Dark Shadow's Surprisingly Well-Lit Random Banter #217

[Insane Jeenyus]

**snip**

I put **snip**

and ketchup on mine because I'm a sinner.

Blasphemy!! you barbaric cretin! you are a scoundrel and a rapscallion!!!

[Florian]

But... but... mashed potatoes made with cream is the true heaven!

No.

Brandenburg is potatoe county, up to the point that after having tasted a Linda, you don't know what potatoes actually are,

[DataNinja]

Butter is fine.

Ketchup is only allowed on french fries, heretic.

Butter is acceptable only if gravy is not available.

[Teddy]

Karelian stew! Got the meat on sale. Ended up eating more mashed potatoes than the actual stew, though ... a kilo of it. Winter always makes me yearn for potatoes and become addicted to them...

Nice! My potato cravings are completely disproportionate to my potato intake, but that mostly depends on the fact that I have really minimalistic cooking habits.

Also, what have you done! Now I started thinking about fresh potatoes, and this is the completely wrong season to think about fresh potatoes!

Ketchup is only allowed on french fries, heretic.

*lord of the heretics enters the room*

I put ketchup on every 'starch only' component on my plate except pasta and french fries. Not bread either, but bread belongs to the side of the plate, so it doesn't match the premise anyway.

ION:
It's interesting to have an impending international business trip which you don't even know when it will happen. The only thing I know is that it won't happen next week, and this is something I didn't even know a day ago. Planning my private life around this has turned out to be an interesting challenge...

[factotum]

I put ketchup on every 'starch only' component on my plate except pasta and french fries.

Even on rice?

[LaZodiac]

Nice! My potato cravings are completely disproportionate to my potato intake, but that mostly depends on the fact that I have really minimalistic cooking habits.

Also, what have you done! Now I started thinking about fresh potatoes, and this is the completely wrong season to think about fresh potatoes!

*lord of the heretics enters the room*

I put ketchup on every 'starch only' component on my plate except pasta and french fries. Not bread either, but bread belongs to the side of the plate, so it doesn't match the premise anyway.

ION:
It's interesting to have an impending international business trip which you don't even know when it will happen. The only thing I know is that it won't happen next week, and this is something I didn't even know a day ago. Planning my private life around this has turned out to be an interesting challenge...

Good luck Teddy. That sounds like a complicated mess of a job situation.

[Teddy]

Even on rice?

Especially on rice. Rice needs some kind of sauce to be any good, and I just happen to prefer ketchup over most "grown up" sauces.

Good luck Teddy. That sounds like a complicated mess of a job situation.

Yeah, it wasn't planned very well in advance, and it met delays which couldn't be solved just by yelling at someone, so now every new development is told on miniscule notice...

[Peelee]

Sorry, was in a hurry to get ready for work.

And please forgive me for forgetting the garlic, butter, and heavy whipping cream.

like I said, I was getting ready for work.

I refuse to accept your apology. Imean really, who gets ready for work without garlic, butter, and heavy cream? People in the wrong line of work, that's who.

[Baby Gary]

You guys are missing something very important. How can you not talk about potatoes au gratin? they are the epiphany of all potatoes! Also they go great with stake, one of my favorite meals.

Re. the Ketchup people: you put it on fries, burgers, and sometimes chicken tenders (also tater tots). Not on rice, mashed potatoes, and especially potatoes au gratin, got that?

[Peelee]

lRe. the Ketchup people: you put it on [snip] wings

Now you hold on just a got-dang second here.

[Baby Gary]

Now you hold on just a got-dang second here.

what? you didn't see anything, look at my post

[Teddy]

Re. the Ketchup people: you put it on fries, burgers, and sometimes chicken tenders (also tater tots). Not on rice, mashed potatoes, and especially potatoes au gratin, got that?

Potatoes au gratin is good, if there's not too much cream in it, or any cheese on top. Of course, the only recipes which don't include cheese on top are those adjusted for cheese dislikers, i.e. none. You don't put ketchup on it, because there's already sauce in it, and you can't have clashing sauces.

Apart from that, the Lord of the Heretics reject your beliefs and substitute his own.

[FinnLassie]

Nowadays I only use ketchup occasionally when making a brown gravy (adds a little tanginesss)... otherwise it's totally gone from my repertoire. I've had it so much that it's just... lost its glory, if there ever was one. Mayo, flavoured and unflavoured is my go-to thing right now. Getting back to hot sauces would be cool but as of this moment it's a way too expensive thing to keep up for me. Proper sauces aren't exactly student budget friendly.

[WarKitty]

I've been thinking of experimenting with whether hollandaise is freezeable. Really, any of the mother sauces should be replicable at home.

[FinnLassie]

mother sauces

Mother sauces.
Mother.
Sauces.

I need an explanation!

[Dallas-Dakota]

Mother sauces.
Mother.
Sauces.

I need an explanation!

In French cuisine there are five main sauces known as ''Mother sauces'' which are used in many recipes or are bases for other recipes.

These are Bechamel(White sauce), Veloute, Espagnol(brown sauce), tomato sauce and Hollandaise.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Mother sauces.
Mother.
Sauces.

