Random Thoughts

Just four (?) posts to go! So that’s eight dishes and four books.

The first dish of the day is the mains, because it turns out that the starter takes four days! Who knew! Not me! I never read these recipes before I start to cook; I just get the ingredients and hope for the best.

“Oops.”

So they mains is… veal? VEAL?! Isn’t that supposed to be all evil and stuff? What is veal anyway? I’ve never actually looked that up… is it Bambi? Young Bambi before his/her mother was killed? Or is that… venison? Veal? Venison?

*duckduckgo*

Oh, it’s a young cow.

Possibly male. (Well, not the one in the GIF.)

I think I knew that, but I blanked.

So off to the butcher, because somehow the local grocery store doesn’t have any young cow meat, but the butcher was all like “YES WHAT CUT WE”VE GOT ALL THE PIECES OF THE ANIMAL” and I was like “it’s… sirloin? in English?” and then he googled it and I got this:

It’s all meat to me.

So I cut it in big chunks…

And then into a skillet with some hot olive oil.

Do you know that olive oil is quite violent? You heat it up and it goes BANG POW COMICS AREN”T FOR CHILDREN ANY MORE no that’s a different thing, but it sprays all over the kitchen when you’re cooking with it over high heat, which this is supposed to be.

But! Technology to the rescue! I got this like a year? ago:

It’s quite efficient.

It’s like a netting thing you put over the pan. It allows all the steam to escape (so you don’t end up boiling stuff you want to broil), but it catches like 87% of the grease that’s trying its best to sear your naked arms.

Or perhaps that’s just me, and that’s why chefs wear long-sleeved uniforms?

IT COULD BE

Anyway, less ouch.

So I sear the young cow (or ox; the butcher didn’t specify the identity) hard, in batches, to get it all Maillarded in the reactions. I mean, browned.

Then an onion into the pan for a few minutes…

… and then all the herbs and a tomato. Tomatoe? Was that what Dan Quayle used to write on blackboards to teach children? Potatoe or tomatoe? I forget. The 90s were a long time ago and god don’t we all wish we were back in the 90s?

*sigh*

OK, so that simmers for… TWO FUCKING HOURS.

I should really read these recipes before starting to cook, because now I’m famished.

So the next ingredient are carrots, which makes sense based on the name of the dish (“aux Carottes”). But man! These carrots! Is it the corona? Because I have never ever in my life bought carrots in a shop that’s as fresh as these. They smell and taste like they just came out of the earth!

While cutting these up I couldn’t stop snacking! They’re the best carrots ever! The aroma… man! I didn’t know that store-bought carrots could be this good!

Anyway, I stopped eating (the two hours waiting for the young cow (or ox) to finish simmering may have influenced my snacking here) before I there were no carrots left, and I dumped the rest into the skillet.

And then that cooks for 45 minutes.

*sigh*

Well, I have a couple more carrots to snack on…

“By this point, the carrots will have absorbed much of the sauce.”

I thought that sounded very weird, because carrots are very compact and mostly just water… there’s no structure there to absorb anything? And so it turned out: Nothing was absorbed.

I boiled a couple of potato… e? … s to go with the meat (and carrots).

Hm… well, all the meaty stews I’ve cooked from this book have been failures, I think?

The meat here (the dead calf) is really, really tender. You don’t need a knife to eat this; it just falls apart in the best way with just a fork. But… it’s dry. If you heap on a lot of sauce, it’s less dry, but, still, the meat is just dry.

But kinda tasty?

But there’s something offputting about the sauce… it’s got like a … wrongness to it. I mean, I finished that plate; it wasn’t horrible, but there’s something off. I have no idea what.

This is the same complaint I had about the previous thing I made. So perhaps my dried herbs just suck? It had a lot of dried herbs, too. OK, I’m dumping all my dried herbs and getting new, more fabulous dried herbs.

