gansie


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From the Endless Simmer Inbox: How to Avoid Unfortunate Culinary Fusions

Prego sauce

ES Inbox is an occasional occurrence when a reader sends us a question and we have no fucking idea what the answer is. Please helps us look good by providing guidance in the comments.

Dear lovely ES crew,

I need some help. My husband and I just moved and are living with my wonderful in-laws while we get our feet on the ground in a new city. We’re so fortunate to have their support! I’d been doing a lot of the cooking around here until I took an evening shift job, and now my father-in-law puts together a lot of meals. The other night, my husband texted me at work: his father had paired a jarred generic “Indian curry” sauce with sliced-up pre-cooked garlic & sun-dried tomato chicken sausage.

Woah there.

Similar unfortunate culinary fusions have taken place when he’s cooking, and we’re having trouble helping him understand the concept that certain flavors and foods *belong* together, and others… don’t. We’re trying to be gracious, but I don’t think I could handle another episode of last night’s sweet-and-sour chicken cut up and simmered in Prego.

We’re looking for a simple way to help teach him about regional flavors and foods that “go” together without being total assholes about it. Can you help? My husband and I (and my mother-in-law!!!) thank you in advance!

Cheers,
A-B

in Personal 4 comments
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Friday Fuck Up: The Carbonara Scramble

carbonara scramble 006

My boyfriend couldn’t have been happier. I brought pig into the house. Thinly sliced, smoked pig. Bacon. Bacon. Bacon.

The oven was home to our first usage—bacon baked quickly and at a high temperature for an evenly cooked crisp. We bit at the bacon in between bites of eggs and toast. A simple introduction.

We thought we’d keep it easy. Let bacon flavor an angel hair carbonara.

I looked up a few recipes on Epicurious and understood, well, thought I understood, the gist of a carbonara.

Cook bacon. Remove bacon. Cook onion in its grease. Boil Pasta. Combine parm and egg in separate bowl. Combine hot pasta, onion, bacon and parm-egg mixture. Toss. Creamy deliciousness.

Of course, it wasn’t that simple. My carbonara got fucked.

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in Bacon / Cheese / Eggs 16 comments
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Tahini: Round Two

tahini couscouse

I seriously never stick to my kitchen word. I had, well, still have, grand desires to cook Japanese food since I returned from my trip, which I earnestly documented. Have I bravely entered the world of miso soup? No. Nothing. (Although more on miso later.)

A beautiful tagine has been sitting on a high-up shelf in my current kitchen for 3 years now. And I actually think it sat unused in a previous kitchen. In fact, I am so out of touch with this clay vehicle that I referred to it as a taNgine at a press lunch at J&G Steakhouse the other day. Although a fellow writer was nice enough to correct my pronunciation before I started blabbing about it in public.

Tahini, however, has proved a powerful tool in the kitchen and as I try to use what I have in my over-stocked life, I have returned to this paste of sesame seeds. Round two.

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in Recipe / Veggie 2 comments
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Another Victim of the High Fructose Corn Syrup Backlash

heinz

What can I say? Even a girl who’s tasked to write about food on a daily basis needs a pizza and fries kind of night. And so we ordered a large cheese and crispy potatoes on the side. This would have been an uneventful meal save for the use of new ketchup.

It looks like Heinz has fallen to the sword of real sugar and came out with a no-high fructose corn syrup rendition of their tomato spread. Last Target trip, my boyfriend picked up “Simply Heinz” and promptly ditched its chemical predecessor, therefore crippling our chances for a quick blind taste test.

Now, I totally fucking hate ketchup. (Viva la Mustard!) And, frankly, I’m not even sure if homemade ketchup could persuade me otherwise. But I saved one fry from a dip into a spicy mustard for a taste of the newly enhanced, newly natural ketchup. To me, it still tasted like ketchup. I’m still baffled why people want this weird sweet liquid crap on their fries, or anything. Why is it so sweet? Why!

Anyway, 80, an official ambassador for ketchup, liked the new product:

A little bit different. Less sweet. Lighter. Tastes like ketchup I had in England years ago. I probably could tell the difference in a taste test.

So for now, we’ll have to take his word on the difference. But I did steal a packet that they sent with the fries. Testing for another day. In the meantime, feel free to read some brain washing by the Corn Refiners Association.

Photo from flickr user Maalokki

in Trends 6 comments
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Tahini: Round One

feta and tahini dip

The bottle of tahini in my cupboard expires August 2012. However, I’m not sure it will last that long. One, because I plan on using it, but two, can something like that be open for almost a year and still be okay to eat?

Anyway, my boyfriend and I recently went on a cleaning binge and although we didn’t tackle our food storage situation, I thought I would help out by using what we had in house and not buying cream cheese or sour cream as a base for my pending dip. And believe me, it is KILLING me not to have cream cheese in the house, especially with all of the pumpernickel loaves I’ve been buying lately.

Pumpernickel, I’ve been noticing, certainly has a wider meaning than I realized. I’ve found some fairly plain, some with caraway seeds (my favorite) and I just bought a loaf at the Columbia Heights far mar that has broad sections of poppy seeds on the top, and was nicknamed ‘Black Russian.” Now I’m on a mission to discover all the different intricacies in pumpernickel, a very underutilized bread.

In the meantime, here’s a dip that is fantastic with pumpernickel crutons.

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in Cheese / Recipe / Veggie 9 comments
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All About Mark Bittman

It’s all about Mark Bittman this week. First we rave about his iPhone app and now some lucky DC reader (and friend) will get to hear him talk food, talk recipes, talk sustainability, talk minimalism, talk Jew. Maybe.

Bittman will be shilling for his book The Food Matters Cookbook: 500 Revolutionary Recipes for Better Living. DC’s Sixth & I Historic Synagogue is offering TWO FREE TICKETS to the chat on October 5th at 7pm.

Email info (at) endlesssimmer (dot) com with “All About Bittman” to enter. Emails must be in the box by Monday at 3pm EST.

More: Event Details

in Celebs 1 comments
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