Stock to Soup to Consommé

Crap!  So close.  We eventually got to what we could argue was a perfect consommé... for about an hour... and sadly the consumption part of the challenge was not included in that hour.  Oh well, let us explain.

There was never any doubt we'd try a consommé using the egg raft technique, so we picked the chicken and wonton option and added in the brioche.  We had different things going at different times over 3 days over 2 weekends and mostly when they were supposed to be going.  We managed to get all 3 components right and pretty good, just not all at the same time, nor the appropriate time... Oh well...

We struggled interpreting a couple of the recipes.  We mostly made decisions that worked, but not all, and had to call upon YouTube to help us out - more on that in a moment.

In order of our perceived level of success

Herb and Garlic Brioche

Day 2

We've made a couple of breads along the way (and our own pizza dough) so we're not scared of getting out the yeast and spreading flour over half the kitchen.  Different technique, so we attempted to follow the rules closely...

We weren't quite sure what to do with the butter, so we just melted it with the milk as it was warmed, so the result that we ended up more with a cake batter type arrangement than dough could rest fairly on our shoulders for doing that wrong.  We added in about another half cup of flour (in tablespoon increments) until it mostly looked like dough, albeit the floppiest dough we've ever worked with.  We actually put the garlic in with the milk too.

We set it aside to proof and it did a good job of that, easily doubling in size.  It was still a bit floppy but as we spread it out on the counter, punching out the air, it firmed up enough for us to be confident in getting it rolled up.

We probably used more fresh herbs than advertised so as to get the sort of coverage in the picture provided, but we don't think that caused us any problems.  The roll was uneventful and the transfer to the baking tray for it's second proof a little eventful (still a bit floppy...) but no harm done.

Definite 2^nd proofing success!  In to the oven for the prescribed time.  Definite bread type aromas keeping us amused from about the half way point.

Out of the oven, cool only marginally and eat all on it's own - keep reading to find out why.

Day 3

Reheat the leftovers in a stink'n hot oven for a relatively short time.  Enjoy the exposed, now toasty end, more than the other parts with our consommé.

Result

Awesome!  Possibly the most successful and tasty bread we've had the pleasure of messing up our kitchen with.

Due to technical difficulties, we didn't have a consommé to share it with.  We actually just ate it straight up.  We briefly considered adding butter, but the warm steamy herby feel and aromas convinced us otherwise.  Seriously, this was our dinner, combined with the Best Frozen Custard in the land as an appetizer.  Yep, things didn't go to plan...

For us it was far far better straight out of the oven than reheated and although we didn't actually get to dip it in anything this way we don't think it is really a good dipping type bread.  We got this impression just eating it, and only confirmed this to ourselves when we actually got to dip it in something.

We would have no hesitation having a loaf of this handy (and fresh out of the oven) to start a meal with friends, but would serve up something different if we had a soup course.

Chicken Wontons

We've made dumpling type devices before so weren't too worried about this part of the process.

Day 3

Didn't do anything on Day 2 due to the technical difficulties you'll learn about real soon..

Easy enough to chop the chicken in the food-processor.  Couldn't think of a reason not to add the sherry, soy and pepper at the same time.  Adding the green stuff (in a bowl, not the processor) took longer to chop than stir...

Couldn't be easier to scoop and seal them up.  We made them in little parcel shapes, rather than pot-stickers so for the cooking part we didn't really see a way to flip them over and make sure everything was cooked nicely on the inside - can't be having partially cooked chicken.  We went with the fry to get a crust on the bottom then added some water (watch out for some angry sizzling), covered them and steamed for a couple of minutes to make sure all was good.

Result

Pretty good.  We could do them again, that's for sure.  Might try a different shape next time and be able to flip them instead of steaming, but we weren't unhappy with having them steamed.

A great match with the consommé.  We both felt obliged to dip the ones on the side before consumption.

Had enough left over that they served as a pretty good emergency dinner for one.  Didn't have any more consommé so just used a simple dipping sauce.

Golden Chicken Consommé

Day 1

Making of the Stock was fine.  We've made vegetable stock many times, but that's more to use up vegetables that are fast approaching a too late date with no readily available option to use them.  It was kind of fun to head off out to buy stuff just for a stock.  It's possibly the first time we've actually bought a whole chicken that wasn't already roasted up for us....

Brown off the chicken type stuff, little bit of sweating of the veg and then everything in the pot, water in, turn on the fire, wait patiently. 

We did do some skimming along the way, but really didn't get all that much stuff that needed to be removed.

Cool, and then in to the freezer to keep safe until next weekend for the 'real' part of this challenge.

The pleasant side effect is that we ended up with a really nicely cooked whole chicken.  It was really juicy.  We turned it into sandwiches and also added it to a scheduled salad that was originally chicken-less.  Win!

Day 2

We were very excited to give this a go!  But, had a bit of trouble figuring out exactly what the recipe was asking of us.  We made our best guesses... 

First, with the plan to do Consommé do we skip Step 2 (make the soup)?  We went with no because Step 3 talked about adding cooked meat to the egg whites and the only meat cooking part was in the soup making Step.  So, the soup part went splendidly.  Again, we kept an eye out for skimming requirements but didn't really find anything.

Now, things started to go poorly.  Probably based on our previous decision to do the Soup stage...  The egg white, ice, cooked meat thing didn't make a lot of sense to us, but we tried it.  We couldn't see any sensible way to separate the chicken from the vegetables and such so we just left it all together.  Whisk eggs, ice, cooked stuff, back in simmering pot, stir - but only for 3 long seconds and walk away.

Fail!

We never got a raft, everything just sank mostly to the bottom and stayed there - and we're not supposed to stir anymore so we couldn't encourage it back up other than by staring at it.  We let it go for 30 minutes before giving up.  Basically, we just made a form of egg drop soup...  There was much un-rejoicing!  No tears, though!  We pulled out all the lumpy bits and were pretty much back where we started with the stock apart from having a more chickeny constitution and also all the fun additives that joined the party...  Onward, to the fridge...

