what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

I think the light soy is cheaper and generally the standard one because it hasn't been fermented as long

homebrew green pea curry with lots of cumin, greens and coconut milk i've been making once a week all summer, my lunch most days. very bright, almost fluorescent yellow color.

heat neutral oil in a soup pot on med-high, add whole spices (1 tbsp black mustard seed, 1.5 tbsp cumin seed, 4 or 5 shelled cardamom pods, a few whole cloves, a pinch of smashed coriander seeds) and a pinch of hing. add a diced onion when the seeds start to pop. when onion is translucent add thumb sized piece of ginger (minced) and equal amount of garlic (also minced) and 1/2 tbsp cumin powder. saute for a couple of minutes until the garlic and ginger is fragrant.

add 1 lb of split green peas (rinsed), 8 cups of water, however much salt you like and 2 tsp turmeric powder. bring to a boil, then cover and reduce to a simmer until peas are more or less soft. add a can of coconut milk (pref Brad's Organic) and puree with an immersion blender. simmer until peas are completely cooked.

remove from heat and add a bunch of greens (stalked kale or baby spinach), juice of half a lime, 2 teaspoons S&B curry powder (you can use garam masala i guess). give it another quick blitz with the immersion blender to chop up the greens. serve it the next day ideally, with fresh cilantro. on its own, over rice, or with roti. i like it chilled.

the cardamom, cloves and coriander don't affect the overall flavor of the dish very much in such small amounts but you get a few mouthfuls with nice surprises.

had a really good quinoa "Alla Nerano" recently, from a posh deli next to Lennox Hill Hospital. it was $4 for a little taste, like half a serving. i might try to make it myself. there were pistachios in it!!

Is hing worth going out of my way to find? I saw that it's similar to fennel seeds.

xp yummmmm

Hing = asoefatida (sp?) or no?

I believe that's the case, quincie!

haha, i call it asafoetida irl but hing is easier to type :)

prob worth having if you make lots of dal, otherwise no. it's generally "optional" and most recipes that use it only call for a pinch (Madhur Jaffrey's daily tarka uses like half a tsp, which is a lot) so a 3.5 gram container can last practically forever.

Brahmin ascetics who don't eat onions or garlic use it to flavor their food, to give an idea of its pungency.

I've got two packets of asafoetida powder on my spice wrack only used it a handful of times for chana dal. One of them subtle ingredients where through my own ignorance I wasn't sure what it added so its become an underused one.

It's also one of them ingredients that I couldn't find easily with online supermarket deliveries - I think I got it from ebay

dark soy sauce is mostly for marinades and glazes for meat

it's quite mad that the evolution of soy as a top notch condiment came about because most ppl were getting priced out of salt

Xp I have Thai tofu recipe that requires light & dark for the sauce

same with the recipe I was doing, it was a mix of light/dark plus oyster sauce and sugar. I love how so little of it can flavour so much.

Question for you all. Years ago my Colombian friend made me a meal, which was delicious and I often make some version of it myself, but I wondered if it had a specific name?
It's just a rice salad, white rice mixed with black beans, black olives, diced spring onions, cucumber and cherry tomatoes, with lots of cilantro. We have it with chicken just cooked with basic or Mexican kind of chicken seasoning.

that sounds delicious. I am hoping somebody who knows says something like "it's called 'ensalada de arroz'" and you immediately enter the rice poll thread with "well there's no goddamn ensalada de arroz so...".

Doesn’t sound familiar to me as a known dish w a specific name but it does sound tasty!

Never had this happen before.

We get various chili peppers from our CSA. Over the years they have ranged from not hot at all to very hot. I have a decent heat tolerance, love Thai and Indian that is very hot. I mostly just sweat a lot. One time we had one chili that was so hot that when it hit the wok, we had to leave the room.

Sometimes we get habaneros. I've made habanero hot sauces and salsa that I can eat straight on chips, no problem.

We got chilis this week that looked like habaneros but were bright red. I was dicing it up before adding it to a stir-fry and luckily did a taste test. This pepper was so hot a brief touch with my index finger to the outside of the pepper and then touching my tongue with the same finger produced a point of pain. Eating a very small piece (no seeds) produced extreme physical pain throughout my mouth and throat that lasted at least 30 minutes. It was orders of magnitude hotter than any chili I have ever had.

