sweets: Tootsie Roll Pops, bubble gum, just about anything that would take long enough to consume to get past the urge to smoke. I didn't want any of those things, though. I wanted salty and crunchy -- popcorn, potato chips, Fritos, a stale pita with a sprinkling of Morton's finest -- and I came up empty. Then my brain took a turn, as for so many of us here, it often does, to bacon. I wanted bacon. About a pound of it, fried up crisp and smoky. I could eat it all.

Shit. I'd used the last of it in the kale the night before. Gnashing, I launched Firefox to check the blog. What do I find? Susan not only wants bacon, she also forgot to replenish. Interesting. Even more so, though I seriously considered going out at two in the morning to bring home the bacon, it didn't occur to me to run out for cigarettes -- something I've done more than a few times in my life.

When I got into work this morning, I related all of this to Delores -- shopping miscues, the photo errors, the porky jones. She replied, "You seem normal to me." Sigh. One more thing gone.

Six: objectivity.

[johnder]

Man, I don't read the boards for a few days and all of a sudden there is this amazing blog going on. That will teach me to get sick. Actually the idea of food the past few days really didn't excite me as I was recovering from that nasty 4 day flu bug going around.

The dishes look amazing so far! Good luck everyone!

John

[Marlene]

I think we'll let Dave be the non smoker for all three of us .

What's in an Aviation Dave? It looks good! Oh and I really like the glass too.

And I've got enough bacon here for all three of us if we need it.

[Genny]

Good morning all! I am so proud to be a member of such a supportive group! EGullet has heart, and we can cook it too!

Marlene, I think eggs whipped into the cream will give you a custard, not a cake. You'd need flour for that Hmmm, broccoli cheese cake???

Thanks Marlene! My braised beef shanks based on your Port, Wine, & Honey turned out *beautiful* last night! Thanks so much for an incredible recipe. It came out kind of tangy-sweet and super rich. My husband made drop biscuts to go along with these:

BEFORE

AFTER

This is a definite do-over in our book.

[Dave the Cook]

How about a Jarlsburgh, mashed potato, bacon, broccoli gratin?  I saw it on an Oslo foodblog...click!

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That looks great.

Here is a gratin from Epicurious.com:

"BROCCOLI GRATIN WITH MUSTARD-CHEESE STRUDEL"

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I've made this. It's really good.

No eggs in gratin. It seems like cheating, doesn't it?

On the other hand, I was on AIM last night with someone who wanted an egg roll seemigly as much as I wanted bacon. Now I want to invent a bacon and egg roll. Not the kind that cheats by using scrambled eggs, but something you could pull from the deep fryer, break open and have a lovely yolk come oozing out, surrounded, maybe, by strips of bacon. Call me crazy (pause). Any ideas on how to do this?

As for dinner tonight, since we seem to have beef on the brain, I'm thinking of combining it with Abra's suggestion of something spicy. Maybe Paul Prudhomme's Cajun prime rib? If I got a skinny, two-inch standing rib, could I manage it without pushing dinner back to 11:00 pm?

[Dave the Cook]

What's in an Aviation Dave?  It looks good!  Oh and I really like the glass too.

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Aviation

2 ounces gin

0.5 ounces Maraschino liqueur

0.5 ounces lemon juice

It's one of those classics that I'd never heard of it before jumping into the Cocktails forum. The garnish is two of these, a jar of which I got as a present.

The glasses are cool, aren't they? (thanks, btw) They're out of an impulse-buy travel kit, as is the pick. I'm not sure anything else in the kit is going to last -- we'll find out when I go to Tampa a little later in the blog -- but the glasses were worth the price of admission.

[fifi]

Those are cool glasses, Dave. I have a set of some almost just like that. A couple of years ago, some vodka company had them in a set of two with the bottle of vodka. Over the holidays, I was able to collect a set of six. I always envisioned using them as vases, one flower in each, strung out down the middle of the table. They just didn't seem "likely" for a drink. You have now changed my opinion.

[Megan Blocker]

On the other hand, I was on AIM last night with someone who wanted an egg roll seemigly as much as I wanted bacon. Now I want to invent a bacon and egg roll. Not the kind that cheats by using scrambled eggs, but something you could pull from the deep fryer, break open and have a lovely yolk come oozing out, surrounded, maybe, by strips of bacon. Call me crazy (pause). Any ideas on how to do this?

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Where's Percy, of the infinite knowledge of and talent for eggs?

[anzu]

On the other hand, I was on AIM last night with someone who wanted an egg roll seemigly as much as I wanted bacon. Now I want to invent a bacon and egg roll. Not the kind that cheats by using scrambled eggs, but something you could pull from the deep fryer, break open and have a lovely yolk come oozing out, surrounded, maybe, by strips of bacon. Call me crazy (pause). Any ideas on how to do this?

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Well, you get this effect of the yolk oozing out with a Tunisian brik by placing your choice of cooked filling in warka (or substituting a spring roll wrapper), then cracking an egg into the center of the filling, folding over the wrapper or warka, and deep frying immediately.

So surely similar principles could be applied for an egg roll and you'd get what you're aiming for?

[Marlene]

Back from grocery shopping and will now commence to making bacon bits and croutons for the salad tonight. If there's one thing I'm really picky about, it's real bacon and real croutons in ceasar salad.

Oh and I think I've solved the salty/crunchy something to do with your hand that you wish was a cigarette thing. Pretzel sticks.

[Dejah]

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I do have a couple of questions:

[*]What is "velveting"?

[*]Is it me, or does Chinese cooking not have a middle sort-of heat? I guess I mean this in two ways. First, the dishes seem to be either delicate or screechingly spicy; and you have soprano heat like ginger and chiles, but there doesn't seem to be anything like the baritone of black pepper, which I thought really improved this dish. Am I just uneducated?

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Dave,

Velveting is the process of marinating any meat/seafood for stir-frying with a mixture of seasonings, oil and cornstarch. This process gives a velvety "mouth-feel" to the meat after frying. I cook the meat and vegetables separately, then tossed together for a last minute or so before serving.

We DO use pepper, usually white, especially with seafood. That's why your addition of pepper to scallops would really improve this dish. I don't use chilis unless I want fire, but I do use ginger and pepper for a little kick and flavour while maintaining "delicate".

Snowangel: I am interested to know how the char siu worked out at 250F. I usually cook mine at 375-400 so there is charring on the "ridges".

[maggiethecat]

Courage, mes amis! Maybe it was the patch, maybe the change of scene, but I made it through yesterday smoke-free. But there were so many little rituals I missed, chief among them the great hit of a cigarette after a four hour flight (spent surrounded by the Chambre de Commerce of Aix-en-Provence. I was their informal translator by the chance of seat selection!)

Medicure, pedicure, did lunch, walked and walked and walked. Considered mugging a little old lady for her Virginia Slim. Felt terminially depressed, went back to my daughter's apartment and grabbed a nap. When she returned from work we each had a couple of fingers of Woodford Reserve and headed to out on Sunset for some amazing Mexican.

Of course, I am lucky in having what amounts to a personal trainer/shrink/one -woman rooting section attached by the hip. Honor has been incredible--when she says "I'm so proud of you Mom. You'll see, it will get better! -- I can almost believe her!

I'm having my wakeup cuppo Joe. Gee, what do you think is missing from this picture?

OK, let me change my patch and prepare to hit a yoga class down the street, followed by lunch and some serious gallery-hopping.

I'm thinking bout you guys!