philosophy and cooking

[dchenes]

There's very little that puts me off cooking faster than coming across a recipe I think I'd really like, and then discovering that I either haven't got half of the ingredients or I can't get one of the major ingredients here. Japanese recipes that call for dashi, Korean recipes that call for mirin, Indian recipes that call for cardamom...life was easier when I didn't have to think so hard about whether I could afford to go grocery shopping twice in the same week.

I finally did find oyster sauce (last week), so now I'm debating whether I'm going to make broccoli and oyster sauce for dinner tonight, or whether I want pasta instead. I've wanted to make polenta for ages now, too. Hmm. The problem with polenta is that eating it by itself isn't terribly exciting, and I don't know what I'd put with it.

Sometimes I wonder at the stuff I eat. As long as I'm only cooking for myself, I don't particularly care whether the rice I made could have used another couple of minutes cooking, or whether I overcooked the broccoli, or anything of that nature. Rare steak is fine with me. On the other hand, if I was cooking for anyone else, I'd be mortified, and if I got a meal in a restaurant that had that sort of problem, I'd send it back. I haven't ever cooked anything for myself that turned out completely inedible, but I tend to give myself more leeway than I would if I were cooking for other people. It's a strange sort of double standard.

Well, at least I haven't made myself sick with my own cooking, and as far as I know, I haven't made anyone else sick either.

Comments

[biophile6.livejournal.com]

I'm proud that since I learned microbiological technique, Ive never made anyone ill, either.

I have cardamom.
I never use it.

Todd English (Olives, Figs) loves Polenta. If I still had my cookbook, I'd send you the ideas!

[whuffle.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, try this sometime with that polenta you spoke of:

Throw the polenta in the microwave to warm it up a bit. Then mix some parmesan cheese and some spices, particularly parsley, into it. Set it aside and take out a chicken breast. Butterfly thin slices off the breast or take a cast iron pan and a plastic baggie to it and pound it flat. Once flat or thin in some fashion, roll up a meatball of polenta in the chicken breast. Put it with the ends tucked under in a tinfoil lined pan with some olive oil and a little white wine if you want. Then bake for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees. (You can throw some tomatoes in the pan too if you want. They bake up nicely as a side dish)
I use this recipe for fish and polenta most of the time. Works great and its pretty fast and easy to do. I think I did this for you with salmon the last time you visited.

Another good polenta trick is to make round slices about 1/2 inch thick and pan fry them. Then bread and pan fry some eggplant. Stack the two in alternating slices with some mozarella cheese and drench in sauce. Then throw it in the oven for a bit till it looks gooey and brown.