Posts Tagged → Cooking

Making Breadfruit-Cod Meatballs

I stared into the pot with disbelief. I was making meatballs, and it was not going well. Belatedly, I wondered if maybe I should have followed the recipe more precisely. My cavalier attitude towards cooking (read: my utter indifference to details like ingredients and measurements) could sometimes lead to, shall we say, disappointing results.

I really hoped this wasn’t one of those times.

It was Sunday in Samoa, which meant I was preparing for the weekly to’ona’i (toh-oh-NAH-ee), a post-church, potluck-style feast. Extended families and large social groups (which might include Peace Corps Volunteers like me) gathered to share and enjoy phenomenal food. Standard fare always included Samoan classics: breadfruit, a soft, fluffy, white starch, lighter and sweeter than potatoes; taro, a purplish-gray root vegetable, a starch much denser and heavier than potatoes; palusami, a velvety mixture of taro leaves and coconut cream, baked to perfection in a smoldering fire; and coco Samoa, sweet, rich Samoan hot chocolate. Raw fish; sweet and sour pork; fresh bananas, mangoes, papayas.

Everyone brought something; the food was always fantastic.

To avoid public humiliation given my unpredictable success with meals, I usually brought safe and unimaginative items like fresh bread (purchased that morning) or a package of cookies. But on this particular Sunday I was inspired. I would wow everyone! I would cook them real food. I would make breadfruit-cod meatballs!

The photo looked amazing, showing crisp, deep-brown orbs with a soft, moist interior. I was sure I could do it, if I just followed the recipe. My cooking would be talked about for days!

Here we go! Step one: Cook the breadfruit, then mash it into a paste.

Okay, I didn’t have any breadfruit. But that’s okay! I had taro. Way more solid than breadfruit, yes. But did it really matter? I doubted it. Starch is starch, totally interchangeable! So I boiled up the taro.

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In the Kitchen: A Recipe For Disaster

When I cook, I always use a recipe. Always!

The problem is, I rarely follow it.

I view a recipe as a helpful guide, a list of loosely-suggested food combinations accompanied by approximate quantities. Nothing is taken very seriously. I freely (Martin would say recklessly) substitute major ingredients, alter their amounts and cooking times, and change the order in which items are added. Every recipe seems to get modified, somewhere along the line.

Sometimes I do it because my way is just easier and faster. I mean, who wants to spend time boiling pasta, grating cheese, making a red sauce, cooking meat, meticulously layering everything in a dish, and then still have to bake it? That takes way too long! Throw it all into a pot, give the whole thing a stir, and call it done! Time to eat!

Success is, admittedly, varied. Not every recipe survives my careless measurements and sheer bravado.

Take cream puffs, for instance.

I was baffled when mine ended up the size, consistency, and flavor of hockey pucks. Throw one of my cream puffs, and you could reasonably be charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Rock hard and virtually indestructible, they would have made excellent patio pavers, had I made enough.

I couldn’t fathom my complete lack of success. I had followed the recipe exactly! Then I learned that apparently you can’t just eyeball the required amount of flour by shaking it straight out of the bag. You have to actually measure it. Who knew? Likewise, you can’t slash the number of eggs by over half in a misguided attempt at being “healthy,” a questionable endeavor in itself, given that I was making cream puffs.

Live and learn.

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