A couple of days last week were terrible food-wise. Maybe after the Singapore noodles, I got cocky and turned wannabe-pro, but i started making things up left and right in non-comfort zones, and it blew up. I'll give you a taste (by pun only) here:
My local grocery store somewhat rarely has lamb in the cut that we like, so when they have it, I stock up. I bought the lamb last week sometime, intending to use it over the next few days, but it got so busy that I didn't cook. Fearing that the lamb would go bad, and knowing that my disapproving mother would be visiting from Thursday through the weekend, I had to get rid of the lamb by Tuesday. First unwise choice of the week: I wanted to make something "inspired by David Rocco," outside of my comfort zone of Indian food, without following an actual recipe. Second, I wanted to throw in fresh herbs I've never cooked with before, because "they taste good in the lamb I have in restaurants." Third, the David Rocco recipe that I wanted to use as my starting point involved braising the meat in Chianti for 2 hours; the problem is, on the show he used REALLY GOOD Chianti. I went out and bought $13.99 Chianti on some liquor store schmuck's recommendation. Regarding cooking with wine, the good chefs always say don't ever cook with wine you wouldn't drink on its own. I obviously know this, so I don't know why I hastily came back home with this terrible stuff, but I just did. Narain didn't particularly care about the time; he was doing his own thing. I guess the thought of braising for 2 hours when it was already 6pm and I hadn't started cooking daunted me, as I was anticipating starting dinner around 9-10pm.
Basically the Chianti-braised beef recipe goes like this: fry some onions and garlic in olive oil. Dice about 2lbs. of meat into 1-in. pieces and sear with the garlic and onion. Then pour in about 2 cups of Chianti--just enough to cover the beef/lamb. Bring the wine to a boil, add salt, lower the heat to med-low and simmer for 2 hours. I substituted lamb, because I don't like cooking beef at home. But I figured, they're both red meats with similar flavors, so it'll be fine.
My maverick additions included adding a bunch of fresh thyme and Italian parsley. To me, Italian parsley is to Italian food what fresh coriander is to Indian food. The look and smell are very similar, so I figured its use must be just like coriander in Indian--that is, added liberally at the end of the cooking process. Of course, I wasn't completely right about when to add it, as I found some recipes online that put the parsley into the dish during the cooking process.
I was careful with the thyme, though, because I have added fresh rosemary liberally to dishes in the past and I HATE when it overpowers. Rosemary is a very strong herb, so since I didn't know much about thyme, I was careful. At the same time, I thought, I just had lamb with garlic and thyme at an Italian restaurant a week ago, and the thyme was all over it and it didn't taste bad...so maybe I could add lots of it and it will add flavor. The herbs thus went in with the searing lamb and garlic/onion. At first, I wanted to be artsy and left the thyme on the vine, but then I thought, well those vines are probably not pleasant to chew on, so let me rip the leaves off and spread it around. Ultimately, I don't think the herbs mattered. They certainly weren't overpowering and they did add flavor. The problem with the dish was the Chianti, which was so bitter that I couldn't truly enjoy the dish, although the lamb itself was lovely and tender after the 2 hour braising process.
The final taste was OK. It was edible. The biggest issue was the bitterness of the Chianti. Lesson learned is that you MUST use GOOD TASTING wine if you're cooking with wine as your gravy base. It's imperative. If your wine is too dry or bitter, then you're screwed. If you're just adding a glug or 2 for a kick, I think it's better than if you're adding a cup or more of the wine to boil down as a braising liquid. It's really really important. If I had used a better Chianti, this dish would have been really smooth. Even the liberal and amateurish use of herbs turned out FINE compared to this overpoweringly bitter wine.
Well that's all for my massive NOTE TO SELF.
No comments:
Post a Comment