Slyjinks

So I originally intended to half this recipe, except that I decided to use all the meat because I don’t have a lot of other call for boneless leg of lamb, only it turns out that I had more meat than the recipe called for, and meanwhile I actually did half everything else so… uhm. I wound up with a very very meat-centric “stew” with not a lot of extra liquids.

It was pretty good, though.

• Most ingredients halved, meat was a little more than called for (whoops)
• My “neutral tasting oil” was actually used, kinda spicy canola
• Instead of all purpose flour I used walnut flour, and did have to use some extra of that to get all the meat coated
• I think that might have been white onion instead of yellow
• Dried thyme instead of fresh (which was actually listed as an option, which was nice)
• I think I actually just used spiced turkey drippings instead of chicken broth, or rather a combination of turkey drippings and a small amount of pickle brine
• I used white wine vinegar instead of sherry vinegar
• dried parsley instead of fresh

Reactions: It was delicious and fall-apart tender. Partner is very picky about turnips but liked this and felt this was a good preparation of turnips. I did find myself complaining a bit because, although the recipe only uses one pot, there’s a lot of, “Cook this in the pot, then transfer to a bowl, then cook that in the pot, then transfer to the bowl, then keep taking the dish out of the oven to add x or y or z” going on. I like stews where you can just put everything in and let it cook (okay, maybe a little pre-browning of the meat and onion). Bitching aside, though, the results were really good, so maybe it was worth it?

Would we make this again: Maybe. I’d probably look for ways to reduce the number of steps.

• Grocery didn’t have rhubarb


• No pearl onions (raw onions are hard on Partner’s stomach)


• No fennel

Hoo boy.

These. These things.

Slimy balls of pickle brine.

No video to go with them, although apparently this is an alcohol-free version of a recipe that the same cook did on a Food Network show (”Spherified Picklebacks”).

(Images of them being floated in regular liquid pickle brine).

Differences from the recipe as written: My pickle-balls came in contact with each other prematurely, causing them to stick together, but I tried my best to follow this one to the letter.

Reactions: Slimy balls of pickle juice. I called them snot-textured, but Partner corrected me and referenced Partner’s expertise as an ear nose throat surgeon to clarify that they are not actually snot-textured. I had one, which was about all that I could handle. Partner ate the rest. Partner had earlier that day indulged in one too many Gelatinous Cubes, and declared that they made Partner feel instantly sober (a sort of false-sobriety, but it was fine for hanging out at home). Partner also claimed they should be called Spheres of Sobriety.

Personally, I feel like the recipe took way, way too much effort to produce “wobbly pickle brine”. They dirtied up a lot of dishes, and left them all slightly slimy. Partner was also bewildered by the amount of effort that these things took, and observed that if you wanted jello-ish picklebrine you could just… add gelatin.

This is an example of molecular gastronomy, but we both feel like there are more interesting things to be done with molecular gastronomy than “jello-pickles”.

Partner had this as a final observation: “Dr. Strange is a neurosurgeon. Neurosurgeons apparently don’t know how to cook.”

I found these online under the name Pot of Gold Jello Shots, but jello shots involving Goldschläger  (often with other flavors added) seem pretty common in general. Ours wound up much darker and less translucent than most, mostly because I used coconut sugar instead of regular white sugar. They’re pretty good, though, if you like cinnamon.

Differences from the recipe as written:

• The sugar was replaced with a combination of cocnut sugar, allulose, and golden monk fruit.
• We were a little shy of 16 ounces of Goldschläger, so we made up some of the difference with Apple Crown Royale, about a teaspoon of Allspice dram, and water

Reactions: We liked these quite a bit (and still have several in the fridge), and they’re fun, although a little difficult to get out of the tray.

Would we make these again: Maybe? We don’t often engage in the sort of events where you would do jello shots. When discussing it, Partner and I had an exchange like the following:

Me: “We don’t really do D&D-themed parties where it would make sense to have jello shots.”

Partner: “Well, if we went to a Fallout themed thing, we could call them radioactive slime or something.”

Me: “We don’t do Fallout themed parties where that would make sense, either.”

And it’s kind of hard to do single-servings of jello shots. Luckily, jello shots store in the fridge decently well for a little while, at least. I mean, if there’s an excuse to do them again, odds are good (although we might either do all Allulose or just break down and do white sugar in order to get clearer jello blobs).

Personally I found these (the puff-portion, anyway) to be pretty tricky, and I had to figure out a lot of on-the-fly improvising. Personally, I was worried about them being ruined, but Partner, who slept through the chaos of making them, was absolutely delighted with the results, and probably would never have known about the struggle if it weren’t for me complaining.

This is the last of the Halfling Cuisine section, by the way.

Differences from the recipe as written:

• I did a half batch (this may have been a mistake, because the volumes were harder to work with)
• I did not halve the vanilla (this was intentional)
• I left out the salt (this wasn’t intentional)
• The flour we used was gluten free Bob’s Red Mill (another aspect that might have made this harder)
• I used plain Greek yogurt instead of creme freiche for the filling due to availability. 
• During the step where you stir the dough with a wooden spoon using a smearing motion while it’s in a sauce pan, the handle broke off the sauce pan, making stirring harder. This was not a planned step.
• I don’t actually have a food processor with a feed tube and my blender, as nice as it is, doesn’t have that opening hole, so I originally tried to do the food processor portion in my stand mixer so I could add the eggs.
• This proved to be a mistake and I couldn’t get the dough smooth enough, so I transferred it all to the blender, anyway.
• I dirtied SO MANY DISHES during this
• The little mounds of puff dough were kind of runny and flat and I couldn’t get them to pile two inches like the instructions said

Despite all this, they came out tall enough for me to cut them open and put the filling inside, so all was well

Reactions: Partner went absolutely nuts about them and assured me repeatedly that Partner has very high standards when it comes to cream puffs because Partner has a favorite German restaurant back home that sold many different varieties of cream puffs, and Partner has also stated that Partner is certain that my German ancestors would be proud of me. As for me, I thought they were pretty good, and was pleasantly surprised that despite all the misadventures in the kitchen, they still came out more or less like they were supposed to (if perhaps a bit flatter).

Would we make this again: Once I get over the trauma and sort out what I could do to simplify the process (not having pans breaking on me and not having to switch processing methods mid-stream would probably help a lot), maybe. They were a pain, but the reaction was nice. I’d probably wait until there were more people around to share them with, though, because as I already mentioned, halfing the recipe probably led to it being more complicated than it needed to be.