Text 11365, 107 rader
Skriven 2014-03-25 19:31:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av JIM WELLER
Ärende: bacon 373
=================
 JW> It's shame we didn't explore Ukrainian bacon, cold cuts and sausages
 JW> a bit when you were here instead of messing around with rancid
 JW> seals.

Ah, there will be another occasion for visiting bacon, cold cuts,
and sausages. Though I'm kind of caught up in Lilli's bucket list
(a good view of the aurora was high on it) for the moment, so who
knows where that will take me.

 JW> That was a heck of party. It was a pot luck with all sorts of
 JW> national dishes. There was one or two families each from Portugal,
 JW> Brazil, Macao, Spain, Columbia and Peru plus a handful of folks from
 JW> the large Filipino community (and Roslind and me).

As you are culture bridgers, as I am, but in a different and
perhaps more effective way. Did you tell us what your national
dishes were?

Malakoff - Swiss Deep-Fried Cheese Sticks
cat: starter, unhealthy
yield: 1 batch

300 gr hard cheese
1 bottle white wine (Swiss if you can find it)
2 eggs
150 gr flour
Salt
Oil for deep-frying
A strong stomach

These deep-fried cheese sticks named after the taking of
Malakoff during the Crimean war are the most delicious
deep-fried calorie bomb I ever tried.

This recipe is said to have been brought back by Swiss
soldiers who were drafted by the French in the Crimean War,
a military adventure in the fine tradition that later
fostered WW1 and the Iraq Debacle. The recipe commemorates
the taking of Malakoff in 1855 in the Ukraine. It is a very
typical recipe of the canton of Vaud on the Northern shores
of Lake Geneva.

The cheese you choose should have no holes, not break
easily but still melt properly. Here I used alpine meadow,
unpasteurized Etivaz-type Gruyere, that's the Bentley of
cheeses. But you can do this with other cheese types.

Ask the cheesemonger to cut the cheese 0.5"/1.25 cm
thick. Remove the crust and slice carefully in sticks of
equal size. Please note that this dish is sometimes
prepared with cheese slices to make a sort of deep-fried
cheese steak.

Put the cheese sticks in a plate and cover with the white
wine. Cover and let marinate for one hour at room
temperature.

Meanwhile, prepare the batter by mixing 150 gr flour with
2 dl/200 gr white wine. Whip until no flour lumps are
visible and you have a smooth but thick batter. Add flour
if the batter is too runny - we want it to stick to the
cheese. Cover and let it rest for one hour.

Beat stiffly 2 egg whites and incorporate delicately to
the batter once it's rested.

Discard the wine used to marinate the cheese sticks and pat
them dry. Roll them in flour until the sticks are no longer
sticky. This is designed to let the batter better stick to
the sticks.

Heat your oil to 190C/375F - that is, very hot.

With a pair of kitchen pliers, dip a cheese stick in the
batter and gently drop it into the oil. Instant karma alert -
if you don't do it gently, the oil will spill and burn you.

Fry until golden brown, then remove to a huge pile of
kitchen towels to try and absorb as much of the frying oil
as possible. It is possible that your sticks stick to the
basket. In that case leave them until fried through, remove
the basket, let it drip and only them proceed to unstick the
fried sticks. Otherwise you'll just break the batter and
they'll fill with oil. Very nutritious but not hugely
healthy.

Serve as an appetizer, with a salad or a soup. They are
really delicious, with the cheese gently melted inside and
perfumed with the tart white wine flavor, all in a crispy
white wine batter. Maybe you could organize a
malakoff-eating contest to see who can eat most?

I've never seen this dish in any restaurant but most Swiss
mistake the malakoff with the more common Beignet de Vinzel,
a cheese fritter on a slice of bread. Many restaurants put
"Malakoff" on the menu but serve beignet de Vinzel and
you'll have a hard time convincing a Swiss that they've been
calling it incorrectly for their whole life. But if one ends
up being the only one to speak correctly, it is probably
time to move on and adopt the common usance. But what would
we call the malakoff then, if that word is used to speak of
the beignet de Vinzel?

fxcuisine.com
___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
 * Origin: Fidonet Since 1991 Join Us: www.DocsPlace.org (1:123/140)