Sometimes a little luxurious treat is all you need to regain equilibrium. Before you send me hate mail about misplaced extravagance, how much do you think this massive baked half potato with sour cream, butter, over a tablespoon of caviar and some chives cost per serving? (a) PHP1,350 (b) PHP875 (c) PHP220 or (d) less than a Jollibee 1 piece Chicken Joy meal (maybe PHP60). Pick your answer before clicking on the jump…
Simply find the most massive potato you can get (these were jumbo potatoes from S&R), roast it in a hot oven for say 1 hour until cooked. Let it rest for say 10 minutes then cut it in half, scrape out the potato and mash it roughly (I like this chunky). Mix about 1 tablespoon of butter with the mashed potato and return the mixture to the potato skin. Top with a couple of tablespoons of sour cream, add a tablespoon or more of lumpfish caviar from Denmark and sprinkle with a few chives. Serve immediately. To eat, just mix this all up and enjoy. It is a complete meal in and of itself. Protein from the sour cream and caviar, some roughage from the chives and fiber/starch from the potato. A bit of added fat from the butter. Warm, comforting, creamy, and briney all at the same time.
Total cost of this luxurious treat? Potato at say 250 grams and at say PHP40 a kilo, that would be PHP10. Sour cream and butter, say another PHP10. Chives, say PHP2. And lumpfish caviar, in little glass bottles at S&R roughly PHP300, but you use only about PHP30-35 worth on one potato. Total cost = PHP 52-57. Not bad, huh? :) If you are just going to use caviar as an ingredient mixed with other hefty and imposing ingredients, you can definitely get away with using the cheaper types of caviar. It would be a bit sinful to mix beluga caviar with a piping hot potato, but I bet it would still be good. Now for a little reader challenge. In this last photo, can you tell what is a bit awry or unusual about something in the photo? What isn’t conventional?
54 Responses
the utensil setting ? usually is on the side …
Re your quiz: Meat tender enough that a “steak knife” is not necessary? Gee, everything looks perfect, either my eyes are failing me or the shine on the steak is preventing me to see the obvious, if i guessed wrong.
Slicing the meat with the knife on your left hand?
The only thing unusual (for me) would be that the serving of meat is awfully small! And there are no vegetables on the plate! (I’m not counting the potato–that’s a starch to me)
@kim–the utensils up top are, I think, the dessert spoon and fork. My mother’s family always has the table set with those, even if they don’t have dessert.
The table? –Marble top so probably it was the kitchen counter and was not set formally atop the dinner table.(uhh….maybe it was a garden table?) It looks like you were eating standing up!
Dessert spoon and fork missing from foreground table setting?
Looks like the roast beef was so tender and succulent it doesn’t need any gravy or A1 steak sauce!
I’m stumped .. and hungry. Off to the grill!
I’m not sure what’s unusual in the photo except that you managed to hold back your hunger enough to take photos! the food looks amazing MM.
slicing the meat with the left hand
Using a bread knife to slice the steak? The steak served in thin slices?
Traditionally, you use a mother-of-pearl (or wooden) spoon to eat caviar, as a spoon made of silver or stainless steel will react with the roe and change its taste.
You dont have utensils in your place setting so you will be eating with your hands.
I’m stumped…!
that steak looks perfectly cooked! but my guess is slicing a steak with your left hand.
A beautifully done steak like that needs to be washed down with a good red.
No idea…all I care about is trying the food! :D
I am not sure the combination would work. Steak and caviar do not go together.
The potato is bigger than the meat?!? :))
MORE carb than meat…ur on a diet program!
hmm not sure, is it because the steak is sliced as thin as bacon? and why only 3 slices? ;P
hmm…i’m not a steak person, but I’d guess that it’s the beef “cut or part” that’s unconventional =)
Eating steak not using a steak knife? The potato is too huge for me! I hope hindi siya kaumay after a few spoonfuls.
Nothing looks awry.. what’s unusual to my eyes though is that the color of the meat seems really red, like it isnt the usual beef. Meat slices look perfectly medium rare. The absence of jus perhaps?
you had set the marble table from mats to silverwares but you were standing/in a slanting position while cutting up those wonderful steaks!!!!
haha marketman, i just prepared Creme fraiche caviar at Cafe world at Facebook..May be you coould start cooking all in the list.. Too bad the chicken adobo is under Mexico..Dapat sa atin yun..:(
Is it carpaccio, but unusually topped with caviar?
The setting?
My mom used to make something similar for us, but instead of caviar, she used bacon bits. I miss my mom’s cooking.
that the potato in the foreground is a camote?
medyo off topic, but left-handers do hold the knife in their dominant hand to slice meat. i do anyway. does that make me ill-mannered? hehe.
S-A-R-A-P !!!
This site never ceases to amaze me…makes me wanna go out and buy a potato…
The person cutting up the meat seems left-handed…
The meat wasn’t pork
You cannot tell which is the main course and the side dish. the potato with caviar or the steak?
On the other hand the “potato” looks like kamote just as stated by Lee. Bit overly yellowish.
Not bad , not bad. I dont feel guilty enjoying some pleasures in life. I work hard for my money hehehehe.
fork in right, knife in left hand? beef not sliced across the grain? guessing wildly here…..:)
oh.. if the picture shows someone in the act of eating, there should be a drinking glass in the place setting. A little difficult to eat the baked potato without taking a gulp or sip of something to wash it down, no? ;-)
Your standing MM while slicing the meat :). The plate in front doesn’t have set of cutlery too.
silverware not properly placed?
steak already sliced as served? no wine?
No wine?? BTW, caviar on baked potato was Jackie O’s favorite dish.
hmm, you have a fruit/dessert fork and coffee spoon on your place setting, when there is no coffee/fruit/ dessert in the photo. though the place setting is correct -it does not matter if its on the side or on the top of the plate.
Knife is in the left hand.
roast beef (meat doesn’t look grilled) without au jus?
knife in left hand -and that’s the way I do it coz I’m a leftie! :)
great idea for Father’s Day lunch menu at home!!! :))
baked potato instead of thick chips/fries?????
Mrs. Marketman sits across from me, and she is using the knife in her left hand, which is a no-no I would imagine, even if you were left-handed, which she is not. It’s a childhood quirk… :)
Gee MM, I’m also guilty of using the knife in my left hand, and didn’t think about it much. I guess old-habits die hard, when as a kid we were more comfortable having the fork in our right hand…..Hahahahaha…..
looks like MM is in UK. Have fun!!!!
I thought you can slice food any which way as long as you do not raise a ruckus or catapult them on your dinner companions.
MM, am looking forward to hearing about your trip to the UK!
have fun, mm & family !!! we await your posts on euro trip : )
Hmmmm… looks tempting MM.
Re the photo, it looks like you have two plates to yourself. The other plate has not been touched.
I was told that it’s a very European thing to use the knife on the left as the whole stab with fork and slice with knife on the right, then put the knife down and shift fork to the right is more a American habit. German friends always find it amusing when I do the left hand/right hand shift.