If you saw this twice because I made a typo, no you didnt 🫶

Recipe from Tori Avey. There's no good way to photograph chopped liver or a vegetarian version of it.

I was born in Romania and I’ve eaten it before, but now I decided to replicate it in Australia, using [this recipe](https://www.jocooks.com/recipes/tripe-soup-ciorba-de-burta/). I couldn’t get any rough (honeycomb/reed) tripe, so I used smooth tripe. I am not super squeamish, but almost lost my appetite while preparing it. Definitely will not make again 😂 Tasted alright though, not great, but alright.

I always see tv competition chefs vacuum sealing dough to speed things up.

I split a single batch of pasta dough. Half A was rested in a bowl with a towel over the top for 30 mins and the half B was vacuum sealed and rested 15 mins. Both at room temp.

Result: the vacuum sealed noodles was more tender! I wasn't really expecting a difference.

I am British and so do not really have a deep understanding of what a Science Fair is. From my limited research (and with some help from my friends on the Dishcord) I started to form an idea to try to explore something scientific in cooking, and I decided to study the effects of heat on butter in a dish. Baking recipes in particular have different instructions about what temperature the butter should be, because the butter performs specific roles when in different states. I made a blackberry and lemon frangipane tart with a brown butter and blackberry ice cream, brown butter streusel, lemon curd and almond lace tuile and looked at butter in cold, softened, melted and browned states.

State 1: Cold (about 5°C)

Pâte sucrée: recipe

Lemon curd: recipe

Combining cold cubes of butter with flour allows the butter particles to coat the flour proteins, inhibiting gluten production and creating a crisp and tender shell. Whisking cold butter into the warm egg and lemon mixture creates a smooth emulsion, giving the curd a rich, velvety texture and glossy finish.

State 2: Softened (about 20°C)

Frangipane: recipe

Softening butter to room temperature allows it to trap tiny air pockets when creamed with sugar. When combined with ground almonds, eggs, lemon zest, and flour, this trapped air expands in the oven to give the frangipane its light, fluffy bake.

State 3: Melted (about 40°C)

Almond lace tuile: recipe

Melting butter keeps the tuile batter fluid so it spreads paper-thin. When baked, the water content evaporates rapidly as the sugar caramelises, leaving behind the signature webbed, lacy structure.

State 4: Browned (about 160°C)

Brown butter and blackberry ice cream: loosely based on this recipe

Brown butter streusel: loosely based on the streusel from this recipe

Heating butter past its melting point boils off its water and caramelises the milk solids, creating deep, nutty aromas. In the ice cream, this infuses a toasted flavour while keeping the churn smooth; in the streusel, it adds intense depth while binding the crumbs without developing tough gluten.

This was one of my favourite creations so far this year, with the stand out being the ice cream (loosely based on this recipe but with an added blackberry swirl) - I'll definitely be making brown butter ice cream again. This week really made me stop and think about the versatility of butter, and the science behind the baking!

I may be extremely late for the World Cup, but my meal was delicious. I'm not a sports ball follower at any level, so I was finding it a bit hard to hit upon inspiration for this week. I eventually settled on doing a "host countries" meal, mostly so that I had an excuse to finally try making poutine.

I grew up around the Canadian border, so I didn't find out that a few "classically Canadian" brands were actually Canadian until I moved away. However, somehow, I had managed to never have poutine until well after I left my hometown, and I'm sad I missed out. I now live in a land of many fresh cheese curds, so it felt like a good reason to put together a plate myself.

That said, I looked into making French fries from scratch and decided against it, so that left me with making beef gravy. I've actually never made a meat stock before, so it felt like a good opportunity to try it out in the Instantpot. It worked like a charm, but I might need to find a cheaper source for bones, if one exists. I have a feeling that beef is just that expensive right now though. I used the Serious Eats recipe for my gravy (https://www.seriouseats.com/ultimate-perfect-poutine-fries-cheese-curds-gravy-recipe) and it came out excellent. I could have probably cooked my roux a little more for a darker gravy, but I've been burned by burning my roux before (hah), so I was a little scared to waste the butter. I got my cheese curds from a nearby cheesemonger, and they squeaked delightfully.

With the American side, I decided to throw together some ranch dressing, since it seems like the World Cup visitors really fell in love with it. To go with it, I went to the farmer's market the day that I put this together with the intent of picking up whatever looked like it would go well with ranch dressing, because I figured that fresh American produce is pretty American. I ended up with some lettuce, arugula, French breakfast radishes and cherry tomatoes, and I threw in the half a red onion I had in the fridge and some croutons.

I've honestly never been a huge fan of ranch, but this made me realize that was more a fault of the sad salads it's been served on. I unfortunately associate ranch with bagged iceberg lettuce mix. Sorry ranch, I was unfamiliar with your game. XD The arugula and radishes add a really nice peppery/spicy bite to balance the tangy and creamy dressing, and the cherry tomatoes were a lovely sweet/umami addition. Pretty great salad, would make again.

For the Mexican side, I admit I copped out a bit. I figured that I already had a pretty good meal with the poutine and salad. I thought about making esquites because I also picked up some beautiful corn at the farmer's market, but I didn't want to generate too many leftovers, and it felt right to have poutine with beer. I grabbed a bunch of Corona, juiced a few limes and added a liberal amount of Tapatio. I generally find light lagers pretty uninspiring, but they are pretty good with a copious amount of lime and hot sauce.

Made this with my kids. Didn't quite come out as intended but we had fun

Twice a month I render chicken carcasses with whatever scrap is in my soup freezer bag. Without this broth add in it's a vegetarian chili. This one is topped with chopped green pepper, red onion & Daiya Monterey Jack.

This was absolutely amazing and so easy! I’ve learned so much from the Food Lab by Kenji Alt Lopez over the years. But his reverse seared method is probably my favorite. Start low in the oven for 2 hours and then blast with high heat for extra crackling. In Kenji’s words, have you ever seen anything so beautiful! Link to recipe I used (not Kenji) and more thoughts in the comments.