Okay, puns are something that I need in order to breathe, you can't take my thyme jokes away from me. So get ready.
I made a nice baked mac and cheese tonight.
I combined: boiled fusilli, diced leftover roasted chicken, sauteed mushrooms and onions (deglazed with white vermouth--almost everything I cook has booze in it), crumbled feta, grated asiago, and some chicken stock that I'd blended with 35% cream. I also added some thyme. All good things need thyme.
Then I put it in the oven at 350 until I felt like taking it out, and when I did, it was too runny. So, I rummaged around for something to thicken it with.
Breadcrumbs? No. I don't like using breadcrumbs in much of anything, it's like stuffing your bra. You want the real shit.
Flour? Then there'd be clumps galore. Too late for flour.
Eggs? Well, why not? I remember a chef friend talking about a classic carbonara recipe where you mix the hot pasta really fast with a beaten egg, and it cooks while making a creamy sauce. Was it the white, the yolk, or both? I couldn't remember, so I just cracked an egg into a bowl, whisked it up with a fork, drizzled it into the hot baking dish while stirring, and then I watched for the result of my experiment.
It was magical. As soon as I'd finished mixing the egg in, it did exactly what my friend had described: it was creamy and thicker than before, and tasted great. So yeah, cool recipe. Nice for a foggy night.
Another thing I wanted to mention about this was the thyme that I used making it. (Thyme spent in the kitchen is well-spent, in my opinion.) I have noticed this weird tendency I have to use fresh herbs in the winter, while not so much in the summer. But in the summer, we've got tons of this stuff growing everywhere, shouldn't I be using it while it's seasonally appropriate? What kind of local foodie am I?!
I've been trying to track what changes in my eating habits from season to season (this way I know what I can take advantage of, and when), so here's the best explanation that I can come up with right now.
In the summer, I make a lot of interesting dishes, usually distinct elements (sides) that could stand alone, but still have to harmonize for a meal. I link them to each other by keeping the seasoning simple on each, S & P, a squeeze of lemon, a drizzle of some fancy oil or vinegar, or some of the ground spices I've got (coriander and paprika are favourites). A sprinkle of this, and a shake of that. It involves me reaching randomly into my spice cupboard, assessing whether or not including Roulette Spice will be weird, and then usually adding it anyway (cinnamon is the only one I eye warily: it is powerful stuff, and not to be trifled with).
In the winter, I tend to do lots of roasts, soups, stews, and baked stuff like I just mentioned. (I'm going for the two opposites here, just to start with.) The old, homestyle one-pot meal. When I first started learning how to took, this is what I made. Beef bourguignon. Vegetable soup. Roast meat and veggies. I'm a cheap bastard, so the "sprinkle this and that" approach means I go through lots of spices, applying them to a large mass of food. Fresh herbs, though, are very flavourful and intense to me, so it feels like I don't have to use as much for the intended effect, and they make the one-pots look a bit prettier. There's no picture with this article, because I baked tasty white slop for dinner tonight. Comfort food is kind of ugly sometimes. Another thing: using stuff like the cream and cheeses ("sweet" basic tastes) requires the balancing effect of bitterness, which is very easily achieved with the inclusion of the fresh herbs. I could probably do this more creatively by using tea, coffee or chocolate (or bitters, themselves), but I just wanted mac and cheese today.
It's kind of cool that one of the first "seasonal cooking changes" that I really noticed was how I flavour the things that I'm cooking. I'll revisit this topic again soon. For now, I'm off to the Merchant Ale House for some fine beer.
Proost,
Melissa
P.S.
Thanks to some good feedback, I'm in the process of tweaking the layout here. Also I totally meant to make the trifle pun too. I suffer for my art too, don't worry.
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