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Imbolc 2017 Recipe Alterations / Feast Discussion

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2017 9:43 am
by Aonghus
Hey Folks,

So while everyone seemed to think the menu was a general success, word is a number of folks had to tweak the recipes here and there to get them to "work". I only heard snippets of some of these conversations but some sounded like people generated some really useful information.

I would like the cooks to talk about what trouble they ran into and how they adapted to fix things. We can update the final recipe results and then post them in the Recipe section for future retrieval.

In addition, I think it would also be useful if people identified the dishes they liked or that might due with a little further improvement.

For myself, I cooked the carrot dish:

The original recipe called for 1.5 kilograms of carrots. I had to figure out how many servings that was then adjust to 30 servings, but wound up just getting a 5lbs bag of carrots, did the metric conversions and worked from there.

I ran into a problem with the poppy seeds. The original recipe called 75 grams, grounded. After converting that turned into 113 grams, or about 4 ounces. I only had a 35 gram bottle, so my recipe would up only having a third of what was originally called for, further, I had no grinder to grind the poppies, or that is to say the grinder I had was too course to have any effect on the poppies. I tried putting them in a ziplock bag and using a rolling pin, but that didn't seem to work either. In hindsight, I think i could have emptied my pepper mill out and tried that, failing a mortar and pestle. The poppies may not have had enough of an influence on the flavor being too few and unground.

In addition, the recipe called for 0.5cm slices which I eyeballed. I used a mandolin to get consistent slices but think I went a little too thin. I think the carrots were a touch overcooked as a result.

I think also there may have been a touch too much of the apple cider vinegar. I like vinegar quite a bit but thought it might have been a bit overpowering for the standard palette.

These few minor glitches aside; I liked the carrots.

As for what else I liked:

Honestly, I liked everything!

Call me crazy but that even includes the hard donuts (or as i liked to call them: "one tough cookie"). Once you got your teeth into them, they actually tasted good, and they provided a very tactile eating experience where you had to deliberately chew slowly and enjoyed the subtle flavor of them. Perhaps I was regressing to infancy and the joy of a teething biscuit. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm alone in this, but I thought they would make a good event snack, particularly as a dessert item that did not require utensils or leave your hands sticky. I think they might pair well with a cup of tea or glass of milk.

I think the millet needed a touch more salt, but thought it decent anyway.

I enjoyed the cabbage salad. I thought it had a very nice lightness to it and was really pleased in that it help balance the meal out.

I also enjoyed the rough bread... it wasn't only for the aesthetic re-enactment pleasure of it - I particularly enjoyed the whole grainy-ness of it as a diabetic who is supposed to (and often fails to) avoid white flour.

I liked the peas, and I think they get special mention for the wood serving bowl used. We need to see more of that kind of presentation. it really makes a difference.

As for the star of the show: Cheese curds!

The desert curds were really nice and the fried cheese curds with hazelnut were fantastic.