Soledad&#39;s Journal

First topic of the day

Since the food topic did go a bit under all the others on Day 1, perhaps we can resurrect it here. Let's talk about favourites. What do you like, what was the best you've created yourself or eaten by somebody else. Which cuisines do you prefer?

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I don't know about the best thing I ever made, I know what is a general crowd pleaser at my house when it's made - Enchiladas, Pork chops with Fideo & beans on the side, Chile Verde, Lasagna, Roast Chicken.

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For me, it's the simple things that are the most enjoyable. I do try my hands on some new recipes from time to time, even exotic ones, but nothing can beat a good chicken paprikash or Wiener Schnitzel with parsley potatoes. Or the Sauerkraut casserole Mum made yesterday. *g*

In fact, I even get ecstatic when we have some slightly dry bread or buns, which we then dip in milk, flour and beaten eggs and deep fry in oil, as if they were Schnitzel. We usually eat them with spinach or with a simple salad, and it's delicious.

Or carrot soup. Do you know carrot soup? We eat it once every other week.

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I've never had carrot soup - not a big fan of carrots. I know what you mean about the simple things are the most enjoyable - most of what I listed is pretty quick and simple to make, and also never any left overs.

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You'd like Mum's carrot soup. It's basically a chicken broth that we make of instant soup or granulate, but instead of noodles, there are carrot juliennes in it. It's flavoured with lemon juice, parsley and a pinch of sugar - very tasty and refreshing.

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That does sound good - I do love lemon. My mom makes a beef vegtable soup, you add some lemon before you eat it, it's sooo good on a cold day!

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Then you'd love our sour chicken soup. It's a regular, home-made chicken soup with a chicken breast cooked in it, lots of carrots and parsley roots and stuff. But when it's done, Mum stirs and eggyolk with sour cream and thickens the soup with it slightly, adding lemon juice for a fresh flavour.

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I stay away from most chcken soups - if not done right it can be greasey, but that does sound good.

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The trick is: once it has boiled, you need to spoon off the thick white foam from the surface. Then it will be so clear you can see through... and not so greasy.

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I know, or a 2 day process and refrigerate the broth over night and let all the fat solidify on the top, and take it off that way.

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six-old-cars.livejournal.com

My mum used to do chicken breasts in a stock with onion and peas (added near the end), then just before serving she'd stir in egg yolk and lemon juice to thicken it. Was lovely.

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Sounds very yummy!

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I'm a completely rubbish cook; I don't think I've ever cooked something of which I was truly proud. I'm known for burning water whilst boiling it and I've nearly caused a number of fires by putting the wrong things into microwaves/ovens...

Simple dishes I love... My mother used to cook some cheese biscuits/flat cakes called sables. Wonderful fresh, rather like very cheesy cheese scones, but flatter. Must try to find the recipe some day. Also a tomato & onion salad, just with sliced home-grown tomatoes & mild onions in rings, with a garlicky French dressing. Yum. Now that's simple enough even for me, though we can't grow tomatoes here. And I adore hard-boiled eggs, still slightly warm, with home-made mayonnaise finished with paprika. Can't make mayonnaise, sadly. Oh, and fishcakes with an oily fish and a nice creamy tartare sauce, smoked fish pâté. My mother was a really good cook.

And in restaurants in the right part of the world certain kinds of shellfish. Fresh locally caught mussels or scallops, just with butter & lemon. Mmm...

Edited Date: 2013-10-02 11:19 pm (UTC)

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Burning water doesn't mean a thing! Mum and I are both fairly good cooks and yet managed to do so repeatedly, damaging very useful pots in the process. Pots of the kind you no longer can get, in this sci-fi environment of stainless steel kitchen utensils. We both hate those.

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It takes real talent to burn water in a stainless steel pan, though. And I once put a Cornish pasty in my mother's oven in all its packaging, and came close to wrecking the oven. She never forgave me, and would bring this incident up years later whenever I offered to cook anything.

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Cuisines I love... I tend to prefer Indian, Chinese, Thai these days, though when I was younger I mainly ate French/Italian, and there are some dishes I still love eg Italian risotto, French cheeses :) For celebration I'd usually go with Thai, but that's partly because it's the hardest to create the flavours at home. I particularly love Thai soups & satay.

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I tried my luck with Asian cuisines, but I can't bear the spices. I even get stomach-aches from curry. We use very few spices as a rule, mostly salt and pepper and herbs like parsley. My grandfather had a kidney problem, so hot spices were a no-go, and I still don't like them.

I do cook fake Chinese sometimes, meaning all ingredients without the spices. Yeah, I know, it sounds horrible. But the chicken and asparagus salad with baby corn is really delicious, and without all the hot spices you can actually value the taste of the meat and the veggies. *g*

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I adore mild to medium spicy food, and thankfully my gut problem resolved to the point I can eat it again. (Though still not very spicy.) You're right, though, overspicing does sometimes mean one can hardly taste the ingredients, which is a shame. I think it's easy to get addicted to the kick of spicy food & not be able to enjoy less vigorous tastes. There again, spices are low calorie :)

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six-old-cars.livejournal.com

Chinese doesn't have to be spicy - indeed it's usually far less spiced than most other Asian cuisine.

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