MYSTERY (bk)

1
Crepes (flour, eggs, milk, water, butter)
Sautéed eggplant in chili onion sauce (eggplant, sesame oil, onion, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, honey, rice vinegar, red chili)
Candied cashews (cashews, sugar)
Pear slices (bosc pears)
Blanched bok choy leaves (bok choy leaves, rice vinegar)
Chili onion cream sauce (the chili onion sauce from eggplant, sour cream)

2
Pan fried tofu (a really thin slice of tofu cut in a circle)
Apricot red curry (coconut milk, dried apricots, thai red curry paste, lime juice, garlic, ginger, onion, honey, tomato, red pepper)
Green squash noodles in pineapple soy honey sauce (green squash, pineapple, sesame oil, onion, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, honey, rice vinegar, red chili, lemon juice)
Chili lime popcorn (popcorn, chili powder, lime juice, salt, pepper)

3
Gochujang rice (jasmine rice, gochujang, rice vinegar, sesame seeds)
Cold lemony bok choy stems (bok choy stems, lemon juice, water, salt)
Egg yolk deep fried in wanton skins (egg yolk, wanton skins)
Roasted brussel sprouts in peanut sauce (brussel sprouts, peanut butter, honey, soy sauce, rice vinegar, red chili, sesame oil, canola oil)
Gochujang mayo (veganaise, gochujang, honey)
Scallions

4
Ginger poached pears (bosc pear, water, sugar, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg)
Soy almonds (almonds, soy sauce, sugar)
Cannoli style baked wanton skins (wanton skins)
Whipped cream (heavy cream, sugar)
Chili powder

Thought process
I structured this meal Blues Clues style – you get one clue from each of the first three courses (pear, soy, wanton skins), and together they make the last course. I also wanted each of the first three courses to have a “mystery”. 1: the crunch+sweetness of the pear as a nod to the typical cucumber in this flavor context, 2: the pineapple and apricot as fruity partners, 3: the brussel sprouts (which I hid underneath the rice) and the cracking of the egg yolk package over the top.

This meal marked a big shift for me: I had friends over who knew that I wanted to focus on food and not socializing. So they just talked and had a good time, and I was able to cook the courses, plate them, and serve them in order without interruption of the dinner. And then at the end, they all gave me feedback on the food!

Debrief
1: This felt like a good, simple start. It was definitely on the sweet side – the chili onion sauce (which you’ve seen me make, caramelized onions+garlic for a long time, then blend it in soy sauce etc.) had that caramel-y sweetness, and the cashews and pears were all sweet too. Think I might have blanched the bok choy a touch too long, and could have hit it with more vinegar to cut the sweet. I think I could have added acid in the cream sauce, perhaps done a lemon based one? I think I sometimes get stuck in this happy salty-sweet place, and can’t get out of it.

2: I was really happy with the way this turned out. I was thinking that the curry here was more of a base sauce instead of a binder for something else. So I made it on the thicker side, and then blended the apricot, red pepper and tomato into it to get the consistency I wanted. I got this spiral mandolin that lets you cut noodles out of vegetables, so it was fun to make squash noodles, and the pineapple surprise was great! I think I wished it had been more acidic though. Also, I lost a lot of the green on the squash skin when I made the noodles, so things were on the orange/beige side. What I think really worked about this was the way I plated it: I sat the circle of tofu in the middle of a layer of the curry (on a plate), and put a bit of the pineapple noodles on top of the tofu so it didn’t touch the curry. When you ate it, the two fruits only started to talk a few bites in, and that was a pretty gorgeous evolution.

Two big things that I learned from this popcorn episode – 1) popcorn does not keep warm well in the oven, I should have popped it right before I served it. 2) this perhaps should have been obvious, but don’t season popcorn with wet things like lime juice. Ideas on how to get flavor on there?

3: This was my “safe” course, I think. I tried some things, like the bok choy stems (which I blanched quickly in lemon juice, then chilled) were a great, cold, bright crunch, and the egg yolk thing was fun. But flavor wise, I didn’t exactly go out on any limbs, as you can tell. I knew most of this course really well already, just arranged it differently. Thing I learned (and will probably have to re learn again): don’t deep fry until you’ve plated everything else. I deep-fried the egg yolk before I plated the rice, so they were more cooked that I wanted because the wanton skins kept the heat in.

