Feasting on Art

I regret to admit that I am not adventurous when it comes to ordering from a menu. I tend to visit a restaurant because I have a craving for a particular meal and so, I cannot be easily dissuaded to impulsively try something new. Since my first taste of Phở I have yet to discover a dish to tempt me away. The savory broth coupled with the sour lime juice and heat from the sliced chili makes for a light yet filling soup that was so readily consumed last March that it is often referred to the period that we were ‘Phoed-out’. The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipe is from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.

Frédéric Bazille, Soup Bowl Covers, 1864
oil on canvas, 22 x 35 cm, Private Collection

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Although I have not been very adventurous with the ingredients in the original Daring Kitchen challenge recipe, I did take many liberties with the proportions and the processes. Octopus is a very finicky ingredient that is very easy to overcook and turn into a rubbery mess. If cooked correctly it is succulent and yielding to the bite and is the perfect accompaniment to the paella-like dish. The original recipe called for only 3TB of the sofregit sauce leaving a rather large portion that would not be used in the conceivable future. To remedy this, I added all of the sofregit and reduced the amount of stock required so the rice would not become soupy. It is a delicious but filling dish that had me craving a Spanish siesta.

Luis Meléndez, Still Life with Tomatoes, a Bowl of Aubergines and Onions, c. 1771-1774
Oil on canvas, 36.8 x 49 cm, framed Derek Johns, London

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My partner introduced me to dim sum and so he was naturally pleased to find out my recipe this week was for prawn dumplings, especially when only last week I made congee. This is my very first Daring Cooks challenge so I have to admit that I had the recipe before the painting. If my food budget was a little higher I would have splurged and made lobster dumplings but I opted to work with prawns and to save my pennies for a visit home. The dumplings are a bit fussy to make and very time consuming. I had leftover filling and made it into a hot and sour soup (recipe at the bottom of this post).

Utagawa Hiroshige, Lobster and Gray Prawn (from the series A Variety of Fish),
Edo Period 19th Century, colour woodcut, 25.2 x 36.7 cm, Tokyo National Museum

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