what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

oh! thx for reminding me abt khao soi. imma try that soon. do you have a recipe you like? pretty sure i got the baked baking soda idea from lucky peach, speaking of the 'fuku people

I make the curry paste from nite+market for it. I just like the soupier noodle format more than the other curries. Lots of toppings also makes it fun. Also enjoy not having bland chicken breast in there.

https://www.alifewithpeace.com/a-life-with-peace/2017/10/16/the-best-khao-soi-youll-ever-eat-and-make

That link has the recipe, though a bit different.

adding some salts to noodles is 10 times easier and cheaper than adding eggs. I hope i like these bc i want to do it this way every time.

ty! looks super!

Interested in how the noodles turned out. I was just reading the seriouseats on alkaline noodles because of this thread but it got too complicated. I miss living in oahu where you could get every type of fresh noodle from Sun Noodles for $1-2 in the grocery stores.

I keep debating about whether i should make tempura crunchies to use in poke and sushi rolls but I kind of don't want to deal with that much oil to fry them in.

now yer making me miss living right by Japantown in sf - the tempura and ramen joints i def miss and don't know places near to me now that i trust. but i really miss the noodle selection at the market both fresh and dried. sigh

y'know when i made fresh ramen noodles it was rly quite simple. baking the baking soda took a hour and i had to watch it not toast. but after that the dough mixed up just like ordinary pasta dough and i used my hand crank to roll 'em out (i think on spaghetti setting)

trying to not grocery shop and use up stuff from the fridge/shelves. made:
coleslaw, brined as recommended in seriouseats recipe
whole wheat sandwich loaves from smitten kitchen. not sure these will turn out great. it's basically a no knead recipe. also my whole wheat flour is old but my mom gave it to me and i want to use it before buying more. i think they'll be just edible.
chicken karahi

in other news i have not bought lunch at work in all of april. my pantry-clearing has been a big part of this. $$$$$$$

profit!

cashback!

Interested in how the noodles turned out. I was just reading the seriouseats on alkaline noodles because of this thread but it got too complicated. I miss living in oahu where you could get every type of fresh noodle from Sun Noodles for $1-2 in the grocery stores.

― Yerac, Saturday, April 27, 2019 9:39 AM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think these noodles were good? they had a bit of chew and felt like egg noodles. definitely not soggy. I haven't made flour noodles without the salts, so I can't compare directly. khao soi feels a bit like thai stroganoff, so thankfully it's been a bit colder here lately. I'd take paneer kofta over kaho soi in a battle of soupy curry. might try spaghetti with alkaline noodles and see if anybody notices. separating eggs for noodles is a drag.

I freshened up my homepage recently and was inspired to upload my snickerdoodle recipe. Bake snickerdoodles, they're good. http://jklol.net/snicks.html

Your review of Jane Eyre made me chortle.

xpost I always just do flour, water, salt (not a fan of egg in it) for asian noodles but I would want to try those salts.

thx Yerac

and just to chime in I had success with using baked baking soda to make chewy ramen noodles, but only tried it once. easier than ordering chemicals.

Y'all I'm making strawberry rhubarb jam this weekend, has anyone done this? I have found a million diff recipes with a million diff proportions of straberry to rhubarb (ranging from like 1:4 to 4:1). I THINK I'm going to do 1:1?? I def don't want it to taste like strawberry jam w/ no rhubarby flavor but I still want a nice strawberry flavor too, I just don't know!!!

Can you go in small batches until you zero in on the right ratio? Like, enough for 2 half-pints at a time.

a nancy silverton style brute force optimization

just pick one. do 1:1. it will work. if it's not just right do it different next time! i have the same analysis paralysis about EVERYTHING.

I think macerating the non-avocado ingredients for guac ( we did one hour) did make a noticeable difference. I am still saying "think" because I only project managed the making from another room so didn't ensure the usual proportions were kept. The onion seemed less sharp and everything was nicely acidic right away instead of needing some time to chill out. The day ofter leftover was noticeably better as well.

lately been lightly roasting brussels, cutting them into shreds, and dressing in the fish sauce vin to add as slaw in whole grain bowls with shaking tofu and other toppings. also added to the trader joe's thai veg burgers (which aren't so great). good topping for stuff, especially where you can't add fish sauce vin alone without making a mess.

