The Cooking Thread
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I made a nice dish last night, loosely based on a recipe I saw for Louisiana dirty rice.
Chop a green pepper and some string beans and fry on low in a large, deep frying pan or a wok. I would have put an onion in here if I had one but it worked fine without. Add some garlic after a couple of minutes, then increase the heat and brown off half a pound of minced beef. Add ginger, paprika, oregano and coriander, and a chicken stock cube dissolved in a little boiling water. Then dump in some cooked rice and sweetcorn, stir for 2 minutes and decrease the heat again. Hollow out two wells and crack an egg into each before covering to cook the eggs through.
Quick and easy, and really tasty. This was one of my "improvise a meal out 9f what I can find in the cupboards" specials
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@benjamin-hall said in The Cooking Thread:
What can I add that's both easy and tasty?
It probably won't hurt to get some onion and garlic involved (provided you're not allergic to them, of course). Another possibility is to add a bit of a stock cube to the water, which adds plenty of umami and salt to the rice, and switching the curry powder out for herbs and spices you select can help quite a bit.
Be aware that building a proper spice cupboard is quite an investment of time and possibly money (depending on what sort of suppliers you've got) but it allows you to make so much nicer food. Also, you probably want to profile your cupboard for no more than 2 or 3 cuisines; spices don't stay fresh forever even with well-sealed jars.
A final possibility is to change the type of rice used. Tired of long grain rice (which I'll bet is your standard variety) and already going towards a south asian flavour profile? Try basmati rice instead. It's quite different.
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@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
A final possibility is to change the type of rice used. Tired of long grain rice (which I'll bet is your standard variety) and already going towards a south asian flavour profile? Try basmati rice instead. It's quite different.
My favorite is medium grain rice.
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@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
add a bit of a stock cube to the water,
Am I the only person who always has real, actual broth on hand at all times?
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@polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
Am I the only person who always has real, actual broth on hand at all times?
No.
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@polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
Am I the only person who always has real, actual broth on hand at all times?
That you made or that you bought at the store?
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Chicken breast medallions (sous vide) in stir fried baby bok choy and Bell peppers with garlic-ginger-soy-honey sauce. All from scratch.
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@polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
Am I the only person who always has real, actual broth on hand at all times?
We keep that for actual soup.
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Made a cheesy egg bake last night:
About 2 or 3 cups of cubed bread
A few shakes of an Italian spice mix
8 eggs, scrambled with about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of milk
A light layer of shredded cheese;
A pound of pork sausage chunks, browned;
A layer of potato slices: 3 medium sized potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/4 inch slices, then fried in the remaining sausage grease plus some bacon fat until they were mostly cooked and just beginning to turn golden
Finally, a generous layer of shredded cheese on top.
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@polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
add a bit of a stock cube to the water,
Am I the only person who always has real, actual broth on hand at all times?
I usually have a tetrapack or two of store bought stock.
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@weng said in The Cooking Thread:
@polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
add a bit of a stock cube to the water,
Am I the only person who always has real, actual broth on hand at all times?
I usually have a tetrapack or two of store bought stock.
Does that really count as "real, actual broth"? I mean, is it significantly better than stock cubes?
I make a liberal use of stock cubes, as a basis for further seasoning. I don't rely on them alone, but they help adding a lot of flavour on which to build on...
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@remi said in The Cooking Thread:
@weng said in The Cooking Thread:
@polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
add a bit of a stock cube to the water,
Am I the only person who always has real, actual broth on hand at all times?
I usually have a tetrapack or two of store bought stock.
Does that really count as "real, actual broth"? I mean, is it significantly better than stock cubes?
I make a liberal use of stock cubes, as a basis for further seasoning. I don't rely on them alone, but they help adding a lot of flavour on which to build on...
Probably not, but it's way easier on storage than DIY.
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@remi said in The Cooking Thread:
@weng said in The Cooking Thread:
@polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
add a bit of a stock cube to the water,
Am I the only person who always has real, actual broth on hand at all times?
I usually have a tetrapack or two of store bought stock.
Does that really count as "real, actual broth"? I mean, is it significantly better than stock cubes?
I make a liberal use of stock cubes, as a basis for further seasoning. I don't rely on them alone, but they help adding a lot of flavour on which to build on...
Good home-made > store-bought ~ poor home-made >>> cubes > none.
