Yum. Hey hey foodies! I know that it has been awhile again, but you should know the deal by now if you are just coming in: I have health issues and such, sometimes I’ll be gone for months. I have some exciting news in any case in that my husband just went through the gastric sleeve surgery, and I am making efforts to stick to healthier grub for the most part. As you know, my blog is not about dieting, although I will put a special diet recipe up every now and then so as not to leave people out. I will still post, but only when the mood strikes me. Today I have for you some Scotch eggs, super easy meal to make and so very yummy. I am doing the baked version, the traditional is deep fried. So what are Scotch eggs? They are boiled eggs wrapped in sausage and dredged in breadcrumbs, then deep fried (or in this case, baked). They were made somewhere in England, not Scotland, around the mid 19th century and was an easy way to carry your lunch around when working. They are now a widely popular street food and pub grub in Great Britain, and in pubs about the world. My first encounter with these puppies was when one of my best friends showed me how her dad makes his, and it is a delicious end result you get because of the ketchup and the saltine crackers he uses in the meat. I have since learned the more traditional route of making them and I shift between two different recipes. They are actually easier than they look and have only a few ingredients. I am going to give you my version of them in a baked state. These are hardly considered diet food but if you can get away without deep frying them, I think it'll be just fine. Recipe
That flour doesn't act as a glue, and there may or may not be cracks in the exterior when one is done baking their delicious Scotch Eggs, but that flour turns the juices into a little bit of a gravy instead, which adds to the creaminess of the egg yolk. I am just going to assume that the yolk turns out a bit runnier in the deep fried version, but I never tried making that. I absolutely recommend that you give this dish a dry, even someone else's recipe, because you are missing out if you don't! What is really cool about just one egg is that you get meal of convenience and it's also pretty dang filling. A little bit about Shawna Shawna and I go way back. We met in high school and chummed it ever since. We were such good friends that we drew pictures together, we drank lots of coffee at the awesome Fourth Coast Cafe, and we love each other as sisters. She and I have been through thick and thin, along with our other friends, Lacey, Inga, Kittie, Dawn, and a few other people. She is our resident Snow White... You know, opens the shutters and sings to the birds and into wells? Anyways, I guess I owe Miss Pegasus for some of the recipes I have learned over the years, including the eggs. I hope my rendition brings you as much joy as hers did. It is coincidental that I made Schnitzel and Spaetzel in October, but it stands to reason to label this as an Oktoberfest meal that you can pair with a good, German beer. I'd been craving it for quite some time but never really thought about actually making it. The idea actually only popped up as I worked on my collaboration project, seeing as I had a bunch of lemons leftover and Bruce had picked up a bunch of pork loin in a nice sale. The last time I even ate Schnitzel was LCB100 in Culinary School (Very first cooking class in culinary school, or rather, the introductory course.) I don't quite remember which of the three meats we were told to use, though I am sure it was not veal, but I remembered that it really wasn't that hard to make that part of the dish. Instead of the dumplings, we made sauerkraut, which I do remember was better than the jarred junk by far. I had never made the spaetzel before... not from scratch anyhow, so I was more into making that than the Schnitzel for this post, but it would be remiss of me not to give you the recipe for both, right? If I had remembered how to do the kraut and had the cabbage to do so, that would definitely have been added and this post would have been a threefer! What I absolutely love about schnitzel is that it is part of my heritage; I do have a good chunk of German running through my bloodline. I do like to touch into the things that are associated with different parts of my blood so that I can share the diversity with you all. The other things that I love about it is that it is comforting to eat, and that it is interactive. Make the meal, serve it, let folks squeeze their own lemon onto the finished product and enjoy it with them. It's a delightful treat to make every now and then and so easy to make. The spaetzel is fun to make, though it is sticky and messy, yet totally worth it in the end when you taste it. The hardest part is getting the dough made, and that isn't even hard either. Both of the foods in question are fast to cook and truly simple to make that it will be done before you know it (depending on how many batches of each that you make.) Fair warning, also, this is not a diet food, it is meant to be treated as an occasional thing just like any other fried delight. The Schnitzel Recipe
