What's in the Fridge?

Original Post date 2/17/15 on Sunday Supper Chronicles Blog

PC: Where to go for a recipe…the internet, books, or the pile of Food & Wine magazines that is waiting to be thrown out after GS has given them a thorough once over and yanked out whatever recipe catches her eye?

Rummaging through those magazines with somewhat of an idea of what is in the refrigerator, I settle upon Coq au Riesling by Christopher Israel. It’s one of those meat dishes that has sauce, which ultimately requires some starch, pasta or perhaps rice to sop up the meaty juices.

First obstacle, dammit there isn’t a Riesling in the house. Not that I dislike Rieslings, but we prefer Sauvignon Blancs and Chards. So…Coq au Riesling became Coq au Chardonnay, which also saved me a trip of going to the market. This called for mixed mushrooms; obviously some more less common mushrooms would have been more interesting than the bella and white mushroom combo I used but I’m sticking to what I have and avoiding a trip to the market.

Overall it was tasty, not a difficult dish although it did require some straining and pushing juices through a sieve. I cooked up some penne pasta to go along with this dish to absorb some of the juices and round out the meal. Didn’t use tarragon, but didn’t think anyone missed it either.

GS: Under the same "constraints," ahem, laziness as PC, I didn't want to step out of the house to buy ingredients. Fortunately and to my surprise, flans require very few ingredients (but I'm sure consist of a crapload of calories) and are extremely easy to make. The harder part is making it look good, which mine did not.

I used a Jose Andres Flan recipe from an article in Bon Appetit magazine that talks about how Chef Andres doesn't mind eating gross-looking flans, he just won't make one. Well, I guess then he'd eat mine, because under his perfectionist thumb, mine would probably qualify!

My first issue was that I didn't caramelize the syrup to the golden brown it needed to be. I was using an organic sugar that was already brown so I couldn't tell when it was carmelizing in the pan! I had already exceeded the time limit to caramelize so I figured it was ok. Wrong. I knew as soon as I began to pour it into the ramekin. That stuff hardens quickly so it was either move on, or start over. Remember, lazy day, so I moved on.

To avoid bubbles, you're supposed to run it through a sieve, which I did, but apparently my sieve was not fine enough because I got bubbles all along the sides. Chef Andres would be disappointed.

To remove the flan from the ramekin, you run a knife along the sides, put a plate on top of the ramekin and flip. Surprisingly, it came out really easy. I served the nicer-looking flans to my guests and left the not-so-great looking one to myself and didn't remember to take a picture of the better-looking ones before serving so I have this poor photo of mine. All I can say is, it tasted better than it looked and warrants another try - when I'm willing to eat that amount of calories again.