Thursday, March 02, 2006

A Brisket, A Tasket or The Frying of Latke 49

After a week of eating out, I was aching to get back in the kitchen. I asked Q what he wanted for dinner, and he immediately suggested, nay, demanded that I make the Two-potato Latkes from the November issue of Cooking Light. A couple of whirs of my trusty food processor, and I had shredded my russets and sweet potatoes to create the starchy building blocks I needed. However, when it came to forming the cakes, I had a bit of trouble.

You see, the shredded potatoes should be rid of their juices. Oh my, do potatoes have a lot of liquid! I did the best I could considering I didn’t have cheesecloth, but I probably only squeezed out 70% of the liquid. The cooking light recipe only called for 1 egg, while other recipes call for 3. Needless to say, my latkes did not have an easy time staying together. The low-fat recipe also called for baking the latkes rather than frying them. However, baking them just left the little suckers sticking to the baking sheet, even after greasing the sheet with a little more oil than called for.



In the end, the salvageable latkes looked very yummy, but they just tasted like hash-browns. It was a whole lot of effort for not much payoff, so I shan’t be making this recipe again.

However, the Brisket (yes, with a capital B), was a whole lot of payoff for not much effort. Oh, the yin and yang balance of my kitchen! I once again turned to Cook's Illustrated and their recipe for Onion-Braised Beef Brisket (free registration). Basically, you just stick the browned brisket in a foil packet with some sautéed onions and other sundry spices. This method yielded a surprisingly tender piece of meat in roughly 2 hours, leaving me plenty of time to paint my nails while watching season 1 of The Muppet Show. I have to try the Swedish Chef’s recipe for doughnuts.



I tend to end these recipe reviews with a Jerry Springer-style Final Thought. Instead, I’ll ask a trivia question. The second part of this post’s title is from a television show. What was the name of the episode that I ripped it from? I promise to mail a treat to the first person to answer correctly.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought the second part of the title was an allusion to a heinous author, Thomas Pynchon. I think he wrote "Crying of Lot 49." I'll look it up.

Yes, he did. So I don't know what tv show you ripped that from, but I think I should get a point for knowing where the tv show ripped it from. And maybe Laura should get a point for telling me about Pynchon, then losing a point for telling me about Pynchon.

What's the Swedish Chef's doughnut recipe?

krys said...

Pynchon made the joke in the television show I ripped it from.

The Swedish Chef's doughnut recipe was throwing the dough in the air, taking a gun, and shooting a hole through the middle. Delicious!

Anonymous said...

Since it's a tv show, I want to guess it's from Taxi.

I maintain that tv show is alluding to the title of the book, though.

I hope my prize is a bread knife from Ikea.

Anonymous said...

So you not only cheated but you ruined the game for everyone else by posting the answer. I think I'm the only person eligible to win now.

krys said...

Tood: The bread knife is yours anyway, silly.

Theworstwife: That's the episode! Expect your prize by the end of the week. Probably.