Score One for Meat!

It's rather peculiar and inconvenient that as a vegetarian, the meat dishes I whip up inevitably taste better than the veg ones. My friend would proclaim it's a sign that I should end my vegetarianism. He already remarks that as the "chef" I should taste everything I make. He laments it's just not right that I never have an inkling of what the dishes taste like. I always have to ask the diners for their opinion whether the recipe needs tweaking. It's one reason I'm loathe to do steaks and such as I never know whether I've turned medium into overdone or underseasoned into overloaded. As much as I sniff the aromas, or I poke or squeeze the steak to ascertain its doneness, I have no basis to gauge what it translates to in terms of mouthfeel and of course taste.

That brings us to tonight's meal. For the carnivores at the table, I finally convinced the diners to let me make lamb. Being that Easter is around the corner, what better time of year? And so I eagerly set to work on Nigella Lawson's Sweet Lamb Tagine. Unfortunately, I was unable to procure a boneless cut of meat which led me to waste time cutting around a bone that was truly multidimensional and shaped. All those curves and angles made it difficult and time consuming which led to a late meal. Overall though, this dish is easy to put together though it has a long stewing time. I accidentally misread the instructions and left the lid on but realized my mistake with a half hour left in cooking time. Thankfully, the stew was a bit on the soupy side rather than just plain soup! My fearful diners were pleasantly surprised with the flavour of the dish and the tenderness of the meat. They even doused the rice with the soupy sauce. They all agreed that next time, the prunes should be left out as they're not big fans of sweet fruit mixed into their salty foods. On a small scale it's fine but big prunes and plenty of them is just a bit overwhelming. Next time, I'll either leave them out or throw in a small handful (possibly cut in half rather than whole as well). Or perhaps I'll just use raisins.

As for the failed dish of the evening, I tried out a cartoonified recipe from the local paper. Every week, I see a new recipe presented in a colourful and drawn fashion but I decided to try it out since I had the ingredients on hand. Actually, I really needed to use up two of them (mushrooms and leftover sour cream) before they went bad. I was also eager to try it out as I've been on a longtime quest for a delicious rendition of the potato au gratin and plokkfiskur from my Iceland/Sweden trip. Yes, they're not the same thing but I was hoping for clues that would help me tweak my recipes. Unfortunately, the Sour Cream Scalloped Parsnips just turned out tasting as ugly as it looked. Though I used potatoes instead of parsnips (again, I was just looking for clues), the mayo/sour cream/heavy cream mix was disgusting. If I keel over from a heart attack, this last meal was not worth the damage to my arteries. It was just heavy with all the fat and heavy from the flavours of mayo and sour cream. I could have saved myself about an hour of cooking time if I'd just baked up some thin slices of potatoes and ate each slice with a dollop of mayo and sour cream. There was no real melding of flavours that turned into something special. The only things that helped this mess go down were the cumin that lightly flavoured the creamy fat and the mushrooms that helped cut the heaviness. I actually sauteed up extra mushrooms to throw on top as the 1 cup called for was a piddly amount. However, it added undesirable water to the mayo/sour cream mix which gave it the appearance of being curdled.

So, should I throw it out or eat the remainder? Well, I love potatoes so I'll just scrape the fatty crud off and eat it with the mushrooms. Maybe I'll even pan fry them a bit to give the potatoes a bit of a yummy crust and crunch. I think I would have been better off eating the lamb!