I have Iron Chef'd out!

[elfs]

Last night, I got it into my head to go a little crazy with the#cooking. At first, I was just going to make ground buffalo sliders (basically, mini-hamburgers) with home-made biscuits, half of them cheddar & bacon, the other half with home-made tatziki sauce and cucumber topping. Tatziki sauce is that dill-and-yogurt sauce most people only encounter when ordering a lamb dish at nominally greek restaurants.

And I did exactly that. I made the biscuits first, and while they were cooking I made the patties and the tatziki sauce.

But as I was looking through the refrigerator, I realized that I had a problem: there were root vegetables that had been in there a long time and were in danger of going bad. I had to cure that immediately. So I made steak fries but with rutabaga and turnips instead of potato. To soften them, I steamed them for six minutes in the microwave first, then tossed them with olive oil and smoked paprika before putting them into the oven at 450°F for 20 minutes. That wasn't long enough; they still came out soggy. I'll have to work on the time/temperature thing some more.

Also, around all this cooking, I made cardamom ice cream, seeding the pods by hand, which took a while. I also used a fresh vanilla bean, superfine sugar, heavy cream for the infusion and whole milk for the chill. I was afraid that I'd ruined it by having the temperature up too high and might have scalded the cream, but no, when it was fully chilled two hours later, oh my gods was it good. Omaha was ecstatic.

I'm half-tempted to try something completely weird, like basil ice cream next. Never know. It might be good. And while it's pricy (a pint costs about eight bucks to make, between the fresh herbs and heavy cream, much more than the $4 pints of Häagen Dazs, but it is so much better), it's cheap enough I can afford the experiment.

Comments

[hydrolagus.livejournal.com]

Basil and dark chocolate go together surprisingly well, in case you want to mess with sauce.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

So, basil leaves for the cream infusion, and then dark chocolate melted in a double boiler and scribbled in during the mixing process? That does sound yummy!

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

That sounds delicious

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Now, about that tzatziki... ...a waterier form of the same thing is our go-to summer beverage.

To reproduce, blend or food process: garlic, yogurt, a cucumber (there's a fiery dispute about whether or not it should be peeled), herbs of your choice (there's a fiery dispute whether dill or parsley provide the best results), salt (best when it's larger-grain), cold water or ice to taste.

It's a fine beverage to accompany fiery summer disputes.

Re: That sounds delicious

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Huh. I think the debate would be about whether or not it should be seeded. Still, that does sound yummy.

I'm such an American: my lunch was leftovers, as in leftover turkey, tomatoes and lettuce, and the tatziki sauce in a tortilla, and the steak fries reheated in an iron skillet.

Re: That sounds delicious

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Leftovers are fine, and it sounds both yummy and healthy, except for the ketchup you copped to on twitter.

Ketchup? Like, for realz? On food? ;-)

And with the right interlocutor, everything is debatable.

[lucky-otter.livejournal.com]

I definitely like basil ice cream - it's delicious. I only make it in the summer, though. A good pairing is roasted tomato ice cream. A scoop of each in a bowl, delicious. Basil syrup on the roasted tomato ice cream is also a good combo.

Cardamom is on my list. Hadn't thought to seed the pods. I'll have to make some infusions with different parts of the pod and see how they taste before I decide what to go with.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

The recipe I used called for 1/2tsp of seeds, four pods, and 1 vanilla bean, seeded but the husk tossed in as well.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

The recipe I used called for 1/2tsp of seeds, four pods, and 1 vanilla bean, seeded but the husk tossed in as well, for two cups of ice cream. It was hella good.

[lucky-otter.livejournal.com]

Oh, and on the rutabaga and turnips, I'd roast them at 500F for a longer period and skip the steaming. And serve them IMMEDIATELY on removal from the oven - otherwise they get soggy and instead of crisp on the outside and fluffy in the middle, they're just kind of gluey.

How about basil-tomato ice cream?

[shunra.livejournal.com]

With the tomatoes roasted in balsamic vinegar? it's pretty in any event.

Anything balsamic-roasted would be wonderful. This, though, sounds insanely flavor-hitting.

Hmm. I might just have to go make it right now. Have I got heavy cream on hand? (The recipe uses milk and half & half and employs cornstarch for thickening, but I'd probably just go for the cream.)

[bldrnrpdx.livejournal.com]

I made a lovely cranberry ketchup from whole berries the other night, to put on burgers my husband had made. Definite yum. One of these days, when we've saved up enough seeds, I want to make mustard from the garden as well.

Oh, and I've seen tomato (bloody mary) sorbet, accompanied by a horseradish ice cream. Not sure if I'd taste it. I have had garlic ice cream I wasn't too fond of, at the nearby garlic festival a while back.