Chaos and Cuisine!!

Follow the adventures of Sean and Katrina as they save the world, battle evildoers, and explore world cuisine!

Friday, November 12, 2010

Chapter 8 : Greece

Greek cuisine is easily mistaken for Egyptian and Levantine, but is not entirely the same. It does rely, as you might predict, on large amounts of olives and olive oil, and uses a large amount of lemon.

Ouzo

Ouzo is a form of distilled liquor from Greece, infused with the flavors of anise, mastic, and badiane. Traditionally, one might pour it over ice in a glass, producing a milky white appearance not altogether unlike the infamous absinthe, but it's easily enjoyed mixed with Coke if you can ignore the strong anise (licorice-like) flavor.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Rambutan

Where: Indonesia

Rambutan are a close relative of longans and lychee. The fruit loks visually like lychee, except instead of short spikes covering it, long, reddish fur like protuberances cover the delicate white fruit. Peeling one takes a bit of skill, but a knife doesn't hurt.

They taste... well, almost exactly like lychee, and not all too dissimilar to longans. Not entiely sure how to describe it to the unitiated, but a sort of light, sweetalmost pear-like flavor, with an almost shrimp like gelatinous texture.

Given tey are a little harder to come by than lychee or longans, they're not worth hunting down except if, like me, you're ridiculously curious, although they did get a mention on Stargate Universe recently (and fed to an alien who promptly spit them out, but no accounting for taste there...)

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Braveheart

So... about that Scotch thing. I have been avoiding those recipes, truth be told. It's not that I don't like Scotch. In fact, between me and Scotch I'm pretty sure the word you're looking for is love. But not the kind of love you feel for a sweet girl that never does you wrong. In fact, it's more like the love you feel for a girl who's sold you out time and again, betrayed you, and turned her back on you and just when you think you could tell her off she smiles and kisses you on the cheek and suddenly all seems right with the world.

But here's a "traditional" Scottish recipe, in the sense that the Scottish tradition is drowning a perfectly good recipe in Scotch... making it a hundred times better.

Cauliflower, Cheese, and WHISKEY
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 hour
Serves: 2-3

Ingredients:
1 head of cauliflower florets
6 oz mushrooms, finely chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
8 oz grated cheese
1/3 cup scotch whiskey (bourbon will do, but really, scotch is better)
1 ounce oatmeal
pinch of nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
2 oz walnuts

Cooking:
Boil cauliflower stalks in hot water for five minutes, and drain. Mix with green peppers and mushrooms in a baking dish.
Heat cream until warm in a medium pan, slowly stirring in cheese until cheese has melted. Remove from heat, and add the oatmeal and scotch. Add salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg to taste. Pour over cauliflower/green pepper, onion mixture and sprinkle walnuts on top. Bake for 45 minutes.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Trainspotting

Now, I know what you're thinking: pea soup? Isn't that that harsh stuff that comes from dried spli peas?

The answer is yes, and know. Split peas are typically the biter and firm pidgeon pea, and which lacks the green peas sweetness and colour. Now, a blended pea soup incorporating the common snow pea would be something else, and perfectly easy, right?

Green Pea Soup
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 8 minutes
Serving Size: 3-4

Ingredients:
1 tbsp butter
1 bunch scallions, sliced
1 clove garlic, finely minced
2 cups chicken stock
1 lb frozen peas
1 head lettuce, shredded
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Cooking:
In a medium pot, melt butter in a pan and use to soften garlic and scallions. Add stock, peas, lettuce, sugar, salt, and pepper, and simmer for five minutes. Cool, and then put throuh a blender.

This can be served hot or cold. If served hot, garnish with cream or sour cream. If cold, garnish with fresh mint.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Black Horse and...

Clapshot. It sounds like something you might have gotten after taking a bargirl home and forgetting to use you-know-whats.

Now, it is something really rather simple. In fact, a couple of Thanksgivings ago I decided throwing turnips into a pot of potatoes and mashing the lot seemed innovative, but it seems the Scots got there long before I did, so I don't get naming rights by a couple hundred years.

Clapshot
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 hour
Servingf size 6-8 people

Ingredients:
1 lb potatoes, peeled and cut into 2" pieces
1 lb turnips, peeled and cut into 2" pieces
8 chives, chopped
2 tbsp butter
pepper and salt to taste

Cooking:

In a large pot, boil the potatoes and turnips until soft. Drain, and mash together with the butter and chives.

For additional flavor, you can add celeriac and parsnip to the boiling proces, and pureed onion and garlic to the mashing stage.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

No You Girls

ontinuing the Scottish tradition of ridiculous food names, we have Rumbledethumps. Not, onions, cabbage, and potatoes in any dish warms the cockles of my heart, and melting cheese over it only makes the whole deal better.

Rumbledethumps
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 hour
Serving size: 2-4 people

Ingredients:
1 lb potatoes
4 tbsp butter
3/4 lb cabbage, shredded
1 large onion, thinly sliced

8 oz shredded cheddar cheese

Cooking:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Peel and boil potatoes until soft, then drain and mash the potatoes.

In a large frying pan, melt the butter, and add the cabbage and onion, turning until soft (do not carmelize).

Add half the cheese and all of the potatoes. Stir until cheese has melted, mixing in salt and pepper to taste.

Take off heat, place in a serving dish. Sprinkle remaining cheese over the serving dish, and place in oven and bake until cheese on top has melted. Enjoy.

Friday, November 5, 2010

There Can Be Only One!

The Scottish have an incredible knack for giving foods the silliest names possible. For example, in America a soup like this would have been named "Chicken Leek Soup" or "Chicken Vegetable", or something else equally drab.

To get Chicken broth, you can use chicken base, canned broth, or make your own by boiling chicken bones. While the last one sounds difficult, you'll produce a much better tasting soup with it. Based on this recipe (but modified because chopping up hot chicken is a pain in the arse)

Cock-A-Leekie Soup
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 45 minutes
Serves: 3-4

Ingredients:
2 lb chicken meat, cut into 1" cubes
4 cups chicken broth
1 carrot, sliced
1 celery stalk, sliced
1/2 cup barley
2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 bay leaf
2 sliced leeks


Cooking:
Heat all ingredients except leeks, and simmer for 30 minutes. Add leeks. Simmer 15 minutes or more, until chicken is done.

Skim the foam off the broth and remove bay leaf.

Serve.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Chapter 7 : Scotland

Across the rolling highland hills, we travelled until we reached Edinburgh. British cuisine itself is not all that well respected internationally, and Scotland in particular has a questionable reputation. It's infamous national dish, haggis, is comprised of sheep lung, sheep heart, and sheep liver mixed with oats and packed into a sheep's stomach. The USDA has determined it is "unfit for human consumption" and it is impossible to import or purchase authentic haggis in America. Reently, in Doctor Who, the Doctor delivered the line "you're Scottish, fry something", and the scene cut away to bacon.

I personally must object. Scottish cuisine has one thing going for it:

Whiskey.

In fact, if you search for Scottish recipes around the internet, you'll find that nearly every one contained Scotch as an ingredient. I am almost certain that without Scotch, Scotland would starve.

Before venturing after me, you might think about picking some Scotch up. You'll also find you need some oats. Oatmeal is a staple of Celtic cuisine, and there's no shame in that!

Beyond that, Scottish cuisine is not entirely unlike old fasioned American cooking. It might not be the lightest, but there's no doubt some flavors worth exploring.