The Method
The Spaetzel
The Method
Eat, Drink, and be Merry! I served mine with green beans too, but that was the vegetable on hand. It's like I stated, it can be served with kraut, and it is paired well with a German stout. This month is a great month for such a meal, but don't wait for Oktoberfest to come for you to make this dish because you can make it whenever you want. That is the greatest beauty of running your own kitchen! And please, please, please don't forget the squeeze of lemon. It is what makes it pop, it brightens the flavor! I absolutely adore the simplicity of each part of the meal. The buttery flavor of the dumplings after they are sautéed? Yes, yes, all the yes. I promise you that it might look daunting, but it really is super easy once you have everything ready to cook! It is also quite worth the effort. I hope that this brings you as much joy as it did me, and I hope that you enjoy the recipes. I don't know where to begin with this blog post, as I am opening up a little on some things. First of all, I am sorry that my posting can sometimes be sporadic, but I have some tough health issues happening. I am constantly battling with my stomach. You see all this awesome, and sometimes not so awesome, food that I make, and I can't always eat it because I am sick to my stomach. It's a bummer, but I am okay. At least I get to taste it! Right now, I am waiting on results from a biopsy done to my gut when they found inflammation again. Signs are pointing to an inflammatory disease, which means that I will have to specialize in a completely different diet and my recipes are subject to big changes in the future. Until I know anything, I eat what I want in moderation (mostly) and in the meantime, I will post regular recipes. I bring this up because I am thinking this means a new format for some of my recipes... Do I do two recipes, a regular one and then the specialized one like I was doing before? I don't know yet. Hopefully, I will know what is going on before too long so I can have a plan of action. I also want to bring up that I have done several recipes in the last few weeks to try and get ahead, but I did get really ill in the last few weeks, hence me not posting. I am going to go ahead with the one freshest on my pallet. Thank you for your support and understanding! Chicken Fried Steak!!This is another one of those non diet foods, you're forewarned! I have avoided the making of chicken fried steak like the plague for the longest time. The first time I ate it, it was disgusting... There was a certain flavor to it that I found rather gross that I couldn't put my finger on. Add to that, I still had a diversion to gravy at the time. I don't remember quite how this happened, but if memory does serve me right? Well, I think my mom bought already breaded cubed steak to fry up one time for chicken fried steak, and there was a certain sour taste to it. If I had to pin point this flavor after looking through different recipes for this food, it would probably be buttermilk. I am almost 99% positive that this is what it was! Half of the recipes that I saw had buttermilk in them, which makes sense because fried chicken sometimes has buttermilk in it that works well with chicken but I don't think it does for beef. I could be wrong, but I wasn't about to use it. So yeah, I made it, and I dubiously tried a tiny little piece off the end of one fillet, curling my lips defiantly in the process of bringing the food to my pie hole... Then I gingerly took the piece in, chewed, and to my delight, it was delicious. I decided to plate stuff before I could devour the rest of my portion, leaving nothing to be pictured. My husband was quite please that I made this meal, too, and he gave me a kiss for doing it because he knew that I was kind of on the fence about making it... But I owe it to you, my readers, and myself, to revisit my old foes so that I can make recipes about them. And yes, this recipe is based on ones from around the internet, but I didn't stick to them, I took liberties and it worked. I hope you all enjoy the recipe as much as I did, but I will probably not be eating this very much at all because, well... Obvious reasons. That is not to say I am telling people not to eat this stuff, so much as to eat it in moderation! A little history lesson, it is believed that chicken fried steak came from German influence back in the mid 1800's, I can concur that it is much like wienerschnitzel! It did remind me of that, something I had the pleasure of trying in culinary school. THE RECIPE
THE METHOD
The batter is nice and crispy, there was no sour taste to the steak. Overall, I enjoyed this recipe and I promised my husband that I would make it again.