[ESTIMATED LIKELIHOOD OF THIS MAKING A DIFFERENCE: THE COMPUTER SAYS 0.2.]

But there’s a book, too:

Today’s book is a short story collection by Tove Jansson, Brev från Klara. (She was Finnish but wrote in Swedish.) She is, of course, famous for her Moomin books (and comics), but she also wrote a handful of books for adults. They have mostly remained out of print for decades, but somebody finally (in 2017) got their shit together and issued new editions of them all. Yay!

Let’s read the first three pages together:

OK, the first one epistolary, and sort of gives you a clue as to what the woman writing the letter’s like, but it’s a pretty vague sketch. It’s fascinating, though.

The rest of the book mostly consist of very short short stories: Between three and twelve pages long. This means that most of the stories are just a snippet from a single scene, but they’re all… very enjoyable.

Or perhaps that’s the wrong word: In every story, everything is at stake. The stories are gripping, mysterious, and yet straightforward and plain.

Wonderful storytelling, and I’m now definitely buying the rest of her books that I haven’t read yet.

And now on to the starter:

It’s… herring? It’s herring.

Now, I’ve got a … I’ve got an odd relationship to herring. As a child, it was something that was served a lot as a mains: Grilled (or braised) herring. It’s lovely! Delicious! But I never make it myself, because it’s kinda whiffy, and I’m guessing that’s why restaurants shy away from doing it, too. Or perhaps people just don’t like grilled herring: It’s got a lot of itsy bitsy bones you gotta be careful about, and if you don’t have the right technique, it takes a lot of time to deal with it.

But on the other hand: Pickled herring is a huge thing in Scandinavia — I think you can get like 20 different kinds in normal shops here. But I don’t like cold herring! It’s just something about the texture and the … cold fat? So I haven’t tried any for a few decades.

So here I’m picking some herring. As a basis I’m using a … pickled herring, but I tried to choose one that sounded like it had as few additives as possible. This one was just salted.

So there’s these things, all cut in rounds…

And then the herring fillets…

… which I cut into more manageable sizes.

And then it’s all layered into a box.

Finished off with lemons on top, and then peanut (!) oil to cover it all.

I’m kinda dreading how this all will turn out, but it’s then into the fridge for two to four days. I think I’ll have a taste after a couple of days.

I’m hoping I’m not ending up in one of these situations:

We’ll see!

[time passes]

So after three days I’m unpickling this… And there’s no horrible stench rising from the box, so that’s a positive.

So I’m serving this with some boiled small new potatoes.

Hm… It’s one of those flavours where I’m going “well, I’m not hating this”… But I’m not loving it, either. The onions go well with the herring, but perhaps the carrots should have been blanched a bit first? They’re extremely crunchy.

But the potatoes were awesome. Excellent tots.

I did finish the plate, but I wasn’t tempted to go back for more, so I say that’s a semi-win.

This blog post is part of the Bistro
Cooking & Books series.

It’s a new week, so it’s another couple of Patricia Wells recipes and a new book.

OK, for the starter this week, I’m doing this… terrine? Tell me you’re reading this recipe the same way I’m reading it: It’s a bunch of boiled leeks? (Leek? What’s the plural? One leek, two leek… probably with an s… I could look it up but that’s work.) And then pressed into a square for half a day in the fridge? And then served with a vinaigrette and truffles?

Like…

Wat.

Shouldn’t there be like more stuff in a terrine than 1) leek and 2) nothing else?

WELL OK

So here’s the ingredients.

The exciting thing about this recipe (for me), other than its risible simplicity, is that it has truffles! I’ve never even bought a truffle before! So I went to the delicatessen and asked “do… you have truffles?” And she said “Yes! We had two yesterday!” and there was one left, and I got it?

It’s not a thing commonly used in Norwegian er cuisine.

I guess it’s in a little box with rice? To keep it dry?

Well OK.

So I’ve trimmed the leeks…

… and then into well-salted water for ten minutes.

