The Cook the Cookbook Project- Week 1

 

Since this is the first menu from the first chapter let’s talk about chapter 1 first. The title of the first chapter is “American Favorites” and they say that thousands of people were polled about what their favorite dish was. The top 12 were used to create the 9 menus in this chapter.

For the first menu the items from the list are the broiled steak and the apple pie.

To fill out the menu we have a salad, “French Potatoes” (French fries) dinner rolls, and apple pie with cheese.

My first thought when I read the menu was that I remember years ago I used to always cook steaks (and other meats) under the broiler but I haven’t done that in decades. It might be interesting to visit that technique again. And I stand by that idea, except the broiler in my oven has to the worst broiler on the planet. While the steak cooked alright in the given time it didn’t develop a nice sear at all. The outside of it was really disappointing and I’m pretty sure their idea of rare was not as rare as it came out in the given time but it was cooked the way I like it on the inside. The seasoning was only some salt and pepper so very simple but overall does a steak need a lot more than that?

For the most part I am trying to make the recipes as close to what they would have been done by a homemaker back when the book was new. That lead to my first quandary, what kind of potato to use. The recipe doesn’t specify so I thought back and I am pretty sure when my mom bought potatoes in the grocery store she would buy russets. So that was what I went with. For the most part we grew most of the potatoes we ate so she didn’t buy very often. The potatoes were excellent in the end and I am going to be playing with the method from this menu in the future. They were crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Just like fries from a sit-down restaurant.

Next thing that I thought way too long about was what vinegar to use in the salad dressing? I think there would probably have only been two choices back in the day but I might be wrong about that. I only remember my mom having white distilled vinegar and cider vinegar on hand when I was a kid. I really can’t stand either of them and I know I said I wasn’t going to let my tastes get in the way of making these recipes as written. But to be fair the type of vinegar was not specified so I decided to use some white wine vinegar this time. I should probably do some research and find out what the options were back in the day. The recipe did call for MSG so I grabbed a container of it, I don’t normally have it on hand but I have been wanting to experiment with it a bit. I know it has gotten a lot of bad press in years past but a lot of the chefs I watch online use it so I decided to give it a try. I have to say I love the dressing from the recipe and it made a wonderful salad to go with the rest of the meal.

I did opt to use some bagged salad for the salad, mostly because the heads of lettuce were not looking very good when I went to the store this week. The bagged salad was much fresher looking for sure.

They actually specified Crusty rolls but I decided to make the executive decision to just make some rolls using some frozen roll dough I had on hand. (today was already a heavy baking day along with a bunch of other things I needed to get done) Since the implication in the book was that the rolls would have been purchased I felt it was a fair change.

The first item that needed to be made for the menu was the apple pie. So that got started early in the morning. I do like to chill the pie crust dough before I roll it out. I did grab a package of lard at the store for the crust recipe. That was the fat of choice in the recipe and I remember both my mom and grandma used to use it for pie crust. I have used it in the past also but haven’t for probably 30 or more years. The crust did go together beautifully. I have been struggling with some of my pie crusts lately and this slight change might be the answer. This is one of the best pie crusts I have made in a long time. It is perfectly flaky and tastes wonderful.

 

The menu specified adding cheese to the pie which is something I have never done in my whole life. I have to say I just don’t “get it” I mean it was okay, it tasted fine, but it just wasn’t something I will probably do again. At least I can say I tried it though.