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When Does Dinner Become A Disaster?
Last night we had friends over for dinner. It was our second attempt at this, the first time it was cancelled due to a snow storm.
My husband worked all Friday night on baking a cake, then Saturday morning he made frosting for it (both by scratch). He likes to think of the dessert first, but for the main course he was serving parmasean and sage crusted pork chops, with sauteed green beans, and twice cooked french fries that he saw in Bon Appetite. I mean, just look at those fries, you know you want some too! He sliced the potatos and then blanched them. By the time our guests arrived the fries had been laying on cookies sheets lined with paper towels for about an hour. I figured they were dry enough to cook.
I poured the vegetable oil in an 8 qt. stock pot, only filling it about 1/3 of the way because I didn’t want the oil to splatter. I’m psychotic about splatter. I even have this special anti-splatter pan/pot cover that I got from Williams Sonoma — it works great! Usually I can’t even wait for the stovetop to cool down, I have this dying urge to CLEAN THE SPLATTER NOW.
My husband gets out a his new candy thermometer, which he bought just for tonight, hooks it on the side of the pot and notes that the oil is about 1″ below the tip of the thermometer. If we want to measure the temp of the oil, we need to put more in. I know the oil is going to freaking splatter all over the damn place, ALL over my precious griddle-in-the-middle, but what else can I do? I pour the rest of the jug of oil in there, turn up the heat, and wait for it to measure 350 degrees F.
In the meantime, my husband starts the pork chops. It’s finally time to put fries in the oil, so I take a handful of cut potatos, put them in a stainless steel strainer, and lower the strainer into the pot. AND THEN THE FREAKING OIL BUBBLES OVER THE TOP OF THE STOCK POT!!!! It was a like a gush of boiling oil that just wouldn’t stop! My husband quickly shut off all the burners. The entire stove top was drenched in about a half an inch of hot oil (I’d have preferred splatter). The pork chops were in the oven, and I was seriously concerned that the oil would drip into the oven somehow and my griddle-in-the-middle would explode — probaby start my house on fire too. I wanted to shut off the oven. I really did. But my husband and his friend determined that everything was okay.
So, let’s take inventory of what we have to serve our guests for dinner shall we? Pork chops, french bread, wine, and a bundt cake. I couldn’t cook the green beans due the fact that I couldn’t turn on any of the burners, so I pulled out some frozen corn and put it in the microwave. My husband grabbed a can of black olives and poured them into a dish. Well, at least we had wine, right?
During dinner I tried not to think about the hot oil on my stovetop, thankfully my husband cleaned it up the second it was cool enough to handle. What a freaking mess.
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4 Responses to “When Does Dinner Become A Disaster?”
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I HATE OIL SPATTERS! I have one of those lid things too, that’s supposed to catch the oil, but it definately is not Williams Sonoma because it still leaves a freakin’ mess on my stove. LOL I can totally relate to your post. I also am one who will grab windex and a paper towel and try to clean the hot stove top in the midst of cooking because I hate to see oil, or sauce, or what ever other dots there are.
OMG!! Thank goodness nothing more serious happened with the hot oil all over the stove!
Hey, I need more info on the ‘griddle in the middle’ thing. I’ve been looking for something like that!
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