Get the low-sodium chicken (or vegetable) stock in the tetra-packs and it's about 90% as good as home made. The big difference is in a lack of collagen (so the mouth feel isn't quite the same). Both are light-years above cubes (which are mostly salt).
Beef broth has basically no beef in it and tends to have a strongly off flavor (or so say the professionals). Just use chicken or vegetable stock for those.
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@benjamin-hall said in The Cooking Thread:
Good home-made > store-bought ~ poor home-made >>> cubes > none.
Mmm, I'll have to try. Keeping in mind though that I live in a country where we know what food is supposed to taste like (yeah, cheap
attempt) so this may not hold here.Although I don't think I've ever seen non-cubes stock here. Well, excluding the one you can sometimes get at your local butcher when he cooks some meat, and this is one is definitely way, way, better than any home-made I've ever tasted, but that's really "professionally home-made" more than anything...
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@remi said in The Cooking Thread:
Does that really count as "real, actual broth"? I mean, is it significantly better than stock cubes?
Yes and yes. Stock cubes are to broth what Taster's Choice is to coffee. Stock cubes are also heavy on salt. When you are reducing a sauce you end up concentrating that salt and can easily end up with a sauce that is too salty.
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@polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@remi said in The Cooking Thread:
Does that really count as "real, actual broth"? I mean, is it significantly better than stock cubes?
Yes and yes. Stock cubes are to broth what Taster's Choice is to coffee. Stock cubes are also heavy on salt. When you are reducing a sauce you end up concentrating that salt and can easily end up with a sauce that is too salty.
Yeah. I never use the sodium versions. Low sodium or nothin'.
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@remi said in The Cooking Thread:
I don't think I've ever seen non-cubes stock here
Stock cubes are usually more like broth than stock.
Stock includes bones and has to be simmered long enough to extract gelatin from them; broth simply contains meat and doesn't necessarily need to be simmered for as long. It's likely that your butcher's stock was closer to the real thing (although, for all I know it could be broth too -- prepared properly with fresh ingredients it'd still taste much better than bouillon cubes).
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@anotherusername Stock cubes are more likely industrial food waste packaged in a somewhat tasty way. I don't really think it's fair to describe them as stock or broth... Still, thanks for the details, I didn't know.
My butcher's was a proper stock, he made it once a week and if you came in the morning (well, any time before the afternoon, really) you could see it happily simmering in the back of the shop. Then he sold the boiled meat (for stuff like cottage pies), and gave the stock for free to good clients (like we were). It was so tasty that we usually drank it as a soup rather than waste it in another dish!
Unfortunately he retired some years ago and the one I go to now doesn't do that, which is really a shame...
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Headed to a cookout in a couple of minutes. Somehow, I was made responsible for the veggie burgers.
Eggplant patties (salted to draw out some of the moisture - 15 minutes per side, rinse off the salt, grill these)Top with:
Chickpeas, sauteed in olive oil with cumin and paprika
A fuckpile of tzatziki (this is seriously the most appropriate portable container I have. My vast wartime tupperware reserves are missing.And arugula. Which I apparently forgot to buy. Guess I'll grab that en route.
Probably the most inexpensive veggie burgers I've ever made (not that there's much in that category) if you don't have to do things like buy olive oil and paprika because you somehow don't have olive oil and paprika despite knowing damn well you own olive oil and paprika.
I swear somebody steals shit out of my kitchen.
Also, you need way less tzatziki than this. I made shitloads extra because:
- Walmart only had Yogurt in single serving and "2 fucking pounds" quantities, and I didn't have time to go to a less clownshoes store this morning
- It's a cookout, and tzatziki goes on errthang.
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@weng said in The Cooking Thread:
- It's a cookout, and tzatziki goes on errthang.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kCFVlfmRCY
Filed Under: Though I have to admit that putting it on my boy parts was a mistake
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I tried to roast a whole chicken in a slow cooker. Do not try it, it's shit. No crispy skin, and it smells like boiled chicken rather than the nice roast smell you'd expect
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@jaloopa Don't do anything that requires dry heat in a slow cooker. Slow cookers are for wet heat. Roasting is for ovens.
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@yamikuronue my wife found something online that said it would work, so we gave it a try. Back to stews from tougher cuts of meat methinks, those work really well
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@scholrlea said in The Cooking Thread:
Filed Under: Though I have to admit that putting it on my boy parts was a mistake
True story, a few years ago when I was living with my roommate he was making some very spicy Indian food, then a little later... well, did something that you shouldn't do if you may still have capsaicin oil on your hands. He actually got the oil off by way of immersion in yogurt, which was an interesting choice (and one that brings us simultaneously full circle and into a weird new territory).
