It's not quite all about the sauce.
The verdict is in. In response to the sauce experience, I'd say it's 50% sauce.
We bought unagi at the store and used the special sauce on it. It was far superior to anything we've made previously. YUM BO! One disappointing thing though: it didn't hold a candle to our recent Seattle experience. So: sauce 50%. Quality of eel 50%.
We did an additional side-by-side taste. We bought the cheapest and the most expensive frozen unagi at the store. L did the prep and I got to take the unagi challenge. Turns out I can taste the difference between $20 / pound unagi and $80 / pound unagi.
One remaining question: if the 'expensive' unagi still isn't as goos as what we had up north, how the hell much does the restaurant pay for theirs? And how can they only charge $3.50 per order?
A commenter asked about the second sauce. Yes, I made a balsamic reduction meat sauce a couple weeks ago to go over roasted polenta. The verdict on that one is that it's a keeper. It came from my 'home cooking' cookbook that I picked up years and years ago when I worked at Borders and was Rick Bayless' tender at a book talk one evening. The recipes have all been fantastic, and several have made it into regular rotation. I think I got my fat pasta from there. Garlic-leek soup and herbed foccaccia are definitely from there. I cut the amount of butter in this recipe by about 75% and the results were still fantastic. Again: YUM BO! Even after a week in the fridge and on a completely different dish, it was still delicious. My mouth is still watering.
Basically, it's 2 cups of vinegar, a half gallon of stock, and a bunch of butter.
We bought unagi at the store and used the special sauce on it. It was far superior to anything we've made previously. YUM BO! One disappointing thing though: it didn't hold a candle to our recent Seattle experience. So: sauce 50%. Quality of eel 50%.
We did an additional side-by-side taste. We bought the cheapest and the most expensive frozen unagi at the store. L did the prep and I got to take the unagi challenge. Turns out I can taste the difference between $20 / pound unagi and $80 / pound unagi.
One remaining question: if the 'expensive' unagi still isn't as goos as what we had up north, how the hell much does the restaurant pay for theirs? And how can they only charge $3.50 per order?
A commenter asked about the second sauce. Yes, I made a balsamic reduction meat sauce a couple weeks ago to go over roasted polenta. The verdict on that one is that it's a keeper. It came from my 'home cooking' cookbook that I picked up years and years ago when I worked at Borders and was Rick Bayless' tender at a book talk one evening. The recipes have all been fantastic, and several have made it into regular rotation. I think I got my fat pasta from there. Garlic-leek soup and herbed foccaccia are definitely from there. I cut the amount of butter in this recipe by about 75% and the results were still fantastic. Again: YUM BO! Even after a week in the fridge and on a completely different dish, it was still delicious. My mouth is still watering.
Basically, it's 2 cups of vinegar, a half gallon of stock, and a bunch of butter.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home