Till I step on the brakes to get out of her clutches

[venta]

The more I read recipes online, the more I become convinced that Americans have a different word for almost everything. Lots of my cookery books have "translations" in them, and I'm down with the eggplant, the zucchini, the capsicum, the scallions... For years I thought I was pretty much sorted, yet still things keep catching me out. After loads of mentions on Just Bento, I finally got round to trying to work out whether I could buy arugula in the UK. Oh. It's rocket.

Today, I was reading a recipe for bolognese sauce. "In a Dutch oven," it began "over medium heat, heat the oil. Add the onion and cook for 2 minutes." In a what now?

Back in the days when I did a lot of Scouting (and learned a lot of verses of You'll Never Get To Heaven) we used to build what we called Dutch ovens from oil drums when camping. Find a steep hillside, dig a hole into it so you can lay your oil drum flat, scoop out small depression in bottom of hole, add oil drum, cover over again with earth. There are details, like leaving a gap at the back to make a chimney out of tin cans, but the basic principle is: light fire under drum, drum gets hot, hey presto, oven.

You can make a mean pizza in a Dutch oven.

Except... the internet suggests that this is not what a Dutch oven is at all. In fact, the internet doesn't seem to have much to say (on a very quick google) on re-purposing oil drums as camping ovens. I guess whoever taught us to make them called them Dutch ovens and we followed suit. Anyway, they're pretty much unsuitable for heating oil and browning onions in.

From Wikipedia it seems an American person talking about a Dutch oven basically means a flame-proof casserole dish.

I've learned something already today.

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

OK... right... so quoting from that recipe, we have...

Grease a 9x13" casserole dish and set aside.

Boil a pot of salted water and cook pasta until al dente. Drain and set aside

Meanwhile, in a medium pan over medium heat, cook bacon pieces until crispy. [snip].

Set your oven to broil. Combine the pasta, beef and bacon in a large bowl (the bowl you cooked the pasta in, if it's big enough). Add the tomato soup and 1 cup of cheese. Stir to combine. Add hot sauce, salt and pepper to taste. Pour into the prepared pan and top with the rest of the cheese.

So... we have a casserole dish (called a "casserole dish") greased. We boil a pot of water to cook pasta - I'm guessing a pot is what I'd call a saucepan/pan.

We cook bacon in a pan - presumably a frying pan (or a saucepan in a pinch). We're stirring things in bowl - which we might have cooked the pasta in. Wait, we cooked the pasta in a pot, which was a pan, now it's a bowl?

Then we pour the mixture into the prepared pan, by which I think we mean the casserole dish, not the pan, the pot or the bowl...

Whew :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

(Do all US savoury recipes involve adding a tin of soup? Not a cooking ingredient I ever really consider. Sounds like the result of generations of clever marketing by Campbells…)

[venta.livejournal.com]

They do seem to, don't they :)

A while back I was looking for a vegan recipe for something-or-other online (I forget both what, and why) and all the recipes I turned up were American, and all seemed to involve adding a packet of "low-sodium chicken-style broth" at some point.

I imagine I gave up and made a pie instead.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

The very name of "chicken-style broth" is somehow rather unappealing.

What's wrong with vegetable-style broth (or indeed actual vegetable broth/stock/bouillon cube), if one's making a veggie/vegan dish?

[venta.livejournal.com]

That's my gripe with a lot of vegetarian, and particularly vegan, recipes I've found online. They all seem to want to try and mimic meat-based dishes. Supermarket chiller cabinets seem to be full of "ham-style slices", and "cheese-style chunks" and "chicken-style pieces"... they give me the heebiejeebies.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Better than heebie-style jeebies!