2) Never put your fingers anywhere near the blades while the device is plugged into the wall. You never think you'll push the button that starts the blades whirling, but you might end up like a dermatologist friend of mine. She was less-than-impressed at the job the emergency medicine resident did on her multiple finger lacerations.
Now that the necessary safety warnings are over with, let's get cooking.
Figure 3.14p - Old School versus New Wave.(Sorry this is a bit late. This recipe would be better in the late fall or early winter when we tend to have left over cranberry sauce sitting around our fridges, after holiday meals. I actually started this post back in January but totally forgot about it until recently. I'll make up for it with a bonus recipe at the end.)
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup olive oil and 1/4 cup vegetable oil (or any variation of either of these two oils alone, or a mixture of both. I like the half-and-half ratio.)
- A generous handful of toasted walnuts. If you have raw walnuts, crush them into little pieces with your hands or a mallet or something. Put them onto a dry pan without any oil, and toast over medium heat until they're golden and they smell amazing.
- 2-3 heaping tablespoons of cranberry sauce, preferably a chunky, whole-cranberry type.
A dash of heavy cream or half-and-half, or a heaping tablespoon of mayonaisse. - (optional) A dash of orange bitters.
Combine all of the above ingredients in a tall container. I like re-used 32 oz yogurt containers for all of my immersion blending needs. Blend until smooth, and store in the container you made it in. I served it over a crunchy salad of sliced red cabbage, fennel and crisp romaine lettuce (see figure 3.14i)
Figure 3.14i - The finished product.
Bonus Recipe: Aoili
This is a more recent creation. My girlfriend doesn't like artichokes. I absolutely love them. I've made them a couple of times, both steamed and stuffed/baked (like my mom makes them) and they were never a go. That is until I made a creamy, garlicky aoili, and told her to dip the artichoke leaves before she ate them. She finished off half the artichoke herself. The second one I made, she told me I had better give her half of the heart, or I would be in trouble. This serves to show you the magic some egg yolk, oil, lemon and garlic can work.- One high quality egg yolk, the fresher the better. Save the white for an omlette or something.
- One medium or large clove of garlic, roughly chopped. Other, more traditional (read: whisk) recipes will tell you to grind it into a paste with some salt, but with this method, your immersion blenders' whirling blades of doom will do the work.
- Juice from 1/2 of a lemon. You can include a pinch of the zest if you'd like.
- A pinch of salt.
- 1/2 cup of good olive oil.
Combine the first 4 ingredients in a tall container. Get your immersion blenders' blades a-whirlin'. Keep it going, and slowly drizzle the oil into a spot where it's going to hit the blades, while keeping the whole thing relatively submersed in the mixture. This can be a bit tricky. Keep blending until all the oil is incorporated. This method basically takes all the skill out of making an aoili: It will keep for about a week without seperating. At all. The garlic flavor will intensify the longer you keep it in the fridge.
It's good to be back, folks.
