Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Food
Iron-effin-chefin’, that’s what
Where have I been today? You mean, besides helping Bare Rump with her Smart Bitches Day post? (She uses way too many semicolons. I get on her about that all the time. Unfortunately, I have to allow her a few semicolons, or else she’ll flick her butt hairs in my face.) And besides writing up next Thursday’s Thirteen (bwaahahahahaha)?
I’ve been playing Iron Chef today, that’s what I’ve been doing.
You remember this guy:
Don’t run the other way. It won’t bite. Today, I made two different kinds of ravioli with two different sauces because, ya know, if you’re gonna do one, it ain’t that tough to do two.
The last Indian cookbook you’ll ever need
I own other Indian cookbooks, but I don’t use them. Julie Sahni’s Classic Indian Cooking is the one I keep coming back to, thanks to its scope and reliability. Some of my favorite recipes: dry-cooked spicy ground meat (a filling for samosas), cauliflower fritters, spicy potato filling (great for samosas or as an addition to any meat pie), and fragrant buttered greens.
Last night, however, I had a different problem: what should I do with my leg of lamb leftovers? One of the main reasons I avoid buying leg of lamb is my loathing of waste. We eat perhaps one-third of the roast, and if I’m not careful, the other two-thirds ends up in the trash. As you probably know, lamb does not keep well for very long.
Fortunately for me and my family, Julie Sahni gave me an idea what to do . . .
Baaa-aa-aa-aa-ah
I made leg of lamb this evening, along with focaccia, a nice Caprese, and gratineed asparagus. Before you hit me up with marriage proposals, you gals should know that my romantic tendencies are positively bestial (and you thought this post’s title referred to dinner?!) And you guys should remember, that sort of thing is illegal in Bush’s America.
For me, the trick with leg of lamb is not the roast itself. That’s dead easy, as you’ll see in a moment. Rather, I have a hard time figuring out what to do with the leftovers. I’ll leave that post for another day. On with the roast!
Choke it.
Artichokes have drawn my blood more than a few times. I can’t think of a more intimidating vegetable. Still, they are delicious, and they’re not that tough once you get used to them. Here are a few tips to get you going.
Free Jinger!
My hit counter went nuts today, thanks to the good folks at Television Without Pity’s Duggar Forum. The undoubtedly kind, lovely, and overflowing-with-awesome-taste Twissy recommended my post, Snape Hearts Michelle Duggar, and the TWP-people have been dropping by ever since. Oh, if only it would last.
In honor of the Duggar girls, AKA The Foodbringers, I’d like to post my recipe for dead easy and delicious strawberry shortcake. PBW, listen up — here’s your strawberry recipe!
Most strawberry shortcake recipes require you to make your own shortcake. Maybe I’ll try that one of these days, but for now, I prefer a compromise between DIY shortcake and those horrid spongy wonders they sell in the supermarket. I like to use SaraLee’s pound cake.
Here’s the version for PBW and my faithful readers:
Eat my luscious brown balls
. . . which would be a much funnier title if I were something other than a Russian Jew, but hey, for all you know, I spent my Las Vegas vacation sunbathing in the buff.
Enough of that. Let’s talk meatballs. Here’s Marcella Hazan’s recipe, from her book, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, which I LOVE. Buy it. You won’t be disappointed.
Wow. Major hit counter suckage.
Don’t tell me you’re all celebrating Easter weekend with your families.
To reward my faithful readers, I’m going to make the following one-time offer (which will expire at this time tomorrow — that’s 8PM PST):
I will honor any requests for recipes or blog topics in general. If I don’t have a good recipe for you, I promise to find one, test it, and report back. Caveat: ask for something impossible or extraordinarily expensive, and I’m going to make sh!t up.
Play nice.
D.
Thirteen guilty pleasures
As you might imagine, many of these are food. I guess I never made it out of my Oral Stage.
1. Candy: Take Five candy bars being my current fave (chocolate, caramel, and omigod PRETZELS inside!) but I still have a soft spot for Cup O’ Gold and those chocolate-covered cherries with all the pink goop inside. Oh, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups — can’t forget those.
2. Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, an L.A. phenomenon. Fried chicken and waffles . . . why not? You put honey on your buttermilk biscuits, don’t you?
3. Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. Even my son endlessly repeating lines from this film can’t ruin it for me. Steve Oederkerk (Frankenthumb; The Godthumb; Thumbtanic) plays the Chosen One, recognizable by the little face (named “Toungie”) that erupts from his tongue when he’s upset. Spoof chop-saki at its best. I can even forgive Oederkerk for writing the screenplay to Patch Adams, although I cannot forgive anyone ever who compares me to Patch Adams.
