When I Ruined the Roast Beef
“Does this taste a little, um… perfumy to you?”
Two things you should know before I go any further. First, my super duper Mr. Incredible never ever complains about my cooking. He is the best! Next, there is usually nothing to complain about, my cooking is normally pretty reliable. Except for that one time, when I ruined the roast beef.
When I Ruined the Roast Beef
While quietly and peacefully enjoying our supper, the first I had cooked myself in about 3 months on account of having a baby and all, Mr. Incredible summed up in that one sentence exactly what I was feeling about out supper. A super easy roast beef supper with mashed potatoes, carrots and gravy was on the menu that day, and usually I cook a pretty mean roast. You cannot have a roast beef supper without gravy. It’s illegal.
As those words entered the atmosphere, I met them with a series of different emotions, and it all happened so fast.
Validation
Yes. That is exactly it. It DOES taste perfumy. At first I thought flowery, like the roast should have little flower petals strewn about and looking oh so pretty, but then maybe it’s just my imagination. Maybe this is what roast beef tastes like, I just haven’t made it in so long. Also, maybe it’s hormones. What is one more crazy thing for your body to cook up due to pregnancy. No, flowery is not the right word… but yes! This does taste perfumy.
Wonder
What on earth is going on? So it’s clearly not the pregnancy / new mother hormones at work here if Mr. Incredible notices that the roast beef supper is not quite right. Yet, it tastes good – not off. Just, well, perfumy. I wonder what happened. What could I have possibly done?
Confirmation
I braised the roast, check. Yes, I added the usual spices, check. I did use the powder from the container marked beef bouillon, yes. Ok ok, good so far. Potatoes are fine, carrots are fine, I got the flour for the gravy, oh wait a minute. I wasn’t going to make gravy. But you have to have gravy with roast beef, it’s breaking some sort of food laws and will throw all of the planets out of culinary allingment if you don’t have gravy with roast beef, so I got the flour for the gravy, and…
Horror
Oh. No. Did I do that? Oh my dear gawd, I did so do that! What on earth was I thinking?
Um, yeah. It does taste perfumy. Cause it’s made with soap. Dish soap. Lots of dish soap. See, I wasn’t going to make gravy, so I already put the pot in the sink and added the soap… but then I changed my mind.”
But… but… twice I experienced this with different beef and different time of cooking it. Both times it was just simmer in water and cooked as beef broth. When I ate the beef, some tasted just as you described, flowery, soapy, perfumy. Now that you said it, I cannot rule out the fact that there could be a small trace of dish soap not washed away. However, that’s just unimaginable!!! I rinsed and rinsed. The only other chance would be my cutting board still had a trace of the dish soap. But thanks to you, the only search result is your page. I will try again and make sure all of my utensils are free of dish soaps.