I am well aware of this fact and would
never dream of blaming my tools. Clearly if something isn’t working then I’m
doing something wrong – unless I’m dealing with a computer, photocopier or
vending machine. Then it usually just needs a swift kick. Or, in the case of
the computer, which is luckily too high for my feet, I find that shutting it
down (for a few hours or even days) and praying hard usually works. If that
fails then swearing, slamming things and audibly wondering how you are ever
going to make ends meet as an aspiring writer when you’re computer won’t even
work generally does the trick.
Two
weekends ago when I tried to make an alioli following a Rick Stein recipe (I’ve
often made my own but I’ve never felt I had the balance of
salt/garlic/creaminess just right) so on this occasion I faithfully and
carefully measured out all the ingredients exactly as Rick suggested. I had a
new mixing bowl and, to save my arms, I decided to use my new electric
hand-whisk. I drizzled the oil in as slowly as you could possibly imagine, I
whisked, I changed hands, I whisked some more. I let my mixer have a breather
because it was getting very hot and emitting that strange, burning plastic/electrical
smell that you get from very over-worked motors. I changed bowls because I
wondered if it didn’t like being in stainless steel. I added another egg yolk
just in case. And I wondered if perhaps the Spanish favour a very runny type of
alioli that looks like garlic floating in gallons of cloudy oil.
In
the end I made a different salt-cod recipe (delicious nonetheless) and couldn’t
get the alioli out of my mind. I compared other recipes – Gary Rhodes uses
roughly the same oil but more egg yolk. Someone else did a blend of
vegetable/olive oil (as in most mayonnaise recipes) but still I could not
pinpoint what could have gone wrong – for it had gone wrong, the Spanish do not
favour a pourable version of alioli.
Facebook
users will know that this Friday I had to make a strawberry soufflé at the last
minute when we had a wine mishap and opened a €13 wine
on what was just going to be a simple supper night. I quite enjoyed rising to
the challenge and love separating eggs so I was not perturbed. I think I’ve
heard that egg whites whisk better in steel bowls (but I don’t know if it’s
true and haven’t bothered to google it) so I put the whites in my new bowl and
proceeded to whisk. With my electric whisk. And they would not form peaks. Now I’ve
done this a million times so I know that you don’t need icing sugar, salt or
anything else – if you have a clean bowl they will form peaks. I tilted the
bowl, I changed the speeds – I even had it on full speed with the turbo button depressed
(or was that me depressed?) but all I got was frog spit.
I
gave the machine a rest, I tried to tell myself that the frog spit was getting
thicker and then it dawned on me. These were not balloon whisks staring back at
me – I was trying to form soft peaks in my egg white with two very feeble
looking dough hooks.
So
that also explains the alioli.
Does
this mean there are times when we should blame our machines? Or is Rob correct? He simply looked across and said,
‘It’s
not the tool but the tool that’s using it’ and carried on drinking the very
delicious wine.
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