Abort any plans for making the Wontons, calculate there's just enough time to eat dessert before the bread comes out of the oven and go watch TV with a tub of Frozen Custard.

Day 3

Google is your friend!  We found a couple of recipes that talked about doing the raft thing a bit differently and were just about to pick one to attempt to rescue our project when we stumbled on a YouTube video of someone making a consommé which we didn't particularly find useful, but that caused us to move our search from Google to YouTube.  We ended up with this one from Chef Sanecki - thanks chef!

Back to the store for more raft building items...

So, it didn't come with a recipe which led to us making our best guess (common theme for this challenge...) on quantities.  We guessed wrong.  Well, actually, we pretty much guessed right, but didn't factor in that he had a much bigger pot of stock than us.  Oh well, again.

So we followed his guidelines of starting with everything cold and uncooked, getting everyone in the pool, stirring constantly, heating slowly until just over 130°, now walk away and don't touch.  Almost straight away we got things forming at the top and shortly afterwards we got little pockets of bubbles coming up.  Nervous at first, after about 20 minutes we mostly were happy to let it be for the recommended 90 minutes.

Perhaps at the 60 minute mark we decided we needed to poke a couple of holes in the raft as the bubbling had pretty much stopped.  Even without poking it was obvious that something good was happening underneath based on what we could see overflowing the edges.  Woo Hoo!  This is when we realized something went wrong with our raft building quantities.  Due to the effort required for hole poking it was apparent that our raft went almost all the way to the bottom of the pot. 

No Soup for you!  Please, not again? 

Not so quick!  We let it go the full 90 minutes and started the extraction process.  Slow and fiddly and many coffee filters were required due to the raft breaking up a bit as we battled it for the very clear liquid that could be coaxed out of the pot.

After we decided to let it go the last 30 minutes we got to work on the Wontons because we needed to eat something somehow someway...

It took awhile to do the filtering, but we ended up with a pot of very consommé looking consommé.  And there was much rejoicing and excitement throughout the trashed kitchen!  It took so long to filter that we had cold consommé only to play with.  No big deal, we have fire, right.

Ah, crap!  While we were frying up our first batch of Wontons we let the consommé heat all the way up to a boil.  Don't do that!  It went cloudy at first, but it turned into a sort of suspended sediment.  No one anywhere we looked earlier in the day suggested this could happen.  We briefly considered filtering again, but we were hungry and the Wontons were ready and the leftover bread warmed again. 

We soldiered on, but does anyone know what happened there?

Result

It was tasty, absolutely!  Perhaps the double stock creation process we used helped?  But it didn't look very consomméy at the eating part of the process.  The Wontons were great in it!

A lot of work that got us nowhere, but eventually we ended up with a two-partnight dinner.

There was some left over but it went to the great drain in the sink due to it having a disproportionate amount of the crud we created during the accidental boiling part - we tried really hard not to get it in our bowls for the dinner part of the event.

Recipes & Destructions Instructions

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Conclusion

We did it, but we failed too - more than once...

It would take a very extra super duper special event for us to try a Consommé again, and even then we'd almost certainly skip it.  A well executed bowl would look awesome served up to guests, but the specific needs of the cooking process and our level of skill in understanding exactly what is happening makes it just to risky.  We would cry if we tried again and didn't end up with a great bowl.

The Wontons and Bread on the other hand, do have a place in the lets-impress-the-guests file and we look forward to the opportunity to unleash these dishes upon others.

As always, we dug into the Cellar for a wine to share our project with.  Not surprisingly, nothing was suggested as a match for consommé.  We settled on something we've never seen before because it was suggested as a match for chicken dishes.  It had a little sweetness to it that we though offset nicely what was going on in the consommé.

We lived, we learned, we trashed the kitchen (2.5 times!), we ate something we'd never made ourselves before.  The point of being Daring, right?  The next time Consommé appears on a menu we'll endeavor to grab up a bowl in appreciation of what the chef had to go through to get it to us!

Stay JOLLY!
D&S

Peta, of the blog Peta Eats, was our lovely hostess for the Daring Cook’s September 2011 challenge, “Stock to Soup to Consommé”. We were taught the meaning between the three dishes, how to make a crystal clear Consommé if we so chose to do so, and encouraged to share our own delicious soup recipes!

Comments pre Blog Platform Change

Audax Artifex responded:
WOW your postings are always so much fun to read. Great that you got the bread and the wontons sorted out from the challenge they sound so delicious. Sorry to hear that the clarified cosumme went cloudy when boiled (I have never heard of this happening). But at least it tasted wondereful. Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.

Ruth H. responded:
I kind of want to see your raft that ate the consomme pot...! I am quite impressed with your perseverence, and I am glad there were some successes inthere for you! I ws not brave enough to try making consomme in the first place, so I am even more impressed with your dilligence in trying twice!!

Jo Ann responded:
I love your descriptive post - you get an A++ for effort for sure. You were more patient than most. We have all been in your shoes (I should write a book of kitchen disasters). But in the end, you got a delicious meal -that's what counts!

Makey-Cakey responded:
Top marks for perseverence! Your description of the wonton making makes them sound easier than I thought - thinking I might brave trying them!

Shelley C responded:
Man, you guys are nothing if not persistent!! I love reading about your adventures, and totally applaud your efforts. Your bread sounds wonderful, and the consommme sounds... well... amusing :) Really great job!

Heather responded:
Oh my gosh, you guys are hilarious!!! I love the description of your culinary adventure. And it was smart to take days to do it. Mine took 6 hours on a Sunday afternoon!

