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Jolanda learns to cook! A self-experiment, part 1
by Jolanda Hunziker
Jolanda learns to cook. A self-experiment, part 4
16.10.2017
Translation: machine translated
After the kitchen warm-up in the form of fish and vegetables, today I'm going one step further. While I was still able to stay reasonably within my comfort zone during my last attempt at cooking, I have to venture into new spheres: today I'm cooking pork fillet à la provence - my fourth of eight courses.
Missed the last few parts?
While I'm largely comfortable with vegetables in various colours and shapes, I've actually never cooked meat in my entire life. Accordingly, I hardly ever eat meat, so I'm not at all sure what a successful result should taste like. So today I brought two meat tigers into the house as test eaters to expertly judge and criticise the result. As it turned out during my last cookery session that I'm not quite professional when it comes to time planning, I'm also preparing a carrot and ginger soup for the training effect. Today, my two test eaters can look forward to a strange-looking composition of soup, meat and broccoli, which I serve as a side dish with the fillet.
The ingredients are now waiting to be used in my kitchen: pork fillets, broccoli, various spices, carrots and ginger. There's definitely less to prepare this time than last time. Firstly, we need to make the marinade for the fillets. It's very simple: mix the garlic, thyme and white wine together, place the meat in it - and you have a free hour in which to cut and prepare the other ingredients. After sixty minutes, the fillets are fished out of the marinade, seared briefly and then placed in the oven. This then does the fillet job more or less by itself: I only have to drizzle the pieces of meat with gravy from time to time and otherwise have my hands free to devote myself to the soup. It doesn't seem particularly demanding either: chop all the ingredients, fry the onions, add the carrots to the pan, deglaze, simmer, add the ginger and continue to simmer. This is a menu for the lazy - it cooks itself! This gives me enough time to set the table. However, I quickly reach the limits of my equipment here. I'll have to increase my kitchen equipment for a really nice round table. By the time I put the broccoli on the table, my last pan is also in use and I only cook two of the eight courses.
But first it's the fillet's turn again. After forty minutes of braising in the oven, I am surprised to realise that the pieces of meat, which initially seemed huge, have shrunk considerably. Completely normal, say the two guest carnivores. I see. Someone could have told me! So I brush the shrunken fillets with herb paste and put them under the grill for another ten minutes. These are the ten minutes in which the vegetables floating in the other pan are to be puréed into soup. My new Siemens FQ.1 Plus blender helps me with this, which chops the vegetables efficiently, but unfortunately splashes around so much that I burn my fingers several times and have to send the cleaning team through the kitchen first. But in the end, the contents of the pan certainly look like soup and the pretty orange colour, garnished with snippets of chives, looks quite good in my soup bowls. In terms of flavour, the soup tends to be a success, although my tendency to freestyle is also my downfall here: as I didn't weigh out the amount of ginger with the kitchen scales as described in the recipe, but simply estimated it by a rule of thumb and threw it into the pan, the soup turned out a little spicy for delicate souls.
But then it gets really exciting: How did the fillet come out? The herb paste may not have turned "golden brown" as the recipe calls for, but the meat is so tender that I can run the carving knife through it like butter. This gives the two test eaters hope that I won't poison them today. Served on a bed of broccoli, the Provencal fillet looks quite nice with its green coating. Fortunately, the test eaters are also more than satisfied with the flavour. I can't really judge the result myself due to a lack of comparison options, but the fact that there are no leftovers speaks for itself.
Today's conclusion: it wasn't even that difficult! I used to think that cooking vegetables was really easy and that meat and fish were in the premier league, but I'm gradually revising this opinion. In any case, it doesn't seem like an exaggeration to pat myself on the back after today's result. Whether my new kitchen self-confidence will survive my next attempt at cooking, however, is questionable: I'm going to try my hand at the real top class and bake macarons.
I like to get to the bottom of things, sometimes even with diving goggles and snorkel. Nature is my home, regardless of rain, temperature or time of day. I like to be on the road, sometimes even deliberately off track.
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