Side Goals

Whenever I throw something out, I realize later I could’ve used it and I regret being so wasteful. Whenever I keep something, it takes up space in the apartment and I regret being so messy and slothful. It’s a no win situation. The ice cream maker and the instapot had been collecting dust and languishing in our apartment for years. Too expensive to throw away, yet too bulky to hide in the apartment. For our road trip I had the main goal of learning about American history. We have no exciting travel destinations, so we’re looking desperately for domestic places of interest... like bumfuck Virginia. The side goals I had were to make beef bourguignon without a stove and churn a homemade batch of chocolate chip ice cream. 

My family thought I was crazy, but I persevered through their criticisms, “why are you taking up half our trunk with these machines? You haven’t used these appliances ever before, why start now? you never cook this stuff in our kitchen but now you want to cook them? Are you fucking serious? Why are you like this?” To make space for the appliances, I told the family to pack extremely light, like 3 pairs of underwear max, 1 pair of pants, and 3 pairs of socks and 3 t shirts each.

With a day left on our jaunt, I can proudly say I met all main and side goals. While I try to write an entertaining post about slavery and the role of racial injustice in American history I’ve decided to write about how I met my side goals.

The instapot is not really instant. For those uninitiated instapot readers, the instapot is like a crockpot on steroids with tons of functions. It plugs into a standard 120 volt wall socket but then gives an array of functions like pressure cooking, sautee, stew, continuous temperature incubation for yogurt, etc… the instapot gives the user control of heat, pressure, and temperature. Thermodynamically, cooking with an instapot is like controlling all the variables of the ideal gas law, PV=nRT. The chef, (played by former chemist- myself) buys all the biochemical ingredients (onions, salt, pepper, chuck beef, carrots, potatoes, garlic, olive oil, corn starch, chicken stock, thyme, balsamic vinegar, bay leaves) and decides on n (the amount of substance). The chef then turns on the sautee function of the pot and sears the salt and peppered beef in olive oil in a controlled temperature setting. Once the hotel room smells and looks like a smokey steakhouse, the chef then sautees the onions and garlic for a few minutes while checking various news reports how a Johnson and Johnson vaccine made a Virginia man’s skin peel off. The chef then distractedly pours in a dash of balsamic vinegar to create the basis of the sauce. At this point the chef defines the volume of the dish by pouring measured amounts of potatoes, seared beef, spices, chicken stock and locks in a high temperature and pressure on the pot for 45 minutes. For the final 4 minutes of cooking, the pressure is relieved, the lid is opened and the carrots and potatoes are pressure cooked in a cornstarched gravy.

So within an hour, beef bourguignon is concocted in a random Motel 6 room off the highway in backcountry Virginia. The chef takes a bow after serving and feeding the family who 2 hours prior seriously doubted the chef could make anything as tasty as the numerous Cracker Barrel, McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken joints they had passed on thier way to the motel. 

I admit, the instapot is not really what I imagined. I imagined just throwing a bunch of ingredients into a machine, pressing a button, opening the lid to delicious beef bourguignon and then saying “voila motherfuckers” to astonished family members. Navigating PV=nRT is like sailing a ship. You have to adjust to the elements, and adjust the variables on the fly. After the beef bourguignon was savored and promptly demolished,  I proceeded to clean the greasy instapot in the bathtub with complimentary hotel soap and whip up desert.

Round 2

Like all fights, the (ice cream making) fight began with preparation. The night before the bourguignon, i had put the ice cream maker bowl into the freezer to get super chilled. As the ice cream maker bowl cooled, I whisked 6 egg yolks and 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste. After pouring 2 cups whole milk, 2 cups cream, and 1/6 cup of sugar to boil in the instapot, I shut the instapot off and waited for it to cool down to 180 degrees (as measured by my portable thermometer), to ensure that when I added the eggs they would be pasteurized, not cooked. Apparently egg yolks provide viscosity to ice cream. I placed this ultra high viscosity artery clogging soupy cream mixture in the freezer and waited for the cream to ‘mature’ (note: this is ice cream making verbiage, not my own verbs) before churning it the next day with a cup of dark chocolate chips. after a suspenseful 20 minutes of ice cream maker churning I exclaimed “Voila! Dark chocolate chocolate chip ice cream motherfuckers!” The desert was a success. The family was impressed by the culinary shenanigans I managed to pull off.

After I return home, I expect to further refine my instapot repertoire. While the culinary appliances inevitably collect a new layer of dust in the apartment, I will actively plot a duck a l’orange paired with home made Italian stracciatella gelato on my next Motel 6 adventure.