Stracciatella
16 October 2021 05:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeIt was raining, and I stopped off at a roadside Italian delicatessen stall on my way home from market and asked for some cheese that would be suitable to put on top of pizza (since I had some left-over dough in the fridge from my not-very-successful attempt at making pizza earlier in the week). He recommended me what he said was a tub of mozzarella (for eight pounds -- I had rashly not asked the price in advance, but told myself it was a luxury indulgence), but that wasn't what it said on the label. Which was why I'd asked, as I didn't recognise the names of any of the cheeses on offer...
When I got it home and opened the tub, it clearly wasn't anything like mozzarella. https://www.lalatteria.co.uk/stracciatella/
The pizza wasn't much of a success either, despite my attempt to cook it as suggested on a very hot iron frying-pan instead of in a rather inadequate oven; even though the first side had a firm crust as a result before I turned it over and attempted to put the toppings on, and I only used half a tomato, it still managed to come out soggy in the middle. In this case I think the dough was frankly undercooked, despite the rock-hard crust. Maybe the frying-pan was *too* hot.
Luckily I quite like squidgy undercooked bread, but I think I'd better stick to potato pizzas in the frying-pan in future. I've been trying on and off for years, and home pizza manufacture simply never works properly -- whereas the grated potato base creates a very tasty pizza that is never soggy. I wasn't at all impressed by the stracciatella topping, either, which to be honest was runny when it went on and didn't show any particular sign of melting when I put the frying-pan under the grill...
Unfortunately, it was quite a large tub, and it turns out that while mozzarella cheese *will* freeze, stracciatella doesn't freeze well and doesn't keep for more than a few days :-(
I've been looking up various recipes involving it (unfortunately my tomatoes and basil are both almost finished -- the basil will be leafless in a day or so if the current night-time temperatures continue, and I'm not very confident about the seed on it ever ripening now), but I'm not sure I necessarily want to eat eight pounds' worth of soft cheese in the course of the next few days :-p
I tried it on oat-cakes with honey, but to be honest, far from having "an unimaginable savory / sweet flavour" it seems relatively flavourless to me. You're also supposed to be able to melt it into pasta sauce, or serve it alongside Italian salad.
I may end up simply freezing half of it anyway, on the grounds that whatever happens to it as a result I'll probably still be able to cook with it; the defrosted evaporated milk turned out very peculiar in texture (weirdly, as butter, milk and cream all freeze well) but that didn't do me any harm.
Another little exercise in writing, this time done in an attempt to provide an illustration of the difference between a 'third-person limited' viewpoint and a 'deep third-person [limited]' viewpoint. Ian Fleming's original text was paraphrased from memory out of "Octopussy and other stories", which I'd got down to quote from earlier and couldn't be bothered to go upstairs and search for all over again; the scenario and character perspective are canon, but the exact wording isn't!
Standard third-person limited:
Deep viewpoint:
When I got it home and opened the tub, it clearly wasn't anything like mozzarella. https://www.lalatteria.co.uk/stracciatella/
The pizza wasn't much of a success either, despite my attempt to cook it as suggested on a very hot iron frying-pan instead of in a rather inadequate oven; even though the first side had a firm crust as a result before I turned it over and attempted to put the toppings on, and I only used half a tomato, it still managed to come out soggy in the middle. In this case I think the dough was frankly undercooked, despite the rock-hard crust. Maybe the frying-pan was *too* hot.
Luckily I quite like squidgy undercooked bread, but I think I'd better stick to potato pizzas in the frying-pan in future. I've been trying on and off for years, and home pizza manufacture simply never works properly -- whereas the grated potato base creates a very tasty pizza that is never soggy. I wasn't at all impressed by the stracciatella topping, either, which to be honest was runny when it went on and didn't show any particular sign of melting when I put the frying-pan under the grill...
Unfortunately, it was quite a large tub, and it turns out that while mozzarella cheese *will* freeze, stracciatella doesn't freeze well and doesn't keep for more than a few days :-(
I've been looking up various recipes involving it (unfortunately my tomatoes and basil are both almost finished -- the basil will be leafless in a day or so if the current night-time temperatures continue, and I'm not very confident about the seed on it ever ripening now), but I'm not sure I necessarily want to eat eight pounds' worth of soft cheese in the course of the next few days :-p
I tried it on oat-cakes with honey, but to be honest, far from having "an unimaginable savory / sweet flavour" it seems relatively flavourless to me. You're also supposed to be able to melt it into pasta sauce, or serve it alongside Italian salad.
I may end up simply freezing half of it anyway, on the grounds that whatever happens to it as a result I'll probably still be able to cook with it; the defrosted evaporated milk turned out very peculiar in texture (weirdly, as butter, milk and cream all freeze well) but that didn't do me any harm.
Another little exercise in writing, this time done in an attempt to provide an illustration of the difference between a 'third-person limited' viewpoint and a 'deep third-person [limited]' viewpoint. Ian Fleming's original text was paraphrased from memory out of "Octopussy and other stories", which I'd got down to quote from earlier and couldn't be bothered to go upstairs and search for all over again; the scenario and character perspective are canon, but the exact wording isn't!
Standard third-person limited:
Bond badly wanted a cigarette, but he knew it was out of the question just at this moment. Still, a cigarette would have helped him focus. He had a disquieting sense that there was something wrong about this situation, but he could not seem to put his finger on it.
Deep viewpoint:
A cigarette, Bond decided, that was what he needed most at this moment. The scrape of a match, and the first few breaths of familiar smoke to stimulate his mind into focus -- impossible, of course, with M's eyes focused on him and the old man's voice droning on. Best to pay attention to the briefing, and not to let his mind wander... but there was something wrong about this whole situation, something that just hadn't hung together from the start. Why couldn't he put his finger on it?
