Food (various)

[karohemd]

Two d'ohs in the kitchen tonight:
1) As I was melting butter for the roux (is there an English word?) for my cheese sauce, one of those long-legged flies/gnats/whatever came in through the window and landed right in the butter. Oh well, some protein for my veg dish. ;oÞ
2) Then as the veg (onions, garlic, courgette, green pepper) were frying in my big pan of loveliness, I turned the heat up to full instead down to 1 so after a while I wondered why the stuff was a little more caramelized than I wanted it to. Still saved, though and the whole thing was lovely. Leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

f word
- will veal catch on in this country? It's a staple on the continent and I was really surprised that it's so hard to find over here. I remember asking the_mendicant why Northfield Farm weren't offering it and she said it was for ethical reasons. I'm just curious what the reasoning for that is, lambs are slaughtered for meat as well and that meat is a staple in this country.
- noodling for catfish FTW
- Scallops and quail's eggs is probably a bit too much but pancetta is a good compliment. I really loved the idea of the main course (breaded chicken breast, tomato sauce, chard, sauteed potatoes). Nom. Ramsay's beating egg whites with an electric whisk, cheat!

ETA: Thanks for the history lesson on veal in the UK!

Comments

[briggsy.livejournal.com]

People have issues with veal because it used to be farmed by keeping the calves in a veal-crate and force-feeding them milk only - they weren't allowed freedom to roam because that would mean the muscle mass would develop, and the milk was to affect the flavour and keep it pale. So if it is raised in this manner, it is a very unethical product, it's on a par with battery chickens except calves have big eyes and eyelashes.

Tesco sell Veal Burgers though, probably from veal raised to a higher standard but I didn't check in the store.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

That would be a fair point if they had a problem with battery chickens, too. I think some of awareness has been raised by the recent programmes by Jamie Oliver and HFW and let's hope the trend continues.
Just because calves are cuter doesn't count, lambs are cute, too.

Would you think if (more) ethically reared veal were available, people would buy it?

I actually wouldn't want a veal burger. The greatness of veal comes out in the fine, whole cuts.

[briggsy.livejournal.com]

But lambs aren't kept in cages where they can't move for their entire lives!

The veal issue came about in the late 80s I think, so veal-crate farming was banned in the UK - the exact details are vague.

This link has some information: http://www.milkmyths.org.uk/report/calvesunwanted.php halfway down

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info!

[djonma.livejournal.com]

That's the thing.
Veal faming was massively condemned as inhumane, whereas lambs are allowed to frolick happily in fields.

Battery farmed chickens were also outed at around the same time, but seem to have slipped back into that way until HFQ and JO's recent thing.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I think people would buy it, but it will take a while for the stigma to wear off.

[emperor]

Veal in the UK is still associated with white veal - made from calves fed only milk, given no room to move etc. etc. I don't think many British people know that red veal is just the cow equivalent of lamb.

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

Mutton used to be a staple food in the past but you can't find that in the supermarkets either, which is a shame. I'll have to start checking out the local butchers.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

So another case of British stubbornness?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

That's a very polite way of putting it; I would have said either stupidity or hypocrisy...

I don't think there will ever be a similar feeling about badly-treated chickens, because basically most people like to eat lots of meat and they like it to be very very cheap. And cramming chickens into broiler houses is the only practical way of achieving that, so must be ignored.

Jamie and Hugh will convert a few people who are wealthy enough that the extra cost of free-range birds doesn't make too much difference to them, but that's a tiny fraction of the overall market.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I tried not to be too offensive. ;o)

*nods*

[professoryaffle.livejournal.com]

if people were shown how to use a whole bird rather than just the breast meat then it would be more affordable to more people as it would be if people didn't feel the need to eat so much meat every day

[sarahloo.livejournal.com]

I don't think you have to be particularly wealthy to buy organic meat. People generally buy and eat far more (crappy) meat than they should, and are also much tighter financially when doing the supermarket shop than when out at the pub, for example - it's about priorities, I think.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

That's exactly the point. I don't buy a lot of meat but when I do, I'll get something nice from my butcher where I know it's high quality and comes from a good (not necessarily organic) farm.

[toxicpixie.livejournal.com]

Also the calves were most often sold to the continent - and in quite unpleasant conditions of travel. Plenty of protests failed to stop it, but did kill the domestic market quite thoroughly.

Then BSE & the ban on moving British beef abroad killed the export market, and no one could make money out of veal. So, dead sector.

Nathan, the Toxic Pixie

Edit:

Now the movement restrictions are gone, a lot of farmers do sell their calves abroad again, but still not so many as used to. Means the male calves get killed pretty much straight away instead.

Not really sure that's any better, tbh.