I bought that 35cm (that’s 13 inches for you non-metric people) pot a couple of years ago, because I was fed up with having to bend spaghetti down into a smaller pot. THE INSANITY MUST STOP!!! I thought, so I got this thing, and I’m so happy I got it (every time I’m boiling spaghetti): It’s quite low, so I can sample the spaghetti as it’s boiling with just a normal fork…

ANYWAY! It’s also perfect for these leeks, and it’s the first time I found something else to use it for.

And then I let some cold water run over the leeks to chill…

And then into a foil-lined bread form, because that’s the only thing I had that’s square and long. Except my head.

As you can see, I just got four leeks, while the recipe calls for twelve of them, because… I don’t want to be eating leeks for the next nine weeks.

All bundled up, and then into the fridge for the next day.

So while that’s resting, let’s pick a book… not many to choose from; just a couple to go now.

The book of the er day is Christianna Brand’s Tour de Force. I first became aware of her last year when I watched Green for Danger, which is a very witty movie based on one of her books. It was so witty that I bought three of her books immediately, and read one of them. It was very witty indeed.

So here’s another one. Let’s read the first three pages together:

This is very witty!

I love how Brand dumps us into a classic mystery setup — a group of people (who do not know each other) on a tourist trip abroad. She quickly pencils in the different personalities: We have a gay clothes designer; a very witty novelist (gotta have one of those); a grouchy policeman (can’t do without); and a bunch of others — presumably one of these others will then be killed off, and the mystery can start.

So we’re not talking Huge Original Masterpiece here, but I find Brand’s style of writing here irresistible. There’s such an exuberance to it: I can picture Brand cackling maniacally behind her (presumed) mechanical typewriter with every clever turn of phrase and bouncing up and down on her chair when introducing a mid-paragraph twist.

Brand isn’t one for killing off her darlings. She’s more likely to pat them on their heads and then send them off to the Riviera.

She does love leading the reader up the garden path. She almost tends towards the oblique, and you have to pay attention to her longer-than-usual-for-this-sort-of-stuff sentences, but she always reins it in and lands it successfully.

This book is simply!

There’s even a map! It’s perfect!

OK, I’m definitely buying all of her books now. There’s unfortunately less than a couple dozen, apparently, and most of them are out of print. It’s a disgrace.

But what’s for the main course?

It’s a terrine! With a lot of ingredients! I like that. I mean, whenever I see a long list of ingredients, I’m like “whee this is gonna be fun”.

But it turns out that most of the ingredients are herbs. Dried herbs at that, so I basically had most of the ingredients already. And I got to use the summer savory, which I got from the UK a couple of months ago. It’s not a herb used much here…

And this recipe has white wine, port wine, and cognac. Gotta be awesome!

The recipe specifies ground pork neck and pork liver… and I couldn’t find pork liver at the delicatessen, so it’s just ground pork meat.

And… I forgot to buy shallots, so I substituted these tiny onions I had instead. And one shallot.

Hey! Chopping onions in a FUD professor is really efficient.

So that’s stirred into the group meat…

And then I had to open the port wine. I bought a nice port today, and… THE CORK DISINTEGRATED WHILE OPENING!!!1!

Well, I managed to get the port out, and it didn’t taste awful (it tasted very nice indeed), so I decided to use it.

Some of the spices need to be ground, so I used the Kenwood spice grinder attachment.

It worked!

That’s a lot of spices and herbs. I think there’s… eight? And plenty of every one?

So that’s all mixed.

Here’s another thing I’ve never cooked with before: Lardo. (Or fatback, as Patricia Wells calls it.)

It’s fat, dude.

Fat.

So I line the bottom of the pan with the lardo… Wells specified a square pan, but I didn’t have one of the requisite size.

And then the meat’n’spice thing patted down…

… and then bacon on top.

Wells specified “caul fat”, which sounds just gruesome, so I didn’t even try to find out what it’s called here. But she mentioned that “mild bacon” would be a substitute, so I ordered some non-smoked, fat bacon… and when it was delivered, it was smoked, very non-fat bacon.

