Long weekends are an ideal setup for busyness in our kitchen. With an extra day or two of free time for cooking, some time-consuming projects and practices are definitely on deck.
First, I tackled the folded pizza dough sandwich inspired by Instagram. That was a successful dinner one evening and breakfast the following morning. Win, win.
The Fish and Chip Fiasco
Sunday was all about making a feast for family day. Mike had in mind to cook fish and chips with his outdoor cooking setup. A lovely idea, except the temperature was below zero - well below zero, and while you might be able to get vats of bubbling oil up to temperature on the patio at -12 and not need to worry about keeping food out of the sun and heat during prep, keeping food hot once you take it from the oil is impossible. It cools so incredibly quickly that any trace of crispiness is instantly mute. The steam freezes in place, and when you get the food inside, it thaws - dampening crispiness and spirits. Fries go limp, and the golden fish batter turns bready - there is no rescue.
Getting the fish to the fryer presents its challenges in the cold. You must contend with the freezing batter thickening from the cold, and your fingers lose their nimbleness. Nothing works, not really. Except that it is still a lot of work. The potato prep - scrubbing, cutting, soaking, blanching, double frying. The fish - dusting, battering, frying a few pieces at a time, carefully swimming each piece into the oil to avoid batter sticking to the bottom of the pot and peeling from the loins. Every dish in the house gets used because you need bowls for prep, bowls and pans for pre-cook, and fresh pans and bowls for post-cook. & pairs of tongs, six wire racks, plates, bowls, cutlery, and glassware. Ugh! By the time we finished cleaning up, I was disappointed and disgruntled. Mike has since promised never to insist on frying winter fish & chips again. Thank goodness. “Next time, we’ll do a boil,” he says.
That will be easier.
Pasta Practice
Monday was the holiday and a free day to putter in the kitchen. A day like this is ideal for pasta practice. We have a ravioli press that we picked up while in Rome last spring, and it has sat unused for months, just waiting for an afternoon of unhurried attention. I practice pasta the same way I practice Gnochi. Nothing is perfect yet, but every afternoon of practice gets me closer to what I hope to achieve.
I used a basic pasta formula of 100gr ‘00’ flour for 1 egg and added an extra egg yolk to the mix for good measure, as instructed in the recipe. The dough was beautiful after 10 minutes of kneading and 30 minutes of rest. It was soft and silky, elastic and very pliable. Perfect for rolling thin sheets of ravioli.
I used the pasta roller, as I usually do for spaghetti and fettuccine. The roller is excellent for cut pasta where the finished sheet width is not critical to success, but the roller tends to stretch the dough as it pulls through, making the sheets longer and thinner but narrower in spots as well. It was challenging to maintain the width required for the ravioli jig. I rerolled the first attempts repeatedly to get the right size. Working the dough so much made it tough, as I expected. I did the tender dough a significant disservice. The flavour was good, but the texture could have been better.
Pasta Practice - Take 2
Today is a day for second attempts. With filling left over, a batch of pasta dough only takes minutes to prepare. So I set to work this morning correcting mistakes from the day before, turning practice into lunch for Mike. I rolled sheets of pasta by hand, trading the crazy little rolling pin that came with the ravioli jig for my large tapered pastry pin.
The sheets came out perfectly. I was happy with my choice to switch techniques. The heavier pin made short work of rolling the ravioli shut, crimpling the edges and cutting the pieces. The tiny cushions popped easily from the jig, and I brushed the excess flour away with a pastry brush. It went well today, and I felt confident in my process and results.
The finished ravioli was more tender and a joy to savour.
Perseverance is Failure with a Good Attitude
That is a lot of what cooking is - confidence, learning to trust your instincts, appreciating that you will make bad food sometimes and letting go of the expectation that you will knock a technique or recipe out of the park on your first attempt. Most importantly, it is the willingness to try again and again and practice and, yes, some willingness to eat failure. That’s what ketchup is for. Embrace failure in the kitchen - keep going. Every attempt will teach you something new. Before you know it, you will be a master at one dish or another, and those go-to meals will shine.
You won’t get there expecting perfection on the first try, and you should probably not let your guard down once you’ve won. Just as fish and chips revealed this weekend - even a dish you’ve done very well can suffer a tragedy in the wrong conditions.
Smile, eat - enjoy the company.
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