Bleu Cheese Question

[dwest]

Around these parts crabs and shrimp are most often cooked in Old Bay Seasoning which has nutmeg and mace in it along with cinnamon, allspice, cloves and a bunch of other stuff. I'd say it's one of the most definitive food seasonings in the southeastern US.

[Nanohedron]

Can't say as I ever had seafood cooked with Old Bay seasoning. I've had crawfish in Louisiana cooked in crab boil, which I imagine isn't far different, but if it made a difference in the flavor it didn't stand out so far as I could tell. And that's a good thing, because I thought for sure they were going to ruin those perfectly good poor li'l mudbugs, pouring all that stuff in the kettle.

Got on the topic of meatloaf at the pub last nite, and we got around to the worst we'd ever had. One fellow said his grandmother would put raw whole eggs between two layers of the meaty stuff, so you get cooked egg with every slice. I mean, yes, it's a touch odd, but he hated it. I'll go with that.

[mutepointe]

My Mother and her brothers use to fight over it, what they called brain sausage, every morning when they were kids. Can't say as if I've ever been tempted.

[dwest]

Got on the topic of meatloaf at the pub last nite, and we got around to the worst we'd ever had. One fellow said his grandmother would put raw whole eggs between two layers of the meaty stuff, so you get cooked egg with every slice. I mean, yes, it's a touch odd, but he hated it. I'll go with that.

I've had meatloaf with hard boiled eggs in the middle but have never heard of raw eggs.

[Nanohedron]

Yeah, I think my jaw dropped. I got the general idea, and of course the raw eggs cook, but in any case it seems like way too much trouble for such a minimal return. Why not fry your eggs ahead of time? But...er, no. Simplicity for me, thanks: just make an aggregate glob and be done with it.

[mutepointe]

Some cultures have a thing for cooking eggs in things where they don't belong. I don't know why. This picture is of an Italian Easter Bread.

[dwest]

Some cultures have a thing for cooking eggs in things where they don't belong. I don't know why. This picture is of an Italian Easter Bread.

Hey! You changed this right in the middle of my blistering put down, shucks!

[mutepointe]

I was surprised to find that besides Polish and Slovak people making these Easter Breads, I also found pictures of Greek and Italian Easter Breads with eggs baked in the middle too. I should have remembered one of my Italian friends had a fiasco with her breads this Easter. I couldn't tell you how many she made before she got one suitable to present at Easter Sunday dinner with her Mom present.

[maki]

Swedish potato sausage.

Wha????? Not even close to the heaven that is the proper, meaty, porky, oaty, greasy, oozing slab of scrumminess that is white pudding.

Sign me up!
(And don't forget to serve it to me with Bleu Cheese sauce.)

[maki]

Around these parts crabs and shrimp are most often cooked in Old Bay Seasoning which has nutmeg and mace in it along with cinnamon, allspice, cloves and a bunch of other stuff. I'd say it's one of the most definitive food seasonings in the southeastern US.

Old Bay is the shizz, we don't make crab cakes without it.

[mutepointe]

Old Bay is the bomb.

That is way more Old Bay then I would ever used. I had Old Bay on a tomato sandwich today. Old Bay is my secret ingredient for my chicken wings. I also make a dip of sour cream and Old Bay. It's spicy.

[oleorezinator]

Which makes me think: have you guys got white pudding?

Do you mean a brain sausage?

Not really. There's oatmeal in white pudding, which makes it more like black pudding in texture. Brain sausage is more, well, sausagey in texture, and doesn't really taste similar either. Mind you, I can't remember whether I've had it (brain sausage, that is) more than once. One was enough, really.

Which makes me think: have you guys got white pudding?
Scrapple. Corn meal instead of oats.

[mutepointe]

We have scrapple, which I believe that I have managed to avoid eating my whole life.

Of course we have corn meal. The American Indians developed corn. They called it maize. Everyone has their own corn bread recipe that is the best. I use yougurt, vanilla, and a bit of sugar to make my cornbread more of a cake. If you bake your cornbread in anything besides cast iron, folks will wonder if you were raised right.

[mutepointe]

I'm still perplexed by this thing where you folks don't have meatloaf all that much. Do your grocery stores sell ground beef/round/sirloin/pork/veal? What do you do with that meat? Do you eat hamburgers much?

If you don't have meatloaf much, would you mind making a meatloaf for a big Sunday dinner and let us know what your family thought?

[benhall.1]

We have what we call minced beef, which, from a look at the Wikipedia article, may be slightly different from US ground beef, in that there is no added fat in our minced beef - it's just pure beef, minced.

I have never made a meatloaf in my life. We use minced beef to make (I've probably missed some) bolognese sauce, cottage pie, beef and onion filling for things like stuffed marrow and, rarely, for beefburgers. But I would guess that hardly anybody in the UK makes their own beefburgers. I can't remember the last time I did, but it must be at least 10 years ago. I don't even know where the burger press is.