edibleunknown
nobody loves you like we do
Ingredients:
Disclaimer: The below contains cynicism. If you think this is a kind of disease, I suggest you go beat yourself over the head with an iron.
It was Indian night, and I've never so much as had a curry.
Nevertheless, I had a great evil plan in the works: I was going to cook Indian food pretty much the same way as I cook all food, by sort of looking at a recipe on the internet and then adapting it for my own evil purposes. I was going to do this because I had zero idea what kind of spices I was going to be using, what the end result was supposed to be, and whether or not what I cooked could be considered as poison in the right jurisdictions.
The recipe starts with a cup of masoor daal, which the internet tells me is some magical, rare variety of lentil. Since I wasn't about to go on a Fancy Steve style treasure hunt just to find a lentil that probably tastes exactly the same as normal lentils, I used mealworms. Okay. Fine. I used lentils. But if the original dish was supposed to be all squirmy, everybody was going to be totally disappointed.
The instructions were to wash the lentils. I sighed heavily and hoped somebody would notice how I was pretty much martyring myself just so I could cook food invented by people who don't even eat prime rib. Unfortunately, there really wasn't anybody paying attention to me, not even me, so I finally gave up and washed the lentils. The tremendous sacrifices I make for these parties, right?
The next instructions from the supreme commander, aka The Interwebtubes, was to mix the lentils with water, cooking oil, turmeric, red chili powder, salt, onion, and tomato in some sort of pot. Whoa. That's a lot to process all at once. I'd be posting the amount of the ingredients here, but I wasn't really paying attention anyways. I finely chopped a massive onion and three tomatoes (I was making a triple-size recipe, for the gathering) and added these to the pot. Turmeric? I had that, because everything indian ever apparently needs it. For those of you wondering, it tastes yellow. The mexitexans probably say it tastes amarillo, which is a gay Texan way to say yellow. And what's this "red chili powder"? I judiciously decided this meant both red pepper and chili powder, both of which I have, because I am a man. So I dumped a lot of those in there.
Basically, after that point, I let everything cook for an hour and a half. Then I went and played video games. When the smoke alarm went off, I looked for a save point, saved my totally awesome robot ninja, and then went back to the kitchen. I was supposed to melt some ghee, which is Indian for "butter of the gods". I am not kidding. It smelled like delicious, and it comes in what looks like a Folger's can. After it was melted, I threw in some cumin seeds ("Hiss," said the seeds). In went a gallon of garlic and a metric buttload of dried chilies, which I crushed in my hands like beer cans. After everything smelled fried enough, I threw it into the lentils, mixed them all up, and was done with it.
I should mention that I was supposed to add something called asafoetida, which kills unborn babies, smells horrible, and attracts wolves. Since I know some unborn babies and not many wolves, I was going to add it, but that would have involved wandering around the smelly part of the international market, so I refrained. Instead I added saffron, which is expensive, in the hopes that it would make all the food taste like magic. Instead, it made everything smell like flowers.
Okay, I gave it a taste. But after I spit that out and gargled with bleach, I figured everything was alright. I put it in a bowl, drove over to Fancy's, and pre-dialed the ambulance.
Little did I know what was going to happen when we broke open the two bags of Fresh Express: BLT Caesar salad we had sitting in the fridge, awaiting a special moment such as 'not knowing what to cook for dinner'.
The little packets are nigh impossible to open; using the combined powers of my fork and teeth I managed to sever the ironclad baggie of sundried tomatoes, which have to be the most potent and wonderful tomato flavor I have ever purchased; the little baggie of real, cooked bacon bits, which smelled kind of like human waste but tasted pretty fantastic overall; the parmesan-romano-asiago packet; and the caesar dressing. Overall, it was pretty darn fantastic for what I expected to come from a bagged salad. I wouldn't mind eating it regularly. But do yourself a favor and do not open the bacon bits with your teeth, or bring the baggie close to your face after it is opened.
