Vacation Day 2: An Iron Chef Challenge

Challenge: To find some weird and bizarre ingredient that I never cooked or ate before, and prepare it to a gourmet standard.

I don't know what wine to serve with this meal,
but I think I found the perfect beer for it at
The Saskatchewan Liquor Board Store.

Decision: Frog legs! More than one person I talked to has raved about how surprisingly wonderful these things are. I rationalized that if I can eat and enjoy the flesh of mollusks such as clams, oysters, and mussels: things that at first glance look like they could have dropped out of a warthog's snout, I should be open-minded enough to sample some protein of those vertebrates higher up on the evolutionary scale found somewhere between the fish and poultry.

Ingredient Acquisition: Around Saskatoon, your best bet to find them would probably be at the Asian food stores, but I managed to find my supply at Charlie's Seafood Market. It could also be called Charlie's Swamp Food Market, because they also sell such exotic stuff like alligator meat*, catfish fillets, and crayfish. Crayfish also fit the challenge criteria, but they were also quite expensive. So I chose the frog legs; they're relatively inexpensive for an exotic food. Thus, it would be a cheaper loss if I flubbed it all up.

Good Musical Pairing while Cooking: Kiss That Frog, by Peter Gabriel, Album: Us.

Recipe: Garlic Frog Legs, from Food.com.





My four little biology lab specimens on their
new cucumber adorned lily pad. I figured
if I tried decorating it a bit I would be less
likely to start gagging.

Result: Well . . . it wasn't utterly disgusting. The aromatics from the lemon and garlic, and the buttery texture did lots to mask anything unpleasant. There was no swampy or weedy algae aftertaste to it like I was expecting, as I noted from eating alligator meat. The freakiest part of this experience was when I accidently starting to chomp on a fragment of chopped frog pelvis bone when I peeled away a larger hunk of meat. After that happened, it automatically brought to mind that classic skit from Monty Python's Flying Circus.

My Other Learning Challenge: Making a decent loaf of sourdough rye bread.

Why? Because homemade bread is my favourite way to eat carbs (to prepare for Sunday's race). Sourdough is much healthier because it has no added sugar, and it contains lacto-bacillus bacteria culture, which aids digestion. Fresh homemade bread always tastes better than the preservative-laden crap that has been on a store's shelf for God knows how long. Bakery fresh is the next best thing, but more expensive. I trouble myself to learn how to make this because for me it is a simple luxury, and at least some part of one's vacation should be about taking time in indulging in some luxuries.

Result: I can't remember which proportions and ratios I exactly used, because I was adding gradually to produce a right texture and consistency to the dough. My sourdough dough starter (a.k.a. poolish), was about 2 parts lukewarm water, 1 part rye flour, 1 part all-purpose flour (all by volume) and about half a teaspoon of yeast was added. It was mixed to an even consistency, and then covered with a towel and left at room temperature for eight hours. I then added it to a sifted blend of 2:1 parts rye flour to all-purpose, a couple teaspoons of cocoa powder, and tablespoon of onion salt, two teaspoons of caraway seeds, a couple tablespoons of liquid honey, and some canola oil. The rest of the dough making process is lost to me for explanation. It yielded two medium sized loaves. It lacked that rick darkness that I like from the Russian style rye bread, but it was delicious all the same.


Special thanks and acknowledgements: for tips on the art and craft of bread-making - Tenzo Edward E. Brown**; for spurring on the spirit of gastronomically curious amateurs and adventuresome wannabee foodies - Tim Ferriss (author of The 4-Hour Chef); and for some wild new culinary science tricks and techniques - Nathan Myrhvold and Maxine Bilet (the authors of Modernist Cuisine at Home). Thanks for being my muses and mentors.

*- I did tried alligator once. Considering the resulting flavour by how much it cost, I remember not liking it enough to ever want to try it again. Same deal with catfish.

** - Tenzo is not a name, it's a title: for the head cook of a Zen monastery, a very venerable position. Since most of a monastery's food is acquired through donations (largely of second rate stuff) it is the imperative of the tenzo to be frugal, resourceful, and creative enough to take whatever is lacking in terms of quality and quantity, and making the most or best of it for the sake of maintaining a harmonious sanga. . It's something I can respect and relate to, since I'm often relegated to do the same thing whenever I'm fussing around in the kitchen . . . at home, or at work. Watching Tenzo Brown manage his kitchen has been very insightful for me in re-thinking the preparation of food, and to be mindful about the waste of it. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the master chefs of the original Iron Chef  TV series sought the advice from the tenzos in Japan.