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Sometimes you go into a recipe expecting the worst and getting the best. And other times, unfortunately, you expect tastiness, or at least decency, and feel the big, resounding thud of disappointment.
Having had such luck with the Fantastic Fish Pie, I was riding the sea of Jamie Oliver love and decided to splurge. While on a massive kitchen-replenishing run over the weekend, I picked up a leg of lamb for his Braised Five-Hour Lamb with Wine, Veg, and All That. The thought of a stew-like braised meal at the end of a cold weekend sounded like just the ticket. I didn't expect miracles, but I did expect the comfort of tasty food. I mean, he said it was a "trouble-free dinner" after all. Not for me. The end result had decent root veggies, but lamb that was a little tough (even with the time shortened to 4 hours), and a "gravy" that almost made me keel over in an oil coma. It was just grease city, and needed to be rid of the saucy oil before bowling and eating. This whole ordeal became even more annoying when I found out that the rest of the Internet world seems to love it.
That's the thing about cooking and baking. I love it to death, but it's so pricey and disheartening when it fails -- whether it is buying that pricey piece of lamb, using up a lot of electricity, and wishing you'd just had peanut butter and jelly, or buying all that fair-trade chocolate and having your baking fall flat. These days, it's even tougher when the money and effort doesn't give great results -- no splurge should end in failure, but it happens.
What are your recent cooking mishaps?
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1-20-2009 @3:08PM spooninandforkin said... It's common in Chinese cooking to boil red meat in water for a few minutes to get rid of the blood/fat/any yucky stuff before transferring to the actual cooking pot. I find that works well to get rid of the grease, just don't forget about it and let it shrivel up into half its size. That was a mishap that ruined the meat for me. And refrigerating it overnight makes it easy to spoon out the solified fat on top.
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1-20-2009 @3:41PM Aaron said... haha--I made my old standard chocolate cake for a birthday recently, and used Ibarra chocolate to make the ganache... which completely failed to firm up, to my surprise and confusion. I figure maybe the extra sugar and canela in the chocolate caused it to distemper?
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1-20-2009 @3:46PM Lorenzo said... I make braised lamb regularly. Two very important points. You really need to trim as much fat off the lamb as you possibly can. Better to lose a little meat than keep a little fat. Lamb and sheep fat is not very yummy. That will take care of the greasiness. As to the tenderness, when it comes to lamb and sheep, this ain't beef rib roast, longer is better. So if you are going to change the timing, make it longer, never shorter.
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1-20-2009 @5:42PM DK said... What Lorenzo said - never shorten the time for braised meat. And cut off ALL the fat. It probably would have been fine.
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1-21-2009 @5:24PM Michael Cohen said... The best thing is actually to make it the day before then put it in the fridge. The fat will solidify on the top and you can take it off...
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1-21-2009 @9:40AM alisa said... I recently tried to make a pear soup featured on the NYTimes Mark Bittman blog but the result was definitely not what I had hoped for. I outlined my experience on my blog: http://theripetomato.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/pear-mushroom-soup-a-semi-failed-attempt-at-something-different/
I think cooking is a process, like any other, where you learn by doing. I know what i'd do different with this recipe next time. I also think it's easy to think that professional chef recipes are going to be exact, when in reality you have to adjust things to your own taste - Additionally, how much do you really measure when you're cooking/creating a new dish?
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1-21-2009 @1:39PM Sarah said... Oh I so agree.....when something flops it really causes teeth grinding. Especially when I spend a bundle on harder-to-find foods.
Had that happen with lamb burgers wrapped in prosciutto. By the time they were cooked through they were tough as rocks. Wasted like $15 that meal! Ah well ;-) For every flop there are 20 good ones :-D
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