4: This was a pretty smooth finish. The ginger wasn’t quite as strong as I’d have liked, but the soy almonds were awesome and were key to linking dessert to the rest of the meal, which is what I’m usually worried about.

Overall, I think I made good food! I feel like I’ve gotten into a good pattern of making the slow cook stuff the day before (curry, sauces, the poached pears), and that really helps me with time management. Structuring the meal so clearly helped me to realize how much life cooking gives me, and how I want to take myself more seriously as a cook. Hooray!

GAZPACHO IDEAS (bk)

You’re BACK! I love it. I should definitely be doing many readings now but am instead doing this. In general, what I know about gazpachos (in the traditional sense) is that you need vinegar for acid and some starch for thickening (typically bread). And it’s usually a tomato base.

Okay I’m going to brainstorm for the three versions you have. I think honey dew is a great idea btw.

1.
Honey dew (is this the SAME honey dew you were eating on the phone that wasn’t good..?)
Honey
Cardamom
Champagne
Pepper
Corn stock

Question – is the corn stock salted? This sounds really sweet at the moment. I’d add cucumber and a bit of red pepper to the mix, tomato if you’re feeling it, maybe even celery for some bite? Definitely onion and garlic. Ginger? I wonder about the consistency thing, and if the corn stock will make too liquid-y. I’d maybe add that last? Love the idea of cardamom. What about nutmeg? Vinegar, definitely. I could also see rosemary in this instead of the cardamom.
2.
Honeydew
Coconut milk
Lime
Cilantro

Mmmmm flavor combination sounds great. I’d try coconut cream instead of milk to thicken the consistency? Even think that having raw corn blended in here could be good. Green pepper? OMG TOMATILLOS. That’s it. Maybe this could even be a separate idea, a honeydew tomatillo cilantro jalepeno type gazpacho? Anyway, back to 2. If you wanted this to be savory, I think you’d have to take me there with some spice. Hm, what if you did a chilled thai style thing? Cook the coconut milk with lemon grass, lime, curry paste and honey dew? Then chill and blend?
3.
Honey dew
Honey
Cardamom
Champagne
Pepper
Corn stock
Basil
Frozen corn
Lemon

Definitely see this as a sorbet! Nothing to add, except I’d probably cut/divide some of the flavor for clarity. I might do one batch with the cardamom-corn thing and one batch with the basil-champagne-lemon thing (I might do mint instead of basil). Pepper in both. Would this be a sweet sorbet? I’ve never made a savory sorbet.

ON CONQUERING GAZPACHO, SOME QUESTIONS

Ok, so I want to attack the fruit gazpacho again, but this time more carefully and thoughtfully. I have started a base because I have honeydew I don’t want to eat, so I blended that with some corn stock I have leftover. That is a good start. Then I pulled open the flavor bible, and I am thinking of adding some of these things:

Honey

Cardamom

Champagne

Pepper

There’s another world in which I do this with cilantro, a tiny bit of lime, and maybe even coconut milk. Ok actually, let’s make that this world, and I will do both in two batches because that sounds really good. I could also imagine the first one being a dessert and doing it with some frozen corn and some kind of like lemon sorbet with basil. Ok, so those are three concepts. How can we make each better? The first I want to not just end up being dessert. I want it to be something you would start a meal with. I also have cucumbers. I could see those going in any three of the concepts.

Hit me with your thoughts!

Thoughts on your things:

Going chronologically, on your French meal (which is hilarious, that when denied Asian you go to French…) I don’t think this was boring at all. I think it’s interesting that you think it’s boring, and maybe it’s just not a thing that you love to cook, which is important, but I wonder if you could also use this kind of cooking inspire your Asian stuff. Like blur the boundaries a little more. What about the Asian stuff feels exciting to you? Or not boring? For example, I loved the idea of making the first napoleon interactive by pouring the soup over it. Maybe also you just find this food boring. Fair! I’m not sure how you would make that more exciting. Usually what I do is think what is this normally, what would we not put in it that I have on hand, and how can we put it in, or how can we make it imitate something else. Which I think is why I often end up shoving fruit in things. But also I think you could add different flavor combinations to it, like what if I made this French onion soup Turkish inspired. At work they made turkish baked beans and they are incredible.