Jo responded:
That was quite the adventure/ordeal! The bread sounds just divine, I love herby yeasty baked goodness, I'm sorry the consomme part didn't work out too well for you!

sawsan@chef in disguise responded:
I loved reading your post..hats off to you for all the attempts and not giving up..it sounds like it was quite an adventure :)

andy responded:
Fabulous post! I too found some of the instructions odd and I went back and forth a few times with Do I do step 2 or go to Step 3?

Well done for soldering on!

Oggi responded:
You two crack me up! This is the most fun DC I've read so far and I was grinning while reading. I can't wait for your next adventure.in the kitchen.:)

Peta responded:
sorry you had trouble with the recipes. I am not a wine buff, so I can't recomend a wine to go with it.
I just fry the wontons in deep oil and as long as they are golden they are always cooked through when I make the little ones.
your raft should only be about an inch or so thick.
I find if I don't get a recipe the first time making it again is the key to success.

Appam and Curry

It's been a couple of challenges since we've had to really plan our attack out (shopping as well as timing) and get started the day (or many days) before the scheduled eating of the result.  Probably could have squeezed it in a day, but we used the night time too.

Thanks for giving us a lot to pick from!  We almost went with the whole fish, but we like lamb...

Appam

Nothing complicated rounding up the ingredients, all coming from our regulation everyday store or our pantry.  We did learn that Coconut Water comes in a soda can, though; and the one we were presented with had small chunks of coconut floating around.

Day 1, just before bed time get the rice a soaking.  The hardest part of this is actually not getting up off the couch and going straight to bed...

Day 2, just before leaving for work, get the coconut water, yeast and sugar playing together.  Load up the food processor with the soaked rice and wait a few minutes for the yeast to wake up.  Everyone in the processor and grind up that rice.  Almost finished, add in the cooked rice (which for the record is very hard to cook if you have no need for a normal batch that you can just rob from!), and grind a bit more.  Set it aside, cover and go to work.

Day 2, just after getting home and feeding the cats, do nothing.  Well, until the Curry is ready because the recipe says cook and eat, not cook and keep to the side.

Day 2, just as the Curry is almost done, add in the coconut milk, whip it all up and have a go at cooking them up.  Small amount in the pan, swirl quickly, cover.  That's easy enough, right?  And we would tend to agree.  But we could not get them out of the pan and we certainly didn't get any curled up edges.

It seems we're experts at having them stick to the pan and when we finally got smartlucky enough to not have them completely stick to the pan we could do nothing but get them stuck to the spatula (a non-stick one at that!).  We did eventually get them on the plate, but they were more pile-like than pancake-like. 

For the record, we tried a normal pan, lightly oiled; beat up non-stick, lightly oiled; fairly new non-stick, lightly oiled; non-stick skillet, lightly oiled; fairly new non-stick, moderately oiled (don't do that, nothing good comes of it!) and even the pan we would call our best produced some stickage with the others varying degrees of disaster.  There's clearly something we're missing, or did wrong with the batter.  Anyone?

Result

We sucked at this!  Our first batch was probably nice calling it a disaster (for reasons not needing to be discussed here we started on one day but had to abort until a couple of days later, way past the recommended batter storing time).  Our second batch, much less disaster-like, but did not look a whole lot like the final result pictures provided. Oh well.

However, we think they tasted ok and we think the texture worked ok with the Curry.  We'll have to go out and eat some 'real' ones some day soon at least for comparison, but more for tips on making the pesky little things...

Sri Lankan Lamb Curry

A previous challenge got us the knowledge of where to find the lamb so that was easy (if you don't count getting a little bit lost on the drive over).  Fresh Curry Leafs and Whole Spices needed a bit more consideration, but ultimately was not a problem.  We headed over to a neighborhood where we thought we'd have the best chance for success and one shop later, we now have a new shop on our go-to list and a bag with all the goodies we need.

Once the ingredients are in hand it really is nothing more than a come home after work and 'whip' it up type dish.  Phew!  Because we did come home after work and 'whip' it up.

The nice men at the store had cut the lamb up mostly in the size we were after so that was a very easy Step 1. 

Step 2 was no harder, but we were a bit puzzled by the amount of Cardamom used.  After opening up 2 pods and extracting the seeds it didn't seem like there were enough of them, especially compared to how much of the others were used.  We don't have a reference point so we just went with our pinch of seeds.  The whole batch toasts up nicely, 'stink' up the kitchen just wonderfully and with just a little bit of coaxing all fit in the grinder.  Grinding only improves the 'stink'!

We didn't do Part 2 of Step 3 correctly, or in fact, at all.  We read the ingredient list, saw Tamarind, thought "cool, it's already in the fridge" and therefore didn't add it to the shopping list.  What we didn't pick up on until we were in our not-going-out-again-tonight clothes was that the recipe called for Tamarind pulp and we are the proud owners of Tamarind paste.  No idea how the two equate so when we got to the tamarind liquid part we just added a tablespoon of paste to the water.  Not sure how it affected the final taste, but comparing it to the pictures provided our final effort was much much darker, which was a bit of a shame because it was an awesome color when the Tumeric first went in.

Other than that, getting everyone else to the party was uneventful.  We didn't get the smells coming out of the pot as strongly as we expected, but we're kind of thinking that's due partly (mostly?) to the Tamarind incident of '11.  Well, actually there was a close call towards the end...  We were mere minutes away from reducing it down too far and into that not-fun-for-the-dishwasher stuck to the pan stage. 

Result

Yummy!  We really liked it.  We're not sure how it would compare to the others out there, but we're happy with what we got.  The lamb was tender, the sauce was rich without being too rich and there was no chance of there being leftovers for lunch the next day.

Recipes & Destructions Instructions

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Conclusion

It's unlikely we'll have a go at the Appams again (unless we get some tips / tricks that come with a guarantee of success), but there's no reason to think we wouldn't consider the Curry again, especially seeing how many new spices we now have in the pantry (well, technically stuck to the fridge...).  Our friends would appreciate our effort, we're sure, if we served them up, but we're not going to just yet...

