Sunday 7 July 2013

A weekend without pork belly is.........what?

Curses. No trip to the butcher this weekend to buy another slab of pork belly. However, I did try something new - a parsnip veloute.

WTF?

That's pretty much what I thought when I first read the word "veloute". So I looked it up and made it on a whim. Essentially it's soup.

But I didn't want a soup - I wanted something more akin to a mash.

Pretty easy really - peeled and chopped two big parsnips, along with an onion. Threw a big hunk of butter into my cast iron frying pan, got it sizzling, swished the chopped parsnip and onion around on top of the stove for 5 minutes (until I saw a bit of brown here and there) and then threw it into a 180 degree oven for - I have no idea how long. Long enough to cook. And I have no idea if the oven was actually at 180. It could have been 140 or 220 knowing my oven.

After that, threw it in the blender with some cream and blended until it was the right consistency. Not like mash, and not like soup. Firm enough to stand up as a blob on a plate without squidging. How much cream was that? Dunno. Started with an almost full carton and I put some back in the fridge. About that much.

It was amazingly delicious - but you probably need to like parsnip for it to work for you. Then again, even the teens ate it, so it can't have been that bad.

2 comments:

kc said...

I love the way you cook. Every time I make a regular recipe, I have to round up the measuring spoons and cups. "Some" and "a bit" and "not quite the whole package" aren't specific enough, I guess.

If I still had teens at home, I would make use of some of your 'recipes' but all I can do these days is enjoy your reports. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Yep. This is the sort of recipe I like. Provided we know e.g. what a big parsnip is. Parsnips and other veggies vary in size from country to country.

I also like the recipes that specify e.g. 250gm onion instead of one medium onion. There is no international standard medium onion.

I have several recipes that say "cook until done". That works :-)