- Butternut squash soup with red kale chip
Inspired by Missy Frederick’s 11 Kitchen Goals for 2011, I decided I wanted to write my own kitchen resolutions for this year. All of them are either conquering things that are considered to be challenging or adding new skills. It’s also likely to test the limits of my tiny kitchen, and irritate the dickens out of my smoke alarm.
- Make my own sriracha. I’d love to expand outside of the chilies they’ve listed for a variety of flavors. – CHECK
- Add 5 classic Chinese recipes to my repertoire. Most of my cooking is some sort of weird fusion-y blend, and stir-frying is a little too straightforward.
- Play with making different types of candy: truffles, lollipops, buttermints. I’ve mastered fleur de sel caramels covered in chocolate.
- Transition away from some of my non-stick cookware into stainless steel. – CHECK
- Make my own kimchee, and non-fermented pickles.
- Try my hand at making a souffle.
- Make macarons.
- Make at least one recipe from every cookbook I own that I haven’t used. Amongst them crazy recipes from The French Laundry cookbook, the Alinea cookbook, and Jacques Pepin techniques. Also notable in the collection: Jose Andres’ Made in Spain, Richard Sandoval’s Modern Mexican Flavors, a few years worth of Saveur issues, and (sigh) Rachael Ray’s 30 minute meals get-togethers cookbook.
- Deep fry something on my stove.
- Make more soups. – CHECK
- Make a really old school French dish.
Kimchi is ridiculously simple to make. Highly recommend the Harsch Gairtopf Fermenting Crock, but any old crock and stone weight will do. I just needed something big enough to do sauerbraten and lock out the mold. I’ve also got Pepin’s “La Technique” and “La Methode” whic were republished as “Complete Techniques.” Exhaustingly thorough and well illustrated.