tastethis

Chicken Salad, Red Vines, and Dr. Pepper

All right, one recipe every two months. We're doing fantastic with this project.

The problem is that Jodi was traveling, then I was traveling, then I had the black plague, and now Jodi has the black plague.

But now we are proud to present: Chicken Salad (page 163).

We decided on this dish because we had some leftover chicken in the fridge, and we were both getting tired of eating soup, which is required when you have the black plague. But I really still have no talent for cooking on my own, and Jodi didn't want me to try to make Becker Pork Hash again, so we thought this would be quick and easy, which it was.

Basically, all you gotta do is chop up a bunch of stuff (2 cups diced chicken, 1 cup diced chicken, 1 cup halved seedless grapes, and 1/4 cup almonds, walnuts, or pecans), throw it into a bowl, and mix in some mayonnaise with salt and pepper. So Jodi prepared everything else while I focused on chopping the celery, because it still takes me a million years to cut anything. I'm always worried I'm going to take my hand off.

We didn't have grapes, so we used an apple instead, but that's okay because Jodi is sick and I wasn't going to argue with her.

Lesson #33: When one of the cooks is sick, anything goes.

Also, she put nuts only on her chicken salad, because I hate nuts, because nuts are nasty.

Lesson #34: Nuts are nasty.

The recipe said to serve the chicken salad on a bed of lettuce leaves. But instead, we toasted some wheat bread and made sandwiches, because we're not gay. By the way, I always prefer white bread, but because we're trying to eat somewhat healthy again, we used wheat bread.

Lesson #35: White bread is bad for you, and therefore tastes good. Wheat bread is good for you, and therefore tastes like crap.

When we finished, the sandwich did not look like much all by itself. So I garnished it with a handful of Red Vines and a can of Dr. Pepper.

The chicken salad was delectable. I would highly recommend it. I would also highly recommend the Red Vines, which were sensational, and the Dr. Pepper, which was unforgettable.

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Welsh Rarebit, Pan Broiled Steak, Green Beans, Apple Brown Betty

We actually made this meal over a week ago, but I'm just now getting around to writing about it. I looked it up in the dictionary. It's called "laziness."

This was the meal:

• Welsh Rarebit (page 112)
• Pan Broiled Steak (page 474) with Sauteed Mushrooms (page 283)
• Green Beans (page 250)
• Apple Brown Betty (page 692)

We chose the Welsh Rarebit because my mom used to make it all the time, but I haven't had it since I was about 10 or 11 years old. In my family, we used to call it "Welsh Rabbit," because we were from Kansas and we were stupid. All I know is that I remember eating this and thinking, Wow, I kind of like rabbits. They taste just like cheese.

All those years I thought I was eating rabbit meat, but it was just basically melted cheese on bread. Kind of a fondue. My universe is now completely altered now that I realize that rabbits may not actually taste like cheese. They lied to me. My family lied to me. My entire childhood was a lie.

Lesson #32: Families lie, and rabbits may not taste like cheese.

Anyway, I can't really tell you anything about what it's like to make the Pan Broiled Steak, Green Beans, or Apple Brown Betty. My job was to make the Welsh Rarebit, because it originates from my tainted family legacy, and I had my hands full with that. So Jodi made the other dishes.

Actually, I did help with the start of the green beans. You gotta snap off the ends of the green beans before you cook them, otherwise you will get gout. That's what I did; snapped off the ends of the green beans. After that, I had to focus exclusively on the Welsh Rarebit.

First, I gathered all of my ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 cup milk
• 4 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (that, by the way, is a lot of damn cheese to grate)
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire saurce
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard (I had no idea that you could even buy dry mustard until I made this recipe; who'da thunk it?)
• 1/4 teaspoon curry powder
• Pinch of ground red pepper
• Bread (I bought sourdough)

I put everything from the egg down to the ground red pepper into a small bowl, whacked it around, and set it aside.

The recipe tells you to melt 1 tablespoon of butter in the top of a double boiler. Got that part okay. I'm getting used to this double boiler thing.

