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Pointless ingredients

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby Gillthepainter » Tue Apr 10, 2018 9:42 am

Have you got a link to the pie you make, Badger, please?

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby Badger's Mate » Tue Apr 10, 2018 9:44 am

The one time I have heard a chef use raspberry vinegar in a dish I liked was some years ago. After a meal in a French restaurant, the chef came to the table and I said I enjoyed the gesiers. Presumably they were pre prepared en confit but he said he had heated them in a pan and deglazed it with raspberry vinegar. They tasted neither of raspberries nor vinegar, I wondered if this was a known method or simply a way to use the stuff. It was late in the evening, my wits were dulled somewhat and I didn't ask.

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby Badger's Mate » Tue Apr 10, 2018 9:50 am

Just Googling 'Ottolenghi herb pie', will get it straight away. It's on his website and has been published in the Guardian & Telegraph.

https://ottolenghi.co.uk/herb-pie-shop


The recipe contains Swiss chard and celery, I use borage and a hint of lovage

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby Gillthepainter » Tue Apr 10, 2018 9:55 am

I've got the Jerusalem book on Kindle, thanks for the direction.
I've never cooked anything from it before. It's just not on my radar when I'm trying to think of something to make.

If I tell my husband I'm making a pie, he'll be in heaven.

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby Badger's Mate » Tue Apr 10, 2018 10:07 am

If I tell my husband I'm making a pie, he'll be in heaven.


As long as he's not expecting Kate & Sidney, nor indeed apple.

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby Sakkarin » Tue Apr 10, 2018 11:17 am

The Babka recipe I used in the Easter thread was from "Jerusalem", Gill, so I've made one more recipe from it than you, and I haven't even got the book!

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby Gillthepainter » Tue Apr 10, 2018 11:58 am

ah-Ha!
My most used recent book on the other hand is Bill Granger's.
Lovely dishes in it.

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby Sakkarin » Tue Apr 10, 2018 7:28 pm

Great until he wants it back.

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby Gillthepainter » Tue Apr 10, 2018 8:03 pm

Ha ha ha. Nice one.

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby strictlysalsaclare » Wed Apr 11, 2018 6:11 pm

Gillthepainter wrote:
Can't digest cucumber either Lush.
I can still taste it the next day.


Whenever we have cucumber chez Strictly, I always peel it and remove most of the seeds, and neither of us have any digestion issues with it. Cucumer with the skin and seeds on always used to repeat on me something chronic.

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby kavey » Fri Apr 13, 2018 9:35 am

I adore salmon roe, but mostly in Japanese food where they're celebrated as a hero ingredient rather than used as a garnish. They are also usually used only when very fresh and good quality so there's a pop of intense flavour and juice with every mouthful!

For micro herbs, where they are just used as a garnish, I am ambivalent, however I've had dishes with micro lemon verbena recently where the tiny leaves were the highlight of the dessert, and finished not just the visuals but the flavour profile beautifully.

I agree on the various salts, I rarely think they add much value. The exception is a smoked salt from Halen Mon that I thought utterly delicious.

Yuzu is one of my all time favourite flavours, so different from the other citrus, I particularly love it in desserts and sweet liqueurs, where it's flavour is really incredibly distinctive. As just one ingredient in a sauce or marinade, it's likely just to be an expensive sub for lemon juice and rather wasted.

Edible flowers don't offend me, we do eat first with our eyes, but I'd not bother using them myself, seems an expensive garnish, unless you grow your own.

Exotic fruits, I adore most of them, but they must be properly ripe, whereas often the ones that arrive into the UK are picked so darn early they never ripen properly.

When it comes to lettuce, I love little gems, but I can't be bothered with the limp pointless leaves of the kind that was popular in the UK when I was a kid.

I have tasted raspberry vinegar and it was nice enough but it's not something I'd use much, perhaps if gifted it would contribute to salad dressings. I like cider vinegar and balsamic vinegar, which I use in cooking as well as dressings. For cooking, the cheaper balsamic is fine but for dressing / condiment, has to be good / real stuff.

One of my bug bears on unnecessary food is when some sauce or other is not even smeared but literally painted onto the plate, so there's literally no way for me to taste it. A smear is bad enough, when you can get maybe one mouthful of food with a little of it on, but the painted ones, uuugh no no no!

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby Sakkarin » Fri Apr 13, 2018 10:50 am

A lot of food for thought there, Kavey!

In response to the very last point on the plate stains, maybe everyone should make an agreement to indulge in a little bit of public disorder to deter them. Perhaps when you come across plate stains, at the end of the meal you should all very audibly and messily lick your plates, making "ooh this is nice" sounds. A few restaurantsfull of platelickers and they'll get the message.

Or ask for a cloth to wipe off the stain because it looks like they haven't cleaned the plate properly?

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby Stokey Sue » Fri Apr 13, 2018 11:14 am

When you say yuzu Kavey, ard you talking about fresh yuzu tasted in Japan, or the bottles you can buy in the UK? Because I really can't see that those have a distinctive flavour.

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby kavey » Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:21 am

Stokey Sue wrote:When you say yuzu Kavey, ard you talking about fresh yuzu tasted in Japan, or the bottles you can buy in the UK? Because I really can't see that those have a distinctive flavour.


Both, though I don't buy plain bottled yuzu juice here, I've bought products with yuzu in such as Korean yuzu tea (it's actually more like marmalade but called tea as they mix with boiling water to make a drink), and dressings with yuzu in. Likewise I've enjoyed it used in yuzu-focused dishes in restaurants too. It has a very different taste to lemon, lime etc.

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby kavey » Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:24 am

Sakkarin wrote:In response to the very last point on the plate stains, maybe everyone should make an agreement to indulge in a little bit of public disorder to deter them. Perhaps when you come across plate stains, at the end of the meal you should all very audibly and messily lick your plates, making "ooh this is nice" sounds. A few restaurantsfull of platelickers and they'll get the message.

Or ask for a cloth to wipe off the stain because it looks like they haven't cleaned the plate properly?


Ha! I think the plate licking probably would be ignored, and you might find they spit in your dessert if you criticise by way of asking for the plate to be cleaned better!

But yeah I hear where you're coming from!

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Re: Pointless ingredients

Postby Renée » Sat Apr 14, 2018 12:47 pm

Speaking of raspberry, I do love White Balsamic Raspberry Vinegar which makes a lovely salad dressing. It is produced in California and I was lucky to buy different ones in Home Sense a few years ago, but haven't seen it since then. Now, I see that Sous Chef have White Balsamic Raspberry Vinegar, also other flavours and these are made in Italy, so I will probably order,

Gill, which book of Bill Granger's do you have? There are quite a few of them and I did want to get one.

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