Odd Foods You Love

[Jester]

Once you get past fish with the look and texture of jelly, it tastes great.

I grew up in a Jewish family, and thus grew up eating gefilte fish. So, yeah, no problem for me!

[Dreamstalker]

Way back in the 15th century or so my dad's family was Jewish, so I've been called an 'honorary Jew' ...hm, maybe that's why I know more about the kosher section than anyone in the store. I love gefilte fish (except when someone drops a jar on the floor). A Jewish friend of mom's can't understand why I like the stuff...she knows how weird I am, so why that surprises her I don't know.

Never had tongue, although I'll be in the land of awesome delis next week so plan to seek it out. I love black pudding--when I first went to Ireland, mom's friends admired me for a) tucking into it without asking what the weird black stuff was and b) not being turned off in the least when told what it is.

The first solid food my mom gave me was oyster stew (she tells me that the pediatrician thought I was going to die instantly and threatened to call CPS), and she always told me to try new foods at least once. So I was raised right

[Antisocial_Worker]

Odd food that I love... "Doom pudding" -- ie, that thick, glutenous chocolate pudding you tend to find at crummy Chinese buffets. Typically, you can pick up a spoon of it, turn it upside down, and it will stay stuck to the spoon. The best pudding is the kind that you can turn the plate upside down without it falling off.

[Seshat]

Bast likes 'fish candy': ie, fish preserved in sugar rather than salt. It's also scandinavian or dutch or one of those cold, northern european meals.


For more Aussie-ish foods:
We all like vegemite, of course.

Musk candy, also available as lifesavers.

I love a meat pie that's topped with mashed potato instead of a pie crust, and has mushy peas just under the potato. UK folk will know 'mushy peas'.


And count me in among the liver fans.

Liverwurst - here - is a soft spread, usually sold in a plastic tube. It's about the texture of spreadable cheeses, and tastes .. well, savoury and meat-ish. Other than that, it really depends on which spices have been used: it's basically liver that's been cooked, mushed up, and spiced.
Liverwurst from an actual deli (as opposed to a grocery store) is generally better-tasting, probably made solely from liver (I expect that the mass-produced include other organ meats), and probably has a better mix of spices.

I use lamb liver for my favourite liver recipe.

1 liver.
2 or 3 onions.
Bacon. Two rashers minimum, preferably more.
Flour and salt; enough to roll liver slices in; plus some for making gravy. How much depends on how large the liver is: try about 3/4 cup of flour, and a good-sized pinch of salt. Taste the gravy once you're at that stage, you can add more salt later.
Herbs and spices to taste: taste the gravy, add the ones you think will improve it for your family's preferred flavours.
water (room temperature), or milk (also room temperature) for gravy making. I use water.

Put the liver in warm water to soak.
Cut the bacon into bite-size pieces; or pieces that'll be bite-size once it's cooked.
Cook the bacon in a large frying pan until your desired texture: if it's the first try of this recipe, cook it to just before 'crispy'. Drain and reserve bacon fat, leaving some in the frying pan.
Chop the onions while the bacon is cooking. Again, bite-size chunks.
Cook the onions until semi-transparent and delicious: cook them in bacon fat, ideally.

Take the liver out of the water, and peel off the onion-peel-thin semi-transparent 'skin'. That skin would become chewy and unpleasant if you left it on.

You'll also find that when you get to the parts of the liver that used to lead to the main arteries and veins, it's hard to peel the skin off. That's okay: take the liver to your meat chopping board, and cut that stuff out. Reserve for your favourite carnivorous pet (it's good for cats and dogs, probably ferrets too); or discard. It's chewy and nasty to human tastes, too.
Allow the liver to drain if it still needs it after you've peeled it.

Cut the liver into slices a little under a centimetre thick; and no longer than would be convenient to serve: the narrow ends of the liver should be fine, once you get into the middle you'll probably want to divide the slices into two. You're aiming for thicker than stir-fry meat, thinner than casserole chunks; but about the same length as the longer bits of stir-fry.

Sift (or not) flour and salt into a bowl. Have a plate ready as well. Coat each piece of liver with flour.

Put the frypan back on the heat; but use a lower heat than you did for the bacon and the onions. Cook the liver at a medium heat: too high will make it tough and chewy, too low takes FOREVAH and doesn't seem to make any difference. It's done when the flour has browned nicely, and if you cut it open, you can see that all the proteins in the middle have cooked. (Compare the thickest cooked piece in the pan to the uncooked liver.)
Keep the pan greased; with the bacon fat if you have enough, and with vegetable oils if you run out of bacon fat.
Put the cooked slices onto the plate with the bacon and the onions. Yes, the bacon and onion have probably cooled by now (unless you had two people doing this), but we're about to fix that.

Once all the liver is cooked, start making the gravy. Use the pan juices and some of the remaining flour to make a roux , then slowly add room temperature water (or milk, if preferred), stirring as you add it. Just add a small splash at a time, and stir - you'll witness a chemical reaction form as the roux-thickened gravy mixes with the newly added liquid. Once all the liquid is absorbed into the roux, it's okay to add more. If the chemical reaction is too slow, bring the temperature up - you can take it as high as boiling safely. If it's too fast for you, turn the heat down. It does need to boil at some stage, if only for a couple of minutes, to cook the flour and remove the 'raw flour' taste from the gravy.
Stop adding liquid once you have enough gravy to generously cover all the meats and the onion. Add the meats and the onion to the pan, keep on the heat until all is warm, stirring occasionally. If it continues to thicken, you can add more liquid as needed; but turning the heat down to a low simmer or even lower should stop it.

Serve.
Mashed potato is a yummy thing to serve it with.



