Author: KC

I'm a graduate student in Montreal. I spend most of my time studying drug addiction using brain imaging techniques. I'm also a foodie, exploring the culinary world both in and out of my kitchen.

Categories
Pasta, Noodles, and Dumplings The Book

149. Chicken Long Rice p.247


The recipe

The Book is at it again. I’m beginning to understand that when the blurb before the recipe mentions comfort food, I’m in for a boring dinner. This time it’s comfort food, Hawaiian style.

I’ve just started to get to know Hawaiian food through a few of the recipes in The Book. I don’t have a good sense of it, I’m not clear on what they’re going for, or trying to be. They’re all a little bit odd, using unexpected ingredients, in initially strange combinations. I get the sense that there’s an underlying culinary theory that just hasn’t been explained to me, and if I could tune into it, all these dishes would just come together. I visited my aunt in Hawaii several years ago, but we mostly ate Korean barbecue, and Japanese soups. I missed out on the luau experience, without even trying the cheesy pupu platters and grass skirts kind. I’d dearly love to be invited to someone’s back yard for the real deal. Maybe thinking of this luau classic as fortification for a night of hard partying gets me a bit closer to groking it.

The recipe is really straightforward. You start by simmering chicken thighs with ginger and salt, then let it cool. You then remove the skin and bones, and shred the meat. The broth gets strained, and brought to a boil with water, bouillon cubes (not stock), onion, and dried shiitakes. You then add bean thread noodles, cook for a few minutes, then allow the dish to sit for half an hour while the noodles absorb the broth. You then add the chicken, reheat the soup, and stir in scallions just before serving.

The preparation went easily, except for cutting up the bean thread noodles into 3 inch lengths. Those things are incredibly tough. I’ve never used them before, and I was expecting that they’d break apart like rice noodles, but I practically had to get the power tools out to get the job done. Kitchen scissors were an abject failure, my chef’s knife just turned on the noodles and tried to cut me, and hitting them with a cast iron frying pan made me feel better, but inflicted very little damage. In the end my bread knife did the job, but sent little bits of adamantium noodle all over the kitchen. Next time I think I’ll get out the pruning sheers.

After all that noodle cutting effort, I was hoping for a tasty dish, unfortunately this was as bland as it gets. You’d think that ginger and mushrooms would bolster the chicken and make a satisfying soup, but all that flavour just disappeared. It tasted like a weak broth, with a hint of ginger, and some washed out watery chicken chunks. I liked the noodles quite a bit, they had a fun texture, and they seemed to concentrate what little flavour there was in this dish. This recipe makes a whole lot of very bland soup, so I had to get creative with the leftovers. Stirring in some sriracha chile sauce, and swirling in a beaten egg improved things considerably.

Another lesson I’m learning about Hawaiian food is that the name of a dish is a pretty poor clue as to what you’ll be served. Chicken long rice is indeed made with chicken, but the rest of the name is a mystery. Maybe I’m just missing the point of this dish, but as it stands the only way I’d make it again is if I was serving someone on their deathbed and even the slightest titillation or elevation of their heart rate could push them into the great beyond. Those of us with many good years ahead can spend our dinners more wisely.

Categories
Pies, Tarts, and Pastries The Book

148. Grasshopper Pie p.772


The recipe

Grasshopper pie was one of the great frustrations of my childhood. It’s a hypnotically enticing green, it’s named after an insect, and it has cookie crumbs in the crust, this is obviously the perfect pie for an eight year old boy. Unfortunately it’s boozy enough to light with a match. My Papa had a fondness for it, and after dinner at big family gatherings my Nana would sometimes bring one out. The adults would sit around laughing, as my uncle would reverently bring a bite to his lips, close his eyes, and make exaggerated moans of pleasure while I looked jealously on. No, no, grasshopper pie isn’t for little boys, there are cookies for you in the kitchen. I could have screamed.

When I got a bit older, I was allowed to try a bite, and much to my dismay, it was foul. Sure it was minty sweet and creamy, but there was something medicinal and disgusting about it. Adults made no sense, alcohol categorically did not taste good, and ruined everything it touched. It was only after a few early experiments with drinking had rewired my brain and set up a pleasant conditioned taste association, that I came around on grasshopper pie. Now, I’m the one faking rapture to make my little cousins jealous.

