Notice I didn't say "book" in that last sentence, because tonight was a Wild Card dinner. After every eighth book, we have a Wild Card selection, i.e. something that doesn't fall into one of the categories we regularly cycle through, namely: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Epic (anything over 500 pages), and Classic (anything published before 1965). For example, our first Wild Card entailed reading a month's worth of The New Yorker. Tonight's Wild Card selection entailed watching four specific Woody Allen movies.
I know, I know, it's not a book. It's not even a magazine. It didn't involve reading in any shape or form, but it was what the group voted for, so tonight we had Chez Woody with a meal inspired by those four movies. It was a decidedly un-vegan meal, but I did manage to incorporate four recipes from the book!
Our cocktail hour brought The Annie Hall-way of Finger Foods, mostly non-vegan selections, descriptions of which I will spare you, but I did include what I called Self-Hatred Hummus, as a nod to Woody's line in the film that sums up his basic ideology: "I would never wanna belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member."
Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
I hate bell peppers. Unless I'm forgetting something, they're the only food I absolutely despise. I can smell, taste, sense them a mile away. If a pepper passes over a pot while it's cooking, the whole dish is tainted for me. It's not just a taste thing, it's also an indigestion thing: bell pepper is the awful taste that keeps on giving.
And if you know anything about this book, you know that it is positively RIDDLED with bell peppers. So how am I going to handle this? Like any good, self-hating, rule-following Jew, I'm going to prepare all the recipes verbatim, even those with the dreaded peppers. Hopefully, there will be people around me to enjoy them. I will taste everything, but chances are 99.9% that anything with peppers will not get a second bite from me. (FYI, this doesn't apply to jalapeño or serrano or any chile peppers. Those I'll eat.)That's why I dubbed this dip Self-Hatred Hummus. Because I would never want to eat it. But other people did, and evidently it was fine. That's Adinah posing with it above.
SFO: 10
Poppy Seed-Cornmeal Roti
The first course was inspired by the film Crimes and Misdemeanors, which is a film almost completely devoid of food and food references. In one scene, Woody and Mia are eating take-out Indian, and he jokes, "How's the Tandoori Mouse?" So in a desperation move, I went Indian for this course. I made this Carrot Pachadi recipe and served it with the Poppy Seed-Cornmeal Roti.
Poppy Seed-Cornmeal Roti is the recipe that ate my afternoon. It's not that it's so hard, it's just time-consuming. I hadn't done the math, but if you're making ten of something that needs to be cooked for 3-4 minutes on both sides, that's 60-80 minutes of cooking time! And that doesn't even include the painstaking process of brushing and folding and sprinkling of crumbs and multiple rollings that these require. Oy.
And to add insult to injury, after all that work, I think I must have made one or more very big mistakes here. While the flavors were really nice (though could've been saltier... I know, broken record), the rotis were tough and dried out, not even remotely "soft, flaky, buttery" as described.
Here are my guesses for where the bad turn happened: 1) I rolled them too thin. 2) My pan was too hot. 3) I didn't wrap them or reheat them well. 4) I over-kneaded them to begin with. 5) I increased the recipe by 50%.
1) I saw the instruction to roll into "as thin a circle as possible" and went for it.
2) In retrospect, I realize I should've turned the flame down when I saw the big black spots forming on the breads. I mean, little black spots are good, but big ones? My bad.
3) I wrapped them in a damp dish towel as they were being made, and rewarmed them tightly wrapped in foil, all as directed, but I think the damage may have been done already.
4) I let my KitchenAid mixer knead for me (with the dough hook). And maybe I let it go on too long. 5-6 minutes of kneading by hand might not mean 5-6 minutes of machine kneading.
5) Upping the recipe by 50% should have set me up for 12 small rotis. What I got were 10 very large rotis. This makes me think #1 is at least one of the culprits.
Also, I assert that there's a typo in here. It has to do with the oil. The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons in the crumbs part of the recipe, plus more for brushing. However, there is also an instruction in the recipe to coat the just-kneaded roti dough in a tablespoon of oil before it rests. I think that that tablespoon is meant to be factored into the 2 tablespoons that it appears are meant to go into the crumbs.
Here's the problem: when you add 2 tablespoons of oil to the crumbs ingredients, you don't get crumbs, you get paste. If it were 1 tablespoon to coat the dough ball, and 1 tablespoon for the crumbs, I think the crumbs would end up with the right, crumby consistency.
And should I even address the ludicrous "typo" that says these take
30 minutes? Simply cooking 8 rotis takes between 48-64 minutes, and that
doesn't include assembling the ingredients (5m), kneading (5m), resting
time (10m minimum), and rolling and folding and brushing and crumbling
(1,000,000m). Even if you roll out the next roti while you're cooking the last one, you will need to set aside about an hour and a half for this recipe. Trust me.SFO: 10
(I'm not going to punish this recipe for my own mistakes. If made well, I'm sure anyone would be happy to eat them.)
Mashed Spiced Sweet Potatoes
The main course got its inspiration from Hannah and Her Sisters, which begins and ends with two consecutive Thanksgiving dinners. There's a no-brainer!
Mashed sweet potatoes always have a place on the Thanksgiving table! As for I&T's take on them, it's easy, straightforward, traditional even. The only thing distinguishing these from your average Thanksgiving side dish is the absence of butter (enter vegetable oil). Very tasty, and a good candidate for making ahead. Reheats well.SFO: 10
(Even Tracy ate it!)
Holiday Cranberry Sauce
One of my favorite Thanksgiving ingredients is fresh cranberries. I was so excited to see that they were still available in the stores. I was curious to try this recipe because of the agar addition. I've never used a thickening agent for cranberry sauce, but it must be because there's more liquid (apple cider) and less sugar than your typical versions.
Warning: watch this pot carefully! Evidently apple cider with agar in it really loves to boil over. It happened to me twice!
As for the taste, good. The apple cider doesn't change the flavor profile too much. The cranberries dominate. The agar doesn't seem to bind this a whole heck of a lot. It was soupier than my traditional version. Ultimately, not preferable, but fine. Annie liked it.SFO: 10
(It's safe to serve to anyone, but I won't be using this recipe come Thanksgiving.)
P.S. Dessert was a non-vegan French Apple Cake inspired by Midnight in Paris. I almost made the Apple Galettes from the book, but I thought it might be too much to take on....
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