And for the other meal: Hmm on show-y food. I hear you. I think part of the problem is we do this as a method of self expression and basically art, whereas normally people just cook to cook, even if they want to make something better than they usually do on a particular day. So I totally see how that could feel like showing off, but I also think people generally just appreciate it and I think the reasons behind why we do it are pretty clear and so I don’t think that there’s much to do, though I see how especially in a new house that might make you uncomfortable. I guess that’s kind of a non answer except that I guess what I’m saying is I don’t think we’re showy I think we just care a lot, and those are really different.

The only thing I can think about for the cups is that if it was a liquidy curry then you probably needed something to hold the liquid, like rice. Otherwise maybe in more dumpling style let the tofu be green curry flavored but drain all the curry and then yeah you’d want some wet veggies though the apple slaw might work for that. Maybe that’s what you did?

I think crispy things go well with sorbet. Like what about a sesame really thin cracker. Or a corn really thin cracker. More like a brittle sheet. But not like candied brittle. I don’t know what else!

USE THE LEFTOVER CHAMPAGNE

Peach, mandarin, and walnut salad with champagne vinaigrette (lettuce, peaches, mandarins, walnuts, champagne, lemon juice, honey, olive oil, salt)

Corn Soup (corn, onions, potatoes, bacon, salt, pepper, cream, milk)

Biscuits with Champagne Honey Butter (typical biscuits, honey, butter, champagne)

Thought Process:

Umm, yes, had leftover champagne and wanted to use it and also had corn soup at work and wanted to try to make some. Because it turns out what you can do with leftover cobs of corn is put them in water and boil them and make corn stock! And then Hannah got me some lettuce from the garden so I wanted to use that. Basically, it was/is clean out fridge cooking. And also it’s sort of starting to be cold but also still summer so I think this straddled the line well. Also the cornbread at Hungry Mother is soaked in honey butter and it is so good so I wanted to play with that.

Debrief:

The salad and the biscuits were really really good. I think the dressing could have been more complicated and more sweet, and also it had a hard time staying together so maybe a little mustard next time. But the flavor of the champagne especially against the mandarins was excellent. (Look, no cheese in my fruit!!) And the champagne honey butter was also just amazing. So easy, but the champagne made a huge difference. I just put a couple spoons of honey in the microwave with maybe 1/2-1T butter and then added a splash of champagne. Try it. The soup was lame. I tried using bacon and cream because the NYT cookbook said it would be a dish I wouldn’t forget, but it was just cheating. Like I could have certainly made a better soup by actually trying to flavor it properly rather than use fat. I was suspicious reading the recipe. Now we know. I feel like if you’re going to add all these amazing tasting things you better have a damn good soup at the end. And this wasn’t bad, but it was pretty mediocre. And the corn was so good. There were also too many onions. Will try again soon.

SMALL PLATES (bk)

Cabbage wraps stuffed with
Quinoa (quinoa)
Deep fried onions battered in tikka masala (onions, cream, tomato paste, garlic, tandoori powder, cinnamon, honey, cilantro, flour)
Tikka masala sauce (onions, cream, tomato paste, ginger, garlic, tandoori powder, cinnamon, honey, cilantro, flour)
Green bean and cilantro salad (green beans diced tiny, lime juice, cilantro)
Chili almonds (almonds, chili oil, sugar, salt)

Baked wanton cups filled with
Pan fried tofu in thai green curry (tofu, green curry paste, coconut milk, lime juice, basil, garlic, onions, ginger)
Green apple and red pepper slaw (Green apple, red pepper, apple cider vinegar, black pepper)
Chili almonds (almonds, chili oil, sugar, salt)

Summer rolls with
Pan-fried Korean style seitan (gochujang, seitan, soy sauce, white vinegar, honey)
Pickled vegetables (cucumbers, carrots, vinegar, sugar)
Cilantro 
Gochujang mayo (veganaise, gochujang, honey)
Sesame seeds 

Watermelon, lime and basil sorbet (watermelon, lime juice, lime rind, basil, sugar)

Thought process:

I was nervous about this meal. I was already nervous way before I was actually making it. It was pretty obvious that I wanted to go asian, but in a way, I felt like it had to be an introduction to my food (and in way, to me), so a breadth of flavor seemed important. I got a bit stuck on the idea of a summary of my cooking; I definitely didn’t want to rehash things I made that I know work, but I was a bit too apprehensive to try anything that I thought could go drastically wrong. So I went with reconstructing familiar asian flavors in surprising ways, which I know I do well, but stuck the small plates prompt on so I was forced to not do the put-it-all-together thing.

