15 May 2011
Of Scotch Eggs, Glue, and Other No-Bake Recipes
15/05/11 11:42
It is illegal to transport alcohol between provinces in Canada. We did not discover this by personal experience mind you. It just came up on the news as there’s a push to make it legal. The law dates back to the 1920s and was never dropped. It’s not enforced, mind you but it’s become an issue for the smaller wineries in the Okanagan Vally of BC. As one vintner said “I can ship my wines to anyone who calls in BC. I can ship my wines to anyone who calls from anywhere in the States. I can ship my wine to anyone who calls from nearly anywhere in the world. What I can’t do is ship my wine 200 kilometres up the road to Calgary or Saskatoon.” He makes a point.
This week we encountered all sorts of odd food things. On one of our favourite shows is Anna & Kristina's Grocery Bag. They test out cookbooks but unlike others celebrity chefs on TV they make no pretence about being good cooks. They’re just a couple of women from Vancouver trying to figure out what the instructions mean. Sometimes it works and sometimes the recipe is missing critical steps, or the measurement is wrong, or something. The show is on W and has just been picked up by OWN. Anyway, this week they were doing a cookbook about British food. Now, British food is legendary, and not in a good way. They made Steak and Kidney Pie and the consensus was “next time leave out the kidney”. Another dish was Scotch Eggs. I’d never heard of Scotch Eggs. Scotch Eggs are hard boiled eggs, so far so good, that are wrapped in sausage and fried. They actually said they weren’t too bad. Traditionally though, I believe they are served on a bed of bacon or mutton and garnished with chopped sheep’s bladder and oatmeal. I’m not sure if Scotch Eggs are really from Scotland or if the Brits called them that as a joke. Either way, I’ll stick with plain old hard boiled eggs.
Now if they were wrapped in tofu and fried…...
Last week in our Japanese class, the instructor wanted to introduce us to some Japanese food. It was made with sweet rice and was called mochi. She had a cooker and showed us how she put a cup of rice and some water in and then 45 minutes later it would be done. She turned on the machine and we went back to the language. After about fifteen minutes the machine switched from a low hummmmmmmmm to a thumpa thumpa thumpa noise. She explained that mochi was actually made from a rice flour. Traditionally the Japanese would take a tree trunk, carve a large depression in one end and use hardwood poles to pound the rice into flour referred to as omochitsuki or the ritual of pounding. As she A. did not have a handy tree trunk, B. did not have the time to pound the flour, and C. the neighbours would probably complain about the noise, she much preferred this automatic mochi cooker that crushed the grains and then steamed and mixed the sweet rice. Mochi is traditionally made to celebrate the New Year.
After 45 minutes the rice was done and well let's just say it was interesting. Our instructor stuck in a fork and a stringy glob came up. She mentioned that we should wash our hands and coat them with flour as it was “a bit sticky”. Actually she was being too modest. It’s likely one of the top 25 stickiest things on the planet, and I’m including actual sticks in that. The trick was to form it into warm gooey balls with our hands. However too much flour and it would become gritty, too little and it would adhere to our hands. Once we had it stabilized The Blob we had to eat it. This involved pinching off small lumps which were wrapped in sheets of dried seaweed and consumed. The rice had no flavour of its own so the creation tasted exactly the way you’d expect rice paste wrapped in seaweed cellophane would taste. To her credit Marsha did have some and said it ‘wasn’t bad’. We got to take some leftovers home. It’s sitting in the refrigerator awaiting it’s fate. We are thinking of either A. rolling it out and making hushpuppies, B. rolling it thin and trying to make rice lefsa, or C. letting it age until September and using it as skeet. We’ll let you know what we decide.
Oh and one last thing on the Japanese food front. This week we discovered a Sushi place near my Nanaimo office called Nemo Sushi. this is either a brilliant marketing ploy or a very unfortunate coincidence.
http://www.urbanspoon.com/u/photo_list/1523695?photo_id=229761
Lastly, why am I so obsessed with food this week? Because our &!#$*!! oven died again. This time the repair guy didn’t even come out to check. He and I know each other by first name. He just called
Tech: ”Same thing as the last two times”
Me: “Yup”
Tech: “OK, I’ll get the board ordered.”
Me: “No point in replacing the blown part with one that will just blow in three months.”
Tech: “OK I’ll talk to them and see if we can do something else.”