We probably need to give the Curry another go and do the Tamarind parts correctly, but maybe we won't because there's no reason to think we can't just be happy with our 'interpretation'...

We cracked open a bottle of Corets de Cima "Chaminé" which wouldn't have been our fist choice had we not enjoyed our first and second choice at some earlier time - solely based on the tasting notes provided.  It was new to us and a relatively new grape so it was fun to have open.  We don't think it aided our enjoyment of the Curry, but it sure didn't hurt it either.

Stay JOLLY!
D&S

Mary, who writes the delicious blog, Mary Mary Culinary was our August Daring Cooks’ host. Mary chose to show us how delicious South Indian cuisine is! She challenged us to make Appam and another South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with the warm flat bread.

Comments pre Blog Platform Change

Stephanie responded:
Hmm... well, these are my tips from dosas and appam:

1) start with rice flour. food processors may not get it fine enough but blenders probably will.

2) make sure you have a HOT pan before you add batter

3) swirl, don't tilt. Sadly, I figured that out on the second to last one so most of mine were slightly weird shapes.

4) if they break, you either have a batter that is too thick or you tried to flip it too early.

They're quite yummy though, and if you start with rice flour, not quite so involved.

Makey-Cakey responded:
My Appam were definitely pile like rather than pancake like too! Well done for persevering - I eventually gave in and added a tablespoon of flour, which helped quite a lot! - but was technically cheating!

andy responded:
I'm sorry that you had such a hard time! My second go, after having the batter in the fridge 2 days, stuck too. Very frustrating!

anja janssen responded:
What a great story, it gave me a smile. My first appams were a real mess, because I forgot the lid. Later it went better. But I'm curious how the official appams taste.

Mary Dolan responded:
Sorry to hear that you had trouble with the appams, but thanks for participating. I didn't have any troubles with them sticking, but I used a new non-stick pan, lightly oiled. It may have been the heat--I had to do a lot of fiddling to get that right. I think tamarind paste/pulp goes by different names. I used the stuff in a solid block, but have no idea if I got it right either. As long as it tasted good. Cheers!

My Noodle Hands

We've made our own pasta a couple of times, usually for some sort of ravioli type device, so in the vain of being daring we decided to give the Spätzle a go.  Definitely eaten it before, but never thought about the behind the scenes part of it until now - not even a little.  Now we have...

We normally just work from exactly what is presented.  However, we found a recipe as part of the comments to the challenge which we thought would suit our current eating /  cooking arrangements - we're currently training for a race and the closer we get to race day the longer the workouts are getting, so in an attempt to reduce kitchen stress after getting home late, we're eating the same for lunch as we are for dinner and this recipe seemed more like a meal than a side compared to the traditional one offered.

German Spätzle

We went with the sundried tomato, leek, bacon and gruyere receipe.

Certainly easy enough to round up the ingredients.  Actually, if we stayed with the recipe offered as part of the challenge introduction we wouldn't have even needed to go to the store (yes, we had some buttermilk in the freezer - for pancake emergencies, of course), so yes, easy to round up the ingredients.

Not knowing what optional herbs and spices our little guys would benefit from we just went with what was suggested.  And when given the option to use buttermilk we always try to as we like the sort of gentle zing it brings to the party.

Adding the flour is no drama.  The batter / dough (anyone?  batter or dough?) certainly stiffens up quite quickly, and does get hard to stir.  It did end up quite smooth without too much huff'n and puff'n.

A small technical bit of trickery...  When it gets to the forming part of the process the directions say use a tablespoon.  OK, tablespoon is located.  It only took us one to figure out something was up, because half a tablespoon is a pretty big Spätzle.  We continued along with out tablespoons but barely filled them at all.  When all was said and done we went back and took a peek at the pictures provided - it looks like a teaspoon to us.  No harm done, although if we'd never seen a Spätzle before we may have ended up with the worlds biggest ones...

The recipe we went with called for cooking the Spätzle up as normal, but then shocking it in ice water so as to have ready to fry up with the rest of the fun ingredients. We created our own small problem in that we had completely raided our ice supply so as to get our chosen wine ready for consumption.  Although nothing to cry about, we had to sacrifice a few degrees of wine chilliness for the good of the little guys...

Not sure if it was operator error or just the nature of the 'beast' but we could not get the guys to brown up in the pan.  Well, actually we could, but the second they did it stuck to the pan and separated away from the piece the next time we even thought about stirring.  Oh well, not a deal breaker, just perplexing a little.

Result

Awesome! 

Didn't look even a little bit like the Spätzle we've had in restaurants as a side to something.  We also ended up with bigger pieces than we've seen before, but the texture was pretty much spot on what we expected.

The dish was a great combination of ingredients - someone was very clever to figure them out!  We almost certainly will have a go at using them in a normal everyday pasta dish sometime soonish.

Not surprisingly, our Wine Club had not provided us with a wine that is a known Spätzle match.  We themed on location, so grabbed up an Austrian (something that's name and type of grape is forgotten until we get through the trash and find the bottle later today...) Grüner Veltliner as our best 'match'.  That we'd never seen this grape before we had no idea what to expect.  The wine was a pleasant surprise and worked out just fine with the dish, but it might have been the richness of the sun dried tomatoes that helped more than the actual Spätzle.

Recipes & Destructions Instructions

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Conclusion

Fun, not hard, tasty and certainly something we could bring out for friends.  Although we ate it as a meal (twice) we would tend toward serving it as a side, perhaps with something like a lamb dish.

Makes ugly, but tasty left overs, which tends to suggest it's really a prepare and eat right now type of dish but in our case it may have been more the Gruyere's fault and less the Spätzle's.

Stay JOLLY!
D&S

ps. you might want to wash your mixing bowl the second you finish forming your little guys.  We're just say'n...

