The Cooking Thread
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
I grew up with a sort of German immigrant version of this. Ours was garden ripened tomatoes, onion and cucumber marinated in apple cider vinegar and salt and pepper. She did full strength vinegar, but the modern recipes I see call for it diluted with water 1:1-1:4. The longer you let it sit the more sour flavor the tomatoes will take on. I have always loved it the next day when the tomatoes were basically vinegar in tomato form, but to each their own.
Must be German, it sounds barbaric.
Seriously though: while I like pickled things, the best thing of a garden ripened tomato is that it has way more delicate sweetness than your store bought tomatoes (simply because they could never have transported a fully ripe tomato without it going off by the time you bring it home). Adding vinegar to these ripe tomatoes seems a bit of a waste to me as you might as well have used any other tomato and just balanced the acidity of the vinegar with some table sugar, which would work here due to to the time it's resting (in a fresh dish it would never have the time to spread).
The idea doesn't sound bad, it's just the choice of ingredients that I'm lamenting; a bit like how using a $30 dollar a bottle of wine for cooking "coq au vin" is a waste of good wine when a cheaper wine would have done the job. For example, I'm still a bit mad with my mum for wasting a good bottle of wine on this dish when 'it was the first one she could find' when I actually got such a bottle of wine as a gift.
That said, handling ripe tomatoes takes some getting used to, they need to be processed or eaten as quickly as possible. I read that lots of Italians have a family history of having a few canning days where they process a couple of hundreds of pounds of tomatoes over a weekend, diligently waiting until they ripened to a particular sugar-level like a winegrower would do.
My personal favorite is making a batch of "tomate frito" though, a "fried tomato" recipe from Spain, where you caramelize the sugar and concentrate the flavor:
- Start with 1 kilogram of tomatoes. Remove the stem, and make sure they're halved or that the peel is otherwise carved up a bit (more on that later).
- Peel a piece of garlic or two, chop it coarsely.
- Measure a teaspoon of dried oregano.
- Put 8 tablespoons of good olive oil in a wok or pan.
- Heat the oil until it releases just the tiniest whiff of smoke.
- Throw in the tomatoes and take a step back - things will splatter, this recipe is less effort if you use an easily cleaned stove top like an induction cooker.
- Once you can get closer you toss in the garlic and oregano.
- Keep stirring and cooking on high heat for 5-8 minutes while continuously scraping the inside of the pan clean.
- At some point the sauce will be shine, velvety and thick. Take it off the heat.
As I said at the start there are still peels and seeds in this sauce (as well as some bits of coarse garlic). I generally can't be bothered with heating the tomatoes in water to peel them, so what I do is to cook the sauce and then put the cooked result in a metal mesh sieve a little bit at a time.
If you've got a tamis then you can just scrape the sieve so that the tomato puree goes through, if you got a bowl-shaped sieve like me then you need to stir and press the sauce with a ladle until the sieve only contains seeds and curled-up peels. The garlic tends to be so soft now that most of it will simply be grated through the mesh.
You could of course also blend the cooked sauce, but I consider that heresy: the seeds and peels are never going to be entirely cut up and they give off a flavor that ruins the sauce for me. Another mechanized way would be to use a tomato press / mill like the Italians use except that I don't have one and so can't say if it works with this cooked sauce.
In any case you're left with a strong tomato-flavored sauce that is just the best for pizza toppings due to its lower moisture content.
I've tried preserving ready-to-serve portions of it in the freezer in the form of ice cubes, but because of the high fat content they tend to clump together a bit. I guess I need to find some kind of tiny jam or mason jars and try conserving it that way.
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@JBert said in The Cooking Thread:
I guess I need to find some kind of tiny jam or mason jars and try conserving it that way.
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@boomzilla Well, unless you're .
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@boomzilla Actually, you should place the spaghetti in hot water, not hot oil.
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@boomzilla My mum always said she didn't need a dishwasher because she already had four.
Unrelatedly, a few years after my brother was the last to leave the nest they replaced their kitchen. Any accusations that a dishwasher was included only because they now had to do the dishes themselves were vehemently denied.
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@boomzilla I am in this post, and I do not like it.
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@Polygeekery 17, though some of those I'll eat when in a dish but I wouldn't put them in.
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@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
@Polygeekery 17, though some of those I'll eat when in a dish but I wouldn't put them in.
11, though that includes some things I can no longer eat - but want to. Diabetes and fruit are a bad combo...
edit: Oranges, apples, grapes, tofu, watermelon, pineapple, strawberries, bananas, grapefruit, raisins, snails
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@dcon and @boomzilla, my score is zero.
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@Polygeekery sucker
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@dcon said in The Cooking Thread:
though that includes some things I can no longer eat - but want to. Diabetes and fruit are a bad combo...
Likewise. I don't have diabetes, but I'm on a diet that is, I've been told, even more sugar-restricted than people who do have it. Score: 28. Some I don't like; some I can't eat because sugar or gluten. I could eat any of the fruit in small quantities, but don't, because I eat other fruit, instead; I generally have a banana for breakfast, and that's all my fruit for the day.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@dcon and @boomzilla, my score is zero.
