Redemption!... (sorta)

Looking at me, you wouldn't guess it, but I don't cook to eat.

I'm super-analytical, but I also have a pretty strong creative streak as well. Cooking (as I do it) is an outlet that combines both of those things. I like to play with my food.

There are two ways I cook. One is to do a fair amount of research into an established dish, choose the recipe that appeals to me the most, and then try to follow it exactly. That gives me an idea of what I like or don't like about the recipe and what changes I should make in the future. I couldn't be one of those who think they can "improve" a recipe without trying it first as it was intended. Without having tried the original, how do they know if their changes are improvements or not? And if it turns out they don't like the final product, is it because they really don't like the dish or because their changes ruined it? If you put sautéed onions in your crab cakes, hate them, and as a result think you hate crab cakes, you're an idiot. If you put sautéed onions in your crab cakes and love them, well, you're still an idiot. ;)

That's not to say I don't think some recipes can be improved, just that I think there needs to be something to which to compare the changes. Luckily, I seem to have a knack for choosing good recipes.

The other way I like to cook is to completely make shit up. Anybody can substitute fontina for gouda, or throw some chocolate chips into an ice cream recipe. I love making stuff that few people have heard of or attempted at home. Stuff that's in some way fundamentally different from what people know. It's a bit of a rush to find that there's no recipe out there for "beer can" goose or to come up with an ice cream more indulgent that anything you've had, or to hear people ask "You're gonna bake what? On the grill?"

A couple years ago, I got the "bright" idea of baking a chicken inside a salt dome. Of course, there was no recipe for such a thing, so I made it up as I went along. I mixed kosher salt, egg whites, and some herbs, and used the mix to encase a chicken, which I then baked.


It turned out very well and better than I expected. It was probably the juiciest baked chicken I've ever had. However, when I shared the results with a group of people, the focus was on the fact that the skin, while not chewy or gummy, wasn't crisp. I resigned myself to the fact that it was probably a dumb idea from the start and largely forgot about it.

This weekend, I had Food Network on in the background while I was doing some other stuff. It was one of Rachael Ray's ubiquitous travel shows. She was in a restaurant in Provence, and I caught the end of a scene in which the chef broke some kind of a crust around what appeared to be a duck or some other bird.

Could it be that a renowned French chef was encasing poultry in a salt dome like little ol' moi?

No. Not really. LOL.

I DVR'd a repeat of the show and it turns out the chef encased a Guinea hen in a crust of flour, salt, and herbs. Hey, that's pretty damn close. ;)

I felt vindicated.