The Joys and Evils of High-End Cooking.
Or "Why the 1% is Getting Fatter".
On Thursday, I visited the local magazine where I interned last year, and while I couldn't stay long because half the staff was absent, my former supervisor did give me a copy of a cookbook that my fellow interns and I helped two of the editors put together. The cookbook contains a ton of recipes from high-end ( Read more... )
On Thursday, I visited the local magazine where I interned last year, and while I couldn't stay long because half the staff was absent, my former supervisor did give me a copy of a cookbook that my fellow interns and I helped two of the editors put together. The cookbook contains a ton of recipes from high-end ( Read more... )
My mom uses heavy cream all the time to make panna cotta. She has unfortunately made it so many times I kind of hate it now, but on its own, heavy cream is kinda amazingly good, I sometimes drink it by itself. The 40/whatever percent probably has to do with the fat content; any heavier and you might get it separating (which'll probably happen anyway if you do the recipe wrong, milk products are finicky like that). If it's something that's going to be heated up, you'll get clumpy fat bits at the top, which is not appetizing (but you can skim it off for less fat content). Fat content is also why it's so popular, actually: fat just tastes good, and makes things like soups and sauces creamier.
As incredibly as this is to believe, a "pinch" is actually a legitimate unit of measure for cooking. Technically it's 1/8 of a teaspoon.
Butter + flour = roux. You use it as a thickening agent, among other things. I'd guess about 50% of opaque soups have a roux base, the rest most likely have cream. Sometimes you get both, and it's pretty tasty.
I've only had rabbit a couple of times; I kind of associate it with French food, which I'm not a huge fan of, but I've had rabbit hearts at a Brazilian restaurant and enjoyed them. Heart in general is kind of tasty: it's pretty much all muscle, so it's dark meat, but it tends to come with, like, sweet sauces, and I love those. What you have to remember is that rabbit is/was prime game, especially in places where raising cows or chicken for meat was probably too expensive.
Goat meat's also pretty good: I've had it in curry, and it's definitely got its own flavor to it, kind of gamy, but interesting.
Also I'm pretty sure the amaretto in question is the alcoholic kind (which is hopefully not something you could get at Starbucks? Although, that would make mornings more interesting). My mom does raisins in rum, which...also interesting.
I don't know, with this kind food it's like...sure, nothing needs to be fancy, and some days I do just want to sit down with some mac and cheese and enjoy that, but for some people and cultures, stuff like this is basic and traditional. Like, Mexican cuisine has cow tongue, brain, liver, and stomach on the regular, which is not something you'd get here (outside of a hotdog), but for Mexican culture, that's homey comfort food. French food has a lot of different stuff going on, and to Americans that can seem a little fussy, but there's a lot of genuine love and history and tradition that goes into making it, same as there is with Italian food. Same as there should be for all foods, in my opinion. America's big on food that's easy/quick to prepare, because people are busy, and I totally get that, but...it's like anything else, fast doesn't usually lead to good. And if I'm going to ingest calories and get fat, I'd rather have it happen through heavy cream than twinkies.
Basically I just love food. (Also if you've never had cantaloupe piece wrapped in prosciutto, oh my god; you've got the salty flavors of the prosciutto with the sweetness of the melon, super easy and classy appetizer for fancy or not so fancy parties. And you can get the cheap pre-packaged proscuitto too, you don't have to go all out).
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