The pie is easy to make. You start by smashing chocolate wafers into crumbs (get the kids who won’t be eating this pie to help), mix with melted butter, press into a pie pan, and bake. Meanwhile bloom gelatin in cream, add sugar, crème de menthe (green), crème de cacao (clear), and egg yolks. You then whisk this mixture in a double boiler ’till it comes up to 160F, and cool the bowl in an ice bath. Once it’s thickened, fold in whipped cream, and pour the filling into the crust. It then goes into the refrigerator for a few hours, and gets a sprinkling of chocolate just before serving.

My pie was going very well until I got to the cooling the gelatin mixture in a bowl of ice water step. I decided to save time by multitasking and getting the cream whipping in the stand mixer while I stirred the gelatin mixture in the ice bath. Everything was going fine ’till I stopped stirring to see if the cream had reached stiff peaks. By the time I got back to my gelatin it had set. I should have thrown it back on the still hot double boiler, melted it, and then chilled it more carefully, but I didn’t. I figured enough stirring and vigorous folding of whipped cream would do the trick. This was a bad plan. The gelatin mixture stayed in little boozy Jello clumps, and my whipped cream deflated. Because all the colour was in the Jello clumps the pie wasn’t looking very grasshoppery. I resorted to stirring in a few drops of food colouring, which solved things neatly.

I don’t think I could pick a favourite grasshopper pie of my life. There’s not much variation in the technique or the finished product. They almost inevitably taste great. Rich and creamy, with a boozy kick, and brisk hit of mint. The crème de cacao is there in the background, providing that hint of chocolate which works so well with mint.
Next time I’ll remember that gelatin is happy to set for a second time. However, despite my flub-ups, I was quite pleased with this pie. I had to want grasshopper pie for many years before I could try it, and then want to like it for a few more years, now I can say that it was worth the wait.

***ADDENDUM***

At my dining companion’s request, I made this pie again last night. I was very careful not to cool the gelatin mixture too much, and I took it out of the ice cube bath as soon as it began to thicken a little bit. When I mixed in the cream I had exactly the same issue as the first time, chunks of green gelatin in white cream. I solved the problem by putting the whole mess back in the mixer bowl and beating it on high for a minute. Grasshopper pie continues to be delicious, but I’m convinced that the recipe is flawed. I don’t want to start retroactively modifying my ratings, but I think we’re still within the 5 second rule for this post, so I’m downgrading this recipe from 4 to 3 mushrooms.

Categories
Pasta, Noodles, and Dumplings The Book

147. Butternut Squash, Sage, and Goat Cheese Ravioli with Hazlenut-Brown Butter Sauce p.236


The recipe

This dish was my contender in our ongoing series of food battles. They faced off against my dining companion’s lovely beet and ricotta stuffed ravioli, which turned a vibrant fuchsia as they cooked. As is always the case with these battles, we both think we’ve won, because we’ve chosen recipes that suit our moods that night. The only way to solve this is to get an outside expert to come eat with us. My sister loves the idea of judging my food, but she doesn’t eat red meat, which limits her judging potential. This battle was completely meat free, and we just forgot to invite her. She brings it up every time I see her, and I don’t think she’ll forgive me ’till I show up on her doorstep with a ravioli sampler platter.

The ravioli came together easily. You start by roasting a butternut squash, scooping it out, and mashing the flesh. You then brown onion in butter with sage salt and pepper, and mix it into the squash, along with some of the oldest, hardest, and stinkiest goat cheese you can get your hands on. The squash is then distributed among 60 wonton wrappers, and sealed up. You can do all of this ahead, and refrigerate the ravioli ’till dinner time. While the water for the ravioli is coming to a boil, you brown butter with chopped toasted hazelnuts. The ravioli are boiled for a few minutes, and served with the hazelnut-brown butter drizzled on top.