4. The Breath Bomb. I don’t know what else to call it: a combination of Claussen Kosher dill pickles, kim chee, and a bottled Chinese item ominously called “odor frying fish”. The latter is a combination of dried anchovies, red pepper, garlic, and black bean. If I eat this stuff, Karen won’t come near me for hours.
5. Chinese massage place in Rosemead. If I hate L.A., why are there so many things I miss about it? Not only the food, but Venice Beach, and Melrose Ave., and all the twisted little live comedy theaters, and the awesome bookstores (like Amok). Anyway, down in Rosemead there’s a massage place where you pop fifty bucks (or whatever it is by now) and you get to hang out in the hot tubs and saunas, then get a massage, then hang out in the hot tubs all over again. It’s heavenly.
6. Driving like a maniac. Hey, man, that’s why our Camry is a V6.
7. Critter-feeding gladiatorial sports. Some animals seem to take an almost human degree of pleasure in stalking and killing their prey. Our best critter in this regard was Julia, an Eastern Indigo snake who had a serious jones for live mice. Centipedes are thrilling hunters, too.
8. Tight jeans. Because I can, dammit. There has to be some payback for all those hours in the gym. Now, if only some attractive women would stare . . .
9. PC games. What a complete, utter waste of time! Thank heavens my son bogarts our gaming computer, otherwise I would live out my life playing World of Warcraft, Dungeon Siege II, or Civilization IV. As it is, I probably spend less than four hours a week gaming. Could be worse — much worse.
10. Chick tracts. Whenever I see these lying around, I have to pick them up, dust them off (or disinfect them — they end up in some of the weirdest places) and chortle myself silly over them. Biblical literalists are funny!
11. Deep fried pork rinds because they taste like bacon, and they’re crunchy, and they have zero carbs. I love ’em to death, even if they tend to put my esophagus into spasm if I eat them too fast.
12. Ethnic porn. I keep trying to get Karen to cry out “Ay Poppy!” at appropriate times, but she just won’t play along.
13. Autoerotic strangulation. But since I’m a coward, I omit the leather belt and hold my breath. Safer that way.
Okay, those last two? Kidding! Jeez!
D.
Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged!
Yatta yatta yatta. Boy, am I sick of that paragraph.
Poopydigs tells us what's on her mind this weekDarla loves Texas as much as I do!D. Challener Roe: another insomniac! We ought to get together and form our own nation.Sapphire Writer shares words of inspirationJMC wants to toss the ball aroundPat J. gives us thirteen soundtracksSaltwater Chicken
This is my son’s favorite version of roast chicken1. It’s a modification of Julia Child’s recipe (from Mastering the Art of French Cooking), but I have simplified Julia’s recipe, and brining the chicken is — sorry, Julia, I love you, but it must be said — an improvement on the original.
You can do this with a roaster or a fryer. Rinse the chicken inside and out, then put it into a plastic garbage bag. Add four to eight cups of brine, seal the garbage bag, put it into a bowl large enough to catch anything that leaks, and stick the whole thing into the refrigerator. Soak in brine overnight. I have left the chicken soaking for two nights with no ill effects.
Since I soak for such a long time, I use a weak brine: one teaspoon of kosher salt for every cup of water. If you prefer a faster soak with a more complex brine, check out this recipe from The Experimental Kitchen. I haven’t tried it, but it looks like it has potential. Hey, the author pinched it from Thomas Keller, so it’s gotta be yummy.
Now for the recipe . . .
Culinary pariahs
Apologies for the profanity. Food makes me passionate.
Some folks love food, some just eat it. If you don’t know what this gizmo is, you’re probably in the latter group.
Hey, nothing wrong with that. I don’t look down my nose at folks who don’t know their cassoulet from a hole in the ground. But can I give you some advice? If you come over to my house and I make you cassoulet, don’t (A) insult me for the fact I spent several days preparing this for you, or (B) refuse to ever invite me to your house for dinner, since for you it’s all about one-upsmanship, and you don’t want to put out the effort, or (C) forget to show up in the first place. Yes, all of those things have happened to me, some of them more than once.
I like cooking for people. Know what I made for my wife and son tonight? Homemade ravioli with two different fillings (spinach and cheese, and sweet potato) and two different sauces (tomato sauce for the first, sage and browned butter for the second). Yes, it was delicious. No, it wasn’t that much work (about two hours prep time). Yes, I’d do it again.
But not for some people.