Steph, from Stephfood was our Daring Cooks' July hostess. Steph challenged us to make homemade noodles without the help of a motorized pasta machine. She provided us with recipes for Spätzle and Fresh Egg Pasta as well as a few delicious sauces to pair our noodles with!

Comments pre Blog Platform Change

Melanie responded:
Your spaetzle sounds tasty! And I do what to know what wine you ended up serving with it!

Jo responded:
The spatzle sound delish, but I am an inquiring mind as well, what was the wine? Hope you can find the bottle!

andy responded:
sundried tomato, leek, bacon and gruyere - what a great combo of flavours! I'll have to try this one.

Ruth H. responded:
I agree that spaetzle might not be the prettiest dish around, but it certainly is yummy! I am glad you found a recipe that worked for you, and I hope your training is going well!

blepharisma responded:
Hahaha... I laughed at the P.S. Yup, a very sticky and gross mess to clean spätzle - yum, yum, yum! I'm glad you enjoyed the challenge - thanks for sharing!

Mary responded:
That sounds like a great combination of flavours, whether the first time around or left over. I used a slotted spoon and forced the batter (I'm going with that, as it wasn't that thick) through it, for small, squiggly spaetzle. Yum and good luck with the race preparation!

David responded:
Hi guys, thanks for dropping buy. Regarding the wine, we found the bottle and updated the post to provide a link back to the Wine Club article. It was a Grüner Veltliner - a definite mouthful to say, but a really enjoyable mouthful to drink. Specifically, it was 2010 Weingut Stadt Krems but we have no idea how hard it might be to find as we got it through out Club.

Healthy Potato Salads from Around the World!

It feels like only yesterday that we were cranky about the challenge being turned into a popularity contest and here we are again, and this time with sponsors... 

It feels like a challenge designed to be a competition has to be easier.  How much variation and competition winningness can be found in the great challenging and daring challenges like Gumbo and Cassoulet?  Oh well...

On the plus side, this was an easy challenge and we didn't have to set aside a day (or weeks) and in fact went to the stores after work to round everything up (as well as the groceries for the rest of the week), whip it up, and eat dinner at the same time we eat just about every other night after work.

It's not like we've not made a Potato Salad of some sort before, so it was the German one that caught our eye because the dressing was more sauce like than dressing like and it sounded like we could serve it hot as a main rather than as a side - we didn't feel we had any potato salad side worthy events coming up.

German Potato Salad

We've had challenges before rounding up ingredients, but not this one.  We could have found everything easily in our normal everyday store, but actually went to two because we think we've found a new little market that does great fruit & veg at really quite good prices.

A little bit of guessing.  Recipe just says potatoes (we went with red skinned, medium sized) and vinegar (we've never had plain ol' vinegar in the pantry so went with half apple cider and half white vinegar because we didn't have enough of either and together we ended up with just a smidge under the required amount).  No guessing on the bacon because we were given the choice of bacon bacon or turkey bacon.  We don't mind bacon bacon, but don't need it in / on / around everything as just about every tv chef / judge / face is sprouting these days.  Therefore, turkey bacon was the winner.

We also changed the recipe and left the skins on.  Partly (ok, mostly) because we didn't feel like peeling potatoes that really don't need to be peeled, but also because the red skin just makes everything look a bit more interesting.

The sauce comes together sort of in an ugly way, but when it's ready for the Potatoes all is well, and once they and the Bacon join in, all is very well.  The kitchen certainly changes complexion when the first wafts of boiling sauce sends the vinegar aroma(s) your way.

Result

Tasty!  Served well as dinner on it's own, and as a bonus also served equally as well as lunch the next day.

The 'sauce' was consistent with the ingredients in it.  It was tangy, yet sweet, a little bit of crunch and coated everything nicely.

Tradition now sort of dictates we grab something out of our Wine Club 'Cellar' but alas, none of our Tasting Notes suggested a pairing with Potato Salad.  We took a chance on a 2008 Capestrano Passerina Marche and we think we lucked out. The acidity of the wine played nicely with the tangyness of the sauce.  And, even if it wasn't a great match (it was!) hey, we still got to have a glass or 3 on a school night...

Recipes & Destructions Instructions

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Conclusion

A tasty result and a pretty good option next time we have to show up at a BBQ with a side, or have a hankering for a home cooked meal based on potatoes.

Nothing complicated. Thanks for the easy challenge, especially after the huffing and puffing of the Gumbo.  That being said, we really get much more excited by the challenges that really force us to be Daring, even if it takes hours / days of shopping / preping / stirring and sitting around enjoying the smells from the kitchen.

Stay JOLLY!
D&S

Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads. A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

Gumbo - let the good times roll!

Ahh, no competition to get upset about, just the thought of a wonderfully gumbo'd up kitchen...

YES!  The good times rolled!  Oh, are we allowed to start with the Conclusion?

Although not quite the same scope in terms of days to make as our Cassoulet from a few months back it certainly was in terms of how full our pot became, how many dishes it took to make and how many left overs we got to enjoy.

Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo

Technically, we should change the name of this dish because in our haste to round up the sausage and duck fat from the place we were certain would have them we make a boo-boo.  We didn't read properly and didn't notice the error until we were well into the do-all-your-chopping-before-starting-the-roux-or-you'll-have-the-plague-come-down-upon-you stage.  Oh well, we are only a little bummed and totally ok with the result.  We missed the part about the 2 pounds of sausage being smoked and just grabbed up some normal everyday ready for the grill fun sausages.

Rewind...

Chicken & Mostly Un-Smoked Sausage Gumbo

All the other shopping was easy.  We thought our 'wrong' sausage store would be our best bet for finding Filé powder, but as it turned out it wasn't and we actually found it in our normal everyday store. We haven't really learned how to cut up a whole chicken properly so decided to get a tray of legs and a tray of thighs (which turned out to be 10 pieces) which then meant we didn't have any bits and pieces for making up the stock.  It seems less silly to use boxed stock than to get a chicken just to turn it into stock  - we will keep the recipe safe and sound and apply it to our left over turkey come Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We still had to use a third store to find Okra but we found it very easily in the fresh section.