I cheated with this recipe. I decided to do about five times more work than The Book called for, and made my own pasta for the ravioli. Wonton wrappers are just fine, and work quite well for ravioli, but I really prefer fresh pasta for applications like this. The texture is just that much more appealing, and in theory you have much more control of the shape (in practice some of those shapes are a little wonky). Making pasta is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, and the rolling is exceedingly satisfying. The ravioli were very good, and I think that’s in part due to the pasta. I imagine they’d be fairly similar with wonton wrappers though.

These ravioli were really hearty. They were absolutely delicious, and intensely flavourful. In fact they were so flavour packed that I’d only want to eat two or three of them. They would work best as one course in an elaborate dinner. Roasted butternut squash is high on my list of good things in this world, and it has a wonderful affinity for sage and goat cheese. The flavour pairings in this dish are absolutely right, everything is well proportioned, and it tastes rich and luxurious without being overwhelming.

I could have lived without the hazlenut-brown butter sauce. It was nice and all, but I didn’t find it all that necessary. Preparing the hazelnuts was a hassle, they had to be toasted, and then rolled in a cloth to get their skins off. Unfortunately the skins didn’t quite come all the way off, and flecks of skin ended up burning in my butter, adding unattractive black specks, and a bit of a charred flavour. The ravioli were certainly rich enough without adding nuts, and it was possibly one flavour too many. A little brown butter would have been a nice accompaniment, but the hazelnuts were overkill.

I was very well pleased with my entry to Battle: Ravioli. I’d absolutely make these again, and I’d probably make a double batch just to stash some in the freezer.

Categories
The Book Vegetables

146. Sweet Potato Parsnip Purée p.584


The recipe

This dish seemed like a winner, but ended up a real disappointment. I’m a fan of sweet potatoes, and I adore parsnips, so what could possibly go wrong? It’s about a simple as a recipe can get, you just simmer chunks of sweet potato and parsnip ’till they’re tender, and run them through the food processor with butter, milk, brown sugar, salt, and pepper.

Looking at the recipe I thought the brown sugar would bring out the essence of the sweet potato and highlight some of its deeper flavours. I didn’t worry about extra sugar because the sharp turnipy bite of the parsnip would be there to pull the dish back from the saccharine edge. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The already sweet enough thank-you-very-much potatoes ended up cloying. The parsnips added a hint of a counterpoint, but not nearly enough, they did lend prominent overtones of bark and wood chips though. The recipe called for light brown sugar, which didn’t have enough molasses to do much for the flavour.

Probably the worst part of the recipe was the texture. The time in the food processor reduced this to a gummy coating paste. Every bite left me with the feeling of peanut butter glued to the roof of my mouth. I made the mistake of leaving some of the dishes for the morning, and the gunk in the food processor set up into a form of organic concrete. Add the weird, almost yellow, kinda orange, but definitely neon colour palate of this dish, and I was ready to be done with it.

I had half my portion on the night we made it, and tried to get through a bit more over the next couple days. Eventually I gave up and let it moulder in the fridge ’till I could throw it out in good conscience. Oddly, the Epicurious reviews for this recipe are fairly positive, so maybe I’m missing something. Mashed sweet potatoes are wonderful things, but from now on I’ll roast my parsnips and serve them along side.

Categories
Beef, Veal, Pork, and Lamb The Book

145. Cider Braised Pork Shoulder with Caramelized Onions p.476


The recipe

I love to braise. It’s almost worth suffering through the interminable and bitter winter of Montreal to do it. Of course you could braise all year round if you really wanted to, but somehow simmering meat for hours in the middle of July just doesn’t sound like a good idea. Braised meats are delicious, so I’ve tried letting someone in the kitchen at a restaurant suffer through the heat, and ordered it. Unfortunately it’s just too heavy to be enjoyable, and the process of doing it myself is one of my favourite parts. You really need a miserably blustery day to truly appreciate the joys of a good braise. I love the side benefits of the whole house smelling wonderful for a day, and the comforting knowledge that dinner is getting itself ready, and the more you ignore it the better it will be. With our oil heating, leaving the stove on is also a pretty economical way to heat the house.

