Letter: To Zack about Cooking Skill Stagnation
Dear Zack,
I have decided that my abilities as a cook have stopped progressing. This realization comes from two encounters with “Asian” food. One, last week: I tried to make a stir fry with mushrooms and bok choy and green beans, to be served over quinoa (a nubbly little grain from Latin America). I didn’t exactly follow a recipe–just threw together likely-seeming ingredients in roughly the order that a stir fry is supposed to come together in. It was… sub-ideal. The end result, an amalgamation of mushrooms, bok choy, green beans, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, and honey, was not exactly bad. It was just … too flavorful. Far too flavorful for it to be comfortable to eat a full serving. Really it was best in about two-bite portions. This over-flavoring is a problem that I run into fairly frequently, and I am a hack at working with Asian flavors.
The second encounter was last night at the Meadow Bar in Edinburgh. I ordered a lentil burger (with bacon, naturally, but that was sadly left off). It was a flavored with green chilies and ginger, supposedly, and it was SO strange. I am accustomed to bean burgers having a more southwestern flair that having one that was so Thai was really interesting. I would never have thought of this combination (because, honestly, I never think of new and different ways to use lentils), and I feel that this is something that I should remedy.
Normally, I would remedy my stagnation with random experimentation as the whim strikes me. However, that method has a very high failure rate. I would estimate that a good 75% of the totally random experimentation ends up largely inedible. (Leaving something largely inedible in the refrigerator for a longer period of time does not seem to get it eaten, strangely.) So, I am thinking of something a little different–a more strategic approach, using–GASP, the HORROR–actual recipes, without wild deviation and flights of fancy. I think, like music theory and a lot of other things, you probably need to learn the rules before you get to play it fast and lose with them. The question is, where to start?
Rae
Suggestions from the audience? I am a relatively inexperienced cook, and I am bad at whole wheat breads, broth-based soups, Thai food, Chinese food, and Indian food. I am inexperienced with Middle Eastern food, though I will be trying the shakshuka recipe that was on Smitten Kitten recently. I am ordinarily not very good at cooking meat, with the exception of bacon, which I (being from Southern America), attempt to put in almost anything. (Maple Bacon Cupcakes, anyone? okay, those were actually another one of the random experimentation/almost inedible set). I am fond of dark leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables, radishes, squash, and legumes. I would be delighted to be directed to your favorite recipes!
Great Idea: Genetic Algorithms for Recipes
I actually think a genetic algorithm for recipes is BRILLIANT, and I think I have figured out how to implement it, relatively simply (read: ghetto-rig it).
Now, I don’t think you could use it to come up with really detailed recipes, but I think you can use this approach to come up with ideas, or high level recipes.
Basically, a “recipe” object is made up of ingredients and maybe a couple of cooking methods.
In order for this to make complete sense to everyone, I’ll have to give you folks a rundown on genetic algorithms, but that’s going to have to wait until after the Easter holiday starts. (Wait with bated breath, folks, genetic algorithms are sexy, sexy magic.) But the short story of genetic algorithms is that they are a simulation of evolution. You have a population of items, whatever they may be (in this case, they would be recipes). The best, or most fit, items get to reproduce, just like it’s supposed to work in the real world.
The problem with a genetic algorithm for recipes is that it’s hard to evaluate what is “best” or “most fit” without actually making the food and having someone rate it manually. This would take forever, and result in meals much like those in the xkcd strip. So, I have come up with a way to ghetto-rig it.
You rate the recipes by searching for the ingredients in Google and then adding the number of results. I’ll do a short example to make this more clear.
Let’s say we have a recipe: “Cod, kale, stir-fry”.
First we Google “cod kale recipe”, which gives us 1,100,000 results.
Then we Google “kale stir fry recipe”, which gives us 1,660,000 results.
Then we Google “cod stir fry recipe”, which gives us 107,000 results.
Then we Google “cod kale stir fry recipe,” which gives us 532,000 results.
That gives us a grand total of 2,312,700, which is our recipe’s fitness.
Compare this to a recipe of “grapefruit bacon salad”
“grapefruit bacon recipe” gives us 200,000 results.
“bacon salad recipe” gives us 1,380,000 results.
“grapefruit salad recipe” gives us 168,000 results.
and “grapefruit bacon salad recipe” gives us 252,000 results.
That gives us a grand total of 2,000,000. So, our first recipe would have a higher fitness than our second recipe, and would probably be better.
