FFwD: Buckwheat Blini with Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

In the land of French Fridays with Dorie, I have a hunch that this is going to be one of those weeks where I feel like I ate a totally different dish from everyone else. I expect that most people will love Buckwheat Blini with Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche (pg 172 of Around My French Table). I hated it. HAAAATED it.

I mixed up my buckwheat batter last night, to allow it to sit for as long as possible, because Dorie says that the longer it sits, the more flavor it will have. I don't have much experience with buckwheat flour, so I had no idea of what this was supposed to taste like, but more flavor is usually better.

I was warily curious about this recipe. I have an unfounded aversion to cold fish that is not sushi or sashimi. It makes no sense. I know this. My nonsensical aversion has kept me away from smoked salmon. I had no idea what it would taste like, and I kept an open mind about it.

Once the pancakes are made, I just smeared a bit of creme fraiche on each and put a bit of salmon on top. Behold their glory, while I sit here and await an invitation to become food stylist to the stars...

Who wouldn't want to eat that?

I wanted to like this. I did. Really. I can't even put my finger on precisely what my problem was. I didn't hate the salmon, but it was kind of overwhelming here. I plan to make bagels this weekend, and suspect that I'll much prefer the salmon sandwiched between bread and slathered in chive cream cheese. The buckwheat pancakes on their own weren't bad. People rave about creme fraiche, which makes me think that the only kind available in my supermarket is not a good version. I haven't been impressed by it a single time Dorie has had us use it. After three bites, I just couldn't continue.

I poured maple syrup on the remaining pancakes and had those for dinner. Much better.

Conclusion: Hated it. Matt said he'd eat it, to be polite, if he were a guest in someone's house and they served it to him, but otherwise, no.

365: No Repeats: Grilled Turkey Cutlets with Warm Cranberry Salsa and Sauteed Sweet Potatoes

Grilled Turkey Cutlets with Warm Cranberry Salsa and Sauteed Sweet Potatoes (pg 81) appealed to me, in that it brings the flavors of Thanksgiving together in a manageable timeframe. Once again, the results are underwhelming. Oh, Rachael, you've made such a fool of me all these years.

The sweet potatoes were the only element of this dish that I would make again. Slice 'em thin and cook them in oil until they're browned and cooked through, then stir a bit of butter and parsley in. Delightful.

The turkey cutlets are seasoned with salt and pepper, and a splash of lime juice at the end. Snoozefest.

The "salsa" was weird and unpleasant. In case you ever wondered, cilantro and dried cranberries are not complementary flavors.

To make matters even worse, when eaten all together, this was too salty. That's my fault (or hers, for not providing measurements. Yeah, lets blame her. Mwa ha haa!).

At least the salsa looks pretty.

Conclusion: Just okay. I'm quickly losing interest in this book (much to Matt's eternal relief). The recipes seem to be reliably unimpressive.

I'm also considering adding Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking, to my long-term projects. I find myself flipping through it at least once a week, and then shelving it again out of loyalty to cooking through Ready for Dessert, which I am still very much interested in. As it is a dessert book, Ready for Dessert does not include breakfast-type recipes, which leaves a big gap in my baking needs--a gap that Dorie can easily fill. I'm a little worried that my sidebar will begin to look unwieldy if I add another title to the long-term projects, but I'm guessing no one is studying my conclusion tally with any real gusto, so it probably won't bother anyone but me. Thoughts?

365: No Repeats: Lime-and-Honey Glazed Salmon with Warm Black Bean and Corn Salad

We've returned from our Hill Country adventure. Sadly, Nature foiled our pumpkin patch plan. It poured all night on Saturday, so for some reason that I don't understand, the patch was closed "due to weather" on Sunday. Guess pumpkins don't like mud. We had fun in the mud, though, which is something we couldn't have done in dry old Corpus Christi. Pumpkins or not, we managed to find Fall.

Mud!

I'm trying to scour this cookbook for veggie-laden meals. This is no easy task. Lime-and-Honey Glazed Salmon with Warm Black Bean and Corn Salad (pg. 253) was healthy (spinach, red onion, and red bell pepper are in there too), but it lacked oomph. The subtle flavor of the salmon, marinated for a bit in honey, lime juice, and chili powder, was quite nice. The salad was under-seasoned, though.

Conclusion: Just okay. This wasn't bad, but there was nothing interesting about it.