I”M NOT COMPLAINING:

HONEST! I”D NEVER! I”M JUST EXPLAINING!!1!

Anyway, it turns out that this is a meat loaf? I’ve never made meat loaf before, so I was somewhat surprised that this is what I’m ending up with, because it sounds better in French! Anyway, so it’s in the oven, in a pan filled with water.

Wow, that’s blurry. What did the camera focus on?

The recipe said two to two and a half hours; it’s done when, as Wells puts it, when you stick a knife in it for 30 seconds, and when you pull it out, the blade is warm.

I though that sounded kinda unnecessarily vague, so I googled it, and google says 70C.

So I stuck a thermometer into it after an hour… and it’s already 80C!!! GAH! It’s like making a half-size recipe makes it cook in half the time! WHO KNEW!

I verified with another thermometer.

It’s done. But is it over-done?

Oops! The recipe specifies that it’s supposed to rest in the fridge for at least a day. BUT I”M HUNGRY NOW.

I should really read these recipes before I start cooking instead of just the list of ingredients…

So since the end of this cookery came kinda fast, I didn’t have time to make any salad or anything, so I’m just eating it hot with some bread.

Hm…

The first few bites I thought were delicious. But then … all the different herbs and spices just kinda seemed to be… less complex than just confusing? It’s all these vague flavours without anything that stands out.

But it wasn’t overly dry or anything… So I didn’t totally ruin it, I guess?

I preferred the bread and the butter to the meat loaf, and that’s not a good thing.

So that’s what’s left after I finished eating, so I continue with the recipe, which is to let it chill while being compressed.

Is this compressed enough? When it’s cool enough, I’ll pop it into the fridge and then see what it tastes like tomorrow.

[two days pass]

So I’m eating the leeks first, so I have to make a vinaigrette. It’s just lemon juice and oil and salt & pepper. And truffle shavings.

Hm… er… what is this? This is the truffle I bought, but all the truffles I’ve had in restaurants have been black inside? Is this a white truffle? It’s also got a very … grainy texture…

But I snacked a bit, and it does taste like truffle. Only a lot less. Hm.

So that’s the vinaigrette…

So the leeks are out of the fridge, and I’m cutting.

That’s a long name for a very simple dish! You can’t even see it under all that text…

So here it is without the text.

Hm… Well, if I got this as a starter in a restaurant, I wouldn’t be mad. The leeks have developed a fuller flavour, and taste like… asparagus? It’s kinda towards asparagus territory. And the vinaigrette and the truffles do add something.

I like it. But it’s not like OH WOW I CAN”T BELIEVE IT; it’s more like “yes this is a starter and I’m not disappointed”.

(Yes, I’m typing this after drinking a bottle of wine. Whee!)

But I’m wondering what that truffle thing is…

“Tuber aestivum Vittad”.

That’s it:

The flavor, size and color of summer truffles (Italian: tartufo estivo) is similar to that of burgundy truffles, but their aroma is less intense and the flesh (gleba) is a paler hazel color.

OK, so the ones I’ve had in restaurants have must have been burgundy truffles, I guess.

“Less intense” is an understatement. At least for this one truffle I have: It does smell like a truffle, but it’s very subtle.

OK!

Onto the meaty terrine:

Yeah, that totally looks appetising.

NOT!

So I cut a bit…

And here it is on the plate.

Well… The texture is quite nice; very terriney. But the flavours are still the same; haven’t developed much over the two days in the fridge. That is, the spices are still kinda off-putting. When I’m taking a bite, I’m thinking “there’s at least a couple of flavours here that shouldn’t be here”.

Could some of my dried spices have gone off and gone bad? Is that even possible? Herbs usually just taste less instead of bad…

Oh, well. It was fun to make.

This blog post is part of the Bistro
Cooking & Books series.