Honestly, usually when I cook, it turns out pretty well. I can't think of many *true* failures. But Tuesday was definitely one of them.
But first, let's recap the week in order (so far):
Monday was Cuban Black Bean Soup day. If you love soup and don't have this cookbook, The Daily Soup, I highly recommend you surf on over to Amazon and buy it. I'd made this soup before, so this wasn't really a challenge -- although I did have to make a few Armenia-specific substitutions. For one, the recipe calls for celery which doesn't exist here. So I just used twice as many carrots. I also couldn't find fresh habanero peppers, so I turned to a small plastic jar of dried ones I bought in Mexico in 2006. I used a few extra because I thought they'd be old and weak...nope! Five years later and they're still kicking. Last but not least, I used some homemade beed stock that had exploded out of its Kool Whip container in the freezer the other day rather than distilled water.
The end result was the best pot of Cuban Black Bean Soup I've ever made. (And it was so spicy we had to add rice!)
On Monday I also began my first attempt at yeast bread making. Last week I was inspired by Nick's beer brewing escapades and the spent grain that resulted, so I decided to try to make a no-knead bread. Apparently bread is trickier than I thought because the end result was not what I had in mind:
The recipe clearly stated to make a few loaves "as is" before experimenting, but I decided to make two major alternations right off the bat: the addition of wheat flour (or what I think is wheat flour -- I still am not sure what "gretchka" flour is seeing as how "gretchka" is buckweat) and the addition of spent whole grains. Needless to say, I think I'll be trying again with plain old white flour.
On Tuesday I tried to make another favorite with local ingredients: Vietnamese Beef Noodle Salad. The trickiest aspect of making this dish was finding the right cut of meat. Armenians cuts of beef are a little different, most of the translations to Russian aren't literal, and I don't know enough to eye-ball it, so I usually end up with something close...but not quite. Meat is also relatively expensive -- more expensive than most places in the US, I think. Gas prices are going up and because Armenia has two closed borders, that means food prices are going up too (if it's not local, it has to be trucked in via Georgia or Iran). The result is $10 a kilogram beef. I bought what I thought looked like a flank steak but which ended up tasting like veal. Nick and I spent a while trying to find a translation for the type of cut in every dictionary we have to no avail. Oh well. It looked pretty:
Wednesday I experimented with a new recipe. A few weeks ago I bought some frozen river (or lake) fish pieces at the grocery store and I've been trying to figure out what to do with them. I was planning to make an olive oil sauce but when I looked in the fridge this afternoon I saw that some of my new cilantro and other greens were wilting. A quick search of the food blogs returned this recipe for fish with a cilantro curry. Again, I took some liberties. Instead of using just cilantro, I used cilantro, dill and parsley. Instead of curry I used "Armenian bouquet" (a mix of local spices). And I added some ripe cherry tomatoes. Oh, and I used Armenian river/lake fish :)
The end result was very tasty, even if Nick did end up with the tail piece.
Bacon update: apparently pork belly DOES exist but before I can buy some I also need to procure some curing salt. I'm sure it's here...somewhere...but if I can't find it in the next two weeks, I may look for it in Paris or London later this month.
To be continued...
But first, let's recap the week in order (so far):
Monday was Cuban Black Bean Soup day. If you love soup and don't have this cookbook, The Daily Soup, I highly recommend you surf on over to Amazon and buy it. I'd made this soup before, so this wasn't really a challenge -- although I did have to make a few Armenia-specific substitutions. For one, the recipe calls for celery which doesn't exist here. So I just used twice as many carrots. I also couldn't find fresh habanero peppers, so I turned to a small plastic jar of dried ones I bought in Mexico in 2006. I used a few extra because I thought they'd be old and weak...nope! Five years later and they're still kicking. Last but not least, I used some homemade beed stock that had exploded out of its Kool Whip container in the freezer the other day rather than distilled water.
The end result was the best pot of Cuban Black Bean Soup I've ever made. (And it was so spicy we had to add rice!)
On Monday I also began my first attempt at yeast bread making. Last week I was inspired by Nick's beer brewing escapades and the spent grain that resulted, so I decided to try to make a no-knead bread. Apparently bread is trickier than I thought because the end result was not what I had in mind:
The recipe clearly stated to make a few loaves "as is" before experimenting, but I decided to make two major alternations right off the bat: the addition of wheat flour (or what I think is wheat flour -- I still am not sure what "gretchka" flour is seeing as how "gretchka" is buckweat) and the addition of spent whole grains. Needless to say, I think I'll be trying again with plain old white flour.
On Tuesday I tried to make another favorite with local ingredients: Vietnamese Beef Noodle Salad. The trickiest aspect of making this dish was finding the right cut of meat. Armenians cuts of beef are a little different, most of the translations to Russian aren't literal, and I don't know enough to eye-ball it, so I usually end up with something close...but not quite. Meat is also relatively expensive -- more expensive than most places in the US, I think. Gas prices are going up and because Armenia has two closed borders, that means food prices are going up too (if it's not local, it has to be trucked in via Georgia or Iran). The result is $10 a kilogram beef. I bought what I thought looked like a flank steak but which ended up tasting like veal. Nick and I spent a while trying to find a translation for the type of cut in every dictionary we have to no avail. Oh well. It looked pretty:
Wednesday I experimented with a new recipe. A few weeks ago I bought some frozen river (or lake) fish pieces at the grocery store and I've been trying to figure out what to do with them. I was planning to make an olive oil sauce but when I looked in the fridge this afternoon I saw that some of my new cilantro and other greens were wilting. A quick search of the food blogs returned this recipe for fish with a cilantro curry. Again, I took some liberties. Instead of using just cilantro, I used cilantro, dill and parsley. Instead of curry I used "Armenian bouquet" (a mix of local spices). And I added some ripe cherry tomatoes. Oh, and I used Armenian river/lake fish :)
The end result was very tasty, even if Nick did end up with the tail piece.
Bacon update: apparently pork belly DOES exist but before I can buy some I also need to procure some curing salt. I'm sure it's here...somewhere...but if I can't find it in the next two weeks, I may look for it in Paris or London later this month.
To be continued...
1 comment:
I'm a big fan of the culinary posts, RaeJean!
Nicole C
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