The plates were themed Indian-ish, Korean-ish, Thai-ish, and in each of them I focused on creating the perfect handheld bite. I feel like I’m usually focused on the textural aspect of the bite, so I tried to pay more attention to the flavor dimensions (especially bitter and sour). Also, I had to figure out ways of containing each ‘plate’ without a plate (the haus eats buffet style so I couldn’t actually plate many small plates). Plus, it was SO HOT inside the house (and outside too) so I tried to keep things on the lighter, summer-y side.

Debrief:

Cabbage wraps were pretty successful. Was going to go with jasmine rice, but was convinced by the folks in the kitchen to go with quinoa instead (Me: “Are you sure? I don’t want it to be too show-y.” Them: “Uh. You’re already way past that line, honey.”), and I think it texturally worked better than the rice would have.
Not sure about having kept the leaves raw though, I might blanch them next time. The main challenge I had with this was the battering of the fried onions – I sliced the onions a bit too late in the day and they didn’t have enough time to dry, so the batter didn’t stick well. It wasn’t too bad, but I think I could have planned better on that end. Definitely want to try this flavored batter situation again. Maybe with rice flour for a super crisp bite? The dry crunch didn’t come through as well as I’d have liked.

Good things about the wanton cups: I think the green curry was full of kick, which was awesome. And the decision to thicken and then strain all of the aromatics out of it was good in making the dish feel cleaner. The green apple was a nice choice too, I think. But they were my least favorite of the three plates, and I’m trying to figure out why. An obvious not great thing was that the bottoms of some of the cups were underdone; I had trouble controlling the ovens while baking the cups in muffin tins. It was also the dish that probably worked least well warm and not hot. Overall, It was a successful dish, but… I don’t know, it felt like it was missing a key dimension. Maybe a leafy vegetable. Ideas?

The summer rolls were good! Yes, they were basically a remake of the co-op grille ones. I think they were kind of my safety net, so I feel okay about them. Main changes I made were switching around the ratio of some of the seasoning and cooking the seitan in smaller batches and for a longer time. Maybe I just wanted an excuse to eat them.

I made dessert, aren’t you proud? I know, I know, I didn’t bake. But the sorbet turned out well! I think I could have broken down the lime rinds either a bit more or a bit less. They were kind of a strange, middle of the road sort of bite. Oh, and I’d probably up the sour if I made it again. If I wanted to make something to go with this, what pairs well with sorbet?

Overall, it was a good meal! I think I did well. Small plates for 20 people is not something I’ve done before, so that was a great challenge to have. People were really sweet about it and seemed to like the food a lot, which was so lovely. Now I just need to get you over here so I can show them the kind of food we can make together…

A thing I’m thinking about: Is my food inherently show-y? (Is yours?) There was a moment at the table when everyone had just started to eat and they are all full of surprise and appreciation, you know what I mean. I wanted to bask in the moment and disappear at the same time. I wish that they could really savor that moment with their food, you know, have their senses be open and alive without directing that energy towards me. I really wanted to say, ignore me! Just eat! Think I can figure out a way to do that? Does that resonate with you?

NAPOLEANS (bk)

1
French onion soup (onions, butter, garlic, sweet vermouth, stock, rosemary, thyme, parsley)
poured over a napolean of 
Baguette
Caramelized onions 
Gruyere crisp

2
Seitan sauteed with duxelles (seitan, shiitake mushrooms, butter, shallots, sweet vermouth, thyme)
under a napolean of
Charred kale 
Garlic rosemary goat cheese spread 
Smashed red potatoes

3
Shortcake (flour, sugar, half and half, baking soda, butter)
Blueberry compote (blueberries, sugar)
Lemon caramel shards (sugar, lemon juice) 
Basil whipped cream (cream, basil, sugar – although in practice the cream swapped out for vanilla ice cream)

Thought process/Debrief:
When denied Asian flavors… Bex goes french. I was thinking a lot about texture with the napoleons, simply because of the structural restriction, so I thought brick and mortar a bit.

I served the bread/gruyere/onion napoleon in a bowl, and then poured the soup over it before eating. The thought was to have the bread soak up the soup without breaking down, kind of like a tiramisu. Flavors were good and on point. The sweet vermouth was really quite sweet, and I was a bit heavy handed with it.

The seitan situation was not good for two reasons: 1, the seitan I was using was awful (think dense, chewy, super artificial), and 2, I made the duxelles the day before, and so when re-heating with the seitan, they dried out. I think the kale was a good (and safe) call because it was a much needed textural change.