There was a recipe in the Kraft Food & Family magazine for pulled pork sandwiches. That gave us the idea for making our own, except by doing it without going to the store at all.
Barbecue sauce was the first part of the equation, and it's so easy to make that I make it every other weekend or so. I do cheat a little by using ketchup, but only because the tomato paste and vinegar and seasonings I'd be using would essentially be making ketchup in the first place.
Steps to make barbecue sauce:
By cooking this over medium and tasting it frequently, you can adjust the taste with those ingredients until you get your base sauce at the perfect level between savory and acidic. (I usually do my red pepper at this point too, so I can also adjust for heat).
There are tons of things you can add to this to make your own special barbecue sauce. For our pulled pork, I used Newcastle Brown Ale, cayenne, and onion powder. Because that's how I roll.
The barbecue sauce in this instance went with some pork ribs into a slow cooker for 4 hours, got pulled, and got stirred back in. Tart-head made the hamburger buns, and excellent they were- but you'll have to wait for her update, because I have no idea how she made them.
I wanted to have a sauce ready so I could make burritos, enchiladas, or chili colorado at a moments' notice, so here's what I did:
Got one of those $2 bags of large dried red chiles. The ones I tried tonight were Californian; we've also got some New Mexican ones on backup.
Removed just the stems and tossed them into a blender (I like hot sauces). Blended them into a fine powder (break them in half and blend them in phases).
Added all my powder to a can of diced tomatoes and half a clove of garlic (peeled). Back to the blender, to make a thick slurry.
Melted some butter over the stove (1 stick), added some salt, onion powder, and cornstarch.
Poured the mixture on top, cut heat, added chicken broth and a little soy sauce, and whisked furiously to integrate. Added more cornstarch at this phase.
I ended up with a dark red, slightly hot paste. I can't wait for those enchiladas.
Curse those fancy chefs.
You know who I mean. The ones who sort of offhandedly whip up some crazy roux and serve it with diminished flair by squeezing their thick, colorful pastes from what we suburbanites call ketchup and mustard squeezes. The ones who manage to generate two or three sauces for use on the same plate.
My first few experiments with roux, I have to say, were shameful. Sometimes I generated something blissful; other times, I'd end up with a pot full of flour porridge.
Was it the AP flour? Was it the temperature? Was there too much (or too little) whisk action? Actually, it was part flour and mostly temperature. But enough of that.
I doubt I'll ever be accepted into a French cuisine chat group, let alone hall of fame, but cornstarch is the simple American answer to a difficult task. Sources indicate that cornstarch thickens at low temperatures instead of high ones. Bah, I say. I don't do sauces over high heat anyways, for risk of scorching the butter, and I've never had a cornstarch sauce come out lumpy.
Oh, they say. But the roux. It will be marred by the flavor of cornstarch. Maybe it's because I'm a smoker, or maybe it's because old wives' tales start in the kitchen due to those chauvinistic simpler times- cornstarch sauces taste like whatever I put in them.
The technique: melt a stick of butter, or put in some tomato sauce, or chicken broth, or whatever you want to use as your base. Add cornstarch to your liquid [edit] very slowly, and in small portions. [thanks Savory] Whisk like the devil. Add seasoning. Presto- a sauce that tastes exactly like what you put into it, without lumps, without suffering, and without all that uncertainty that comes from novices attempting roux without the Necronomicons of chef-ery. Which is a word I just made up. Because I am an expert.
Let me tell you- any situation that calls for 'seasoning' is technically a sauce waiting to happen. And if you want to get all fancy and squirt designs all over your plate- well, that's your business, isn't it? Recent dinners here at Edible Unknown Research Center Zero (EURC-0) are simply blossoming with wonderful sauces. Live it. Love it. Accept it. The sauce commands you.
Romano's Macaroni Grill 2001 N Rainbow Blvd Las Vegas, NV 89108
Teleolurian It must have been a busy night.
When we got to the Macaroni Grill, we faced the usual line-out-the-door setting that you get when you decide to go to a popular restaurant on the spur of the moment. Since I wanted to review the food, I decided to forego showing off my crayoned press pass and instead settled in for the half-hour wait.