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@heterodox I have a similar story I shared in the status thread recently. Main differences are that I was touching someone else's sensitive area and that she alleviated it with the spout of a teapot full of milk
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@heterodox I had pretty much exactly that happen a few months ago (though I didn't use yoghurt to remove it), which is why I thought to add that part.
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@scholrlea said in The Cooking Thread:
@heterodox I had pretty much exactly that happen a few months ago (though I didn't use yoghurt to remove it), which is why I thought to add that part.
I think all of us who've cooked with hot peppers have had similar experiences. I once got the tiniest bit of ghost pepper oil behind a contact lens I was putting on. I don't know if it's possible to go blind from something like that; I don't think it is as capsaicin just stimulates the nerves with the sensation of heat, I believe. But I sure couldn't see out of that eye for the next thirty minutes or so while I was trying to open it, knowing I had to let it tear to remove the oil, and the pain was so bad I very much wanted to die for a bit.
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@weng said in The Cooking Thread:
if you don't have to do things like buy olive oil and paprika because you somehow don't have olive oil and paprika despite knowing damn well you own olive oil and paprika.
I'm kinda meh on olive oil. I don't really like its taste, and it sometimes seems too easy to get too much of it (the taste, I mean).
OTOH, like half my spice cabinet is varieties of chili peppers.
Occasionally I consider what it would be like if the Americas and the rest of the world had never connected. Great for the Americas, fricking terrible for everybody else. No corn, chilies, tomatoes, potatoes, common beans, peanuts, avocado, blueberries, cashews, chocolate, pineapple, tomatillos, squash, maple syrup, vanilla...so many things associated with "old world" food that were really "new world"-exclusive until Columbus.
It's a very depressing alternate history for the rest of the world.
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Hmmn, today's experiment at making refried beans was a qualified success. This means that the 4 lb. bag of dry pinto beans I bought (which I still haven't opened as I already had a pound on hand that I'd forgotten about) was at least potentially a justified purchase. I hope.
I have other things I can do with them anyway, but it helps to have another use for them available.
I do seem to be getting a little better at stretching my budget and planning for the periods when my food account is dry, though I do need to work on not buying everything all at once every month.
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@heterodox said in The Cooking Thread:
@scholrlea said in The Cooking Thread:
@heterodox I had pretty much exactly that happen a few months ago (though I didn't use yoghurt to remove it), which is why I thought to add that part.
I think all of us who've cooked with hot peppers have had similar experiences. I once got the tiniest bit of ghost pepper oil behind a contact lens I was putting on. I don't know if it's possible to go blind from something like that; I don't think it is as capsaicin just stimulates the nerves with the sensation of heat, I believe. But I sure couldn't see out of that eye for the next thirty minutes or so while I was trying to open it, knowing I had to let it tear to remove the oil, and the pain was so bad I very much wanted to die for a bit.
I have taken to wearing nitrile gloves when I have to chop up peppers because of that happening to me too many times. Since capsaicin is an oil, and my hands are typically pretty dry, it tends to soak in to my skin. If I chop up hot peppers without gloved I can run my fingers over my tongue four hours later and taste the capsaicin. Now I keep a box of nitrile gloves in the drawer where I keep the measuring cups and spoons and other prep stuff.
Occasionally I will forget and end up tear gassing myself when I take my contacts out. I have also had that experience several times in my life where the capsaicin oil ended up unexpectedly and unpleasantly lighting up lady bits. Especially as when I was still in construction my hands were dryer than they are now and would really soak up the oil from the peppers. It tends to severely ruin the mood.
I do not blame them one bit.
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@jaloopa said in The Cooking Thread:
@yamikuronue my wife found something online that said it would work, so we gave it a try. Back to stews from tougher cuts of meat methinks, those work really well
Yeah, don't believe what you read online. Trying to cook a whole chicken in a crock pot will end up with rubbery, flabby, tasteless skin. If you cook chicken in a crock pot you can either sear it off in a skillet and then deglaze the pan with stock or something, or you can cook it sans skin.
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Tonight for dinner we had country style ribs smoked on the pellet grill with homemade BBQ sauce, baked potatoes and grilled corn with a side of tomato-cucumber salad. The country style ribs (which are just cuts of pork shoulder that are approximately rib-shaped) and potatoes were smoked and the corn was grilled on the kamado grill. I prepped the ribs with my dry rub and also sprinkled it on the potatoes after a coating of olive oil.