You can’t beat a braise for thrift either. You can keep your precious tenderloins, give me the gnarliest, toughest, and cheapest cut of meat you can find, and it will turn to gold after a few hours with Le Creuset. It’s amazing to see this awful slab of meat transformed. The fat renders, and gets skimmed away, the connective tissue dissolves and become that elixir of mouth-feel, gelatin, and even the toughest cuts yeild to a fork. Those braising bits have so much more flavour than the quick searing cuts of meat, it just takes a little time to coax it out.

This recipe starts with a skin-on picnic ham. You score the skin, and insert cloves of garlic into the meat, add salt and pepper, and then brown it thoroughly in a heavy pot (cast iron is your friend). Once the meat is browned, you remove it, and sauté a whole whack of onions in the pot. When the onions turn golden, you add unfiltered apple cider, and the meat back to the pot. Then you seal it up, stick it in a 325 oven, and walk away for the next three hours or so. When you’re ready to serve, you remove the meat, and reduce the braising liquid to two cups. If the lid of your pot doesn’t have an extremely tight seal this will have happened naturally.

You can serve the pork right away, but it’ll taste better if you let it cool in the braising liquid, refrigerate it overnight, and then serve it for dinner the following day. This also makes defatting the sauce easy. The recipe doesn’t call for it, but I think it’s a necessary step. There’s a huge amount of fat on a pork shoulder, and most of it melts into the sauce. Even if you don’t have time to cool it it’s worth letting the liquid sit, and skimming part of the fat away. That’s one of the recipe’s biggest weaknesses. I defatted my sauce, but I don’t think I would have enjoyed it nearly as much if I’d followed the recipe exactly.

Recipes are never very specific about how much you should brown meat for a braise. Older books spout that nonsense about sealing in flavour, but really you’re building flavour. The darker the meat gets, without burning, the more flavourful your braise will turn out. There’s nothing at all wrong with your browned meat looking more than a little black, just avoid billowing clouds of smoke.

Braised pork shoulders are always good, it’s nearly impossible to mess a recipe like this up. This particular braise was minimalist, with just a few ingredients. I think it could have easily accommodated another flavour, a sprig of thyme would have done wonders. It was also a little unbalanced, both the onions and the cider were very sweet, and a little vinegar would have been welcome. The texture was excellent, succulent and falling apart, with a thick hearty sauce to go along with he meat. It made quite a nice dinner, but it was an outrageously good sandwich the following day.

The recipe’s biggest weakness was the skipping of the defatting step, other than that I have only minor quibbles. If you’re OK with sweeter meat dishes, leave it as is, if not go with some cider vinegar. I’d add herbs depending on my mood, it’s very nice even without them. If you don’t braise a lot, this recipe is certainly worth trying. And, if not this recipe, then some recipe, get out there and eat low on the hog.

Categories
Breakfast and Brunch The Book

144. Coffee Coffee Cake with Espresso Glaze p.644


The recipe

I brought this cake to a brunch at a friend’s last spring. I’m going to have a difficult time giving it a fair rating, because I had horrible seasonal allergies and couldn’t taste anything. I barely remember the brunch, and had to leave after about an hour. My head was so muddled that I’d forgotten my camera, and had to borrow the hosts. He sent me the photos recently, and I’ve been trying to piece this dish back together. The recipe is found in the Breakfast and Brunch section, but it could certainly work for a dinner party.

I should say to anyone reading this that actually attended the brunch, that even though I was feeling awful and sneezing with abandon, I was scrupulous about leaving the room to sneeze, and washing my hands thoroughly before touching your food. I really hate to cook when I’m sick, and definitely worry about contaminating people. I’m not sure how paranoid that actually is though. People who work in restaurants go to work sick all the time, it’s not something we like to think about, but it’s true. If Anthony Bourdain is to be believed they also go to work high, blood splattered, and vomiting, and we’re generally all right. I have a lot of faith in the awesomeness of the human immune system, and the abilities of heat to kill off the nasty stuff that’s gotten into our food. That doesn’t mean I’m willing to take a chance with someone else’s health though.