365: No Repeats: Lamb Patties with Garlic and Mint Over Mediterranean Chopped Salad

The salad portion of Lamb Patties with Garlic and Mint Over Mediterranean Chopped Salad (pg 80) is like any other Greek salad. I assumed that there was lettuce involved, but it turns out there wasn't. I added it anyway, because I'd already bought it.

The patties were ground lamb, parsley, too much cumin and too much steak seasoning. This is a lamb dish for people who don't like lamb. It could have been burger meat, and I'd never know the difference. I like lamb to taste like lamb. This tasted like cumin. Granted, I did forget to buy the mint that was supposed to be mixed in with the meat, and that may have cut the cumin a little, but I doubt it would be enough.

I could only eat one of those patties. Heavy stuff.

Conclusion: Just okay. Not bad, but I don't think that lamb needs a lot of seasoning.

The closest pumpkin patch is 4 hours away, so we're heading out of town for the long weekend, in search of Fall. Be back on Tuesday!

FFwD: Olive-Olive Cornish Hens

I've never had a cornish hen. I don't know why. It's just not something that's ever crossed my path prior to this week's French Friday's with Dorie selection. Olive-Olive Cornish Hens (pg 225 of Around My French Table) is a cute name for a wee chicken that has olive tapenade rubbed under the skin, and then olive oil rubbed into the skin. Easy, right?

Right.

Except for the part where you rip out the little birdy's spine and then crush it's breastbone so it lays flat. On principle, I don't really have a problem with this. The huli-huli chicken I cooked from Hawai'i Cuisine a month back prepared me for the spinal dismemberment. My problem was that the hens I bought were partially frozen, which I didn't realize at the time. Two days in the fridge was apparently not enough to thaw them out. I took them out to bring them to room temperature, and heard them clunk against the counter. Woops. It was a little difficult to cut through the spine while the entire cavity was full of frozen "juice." Bloody chunks of ice wound up all over my counter. Gross. Me. Out. I will say that it was much easier to cut through the ribs with kitchen shears than it was to saw through them with a not-so-sharp knife, like I did a month ago, so I'll thank Dorie for that tip. I put so much weight behind my breaking of poor birdy's breastbone that I smashed my head on the cabinet. Twice. I'm a slow learner.

I assumed that cornish hens would just taste like chicken. Correct on that count. However, Dorie says that the tapenade, "when heated, goes a long way," so I expected more bang for my buck, in terms of potent olive flavor.

Because the tapenade at my supermarket is awful, I made Dorie's recipe from page 487. Straight off the spoon, this is the best tapenade I've ever had. It was light and lemony and herbal, and I want to bake a bread tomorrow so I have something to smear it on.

Cooked on the hens, the tapenade lost most of its flavor.

My hen cooked perfectly in thirty minutes. Matt's was bloody. They were beside each other in a pan. I don't understand how their experiences in-oven could have yielded such different results.

Conclusion: Love the tapenade, alone. As for the hens, they were just okay. The tapenade didn't hold up to cooking.

365: No Repeats: Everything-Crusted Chicken Rolls Stuffed with Scallion Cream Cheese

Everything-Crusted Chicken Rolls Stuffed with Scallion Cream Cheese (pg 245) is a take-off on an everything bagel. The idea appealed to my obsession with all things bagel, and it seemed kind of whimsical, so I gave it a go. Chicken coated in poppy, sesame, onion flakes, and kosher salt? How could it be bad? (Actually, the recipe didn't call for the kosher salt. I added it anyway. Anyone who knows anything about an everything bagel knows that big flakes of salt are key. Consider yourself schooled, Rachael.)

The bagel accoutrements are mixed with breadcrumbs (I used panko). Smear scallion cream cheese on the chicken, roll it up, flour it, egg it, breadcrumb it, fry it.

I worried that this wouldn't cook through, since they were thick when rolled up. I filled the pan halfway with oil, and they cooked nicely on the inside by the time they were golden and crispy on the outside.

Conclusion: Matt and I both liked this a lot. It's a tasty, fun take on breadcrumb chicken. Yum.

I think I'm trying to conjure Fall by baking. Weather-wise, it's not working, but it sure is making my mouth happy. I'd bought fresh pecans at the farmer's market a few weeks back, and have been daydreaming about Lebovitz's Brown Sugar-Pecan Shortbread cookies (pg 198 of Ready for Dessert) ever since.

Cookies in photo are smaller than they appear.