Then it tells you to stir in 1 cup of beer, ale, milk, or cream. Well, Jodi doesn't like the taste of alcohol. Plus, Jodi's mom was coming to dinner, so I knew I couldn't put beer into it because then I'll never hear the end of how beer is "the demon liquor and will send you right to hell." Actually, Jodi sometimes uses wine when cooking turkey, but the alcohol taste burns off. We don't tell her mom that there's alcohol in the turkey; so we're bringing her right down to the pit of hell with us and she doesn't even know it.

I figured that my mom most likely used milk when she made it, so that's what I used.

After this, you gradually stir in clumps of the grated cheese with a fork until it melts. Then you add more cheese, stir, and repeat. This procedure lasts for about 3 days.

While I was stirring my cheese/milk/butter, Jodi was scurrying around me, telling me to move, while making the steak, green beans, and apple thingy (which she decided to make at the last second). I just stirred and kept plopping cheese into the pot.

Once all of the cheese was completely melted, I added my bowl of other stuff and stirred it around. You're supposed to stir "until slightly thickened, about 1 minute." Then you're supposed to serve "at once" on top of the bread (which I remember tearing into pieces when I was a kid).

Unfortunately, the reality is that the Welsh Rarebit was done way before everything else, so it sat there getting thicker. By the time everything else was finished, it didn't really resemble a "slightly thick" fondue. No, instead it resembled...

Well...

Okay, you're not eating anything right now, are you? Good.

Let's say you have a newborn baby, and you feed it a bucket of really gross baby food, and the baby comes down with SARS, and the baby starts pooping this yellow/green wave of Mexican diarrhea in its diaper, enough to serve 4 or 5 people. Okay, you take that diaper off the kid and turn it over on top of a bunch of broken-up sourdough bread. That's what it looked like.

It didn't taste like that though. It tasted... okay. I mean, it's cheese, so you got something to feel good about. I'm not sure about the other stuff, like the Worcesteshire sauce and curry powder though. I just don't remember it tasting quite like this. It was okay, but I'll probably never make it again.

The green beans were good, for fresh green beans anyway. I prefer the kind that comes out of the can with all the man-made goop that is supposed to give you cancer.

The steaks were good too. Actually, we had two different kinds of steak. At first we bought a few flank steaks, but then when we learned Jodi's mom was coming over, we had to buy a couple more, so we bought tenderloins. The tenderloin pieces were very good; the flank steaks, not so impressive.

Jodi's apple dessert thing had good flavor (and the store-bought ice cream was EXCELLENT!), but I think she cooked it a little too long, so it turned out more like Applesauce Brown Betty. Oh well, applesauce, baby Mexican diarrhea cheese... It's a theme.

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Veal Scallopine, Rissoto, and Artichokes

When my Italian friend Tony learned that I was writing about my cooking experiences, he threatened me not to screw up the veal if I ever tried to make it. Apparently, veal is very important to Italians. It's like hot dogs are to the Japanese.

So when Jodi and I were trying to decide what to make this week, I immediately suggested veal because I knew I would screw it up, and that would really piss off Tony. In addition to Veal Scallopine (page 486), we chose to make Rissoto (page 360) and Uncored Artichokes (page 247).

The artichokes needed to steam for 45 minutes, so we started working on those first. Artichokes not only kind of scare me, but they're also kind of a pain in the ass to make and eat. You can't just wash them and throw them into a pan like you can with normal vegetables. Nope. You gotta wash them, then cut off the stems. After this, you have to cut off the top quarter of the artichoke. Then you have to snip off the pointy edge of each leaf with a pair of scissors. Jodi says you have to do this so that you don't hurt yourself when you eat them. Good grief. I mean I'm an idiot, but I cannot imagine impaling myself with an artichoke. Okay, so after all of this, the recipe tells you to rub the surface of each artichoke with lemon juice in order to avoid discoloration. Because I just don't know if I could live with myself if I had a discolored artichoke.

We placed the artichokes upside-down in a steamer thingy (which I remembered from my broccoli experience) over a couple of inches of simmering water and left them there for 45 minutes. The recipe says you can add a bunch of other stuff to the water (like onion, garlic, wine, vegetable oil, bay leaves, shoes, rocks, etc.), but we decided not to add any of that because it's extra work.