The recipe followed a fairly standard cake method, mix the dry ingredients, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, in a bowl, then cream butter and sugar in another bowl, add eggs, and vanilla. Then, add the dry ingredients, and sour cream, in alternate batches to the wet ingredients. You then separate 1/3 of the mixture, and add barely dissolved instant espresso to it. You then layer the light and dark batters in a buttered bundt pan and bake for about an hour. Once the cake is unmolded and cooled, you cover it with an espresso glaze made with instant espresso powder, strong brewed coffee (I used a shot of espresso), and confectioners sugar.

I did eat a piece of this cake, but I have no idea what it tasted like. The bitterness of the coffee was the only flavour that managed to cut through the fuzzy sock coating my tongue. Since it’s from The Book, I’m willing to to out on a limb and say that it was probably too sweet. It had a very appealing texture though, moist, with a big fluffly crumb. My dining companion remembers this cake fondly, and it was well received at the brunch. Most of it had disappeared by the time I crawled home to bed. Since people praised it at the time, and brought it up weeks later, it can’t have been bad. The recipe is found in the Breakfast and Brunch section, but it could certainly work for a dinner party. If I didn’t have so many other recipes to get to, I’d make it again, just to find out what it was really like.

I’ll give it an estimated rating of

Categories
Fish and Shellfish The Book

143. Fried Oysters Rémoulade p.329


The instructions for the oyster’s don’t appear online, but the rémoualde is the same one used in this recipe.

I tried a fried oyster for the first time about six months ago at a very posh restaurant. It was brought out as an unexpected treat between courses, and served with a fiery salsa. It had a crackling exterior that gave way with a burst of the the ocean, and revealed a delicately chewy, and still mostly raw oyster. We ate some wonderful food that night, but I think the impromptu oyster was my favourite part. I was hoping to match that experience with this recipe. In then end I didn’t quite succeed, but it’s a strong base for further experimentation.

For this recipe shucked oysters are dredged in a mixture of milk and egg, then coated with crushed saltine crackers. The oysters are deep fried for a couple of minutes, and served on their shells and topped with a rémoulade. The rémoulade is a simple mixture of mayonnaise, mustard, tomato paste, minced shallot, dill pickles, and scallion, with a dash of Worchestershire sauce, old bay seasoning, minced parsley, sugar, red wine vinegar, and a pinch of cayenne.

The rémoulade is absolutely excellent, and I’ll hear no word against it. It draws in a broad spectrum of ingredients, and covers its bases. It’s creamy, acidic, herbaceous, arromatic, and just a little bit spicy. It would be an ideal counterpoint to many simply flavoured seafood dishes. The use of Old Bay seasoning was intriguing. The Book doesn’t often call for prepared spices, particularly not a proprietary blend like Old Bay. I’d never tried the stuff before, and never seen it in stores here. Alton Brown is apparently in love with it, and I’d been interested to find out what the fuss was about. I was lucky to be cooking at my parent’s place, as it turned out my mother had a container in her pantry. Speculating on how old it was, would have been looking a gift horse in the mouth. I wasn’t blown away by Old Bay, but it certainly wasn’t bad. I was expecting it to be like those flavoured salts Food Network stars like to sell, but it seems to be more of an herb and spice blend. It was a worthwhile experience, but I’m not sure I’ll add it as a pantry staple.

The oysters in this recipe had some problems. I heated the oil to 375, and began the frying process. The recipe says they should cook for one-and-a-half to two minutes, but after about 45 seconds they were getting quite dark. By the time I got the oysters out they were much closer to mahogany than golden. The previous oyster recipe called for large oysters, so it was my fault when they overcooked, this one just calls for oysters in general. We have no way of knowing what size of oysters they tested this recipe on, but they must have been larger than mine. When there’s such wild variation in the sizes and cooking times of oysters, it’s pretty bad form not to give some indication of how that will affect the recipe. My oysters came out overcooked on the outside, which wasn’t a big deal, but they were cooked all the way through and mostly dried out on the inside. The fine texture of the oyster was lost, and replaced by chewiness. They still had good flavour, and the coating was nicely crisp. I’d certainly try oysters like this again, but I’d be sure to get them out of the oil significantly earlier.

