I’m getting married later this year, and my fiancée and I have already registered in at least one place. Can you guess what the first item I picked was? That’s right a waffle iron. It turned out to be a premature choice though, because to my surprise, I got my first waffle iron for Christmas. My fiancée put in a good word for me with the rest of the family saying, “Paul really wants a waffle iron.“ I love it; I’ve already used it quite a lot since Christmas.

I followed the recipe printed in the manual on the inaugural run. The more times I used it, the bolder I got. I made substitutions and even added other ingredients like swapping milk for buttermilk or oil for butter. I altered the amount of flour and even tried using pasteurized egg white; I’ll never do that again. Pasteurized egg whites just don’t fluff up the way non-pasteurized egg whites do.

I hit pay dirt recently with my family. My latest experimental batter came out really well. So here it is, “Pauly’s Long Awaited Waffle Iron Waffle Batter!”

Waffle Batter

Ingredients:

2 cups of all-purpose flour

French food has several fundamentals, such as the mire poix, the bouquet garni or herb satchel and chicken stock.

The Fundamentals

A mire poix is 3 parts onion, 2 parts celery and one part carrot. You’ll find this in most French dishes with the exception of fish and a few other recipes.

The bouquet garni is a collection of herbs sometimes put into a cheesecloth. The typical ingredients are: Bay leaf, pepper corns, thyme and parsley stems.

The chicken stock: Never throw away your bones and vegetable trimmings again! This is a useful way of using parts you might ordinarily toss. Another thing is, with this fundamental ingredient, you get to use two other fundamental ingredients, yes the mire poix and the bouquet garni. Don’t add the liver, put that aside for a pate or something, livers are even good sautéed in butter. Check out the recipe below.

Chicken Stock