06.26.07

At night I think of food

Posted in food at 12:46 am by coldclimate

When I can’t sleep, such as tonight, I lie awake andmy thoughts turn to food. I’ve no idea why, but I seem to drift towards imagined dishes when I can’t get my brain to slow down.

I think of little parcels of white fish, steamed with pickled sushi ginger and garlic, or short beef ribs in a sweet and sticky red wine glaze. I dream about piles of fluffy white rice topped with crunchy black peper and lime peel and of piles of finely sliced melon served super cold with flakes of pecorino and parmesan. Of mashed potato baked in whirls with hearts of blue-cheese melting in their centres and of crusty rounds of bread rubbed with garlic butter and eatten guiltily in the kitchen.

I wander over the idea of mixing garlic powder and chilli in with blackpepper popcorn for night in front of the tv, and slow cooking a side of beef in rich dark Belgiun beer, the mustard glaze on the outside becoming solid enough to require using a breadknife to break away hunks which are melt-in-th-mouthinside, served with broken white rolls and fresh steamed cabbage with red onion. I ponder the idea of steaming pork over cider, and flashing it under the grill to caremalise the outside, and or plain bean dishes from Mexico offset with sourcream and grated radishes. Of strong flavours like fennel in unexpected places such as finely sliced and served with honey on a rich vanilla icecream, and wheat noodles which come through the hot and meaty tastes of phu broth despite its beef bone origin.

I wonder what starfish would be like, and if small squid can be made into calimari without making them so damned rubbery, and why don’t people serve thin sharp lemony sauces with crispy seafood instead of tartar and garlic butters? Of coffees brewed twice and sweatened with treacle and of Boston baked bean with thick cut fatty bacon slowly rendered to form their base.

I’m not a desert fan normally, but I can’t help thinking about what would happen if you froze blobs of jam and then mixed them into a sponge mix before baking, so that they melted once it was cooked but held their shape in the cake, or whether or not chilli powder would make for brilliant chocolate cake. Does tinned custard and single cream make for a quick and easy icecream, or does it taste as fake as I imagine?

Can hotdogs from tins be improved upon, or are they at their whitetrash-finest when microwaved and stuffing into slightly burnt pitta’s with grazed cheese and chilli tomato sauce like Sparky and I used to eat on the top floor of house8? Would fat green olives make an interesting addition to plain English scones, and could those dried shrimp I bought in the Asian supermarket be ground with rocksalt and sprinkled over fingers of cucumber? Could vegetable juices be sweatened and frozen into granatas or would neither earthy flavours be good in cocktails with thick and oily gins and vodkas served ice cold in chapagne flutes?

Can lagers be used better in cooking instead of their brothers the bitter and the stout? Surely the light and hoppy flavours of some lagers would go well with fish, or maybe even rabbit. Could fruit woods be used with tea to smoke chicken in my wok, and how do Chipotle places in the States embedd the smokey flavours into the meats? Marinading for days doesn’t seem to work, and basing whilst they are cooking leaves the sause burnt to the outside.

Can butter’s rich and salty flavour be put to different uses floating on miso? Can mushrooms be liquidized and added to stews to give it body? Does slow cooking chicken for hours on end do as much good as it goes for pork and beef, or does it end up tasteless? Is it best cooked for an hour with half a bottle of white wine and onions in the pan, served with the meat pulled from the bone and resting in the cooking liquour?

Is it possible to cook in clay in a household gas oven, or is the bonfire essencial? What does rook taste like? Would pigs knuckles suit a sticky sweet and sour sause, thickened with cornflour to leave it semi-transapent and gelatonous be finger lickin good or sickly? How else can elderflower be used apart form as cordial? Would it make a good icecream flavour?

How do the Texan’s keep their brisket so moist yet have it so delightfully crunchy around the outside? Could I start a texan BBQ pit in this country, and wouild people love being served meat by wieght on a grease proof paper, sitting at long tressel tables with people they don’t know as much as I did? How do they make that creamed corn which wasn’t cheesy or in a white sauce but was so moreish?

I think of glazed red plums in a flan base, gazed with a reduction of their own juice and morello cherry liquour, apricot jam used to sweaten and lift the flavours, served with frozen lemoncello and dark coffee. I wonder about the joys of comfort food and why it always seem to be able to be eaten with a spoon, be it mashed potato, macaroni cheese, baked beans with cheese and Branston pickle, or roasted vegetable soups? What can we do with that butternut squash in the fridge which I want to roast with bacon and punkin, finishing it with adrop of single cream and a liberal shaken of salt.

Why is beetroot such an ignored root vegtable? with it viberant colour and crisp tecture is is always picked and the vinagar wasted down the drain, taking with it the rounded earthy flavours of its former occupant, now sadly squishy and inedable. Why don’t people reuse it to pickle eggs so they take on the ruby red hue and look like something other worldly. The beetroot would be far better off sliced very thinly and dressed with a light oil and a white wine vinagar, or best yet baked with garlic and balsamic in tin foil packages that sigh steam when you open them at the table, the dark glossy juice like blood in the bottom, a perfect accoumptiment to a piece of roasten venson or some pork chops done in the frying pan, their rinds crisped and still bubbling on your plate. Cold the next day the beetroot are wonderful in sandwiches, or pinched from the fridge leaving only your red fingertips as evidence.

When I can’t sleep I think of food, and it’s quite clear I don’t sleep enough.

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