On Mar 24, 2006, at 9:26 PM, Judith L. Smith Adams wrote:
> Souffled Colcannon suggests a bit of whimsy on the part of the
> cook, too, I think, however it (the whimsy) was inspired!! But
> what fun, and I'll bet they were both beautiful to look at and
> yummy to eat... Was the exec chef the only one who missed the joke??
His background was sort of Mediterranean with a concentration on
French Riviera, with a little North African influence. Wonderful
food, but a little shocking to learn some of the things the man
didn't know about.
> Wouldn't it be fun to recast a meal of dishes stereotyped,
> rightly or wrongly, as traditional Irish cooking... and maybe the
> French cooks favored by the Anglo-Irish lords did so...
Yep. I remember doing a sample menu (I didn't get the job) for an
Irish-American restaurant looking to change their image a little. I
started by looking at what the New York Scandinavian restaurant had
done by starting with very traditional Norwegian, Danish and Swedish
cookery, and filtering it heavily through nouvelle-colored glasses,
and tried to do something similar with Irish cooking. Among other
things I did a mixed salad of baby lettuces, endive and watercress
with sherry vinaigrette and grilled portobellos (in lieu of field
mushrooms), and a chunk of warm, broiled Stilton (yes, it's English,
sue me). Lamb loin studded with shreds of seaweed and roasted (y'ever
encounter that salt-grass lamb from Normandy?), grilled calves' liver
on a bed of parsnip puree with Guinness and cream reduction. That
kind of thing. I can't remember the specifics, but there was a lot of
seafood, too. Oh, and leek-and-oatmeal soup, of course.
> Bake or braise the meat in red wine and spices, as Simon
> suggested, and serve it with either a white or brown onion sauce...
> Or top the almost-cooked meat with a mustard/crumb crust and brown
> nicely...
I confess I like it simmered in water, with cabbage simmered in the
slightly greasy, meat-flavored water ;-).
> Or... Your Souffle de Colcannon... or perhaps a delicate clear-
> broth shellfish soup with tiny potato dumplings flavored with fresh
> chives...
Cockle broth done as you describe?
> Appetizer timbales of pickled herring with a savory, herbed soda
> bread... A palate-cleansing scoop of iced ale, a sort of beery
> granita with sage leaf garnish... the soup, or the souffle with the
> beef... dessert of sherried custard with sugared violet
> garnish... I don't think the soup or the custard is particularly
> "Irish," I just got carried away...
Don't forget the lemony Shrove Tuesday pancakes.
> While I've been looking the other way, has the world of
> fashionable food discovered the lowly cabbage? I was trying to
> think of other dishes that, like colcannon, would lend themselves
> to the haut cuisine treatment if one just thought about it...
Kale had a god run for a while, and while the really bold food-pusher
can get people to eat cabbage, there'll probably be some resistance
among couples on dates.
> How about cabbage rolls with a filling of sauted shallot and
> onion, minced chicken (veal and chicken would be yum, and the veal
> would be closer to the usual hamburger, but for some of us, there's
> an ethical conflict), rice, egg, cream... with maybe nutmeg and
> white pepper... Steamed, maybe casseroled, dressed in a fairly
> light tomato/cream sauce...
There's actually a late-period or early-post period English stuffed
cabbage dish, which, like some of the French versions, involves
stuffing the whole head.
> Or a cabbage-roll sushi: center strips of steamed carrot and
> cooked, spiced chicken/veal and a few plumped currants, surrounded
> with sushi rice, and all rolled up in steamed Savoy leaves: Cut
> crosswise as for sushi, and serve cold with sweet-sour-hot tomato
> dipping sauce...
I once made pseudo-sushi as a joke at an event, calling for steel-cut
oats, kippered herring, Coleman's mustard, and a strip of kale leaf
to hold it all together...
> Terrine of layered potatoes, kale, corned beef in gelatine or
> cream sauce, cabbage... served hot or cold... Would be wonderful
> for a picnic...
>
> Oh, my , that was fun... Mundane life has been stressful lately,
> and it is good to laugh and play with my food, if only via
> keyboard :-)
>
> I am unfamiliar with Lughnasa - an Irish holiday, maybe??
Yes. The four big festivals on the Celtic calendar correspond roughly
to the solstices and equinoxes: Imbolc in the winter, Beltane in the
spring, Lughnasa in the late summer, and Samhain in the autumn.
Lughnasa is the festival of the sun god, Lugh, more or less the
Celtic Apollo, and it doubles as the harvest festival, Lammas in
English. Eating colcannon at Lughnasa is allegedly an ancient
tradition (before you guys jump in, there's apparently some evidence
to suggest that colcannon once was made without potatoes).
Adamantius
"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils mangent de la
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them
eat cake!"
-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
"Confessions", 1782
"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry
Holt, 07/29/04