The Cooking Thread
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
Puff pastry is a pain in the ass to make.
Traditional puff pastry is a PITA, but there are plenty of short cut ways to make it, that for 99% of things a normal person makes will not make any difference.
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@Dragoon Such as?
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I can't find the one that I have used before, but this one is seems near identical to it from memory: https://bakingamoment.com/easy-homemade-puff-pastry-recipe/
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Aside from the pastry being too thick and kind of overwhelming the filling (especially after some of it leaked out), both the reaper and the smoked ghost pepper ended up going pretty well with the filling. The smoky flavor went better than expected with the filling, and the reaper was almost hard to taste aside from the considerable spiciness that it added.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
The smoky flavor went better than expected with the filling
Smoke goes well with lots of desserts. It surprises a lot of people. Chipotle chili powder goes really well with chocolate. Every dessert I have cooked on the pellet grill turns out better than in the oven because of the slight smokiness it adds.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
@Dragoon Such as?
Buying a pack of pre-made pastry from the store.
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Side note: the filling for fruit hand pies is also amazing on ice cream.
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So I whipped together a quick pie crust for the rest of the blueberry filling. The recipe said to refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. I said fuck that and I stuck it in the freezer for about 20 minutes instead. Turned out fine.
There wasn't really enough filling left to fill the pie crust as much as it should've been, but it was a good pie crust at least.
Smoked ghost flakes under the filling, and on top of the filling, a few more ghost pepper flakes and a light sprinkle of reaper powder. Enough to bring some heat, but not overwhelming.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
Smoked ghost flakes...ghost pepper flakes...reaper powder.
I think you have a problem.
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@boomzilla It's a good problem.
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@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
Smoked ghost flakes...ghost pepper flakes...reaper powder.
I think you have a problem.
I get ulcers just reading his posts.
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@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
Smoked ghost flakes...ghost pepper flakes...reaper powder.
I think you have a problem.
I get ulcers just reading his posts.
I really like spicy food but I haven't destroyed my tolerance to the point that I have to resort to ghost peppers and Carolina reapers to enjoy it.
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@boomzilla I like spicy food, too, but my doctor says .
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
@boomzilla It's a good problem.
It reminds me of a mexican restaurant I was at last week. The server brought out plate of chili sauce of various strengths, and warned us which one was “very hot, señor, be careful!” The guy sitting next to me tried a tiny bit (he was somewhat drunk) and was like “that's so hot!” and I was like “mmm, pleasing little tingle but nowhere near as hot as I usually have at home; goes great with those tortilla chips”.
I don't need food to be very strong, but I do like a bit of fire from time to time.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
So I whipped together a quick pie crust for the rest of the blueberry filling. The recipe said to refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. I said fuck that and I stuck it in the freezer for about 20 minutes instead. Turned out fine.
There wasn't really enough filling left to fill the pie crust as much as it should've been, but it was a good pie crust at least.
Smoked ghost flakes under the filling, and on top of the filling, a few more ghost pepper flakes and a light sprinkle of reaper powder. Enough to bring some heat, but not overwhelming.
I'm interested in trying something like that...not interested enough to do it myself. Someone invite me over for food. No cilantro though.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
Enough to bring some heat, but not overwhelming.
Based on your other posts, I don't trust your judgement on what constitutes "not overwhelming." Not at all.
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I used to eat a lot of very spicy food, but my digestive system never caught up with the tolerance my mouth had so it would taste lovely on the way in but be a rather unpleasant exit later.
Filed under: Bum gravy
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@Karla said in The Cooking Thread:
I'm interested in trying something like that...not interested enough to do it myself.
That's why I started with some tart-sized ones.
Someone invite me over for food. No cilantro though.
I'd offer, but I doubt you want to drive that far.
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
Based on your other posts, I don't trust your judgement on what constitutes "not overwhelming." Not at all.
That's probably wise.
Some damn good smoke flavor on those things, though.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
I'd offer, but I doubt you want to drive that far.
Considering I don't even have a license...probably not.
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@Karla said in The Cooking Thread:
@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
I'd offer, but I doubt you want to drive that far.
Considering I don't even have a license...probably not.
Jailbait alert!
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@Karla said in The Cooking Thread:
@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
I'd offer, but I doubt you want to drive that far.
Considering I don't even have a license...probably not.
Jailbait alert!
Or NYC resident.
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@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
It was the availability of the flour mill attachment that pushed me over the edge. GF flour costs something like 8x normal wheat flour, but now I can mill my own rice, GF oat, quinoa, lentil, whatever flour for, I hope, a small fraction of the cost of the tiny bags in the grocery store.
Last night I turned rice, gluten-free oats, and quinoa into finely powdered versions of the same. I haven't had the chance yet to try cooking with any of them, but I learned a few things about my new mill.
The mill consists of two steel burrs — one stationary, one rotating — that do the actual grinding, a hopper to hold the grain to be ground, and a worm/screw to push the grain from the bottom of the hopper into the grinding burrs.
It's a slow process, even on the highest speed.
There's a fair bit of waste (unground grain that the feed screw won't push into the grinder, and flour that sticks to the mill) in each batch. Therefore, it makes sense to grind large-ish batches — as much as you can use before it spoils. (Homemade flour spoils more quickly than most store-bought, because manufactured white flour has had the germ removed as part of the process, and the oil in the germ will go rancid. Storing the flour in the freezer will prevent this.)
Oats do not grind well. The instructions recommend either hulled oats or rolled-oats (oatmeal). Since gluten-free oatmeal is fairly readily available, that's what I used. The rolled oats are very fragile compared to the whole grains it's really designed to grind, and the feed screw tends to pulverize them before they even get to the grinder; consequently, they don't get pushed into the grinder. Also, the flour clogs the grinder itself far more than anything else I've tried so far.
