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Feb. 5th, 2008 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coraaSo, after a week of vegetarian and nearly-vegetarian meals, Pav and I had a classic: roast beef, with mashed potatoes and stewed tomatoes. Except it was me, so it was about nineteen times more complicated in execution than necessary.
The mashed potatoes were out of Cookwise, by Shirley Corriher, and if you have any interest in food science, it's a great cookbook to get. They were shallot-garlic mashed potatoes, with enough cream and butter to choke a horse. (I usually don't go this heavy on the fats in my mashed potatoes, but it was sort of a special-occasion-y meal and we've been eating very healthy lately, so I decided to go ahead and embrace the saturated fat-laden recipe.) It called for simmering the potatoes over very low heat with the shallots and garlic until not quite done, then cooling them, then picking out the shallots and garlic and throwing them away, then cooking the potatoes all the way, while simultaneously melting butter, sauteeing more shallots and garlic, and then adding cream and milk -- and then draining and mashing the potatoes, adding the simmering cream/butter/shallot/garlic mixture, and stirring just until blended. The flavors were all lovely, if perhaps a bit too strong on the shallots. Unfortunately, I think I goofed the recipe while halving it (I don't think I halved the liquids properly) so it wound up a bit too soupy -- in fact, I had to microwave an Emergency Potato and mash it in to turn it into mashed potatoes instead of the richest potato soup evar. Need to try the recipe again, with a little bit less shallot and considerably less liquid.
The roast beef, on the other hand, came out perfectly -- I used a cheap-ish cut of meat, and it tasted better than a lot of the roasts I've made with much better cuts! It required just as many fiddly steps but it was so worth it. (First I had to toast some garlic, then sliver it, then cut slits in the roast and stuff the toasted garlic in it. Then I mixed minced garlic, kosher salt, and dried sage into a very dry paste, and rubbed that paste over the beef, and let it sit four hours. Then I slowly heated some olive oil with about a dozen freaking garlic cloves in it -- plus a bay leaf and some thyme -- until the olive oil was very fragrant and the garlic was soft, at which point I strained the garlic out and saved the oil. Then I wiped the salt rub off the beast, rubbed the garlic oil into it, and seared it in the oven at 450F. Then I mashed the cloves of garlic and smeared them over the top of the roast, dropped the temperature to 300F, and cooked until my trusty probe thermometer told me it was medium-rare. Then I let it rest. Then I ate it. And it was worth every. nitpicky. little. step. mmmmmm.)
I also made stewed tomatoes, which is to say I took some questionable-looking grocery store tomatoes, sliced them, put them in a dish with some tomato juice (actually the juice out of the tin of canned tomatoes I cooked with yesterday), sprinkled basil on the top, and baked it in the same oven with the roast beef basically until everything else was ready. They're not as good as really nice, fresh tomatoes, but the baking/stewing really perks up iffy winter tomatoes, and they cut through the omg richness of the other dishes.
(The thing is, of course, when I'm in the right mood -- which I was today -- I rather like cooking things that are complicated and fussy. It's fun! Not every day, and certainly not when I'm tired, but otherwise, I'm all over it.)
And now I have passed out from food overdose.
Mmmmm. Good, though.
The mashed potatoes were out of Cookwise, by Shirley Corriher, and if you have any interest in food science, it's a great cookbook to get. They were shallot-garlic mashed potatoes, with enough cream and butter to choke a horse. (I usually don't go this heavy on the fats in my mashed potatoes, but it was sort of a special-occasion-y meal and we've been eating very healthy lately, so I decided to go ahead and embrace the saturated fat-laden recipe.) It called for simmering the potatoes over very low heat with the shallots and garlic until not quite done, then cooling them, then picking out the shallots and garlic and throwing them away, then cooking the potatoes all the way, while simultaneously melting butter, sauteeing more shallots and garlic, and then adding cream and milk -- and then draining and mashing the potatoes, adding the simmering cream/butter/shallot/garlic mixture, and stirring just until blended. The flavors were all lovely, if perhaps a bit too strong on the shallots. Unfortunately, I think I goofed the recipe while halving it (I don't think I halved the liquids properly) so it wound up a bit too soupy -- in fact, I had to microwave an Emergency Potato and mash it in to turn it into mashed potatoes instead of the richest potato soup evar. Need to try the recipe again, with a little bit less shallot and considerably less liquid.
The roast beef, on the other hand, came out perfectly -- I used a cheap-ish cut of meat, and it tasted better than a lot of the roasts I've made with much better cuts! It required just as many fiddly steps but it was so worth it. (First I had to toast some garlic, then sliver it, then cut slits in the roast and stuff the toasted garlic in it. Then I mixed minced garlic, kosher salt, and dried sage into a very dry paste, and rubbed that paste over the beef, and let it sit four hours. Then I slowly heated some olive oil with about a dozen freaking garlic cloves in it -- plus a bay leaf and some thyme -- until the olive oil was very fragrant and the garlic was soft, at which point I strained the garlic out and saved the oil. Then I wiped the salt rub off the beast, rubbed the garlic oil into it, and seared it in the oven at 450F. Then I mashed the cloves of garlic and smeared them over the top of the roast, dropped the temperature to 300F, and cooked until my trusty probe thermometer told me it was medium-rare. Then I let it rest. Then I ate it. And it was worth every. nitpicky. little. step. mmmmmm.)
I also made stewed tomatoes, which is to say I took some questionable-looking grocery store tomatoes, sliced them, put them in a dish with some tomato juice (actually the juice out of the tin of canned tomatoes I cooked with yesterday), sprinkled basil on the top, and baked it in the same oven with the roast beef basically until everything else was ready. They're not as good as really nice, fresh tomatoes, but the baking/stewing really perks up iffy winter tomatoes, and they cut through the omg richness of the other dishes.
(The thing is, of course, when I'm in the right mood -- which I was today -- I rather like cooking things that are complicated and fussy. It's fun! Not every day, and certainly not when I'm tired, but otherwise, I'm all over it.)
And now I have passed out from food overdose.
Mmmmm. Good, though.