Matt thinks they taste like Christmas cookies (as if that's a reason to dismiss them), but that's only because both our mothers make pecan sandies/snowballs for the holidays. My mom calls hers "slugs" and gives them antennae. Ha! These shortbread cookies do not have antennae, but I have to say I like them better than either of our mother's cookies (don't tell!). The texture is more of a solid biscuit than a crumbly cookie. Toasting the pecans amp up their flavor, and the whole thing is buttery and rich. It's a good thing I froze half of the batter, because I could single-handedly eat the whole batch.

Lebovitz suggests dipping the cookies in bittersweet chocolate. You won't hear me say this about many desserts, but I don't think chocolate has any place on these cookies. They're perfect, just as they are.

Conclusion: Love. True love.

Unrest in the Realm of Ray

Things are not going well at all. If these end-results continue in this vein, it will be proof-positive that tastes change over the years. Remember when I commended RR for not being afraid of spice? Nix that. It's hard to muster the interest to blog about lousy recipes, much as I'm sure it's hard to muster the interest to read about them, so I won't linger long on any one disaster.

Oh, and this book's format is driving me INSANE. I jot down the page # of the recipes I plan to cook on my grocery list so I can go back and find them when I'm ready to cook, but the list inevitably finds its way into the trash after the first or second meal, and then I have to scan the index to find the recipe I planned to make. Super annoying. Moving on...

The least offensive dish of the lot, Ricotta Pasta with Zucchini, Garlic, and Mint (pg 171 of 365: No Repeats) tasted even blander than you would expect from the title. I picked this because I had half a container of ricotta that needed a meal to call home. I used the whole pack of mint, but the flavor was still very light. I barely tasted garlic, even though I used extra. Snooze-fest.

Conclusion: Just okay. I'd only make this again if I had all of the ingredients wasting away in my fridge.

Now, welcome to the danger zone.

Creamy Broccoli Soup with Cheddar and Chive Toast (pg 149) was inedible. I think the liquid-to-solid ratio was off, because blend as I might, this never coalesced into a lovely, soupy puree. It was a solid pile of mush with some puddles. This was frozen chopped broccoli. It shouldn't be hard to puree. Ignoring the texture, it didn't even taste good. To finish the soup, you're instructed to add lemon zest and juice to the creamed soup. This gave it an unpleasant sour flavor. Bad. Just bad. All I ate was the toast, which had chives, bacon, and cheddar melted on top.

Conclusion: Yuck. Hated it.

Dinner last night was no better. Involtini all'Enotec'Antica with Gnocchi (pg 166) sounded interesting. Meatball-stuffed radicchio leaves simmer in a thick tomato/wine/beef stock sauce until the meat is cooked through. Polish stuffed cabbage is delicious, so I thought this would be similar, and worth trying. Wrong.

The meatballs tasted like any other meatball you've ever had. Cooking them this way didn't impact the flavor.

Radicchio, in my opinion, needs to be used in small doses, and balanced with a sweeter flavor to counter its bitterness. It's too harsh to be eaten in big chunks at a time.

Matt asked what in the world I'd done to the sauce, because it tasted like Chef Boyardee. He was 100% right.

Conclusion: Hated it. I'm also giving up on gnocchi until I find myself in a restaurant that specializes in it. I've never liked it. Every time I've ordered it, or, in this case, boiled up the store-bought version, I get dense dough-bombs. On Top Chef and assorted other food-related programming, I've heard gnocchi described as light and pillowy. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that it CAN be good, but I'm not wasting my time on it until I find a version with a reputation of excellence.

To pull myself out of my food doldrums last night, I threw together Very Spicy Baked Pears with Caramel (pg 107) from Ready for Dessert. It was exactly what I needed: easy to make, complex flavors, and all the ingredients were things I had on-hand. All you do is mix melted butter, brown sugar, rum, and a smashed medley of cloves, cinnamon, star anise, and black peppercorns, and bake. This smelled sooooo good when it was baking. Once the pears are cooked, remove them. Pour the spices and drippings into a skillet, add cream, and cook until you have caramel. I've never made caramel before, and I think I could have left it on to thicken up a little more, but I was afraid I'd ruin it. Next time, I'll wait longer.

 I have no problem with the standard Fall spice mix of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, but I was pleased that the omission of nutmeg and the addition of star anise, pepper, and rum changed the flavor enough to make it both familiar and surprising at the same time.

Conclusion: Liked it. It cries out for a scoop of vanilla ice cream, though.