San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
A stay-at-home mealtime question: Will it waffle?
The top of the waffle iron rises and yields four green globules topped by brown crusty crosses. Visually, this experiment is unpleasant, like some long-forgotten fragment of food found when cleaning beneath the stove.
But waffled Castelvetrano olives stuffed with white cheddar cheese curds prove a revelation: The heat opens the flavor of the olives, and their tender texture and briny zing complement the salty crispness of the cheese.
The query: Will it waffle? The answer: Yes. Yes, it will waffle.
Entertainment while quarantined takes many forms. Ours has taken the honeycomb-dappled shape of a waffle maker. Fourteen years after Tom Dickson drew notice with his Blendtec by asking “Will it blend?” my wife dragged out our All Clad Classic Round Waffle Maker.
One morning in March, I walked into the kitchen to find pound cake resting on the waffle and my wife grinning. “I’m waffling the pound cake,” she said.
A week later, she waffled two pieces of pound cake with cookie dough spread between them. Also banana bread.
A week after that, our grocery pickup included a bag of frozen tater tots. “Tot waffles,” she said.
I have to admit they’re quite good: The waffle iron lends them a perfect crispness on the outside and just the right amount of doneness inside. They’re no longer tater tots but rather hash brown crisps. Because, yes: They will waffle.
A few words of advice when waffling tots:
1. Place the frozen tots on the surface of the waffle iron to confirm quantity.
2. Shuffle those tots to a plate and zap them on defrost in the microwave for 3-5 minutes.
3. Return tots to the waffler.
4. Be patient.
5. Eat them.
Turns out this process isn’t new. After two months of waffling, we learned that Daniel Shumski — author of “How to Instant Pot” — in 2014 published
“Will It Waffle?” His experimentation sprang from curiosity rather than boredom. It yielded 53 recipes, from sandwiches to desserts. He’s an advocate of waffling bacon.
Our waffle iron has served as a panini press as well, waffling all manner of bread-encased items into dimpled four-piece warm sandwiches. My favorite was leftover pork tenderloin with asiago cheese and chimichurri.
Some foods, though, prove too great a challenge. Leftover turkey meatloaf was good, not great, with only the indentations brown and crispy. And the grease was a chore to clean.
Waffle tip: An old toothbrush deftly slips between the indentations to clean the gooier residue.
My wife waffled eggplant for an eggplant Parmesan. Sliced thinly, the eggplant acquired a nice crispness, and the final dish was perfect. But waffling four eggplant discs at a time was maddeningly slow. Yes, it will waffle, but at what cost? At what cost?
Gnocchi wasn’t agreeable on the waffle iron. Admittedly, gnocchi is really only as good as the sauce applied to it, so a gnocchi straight off the waffler is going to be fairly tasteless. But waffled, the gnocchi was robbed of its charming pillowy texture. It left the waffle iron resembling an unsalted, orb-shaped potato chip. Cheetos will not waffle.
What becomes of the waffler when days are no longer void of a work commute and taking the kid to school? I can’t imagine the amount of waffle-iron usage will be sustained. That said, I could see cheese-stuffed olives making an appearance at Thanksgiving.
And I cannot overstate the rich contrast in texture when my wife waffled two triple chocolate almond butter cookies and used them for an ice cream sandwich.
So, yes, to some degree, we will continue to waffle.