I need an explanation!

Ever see Julie & Julia?

[FinnLassie]

In French cuisine there are five main sauces known as ''Mother sauces'' which are used in many recipes or are bases for other recipes.

These are Bechamel(White sauce), Veloute, Espagnol(brown sauce), tomato sauce and Hollandaise.

Damned be the French with their foolish ideals!

Ever see Julia & Julia?

The what now

[TheWombatOfDoom]

The what now

Correction: Julie and Julia. It's a movie starring Amy Adams and Meryl Streep, about Julia Childs who wrote a famous cookbook which translated French recipes to English for anyone to use. Its a great movie, one of my favorites, and she tackles some of the mother sauces.

[PopeLinus1]

I think we all have seen some threads gone way off course, does anyone have any favorites?

[Peelee]

Potatoes au gratin is good, if there's not too much cream in it, or any cheese on top. Of course, the only recipes which don't include cheese on top are those adjusted for cheese dislikers, i.e. none.

You ever had the potatoes gratin at Texas de Brazil?

Mother sauces.
Mother.
Sauces.

I need an explanation!

All you need did student life is bechamel and hollandaise. Became for some great mac and cheese, and hollandaise for eggs benedict (to celebrate after finals).

[Spanish_Paladin]

Modena vinegar, that is the real thing :P

[WarKitty]

Damned be the French with their foolish ideals!

Honestly most of them are pretty basic sauces though that can be made pretty cheaply. All but hollandaise start with roux, which is just some flour and some form of fat (typically butter) mixed and briefly heated.

Béchamel: Roux and dairy, usually milk, to form white sauce
Velouté: Roux mixed with a light flavored broth
Espagnole: Roux, a strong broth, and some mix of meat and veggies
Sauce Tomat: Tomato sauce, sometimes with roux
Hollandaise: think we know this one

[Insane Jeenyus]

I've been thinking of experimenting with whether hollandaise is freezable.

I have seen Chicken cordon blu kept frozen in a resturaunt. I never found out how good it was because I never got to try it.

Nowadays I only use ketchup occasionally when making a brown gravy (adds a little tanginesss)... otherwise it's totally gone from my repertoire.

If you ever get a few bucks, you can find balsamic vinegar in your grocer. I have a bottle of some 20 year aged in wood balsamic that I got on sale at a Kroger's. It has quite the tangy taste that you may be looking for without becoming a barbaric cretin by using *blech!* ketchep.

You guys are missing something very important. How can you not talk about potatoes au gratin? they are the epiphany of all potatoes! Also they go great with steak, one of my favorite meals.

Re. the Ketchup people: you put it on fries, burgers, and sometimes chicken tenders, chicken wings (also tater tots). Not on rice, mashed potatoes, and especially potatoes au gratin, got that?

I fixed it for you.

Sorry, was in a hurry to get ready for work.

And please forgive me for forgetting the garlic, butter, and heavy whipping cream.

like I said, I was getting ready for work.

I refuse to accept your apology. Imean really, who gets ready for work without garlic, butter, and heavy cream? People in the wrong line of work, that's who.

oops. Why yes, of course!

[Insane Jeenyus]

I refuse to accept your apology. Imean really, who gets ready for work without garlic, butter, and heavy cream? People in the wrong line of work, that's who.

Butter is acceptable only if gravy is not available.

what about Butter AND gravy?!?

[FinnLassie]

If you ever get a few bucks, you can find balsamic vinegar in your grocer. I have a bottle of some 20 year aged in wood balsamic that I got on sale at a Kroger's. It has quite the tangy taste that you may be looking for without becoming a barbaric cretin by using *blech!* ketchep.

Uh... no. It would ruin it. This brown sauce is a bland gravy made by melting butter, frying flour and adding water & a beef stock cube. Balsamic vinegar would **** it all up.

[Florian]

Damned be the French with their foolish ideals!

Say what you want, but the French put method and thought to the culinary arts, especially when it comes to avoiding waste and using anything there is available.
Warkitty is pretty much correct at pointing out that there're "Mother Sauces" that you should learn to cook by rote and that you can do endless variations based on these, fitting for nearly any dish.

[FinnLassie]

I'll just call all of the rest of you sauce elitists from now on.

[Peelee]

I'll just call all of the rest of you sauce elitists from now on.

We could just make it one word, like sauceelitist. That looks weird, though, so we could take the first part of sauce and the first part of elitest and condense it to sauceli. The pronunciation is clunky that way, it sounds like an Italian island or something, so I guess we could improve it by moving the I before the E and changing the L to an R.

So you can just say "saucier" for short.

[Mith]

We could just make it one word, like sauceelitist. That looks weird, though, so we could take the first part of sauce and the first part of elitest and condense it to sauceli. The pronunciation is clunky that way, it sounds like an Italian island or something, so I guess we could improve it by moving the I before the E and changing the L to an R.

So you can just say "saucier" for short.

Define "saucier"

Sauciers are people who get saucy about sauces. If you maked repeated apparently rudimentary mistakes about sauces, sauciers get saucier.