So the stove has a new main board (the third one for those of you keeping score). I checked the breaker panel, no sign of arcing. I checked the outlet and all the voltages are right. Fortunately, we got the extended warranty and the tech thought it had a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ clause. So the stove is working again, for the moment and we’re going to get things together to see if we can get the whole bloody thing replaced.
But for now I’m going to go bake something, while I can.
Oh by the way we are painting again. Here is the kitchen/family room original colour.
The difference is very subtle but I think you can tell the difference with the new colour.
This week we encountered all sorts of odd food things. On one of our favourite shows is Anna & Kristina's Grocery Bag. They test out cookbooks but unlike others celebrity chefs on TV they make no pretence about being good cooks. They’re just a couple of women from Vancouver trying to figure out what the instructions mean. Sometimes it works and sometimes the recipe is missing critical steps, or the measurement is wrong, or something. The show is on W and has just been picked up by OWN. Anyway, this week they were doing a cookbook about British food. Now, British food is legendary, and not in a good way. They made Steak and Kidney Pie and the consensus was “next time leave out the kidney”. Another dish was Scotch Eggs. I’d never heard of Scotch Eggs. Scotch Eggs are hard boiled eggs, so far so good, that are wrapped in sausage and fried. They actually said they weren’t too bad. Traditionally though, I believe they are served on a bed of bacon or mutton and garnished with chopped sheep’s bladder and oatmeal. I’m not sure if Scotch Eggs are really from Scotland or if the Brits called them that as a joke. Either way, I’ll stick with plain old hard boiled eggs.
Now if they were wrapped in tofu and fried…...
Last week in our Japanese class, the instructor wanted to introduce us to some Japanese food. It was made with sweet rice and was called mochi. She had a cooker and showed us how she put a cup of rice and some water in and then 45 minutes later it would be done. She turned on the machine and we went back to the language. After about fifteen minutes the machine switched from a low hummmmmmmmm to a thumpa thumpa thumpa noise. She explained that mochi was actually made from a rice flour. Traditionally the Japanese would take a tree trunk, carve a large depression in one end and use hardwood poles to pound the rice into flour referred to as omochitsuki or the ritual of pounding. As she A. did not have a handy tree trunk, B. did not have the time to pound the flour, and C. the neighbours would probably complain about the noise, she much preferred this automatic mochi cooker that crushed the grains and then steamed and mixed the sweet rice. Mochi is traditionally made to celebrate the New Year.
After 45 minutes the rice was done and well let's just say it was interesting. Our instructor stuck in a fork and a stringy glob came up. She mentioned that we should wash our hands and coat them with flour as it was “a bit sticky”. Actually she was being too modest. It’s likely one of the top 25 stickiest things on the planet, and I’m including actual sticks in that. The trick was to form it into warm gooey balls with our hands. However too much flour and it would become gritty, too little and it would adhere to our hands. Once we had it stabilized The Blob we had to eat it. This involved pinching off small lumps which were wrapped in sheets of dried seaweed and consumed. The rice had no flavour of its own so the creation tasted exactly the way you’d expect rice paste wrapped in seaweed cellophane would taste. To her credit Marsha did have some and said it ‘wasn’t bad’. We got to take some leftovers home. It’s sitting in the refrigerator awaiting it’s fate. We are thinking of either A. rolling it out and making hushpuppies, B. rolling it thin and trying to make rice lefsa, or C. letting it age until September and using it as skeet. We’ll let you know what we decide.
Oh and one last thing on the Japanese food front. This week we discovered a Sushi place near my Nanaimo office called Nemo Sushi. this is either a brilliant marketing ploy or a very unfortunate coincidence.
http://www.urbanspoon.com/u/photo_list/1523695?photo_id=229761
Lastly, why am I so obsessed with food this week? Because our &!#$*!! oven died again. This time the repair guy didn’t even come out to check. He and I know each other by first name. He just called
Tech: ”Same thing as the last two times”
Me: “Yup”
Tech: “OK, I’ll get the board ordered.”
Me: “No point in replacing the blown part with one that will just blow in three months.”
Tech: “OK I’ll talk to them and see if we can do something else.”
So the stove has a new main board (the third one for those of you keeping score). I checked the breaker panel, no sign of arcing. I checked the outlet and all the voltages are right. Fortunately, we got the extended warranty and the tech thought it had a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ clause. So the stove is working again, for the moment and we’re going to get things together to see if we can get the whole bloody thing replaced.
But for now I’m going to go bake something, while I can.
Oh by the way we are painting again. Here is the kitchen/family room original colour.
The difference is very subtle but I think you can tell the difference with the new colour.