I'd say there's no greater fault to have in the kitchen than impatience. It's easy when you have a lot of things to cook to make hasty decisions and try to find shortcuts. These inevitably lead to frustration and compromised results.
Take for example the vegetable tart I made on Saturday. I used some frozen puff pastry and in my rush to get the thing in the oven, I filled the pastry while it was on my board and realized too late that I still had to get it on the baking sheet. That was a messy, frustrating affair. Did it come out OK? Sure, it was tasty if a little wonky-shaped. But as soon as I took it out of the oven I knew my impatience had cost me the satisfaction of seeing my original vision for the tart (complete with puckered edges and neat rows of roasted vegetables) come to fruition.
I should also mention another flaw in this tart was the tomatoes. I sliced them and put them in a low oven to dry out, so the tart wouldn't be mushy. However, I underestimated how long this would take--in fact, I didn't know how long it would take, because I'd never done it before and I didn't consult a reliable reference--so by the time I was ready to assemble the tart, my tomatoes were well on their way to sauce consistency.
There were other slip-ups throughout the afternoon, not worth mentioning here except that one slip-up seems always to lead to a whole series of them. Moral of the story: think about what you are doing. Mistakes can be good lessons (now I know I have something to learn about tomatoes and the heat-drying method), but--as with the pastry--they can also be stupid mistakes made in haste.
Onwards & upwards!
4 comments:
You raise an interesting point. Personally, I try not to have a very defined goal when diving into a new and big culinary project to prevent these very experiences.
Under-achieving is hard when it comes to cooking, however. The dream of the perfect veggie tart, or in my case recently, ricotta cake, is so clear in your mind that you can't help but already see and taste it. But then when it comes out mushy, doesn't set up, or tastes like butt, there's no wiggle room to make the best of it.
This is especially true if you let yourself get hungry because you are waiting for your dream dish to manifest. The odds will be stacked against you for disaster.
Anyway....
Tarts with fresh tomatoes are tricky. I love to do one with a cornmeal crust, but I haven't perfected preventing mushy parts due to the tomato juice.
Perhaps salting them on a mesh rack or on towels would do the trick?
Um yet another reason I don't think I can take up cooking as a hobby. I get impatient waiting for my annie's mac and cheese:)
Ricotta cake...do you mean ricotta cheesecake? Or a crumby cake that has ricotta in it?
Crumby ricotta cake, I think. The picture made it look downright fluffy. There was arborio rice in the recipe if that helps answer the question. My cake never seemed to dry out enough and, in the end, it fell apart out of springform pan. :(
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