Last night was my first night of cooking dinner in the new house.
There were few catastrophes.
The meal consisted of lemon pepper and herb chicken atop a bed of orzo and sauteed mushrooms, with an heirloom tomato and cucumber salad. The salad turned out great. The chicken was tasty, but a little dry (I always worry about under cooking chicken), and the orzo - which should have been the easiest part- was salvageable.
I guess I don't read directions well. I looked at the package of orzo (yes, I needed to read the package to see how to cook pasta), and saw: In a large pot, add four cups of water and heat to a rolling boil". Well, I added four cups of water and a little broth for added flavor, allowed it to hit a rolling boil, added the orzo, and waited for the water to return to a boil. Seems simple enough. But no, not for my poor misguided brain. As the orzo cooked, I noticed less and less liquid seemed to be in the pot. Now, I've made spaghetti, penne, and many other more common pastas plenty of times- I know what it's supposed to look like- and this looked wrong.
Just plain wrong.
I reached for the empty package and re-read the directions: Add four QUARTS of water to a large pot.
Dammit!
I quickly heated more liquid in a separate container, and then added that liquid to the already heated pasta. In the end, it tasted all right, but there was a good amount of orzo charred on the bottom of the pot. Pot ruined. Small oopsie, but it did make me a little discouraged. Well, I guess discouraged is the wrong word. I'll say, rather, it made me realize that I need to pay better attention to directions. When it comes to making my way around a kitchen, I am the man who constantly gets lost and refuses to ask for directions. Lesson learned.
2 comments:
Don't feel bad. Frank & I are both pretty decent cooks and have been cooking for years and we've both screwed up orzo, rice, couscous - so simple to make, so easy to screw up. The chicken rarely needs to be cooked as long as you think it does, we're just force-fed scary stories all the time. Invest in an inexpensive, but very handy meat thermometer. Lemme know if you're ever interested in recipes.
That is such an easy mistake, 4 quarts is a lot, I would have just assumed 4 cups if I was making it, however I've never had orzo and not even sure what it is, but isn't cooking at least fun? The dishes is the part that sucks.
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