Posted by ClearSkies on October 17, 2007, at 15:20:55
So a week ago last Saturday I tried to cook Tarte Tatin, to duplicate a yummy caramelized upside down apple tart that I had on holiday. Apparently it's a time-honoured French recipe (note my eyebrow is raised). I even used my le Crueset frying pan for the operation.
Well, I blew it. Either misread the instructions or cooked it too long or at too high a temperature, or something, and not only did I burn the resulting disaster of a tart, but the pan... well, the pan... I incinerated the apples and sugar into a quarter-inch thick black carbon mass onto the bottom of the pan. Let's see, that was Saturday the 13th of October, and today is the 17th. So I've been trying to get the pan clean for 5 consecutive days. That's soaking, scrubbing, boiling, oven cleaner, every non-destructive cleaning technque I have found. I've scrubbed through two nylon scrubby thingies already. I've just set the pan to soak in boiling water for the third time, having cleaned through several micro layers of almost diamond-hard carbonized gunk.
I don't think I was trying to cook Tarte Tatin at all. I think I was following a recipe for asphalt, and that it turned out perfectly!!!
The burnt mass on the bottom of the pan is yielding. Slowly, slowly, with no loss to the pan. I'm not willing to sacrifice my frying pan to the kitchen gods this time around. But I haven't had a kitchen disaster on this scale for a very long time.
Any other cooking stories to share today?
ClearSkies
poster:ClearSkies
thread:789776
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20070925/msgs/789776.html