Everything turned out amazing. My father came over today and I always find it a high compliment when everyone just stops talking to eat. When you cook a meal that stops conversation you are doing it right.
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Eggplantburger was... Well. The eggplant was merely physically present protein. A complete nonentity next to the chickpeas and the tzatziki.
The same construction with a beef patty was infinitely superior.
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@polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
Occasionally I will forget and end up tear gassing myself when I take my contacts out.
One of many reasons I'm glad I eventually got LASIK.
I have also had that experience several times in my life where the capsaicin oil ended up unexpectedly and unpleasantly lighting up lady bits.
Thankfully I can't ever recall any incidents with man bits. My ex couldn't really tolerate spicy food.
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@weng said in The Cooking Thread:
Eggplantburger was... Well. The eggplant was merely physically present protein. A complete nonentity next to the chickpeas and the tzatziki.
The same construction with a beef patty was infinitely superior.
Black bean burgers seem to hold their own the best out of what I've tried. Enough that I'm disappointed they're so expensive to get here.
OTOH, I'm pretty sure they'd be a lot harder to make from scratch.
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@weng said in The Cooking Thread:
Eggplant patties (salted to draw out some of the moisture - 15 minutes per side, rinse off the salt, grill these)
SO does breaded eggplant slices occasionally. It's nice.
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@polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@jaloopa said in The Cooking Thread:
@yamikuronue my wife found something online that said it would work, so we gave it a try. Back to stews from tougher cuts of meat methinks, those work really well
Yeah, don't believe what you read online. Trying to cook a whole chicken in a crock pot will end up with rubbery, flabby, tasteless skin. If you cook chicken in a crock pot you can either sear it off in a skillet and then deglaze the pan with stock or something, or you can cook it sans skin.
If you've got a Roman pot, you have other options. Basically it is an unglazed clay pot that you soak in water, then put your meat in (a whole chicken works great), seal it up, and put the whole lot in a hot oven. The effect is to steam the meat to start out with, and then it progresses more to being like a pot roast and then finally a full roast as the cooking progresses and that water evaporates off, so you still end up with some roasted skin. (We tend to stuff the chicken with a lemon, some mushrooms and some fresh herbs.)
It's a bit of a pain to prepare and clean up afterwards, but the effects on that chicken are pretty darned good.
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@weng said in The Cooking Thread:
The eggplant was merely physically present
protein.Eggplant doesn't contain any significant amount of protein.
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@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
We tend to stuff the chicken with a lemon, some mushrooms and some fresh herbs.
I like to do chicken on the Kamado grill with the heat spreader in place so I cook over indirect heat. I have a wire trivot that I used to use for beer can chicken back in the day. I stuff the cavity with a lemon and fresh sage leaves from the garden. As sage is an herb that grows quickly and becomes very Woody I will frequently trim it back and toss all the trimmings (especially the woody parts) on the coals right as I add the chicken. It gives it a nice sage smoke taste.
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@polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
don't believe what you read online.
Not sure if I should believe you since I'm reading this online
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@timebandit touchê.
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The wife made this last night:
http://www.cookinglight.com/recipes/cauliflower-korma
It was amazing, and super healthy. It was so good that I just had some leftovers even though I have a lunch thing to go to that will be catered by a local BBQ place. It even has @karla's favorite herb. ;)
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@polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
The wife made this last night:
http://www.cookinglight.com/recipes/cauliflower-korma
It was amazing, and super healthy. It was so good that I just had some leftovers even though I have a lunch thing to go to that will be catered by a local BBQ place. It even has @karla's favorite herb. ;)
You hate me.
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My family's favorite dish: snails.
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@anonymous234 said in The Cooking Thread:
My family's favorite dish: snails.
Nifty. How do you prepare them? Are you USAian? If so, where does one purchase them? I do not think I have ever seen them for sale, not even in the food markets that carry the more exotic foods.
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@polygeekery I'm pretty sure it's a traditional French dish. And if you're using more snails than garlic by weight you're doing it wrong.
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@polygeekery Depending on where you live, they can be easy enough to find in the backyard...
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@pleegwat said in The Cooking Thread:
I'm pretty sure it's a traditional French dish.
The name of the image says caracoles rather than the French escargot. This is probably something similar, but different.
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@masonwheeler So that makes it Spanish instead? I doubt that changes much on the garlic equation.