If I didn't have externally imposed restrictions, my score would be about 7-ish, although a few more would be very rarely, and not really of my own choosing; i.e., I wouldn't turn down something that contained them, although I wouldn't really choose to include them.
And if I picked things I've never eaten in the past, I think my score would be 1, maybe 2. I've probably had liver at some point in my life, so that leaves raw fish.
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My score was 12. All but 3 (coffee, tea, olives) were milk products to which I'm allergic. Coffee and tea are religious restrictions (among just hating the smell and not having any effect from caffeine). Olives are the only one I won't eat on principle. And that's more "ewww" than
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Only 3 for me: Tofu (texture more than taste), raw fish and coconut.
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- Brussel sprouts, blue cheese, peanut butter, celery, cauliflower, raisins.
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- Brussel sprouts
I think Brussels should be razed to the ground to put an end to this culinary horror.
Some things on the list I wouldn't choose to eat, but if they are in a dish, no problem.
(peanut butter, tofu, nutella, raisins)
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What do so many of you have against peanut butter? I love the stuff. I can and have eaten it with a spoon.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
What do so many of you have against peanut butter? I love the stuff. I can and have eaten it with a spoon.
I'm not sure if this is true, but around here peanut butter is viewed as US gimmick. It's not popular by any means - you may find a single jar in bigger stores, but not in smaller ones.
I see no reason to eat it, it tastes like clay. Maybe you need to start eating it as a child to like it?
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@MrL I wonder if peanut butter is very different in Euroweenieland? I saw BigClive with "American style" hot dogs once and they came in a can and looked like dog food. Then he cooked them with one of those 1970's contraptions that basically used them as a resistor in an electrical circuit and I thought I would be sick.
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@Dragoon said in The Cooking Thread:
coconut
This one might be a half a point for me. I love the flavor of it (Thai coconut soup, anything with coconut milk in it, etc.) but I hate the texture. The texture is what I imagine eating sawdust would be like.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@MrL I wonder if peanut butter is very different in Euroweenieland? I saw BigClive with "American style" hot dogs once and they came in a can and looked like dog food. Then he cooked them with one of those 1970's contraptions that basically used them as a resistor in an electrical circuit and I thought I would be sick.
No idea. But it got me curious, maybe I'll look for some imported peanut butter to see if it's any better.
And hot dogs? Hmm. We have sausage that looks like a hot dog, but noone calls it that (it's 'parówka') - it's rather tasty. 'Hot dog' is a name used for trash food made from cardboard (sold on gas stations).
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@MrL there was this Polish (I think, iirc) gas station chain when I was in Lithuania that actually did pretty good "hot dog" replacements. Had a bun thing that got toasted and you shoved the sausage down from one end, which I thought was a neat idea.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in The Cooking Thread:
@MrL there was this Polish (I think, iirc) gas station chain when I was in Lithuania that actually did pretty good "hot dog" replacements. Had a bun thing that got toasted and you shoved the sausage down from one end, which I thought was a neat idea.
Yeah, you can get those on pretty much every gas station and in some stores. You get heartburn from eating them if you are not used to such food.
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@MrL here's the BigClive video I mentioned:
Turbo charging a 120V Presto hot dogger on 250V. – 10:06
— bigclivedotcom
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@Benjamin-Hall said in The Cooking Thread:
Had a bun thing that got toasted and you shoved the sausage down from one end, which I thought was a neat idea.
Ever have a "bagel dog"? Hot dog wrapped in a bagel and then baked.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@MrL here's the BigClive video I mentioned:
Turbo charging a 120V Presto hot dogger on 250V. – 10:06
— bigclivedotcomThat's hilarious. I want that cooker so I can horrify my guests.
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@MrL said in The Cooking Thread:
'Hot dog' is a name used for trash food made from
cardboardpink gooHot dogs are a sausage you especially don't want to see being made.
Pureed meat byproduct scraps (not to be confused with pink slime, which is a ground beef additive).
The trace their origin to, depending on which source you believe, Frankfurt in the late 1400s (hence the name frankfurters), Vienna (hence the name wieners), or Coburg in the 1600s. They arrived in the US with two German immigrants in the 1850s. The sausages they sold may have been the Coburg variety; at least they used the Coburg-ish name "dachshund sausages" for them.
Since then, every maker uses their own recipes for meat (pork, beef, and/or poultry) and seasonings, and flavor can vary widely. Their production is also highly industrialized; the machines that form the links can make ~350 meters of hot dogs per minute.
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@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
Hot dogs are a sausage you especially don't want to see being made.
Pureed meat byproduct scraps (not to be confused with pink slime, which is a ground beef additive).
In the construction world we used to use a pipe lube that was absolutely disgusting. Soap would barely touch it. It was made of everything that you couldn't make hot dogs with, which only leaves the most horrifying parts of the animal.
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@MrL said in The Cooking Thread:
That's hilarious. I want that cooker so I can horrify my guests.
I just checked and they're on eBay here for $30-$40 shipped. I'm thinking about it. I remember we had one when I was a kid and too young to understand how it worked. You could turn it on without a hot dog (resistor) in it and it stayed cool, but put a hot dog (resistor) in it and it would heat them up. To my, probably 5 year old, brain it might as well have been magic.