These would work well at a cocktail party, or as a first course. The book suggests that they could be a main course as well, but I think they were a bit too rich to make a meal of. This recipe had its problems, but overall they were very enjoyable. With a little tweaking of the oysters and cooking time I think they could have been fantastic.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

142. Oysters Rockefeller p.52


This recipe from Epicurious is similar to The Book’s version, but the linked recipe has slightly different proportions, and makes twice as much topping. I didn’t read the recipe very thoroughly, and used little Malpeque oysters for the recipe, instead of the “large” oysters the recipe called for, so I had more than enough topping.

We used to get Oysters Rockefeller about once a year as children. My parents would pick up a case of Oysters for themselves, or get a few cases and invite friends over for an oyster party. Us kids were totally grossed out by raw oysters, and dared one another to try slurping them. Inevitably one of us would take the bet, and then gag on the slippery salty oyster, and spit it into the sink. My parents quickly realized this game was a waste of precious oysters, and started making Oysters Rockefeller for us, which we devoured. As I grew up I came around on the raw oyster, and ended up preferring them raw with just a little squeeze of lemon juice, or a dash of hot sauce.

During my late teens and early twenties I was a volunteer firefighter, and our department had an oyster and beer bash every fall. Mostly people came to the party to shuck and slurp raw oysters at long tables all night long, but we prepared oyster soup and oysters Rockefeller too. I would spend the afternoon shucking oysters and saving the prettiest shells. I never got the department’s recipe, but they did an especially fine version of the oyster Rockefeller. Even though I prefer my oysters without adulterations, I certainly wouldn’t say no to one.

Unfortunately this recipe doesn’t live up to either my Mother’s or the department’s version. Using the wrong oysters threw the whole recipe out of whack, but I don’t think that’s the whole story. You start by making a mixture of chopped Boston lettuce, baby spinach, scallions, parsley, celery, garlic, and bread crumbs. You then wilt this mixture in a skillet with butter, and add Pernod, anchovy paste, cayenne, salt, and pepper. The mixture is allowed to cool, while you crisp and crumble some bacon. You then add an oyster and some of it’s liquor to a cleaned oyster shell, top with some of the vegetable mixture, bacon, and more bread crumbs. The oysters then get stabilized on a bed of salt crystals, and go into a 450 oven for 16 – 18 minutes.

My main criticism of the recipe is that there were way too many bread crumbs. The crumbs soaked up all of the oyster liquor, and overwhelmed the oysters with their sandy texture. Even if I’d used gigantic Pacific oysters that would have been a problem. Using the smaller oysters also meant that they were overcooked and dry by the time the the tops were browned. Unfortunately my little oysters got completely lost under a mountain of spinach and bread crumbs. I could almost detect a hint of the sea in this dish, and I thought I found the oyster in a couple of them, but it could have been a clump of bread crumbs. Given the excess of topping, I was surprised at the lack of bacon, you could easily have doubled it without going overboard.

Done right, oysters Rockefeller have a just barely set oyster, with a good deal of liquor left at the bottom, and a flavourful crunchy topping. They can compliment and accentuate the oyster, leaving it as the star of the show. My oysters were, dry, didn’t taste like oysters, and didn’t even try to compensate with bacon. It’s hard to give the recipe a fair rating, because I messed things up. I’m sure that the topping had too little bacon, and too many bread crumbs, I would have liked the anise flavour of the Pernod to come through a little more clearly as well. My final product didn’t taste too bad, but I would have saved an hour, and enjoyed myself more if I’d just slurped the oysters raw.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

141. Roasted Red Pepper and Eggplant Dip p.10


The recipe

I served this dip along with the tapenade from the other day, and was similarly underwhelmed. This dip had a bland, mushy flavour, that didn’t really do much for anyone. I mentioned that the tapenade was overpowering, and this helped thin it out. Unfortunately, “dilutes tapenade” is one of the better things I have to say about this dip.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with the ingredient list here. You could probably make a fine dip with eggplant, red pepper, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, jalapeño, salt, and pepper. Unfortunately the cooking instructions sabotage the goodness of these ingredients. Basically you roast eggplant and red peppers, remove the skins, and purée the flesh with the rest of the ingredients. You then transfer the purée back to the stove top, and simmer it for another 20 odd minutes to get rid of excess water.

