Cheese Burps
Jun. 18th, 2004 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swestrupI haven't been talking about food much since I've gone on Atkins. Its essentially been just a lot of meat, eggs, and cheese, with some salads and pickles thrown in, and its starting to get a bit boring, so I've been looking for new recipes to try.
Anyway, I've been wanting to try a chupaqueso for some time, ever since I read about it in Schlock Mercenary.
For those unfamiliar with this delicacy, this is essentially a cheese-filled fried-cheese sandwich, and is related to the Itallian snack known as Frico, except that Frico doesn't normally have a filling.
So, today I gave it a try. Since this is first time I've made it (second if you count an attempt to make Frico last week), it didn't come out quite as one might hope, but it clearly has promise.
What I did was grate a 1/2 cup or so of mozzarella for the base, and something like 1/4 cup each of cheddar and parmesan for the filling. Since this sounded a bit plain, I also tried adding a dusting of onion and garlic powders to the filling.
I only have a 6" non-stick pan, so I went with that. I heated it up and threw on the moz. After a bit of melting and bubbling, I started to worry that it wasn't enough because it appeared to form a lacework of cheese and bubbles and I had this mental image of trying to eat molten cheese out of a thing with the porousity of a sieve. But, the worry was in vain, as the final result was quite unholey. After a lot more bubbling, I started to worry that I was gonna burn the cheese, but eventually it did indeed start to harden so that I could get the edge of the spatula under it to lever it up.
This is when I discovered just how true it is that this stage is time critical. By the time I had it levered up and flipped over, it was noticably stiffening up. I then quickly turned it back over and threw the filling into the shell, and did my best to fold the edges over. About 4/5 of the way through that process, the cheese set and refused to bend further without breaking. What's worse is that I had somehow ended up with about 3/4 cup of filling for a 6" chupaquesa shell, and it didn't fit very good. I ended up letting the shell sit in the pan a bit longer than recommended, just to try to get most of the filling to melt.
I then slid it onto a plate, and by the time I got it to the dining table, and had fetched a drink the shell was cold enough to pick up and eat. This turned out to be necessary, because trying to eat one of these with a knife and fork would be like trying to eat a hard taco the same way -- futile.
Anyway, it wasn't bad except that my results were a) very very greasy, and b) was too parmesany.
So, its clearly worth trying again, and next time I'm probably going to use some Fruilano cheese for the filling (what non-canucks call Montereggio), and just a tiny bit of parmesan. I might also try adding some crumbled bacon or sausage.
One question I am left with though, is why bother flipping the whole thing over and then back? Why not just toss the filling in the moment you can lift up the edges and then fold them over, much like you do with eggs when making an omelet. If I don't hear a good explanation as to why not to, I think I'll try cooking it that way next time.
Anyway, I've been wanting to try a chupaqueso for some time, ever since I read about it in Schlock Mercenary.
For those unfamiliar with this delicacy, this is essentially a cheese-filled fried-cheese sandwich, and is related to the Itallian snack known as Frico, except that Frico doesn't normally have a filling.
So, today I gave it a try. Since this is first time I've made it (second if you count an attempt to make Frico last week), it didn't come out quite as one might hope, but it clearly has promise.
What I did was grate a 1/2 cup or so of mozzarella for the base, and something like 1/4 cup each of cheddar and parmesan for the filling. Since this sounded a bit plain, I also tried adding a dusting of onion and garlic powders to the filling.
I only have a 6" non-stick pan, so I went with that. I heated it up and threw on the moz. After a bit of melting and bubbling, I started to worry that it wasn't enough because it appeared to form a lacework of cheese and bubbles and I had this mental image of trying to eat molten cheese out of a thing with the porousity of a sieve. But, the worry was in vain, as the final result was quite unholey. After a lot more bubbling, I started to worry that I was gonna burn the cheese, but eventually it did indeed start to harden so that I could get the edge of the spatula under it to lever it up.
This is when I discovered just how true it is that this stage is time critical. By the time I had it levered up and flipped over, it was noticably stiffening up. I then quickly turned it back over and threw the filling into the shell, and did my best to fold the edges over. About 4/5 of the way through that process, the cheese set and refused to bend further without breaking. What's worse is that I had somehow ended up with about 3/4 cup of filling for a 6" chupaquesa shell, and it didn't fit very good. I ended up letting the shell sit in the pan a bit longer than recommended, just to try to get most of the filling to melt.
I then slid it onto a plate, and by the time I got it to the dining table, and had fetched a drink the shell was cold enough to pick up and eat. This turned out to be necessary, because trying to eat one of these with a knife and fork would be like trying to eat a hard taco the same way -- futile.
Anyway, it wasn't bad except that my results were a) very very greasy, and b) was too parmesany.
So, its clearly worth trying again, and next time I'm probably going to use some Fruilano cheese for the filling (what non-canucks call Montereggio), and just a tiny bit of parmesan. I might also try adding some crumbled bacon or sausage.
One question I am left with though, is why bother flipping the whole thing over and then back? Why not just toss the filling in the moment you can lift up the edges and then fold them over, much like you do with eggs when making an omelet. If I don't hear a good explanation as to why not to, I think I'll try cooking it that way next time.
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Date: 2004-06-18 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
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