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the problem with cooking
Feb. 9th, 2013 11:04 amSo, now that I have a mostly-functional kitchen, I am cooking more. Which is fine, I am slowly adding to my repertoire of recipes.
But the real problem with cooking is that the ramp-up process is so expensive. Take the momofuku buns, which are a) a lot of work and b) can be easily ruined. First, there is the pork belly. I normally get the bellies from eco-friendly, which, quite frankly, are not cheap— usually $4/lb for a ~3lb belly. But the other meat purveyors in the market! Some go up to $7, $8 a lb. So, there, you've paid $25 for a pork belly, and what happens if you accidentally put the oven on convect while cooking it? You make a very sad, dry, pork belly. The recipe, of course, makes no mention of whether convection should be on or off.
And then there are the buns. The first batch, I keyed on the length of time- mix with the bread hook for 8 minutes. Well, that batch gathered onto the hook in about 3 minutes, and I should have stopped there. So the dough got overworked and the buns stayed sad and flat when I steamed them. I mean, we ate them, but that was a couple of lbs of flour and sugar that was not put to optimum use.
The second batch, worked for 6 minutes and was no where near gathering into a ball. So I drop a teaspoon of water in, and bam! Instant ball. Probably needed more water because of all of the dry air. But the first set I steamed were still unhappy- why? because I hadn't gotten the water up to a roiling boil.
argh.
It's a learning process. The problem is, it's a learning process that affects whether you eat that evening. Or, at least, whether you have wasted $50 of food (many people don't have $50 to waste on food experiments) and hours of time and still have to go out and buy yourself something else to eat.
On the other hand, I think I have this pork bun thing down. And the kimchi isn't bad, either. Actually, it was really nice having dinner last night with a good friend who has a severe shellfish allergy... she can't go to asian restaurants anymore. 1) because you really just never know when someone has snuck fishsauce in somewhere and 2) because even having a plate of sizzling shrimp go by her in the restaurant is enough to make her throat close over.
So we could have asian food- even kimchi! because I had made it all and none of it was contaminated with shellfish. It was good.
Also, warm snickerdoodles with ice cream are *awesome*.
But the real problem with cooking is that the ramp-up process is so expensive. Take the momofuku buns, which are a) a lot of work and b) can be easily ruined. First, there is the pork belly. I normally get the bellies from eco-friendly, which, quite frankly, are not cheap— usually $4/lb for a ~3lb belly. But the other meat purveyors in the market! Some go up to $7, $8 a lb. So, there, you've paid $25 for a pork belly, and what happens if you accidentally put the oven on convect while cooking it? You make a very sad, dry, pork belly. The recipe, of course, makes no mention of whether convection should be on or off.
And then there are the buns. The first batch, I keyed on the length of time- mix with the bread hook for 8 minutes. Well, that batch gathered onto the hook in about 3 minutes, and I should have stopped there. So the dough got overworked and the buns stayed sad and flat when I steamed them. I mean, we ate them, but that was a couple of lbs of flour and sugar that was not put to optimum use.
The second batch, worked for 6 minutes and was no where near gathering into a ball. So I drop a teaspoon of water in, and bam! Instant ball. Probably needed more water because of all of the dry air. But the first set I steamed were still unhappy- why? because I hadn't gotten the water up to a roiling boil.
argh.
It's a learning process. The problem is, it's a learning process that affects whether you eat that evening. Or, at least, whether you have wasted $50 of food (many people don't have $50 to waste on food experiments) and hours of time and still have to go out and buy yourself something else to eat.
On the other hand, I think I have this pork bun thing down. And the kimchi isn't bad, either. Actually, it was really nice having dinner last night with a good friend who has a severe shellfish allergy... she can't go to asian restaurants anymore. 1) because you really just never know when someone has snuck fishsauce in somewhere and 2) because even having a plate of sizzling shrimp go by her in the restaurant is enough to make her throat close over.
So we could have asian food- even kimchi! because I had made it all and none of it was contaminated with shellfish. It was good.
Also, warm snickerdoodles with ice cream are *awesome*.
