'Messing about' with food?

[jon1968]

If you have great produce should you mess about with it or should it be left alone? The two that spring to mind for me are a good steak (just threaten it with a match) and Smoked salmon (cottage cheese? Why??!)
I can understand that some average quality produce needs to be 'enhanced' with certain things flavour wise but seeing a great steak covered in sauce of any kind is almost criminal in my book!

Sorry, just realised I was ranting a bit there!
Anyhow, what should be left alone?

[paddy_36]

Everything!!! I hate things smothered in sauces. I eat everything on my plate separately! jon1968, your example of steak is something that really annoys me as well! Leave it alone! Pasta is another one. What's the point in putting sauce on it? You can't taste it then - it could be anything with sauce on! I also don't understand people who have salt in/on everything.

Oh dear, I sound like a nutter...good post though, jon! I thought it was just me!

[Pippa68]

I agree with all points made except the pasta ~ I have to have a carbonara sauce on mine..or a nice tomato & clam tagliatelle :o)

My hubby always sprinkles salt on his food which annoys the hell out of me ~ especially as he doesn't taste it first! I also prefer poached or baked salmon left WELL alone, thank you very much.

However, I have to admit that besides the pasta I do have to have something on a baked potato. Otherwise it is just dry.

[Eels]

To my mind, a light pepper sauce is lovely with steak - but what drives me insane is when you order it and the chef has had the audacity to put the sauce all over the steak before it reaches your table!

Venison steak is different ... that absolutely mustn't be sullied by anything, ever!

[mindimplode]

paddy_36 - Why would you just eat pasta on its own? The whole point of (most) pasta is to bring texture to sauce based dishes - imagine lasagne with no pasta. Almost all Italian cooking would just be slop in a bowl. Pasta is a way of bulking out a dish.

[gessoo]

Plain Pasta is surely just the equivalent of pastry, forming the base for a good sauce. Eating it without sauce is like eating a meat pie without the meat. However, if you like it that way, who's complaining.

[paddy_36]

Sorry, wasn't talking about lasagne or spag bol or anything like that. I take the point about a little bit of sauce; I was meaning more when, say, a bowl of pasta is drowning in sauce of some kind. I do like my food quite plain though, and I like sauces separate, not slopped over the top of everything! Not sure I agree with the pastry analogy though.

[espookid]

Back to the original piont - try putting a poached egg on smoked salmon with beurre blance sauce on a piece of toast . then tell me you don't like it