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@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
The trace their origin to, depending on which source you believe, Frankfurt in the late 1400s (hence the name frankfurters), Vienna (hence the name wieners), or Coburg in the 1600s.
I suspect it's more a matter of "same thing invented in different places" (and "true origin cannot be traced as it's all derived from some sort of even older recipe") than "there is one True Origin and the others are copies."
In France we mostly have "Frankfurt's sausage" and "Strasbourg's sausage" (literal translations), which are basically two slightly different kinds of hot dogs. The most obvious difference is the colour of the skin (more red for Strasbourg's, dull brown (kind of like the sludge in your picture) or slightly yellow for Frankfurt's), though there is also a slight difference in taste (I think Frankfurt's are slightly spicier).
I never looked into how they're made, but just the texture doesn't hint to something you want to know...
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@MrL said in The Cooking Thread:
That's hilarious. I want that cooker so I can horrify my guests.
I just checked and they're on eBay here for $30-$40 shipped. I'm thinking about it.
Come on, that's not enough. Build it yourself, and find a way to make it even more unsafe that the real thing!
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@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
And if I picked things I've never eaten in the past, I think my score would be 1, maybe 2. I've probably had liver at some point in my life, so that leaves raw fish.
Oh, yeah, there's a bunch of stuff that I included that I have eaten at some point. The only thing on there I've never eaten is snails.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
What do so many of you have against peanut butter? I love the stuff. I can and have eaten it with a spoon.
The other crazy thing is how many people hate chunky peanut butter. Soooo much better than the smooth stuff. Gimme some peanuts!
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Speaking of peanut butter, I had a weird experience recently (no, not a one).
I was making a peanut butter pasta sauce, which I do regularly. Crushed garlic, ginger and chillies, mix with peanut butter, soy sauce and lemon juice. Tweak the balance towards any of those flavours by adding more of it (which means you end up with more and more sauce, which is a good thing overall ). Mix with pasta, serve with various greens (fresh spinach works well, or grated carrots/courgettes/etc. mixed for a couple of minutes in the pasta's cooking water, for easy cooking).
I usually prefer to use chunky peanut butter but this time I used whatever was available, which was a smooth one, and it happened to be extremely soft, more like a liquid than a paste.
But as I added all other ingredients the weird thing happened, which is that the more I worked it, the harder it became. I'm guessing this was a reaction with probably the lemon juice, but I never had that happening before. Usually the texture of the peanut butter stays the same, or becomes softer as more liquid is added, but never the other way round.
So yeah, that was weird. Still very enjoyable, but weird.
Filed under: obvious is obvious.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in The Cooking Thread:
milk products to which I'm allergic
I'm also lactose intolerant, but I react mostly to liquid/semi-liquid foods like milk, cream, and soft cheese. The main symptoms are in my throat, not in my bowels.
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@Zerosquare said in The Cooking Thread:
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@MrL said in The Cooking Thread:
That's hilarious. I want that cooker so I can horrify my guests.
I just checked and they're on eBay here for $30-$40 shipped. I'm thinking about it.
Come on, that's not enough. Build it yourself, and find a way to make it even more unsafe that the real thing!
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@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
The other crazy thing is how many people hate chunky peanut butter. Soooo much better than the smooth stuff. Gimme some peanuts!
I'm the only person in my house that likes chunky peanut butter. I prefer extra chunky when I can find it, but it takes some pretty sturdy bread to make a sandwich with it and not get smashed completely flat.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
The other crazy thing is how many people hate chunky peanut butter. Soooo much better than the smooth stuff. Gimme some peanuts!
I'm the only person in my house that likes chunky peanut butter. I prefer extra chunky when I can find it, but it takes some pretty sturdy bread to make a sandwich with it and not get smashed completely flat.
Get you some mustard on that, and you got yourself a sandwich.
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@Polygeekery
It causes me to rapidly expel all of my recently consumed food in the reverse direction.Not due to a peanut allergy (though one of my cousins has a very-severe-call-the-ambulance-if-smelled allergy to peanuts) either. According to my mom... when I was a wee child, I got some peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth and choked pretty severely. So her theory is that's made me psychologically "allergic" to it.
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@izzion it's the same with one of my brothers and yogurt, though there isn't any recorded accident that might have caused it. He just finds the texture absolutely disgusting.
Once at the school canteen (probably in primary school?), the dinner ladies forced him to eat some because, you know, "you have to taste everything" and similar (plus probably "who has ever seen a kid who can't eat yogurt, he must be faking it"). After some pressuring, he finally caved in and ate one spoonful.
When my mom tells that story, she just ends with "suffice to say, they never tried that again."
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@Zerosquare said in The Cooking Thread:
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@MrL said in The Cooking Thread:
That's hilarious. I want that cooker so I can horrify my guests.
I just checked and they're on eBay here for $30-$40 shipped. I'm thinking about it.
Come on, that's not enough. Build it yourself, and find a way to make it even more unsafe that the real thing!
A bun?