We are already in possession of the spices required for the Basic Creole Spices so while one of us started the do-all-your-chopping-before-starting-the-roux-or-you'll-have-the-plague-come-down-upon-you the other took on the delicate task of measuring and mixing.  One of us thought this a less fair dispersing of duties so the spice creator also got to cut up the sausages (this is when the boo-boo dawned on us) after the seasoning was completed.

It's fun to watch the roux develop, but it's not fun to stand over the pot whisking away for about 20 minutes, plus another 10 once the onions join in.  We make risotto from time to time and spend almost twice as long at the pot stirring away, but this was so much heavier on the wrists - even as we tag teamed it.  Ok, enough whining...  but next time we'll give Alton's technique a go - we had seen that episode, but thought for the challenge we should put in the elbow (and wrist) grease.  Oh, and it's fun to get the smell of the duck fat while your arms contemplate falling off.

Time for the chicken.  Perhaps our pot was a too small, but we could barely get all the pieces in and with the roux being very 'friendly' towards the chicken we struggled to get the chicken into place to get it browned.  We let it go the suggested 10 minutes, but it was more not brown than brown.  We figured there would be no problem getting it cooked considering the time still to go.

Time for the do-all-your-chopping-before-starting-the-roux-or-you'll-have-the-plague-come-down-upon-you to join in the fun.  Then the stock.  Now we know out pot was not big enough as we couldn't get the advertised amount in.  Probably about 75% made it in.  Oh well.  At this stage we kind of thought we had a gumbo looking think on it's way.  Set the timer for 45 minutes and come visit every now and again for skimming and stirring.

The kitchen had really started to smell nice but unlike when we did the Cassoulet we didn't get the effect through the whole house.  Oh well.  We added in the last of the goodies and set the timer for another 45 minutes (which was conveniently about the time we needed for the rice).  We returned for more skimming (we skimmed a lot more this go around) and stirring.  As noted before, one of us is a bit of a baby when it comes to the hot / spicy end of the scale.  We went easy on the Tabasco and our smoked sausages were labled mild.

We have a bunch of different rices in the pantry, but no long-grain white.  We selected some Basmati and cooked it per instructions on the box but with the Louisiana recipe.  We know it didn't quite look the same as tradition suggests, but we're ok with making this substitution.  And next time we use it we'll probably use this recipe even for a non-gumbo application.

Result

Yum!  Some would argue ours didn't have enough 'kick', but quite enough for the less hardy of us.  Some might also argue that Basmati Rice is not the way to go, but we think it did it's job admirably. 

We think it looked the way it should, it certainly was rich and hearty and tasty.  Yum!  The sauce had thickened up nicely and it was very very easy to go back for seconds.

We're not exactly sure what the Filé brought to the party?  Sprinkling to taste is a tough instruction when you don't know what the taste is...  We'll add it to the Spice Rack on the fridge and we'll pay a bit more attention when scouring our food magazines for a way to use it and maybe learn enough to understand when we could add it to something else.

Recipes & Destructions Instructions

CLICK

Conclusion

YES!  The good times rolled!  This is another one pot dish that could easily be brought out to impress friends!

We've gotten into the habit of searching our Wine Club collection for something that is suggested to match up with whatever this month's challenge is and we've had no reason to disagree with the suggestions.  This month our only Gumbo suggestion had been enjoyed previously as part of an earlier challenge, so we picked the one which suggested pairing with Cajun dishes.  It worked GREAT, and our left overs just weren't quite the same without it.

If you have leftovers (as most of us probably did!) don't just leave it in the pot, jam it in the fridge and bring it out for reheating.  We got a really good burn on the bottom that took about as much elbow grease as the roux.  We're pretty certain it all developed during the reheat and fortunately didn't notice anything bad because of it.

Stay JOLLY!
D&S

Our May hostess, Denise, of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need, from creole spices, homemade stock, and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh.

Comments pre Blog Platform Change

andy responded:
Great post! Thanks for sharing.

blepharisma responded:
Good job! Sounds like your boo-boo wasn't too bad, after all... I think there is some flexibility in the ingredients (although I know many of us were just trying to get everything right, according to the base recipe).

Ruth H. responded:
What a complete write-up this was...! Fun to read, and kind of made me want to be in the kitchen with you...! I am glad that the gumbo was a success, and that you got to enjoy the process, sore wrists and elbows and all! Thanks for sharing your fun and creativity!

Faith responded:
I had the same problems with my pot and it was the biggest I had!!! I kept thinking to hell with it!!! That chicken will cook in the pot!!!
Well done and Im glad you enjoyed the challenge!

Audax Artifex responded:
WOW another successful challenge it sounds like you both had a great time with this gumbo. Glad to hear that the mild sausage worked out so well in the end. And yes the leftovers are marvellous reheated. Fabulous work.

Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.

Claire responded:
Great job on your gumbo, it sounds delicious! :)

Edible Containers (savory)

Ok, so our hearts weren't in this one at all.  Happily, we can report that our knives and pots & pans and oven and dishwasher were.

We signed up (almost a year now) to learn about and try new things in the kitchen - to be daring! - which we feel we've done quite well at in-an-overall-big-picture sort of way. 

We did not sign up to try to win popularity contests. 

We did not sign up to show off our pretty pictures (which for the record, we stopped even trying very early on because, well, they just weren't very pretty...). We did not sign up to invent or interpret the dishes presented as part of the challenge. 

We just wanted to try something new and be guided along the way.  But we are exceptionally grateful to those who do take (and show) great pictures and those who interpret and invent the dishes because we've certainly learned some new and fun stuff from reading about (and seeing) what other members get up to as part of each challenge - a wonderful bonus to our choice to being daring.