I know chilis can be hot to the touch, use gloves, etc., but never had an issue with handling them barehanded except for accidentally touching my eyes after chopping once in a while. I still didn't realize how hot this pepper was, because after washing my hands three times, I used the bathroom and (apologies for TMI) realized the side of my penis that I had touched was on fire. This lasted at least 15 minutes after washing the area with soap and water.

In sum: this was a very hot chili.

yikes!

lmao amazing story. good reminder to stay vigilant

had a good cooking week

massaman curry chicken w pumpkin squash
cannelloli (homemade ricotta) with a simple tomato basil garlic sauce
also made biscuits using whey from ricotta

I have a peach galette in the oven, first time I've ever messed with puff pastry.

Did you make the puff pastry yourself or did you buy it?

Bought, Pepperidge Farm

good call, speaking as a former pastry chef, puff pastry is no fun unless you have a chilled rolling slab

waaaht can't believe WmC hasn't cooked puff pastry before! I use it in savoury tarts too, it's dead easy to make something really tasty.

roasted my first butternut squash of the season yesterday. with roasted red onion, cherry tomatoes and chorizo. bit of creme fraiche and lots of parmesan all stirred into pasta mmmmm

oh and put garlic in there too

xp I know, it's weird that I went through that many years without playing with puff. I may do a creamy mushroom tart one day soon.

I have realized a dream of my adult life: purchasing half a pig from a local teenage 4H farmer, to be butchered and portioned and stored in our chest freezer. we've done local organic meat co-ops and CSA type stuff before, but this is a big step up

this will happen in February-March but we just reserved it

oooh yum

Wow, that's awesome. Are you doing the deed or do you just get the product afterward? Do you get some sausage with that?

I believe the butchering takes place separately, yes there will be sausage

Sausage is excellent.

Tell them you want all the fat! If you don't actually want it, I will come get it and render it into lard!

duly noted!!

This is the way.

pork jowl opportunities

pork wonderful pork

I've done this a couple times and it's pretty great - I didn't want to commit to any particular sausage so I got it all as ground meat in 1lb bags. I also try to get the pork bellies whole which took some confirmation because the processing places just assume everyone wants it as bacon (which is good too).

I also got the hams fresh once instead of cured/smoked and regretted it - they didn't break down like a shoulder would and I never quite prepared one where I was happy with how it turned out.

that's all very good feedback, thank you!

If you get some unground shoulder, I highly recommend making this https://chiceats.com/recipe/fall-winter-mozza-home/spicy-pork-stew-butternut-squash-and-roasted-tomatillo-salsa

I want as many shoulder chunks as we can get!

I could use some soup advice. I need to be getting a lot more veggies into my diet, appetite is a problem due to a medication, and I thought soup would be my solution. I got a vitamix and I’ve made two soups so far that have been edible but v v disappointing.

1. Tossed brocc, cauli, onions in oil, a lil MSG, smoked paprika, Italian herbs and roasted. Also roasted chickpeas, carrots and potatoes in just paprika, and then a head of garlic. Blended with stock (BTB concentrate) and it was missing something so I added a little vinegar since I didn’t have any citrus. Mistake! Also added fresh spinach. It was just kind of blah. Edible mostly only because it was completely silky smooth.

2. Roasted Kabocha squash and onion with ground sage, roasted a garlic head and carrots and a little bit of Japanese sweet potato plain. Blended with white beans and some nutritional yeast and stock. Same thing! Just kinda blah.

I get that these aren’t like proper soups or whatever but as a lover of mush/baby food, I really thought I was on to a good thing and it sucks!

Are you looking for some thinner soup or chunkier stews?

Maybe lightly fry a little curry paste to kick start the base flavor profile? I like the Mae Plom brand and they last forever in the fridge

Def no chunks - I like a thick sort of silky purée. It’s easiest for me to tolerate eating.

I’m thinking potato leek?

my approach is always the same - sautee the vegetables, add herbs/spices for a few minutes, then add stock for another 10 minutes or so, then blend

in terms of herbs and spices it depends on the veggies but ground coriander is often good, salt n pepper obv.. you'd be surprised how far a little white pepper can go

kind of crazy your soups are bland with an entire head of garlic in them though

Also salt?