Sunday Dinner, April 21

[ralphmelton]

Last Sunday, I was preparing Sunday dinner alone, since Lori was still in DC. I decided to make the Rosti Potatoes with Green Peppers and Onions as a side. That involved Swiss cheese, so I needed to find a non-meat entree. Unfortunately, none of the vegetarian dishes I found appealed to me. So I started thinking about fish dishes, and again couldn't find anything that appealed. Finally I settled on a double recipe of the Crab and Corn Cobbler.

I angsted a bit about whether the imitation crab would be kosher. I thought I knew that kosher traditions didn't allow chicken with milk because it would remind the consumer of meat with milk; I worried that a similar logic might prevent imitation crab. Fortunately, Monica reassured me at dinner that imitation crab is allowed.

I had planned a berry cobbler for dessert, but while I was at the store, I saw that strawberries were on sale. That inspired me to make the Strawberry Lemon Curd Tart. Fortunately, I managed to pick up almost everything I needed from memory; I didn't have to make another trip to the store.

I made the lemon curd before dinner. Lemon curd always involves a bit of playing chicken--the more it is cooked, the thicker it will be (and I prefer lemon curd to be thick and smooth), but if it overcooks, the egg yolks will scramble. So there's a constant tension of "is it thickened now? What about now? Now?" I'm pleased to say that I judged it well; the lemon curd was lusciously thick and smooth.

While making the lemon curd, I realized that lemon curd is nearly a direct consequence of principles I've learned from Shirley O. Corriher's Cookwise: the lemon juice is basically water. You want the fat of the butter to add creaminess and to keep the flavor in the mouth longer. So, since you're combining water and fat, you use the egg yolks as emulsifiers to keep them from separating. Voila--everything about lemon curd is explained except the sugar.

The Crab and Corn Cobbler depends on a basic white sauce. I succeeded pretty well at this; the sauce was nicely thick. However, I put the cobbler into a deep pan, where a wide one might have been better; it was pretty goopy when served.

I managed to get everything ready almost as guests started to arrive. I was proud.

After dinner, then, I made the tart pastry (in the heart-shaped tart pan). Eli cut up the strawberries. Once I filled the pastry with lemon curd, Monica arranged the strawberries beautifully on the tart.

There was one thing I had neglected to provide for, though: red currant jelly for the glaze. But I managed to find some apricot jam in the fridge, and I knew that apricot jam could be sieved for a glaze. I didn't want to bother with forcing it through a sieve with a spoon, since that's been a big pain when I've tried it before. So I got out the food mill we were given as a wedding gift. With the finest disc, it did a good job of yielding a clear glaze without much work. (It might be too coarse for straining raspberry seeds, though--perhaps we'll improvise something with a layer of cheesecloth.)

I guess I've food-geeked through this whole post. Sorry about that.

Comments

[seanmcguire.livejournal.com]

Though I'm not a big fan of lemon, I do wish I'd gotten to watch people eat it.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

I'll never forget the first time with Ralph's strawberry lemon curd tart...you missed that one, too ;-)

"Cake-olded" indeed.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

I think it was in the top 50% of Strawberry Lemon Curd Tarts I've made. ("I've made" is a bit too strong--Monica and Eli's contributions were significant, too.)

However, it didn't get the oohs and aahs it sometimes gets. Oh well.

[cellio]

All I did was try to be artistic with strawberries, and that was sort of on a dare. You did all the hard stuff. :-)

I really liked this, and as someone who never gets "thickening sauces with eggs" right, I'm impressed.

[cellio]

I angsted a bit about whether the imitation crab would be kosher. I thought I knew that kosher traditions didn't allow chicken with milk because it would remind the consumer of meat with milk; I worried that a similar logic might prevent imitation crab.

Ah, I can see how you came to that conclusion now. I apologize for the confusion. There's a subtle difference.

Chicken has been ruled to be meat; this is different from looking like meat. There is, separately, a principle that says that you do not mislead people, and the way it manifests in food is that, for example, if you're putting out a stick of yellow fat with the meat meal, you leave the margarine wrapper on it so people know it's not butter. Or, if you're cooking meat with almond milk, you include some almond slivers too and not just the milk. (This specific example is in the literature, in case you're wondering.) So there could have been an issue with the fake crab looking like crab, but telling me what it is (or showing me the wrapper, or whatever) alleviates it and eating it is then fine.

Chicken parmesian, on the other hand, isn't fine even if you show me that it's definitely not beef, because of the "chicken is meat" fence around the Torah law about cooking a kid in its mother's milk. While this fence may have been derived from appearances initially, composition and not appearance is now what matters there.

Um, have I made things better, or worse? :-)

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

Well, I already knew the fact that would affect my behavior, which was "will Monica (and by extension Seth and Karen) be comfortable eating this?"

This detail does seem to me to be a matter that doesn't quite follow from first principles, but needs a bit of handwaving to get to the conclusion that feels right.

(This is not a criticism of Judaism--mainstream Christianity does as much at least as much of this. I notice it more here because Judaism usually has more of an internal logic than Christianity, and because I haven't internalized these quirks the way I have internalized my own logical inconsistencies.)