Enjoy! Kimmie I had always wanted to try making Navajo Fry bread because I wanted to pay homage to the Native American tradition. I have a great respect for all tribal traditions as my great grandmother was Native (I was told Sioux, though I think if the location has an influence, she was probably Potawatomi or Miami). I have always been fascinated by what I have learned throughout the years about the practices of the Native American, from how they dressed to how they respected everything around them. For instance, when they made a kill, they would utilize everything from the carcass, from the entrails to the bones. There is a certain degree of spirituality to everything for them, cooking was not to be left out of this equation at all. Fry Bread was borne out of pain and sorrow, and some people treat it as sacred. When I was cooking it earlier, I tried to keep that in mind and treat this with love and in the same respect. It isn't just a novelty experience for me, it really was a joy to me to do this and it really did affect me as a descendant of the Native American; I truly hope that I have done justice and given the proper respect to this. Here is an article I think would be beneficial for you to read if you are interested in the history of this food, it is far more eloquent than I can convey in my own words. Right now, I feel like I am on my own spiritual journey... Food is a big part of it for me as I delve into the different parts of my heritage and family history. I have shared with you things that have directly influenced my life as a person. I have said time and time again that food is a universal language, that you can convey messages through the sharing and the fellowship. This is the reason I do these blog posts... I want to share this part of me with you. As far as the recipe goes, I am not sure this one is the traditional recipe because the link above says there is yeast and sour milk included in the ingredients that were available at the time. I do recall being confused that there wasn't yeast involved in the recipe I did use, but it still turned out to taste really delicious and tender. I am sure the sour milk would have given it a flavor that it didn't have, however... But the recipe on that site is very close to the one I used, though mine had no milk involved at all. Before I take this post any further with more food for thought, here is the recipe I used for my Fry Bread: FRY BREAD RECIPE
THE METHODCombine all of your dry ingredients into a mixing bowl... You do not need to sift but it won't hurt any if you do. Add your wet ingredients and mix well... I used my floured hands because it's part of the experience, but you can use a utensil if you prefer... Mix well, but do not knead, to form a ball. Cover the top of the bowl with a damp towel, the lid, cling film, or a plate... and let it rest for two hours. After it rests, prepare your area to roll the dough by dusting with flour... dust your rolling pin as well. Pinch off golf ball sized sections and roll thinly. Preheat your oil, you need enough to cover the top of the bread... I used an inch but recommended is two. Fry your bread, flipping after about two or three minutes... Then let it drain on a cookie rack. Serve while still warm for the best experience. You can put taco meat (pork or ground beef), tomatoes, and lettuce in the shell to make Indian Tacos. I can honestly say that this is now my favorite way to eat tacos as of yesterday. I do suggest that you eat the bread on it's own first because there is something really special about doing so. FRIED BREAD: HOW IS IT DIFFERENT THAN FRY BREAD?In searching for information about the history of the fried bread as opposed to fry bread, I ended up not finding very many links when I tried to Google. But I do know a few things about it from when I first made it, and I also asked some questions to my good friend, Becka, who helped me out with some of the information. Fried Bread is a descendant of fry bread, yes, in tradition but not so much in method. While Fry bread is a flat bread that started from rations they were given during a time where they were being pushed from their lands, Fried Bread kind of evolved from this with a shared history but is more of a fried biscuit. Fried bread started, most likely, in the Appalachian mountains when the Natives took refuge with white settlers, so it is also based off of a rough history. We also know that fried bread was a staple during the Great Depression because of how easy it was to get the ingredients and how you can feed a lot of people with it. The fried bread that I made several months ago was made with my drop biscuit recipe, but the traditional recipe is a lot simpler than that even. Here is a recipe I found today. Fritters - Another Type of Fried BreadBecka pointed out to me that I should not forget to talk about fritters, which is.... also a fried bread. Generally, a fritter has the same consistency as a drop biscuit with whatever chunks of leftover foods (corn, apples, zucchini, etc) they would eat and is served both sweet or savory. Corn fritters are made with maize or corn meal, while other fritters tend to be made with white or wheat flour, and they are either deep fried OR pan fried. Corn is used a lot because it is indigenous to the Americas and the Natives had access exclusively to this plant before European explorers took it back to Europe with them. They would grind it up to make the corn meal (maize), and also use pieces of corn in their fritters. It is made with corn meal or flour these days, but the premise is still the same. While I have not made fritters, I have eaten fritters plenty of times and I am happy to eat them occasionally (I try not to eat any of these foods often because of my blood sugar), and they are quite delicious. This is why we have an abundance of glazed apple fritters in bakeries across the United States. Fritters are made throughout the world, of course, but I am not exactly sure where they first came from. However, the American Fritter is definitely laced with tradition as much as Fry Bread is and I think it should be respected in the same manner. Here is a recipe I found on Fritters, with some history about them, do check it out. I had a lot of fun making this food, learning about the history of it and the other foods that stem from these. I hope that I have helped to bring some insight into this traditional food! Please do try making these and share them with your family and friends. This is an ultimate food of love.... Enjoy, my foodie friends! Love, Kimmie |
The Eccentric Foodie
Food Tip
Cooking bacon in the oven is the easiest way.
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These are various recipes that either I created, or I found and adjusted to what I thought would be awesome or even healthier. Archives
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