Next, we preheated the oven to 180 degrees for the veal, and we started working on the rissoto. Jodi chopped up a cup of onion while I measured 2 cups of Arborio rice (which, I guess, is the kind of rice you use to make rissoto). Because rice must be measured precisely or else death will result, I was very careful to measure it over a bowl, scraping off the top of the rice with a knife.

We poured 8 cups of chicken broth into a saucepan and heated it to a low simmer. That's a lot of chicken broth. You could drown a guy in that much chicken broth.

Then Jodi sprayed another saucepan with non-stick cooking spray. She always does this by opening the dishwasher door and spraying over it so that she doesn't make a mess on the counter. I guess she learned that little trick from Oprah, because Jodi learns all things from Oprah.

Lesson #31: Spray your pans over the open dishwasher door.

In this saucepan, Jodi added 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the onions, heating and stirring them until they were soft. Meanwhile, I was killing a wasp.

Then she added the 2 precises cups of Arborio rice and stirred and stirred and stirred. After a few minutes, she poured in 1/2 cup of white wine. The recipe called for "dry white wine," but neither Jodi not I know one thing about wine. I have no idea how to tell if it's dry or what that means. I remember watching MASH, and Hawkeye always liked his martinis to be very dry, but that's all I know. We always pick wine by how pretty the label is. We saw one with ladybugs on it, and Jodi likes ladybugs, so that's the one we bought.

While Jodi stirred the rice, I started getting the veal ready to cook. This was actually the easiest part of the meal preparation. All you do is dredge the pieces of veal in flour and place them in a heated skillet with 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. The hardest part is figuring out what "dredge" means. The only time I've ever heard the word "dredge" used is on the news when they talk about dredging a river to find drowned bodies. And when I thought of dead bodies in water, I finally made the connection between veal and Italians.

When it comes to veal and flour, "dredging" basically means to flop the pieces of veal around in the flour to coat each piece. I can't picture anyone doing that with a dead body, but that's what you do with veal.

So I dredged each piece of veal and placed them into the skillet. You're not supposed to crowd the skillet, so I only made two pieces at a time. Each side is supposed to cook for 30 to 60 seconds, and then you put it on a platter and keep it warm in the oven (or in a plate warmer, which is what we used). I probably let them cook for longer than the recommended 30 to 60 seconds. Is that what you meant by screwing up the veal, Tony? I was thinking it was either that or putting ketchup and Kraft singles on the meat before you eat it.

Meanwhile, Jodi kept adding 1 cup of the heated broth to the rissoto and stirring continuously until the liquid evaporated in the rice. About halfway through, we switched sides. I stirred the rice and added the broth, while Jodi cooked the remaining pieces of veal. It definitely took both of us to keep working continuously in order to make this meal. Now I know why you need so many illegal immigrants in your kitchen when you own a restaurant.

After the rissoto was pretty well finished, we stirred in a tablespoon of butter, a cup of grated Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.

So, how did it all turn out? Well, the rissoto was nice and creamy. It just didn't seem to have a lot of flavor. Jodi said that if she did it again, she would probably use a higher quality brand of Parmesan cheese. Unfortunately, the store where we buy our cheese only offers the kind that is made by lepers.

The artichoke was a little overcooked. We made the mistake of going the full 45 minutes, instead of checking on it a little earlier. Honestly, until this meal, I had never eaten an artichoke before. I always refused to eat them before on principle, because they look stupid. But I tried it this time, and you know what? It still sucked. Artichokes have got hair on 'em (I'm not kidding) and you have to tear off a million leaves in order to get to the heart, which is just this little clump of nothing. Jodi and her sister loved them though, dipping the pieces of artichoke in melted butter or mayonaisse. I don't get it.

And then there was the veal. How was the veal? Well, half of the pieces were nice and tender, and they tasted pretty good. The other half of the pieces were pretty good too, as long as you didn't mind chewing each piece for 5 or 10 minutes before swallowing. It was as if two different people had been working on them. The taste was good though. We ate all but one or two pieces. And do you know what I did with those extra pieces, Tony? I gave them to my dogs. I cut them up, put them on my fork, and let my dogs pull them off. And then my dog Lucy farted. Is that how they do it in Italy, Tony?

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