January 19, 2010

I recently read a post on The Traveler's Lunchbox in defense of beets. The author wrote that she could never understand why people have such vitriol for beets, and that they are a rather tasty and extremely healthy vegetable option. Her post inspired me to think about other foods that people typically hate. And thus I decided to try and create a menu out of some of the most reviled foods I could come up with.

This actually proved to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. My "hated foods" mostly include cow-meats. Liver, tongue, steak, ground beef, etc, all on the list of things I will not eat (yes, I know, steak). Fortunately for me, I won't be having to eat those, since I generally cook for vegetarians or eco-vegetarians, and serving liver would not be in keeping with that. So I turned to vegetables and fishes instead.

The fish category was easy, and I found this wonderful recipe at in praise of sardines for anchovies that also includes cauliflower - another much loathed veggie. Personally, I have never had sardines, although I've had anchovy paste and fish sauce and love them. And the crispiness of this dish looks delicious!

For veggies, I decided to go with my original inspiration, the beet and walnut dish from Traveler's Lunchbox. I have also never had beets, but if they are anything like my first experience with brussel sprouts (19, first "Canadian" Thanksgiving, and loved 'em!) then I'm sure I will be pleasantly surprised. I was going to include a side of brussel sprouts, but I have been expressly forbidden from ever cooking, or ever thinking about cooking, those delightful mini-cabbages by my wonderful boyfriend. So I had to put my thinking cap on once again, and come up with another vegetarian option.

That's when the BBC came to my rescue. Turns out, on a survey of Brits, #4 in the Top 20 Most Hated Foods was...black pudding. Sounds disgusting enough. But when I searched, it turned out it was pig-based. There is also Black rice pudding, which looks just as disgusting, and yet seems like it might just be a wonderful lightly-sweet dessert. Black rice pudding is a Southasian dish, specifically Thai, and Epicurious had a wonderfully reviewed recipe at hand.

So thus, the menu was finalized as:
Slow-Roasted Cauliflower with Pounded Anchovies
Roasted Beat Salad with Feta and Walnuts
Thai Black Rice Pudding

Yuck!!

Fortunately, the results proved much more tasty than the dishes sounded. I had a few snafus with ingredients - namely, the only grocer I had time to visit on the way to my friend's house (where the meal this week was to be held) had neither black sticky rice nor actual sardines. Thus I ended up with canned salted anchovies. I adjusted the level of salt in the cauliflower dish, and decided to use brown rice instead of black sticky rice, and both dishes turned out like I'd wanted - strange but strangely pleasant.

The beets unfortunately proved impossible to cook all the way through, and ended up being a little crisp for my liking. My friend who is a beet-o-phile said they were still delicious, but the rest of us weren't quite convinced. My other diner-friend also contributed a delicious "everything" salad with crutons, garden veggies, spinach, craisins, and sesame that was very fresh, so I included a photo of that as well.