I can’t wait to implement this. I actually think it might work very well. Particularly if, instead of doing it by straight addition, you use a linear combination. That way you can tweak the kind of recipes you want it to produce. If you want to reward highly innovative recipes, you multiply the number it comes up with when you search for all of the ingredients and the method together (that’s the last line in both of the above examples) by a negative number, so that it detracts from the overall score. As a result, “pecan cream cheese cake recipe”, which returns 821,000 results, would score lower than ” ‘green tea’ ‘dark chocolate’ ‘ice cream’ recipe”, which only returns 61,200 results and is therefore more innovative.
I am doing a terrible job explaining this. Sorry–it’s 1:21 am and I am both very excited about the prospect and very tired. It will make more sense when I can lay out some vocabulary and a teeeeny bit of math so that we’re all on the same page.
I think the moral of the story is that the culinary world should be afraid. Very, very afraid. Can you imagine a cookbook full of recipes invented by an algorithm? I CANNOT WAIT. I will call it “Cooking with Robots”.
Experimental Food: Cabbage, Grapefruit, Bacon Salad
Introduction
The combination of cabbage and grapefruit was brought to my attention by Jessica over at Seaweed Snacks, with her grapefruit cabbage salad. She pitches it as a great topping for tacos, and I imagine she is 100% correct. And then, you know, bacon makes everything better.
Hypothesis
If cabbage and grapefruit are good together, and cabbage and bacon are good together (a fact supported by the existence of numerous warm cabbage and bacon salad recipes), and grapefruit is good with salt (I never sugar my grapefruit, always salt), then cabbage, grapefruit, and bacon ought to be good together!
Materials
- 1 adorably tiny white/green cabbage
- 1 large grapefruit
- Enough Bacon, cooked to desired level of crispiness and cut/crumbled into pieces
Procedure
- Thinly slice the cabbage (the thinner, the better–I like it almost lace thin, but I never manage to get it that way).
- Peel and chop the grapefruit into bite sized chunks.
- Toss the cabbage, bacon, and grapefruit together. (More vigorous tossing==more grapefruit juice on the other items in the salad, which seems to be a good thing, from my perspective)
- Eat.
Results
Alicia and Kate could barely stand to look at it, and Caoimhe did finally try a bite but was worried it would upset her tummy. Alexander Gruensteidl (formerly Apple and IDEO) cringed when I even mentioned the combination. However, it was actually pretty good! I liked it, anyway. It wasn’t blow your mind awesome, but it was good. A little strange, maybe, but tasty and satisfying.
Conclusions
It would be improved by the addition of diced avocado, and possibly thinly sliced green peppers and grated/shaved carrot. Substituting half of the green cabbage with purple cabbage would make it prettier!
Recipe: Mexican Skillet
I have been blessed this week by good friends who cooked me delicious food, two nights in a row! But no good thing could last forever, so last night it fell upon me, once again, to come up with something to eat. This, which I dimly recall making a version of last semester, is what I came up with. It’s a one-pot vegetarian meal full of delight and nutrition, inspired by fajitas and huevos rancheros. (Usually I intend to top it with fried eggs and salsa, and then never manage to do so. It’s just that good on its own.)
Simple Food: Avocados and Tomatoes on Toast
I first discovered my love of avocados the summer I was 17. Being 17 and having little skills in the way of moderation, I promptly began eating half an avocado a day for basically the entire summer. After that, my body rebelled and refused to digest avocados anymore. I spent six long years pining for them until, rather abruptly, I discovered that I could eat them again! (Now I can’t eat raspberries, which is sad but not nearly as sad as not being able to eat avocados).
The avocado preparation that I found so addictive at 17 is still pretty doggone delightful, the moreso for its simplicity.
Avocados and Tomatoes on Toast
To begin, make toast. Use good bread (I recommend against the fluffy pre-sliced kind. Go with sourdough or a baguette or something).
While the toast is toasting, slice up an avocado. (Note that removing the pit with a knife takes practice. Protect your hand with a layered towel or an oven mit or a chain mail glove the first couple of times you try it. Otherwise, just use a spoon, which is what I did until last week.)
Then slice some tomatoes (I have always used cherry or plum tomatoes for this, simply because that’s what I always seem to have on hand.) Sprinkle their cut sides with sea salt.
When the toast is done, lay the avocado slices on it, then lay the tomatoes cut side down on the avocado.
Eat.
