Day Three: Kromeskies

Hold your hats. You guys are in for a treat. This is more of an appetizer kind of deal than a weeknight dinner but when I saw them, I had to put them on the list for the Good Housekeeping's Cooking Compendium Challenge. There is no way I could describe what exactly a kromesky is apart from "a very thick roux of butter, flour and stock, mixed with cooked minced meat. Which is then wrapped in bacon. Battered. And fried". Sounds super healthy, right?

Google again came up with the origins of the kromesky. It has Polish origins with the name coming from a Russian derivative of the word "kromochka" meaning, loosely, a slice of bread. There is no bread in a kromesky. Just discomfort. Part of me wonders how they managed to make it into the GHCC.

Taste?
For all intents and purposes, good. Instant regret after eating three of them though. The bacon made them really salty and they were greasy. Would make good hangover fodder as they cover a number of the things you want in hangover food (grease, bacon, carbohydrates).

Difficulty?
There are a lot of component parts in this, making a roux, adding cooked mince, wrapping in bacon, making a simple batter. It wasn't hugely time intensive but just a bit fiddly. The GHCC doesn't tell you how many this recipe makes. We went for six.

Make again?
It needs work. I think cocktail sticks to hold them together would have helped. Also, a thicker batter might been better.

Learn anything new?
If you make a roux with 1oz of flour, 1 oz of margarine and 1/4 of a pint of stock, the cooled roux has the consistency of gak. Remember gak? My sister once threw a blob of it onto our bedroom ceiling. We got most of it down...

Alterations?
Not a single one. Kromeskies in GHCC are spelt "Kromskies". Maybe the mince was an issue again though, see Day One.

Score (out of 10)
I'm going to go with between a 5 and a 4 depending on levels of discomfort. My thought process fluctuated - "They're good, but so greasy, but nice, but so unhealthy, but bacon, but greasy." Jim thanked me for serving vegetables with them. I feel like we're going downhill on the scoring so far this week.

Once this recipe is perfected though, I think Kromeskies will be the next food fad. I liked Kromeskies before they were cool *readjusts hipster glasses*.

You can read all about The Good Housekeeping's Cooking Compendium Challenge and the past two days of meals here.