A tweet you can eat

Welcome to the stage, tonight's guest blogger: Anna Gorohoff!

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Always looking to expand my dinner repertoire, I recently started following MaureenEvans on twitter. Ms. Evans rose to twitter fame in 2009 after becoming the Internet’s first “tiny cook”. She tweets out full recipes using only the given 140 characters. Not an easy task. But an even harder challenge, decoding those tweetcipes (my word, not hers).

Her tweetcipes range from everyday standards:

Pancakes: Melt3T buttr&brsug/c milk/3yolk. Whip3white. Sift2c flr/T bkgpdr/½t salt&soda&cinn. Fold all; +to grsdpan@med. Flip when bubbling.

To Google-worthy international dishes (at least for me):

Bisara: Brwn 6garlc/¼c oil; boil+c parsly&soakd fava/5c h2o/t cumin&paprka&chili&salt. Cvr,simmr h@low. Puree+lem. Top+olvoil&paprka&cumin.

Inspired by Madgespace’s can do approach to life, I’ve decided to attempt one of these recipe puzzles. Since I’m prone to cheating, I set a few simple ground rules for myself.

1. Can't be something I’ve ever made before
2. No Google searches, image or otherwise
3. Must have all ingredients on hand (more laziness, but we’ll call it a rule)

The first recipe I found fitting my requirements was the Skillet Pot Pie. I haven’t dined on pot pie in years and I’m sure I’ve never made one.

Here’s the tweetcipe:

Skillet Pot Pie: Brwn,rmv 6c veg/T oil. Brwn 3T buttr&flr; whisk+c stock&milk/T lem/t thyme&s+p. Mix all/4c cookdmeat; top+pastry. 30m@400F.

Hmmmmm . . . . let the decoding begin!

Step 1: Pick out hidden and missing items. In this tweetcipe 4c cookdmeat; top+pastry caught my eye. I precooked and diced chicken breasts and prepared a puff pastry top. Note, the ratio of butter to flour in a puff pastry is nearly 1:1 – so you’ve been warned. This is rich.

Step 2: Brwn,rmv 6c veg/T oil = Brown 6 cups of veggies in 1 Tbsp oil, remove. I used onions, purple and orange carrots, and peas.

Step 3: Brwn 3T buttr&flr; whisk+c stock&milk/T lem/t thyme&s+p = Brown 3 Tbsp of butter with 3 Tbsp of flour. Whisk in 1 cup chicken stock and 1 cup milk. Add 1 Tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp thyme, salt and pepper.

Step 4: Mix all/4c cookdmeat; top+pastry. 30m@400F = Add veggies and cooked chicken back into the skillet. Top with puff pastry sheet. Cook at 400 degrees F for 30 min.

All in all, this was a pretty straightforward recipe. It took me about an hour to prep and cook not counting a quick latte and nursing break with my lovely sous chef. 

While it wasn’t the most beautiful dish I’ve ever made, it was tasty (all that butter!) and surprisingly really fun to make. It turns out it’s pretty delightful to cook without a strict recipe. I liked picking my own veggies (aka – whats in my fridge), not following dictated cooking times (you’ll know when the sauce thickens, just watch it), and making decisions based on tasting the food rather than known amounts. You feel quite footloose and fancy free!

My next challenge: pick a tweetcipe for a dish I’ve never heard of. Then we’ll really see how well my decoding skills are!

LYMI

Anna