Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Recipe Challenge
I recently posted a recipe for my mother's "meat rolls". Although I liked the recipe, I felt it could be improved. I asked fellow blogger Rickb, who is a chef, to see what he could do to make it better. His recipe definitely looks better! I'm going to try it! If you need a good idea for dinner, check out this recipe on his blog. :)
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I posted these thoughts on my blog, but am adding them here in case people do not make it to my blog to read this.
Hello Delirious,
Here are some of my thoughts about the soup.
I do not know how your mom or her family were raised, But I know from my family some were raised back in the days that I had family that were sent to and died in the German concentration camps and some that came out of that, then later went on to live, working in coal mines.
You pretty much had to make due or stretch out what you had. I have been there and done that myself. I'm thinking it could be added substance or trying to stretch food. My family said that adding the soup does not sound good at all.
I would be open to trying it, but since my family said they would not eat it, it would be a waste. I figure sometimes recipes start out as an idea and need to be played around with, this could be one that you simply say, tried it and the soup does not work.
I was also thinking depending upon your filling, you could always use a different soup as a base for a sauce.
But for me, I try and take a culinary purists route, meaning I love to make everything possible from scratch. So If I were going to use soup, I would also want to make that from scratch.
I honestly cannot do everything from scratch but I sure try too. Now as far as adding eggs, Please do not let my thoughts discourage you from adding eggs.
I'm the kinda guy that says, the whole world could say, dont do that, and I will still give it my best shot to make it work, then if it does not, I will move on.
Anyway here are my thoughts on the eggs. Everyone has different tastes when it comes to eggs, I hate scrambled eggs, I like them either over easy, or sunny side up.
I am not really into hard cooked yolks, But if you use eggs, your best bet would be to do scrambled eggs, since if you tried rolling up over easy, or sunny side up, the yolks would break and then get hard.
The other problem with using scrambled eggs is, Have you ever made any type of custard or cheese cake and it "weeped"? I mean was wet or oozing water? Thats because your eggs were over cooked, trying not to get overly complicated here, but simply put, it's like a sponge with water, the more heat you add to the eggs the more they are squeezed.
Take a wet but not dripping wet sponge, put it in your hand and gently squeeze, you hand is the heat, the harder you squeeze the more likely you will release water. Same with the eggs. I think the eggs would be better as a side, But you could try under cooking the eggs then adding them, or cook your meat, then once it cools stir in raw eggs, then only need to hit an internal temperature of 165 to be fully cooked. They will not be the same doing it that way, and you might not even notice them, but they will be in the rolls.
As far as the Salmon goes, I would suggest grilling it first to really give it some great flavor, use charcoal if possible, and cook it rare to med rare, this way it will finish cooking in the rolls and not over cook by first cooking it well done. I personally would keep any binder to a bare minimum or even skip it altogether since you do not want it to take away from your flavor of seafood.
Do you know what clarified butter is? Or How to make it?
I would suggest if using Salmon or crab to make some unsalted clarified butter, then after you roll out the biscuit dough brush the dough with the butter and maybe chop up some fresh dill to add with the salmon, then zest some lemon and use fresh ground black pepper and sea salt, then roll it up, cut them into slices and brush them again with Clarified butter, Thats sounds like a winner to me that I am going to also do here, probably next month. Any more questions please ask, I love doing this stuff. Rick
If you can get fresh salmon, or even a good quality piece of frozen that you can thaw out and use. I would only use canned as a very last resort, not that canned is bad, but fresh is better and you can grill it for added flavor.
Making clarified butter is super easy, I take whole butter and melt it over low heat and then let it set so everything settles to the bottom, then I scrape the foam and scrap off the top. I put the liquid in a clear container so I can see everything and chill it just long enough to let the butter firm up, I then poke a whole through the butter so I can pour off the water, then the rest off the butter I melt as needed.
Adding hash browns to the sausage, I never thought of that, I think that would be awesome, just cook them up nice and golden and season the way you like them, then let them cool down to a warm temp so you do not start to cook the biscuit dough from hot food. I bet you have some really awesome sour dough bread living where you live.
Do you know who Alice waters is? If you do have you ever eaten at her restaurant? I have never been to California and do not see myself going anytime soon, next year me and my wife are going to tour Israel, Turkey and Grease for two weeks. So I will be saving money for that. Rick b
I didn't recognize the name Alice Waters, but I did recognize her picture. I saw an interview with her on Martha Stewart's show. I will have to go try her restaurant one of these days. I had heard about the school garden that she made.
My daughter spent 8 weeks at the BYU Jerusalem center last summer. She toured Egypt, Jordan,...can't remember where else. It was a great experience for her.
You should definitely plan a trip to California in the future. I suggest the SF area just because the food here is awesome, and the weather by the bay is great. We are spoiled to be able to get great sourdough bread, and fresh crab and other seafood here.
Here's a taste of the scenery from my photo blog:
http://deliriousalbum.blogspot.com/2008/11/outing-in-san-francisco.html
I lived in Maine for about 15 years. Those pictures remind me of the coast in Maine. We had some great Cheap seafood. Thanks for the pictures. Rick b
Have you ever tried Duran fruit?
I actually have not, and after watching Andrew Zimmern, I'm not sure I want to. lol If I'm correct, that's the one food he can't stand. :) I was a missionary in Taiwan for 16 months, and then our family lived in Beijing, China for two years, so we have eaten some really great different kinds of fruit, but I haven't tried that yet. Do I dare? lol
It's funny that you will eat some really stink cheese, but you are not sure you will eat stink fruit.
I have no pictures, but here is a link to my experience with eating the fruit, and some information on it.
http://coffeehouse-journal.blogspot.com/2009/05/durian-fruit.html
Thanks for the warning. lol
By the way, have you ever tried stinky tofu? I actually like it, and my husband LOVES it. We visited Taiwan about 3 years ago and he ate as much as he could buy. :)
I have heard of it and seen people on food tv eat it, but I have never tried it. I have tried jelly fish, That to me is nothing more than substance. It is flavorless and about as chewy as very firm jello. I would eat it again but I would use it like tofu, just added for texture and it will take on the flavor of what ever your cooking.
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