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03 July 2008
What are some things every person should cook once?→[More:]I'm thinking of grand, dramatic things that wouldn't necessarily be on the everyday list.
Baked Alaska! I baked one as a kid, just to satisfy my curiosity about the physics.
Fondue! It's so cozy to be clustered close together around a hot pot, laughing and talking and eating two pounds of cheese. Though for me, the first fondue was a gateway drug: I now want to make it all through winter.
mdonley, I've made Julia Child's multi-page, multi-stage French bread. Once. Without the KitchenAid.
Maybe not so dramatic, but should be done: Apple pie from scratch.
Dramatic: fruit cake. The kind were you wrap it in brandy saturated towels for days. It's quite a process. (I'm one of the rare people that love fruit cake. It might not be your cup of tea.)
Eclairs. They're not even hard, though they take some time. Cream puff pastry is a snap, and ganache topping is similarly easy. The only remotely hard part is the creme patissiere, which is just a stovetop custard.
And you should see people goggle in amazement when they see you've made eclairs. They look difficult, so you get Genuis Chef credit.
Homemade doughnuts are dramatic in a different way, LoriFLA. My mom used to make them, and at a distance of ~25 years, I'm impressed at how little she swore. Any deep-fried anything is a labor of love.
By god, homemade doughnuts are good. I've been daydreaming about making them for about a year now.
In the same vein as homemade doughnuts, homemade potato chips, OH NOM NOM NOM.
Something you consider "exotic". Which gives me a slight problem, because everyone else's exotic is my normal and all the other "exotic" foods seem so normal to me anyhoo.
Or cakes and cookies. Baking's awesome but not many people do it for fun.
One or two recipes from this book that I bought for elizard ages ago. The first one is the Flying Pie that, when opened, live birds fly out of it. The second is grandiosely titled "How to Dress a Peacock with All Its Feathers, so That When Cooked, It Appears to Be Alive and Spews Fire from Its Beak." She hasn't made them yet as peacocks are a bitch to come by.
Alternately, there's a really tricky one that involves making fresh pasta into little ravioli shapes and cracking an egg into them. You seal the raw egg into the pasta, and boil. The difficult part is to have both the pasta and the egg cooked correctly at the same time.
Stewriffic beat me to it. Beef Wellington, with all the variations, was my selection. I ommitted the liver pate for diced ham and sauteed onions and mushrooms. Delicious!!
Multi-stage ribs, for sure--braising, dry rub, smoking, saucing. Sushi--it's not as hard as it looks, and really impresses guests. And lamb vindaloo from scratch.
Not cooking, but home-made mayonnaise is great when it works - for me it only works about half the time.
I've done the full multi-week alcohol-filled fruit cake, which isn't difficult but does take a long time - well worth it! Lamb vindaloo from scratch is not as hard as you might think either - but takes time, and the result is impressive.
I want to roast a goose one day. Maybe I'll start with a duck.
Beef Wellington is, technically, a Huge Fucking Pain in the Ass. Do not want (to cook, that is).
I'd like to make ceviche, but I am afraid I'd poison everyone by serving toxic raw fish. Recipe seems deceptively easy.
One of these days, though, I'm going to make a real cassoulet. Talk about overthinking a plate of beans -- gotta love a bean dish that requires a duck confit.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