It's pretty much impossible to clean completely. A bit of cross-contamination between, say, rice and quinoa flours is not a big deal (especially since I'd generally be mixing them anyway), but if anyone were to ever grind wheat in it, it would be impossible to ever make reliably gluten-free flour again. Good thing nobody's ever going to do that.
I'm looking forward to trying some of the flour, but the first GF baking I'll do will probably be the recipe on the back of a package of almond flour I bought (I probably can't make almond flour myself, at least not with this mill ); almond chocolate chip cookies sound yummy!
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Thanks to this thread, I just ordered one of these:
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@mott555 I'm really not sure why that's listed in the "Beauty" department...
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@mott555 Specially considering the look of the pepper itself
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@TimeBandit It looks like someone dipped his balls in Fukishima water.
Brb, gonna forward a new superhero idea to Marvel Comics.
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@mott555 A friend of mine managed to get Marvel to include his hero in comics. It's possible.
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@mott555 said in The Cooking Thread:
Thanks to this thread, I just ordered one of these:
I got a 2 oz shaker (or 1.5 oz, according to the product description... the label says it's 2 oz, though), and it's looking about half full... the one you linked looks like it's half an ounce (if the price per ounce math that they did was based on the correct size to begin with), and if I'd got that one it'd be all gone already. Last time I made ramen, I used a half teaspoon of the reaper...
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
half teaspoon of the reaper...
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Dinner tonight:
Baked salmon with lemon caper butter, but with lemon and lime juice.
Lentil and rice pilaf, made with a mix of white, brown, wild and black rice, and with the addition of raisins, celery and cashews.
Beets (canned) with orange sauce (1 c. orange juice, 1 tsp. corn starch, unmeasured, probably 1–2 tbsp. if packed, brown sugar). Cook the sauce until it thickens, then add the beets and heat through.I'd planned to have caprese, but my daughter was later getting home from work than I expected. I was going to have her make it, but the salmon was already ready to serve, and I wasn't hungry for salad after eating the main course. Tomorrow. The "best by" date on the mozzarella di bufala I bought at Whole Paycheck is tomorrow.
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@HardwareGeek I was less than two sentences in and already I was imagining how smoked ghost and reaper peppers would go with it.
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@anotherusername You'd put high-strength peppers with baked salmon?! You definitely have a problem there. I like pretty spicy food too, but I like to also remain able to appreciate dining without slaverings of capsaicin.
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@dkf Capsaicin junkies are terrible.
I used to be one until my butt started objecting, and now I can actually taste food.
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@dkf the smoked ghost pepper flakes would add a really nice flavor I think.
@Weng if you couldn't taste the food before, then you were doing it wrong. Try using something properly hot instead of just drowning your food in too much Tabasco, and then you'll taste the food instead of just tasting hot sauce.
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@anotherusername What you said earlier about burning the receptors off makes me wonder whether or not it's possible to become fully resistant to pepper spray.
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@pie_flavor I may have also wondered that...
Not planning on intentionally macing my eyes or anything, but reaper is basically the same amount of heat as pepper spray is...
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@mott555 said in The Cooking Thread:
Thanks to this thread, I just ordered one of these:
Wow. This stuff is the Fentanyl of the pepper world. I tapped the lid with a finger, on a bare spot, getting maybe 3 - 4 little grains of powder on my fingertip, not even enough to really see, and licked it. And that was at the upper edge of my tolerance. Just 3 - 4 grains of powder.
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@mott555 I just ate two slices of pizza with a generous amount of smoked ghost pepper flakes and a whole reaper on each slice.
My face is burning, I got some of it in my eye somehow, and there are tears and snot running down... but it was good.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
good
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
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@mott555 I put a little bit on a chicken sandwich. For starters, just enough powder to see works pretty well. But you gotta be really careful with the shaker. I just tapped it from the side to knock small amounts of powder off the top, I didn't actually shake any out and if I did I suspect I'd die.
I'm pretty sure this stuff is a violation of the UN charter somehow. This half-ounce container is going to last me a long time, assuming I don't accidentally nuke myself to death with it.
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Today I am downstairs working and the wife is home. Suddenly I hear her screaming bloody murder. I take off running up the stairs to see what is the matter. I get to the kitchen, her eyes are streaming with tears, her face is flush, and she is fanning her face. Before her was a block of cheese she had bought for me and decided to try. Ghost pepper cheese.
I chuckle, cut myself off a slice and take a bite. I really don't know what all her commotion was about. It really wasn't that hot.
That being said, while I like heat I think the reaper peppers and ghost peppers and all of that are highly overrated. All heat, no flavor. Very one dimensional in flavor profile.
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@Polygeekery I have to disagree with you about the flavor. Reapers definitely have flavor.
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@anotherusername An acetylene torch probably does, too, but I don't want to try it to find out.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
@Polygeekery I have to disagree with you about the flavor. Reapers definitely have flavor.
We can agree to disagree. I have a high tolerance for both pain and heat. Reapers may have slightly more flavor than ghost peppers and all the other highest Scoville rating wankfest trends that grab headlines. They are tear gas.
My favorite pepper, if I am cooking a meal just for me, is the habanero. Absolute shit tons of flavor. It tastes really fruity and a little bit nutty and is just the absolute perfect thing in Jerk chicken.
Now, getting someone else to eat it with me is another thing entirely. I make it hot.
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@Polygeekery I've had people smell the reaper powder (carefully... the object is to smell it, not to inhale any of the dust). Pretty much all of them have been impressed at how fruity it smells -- you really wouldn't expect it to be very hot, based on the smell.
edit: I will definitely agree that habaneros have some good flavor though.
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@mott555 I'm actually curious to hear what you think of the smell? Just... you know... be careful, and don't shake it or anything...