Feb 25 2008
Top Secret Activity
Whilst it might seem like we’ve been a bit quiet this week, we’ve actually been working on a secret project…
- Garlic Oil
- Wok Oil
- Chilli Oil
As well as making these Storecupboard Supplies for our own Nigella-Kitchen, Dougal and I decided to make a bottle of each of these for my Dad, as part of his birthday present. I decided I wanted to give him a copy of the Nigella Express long before I was challenged and had been keeping schtum about the book to him. What with him now fully knowing about the book it seemed fair to make the present a bit more interesting.
Each of these oils involved slicing up the constituent flavours, and then letting it all steep for 48 hours in the oil of choice. In the past week, I have sliced up: 36 cloves of garlic, 18cm worth of ginger and 15 chillies. My word. The day we decanted the garlic oil was a bit scary; the hit of garlic was so strong and we could still smell it the next morning when we got up!
Trepidation about over-pungent pongs aside, I’ve now used the garlic oil, and it seemed to work. Smelled nice when the pancetta were frying in it, but no dominating flavour. We shall see if it becomes our new kitchen staple!
And those nifty wire-topped glass bottles were from IKEA. All hail the Swedish nesting instinct.
Good nesters, those Swedes. Might have something to do with the weather outside their front doors. I’m a good percentage Swedish ancestry, I nest quite a bit myself, and Wisconsin is pretty conducive to the weather-induced nesting instinct to boot.
Too bad I can’t send you garlic, we’ve got a massive patch of yummy organic garlic in our garden. The list of things I am verboten to send to the UK is insane. What the hell damage can cheese do?!
What’s in the wok oil?
I like dipping french bread in chilli and garlic oil, yum.
Wok oil: mostly sunflower oil, 10% toasted sesame oil, and then the infused ingredients are garlic and ginger. You can buy bottles of the stuff from Waitrose with just those ingredients; I’m quite sure Nigella made up the recipe based on that.
well…. I haven’t made any recipes yet, but the garlic oil was in yesterday’s leafy salad, and a wee drip of the wok oil was in the tomato salad.
And both were rather tasty, served with cold roast venison, as you do, with a bit of the old Ruby on the side…. ok and some Reblochon, and the wee Crottin that Margaret gave me.
A very fine repast…..
You’ll be able to look things up on the challenge page to see if we’ve done it and if we thought it was any good. ;-)