Weekend Evaluation: I Was Hot and I Was Hungry

Sometimes cooking is a great feeling.  There's an awareness and confidence that you can feel while cooking, it seems like you can't make a mistake. You know exactly what is happening and why - the cause and effect are completely linked.  Your evaluation of the ingredients, the plan you put in place, and the techniques you apply to achieve the final product is all are very clear.  

You feel in complete control of what's happening and everything works out exactly how you want with very little effort.  

This effortless feeling is why I cook.   

This weekend was not effortless.

- Harissa -

Positive - Needed this for merguez, and wasn't going to buy it since this was pretty easy and a good use for all of those dried chilies - used pasilla and anahiem chilies.

Negative - Could have roasted the peppers better.

- Biscuit/Breadcrumbs (for banger rusk) -

Positive - Needed this for the bangers.  Basically a soda bread that you dry out to make bread crumbs

Negative - These broke our food processor.  My dumb ass put too much in the smaller top bowl of our food processor; the breadcrumbs somehow got up underneath the blade and jammed between the pole that spins and the blade. Now it doesn't come off- I even tried to use the drill to break the blade and I couldn't do it.  As for the biscuit - Could have handled this less, and rolled out thicker. 

- Sausage -

When making sausage I like to make a fair amount since you have to get the stuffer out, soak casings; so you might as well make it worth the time.  I also like to make at least one classic sausage style and one I came up with myself.  This week I made two mutton sausages (had a big roast) so I made merguez (the classic lamb sausage), and had a pork shoulder I wanted to get out of the freezer, so I made english-style bangers.

I didn't prep all of my spices the day before, and paid for it.  Not enough preparation got me behind.

These might be overstuffed - I'm fearing blowouts when cooking them.

- Merguez - 

Mutton shoulder, fat back, spiced with harissa (see above), garlic, and fennel.  Ground it through fine die, mixed for a while in the stand mixer - Stuffed into a lamb casing.

Negative -This was the last sausage I stuffed - and for some reason I loaded a hog casing on the stuffer, stuffed all of the merguez, and as I linking the portions I realized I hadn't put it in the right casing - So I had to stuff it all again.

Positive - I made Gretchen and I a patty at the end of the night and it tasted pretty good, spicy, but still had a lamb flavor.

- Bangers - 

Pork shoulder, stretched with breadcrumbs (rusk), with sage, ginger, nutmeg, and mace.  Ground through fine die and well emulsified. Stuffed into hog casings.

I more or less followed this recipe from The Paupered Chef blog.

Positive - This tasted pretty good, mostly like breakfast sausage (because of the sage).  Wanted to try out a more emlusified sausage with breadcrumbs.  I know that Grigson complains about this traditional british practice of 'stretching' the meat; basically calling british sausage makers 'cheap' compared to the french; but it seems like the breadcrumbs should be part of the recipe if you're doing a traditional style like bangers.  Besides, I already have some breakfast sausage in the freezer, but it's more of an American Sage breakfast sausage with some maple (big surprise).

Negative - This is what broke the food processor.

- Mint, Thyme, White wine Mutton Sausage -

Mutton Shoulder, fat back, mint, thyme, coriander, fennel, garlic.  Ground through large die, mixed with white wine and extra virgin olive oil; loosely emulsified and stuffed into hog casings

Positive - Tasted pretty good when we tried it.

Negative - Seasoning was fine, but might have needed more mint.  Will be interested to see if what this tastes like when we eat it later.

- Mutton Chop w/ Mint burre blanc  -

served sliced over potatoes boulangere, with sugar snap peas

Positive - This tasted good, this is why you cook.  The peas are the first of the season and tasted really good.

Negative- Not much bad here, might have slightly overcooked the snap peas, they tasted great raw.

- Sourdough Rhubarb whole wheat coffee cake -

After 2+ years I finally used the sourdough starter in a non-bread recipe. Since I don't really ever make coffee cake I followed a recipe from the Atlantic (although I substituted sour cream for yogurt).

Positive - This tasted pretty good; definitely could taste sourdough and whole wheat; and neither were off-putting for a sweet breakfast.

Negative - Needed more sweetness actually.  Could have used more rhubarb; but I was following a recipe.

- Rolls (Kolsch, pale ale) -

Positive - You can taste the difference between the two yeasts.  The pale ale seems more acidic, and the kolsch is more complex/yeast-y.  Gretchen nailed the taste test - although she failed the Franzikaner/Wienestephan weiss-beer test.

Negative - I put these in the fridge while out of the house sunday, and they never really fully rose before I baked them.

- Asparagus, Spring Onion Tart -

with carrot top and pea pesto 
Red Leaf 'Garden salad' - Radishes, Carrots, black eyed peas, Parm, rice wine vinaigrette

Positive - After rolling and blind baking the crust, it actually looked pretty good.  This is not usually the case; I can make a pretty good pie dough, but can't roll it out worth a damn; but I got this step right this time. Asparagus was blanched well, spring onion was roasted properly.

Negative -  This was a complete disaster - I was poking the blind baked crust for some reason and poked a hole in it.  Knew it was going to be an issue; so I tried to patch the hole with some excess crust and caramelized onions.  Didn't matter - custard leaked everywhere and ruined the crispy crust.  Soggy crappy quiche is nasty.  I was in a good mood cooking to this point, but following the blowout I was in a horrible mood because everything seemed to be taking forever-  I was just waiting to see how bad it was - and it was bad.  When something doesn't come out well I don't want to ever see it again, so I usually eat way too much to make it go away; and feel terrible.

- Brown Sugar, Chocolate Chip Ice Cream  -

Positive -  Tasted pretty 'brown sugar' when I put the cream mixture together.

Negative - Needed to break up chocolate chips, added a little too much bourbon, should chill it more before putting it in the ice cream maker.  Again had too much air in the mixture, I'm looking for more of a gelato consistency and less iced cream when I'm using a non-egg custard base.

- Bean Puree - Hummus -

Positive - Cooked the chickpeas well?

Negative - The lack of food processor made this really hard.  Used the hand blender, but was kind of a pain.  Needed to be a 'looser' consistency, kind of thick.