Vanilla Orange Sweet Potato Bread
I have been trying to do something cool with Heidi Swanson’s Vanilla Mashed Sweet Potatoes since I first read the recipe three years ago. My first attempt, chronicled in a letter to Heidi, was so spectacularly unsuccessful that I have been a little hesitant to attempt to remix it. Last week, however, I got the hankerin’ for pumpkin or zucchini bread. But canned pumpkin is difficult to locate in this country and zucchini is tremendously out of season, so I was left with something of a connundrum. I did have sweet potatoes, however, and 20 gorgeous, glorious vanilla beans ordered off eBay… With the fresh double cream I had picked up for tomato soup and utterly perfect oranges (fragrant spheres of stored sunshine), I had the makings of a great puree. So I threw caution to the wind and remixed a pumpkin bread recipe to use the sweet potato puree.
A note on the science in this recipe. I was attempting to make it healthy. One can substitute up to half the oil in a quick bread or brownie recipe with applesauce. I had about a half cup of some beautiful rose pink applesauce (made last week from some aging gala apples) just languishing in the fridge, begging to find a good purpose. What better purpose, I thought, than a quick bread? The pumpkin bread recipe called for a cup of oil; half of that was replaced with the half cup of applesauce. But the sweet potato puree included half a cup of double cream. I investigated the fat content of double cream and discovered that it was 48% fat, so approximately 1/4 cup of the cream used in the sweet potato puree was fat. Therefore, I didn’t need all of the remaining half cup of oil–I only needed half of it.
I also drastically reduced the sugar–the recipe I found called for 3 cups. I felt this was ludcrious on a number of levels, not the least of which because I was using sweet potatoes, which are higher in sugar than pumpkins. I used 1 cup of brown sugar, which was sufficient for a mildly sweet bread. You can add more if you’re going for something more cake-like. Future variations will use Grade B maple syrup instead of sugar. (I am pretty sure I can drop the orange juice from the recipe all together with little impact, and replace the sugar with maple syrup. If you get a wild hair, try that and let me know.)
Sweet Potato Puree
1 pound sweet potatoes, cleaned and left a bit damp (peels on)
1/2 cup heavy cream (aka double cream)
1 or 2 vanilla beans, split lengthwise and seeds scraped (I used one–two would be even better, I swear.)
1 medium orange’s worth of orange zest (a palmful, you know)
Bread Batter
4 eggs
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup vegetable
2/3 cup orange juice
1 cup brown sugar
3 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1. Cook the sweet potatoes until very tender, even squishy. I did this by stabbing them a couple of times and tossing them in the microwave. You could just as easily bake them, but my oven was already occupied with squash.
2. While the sweet potatoes are cooking, combine the seeds from the vanilla bean, the orange zest, and the vanilla bean with the heavy cream in a relatively heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 5 minutes.
3. When the cream has simmered sufficiently, take it off the heat and remove the vanilla bean pod.
4. Add the cream to a blender or a food processor with the squishy sweet potatoes and puree until smooth.
Now, at this point you could stop, add a pinch of salt to the sweet potato puree, and go to town with a spoon. It is a mightily fine invention in that state. But, if you’re heading breadward, read on.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 F/ 176 C and prepare a couple of pans. The original recipe says “Grease and flour three 7 by 3 inch loaf pans”, but I didn’t have those. Instead, I lined a large casserole dish and a medium casserole dish with parchment (aka greaseproof) paper. It does not have an incredible amount of rise, but it does puff somewhat
6. Combine the sweet potato puree, eggs, applesauce, oil, sugar, and orange juice in a bowl. In another container, combine the salt, baking soda, and whole wheat flour. (Be sure to get the baking soda evenly distributed. I didn’t, which made for a couple of unpleasant bites.)
7. Combine the wet and the dry ingredients and stir until they’re just combined. The more you stir it together, the more gluten you will create, and the more gluten you create, the chewier your bread will be.
8. Pour into the prepared baking receptacles and bake until a toothpick (or butter knife) comes out of the center clean.
Cooking for Thanksgiving–Pecan Praline Cheesecake
Last Friday I made a copious amount of food to help introduce my friends and classmates to the really spiffy holiday that is Thanksgiving. (Which, for the record, most of the non-Americans don’t understand in the slightest). My cooking menu was
- pecan praline cheesecake
- stuffing/dressing
- a roasted vegetable and rice salad for the gluten free/dairy free folks
- mashed potatoes
- a pear and cranberry dessert for the gluten free/dairy free folks
Before we kick off what will likely be a pretty long post, here is the page from my field notebook that I scribbled the notes from my recipes.
The cheesecake went something like this:
