Sep. 10th, 2010 03:01 pm
Teufelskoch
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muckefuckIt's not enough that I'm making four kinds of coques for half a dozen guests tonight. No, on my way home, I worried about what to serve while these were baking and had the genius idea to make 's legendary walnut-pomegranate dip. Since he'd whipped up a couple of batches recently, I figured we had everything we needed. And we did--with the exception of the pimiento and walnuts. No problem, I had to run to Devon Market that evening to get onions for the sofregit in any case.
Luckily, the Old Man had told me to seek the peppers in the Balkan aisle, where I confronted an embarrassment of choices. (I settled on a Turkish brand with less salt than the others and added garlic.) But when it came to walnuts, all I could find were whole ones in produce. I tried asking the one stocker I could find, but he didn't recognise the word and directed me to the service counter. "Where are you from?" I asked. "Albania." Okay; I know the Spanish words for most things and the Slavic ones for a few, but I refuse to bone up on the Albanian words just in order to find everyday ingredients.[*]
So this is how I found myself at Dominicks at 8 p.m. last night trying to figure out where they hid their walnut pieces. Fortunately, they were just where the stocker told me to look. (Surprisingly, it was olive oil that eluded me, but it gave me an excuse to chat up a handsome older gentleman, so no complaints there.) And then march back the way I came because there were no busses in sight and I wasn't about to wait around when I had food on the stove at home.
The next crisis came from an unexpected quarter: the spice cabinet. You'd think ground cumin--![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu's single most favourite seasoning--would be the easy to find. But after five minutes pulling every goddamn thing out of the cabinet for the third time, I was in despair. I ended up putting whole cumin seed in the mortar and grinding it by hand. (Of course you know I'll turn this into a positive if anyone asks.) I'm still withholding judgment on the results; I'm afraid there were (ironically) too many walnuts and not enough pomegranate molasses, but I need to wait for the flavours to marry to be really sure.
And as for that sofregit? I wasn't happy with the colour it had obtained after three hours of simmering, so I did something I've always wanted to do: I let it go all night. It was only once I was under the covers that the possibility of the superlow burner blowing out and flooding the dwelling with gas occurred to me, but by then I was too tired to face the prospect of turning it off and storing it in the fridge. But it made me too anxious to sleep easily either.
But waking to find the house permeated by the smoky odour of blackened onion made it all worthwhile.monshu murmured words of praise before he left, and surveying my handiwork I had the impression that I've never really made a sofregit before, only pale imitations. Now it's all in the hands of Dr Oetker's yeast whether I get to knock the socks off my friends or resort to phoning it in.
[*] Nevertheless, I couldn't restrain myself from looking it up after the fact: arra e butë. Never would've come up with that in a decade of Sundays.
Luckily, the Old Man had told me to seek the peppers in the Balkan aisle, where I confronted an embarrassment of choices. (I settled on a Turkish brand with less salt than the others and added garlic.) But when it came to walnuts, all I could find were whole ones in produce. I tried asking the one stocker I could find, but he didn't recognise the word and directed me to the service counter. "Where are you from?" I asked. "Albania." Okay; I know the Spanish words for most things and the Slavic ones for a few, but I refuse to bone up on the Albanian words just in order to find everyday ingredients.[*]
So this is how I found myself at Dominicks at 8 p.m. last night trying to figure out where they hid their walnut pieces. Fortunately, they were just where the stocker told me to look. (Surprisingly, it was olive oil that eluded me, but it gave me an excuse to chat up a handsome older gentleman, so no complaints there.) And then march back the way I came because there were no busses in sight and I wasn't about to wait around when I had food on the stove at home.
The next crisis came from an unexpected quarter: the spice cabinet. You'd think ground cumin--
monshu's single most favourite seasoning--would be the easy to find. But after five minutes pulling every goddamn thing out of the cabinet for the third time, I was in despair. I ended up putting whole cumin seed in the mortar and grinding it by hand. (Of course you know I'll turn this into a positive if anyone asks.) I'm still withholding judgment on the results; I'm afraid there were (ironically) too many walnuts and not enough pomegranate molasses, but I need to wait for the flavours to marry to be really sure.And as for that sofregit? I wasn't happy with the colour it had obtained after three hours of simmering, so I did something I've always wanted to do: I let it go all night. It was only once I was under the covers that the possibility of the superlow burner blowing out and flooding the dwelling with gas occurred to me, but by then I was too tired to face the prospect of turning it off and storing it in the fridge. But it made me too anxious to sleep easily either.
But waking to find the house permeated by the smoky odour of blackened onion made it all worthwhile.
monshu murmured words of praise before he left, and surveying my handiwork I had the impression that I've never really made a sofregit before, only pale imitations. Now it's all in the hands of Dr Oetker's yeast whether I get to knock the socks off my friends or resort to phoning it in.[*] Nevertheless, I couldn't restrain myself from looking it up after the fact: arra e butë. Never would've come up with that in a decade of Sundays.
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