what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

whole canned toms

pressure cooker reaches higher temperatures, which, in combination with the increased pH you get with baking soda, leads to caramelization that would be impossible otherwise

i actually made a batch earlier in the week that i forgot to add baking soda to and the difference is pretty noticeable --- w/o it the soup is much brighter and more acidic/tomato-y (which might be what you want!)

i have a bream in the oven, stuffed it with lemon, garlic and parsley, threw a few slices of potato around it and i've got cabbage braising in some stock on the hob. been roasting fish a lot in the last few months, feels like one of the nicest things to eat without much effort.

Making a lamb shoulder tonight with broccoli and the serious eats roasted potatoes that I believe somebody posted on the other thread and have been intriguing me since.

how do you get to the point in life where you're putting heterodox ingredients like tea, maple syrup and fish sauce in tomato soup?

otm

its the food of my people

bored single men who spend a lot of time on food blogs

loltm

What are these blogs? Are they instant pot propagandists?

hey gbx do you do a natural release or quick release on the p.c. with this method?

mine's electric so i just do a slow release

should I get an instant pot? it seems like more like an appliance of convenience rather than one of, like, some crazy new benefit (like sous vide)

rfi: what is yr favorite way to prepare fennel?
preferably side dish but i'll take all comers

one place i worked at useda make a potato, fennel and leek gratin that was nice. other ideas: superthin sliced and put in a salad is great, too. or "melted", cooked slowly in olive oil with onions and garlic to get it really soft and borderline carmelised could be a nice side?

fennel is nice roasted

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/02/vegan-ramen-miso-creamy-vegan-vegetarian-food-lab-recipe.html

going to cook this at the weekend

I like fennel raw in salads, sautéed with leeks & green beans, roasted & carved up with a piece of meat or fish

Jim: it's good. Double and freeze, for all the effort.

thanks everyone! pretty new to fennel. i tried braising it in stock & vermouth last night & it turned out delicious, keen to try some of these recommendations

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/02/vegan-ramen-miso-creamy-vegan-vegetarian-food-lab-recipe.html

going to cook this at the weekend

― Islamic State of Mind (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, January 10, 2017 5:28 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh man i've been wanting to try that but its daunting --- soda, you've done it? how long did it take?

i like fennel here are some things

fen risotto, maybe w/ salami
fen & chickpea broth w/ lemon zest and chilli
fen & potato soup
baked fen in like a puttanesca sauce w/ orange zest and feta
roast pork w fen (add fen seeds to pork herb rub too)
any bit of wite fish w/ fen, thyme, rosemary, lemon zest, capers etc

pernod good to have around just for fen

also if u ever want to parboil fen for anything do it in milk, or mostly milk, and keep for mash potato or gratin later

I don't like fennel because it is anise-y. I feel like I need to broaden my horizons tho w/r/t winter vegetables, I can't only eat potatoes all year, and I love kale but let's be honest it's not in season in February.

A friend is coming over on Sat bc she wants advice on cooking large hunks of meat. Considering a pot roast alongside a rolled stuffed pork loin -- one easy, one complicated.

try parsnips! one of our favorite winter things is just roasted winter veggies (beets, onions, carrots, garlic, parsnips, turnips, potatoes) mixed up with some olive oil, rosemary, and a bit of sausage, cover and bake.

best way to enjoy fennel is to throw it in the damn garbage bcz it tastes like licorice and it is GROSS

I made a great pork dish with star anise the other night and the first time I made it I used like one star anise (recipe says 5) because I hate licorice but actually it's so subtle it's really good so I always use 5 now

THANK U STEVIE YOU <---> ME = SAME TEAM

anise and fennel are wonderful flavors

that said i have bought fennel bulbs in the past and they have rotted in my fridge bc i couldn't decide what to do with them fast enough :/

tbh I wish I didnt' loathe anise/fennel bcz it wd make things a lot easier but welp here we are, what can ya do

parsnips are the devil fyi

hmph

parsnips are fine, they're sweet and a lil weird but they're fine

quickest way to ruin a soup imo

THE DEVIL

parsnips are good caramelized together with other vegetables as the base for a winter soup stock, they contribute a lot of complexity and are similar to carrots w/ their sweetness. im not a fan of plain parsnips though

for burly winter root vegetables i prefer celeriac

I stand with VG.