Dessert was good – I made up the shortcake, and it didn’t suck! I think I got a bit excited with the shards and put too much on the plate, but other than that, no complaints.

Overall… I was kind of bored. Can you tell? Not being able to use Asian flavors is maybe the worst restriction. I feel like I’m making boring food! I mean, it’s good and edible (save for the seitan) but I’m realizing that it’s much harder for me to think of inventive combinations. What do you think? Also, I’m cooking for my house on Monday… I need a prompt to guide me ASAP.

Next prompt: NAPOLEANS

Make a meal of three courses or more where the central element of each dish is a Napolean. Bex is defining a Napolean as a stack consisting of at least three different layers that repeat at least once. One of the layers must be solid.

Individual challenges for this meal 
Bex:
Cannot use Asian flavors or ‘styles’ (as Keerthi defines it), season with herbs instead of spices
Cannot use corn, lime or plum
Must make a dessert

Keerthi:
Cannot use fruit in non-dessert dishes
Cannot use chocolate in dessert
Cannot use cheese 
Season with spices instead of herbs (and generally season more)
One dish must be void of sweetness

 

MAKE PEOPLE INTERACT WITH THEIR FOOD (bk &kr)

1
Deep-fried Ricotta with a Tikka Masala sauce and Curried Almonds (ricotta, flour, heavy cream, tomato paste, garam masala, tandoori spices, cilantro, almonds, garlic, sugar, lime)

2
Thai Red Curry with Red Peppers and Tomato over Red Rice (red curry paste, coconut milk, onions, garlic, red peppers, tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, lime, rice vinegar, red rice)

Add ins: 
Matchstick red apples
Sauteed onions and basil
Deep fried black pepper tofu
Seared pineapple
Raw snow peas

3
Make your own Hot Chocolate-
Hot milk with shards of dark chocolate, dark chocolate with orange rind, dark chocolate with mint, dark chocolate with cinnamon 

Debrief:
Biggest critique of the night for me (Bex) was that it was a heavy meal without moments of respite, really. Think we could have added an acid somewhere, or cut a fat. Things that we found out: don’t deep fry ricotta without first coating it, the raw snow peas would have been better in smaller pieces or sauteed or both, we want to someday make three pots of curry simultaneously.

MAKE A MEAL WITH A PLOT (kr)

1 Focaccia di Recco with raw honey (olive oil, salt, water, flour; drunken goat cheese; raw honey)

2 Oven roasted beets, goat cheese, rosemary orange balsamic reduction (beets, goat cheese, rosemary, balsamic, olive oil, orange juice, orange zest, honey)

3 Macerated blueberries with orange and cayenne (blueberries, maple syrup, orange juice, orange zest, cayenne, salt, lemon juice)

4 Poached eggs, spinach, roasted sweet potatoes (eggs, spinach, garlic, salt, pepper, sweet potatoes, rosemary, avocado)

Thought Process

I wanted the meal to evolve in some way with regard to texture, flavor, density, complexity, temperature, etc. Normally I feel like meals evolve by starting light (something like a salad), climaxing at heavy and complex (roasted chicken or something), and ending with a sweet after-note–even if it’s heavy with butter and cream it’s sort of light and sugary and not as savory, which I feel is kind of like a type of denseness. I wanted to turn that on its head a bit.

I needed to restrict myself a little and I had beets, so I decided I wanted to do something with those. From there, I thought I’d like that to be a bridge between light and citrus-y and heavier, so the cheese for the latter and the balsamic and orange juice for the former. And texturally it’s a really good bridge because it has the goat cheese which is a little soft and thick with beets which are hard but light. From there I decided that I wanted to start with something heavy to reverse the normal order of a meal and just had to figure out what would lead well into the beets. Also something that would open a meal well. That ended up being a surprisingly hard thing to figure out–makes me think of what opens our palettes well, because there were so many things I was like I just can’t start a meal with this, but I couldn’t really tell you why. A bread-y thing seemed good, and this Focaccia di Recco thing is something I’ve been wanting to recreate for a while (also it’s really darn good and so easy–recipe here just add honey on top after it’s out of the oven, and I used “drunken goat” cheese from whole foods, which is a more melty and solid cheese than what’s just called goat cheese though it’s called drunken b/c it’s soaked in wine for a little while, b/c they didn’t have the other kinds: http://www.academiabarilla.com/italian-recipes/bread-focaccia-pizza/focaccia-recco.aspx). So I decided to start with that because it’s heavy and got that savory fatty thing going on, but also has a touch of sweet and the bridge between the cheeses and the honey was nice. And I liked the idea of starting with something so simple and limited but kind of heavy. From there the beet salad added citrus and acidic notes which brightened things up but still kept the original tones present. Also just with color it’s a really nice progression. 

Then I wanted the meal to climax with a light citrus-y thing, so its was punchier than this big heavy climax. I was thinking of music and moments where you have a really intense but simple peak in energy instead of the big grand everything playing at once thing. So I thought I’d go with fruit. Blueberries were good because they’re kinda tart and sharp, and then I decided to keep the citrus notes continuing with the orange, which also kept it sharper, and the sweet with the maple syrup, which kept things a little lighter texturally and also just like let the sweet note evolve a little. I suppose in general I was thinking about this like music with different parts and backing things and things playing melodies and things switching off and building continuity and making small and big changes. I added cayenne to the blueberries and saved it until now because it’s unexpected in this context (but fits) and because it’s pretty punchy, so it created this thing where you ate the blueberry and it was sweet and tangy and then just at the end it was like boom a bit of spice. And that’s where the meal peaks. And dropping the fat at this point let it just jump up a lot. And the texture thing continued here by getting a little more separate (liquid vs cheese and blueberries being their own little creatures) but also softening a little. 

And lastly I wanted to have the heavy savory thing as kind of an afterthought. That actually worked surprisingly well. It was simple but having the fat come back in a liquid form (egg yolks) and having some different parts and just something heavy and savory but also with vegetables. Just felt good and looked good and was a little bit of a break from the previous progression, so it felt like an afterthought, but also had some continuity. I wanted to do it on something like an english muffin with a goat cheese garlic aioli but I got lazy but in retrospect I liked not having the extra bread and having everything just kind of spread out. 

 

Debrief

Don’t have much to say more. I was pretty happy with this. I coulda done a much better job with the end course on execution, but I think I just got a little tired and rushed (because I didn’t leave myself enough prep time before the meal started). But it actually was good in terms of not really having to do much as the meal progressed, because most things were prep before. I didn’t think about that but got lucky. All I needed really was 5 minutes to heat up the last course and poach a couple eggs. I may have added some pistachios to the beet salad. Would be really curious to what you would have added/changed. Also the focaccia di recco is just pretty stellar. 

Random thoughts and responses to Bex:

I can’t believe you made flavored ice cubes. A really interesting thing would be to have a drink that evolved alongside the meal the whole time. So having ice cubes of different flavors/sizes that would melt and change your drinks flavor. Or ice cubes you added with various courses. Ahh you did that! Hero! Ok, but yes. That would be so cool in other dishes. For example, I hear about tomatoes and strawberries going well, so what if you had something that was a straight tomato gazpacho and added strawberry (and other things) ice cubes and then it slowly changed into a tomato strawberry gazpacho. 

Yes, I think you should practice more with courses. Key is making things that you can have really minimal prep time in between for. Which is hard. But fun. And separating them in time will (hopefully–though not quite this time) make you not be able to have them all be put together haha. 

No I think you answered the prompt brilliantly. And it’s fun to see how differently we did it. I love the play of Korean and Mexican masking one another. It’s fun to make food into play–another way we can make people interact with and pay attention to their food. Because they eat it kinda just like ok I’ll put this in my mouth and woah it’s not black bean dip it’s korean what and now I’m thinking about this and poking it and like awesome. I love that. I think you also did a good job of taking your comfort zone and pushing it in a new direction by combining flavors and reinventing typical dishes. Curious about the resolution in the end–was there one? Because it feels to me like the meal ended in the height of tension. Would the brittle have changed that? Maybe it’s good to end unresolved though. 

Maybe next prompt should be only dessert… Only dessert that HAS to be in separate components……… (but I actually think you did really well with the separate components thing here)

MAKE A MEAL WITH A PLOT (bk)

1
Cold Honey Lime Drink with Chipotle Plum Ice-cubes (honey, lime juice, water, sugar, black plums, chipotle, cumin)

2
Gochujang Black Bean Dip with Raw Cucumber Sticks (black beans, gochujang and other additives in this bottle of stuff I found at the store, apple cider vinegar, canola and sesame oil)

3
Brown Rice and Corn Pancakes (Brown rice, corn, onions, bulgar, egg, flour, baking powder, milk, honey, canola and sesame oil)
Braised Cabbage (tomato paste, bouillon, onion, water, cumin, cinnamon, chile powder)
Green Bean Salad (diced raw green beans, tomatillo, jalepenos, lime juice, tomatoes)
Fried Egg (egg)

4
Soy Caramel Sesame Seed Brittle (soy sauce, honey, sugar, sesame seeds… but this is hypothetical because I didn’t get to making this)

Thought process:

Planning this was… hard. As I was struggling to wrap my mind around it, I also tried to take notes to practice articulating what was making it difficult. I think a big part of what was blocking me was the immense possibility of ‘plot’. So I went to the treehaus fridge and let the leftovers and produce give me more restrictions. The only other produce I bought was corn, lime and plums. (I think I should have a “corn, lime and plum ban” for the next three meals or something…) 

Most of the plots I was coming up with involved disharmony of sorts (in case you’re interested the top contender was the relationship between Zeus and Prometheus, which I had just read to the kids I babysit) and I found it difficult to think about how to use the food to tell disharmony without making bad food, and I got stuck on that for a bit. So I broke down the idea of plot: there is some change that happens, and I worked off of setting up expectations, and breaking expectations, i.e. surprise. The basic story that I was working with began as two people meeting for the first time, things seeming simple, and then they realize, whoa, there’s a ton of baggage here. We’re pretending to be people that we aren’t because we are getting caught up in guessing who the other person think we are.  The two ‘people’ = Mexican flavors and Korean flavors. (There was a good part of the planning process where I was going to go Thai… but there was too much going on and the leftovers in the house were pointing me away from it.) Once I found my direction, I let go of the plot. Oops?

I tried to pay attention to how long flavors take to come out (i.e. evolving over time) and also notice the temperatures of the different components. I also tried working against my ‘put it all together’ instinct and make a dish where elements stay individual, perhaps they don’t seem to merge well, or the ‘working’ of the dish is in the parts not becoming one.

Debrief:

Overall, I think it was a good meal. I was most worried about having it feel like disconnected, but I think I did a good job of linking the ‘courses’ via ingredients or flavors. 

The drink was good! I think it was successful in that it started out as one drink, and then, as the ice cubes melted, became a completely different drink. The idea was that the first sip would be a familiar refreshing lime feel, and then the heat would grow, and then the sweetness of the plum would end it. I definitely was heavy handed on the chipotle when I cooked down the plums, I would have preferred just a hint of smokiness. It slowly became more soup-like, actually, because of the thick consistency of the plums. Which makes me think about the possibility of freezing ice cubes of different components and letting them melt into other dishes: soups? curries? 

The black bean dip was good, a bit on the sweet side, but people in the house seemed to like it. The initial plan was to make zucchini chips, but then I was confused about the zucchini being a cucumber (or was it the other way around?), and actually the crunch of the raw cucumber worked much better. The surprise of the Korean twist was fun, the two people who tried it responded with: ‘Oh!’ which I think is a good thing! 

The pancake took me awhile to get (consistency of the batter, thickness, etc). It worked best when it was thin and crispy, and the pop of the corn was really lovely. In hindsight, I would have made the batter separately from the rice, bulgar, corn, and onions, and then just used it to bind it together to avoid over doughy-ness. 

Green bean salad was eh. Modeled it after a salsa verde, but should have pureed half or all of it, it didn’t move well. Does that make sense?  

I think the entree was mostly successful. The idea was to take a meal that had the appearance of a Korean entree but the taste of a Mexican meal. Not my strongest idea, perhaps I could have pushed the texture of the foods more – corn flour in the pancakes? Or maybe polenta instead of batter. I think I also could have turned up some of the seasoning, it was on the safe side. Overall, it felt like I was missing a component, and then Connie put some of the dip on the pancake and… surprise, surprise, Bex can’t make course-d meals.

I mean, I found it hard to work in courses and ended up sort of serving everything at once. I think a part of it is out of convenience and also being used to the buffet style of serving and eating. What do you think about this? How can we practice doing this more often? Maybe I need to set a once a month thing where I invite friends and tell them that I’m going to practice courses so entertain yourselves while you wait thanks. 

Also… I WILL make a dessert in the next meal. I will. What do you think? Predictable direction? My habits showing? Not really answering the prompt?