foodfluency.com

Ahh, Middle Eastern food. It really has a certain smell, doesn’t it?

When my boyfriend and I made these Persian Beef Kebabs the other day, that was the first thing we said. “Wow, these really smell Middle Eastern, don’t they?”

“Funny though,” I continued. “They aren’t garlicky at all.”

“Do you associate garlic with Middle Eastern food?”

“Yeah!”

I think he thought that was a little weird. But it all made sense later when we had five cloves of garlic left over.

“Where are these supposed to go?” he asks me, keeper of the recipe.

“Oh crap. They were supposed to go in the meat marinade.”

I also forgot to bring my saffron with me. I had been looking for ways to use it up, which was why I had that recipe in the first place. It was definitely an instance of “cooking while spaced out.” Ah well. It tasted good anyway. We had cumin as a saffron substitute, and just slapped the garlic over the meat at it was grilling. No harm done.

Except to the tomatoes. Have you ever just slapped a tomato on a grill? It’s frickin’ weird! “Cook until blistered and soft,” the recipe says. I should have taken a picture of the “blistered and soft” tomato. All the pics I’ve found on google don’t do the warpness justice.

Next time, next time.

AKA: Loving Those Lemons, AKA: The Search for Saffron, AKA: Like Buying Condoms in Ireland

Which dish sounds more appealing to you?

• Wiener Schnitzel
• Cotoletta alla Milanese

What if I told you they were pretty much the same thing? Would you be surprised? Startled? Demand photographic evidence?

Which one is which? You tell me.

Loving Those Lemons

Allow me to back up a bit. When I started cooking, I quickly realized that I was a huge fan of lemons and lemon zest. I am a zesting fool. It tastes good, and I get a weird little thrill out of eating the part of the citrus fruit that normally isn’t ingested. It’s like cheating death, or, at least indigestion.

So I browsed through some recipes, all containing the ingredient “lemon.” To my complete and utter shock, wiener schnitzel came up.

Wiener schnitzel? Isn’t that supposed to be some German-esque dish with potatoes and saukraut and other forms of cabbage? Not that I had ever had it, but, that’s sure what it sounds like.

Boy, was I mistaken. It’s Austrian, for one thing — an Austrian breaded veal cutlet. Yum. Some food historians (lol, I don’t know what else you would call them) believe that it came to Austria via Milan, Italy, because of it’s similarities to Cotoletta alla Milanese. The only difference is that cotoletta means cutlet with the bone attached, and schnitzel just means cutlet.

Personally, I think “Wiener Schnitzel” is a lot more fun to say. In fact, if my employer monitors my internet usage, they may be a little confused at all the visits to the dictionary.com entry for wiener schnitzel today. I was constantly clicking on the little speaker icon, because then it would say “Wiener Schnitzel” into my headphones. I would have said it to myself, but, then my co-workers would think I was strange, and I don’t need that in this economy.

So, yeah. For a few weeks now I’ve been determined to make some wiener schnitzel. My bf is getting some dental surgery done tomorrow, so I figured this would be a good last meal. Except he prefers the term Cotoletta alla Milanese. I don’t know where to find veal with the bone attached. I hardly know where to find veal. So, I decided to Italian-it-up and serve it with Risotto Milanese instead of the traditional potatoes. We both win.

I didn’t use a particular recipe for the veal. Just breaded it up (well, double-breaded it for extra crunchy goodness), stuck it in the pan, and then coated it with a nice sauce that was really half a stick of melted butter with some lemon juice thrown in. But for the risotto milanese, I used this recipe by Mario Batali.

There were two new cooking things going on here for me.

1. Cooking with wine. That was fine. I took some of what I was drinking and dumped it in there. I can notch that one off the list.
2. Using saffron. Actually, a more accurate statement would be: tracking down some saffron to use, which brings us to our second AKA.

The Search for Saffron

This was an adventure. Saffron, a lovely spice historically used in medicine, dyes, perfumes, and food flavoring, is a bit hard to come by.

The first grocery store didn’t have any. Neither did the second. I did get a jolt out of actually looking in the “gourmet” section for the first time in my life, feeling both proud and like I was going to get kicked out any second.

I don’t know of an actual gourmet store in my town. I should look into that.

But we do have quite a few ethnic specialty grocery stores. I had already been on a few adventures to the asian market, but this was my first time in the middle eastern market. My bf and I pull up… and it’s closed on Mondays. But no need to panic, there’s an Indian/Pakistani one nearby. It was HUGE actually, which was cool. But it took us a good 15 minutes to go through each aisle. I swear, there was an aisle full of chile powder and curry alone. We’re looking around and around, but no saffron. Out of desperation, I ask the guy working if he has any saffron.

“Oh, sure,” he says, reaching behind him to pull out a small container.

Like Buying Condoms in Ireland

They kept it behind the counter. That’s hilarious.

Although saffron has been used as an aphrodisiac in the past, that’s not why it was back there. Allow me to present another picture:

Yep, that say $8.99. Saffron is one of the most expensive spices you can buy, because it’s a pain in the ass to extract.

Ironically, when I first made the joke about the condoms, I was just referring to the behind the counter bit. I have since heard that Ireland imposes a luxury tax on condoms, making them expensive. So then I did some internet sleuthing and, indeed, it costs about $14-16 (US dollars) over there for a box of 12. Interesting. Anyhoo.

Enough Already, How Did the Food Turn Out?

It was yum!

I was so excited to have wiener schnitzel that I forgot to add my greens to my plate, but you get the idea. I also forgot to save some lemon for a garnish, and used it all up in the sauce. Whoops.

Double breading the veal was def. the way to go, and I think you just can’t go wrong with a sauce made from butter and lemon juice.

The risotto actually tasted really good with some of the parsley mixed in. The saffron turned it yellow, but I couldn’t really taste it in the final product. When I was infusing it the chicken stock though, oh my god, did that smell wonderful.