I just spent most of the day sleeping off two anti-emetics, taken about noon for a creeping, incapacitating nausea, the non-acute kind that makes you stay very still and breath very carefully.
Now the nausea is gone, but I’m left with the trepidation of eating that recovery often leaves; I went to the market yesterday so my cupboards and fridge are stuffed full of delightful goodies, but however willing the pantry may be, the stomach is weak.
So I choose to read and write about food instead. For anybody with the slightest interests in geekery and cookery, Heston Blumenthal is a highly recommended read. I’ve not seen the tv series he’s made, but I bought his book In Search of Perfection over the Christmas break. It’s not a recipe book per se, since he tends towards over-complication and a technical approach to food, but it’s a great read about the chemistry, science and tradition of best-beloved dishes.
In animals, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is an essential part of the body’s energy pack: among other things, it triggers the protein group actomysin to separate into the proteins actin and myosin. It’s what allows the muscles to flex and move.
After slaughter, ATP soon gets used up. The muscle proteins stay bound as actomysin, and, because there’s no ATP left to reverse the process, remain in that form (the stiffened-up condition called rigor mortis).
For butchers, actomysin is undersirable: unlike actin and myosin, it’s difficult to dissolve it into the meat, and it doesn’t hold water well. It’s not a good banger-binder. On the Continent, they get around this by turning meat into sausages before rigor mortis sets in, but in Britain the slaughter set up means this isn’t possible.
Anyway, the book reminded me of the dilemma the home cook faces when craving something it’s impossible or impractical to perfectly recreate at home, whether that be for reasons of geography, budget, or sheer difficulty. There’s also the conundrum that food often tastes better when prepared by someone else, which is intimately coupled with the fact that often labour intensive food tastes better in small quantities that are impractical to produce at home.
Anyway, my top examples, and also how I found or did not find alternatives.
1. Vegetarian deli roll.
When I was working in the fruit and vegetable market, I developed an absolute passion for vegetarian deli rolls. The little old men who owned the Italian deli were fond of me, so I could custom-order the little beauties for a couple of dollars. The exact filling varied, but it was usually some combination of crusty Vietnamese baguette or Italian roll filled with a mixture of marinated veggies: semi-sundried tomatoes, green queen olives, chargrilled capsicum (bell pepper), mushrooms, artichokes and eggplant. The roll was topped with shaved Jarlsberg cheese, iceberg lettuce, occasionally some squashed avocado and always salt and pepper.
I cannot adequately convey the deliciousness of this roll.
The problem that now faces me, five years later, is recreating the flavours of the roll without busting the bank. I managed it for the first time last year; I had roasted a bunch of red bell peppers in anticipation of making dinner for a friend. She cancelled dinner, so I was left with the peppers; I doused them with olive oil and tossed them with a tiny bit of garlic and pondered their fate.
I found myself at the supermarket deli counter a couple of days later, and took a punt on some Jarlsberg, some cracked queen olives and some semi-sundried tomatoes. Vietnamese baguettes can be had for 40c each, iceberg lettuce is cheap and salt and pepper goes without saying. I had recreated my holy grail roll! I ate them for every meal until the baguettes and peppers were gone; my mouth was cut and bleeding from the crusty bread; it was absolutely worth it.
I have since discovered that the tomatoes can also be omitted; the roll basically comes down to the green crunch of the lettuce, the nutty sweetness of the cheese, the salty-bitter of the olives and the tangy, charred, rich bulk of the peppers. Salt and pepper is vital.
2. Tamales
It’s my misfortune to love South American cuisine and live in Australia; for all that I love the tangled mix of European and Asian flavours that are the backbone of Australian food culture, I mourn the total lack of South American influences.
So it goes without saying, it is impossible to buy tamales. I have never attempted to make tamales either, since procuring the ingredients (from where?) seems like it would be only the first arduous step in an entirely arduous process.
So craving tamales is horribly inconvenient, especially when the craving refuses to be satisfied by anything other than corn mush and spiced, shredded meat.
The closest I’ve come thus far is polenta with slow-cooked meat with chillies. It was delicious, but really quite far from what I actually wanted.
3. Rice balls
Rice balls are not what you may be imagining from the name. Rice balls are orange-sized spheres of deliciousness: cheese, raw peanuts, rice, chick-peas, herbs, all glued together with a vegetarian ragù of carrots, celery, onions and garlic. The whole thing is covered in multigrain bread-crumbs, deep-fried, and served hot with a sweet tomato and garlic passata.
Every bite is amazing; the ragu gives the rice a savoury, sweet depth, the peanuts add crunch and texture, the cheese adds a melting, tender quality.
They are also only available in very select delis in my hometown of Perth, for close to $5 each.
I’ve not had the time or equipment to experiment enough to try and duplicate the recipe; I did add crushed cashew nuts and crushed chick peas to my Spicy Lentil Burger recipe, omitting the green peas, and making a sauce of garlic slowly sauteéd in butter, then simmered with tomato passata from a jar, a drop of vinegar and half a teaspoon of sugar.
Nevertheless, even when I do finally find an alternative, it won’t be something I can simply eat on the spot. lentil burgers alone are a lot of work and many things made of rice require the rice to be cooked the day before and refrigerated overnight (like fried rice).
4. Spanish chicken with rice
I first ate this dish about six weeks ago; now I take any excuse to go out to the restaurant which serves it. Sadly, at $30, it’s nowhere near something I can eat weekly.
The dish was presented as pan fried tenderloins of chicken, resting on the most amazing rice I had ever eaten, drizzled with a creamy, velvety sauce and served with one single smoked paprika? banana chilli? with the merest dribble of smoky sauce and two pieces of steamed broccolini.
It was the decadent cream sauce that got my attention. I quickly became obsessed with the combination of the sauce with the rice, which was round-grain and had a real bite which reminded me of the texture of puffed wheat or boiled barley.
Google didn’t help me much with the discovering the secret of the rice; “Spanish rice” is a dish, not a kind of rice. It was a stab in the dark which led me to try arborio rice, figuring the plumpness of the individual rice grains might be the secret. I’m not a risotto fan, but steamed arborio rice turned out to be excellent — nutty, textured, glossy.
The cream sauce was much easier than I had imagined; garlic sauteéd slowly in butter, plenty of brandy, a small nub of chicken stock cube, pepper, some sugar and double cream. It would be delicious on steak, I’m sure.
So, I have conquered the rice and the cream sauce; I don’t even know where to begin to obtain the smoky bite of the other sauce and the smoked pepper.
5. Enormous burrito
I have no idea what chain the burrito was from (it was in Colorado), nor even what was inside the burrito. I know there was rice, avocado, sour cream and black beans, but the rest escapes me. All I know is that it was huge — roughly a foot in length and four inches in diameter; it was delicious, satisfying, totally non-greasy and magnificent.
Now I am hungry! I guess it’s time for some more water crackers!