We promised ourselves we'd be daring and if we got past our first two challenges (we did, quite easily, safely and well in case you were wondering) there'd be no reason to skip anything that came our way.  So, here we are...

Hopefully next month will get back to 'normal'?

Pumpkin Bowl filled with Creamy Shrimp (Bisque?)

We had some friends coming over for dinner during the challenge and we had been unable to lock in a menu. We really like the family style approach to dining (at home and out and about - which occasionally gets our Server a bit wound up) and a pumpkin full of goodness shouts nothing but family style. 

Catch is, we failed miserably at the Pumpkin Bowl part of the challenge. 

The things that went wrong...

1. We couldn't find one big Pumpkin but found some good looking smaller ones which we thought would do the job as individual bowls rather than a serving bowl.
2. We couldn't get them to cook.  The recipe said 25 minutes x 2.  We had smaller 'dudes' and although we classified them as cooked at about the 1 hour 40 minute mark it definitely wasn't 'puree like'.
3. Our designated carver could not get the good bits out without completely (and yes, completely is the correct word) destroying the shells.  Not even close!
4. And not related to our pumpkin issues, but we grabbed up headless shrimp so the stock we came up with probably was missing a little something something due to it just being born of the shells.

We did not, however, fail at the Soup making part of the challenge.

The things that went right...

1. No blood drawn whilst chopping onions, garlic and tomatoes.
2. The shrimp 'veins' came out nice and easy.
3. The kitchen smelled nice.
4. The soup turned into soup.

Result

If you take out the Pumpkin Bowl part of the equation it worked out just fine (which sadly, was the main part of this challenge).  One of us really liked it, the other went with a good-but-we've-made-better-soups feeling.  Our friends liked it and their 2 year old was happy to play with it.

And, who was the clever person who figured out adding cream cheese to a soup is a good thing?  Cudos to them!  It turned out to be quite thick, which we could have thinned down easily enough but we chose not to and it had a really nice feel as well as taste to it.

Recipes & Destructions Instructions

CLICK

Conclusion

We were a bit cranky starting off, but glad we gave it a whirl. On the plus side, we didn't get more cranky when it became obvious we weren't going to end up with a Pumpkin Bowl.

We certainly didn't get anything photo worthy (not that we probably would even if we made the best pumpkin bowl ever...) but we got something tasty that was new and fun and enjoyed by us and our friends (and even a small bowl of leftovers for lunch during the week).

We can follow a recipe, but it seems we we're not very good at the 'precision' parts required when dealing with a gourd type device.  Oh well.

Stay JOLLY!
D&S

Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado! was our Daring Cooks’ April 2011 hostess. Renata challenged us to think “outside the plate” and create our own edible containers!  Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 17th to May 16th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

Comments pre Blog Platform Change

Audax Artifex responded:
Please don't post photos I really like how you don't yes I wasn't too impressed with a competition since I don't think the point of the forums is about that it is sharing and doing a common recipe and learning like you said I'm sure this is a one time blimp in the scheme of things. Sorry to hear the pumpkin container didn't work out so well but at least the soup was good. Great work thank you for joining in this month's challenge.

Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.

Shelley C responded:
While I loved this challenge due to the creativity, I completely understand your reasons for not being enthusiastic, and I do agree very much with some... it is frustrating for to "enter a contest" that you (I!) know you (I!) have no chance of actually winning... and knowing up front which people have the greatest chance of doing so... I am glad that you participated in the challenge, anyway, because, after all, it's still a challenge and you still got to try something you'd never tried before!! And, hey - a bunch of things went right (no blood! woohoo!),so it's all good. :)

SeattleDee responded:
I'm chuckling at your comments and nodding in agreement... EXCEPT I loved this challenge and didn't enjoy the previous two. Go figure! The opportunity to try new things unites the DC community, and it's a treat to compare experiences via blog posts. Forget about photo contests, your word pictures are pure delight.

Lisa responded:
Wow..I forgot we were entered in a contest for these lol Well..ike Shelly said, most of us don't expect to win, and frankly, like you, I do these challenges out of pure enjoyment. I don't have natural light, so I can't take photos like other bloggers, but I do the best with what I have, and if photo buffs don't like it..oh well!

That said, LOVE the idea of a pumpkin bowl for soup, and I adore the choice of (is it a soup?) creamy shrimp! I may not be able to see it, but the mind is the best 'photo viewer' out there :)

Mary responded:
I know exactly what you mean about the popularity contest.
:(
I liked the idea of the containers, but felt like it encouraged people to come up with something with real bells and whistles, rather than just good-tasting food. Your pumpkin soup sounds divine, though, and I'll have to try cream cheese next time I have a soup that needs a bit of creaminess.

Renata responded:
I'm sorry to know that you didn't enjoy the challenge so much, and that the pumpkin bowl didn't work for you, but I'm glad to know that you successfully adapted the shrimp cream into a creamy soup, and that everything went well.. no blood... lol
Thanks for participating even if it wasn't a very exciting idea for you :)

¡Me Encanta Perú! - Ceviche and Papas Rellenas

So, just like in the previous challenge we needed to grab our thermometer and common sense for a part of this challenge.

Two things that we've never made before, but one we have eaten.

Cheviche de Pescado

We normally get a little upset when we're trying something new and then given options "firm white fish (scallops or other seafood may be substituted)" - if it's new, we really like all the coaching we can get and next time we might mix it up a little.  But having had a couple of variations in the past we sucked it up and hit the local store (actually, 2 of the same brand because the first didn't have our preferred Sea Bass) that has helped us out with great seafood before.  We ended up with Sea Bass, Scallops (Bay and Sea) and Squid.

We must have had double extra quadruple juicy limes - we got more than a cup from just 6.  Then it was easy enough to get the Seafood into bite size pieces, chop up the Onion, Cilantro and Pepper (we went mild and easy because one of us cries like a baby if it gets too hot) and get it all into the pool.