Honey roast parsnips are my secret ingredient in a veggie soup

monsters, all of u

mushroom pizza that has a bunch of rehydrated porcinis sauteed with a load of criminis and garlic, on top of fontina, carmelized onions with rosemary playing the role of sauce on some bland-o plain white dough i made

haven't had farinata in years, might attempt this recipe for saturday lunch http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/05/how-to-make-farinata-italian-chickpea-pancake.html

we had my brother and his family over for dinner the other night. they love cooking indian and so do we, so we made a huge feast. i haven't cooked this much food in a while:

masoor dal
benghali green beans and potatoes
tomato sambal
summer squash w/ mustard seeds
saag tofu

All the way at the other end of the vegetarian-omnivore spectrum, I'm making beef stock today.

I agree with VG that parsnips would not work well in any soup I know about, but they roast well and were quite acceptable in a beef and peanut stew recipe my wife made just a few days ago.

I really like roasted parsnips but they are such a damn awkward shape--the top fat part and the itty bitty skinny end make it diffcult to get evenly-roasting pieces.

had some oddly delicious parsnip cake last winter

I'm out. Can't take this parsnip thread. Too triggering.

I had a couple of ideas for pesto variations yesterday — roasted peanuts instead of pine nuts, and mustard greens instead of basil. I got some mediocre mustard this morning and tried that one out -- pretty good, but it needs fresher, more-peppery greens.

my co-worker's ex-husband hunted a deer and gave her a bunch of venison she couldn't use and i'm the leading consumer of meats in the office so i got some and made venison/pork chili and it's the best

niiice

My father in law used to give us venison and it was always good in chili. I don't really like chili tbh but it was ok.

i impulse bought a frozen rack of venison back around the holidays and still need to do something with it

just recently realized how freaking awesome delicata squash is. it's my new kabocha (eg fave winter squarsh). thinkin' of stuffing a couple a la http://beardandbonnet.com/delicata-squash-burrito-bowls/

sleeve, I'm going to do the braised pork shoulder tacos. Is that 2 cups of vinegar correct? That seems like a lot of acid.

it is! and it did seem like a lot

ideally use coconut vinegar, it said, but I used rice

Yeah, I'm going to use rice vinegar with a little pineapple vinegar thrown in for funk.

coconut vinegar? pineapple vinegar?
i feel like such a shut-in, i have never heard of such things

I guess you can make vinegar out of almost any fruit or vegetable.

tackling a pork shoulder tomorrow

you doing that one? the braised one?

no, a different approach

will post recipe if successful

I have a whole sunny Sunday ahead of me but I am uninspired and I don't have my slow-cooker here, sadly.

Also I think I might be alone on Thanksgiving, which is mmmm probably fine but might be a little weird? What should I make?

A small salad and a big baked sweet potato?

These Braised brussels sprouts - that way you get decent leftovers and dont have to share ! (theyre so good)

https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-creamy-braised-brussels-sprouts-molly-stevens-23114963

a cup of heavy cream for a pound of sprout! what!! the gallstones of my ancestors are shrieking from the depths of my dna, threatening me with unspeakable horror. i bet a good stock would braise those brussels up reasonably well. i used to love nibbling raw brussels sprouts until a terrible experience with a nest of baby slugs. now i inspect each sprout and cook the heck out of them. never again, slug babies!

thanksgiving on your own = whatever makes you happy, imo

lol love the new username, veg!

Hmm yes. The stores will be OUT of b. sprouts, leeks, everything the people need at the last min. Maybe I can get an Against the Grain pizza and add all the good toppings! Minimal cooking required! I used to do the ATK gluten-free pizza dough but it requires actual rising and stuff. Is it worth it? Unclear.

