Channeling Keith Floyd!

[theweaselking]

CHEFFERY.

Yesterday was thanksgiving, so as is my tradition we went and ate what the Pilgrims ate: Indian food, cooked by someone else. We went to an Indian restaurant with friends.

Today I decided to cook Keith "buy the best ingredients you can, and do as little as possible to them" Floyd style.

So we had:

Roast beef (buy meat: rub with garlic powder, salt, pepper, rosemary. Roast in pan on bed of sliced onion rounds until thermometer says medium-rare. Slice)
Mashed potatoes (Potatoes: peel, boil, drain, salt, butter, pepper, milk, mash, serve)
A friend's homemade Carmenère (open, serve)
Pumpkin pie (from local market) with whipped cream (from a can)

Truly delicious, very very simple.

Comments

[cleodhna.livejournal.com]

Sounds lovely.

Garlic powder certainly does have its place, but I always prefer fresh. Many people think fresh=fiddly, though, so I would hope to disabuse anyone of this notion. Instead of the garlic powder, I might've take a few cloves of garlic, not bothered to peel them or slice them or anything, but instead laid them down on a chopping black and whacked them with a small pot or put the flat of a knife on them and smacked them with my fist, and chucked them in, skins and all, with the onion.

Also I cannot for the life of me get garlic powder not to go glumpy within days of being opened. Do you have a trick for this? I tried rice; it doesn't work.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

While I wouldn't mind adding more garlic, the powder actually has a purpose: as part of the rub, it forms a tasty salt-pepper-garlic-rosemary layer on the meat. And the fact that it goes a little gloopy when exposed to meat juice is also good, because it becomes the glue that holds the rosemary and pepper in place.

A variant I've seen is to slice slits in the meat and jam in whole or halved cloves of garlic.

As for garlic powder going glumpy: Mine's always perfectly powdery until I put it in stuff?

I keep the stuff I'm using it in a glass jar with a screwtop lid and a shaker-top insert, and the larger container is plastic and also sealed. I don't know if there's a "trick" to this, but I never have that problem.

[cleodhna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I keep mine in a glass jar with a plastic screw-top lid; that's the way it comes, but it always turns to glump. Garlic salt is even worse. It turns into an impenetrable cement-like mass. Maybe it's just because I live in a terminally wet country, but my dried herbs don't seem to suffer. Hmm. Maybe your garlic powder is different on your side of the pond. It is a mystery.

I'm not one of those 'fresh garlic or nothing' purists-- I really like garlic powder!

Yeah, the slits in the meat method: I've done that, but you don't want to cut into your meat too deeply or you'll lose juice. If there's fat on your meat, I'd cut in just under the fat and ram in garlic slices; that way the garlic bastes the meat in the melting fat. Or you can just shove smushed cloves under the meat as it roasts. The meat will keep it from burning and you can baste the garlicky juices overtop. Or you can make a smush of garlic and olive oil and other whatnot in a mortar and pestle-- glues together quite well. Fussier than yours, and will taste different, but quicker for me if I don't have to chisel garlic powder out of the jar with a knife.

[jerril]

We're in a river valley here, so we're certainly moist (50-60% relative humidity when it's 'dry') but that's only when the temperature is warm enough.

For the rest of the year (6 mos, ish), the air is frozen dry, and then we heat our houses considerably with forced-heat central gas heat, or electric heat, which just makes it worse.

That might be the difference - I've had garlic powder "stop" a little, but it just takes a gentle shake to break it up, not hacking.

[cleodhna.livejournal.com]

It must just be me. Hey, do you think I have a superpower?

[frith]

My Thanksgiving was even less labour intensive. I went to my folk's place. They cooked. We ate. I went home with half the leftovers. ^_^

(OK, I did chop some parsley and cilantro and prep the green beans. And I brought the wine, bagels and some fancy chocolate.)

[matgb]

Floyd used to own a pub near where I grew up, met him once on one of those awful charity treasure hunts where you try to get somethign signed by a celeb.

It was accepted as being signed by him when we said he was so drunk he could barely hold the pen. I don't think it was past lunchtime...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

For truly Floydian cooking, you should have drunk several glasses of the wine while cooking. Optionally add some to the food when appropriate.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I was not aware of this trait of Floyd-cooking! I'll have to remember it, just like I alway remember to swear at the onions when making Gordon Ramsay recipes and to pretend the meat is begging for mercy when making Warren Ellis'.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evm30HTbD0#t=1m15s

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

.... now I'm going to make slow-cooked beef in red wine.