[caseytalk.livejournal.com]

We also use the French word 'roux'.

[commlal.livejournal.com]

As far as I know the word for the oil/flour base is roux. I use oliveoil and corn flour, rather than butter and flour as it makes a smoother sauce.

The veal thing has always struck me as odd. I think people just automatically go "Ewwww veal bad" which is a shame, they should probably stop drinking milk. I actually dont like veal, I've tried it and just not too keen on it. Mind you, I don't like pork or lamb that much ether.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

I love veal - but I'll always check at restaurants whether it's British veal or continental, because the 'pink' British veal is kept in rather more humane surroundings that I'm more comfortable with. You tend to see it on Italian menus, and rarely in the shops - I keep meaning to ask the Blackheath butchers whether he ever stocks it.

I must confess I don't always ask about the provenence of things like chicken in restaurants though, which is bad of me (I always try to buy free range when cooking, after realising the illogic of being brought up to never even consider buying eggs that were battery farmed, but then being more laissez-faire about the chickens themselves when it came to meat!)

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

As others have said, "roux" is common currency in the UK, but we also use the more prosaic "white sauce" to describe the same thing. It could be argued that this is potentially ambiguous, but offhand, I can't think of any other sauces that are called that routinely.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen anything but "roux" in English so I guess it's something that wasn't used over here. I was just curious.
"white sauce" is the intermediate or end product, though, and you can make other things with roux (e.g. many Cajun/Creole dishes are roux-based which is obviously due to the French roots) which aren't white.

[professoryaffle.livejournal.com]

on this front like with much of our language we appropriate roux as a term for the cookery, as 18th and 19th French chefs defined many gastronomic terms we use lots of them (apart from things like Beef wellington which we rename to piss of the French after beating napoleon)

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

White sauce is the base, like roux, although you might refer to the end product as a white sauce if it is white (like cheese sauce), but not otherwise, but I generally use it as the term for the base, and Delia Smith was using it in that context in the mid 70s.

I think that there is a tendency in Britain to use french terms in cooking to give the impression of sophistication (creme anglaise instead of saying "homemade custard", etc). Roux is quite well entrenched in terms of usage, but if you ask me, it's still part of the same phenomenon, and doubtless strongly influenced but the terms that TV chefs use.

A quick check on Google reveals the following, and indicates that my own usage is slightly off-target:

White sauce – Traditional white sauces are divided into two types: those based on béchamel sauce and those based on velouté sauce. A basic béchamel sauce is made by adding hot milk to a white roux, and a basic veloute sauce is made by adding hot broth to a white roux.

[neophyte-13.livejournal.com]

to me creme anglaise refers to a lighter runnier creamier sauce than a proper custard...

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

Yes, but that's just the* way it's served. See "to give the impression of sophistication", above.

Y'see the French may know all there is to know about Filet Mignons in Sauce Bearnaise, but they haven't a clue about puddings, and if British chefs want to follow their lead, then more fool them.

*misguided and pretentious

[neophyte-13.livejournal.com]

I guess it is a custard, but the french terms are more explanatory, we have one word where they have several different terms depending on the colouring and consistency. Creme as a general, creme anglaise for a light pouring sauce, creme patisserie for the thick set sort used in tarts... to name but a few... We may know desserts better than them, but htey are far superior when it comes to describing their food...

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

Not desserts, they are very good on desserts, it's puddings where their knowledge is deficient!

As I understand it, the French have the long-standing belief that the English only have one sauce, that being custard, and named it "Anglaise" accordingly.

The fact is that if I go to a restaurant and see "creme anglaise" on the menu, I know that I am going to get a pitiful portion of something very pretty, artfully arranged on a plate that is about 2 feet in diameter, with a tiny squiggle of something pale, sweet and runny, along with a delicate sprinkling of icing sugar. The time was, that this would make me very cross indeed, but now I am older and wiser, and know not to waste my time and money on such fripperies, when in all probability, there's going to be a perfectly adequate creme brulee* lurking elsewhere on the same menu!

*Please forgive the lack of accents on my french terms, only I'm on a laptop and can't be arsed to use the ALT keypad to access Unicode characters.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Fripperies can be very nice, like the "deconstructed Tiramisu" I had at Alimentum for my birthday. It was very artsy but a reasonable portion (especially after the previous two courses) and tasted absolutely divine.

[neophyte-13.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

creme brulee... another custard... this time burnt! ;p

(okay so it's just the sugar on top caramelised but I'm just looking at it literally...)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I would say a roux only becomes a white sauce ( / bechamel sauce) when you add milk to it.

But sauce terminology is unnecessarily complicated IMO, thanks to those crazy French chefs with nothing better to do than spin off endless variations.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

You may well be right.
On all counts.

:-)