If desired, put it all in a casserole dish; cover with mashed potato, and bake at a low temperature for half an hour. This gives time for the flavours to mix, and makes it taste a bit richer.


Side note: once you've mastered cooking a roux, you've mastered many, many sauces in many cuisines.

[bhskittykatt]

We have a baked pineapple family recipe that sounds weird, but it's delish! It involves crushed pineapple with a flour/sugar combo, then a layer of cheese (growing up we used cheddar, but I prefer colby-jack when I make it), then a crushed cracker crust on top. It's been in the family for years. I don't know when it started. The first time I made it for Hubs, he thought it sounded nuts until he tried it.

[Victory Sabre]

Unsweetened baking chocolate. It is SOOOOOO good.

[AccountingDrone]

Musk candy, also available as lifesavers.

I am probably the only north american you will find that likes musk candy I prefer musk sticks to the lifesavers, I like the texture.

[EricKei]

Personally, I love me some feta cheese; I'll even add it to chicken soup. I was finally convinced to try it when I was working at a "healthier than normal" pizza joint -- I found that feta with ground beef and some fresh basil makes one hell of a tasty pizza with just the right amount of zing. Having the cheese on top allows it to toast just a bit, and the browning really brings out its flavor.

For sammiches, Muenster cheese is awesome as well.

My brother used to like mayonnaise sandwiches (no meat, just mayo and bread).

My brother and I used to eat those, too - when we were about 3 or 4 ^_^ Since that time, my tastes have changed to the point where I barely put mayo on my sammiches at all, tho my brother seems to think that I prefer about half a jar on each. I keep a close eye on him whenever he's making lunch.

grits...salt, pepper, yum

Mmmmmmmm, grits. Especially cheese grits.

I prefer cracklings to pork rinds.

Aren't cracklins/fried pork rinds/chicharrones all basically the same thing?

The best pudding is the kind that you can turn the plate upside down without it falling off.

My late step-dad used to make macaroni and cheese in that style -- as in, as sticky as peanut butter ^_^ my bro has...perhaps unwisely...been tweaking the recipe as of late, resulting in something closer to the typical holiday mac n cheese, dry and with minimal actual cheese taste or texture. Back in NOLA, the infamous Rocky & Carlo's is known for long-noodle style mac & cheese, often served with either red or brown gravy on top (based on tomatoes or roast beef drippings, respectively).

[AccountingDrone]

Aren't cracklins/fried pork rinds/chicharrones all basically the same thing?

Um, yes and no ... fried pork rinds/chicharrones are just the skin fried or however they make them poof up when microwaved. The thing with cracklings is the lovely mouthfeel you get from the cell structure of the fat layer with the fat cooked out, and the bacony meat part. Think of eating just the cooked fat in the strip of bacon, notice the mouthfeel? Cracklings are not just a way to get BBQ seasoning into your mouth, they are a taste and texture treat that you simply do not get from fried pork skin. I periodically will get a slab of pork belly and subdivide it to make cracklings and char siu - because the slow cooked porkbelly gets this absolutely unctuous feel when you let the fat get rendered out and replaced by the chinese or philipino BBQ sauce equivalent. [Oh sweet jesus - ginger, soy, garlic, a bit of regular red pepper, some szechuan pepper for the tongue tingle of it all ... nestled in a bed of baby bok choy, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts or jicama, scallions on a base of brown jasmine rice cooked in chinese chicken stock ... ]

[Gizmo]

Does ketchup with my eggs count?

Nope... Eggs without ketchup? What travesty are you suggesting here?

[Sheldonrs]

When I was a kid, I LOVED Gefilte fish. It makes me nauseous now.
I LOVE liver, chicken, beef, etc.

One thing I love that seems to gross people out more often than not is black cavier. I eat an entire jar at a time.

[Geek King]

Another one here for liver, fried chicken livers, or liver & onions

pickled onions

Pork Cracklins (Yoder's sells them pre-packed next to the pork rinds near me!)

Kim-Chi, although a co-worker's Korean wife ruined me for it in most places. Her Kim-Chi was so good, rarely does a restaurant's measure up.

[pitmonkey]

Here is another Swedish dish that I like, liver pault. They are potato and liver dumplings. You have them for dinner then in the morning you slice them, fry them and eat with butter.
http://www.tastebook.com/recipes/2685861-Liver-Pault
How I was taught to make them you put a few pieces of salt in the middle then cooked.

[Jester]

We have a baked pineapple family recipe that sounds weird, but it's delish! It involves crushed pineapple with a flour/sugar combo, then a layer of cheese (growing up we used cheddar, but I prefer colby-jack when I make it), then a crushed cracker crust on top. It's been in the family for years. I don't know when it started. The first time I made it for Hubs, he thought it sounded nuts until he tried it.

Recipe, please!

Nope... Eggs without ketchup? What travesty are you suggesting here?

I hate ketchup. Despise it. Love tomatoes, hate ketchup.

However, as I'm a Southwesterner, I do love salsa on my eggs. Will that count as a non-travesty to you folks?

One thing I love that seems to gross people out more often than not is black cavier. I eat an entire jar at a time.

Yummy!

A local bar has something they call Oysters Moscow. Chilled raw oysters with sour cream and black caviar. Freakin' amazing!

[XCashier]

We have a baked pineapple family recipe that sounds weird, but it's delish! It involves crushed pineapple with a flour/sugar combo, then a layer of cheese (growing up we used cheddar, but I prefer colby-jack when I make it), then a crushed cracker crust on top. It's been in the family for years. I don't know when it started. The first time I made it for Hubs, he thought it sounded nuts until he tried it.

Recipe, please!

Seconded! That sounds delicious!