creightond wrote:one of my least favorite things about modern, 'creative' cookery is the tendency of chefs to put way too many ingredients in. it is not uncommon for a menu to list 10 or so. can the experts here come up with the classic dish with the MOST ingredients? - as kind of a benchmark for contemporary chefs to shoot for. ingredients which themselves have ingredients - stock for instance - still count as only one ingredient. i guess i am most interested in the european tradition; but input about other cuisines would also be interesting. thanks for you help.
First, I'm a hobby cook with nowhere near the experience(s) of the majority of folks on this forum. Second, this to me seems to be a really hard question because of (to me) the difficulty in defining terms. What's the standard?
How about bouillabaise? Here's a recipe with 23 ingredients, if you include water, salt and pepper and firm fish as a group and oily fish as a group. But, it calls for 4 firm and 2 oily, so does that bump it up to 27? Is this considered the classic recipe? If it's the classic and you only use 2 firm fish (or omit any other ingredient, as that goes), does that diminish the dish to the point of pedestrian v. classic?
I don't mean to sound, I don't know... confrontational, maybe. But this is one of the first things that came to mind when I read your original post.
8 to 10 pounds firm white-fleshed fish (choose 4 from this group): redfish (ocean perch), red snapper, blue-mouth, rockfish, sea robin (gurnard), monkfish, cod, porgy (scup), grouper, halibut, haddock, dab, turbot, wreckfish, ocean pout (ling), cusk, wolffish (ocean catfish), tautog (blackfish), tilefish, sculpin
4 to 5 pounds "oily" fish (choose 2 from this group): bluefish, moray eel, conger eel, mackerel, shark, dogfish, striped bass, sea bass, kingfish, Spanish mackerel, mahimahi (dolphinfish)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium-size onions, sliced
8 cups cold water
2 bouquet garni, each consisting of 4 sprigs fresh parsley, 6 sprigs fresh thyme, 10 black peppercorns, and 1 bay leaf, tied in cheesecloth
1 cup dry white wine, such as Muscadet, Sancerre, or Cassis (the wine, not the blackberry liqueur)
1 1/2 cups extra virgin olive oil
6 to 8 large garlic cloves, to your taste, finely chopped
Pinch of saffron threads, crumbled and steeped in 1/ 4 cup hot water until needed
2 large onions, finely chopped
3 leeks, white and light green part only, halved lengthwise, well washed, and thinly sliced
3 stalks celery, finely chopped
2 pounds ripe plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 long thin strip orange zest, with no pith
1 tablespoon fennel seed
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads steeped in 1/4 cup tepid dry white wine until needed
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Boiling water as needed
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons anise liquor such as Pernod or Ouzo
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley leave
1 recipe sauce rouille