Tuesday 30 March 2010

Failure to Fantastic

Failure is not always a bad thing, some great inventions have come from failures - in the kitchen and in life.

Van Gogh sold only one painting in his entire lifetime. I guess he was a failure, or perhaps just misunderstood. Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame had his chicken recipe rejected 1,009 times before a restaurant accepted it.  Persistence? Definitely. Tradition says that the Tarte Tatin was first created by accident at the Hotel Tatin. 

There is a saying that "success is no accident" - this was obviously coined by someone who had never cooked before - and certainly never in my kitchen. I am more of a "necessity is the mother of invention" type cook.

On the weekend I tried to make these . Unfortunately, my potatoes are not as well behaved and I soon realised that they were not going to stay stuck together while I fried them. So, a back up plan had to come into place.



I simply placed a little Willow Creek Chilli Olive Pesto  (courtesy of Willow Creek in our goodie bags from the SA Food Bloggers Conference) on each potato slice and deep fried them olive side up until golden brown and then turned them gently and fried the the other side for another minute. Once done I drained them on kitchen paper.

They came out really good, and I will definitely make them again as a quick snack.


It is better to have enough ideas 
for some of them to be wrong, 
than to be always right 
by having no ideas at all.
Edward de Bono

6 comments:

Nina Timm said...

D_I _V_I_N_E!!!!!

SavoringTime in the Kitchen said...

I'm sure they still tasted wonderful! Some of mine opened up on the edges too. I tried to pat the potato slices dry as best I could with paper toweling first and maybe that helped them stick together.

I didn't know that about Colonel Sanders and I love that quote!

Adele @ WillworkforBiltong said...

Nobody will ever believe that this wasn't Plan A. They look delicious!

Kasha said...

Chili pesto! What a fantastic idea and a great lesson learned. I wish I could turn my failures into such masterpieces.

Homemade Heaven said...

Nina - Markwin loved them, I had to fight the plate away from him.

Susan - Thanks for the tip, I am going to try it again, really want to get it right at least once.

Adele - They were really good, the olives went crunchie, so it was very pleasing "mistake"

Kasha - When you have enough failures you have to go with the flow! The Chili pesto is very good.

Jeanne @ Cooksister! said...

Fried potatoes and olives - how can you go wrong with a combination like that?!

Jeremiah 17: 7-8

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water."

It is not your business to succeed, but to do what is right : when you have done so, the rest lies with God.
C.S. Lewis

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