Roasting the eggplant and red peppers sounds like a good idea to me, but the recipe falls apart from there on. You end up taking all of these pungent aromatic ingredients, garlic, lemon juice, jalapeño, and extra-virgin olive oil and killing them by simmering them. Raw garlic and chiles work wonderfully in dips, and I don’t see any need to cook them at all. If you want to mellow the harsh edges, then consider building extra flavours by roasting the garlic cloves, or at least mincing and browning in oil. Garlic cooked with wet methods takes on an unpleasant kind of metallic taste, and gives up the sharp potency and fruitiness of it’s raw form. The jalapeño would similarly benefit from some dry heat to bring out the smokiness. Cooking extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice is just insanity, uncooked they’re complex and full of layers and interest. Heat them beyond a certain point, and the lemon juice is just an acid, and your nuanced grassy, fruity, olive oil becomes indistinguishable from canola.

What kills me about this recipe is that the murder of all those flavours is totally unnecessary. You could easily make a purée of just the eggplant and red peppers, simmer that, and then add the rest of the ingredients. The texture was one of the highlights of the dip though, smooth, silky, and nicely emulsified, so it’s probably worth getting rid of at least some excess water.

The recipe says that the dip needs to come together in the refrigerator for at least a day. I served it about 6 hours after making it, and was disappointed by it’s blandness and lack of personality. I figured it just needed to rest longer, but it was still going nowhere and doing nothing for me by the second day. I eventually got rid of the leftovers by integrating them into a pizza sauce.

I should say that my dining companion liked this dip, and enjoyed that it mostly tasted like eggplant and red pepper, with a mild background of other flavours. I’m definitely biased towards big bold flavours in a dip, and I missed them. Subtle dips can stray too easily over into baby-food territory, which is not for me. The Epicurious reviews suggest that this is a love it or hate it recipe, so our disagreement isn’t unusual. This recipe has the makings of a nice dip, but at least to my palate it was a failure.

Categories
Sauces and Salsas The Book

140. Tapenade p.890


No recipe is online for this one.

I’m never sure what to do with tapenade. I like it, but it’s far too salty to eat all on its own. I’ve used it as an accompaniment to grilled meats and fish, served it with cheese, spread it on sandwiches, or used it as an accent to hummus, but I’m never quite satisfied. It’s been OK the couple of times dishes have called for it, but it’s rarely something I would seek out. That’s kind of odd because I love olives and eat them often. Most of the time, I’d rather just eat an olive than spread tapenade on something. Way back in the beginning of the project I wrote about the Olive and Eggplant Spread, which is like a tapenade, but cut with roasted eggplant. That was thoroughly enjoyable, and mild enough to eat without any accompaniment.

Although I’m not sure what to use it for, this tapenade was pretty good. The recipe is short and sweet, blend Kalamata olives, garlic, and capers, then add olive oil in a slow stream ’till it’s smooth. The recipe calls for pitted olives, but I’m biased against them. Maybe it’s just me being superstitious, but I feel like pitted olives are often of lower quality than the whole ones. Whether or not there’s any basis to that, but I almost always buy whole olives and pit them myself.

This tapenade was all about bold flavours working together. The olives, garlic, and capers have very strong and distinctive flavours, but they’re tied together by the fruity floral undertones they share. If any one of those flavours had been missing the dish would have fallen apart. Unfortunately this tapenade was insanely salty, all tapenades are salty, but this went further. It could have been my olives, but more than likely it was the capers. I really enjoyed the extra flavour the capers brought to the tapenade, but it would have been nice if they’d come without the salt. It’s one of the things that bothers me about tapenade in general. The things is tastes best with, often tend to be salty themselves, and that can push the salt quotient past pleasure into revulsion.

On the day I made this I served it with hummus, cheese, and a few other dips. It was fine, and people ate a fair amount of it, but it wasn’t the star of the show by any means. I used a bit of the leftovers with some grilled chicken, but left most of it on my plate. The rest mouldered in the fridge ’till we had to throw it out. Other than the salt there was absolutely nothing wrong with this tapenade, and a lot of things right about it. But, it just didn’t appeal to me all that much.