Roasted Zucchini – My First Major Cooking Failure.

That’s not the finished Zucchini. But that was right before it went into the oven. It was perfect. Then it wasn’t.

I really labored about posting this, as it’s embarrassing, but I figured, what the hell. We’re going for honesty here, and sometimes, that means showing the ugly mistakes as well.

How did I mess up, you may ask?

It was all going PERFECTLY.

Then I trusted the recipe time without checking on the bottom oven, as I was busy cleaning and scrubbing the TOP oven, and I got distracted. Timer went off, and the zucchini was el carbonne.

It looks nasty, but it actually was edible. The flesh was soft and creamy, it was just the top that turned out like an overcooked marshmallow. But having enjoyed many overcooked marshmallows as a child, I didn’t really mind it, all things considered.

The recipe called for 25-30 minutes. I should have taken it out after about 15-20 as the zucchini were pretty well done from the pan already, as some were rather small. I also tried to get zucchini that were mostly the same size, but one was quite a bit larger than the other two.

I am usually 100% on point when I’m cooking, and extremely focused on what I’m cooking, and checking it frequently, especially on unknown recipes. But not yesterday. I was extremely disappointed about the outcome.

On the other hand I turned this:

Into this:

In my defense, it’s not my oven. It’s my house-mates, and apparently nothing has been cooked in the upper double oven for YEARS after they somehow set it on fire. I cleaned it, tested it, and it’s now back to being almost brand new and 100% operational again. It took almost all day, but now we have TWO ovens to cook in.

So follow the recipe below, just watch that sucker like a hawk once you put it into the oven.

Check it for doneness after 15 minutes. You should be able to slide a paring knife into the flesh of the zucchini with no resistance. If it’s still not done, check it again after 5 minutes but watch that oven and do not let it burn.

My zucchini el carbonne was still fairly tasty, and I did eat it all, but was definitely NOT presentable and looked like a dog’s dinner.

Surprisingly enough, even burned it was tastier than most zucchini I’ve had at restaurants and WAY better than the crap in a can.

Recipe:

Oven Roasted Zucchini (or Zucchini el Carbonne if you mess up.)

(From Chef Thomas Keller’s MasterClass)

Ingredients:

3 fresh zucchini. (Try to get all the same size)

Vierge sauce (Tomato concasse, pinch of minced parsley, 5g diced shallots, 15g champagne vinegar, 35g extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt to taste.)

6-8 oz canola oil

Kosher salt

Maldon finshing salt

Equipment:

Cutting board

Chef’s knife

12 inch oven-safe frying pan

Paper towel lined plate

Instructions:

Warm the oven to 450

Heat your pan and oil over high heat until the oil is shimmering.

Cut the zucchini in half lengthwise. Try to be as exact as possible. Score the flesh crosshatch, as in the picture below.

Evenly salt the zucchini with the kosher salt, lightly dusting it from above and letting the salt rain down on the vegetable. Leave sit for 15 minutes or more.

Pat the zucchini dry.

Sear the zucchini in the pan for about 5 minutes. Adjust the heat and lower if necessary to allow the zucchini to sear without burning.

Once the zucchini look like the below picture…

Put them in the oven and roast for 15-20 minutes. Longer if your zucchini are larger, but keep an eye on them or they absolutely will burn. If you see any of the edges start to burn, pull them out of the oven immediately.

Pull out the zucchini from the oven, arrange on plates or serving platter, spoon over vierge sauce, and finish by sprinkling Maldon over it.

Homemade Ranch Dressing

This is a recipe I created today using some of the leftover fresh mayonnaise I created the other day. I knew I wasn’t going to use that much mayonnaise, so I had to come up with an alternate use for it.

Then it struck me: Ranch dressing. Yum

Recipe:

Janos’ Homemade Ranch Dressing

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh Mayonnaise

4 tablespoons crème fraîche

Juice from ¼ a fresh lemon

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

Chopped fresh parsley, dill, and chives, equal amounts, about 2 Tablespoons combined total.

Equipment:

1 small bowl

Tablespoon for mixing

Instructions:

Combine the Mayonnaise and crème fraîche in a bowl, and mix thoroughly.

Add the herbs, mix.

Add the garlic powder, mix.

Lastly, add the fresh lemon juice. Mix. Taste.

Add more garlic powder or lemon juice to taste if you so desire.

Janos’ Non-Elevated Scrambled Eggs.

For those of you in the know, this is a (Severely Bastardized) version of Gordon Ramsay’s ‘Elevated Scrambled Eggs’. (On fried mushrooms and toast in this case.)

This bears no resemblance to Gordon’s signature scrambled eggs other than the method used to produce the scramble.

It’s cheap shit wheat bread, with cheap shit canned mushrooms, with cheap shit grocery store ‘fresh’ herbs which have likely been sitting there for a week after being picked. Ingredient wise it’s embarrassing, really. I’m simply sharing it with you here for the METHOD. Ignore the ingredients.

If you really want to make the mushroom version and only have canned mushrooms like I did, you can drain them, fry them in butter, and season them with salt and pepper, then put them on your toast. I make toast in the pan, as I don’t have a toaster. Simply put some butter in the pan on high heat, sear one side, put a little more butter into the pan, sear the other side, voila, toast. Drain any liquid from the mushrooms via a paper towel, and put on toast.

Also, unfortunately my ‘non-stick’ pan is a VERY stick pan. It worked for about 2 weeks and has been worthless ever since. It’s about 12 years old and I badly need a new set of nonstick cookware.

However the crème fraîche is home made only as of a few days ago, and I added a light sprinkle of Maldon finishing salt that the original recipe didn’t call for.

It’s the only thing I had on hand, was starving, but I wanted to try and practice Gordon’s scrambled egg method, so I figured what the hell. It came out quite tasty, all things considered. If it’s this good using the crappy ingredients I used, it must be beyond amazing using quality ingredients.

I’m interested in trying this recipe with some real Brioche, and perhaps some white truffle oil.

Were I home in PA, the fresh wild mushrooms would not be a problem. Here, I can’t find them locally and purchasing them would be extremely cost prohibitive. Perhaps fresh non-wild mushrooms may be the next best thing.

Recipe is below

Janos’ Non-Elevated Scrambled Eggs.

Ingredients:

5 eggs

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon crème fraîche

1 teaspoon chopped fresh chives (I used a mix of parsley, dill, and chives that I had left over from omelets, it worked great.)

Kosher salt

Black pepper (freshly ground)

Maldon finishing salt (optional)

Equipment:

Small Non stick saucepan

Heat safe rubber spatula

Instructions:

Crack eggs one at a time separately into a small bowl, so as to make it easy to get out any eggshells if you happen to get a piece in your eggs, then pout into your unheated pan.

Add the butter.

Turn the pan on to medium heat.

Constantly stir with rubber spatula, scraping down the bottom and sides of the pan.

You will have them on the heat for 90 seconds, off the heat for 20. Repeat as needed.

You want the eggs soft but not runny.

As soon as they are soft, add in crème fraîche, chives, salt and pepper directly into pan and fold.

Remove from heat and plate immediately.

Sprinkle with Maldon finishing salt if you like.

It isn’t pretty, but it did come out delicious.