{"id":192,"date":"2010-02-08T11:42:14","date_gmt":"2010-02-08T16:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/?p=192"},"modified":"2010-02-08T11:42:14","modified_gmt":"2010-02-08T16:42:14","slug":"challenge-february-5-7-enough-food-for-sixteen-baos-ten-if-we-purged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/?p=192","title":{"rendered":"Challenge: February 5-7 &#8212; Enough Food for Sixteen Baos (Ten If We Purged)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Unless you live under a rock, you probably heard about the super-fun snowstorm we had over the weekend.\u00a0 It started Friday night and continued on through Saturday, finally stopping around 4 pm.\u00a0 Our grand total was somewhere over twenty inches; needless to say, this Bao was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/snow.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>ridiculously excited<\/strong><\/a> about the whole affair.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing I was going to be snowed in, I planned Three Meals:\u00a0 chicken tikka masala and the ravioli from the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/?p=178\" target=\"_blank\">poll<\/a><\/strong>, and then a meal I found in February&#8217;s issue of Martha Stewart Living (I tried to find the recipes on the website, but they don&#8217;t appear to be up yet).\u00a0 I was a bit lazy and didn&#8217;t take pictures of everything, which is probably to your benefits as I suck with a camera.\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Friday<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Croque monsieurs (or should we pluralize them to croque messieurs?)<\/li>\n<li>Potato salad with fris\u00e9e, red wine vinaigrette<\/li>\n<li>Roasted pears and red onions<\/li>\n<li>Chocolate truffles<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I have to give it up to Martha Stewart; this meal really did come together in an hour, which is impressive considering I got a dessert out of it.\u00a0 The croque messieurs, aside from having the highest fat content ever (half a pound of ham, half a pound of Gruyere, and then the bechamel sauce?\u00a0 oh boy&#8230;), were spiffaroo and toasted up quite well the next day.\u00a0 My father fell in love with the potato salad.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/roastedonions.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-196\" style=\"border: 1px solid black;\" title=\"Roasted Pears and Red Onions\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/roastedonions-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/truffles.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-197 aligncenter\" style=\"border: 1px solid black;\" title=\"Chocolate Truffles\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/truffles-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Saturday<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>French onion soup with Gruyere croutons (it was a very Gruyere-themed weekend)<\/li>\n<li>Ricotta-Taleggio Ravioli with Wild Mushroom Sauce<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The soup was easy-peasy (thanks <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.foodnetwork.com\/recipes\/ina-garten\/french-onion-soup-recipe\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Ina<\/a><\/strong>!), and packed a nice kick because there was a helluva lotta booze in it.\u00a0 It should probably be renamed &#8216;Drunken Onion Soup.&#8217;\u00a0 I&#8217;ve sampled numerous recipes over the years, and this one is pretty authentic, though I like a hint of sweetness that isn&#8217;t present here.\u00a0 Very filling &#8212; next time I&#8217;ll just have this and a salad!<\/p>\n<p>Now, the ravioli.\u00a0 Ed, I&#8217;m going to tell you the truth right now:\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t feel like making my own pasta, though I am quite capable of wielding a rolling pin.\u00a0 Instead, I took the Cheater&#8217;s Way Out and used wonton wrappers that, while the texture is not as nice as I would have liked, served me well enough.\u00a0 After all, if I was all floury and eggy from pasta making,\u00a0 I wouldn&#8217;t have been able to drink my bottle of wine without gooping up the glass.\u00a0 You were right about finding sheep&#8217;s milk ricotta (though I never really expected to find it to begin with), but I didn&#8217;t think there&#8217;d be a run on mushrooms before a snowstorm!\u00a0 I ended up using a combination of portobello, porcini, and cremini.\u00a0 Also, much to my chagrin, no pancetta or taleggio!\u00a0 Frustrating, but an understandable problem of living in the woods.\u00a0 However, I totally pulled a Julia Child and blanched bacon to remove the smokiness, and voila.\u00a0 Pancetta substitute!\u00a0 For the taleggio I used a creamy havarti to mimic the texture (I meant to add some blue cheese to give it taleggio&#8217;s zing, but I forgot).<\/p>\n<p>The ravioli were pretty damn tasty, if I say so myself.\u00a0 Unfortunately using wonton wrappers made them ugly; one of my challenges should probably be THE PRESENTATION QUEST.\u00a0 Anyway, give these a try; you can find the recipe <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foodnetwork.com\/recipes\/anne-burrell\/ricotta-taleggio-ravioli-with-wild-mushroom-sauce-recipe\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/onionsoup.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-209\" style=\"border: 1px solid black;\" title=\"Boozy Onion Soup\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/onionsoup-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/ravioli.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-210 aligncenter\" style=\"border: 1px solid black;\" title=\"Squiggly Ravioli\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/ravioli-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Sunday<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Chicken tikka masala with brown rice<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I love tikka masala, but as I was cooking for my parents, I was a little concerned that they wouldn&#8217;t care for it (no Indian stamp in their passport, you see).\u00a0 However!\u00a0 As always, my brave parents ate what I cooked, and <em>they enjoyed it<\/em>!\u00a0 Now they can say they&#8217;ve conquered some Indian cuisine, boosting their Fence Family Culinary Street Cred by a good ten points in my book.\u00a0 This recipe tasted pretty authentic to me (as in, not cloyingly sweet like you&#8217;d get in some Indian takeaways in England), and has a rather spicy aftertaste.\u00a0 If you don&#8217;t like heat, you may want to cut back on the cayenne pepper in the marinade.\u00a0 Much like the elusive taleggio cheese, my local stores didn&#8217;t stock garam masala, so I had to wing my own.\u00a0 Check out the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/?page_id=95\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Recipes section<\/strong><\/a> for the how-to on Bao&#8217;s Bollywood fare.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/masala.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-212 aligncenter\" style=\"border: 1px solid black;\" title=\"Chicken Tikka Masala\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/masala-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">So there we have it!\u00a0 Quite an exhausting weekend of cookery.\u00a0 Keep up the good work on suggestions for my challenges, if you would be so kind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unless you live under a rock, you probably heard about the super-fun snowstorm we had over the weekend.\u00a0 It started Friday night and continued on through Saturday, finally stopping around 4 pm.\u00a0 Our grand total was somewhere over twenty inches; &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/?p=192\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-challenge","category-cookery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}