My partner has never had classic southern chicken and DUMPLINGS! before so I’m making that tonight with fake chicken for the first time. Fingers crossed!

the pork shoulder was stuffed with black pudding and apple and rolled and roasted slow for hours

it turned out great but fell apart upon carving which always annoys me

the sauce was a far too involved affair of cider and vinegars and mustard and cream and it wouldve been better off with just apple tbh

sleeve, I'm going to do the braised pork shoulder tacos. Is that 2 cups of vinegar correct? That seems like a lot of acid.

― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Saturday, November 23, 2024 10:07 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

it is! and it did seem like a lot

― sleeve, Saturday, November 23, 2024 10:46 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

The vinegar makes a lot more sense when I tasted how sweet even unsweetened coconut milk is. I can tell by just tasting the sauce how good this is going to be.

that really sounds amazing, dmac.

falling apart is what pork shoulder is supposed to do iirc

well i feel better now

it was absolutely delicious

i flipped out when i couldn't find my andouille at my regular place and was told they hadn't delivered any for weeks. i should have bought it/froze it when i still had the chance! dummmmmmy

anyway i could only live with this for one day because today i went to two other stores ISO andouille or a suitable substitute and now i have smoked sausages from Poland as well as one spicy one from Albania iirc? I also bought pack of Johnsonville brand andouille but that seems like a last resort. Does anyone know if other smoked sausages of similar size and texture would work like andouille in a gumbo?

i will be so sad if i don't make gumbo for Thanksgiving. i love it for so many reasons but primarily bc the ingreds are easy to access and cheap. (easy to access when i plan far enough ahead sausage-wise!)

i feel like any smoked sausage should do bc the flavor is in the roux etc -- but idk!

I've used Polish saus as a sub for Andouille but with added red pepper or hot paprika perhaps?

yeah i have done the same (smoked polish + hot paprika) & it is a fine substitute

^^^

sleeve, those pork tacos were amazing, way better and easier than the lamb barbacoa I've made. I pickled some red onion and made habanero hot sauce and it all went great together. Thanks!

any spicy sausage works in gumbo imho

TIL my neighbor didn’t know potato soup was a thing

made chinese style roast pork belly in the oven following this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tO6ZqlWp4M

recipe said to leave it on 400-425 for about an hour but it had been 90 minutes and the skin hadnt crackled so i turned on broil and bam, crackled up in seconds before my eyes

i feel like i went nuts on the rub (salt, chilli powder, ground szechuan peppercorn) but i didn’t taste much

ate with jasmine rice and steamed broccoli

nuts on the rub

after a long period of snobbery about doing korean pasta (as opposed to noodles) I figured I really needed to get rid of some of those jangs in my fridge and am now pretty much addicted to gochujang and ssamjang cream pasta dishes, so good, so easy to make.

Is that literally jang + heavy cream or does the pasta just get creamy when you meld with the pasta water?

jang with cream

https://erictriesit.com/creamy-korean-ssamjang-pasta/

This guy is obnoxious but his recipes seldom fail me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEE01jL1qXw

You can also see one of the contestants in Culinary Class Wars do something like this.

Thanks, I will give that a try soon. I make the Spicy Momofuku Rice Cakes recipe, which uses Gochujang or Ssamsang (I forget which) and uses whipped silken tofu for the creaminess. I want to try this more explicitly "pasta" approach.

sleeve, those pork tacos were amazing

high five, my brother in tacos

sleeve, I am making those pork tacos again for Christmas.

<3

We were gonna make ham but some of the guests don't do pork, so it's gonna be prime rib

we are doing tacos w bbq pork carnitas & fixings - mr veg already smoked the pork shoulder last night so we can jazz it up later

Nice.

confession: i was initially resistant to this as xmas dinner bc of being personally caught up in anglocentric notions of “tradition” but now i’m super excited

Tacos are pretty festive.

red and green salsas!

red and green grilled peppers too!