venta

Lots of people have been doing a 25-days-of-Christmas thing, answering a different question each day, and I've been enjoying reading their answers. I haven't been doing it myself, because I've already banged on endlessly about Christmas.

Yesterday's question was "What's your view on eggnog?" which is largely irrelevant if you live in the UK. I claimed (commenting on strange_complex's LJ) that I liked eggnog. But I definitely haven't had any recently, and in a post answering a similar question in 2008 I claimed I'd never had it at all.

I went to look at Wikipedia to find out what it actually was and then got confused. If it's made with whipped eggs, and served hot, why don't the eggs cook? Er, apparently it is not served hot.

I don't appear to have a clue what I'm talking about.

( Time to investigate )

Nicked from bopeepsheep's LJ:
Bold the ones you have and use at least once a year, italicize the ones you have and don't use, strike through the ones you have had but got rid of.

I wonder how many pasta machines, breadmakers, juicers, blenders, deep fat fryers, egg boilers, melon ballers, sandwich makers, pastry brushes, cheese boards, cheese knives, crepe makers, electric woks, miniature salad spinners, griddle pans, jam funnels, pie funnels, meat thermometers, filleting knives, egg poachers, cake stands, garlic crushers, martini glasses, tea strainers, bamboo steamers, pizza stones, coffee grinders, milk frothers, piping bags, banana stands, fluted pastry wheels, tagine dishes, conical strainers, rice cookers, steam cookers, pressure cookers, slow cookers, spaetzle makers, cookie presses, gravy strainers, double boilers (bains marie), sukiyaki stoves, ice cream makers, fondue sets, healthy-grills, home smokers, tempura sets, tortilla presses, electric whisks, cherry stoners, sugar thermometers, food processors, stand mixers, mincers, bacon presses, bacon slicers, mouli mills, cake testers, pestle-and-mortars, gratin dishes, apple corers, mango stoners and sets of kebab skewers languish dustily at the back of the nation's cupboards.

I think the short version is: I've got quite a lot of crap in the kitchen, but I do use most of it. The mincer is a recent[*] acquisition which I expect to use, but have not used yet. Get back to me next week. The juicer is a close call; it probably gets used about once a year. Used to be much more often when I lived in a house with an apple tree.

I'm bewildered by some of these things, though. What is a jam funnel? I don't own one, so it clearly isn't necessary for making jam. Mind you, I had a boiled egg for breakfast on Thursday and I don't own an egg boiler, either. How does a gravy strainer differ from any other kind of strainer (or is it one of those slanty jug things)? I have flat, ceramic dishes which I use, but I'm not sure if they're legally gratin dishes or not. I have made gratin in them. I counted my Kenwood as both a stand mixer and an electric whisk (I use it for both).

[*] Hmm. Not as recent as I think, though. Must get on with it!

Last night's hurried bung-it-in-the-oven dinner was intended to be baked haddock with a herby crust. Breadcrumbs, mix in chopped herbs and olive oil, slap on top of fish, shove in oven. Done.

Except... well. The sliced bread had gone all pernicious. It looked fine, but had stealthily gone colourfully and fluffily off behind all the opaque bits of the plastic bag. No breadcrumbs :(

Except, lurking in the bread bin, overlooked, was the tiny, nobbly end of Saturday's baguette. Baguettes go a bit hard and dry when you've had them more than 35 minutes, so Saturday's French bready-product was rock solid.

I normally make breadcrumbs from fresh bread, rubbing slices between my hands. Occasionally, if I'm feeling very together, I put the slices out to go a little stale first. But four day old baguette? Not a chance.

On a whim, I tried grating it with a coarse grater. Bingo! A suitable-sized pile of breadcrumbs in no time. Probably even easier than normal.

Maybe everyone else already makes breadcrumbs like this. I just thought I'd mention it :)

Every so often you hear of an odd combination of ingredients someone is cooking, and think "no, really?". Oh yes, they assure you, really. Sometimes, of course, you think "no, just no" (a colleague of mine recently recommended chicken-breast stuffed with nutella. Eww. I mean, he likes it, go him. But I don't think I'll be trying it.)

Yesterday, wondering what to cook out of the things I had available, I was suddenly moved to wonder whether smoked haddock and pesto would be a ( fortuitous combination )

In summary: no.

A quick culinary question: does anyone have any good uses for superfluous egg whites? Preferably that don't require further eggs?

My usual answer is pavlova, but I don't really have a suitable window for pavlova-eating in my schedule in the near future. Ideally, something savoury would be good. I'm given to understand that Americans eat egg-white omelettes, but they sound distinctly unappealing to me.

Last night, I was making cake to feed a bunch of people coming round this weekend. Among other things, I got out The Best Cake Recipe Ever.

Now, I'm not claiming that it makes the best cake ever: that would be quite a claim. However, it is the Best Cake Recipe Ever for these reasons:

1. It is trivially simple to make. No baking required, even.
2. It's a wartime recipe made with margarine. Make it with something like Stork and choose your chocolate carefully, and your cake is dairy-free.
3. It's got no eggs. See also (2), you can feed it to vegans.
4. It's got no flour. You can feed it to coeliacs.
5. I've never (yet) met anyone who didn't like it (although for one person I do have to miss the chocolate covering off, because she's allergic to chocolate).

And so it is my go-to recipe for just about every occasion (the only exception being people who are on a totally fat-free diet). Although (as mentioned) it's not the best cake in the world, it has the highest cake quality output to effort input ratio of anything I know. It's a recipe I got from my mum, and has been a staple throughout my life - but even she doesn't know who the Millie Piper named in the recipe is...

( Millie Piper's Rich Fingers )

Right...

( Let's talk about herring[*] )

[*] The original title of Salt'n'Pepa's '91 single. It was changed after a conversation with their marketing department.

Last night I was rummaging about in the cupboards wondering what else I could put into my vegetable bake to make it look more like a meal and less like something constructed out of things I'd found in the back of the fridge.

I unearthed a tin of spinach (in brine). Yes, I know that sounds vile, but I like spinach. And since the blood donor people sent me packing today with mutterings about low iron I figured it couldn't hurt.

Actually, I don't know quite what possessed me to buy it, because the picture on the tin is possibly the least appealing label I've ever seen.

( Soylent Green )

You're all gourmets, right ? Or at the least gourmands. So, tell me about...

( Risotto )

The other day, I accidentally heard a bit of Terry Wogan on Radio 2. He was reading out something to do with overheard conversations, which involved the phrase "Well, is it really a Christmas dinner if it doesn't say 'chipolatas' (on the menu)?"

So, I'm wondering...

( What do you eat at Christmas? )