In recent years, the Grill has gotten quite the menu facelift. Dining here is now more in the vein of classical Italian signature dishes and less of an upscale Olive Garden; however, the prices are still decent, with most dishes in the $10-$20 range.
Upon reaching our table, the server informed us that they were out of bread dishes and wine glasses, finding us some tumblers for drinking the house Red. Luckily, I'm not a bouquet snob, so I used the wine for fuel as I wrote scathing commentary ("she's just using you for your bed") on the paper tablecloth. With a communal bread plate, oil and balsamic vinegar, and an unspoken no-double-dipping rule, we sat around and chatted while our dishes came out.
For me, it was chicken scallopine ($9.49)- a bit heavy, but absolutely superb. The lemon-butter sauce didn't wimp out on the lemons, and the capers were heavily drenched and therefore delicious. Tender was the chicken, and tasty; the leftovers were even rather tender the next day (something you don't get in, say, a country steakhouse).
| Tele's Ratings | |
| Taste | 7/10 |
| Value | 6.5/10 |
| Service | 4.5/10 |
Savory Masochist
Ding dong the traditional dish is dead. Wait. no. I just didn't get one.
After we got our red wine in tumblers and tore off a few chunks of bread, I decided to go with a build-your-own pasta deal. Macaroni Grill offers these little checklists that you insidiously mark as if you were building your own Frankenstein. I decided on a Penne, with Tomato Cream sauce, and Sun Dried Tomatoes, Roasted Red Peppers, Pine Nuts, and Chicken. It was pretty good, although I can't say as I would get it again. It's my own fault really, for just hitting rand when I was looking at the menu. Oh well. The company was good and we hadn't had a date night in near a decade, so it made up for my pasta. After that, we wrote some generally strange things on the table paper, and we were off! to another crazy adventure.
Oh, I would write a longer review, however Tele pegged most of it in his.
| Savory Masochist's Ratings | |
| Taste | 5/10 |
| Value | 7/10 |
| Service | 3.5/10 |
Queen of Tarts
Okay, so when Macaroni Grill opened they had food that was so-so. In recent years the flavors had been stepped up and they redeemed themselves, until...that fateful night. If we offered to do the dishes I think they might have allowed us to do so. They were obviously understaffed being the day after Christmas, but no bread plates and no wine glasses wasn't the end of it. When the SM put in his original order it included artichokes. The waiter had to come back and let us know that they were out of those too. Apparantly not only did we need to do our own dishes, but we needed to go do our own grocery shopping for the ingredients before arriving at the resturaunt. Crazy!
Usually if I am at an Italian place I automatically order manicotti (if its Mexican then it is a bean and cheese burrito enchilada style), but I am trying to branch out a bit. So, on this evening I ordered Chicken Cannelloni (Hand-rolled pasta stuffed with oven-roasted chicken, melted cheese and spinach, then baked in an Asiago cream sauce. Topped with tomato sauce) for $9.99. The dish smelled and looked wonderful. I immediatly dug in and ate one out of the three stuffed pastas. Half way through the second shell I started to wonder "Where is the chicken?" I am a "recovering vegitarian" (as Tele calls it) so it really didn't bother me that I couldn't taste it or find it until I realized I am paying for chicken I can't find. Must find the chicken. So I tore apart the third shell in search for chicken. I eventually found a small sliver of shredded chicken. If this was Iron Chef the plate wouldn't have gotten high marks for the "theme ingredient" being the dominant flavor. Overall the taste of my dish was excellent, but I was dissapointed that with the name Chicken Cannelloni the chicken was not easy to find in the dish.
I have not given up on the Macaroni Grill yet because I must say that there bread rocks (mmm, bread), but I hope to never have the lack of service that we had that night again.
| Queen of Tarts Ratings | |
| Taste | 8/10 |
| Value | 7/10 |
| Service | 4/10 |