Help, help, the oven's broken!
Monica Nosek
yummy recipes from Mom, and what do we find but an inoperative
microwave and an oven that refuses to work. This was fine for
a few days, as I whipped up some soups and rice and stews and
rice and chili and rice, but there's gotta be something more
exciting to do on the stove. Can anyone help us while the
mcahinery is in the shop? We're looking for main dishes
especially -- something a little creative.
Thanks!
Monica
William J. Laubenheimer
if you're adventurous and have some time to spare, macaroni and cheese
(throw some luncheon meat in just before serving, or brown up some hamburger
and add an appropriate amount of tomatoes). How about some fried chicken?
Dozens of ways to do fish on a stove top - sauteed or poached. Find a
good gumbo recipe. Hop on down to your local library and find a Chinese
cookbook if you don't already own one; that's virtually all stove-top,
and a large frying pan really is OK in place of a wok.
So you say, "but what about big hunks of red raw meat? How can I get
something like that?" This is a problem that, according to Marcella Hazan
(author of the two best Italian cookbooks I have ever seen), Italian
cooks have been dealing with successfully for a long time. Two popular
replacements for what are customarily viewed as oven techniques are
pan-broiling and pan-roasting. To pan-broil something, such as a steak,
use a thinner slice than you would for broiling over direct heat (i.e.,
less than 1 inch for a good cut (sirloin or better), 1/4 inch or so for
something like round steak, which works well using this method and makes
a great steak sandwich). Take your skillet and put in just enough vegetable
oil (olive oil if you're a purist) to put a thin film on the bottom at
cooking temperature (n.b., this is not much at all, maybe a tablespoon or so).
Heat up the skillet until the oil is just short of smoking, then toss on
the meat. Cook just until browned on each side; this will give a rare
steak at 3/4 inch and will adequately cook the round steak I mentioned
earlier. If you like your thinker steak medium, use somewhat lower heat
and cook it longer.
To pan-roast a cut of meat, you start with some oil and butter (about
2 Tbsp. of each), heat it up, and brown the meat on all sides. Then
throw in a small amount of liquid (about 1/2 cup); the recipes I have
all suggest an appropriate wine. Add seasonings, heat the liquid until
it bubbles, then reduce the heat to simmering and cover the pan. Check
it every 20 minutes or so to make sure there is still some liquid left
and it's not boiling; turn the meat over when it's about half done.
If you think this sounds a lot like braising, it does. The difference
is that you are using much less liquid, only enough to avoid sauteeing
the meat, so you are getting dry(er) heat.
Desserts I can't help you with. Better buy them at your local bakery until
you get the oven back.
Bill Laubenheimer
----------------------------------------UC-Berkeley Computer Science
...Killjoy went that-a-way---> ucbvax!wildbill
Suzanne Barnett
Also try things like beef stroganoff, ground beef patties with
a gravy or sauce (we like bernaise for this) and rice.
> Desserts I can't help you with. Better buy them at your local bakery until
> you get the oven back.
Puddings and candy are generally made on the stove rather than
in the oven, baked apples can be made in a skillet on the
stove rather than in a pan in the oven. Ice cream doesn't even
need heat (except for some recipes, and then only the stove,
not the oven).
And, if really desperate, ask to borrow a friend's oven, and
cook dinner for him/her/them as well as yourselves.
--
Suzanne Barnett-Scott
uucp: ...{decvax,ihnp4,noao,savax,seismo}!terak!suze
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