Again, another choice for beginners...  'Cook' for 10 minutes, or 24 hours?  Hmm...  We certainly weren't going to wait 24 hours - we were hungry.  We ended up splitting everything into 2 batches.  The first we did for 10 minutes, the second for an hour.  We certainly could see the extra 'cooking' in the second batch but we don't think it needed it.  We didn't detect any difference in the flavors from the Lime mixture between the 2 batches.  It's good to know we can aim for quick, but have a good bit of wiggle room if we get distracted and still end up with the same dish we were aiming for.

We opened a J. Christopher Sauvignon Blanc and we think it paired up ok.  We probably didn't need the side of Sweet Potato and Corn but enjoyed them.  They certainly provided some color to the plate.  Perhaps the contrast of cold and hot 'confused' us a little?  Not the worst things we could match up with our Ceviche by any way you keep score, and really, we don't have any suggestions for anything more appropriate.

Result

We couldn't see any glaring difference to any Ceviche we've been served before - that's a good thing indeed, and we're very pleased with our results! 

The Sea Bass was the star, it 'cooked' up just right.  We didn't notice any difference between the Bay and Sea Scallops so next time we'll just get the Bay because then we don't need to do any cutting up (and they're a little bit cheaper...).  The Squid was different.  At first not so good different because it was a lot firmer than the Bass and Scallops, but when we thought about it a bit harder we actually decided we liked the contrast in texture.  So, in the end, good different.

We have no idea why we were not brave enough to try a Ceviche before.  It was easy and tasty and we've seen it at least a hundred times on Top Chef, Iron Chef and the likes!  It will be shown to friends very very soon (technically before you read this article...), proudly and confidently.

Papas Rellenas

This is a dish for an Alton Brown quote 'Your patience will be rewarded!'  There's a good bit of waiting around.  Mash up some potatoes, let them cool down.  Mix up a filling (we went meat), let it cool down.  Boil up a couple of eggs, let them cool down.  Then you get to put it all together - thanks great pictures!  It's hard to imagine what we would have come up with out pictures.

We didn't feel the urge to change anything, although we did go light on the chili (for the same baby you met earlier in this article...).  And best of all, we didn't have to make any choices...

Definitely hands on, and messy hands during the putting together part but practice does make perfect because the 2nd one was better looking than the 1st and the 4th much much better.

Remember how we said to bring your thermometer and your common sense? Well, we need to change that to say bring a working thermometer and your common sense.  We did two batches and the second browned up a whole lot more a whole lot quicker.  We noticed a small gap in the mercury, but didn't really think much of it until we saw the difference in browning.  Turns out, big difference.  We have no idea what temperature we had the oil bubbling away at, but after all was done we boiled up some water and our (now in the trash) thermometer was convinced that water boils at about 160° (of the F scale!). Oops!  Common sense tells us not to leave the room anyway so if something really bad had have happened, we would have been there to see it...

The same bottle of J. Christopher continued to keep us company and perhaps worked a little less well with this dish than the Ceviche , but only just and perhaps only because it had warmed up a little by this time.

Result

They kind of looked lonely on the plate, but it's not like you need any more food.  At first thought we kind of feel like it needed a sauce but when we turned our brains fully on we think there's no point as the sauce is already on the inside.

We actually preferred the 'high risk' batch that we cooked up, so next time we'll use the correct temperature oil but leave them in a little longer.

We had more filling that we needed for our potatoes so we saved it and served it up as part of our every-other-week-home-made-nachos.  Worked out really quite nicely, although making up a batch of the 'filling' just for our nachos is probably a bit much.  If we ever thought to serve up nachos to our friend, perhaps...

We do know why we've never been brave enough to deep fried mashed potatoes - we're just not clever enough to think of something like that on our own.  We probably won't serve it up to friends as a complete dish because of the challenges of being sociable and having a pot of oil warming up in a different room but we will absolutely treat ourselves to this again.  The filling could turn up for friends, perhaps served with mashed potato rather than in?

Recipes & Destructions Instructions

CLICK

Conclusion

2 Winners!  Thanks Kathlyn!

Stay JOLLY!
D&S

Kathlyn of Bake Like a Ninja was our Daring Cooks’ March 2011 hostess. Kathlyn challenges us to make two classic Peruvian dishes: Ceviche de Pescado from “Peruvian Cooking – Basic Recipes” by Annik Franco Barreau. And Papas Rellenas adapted from a home recipe by Kathlyn’s Spanish teacher, Mayra.

Comments pre Blog Platform Change

Lou responded:
Well firstly I am so glad to hear that you like to follow the recipe. When given a new recipe, I, too, want to make it exactly as stated the first time. And usually for these challenges I don't have time to make multiple versions of the challenge. So, I have been feeling that my attempts have all been so very boring. Especially when compared with someone like Audax - ha ha.
Secondly, interested to hear that the sea bass was your favourite. I didn't think there would be anything better than scallops for this recipe so I will need to try it with the sea bass. The ceviche is one I can try lots of versions of quite quickly with it being so quick and easy to prepare.
And whoever of you is the "baby" - I am exactly the same and wish I had gone easier on the chilli!

SaminaCooks responded:
I love your write up. I agree, when I try new foods/recipes, I always follow instructions exactly. (Especially, when I don't know what it will taste like) Once I get a hang of the recipe, I mix it up.

blepharisma responded:
I know what you mean about frying up papas not being a great social activity, hahaha. My kitchen is integrated with my dining and living areas, so the smell alone would be a bit of a turn-off!!

Great job!

Audax Artifex responded:
I love your postings for me a blog with no pictures seems to make my mind create mental images of your results. Wonderful that you liked both images so much. Yes I can understand for a totally new recipe you want definite instructions. Lovely work on this challenge.

Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.