I had a spectacular raw Brussels sprout salad at a restaurant the other week which I need to try and recreate. Soft goat cheese pine nuts and a tart light lemony dressing.

oh, those both sound great.
Sufjan, what you're doing puts me in the mind of my fave brussels dish (from momofuku)https://food52.com/recipes/19682-momofuku-s-roasted-brussels-sprouts-with-fish-sauce-vinaigrette xpost

The one time I was at Momofuku ages ago my wife and a friend and I were ordering a bunch of dishes to share and they wanted the Brussels sprouts which seemed like a waste to me because I thought I didn’t like Brussels sprouts. This was like a life altering dish for me because they were so good and it made me drastically rethink a bunch of my food opinions for the better.

I remember Ilan who had just won Top Chef was at a table with a bunch of important looking white guys in suits who seemed to be sniffing him out and he looked absolutely terrified and out of his element.

i bought strawberries and rhubarb this morning. i will be making a pie. i got a new tart/quiche dish on amazon yesterday but if it's not here by the afternoon i'm just going to use my regular pie dish. might go strawberry picking sometime next week. i want to make a jam, too.

Oh, I want to try that momofuku brussells sprouts recipe. I buy about a kilo every week to roast, and I am questioning whether I can make myself not wash them (as the recipe brings up).

I am not in love with the fish sauce I have here though. The one with the squid on it. It's a little too pungent for me even though I know a lot of that smell blows off.

that looks good but i need to buy a bottle of cheaper fish sauce! a half cup!
i am always not washing brussels sprouts, out of pure laziness. fuck washing brussels sprouts.

i never wash them! just peel off the outer layer of leaves.

i think i've recently started giving 'em a little wash on account of all the public health classes i've been taking. but it's probably pointless as far as pesticides go if outer leaves are removed, as per cad. as far as the recipe goes, i've never roasted 2# before, but i'm thinking for that amount of sprouts one could halve the dressing recipe and be fine. they'll absorb some of the dressing after roasting and if you douse the heck out of 'em they may get too salty

a foodie place in my town used to serve them roasted in escarole wraps, with cashews, thick bacon bits, and a vinegar/mustard sauce, so good.

All these sprouts ideas sound so good. I’m currently trying to figure out my new (first attempt) dog food cooking routine. The people food is gonna have to wait a minute.

Translation: one of my dogs had dental surgery and I’m trying to distract all of us by making dog food.

don't think you can go wrong with some steamed carrots mashed with tofu and peanut butter imho. not sure what other nutrients are essential for dogs, but i can't imagine any not liking carrots and peanut butter
and awww get well soon little friend!

find myself with some okra that needs to be dealt with. last summer i made a recipe that simulated fried okra perfectly. didn't save recipe but am gonna try and recreate.

I feel like i only ever ate tempura okra growing up.

I am psyching myself up to not wash the bruselas.

Guess my last post was vague. They're breaded but then baked on a hot sheet pan that has a good layer of oil in it, do it's sorta like shallow frying but without the mess.
I miss tempura. Have not had since leaving sf like 3 years ago ::sigh::

do=so. I mean what is the bloody point of autocorrect!

aul fella tribute breakfast this morning because herself could never believe it works as a meal

smoked mackerel fillets, warmed til the oil released

strong cheddar, preferably waxy and reddish, todays is a lighter one but nice and sharp

brown bread that has higgs bosuns visible at the core its that denseand dark

cup of strong breakfast tea

verdict: dmac sr vindicated on all counts obv

Would eat that breakfast 1000x.

that sounds **cking heavenly imho

I was reading (NYT) about the insalata verde that Samin Nosrat loves at a particular restaurant. It's interesting that they talk about the maceration of shallots in dressings. But instead of doing the acidic maceration they shock the minced shallots with cold water instead. I am going to try this dressing this week because supposedly adding in the warm water is also key. And I really really love mustard based dressing.

1 large shallot, minced
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon aged sherry vinegar, plus additional, as needed
1 tablespoon warm water
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 ½ teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 ½ teaspoons whole-grain mustard
1 ½ teaspoons honey (optional)
2 sprigs thyme, washed and stripped
1 large clove garlic, finely grated
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

that looks good. and i am always looking for good sherry vinegar uses outside of ginger scallion sauce to have a reasonable burn rate on the bottle. though we might eat enough of that these days to do the trick.

what's your recipe for that? Sounds great.

momofuku ginger scallion sauce:

2.5 C thinly sliced scallions (greens and whites, from 1-2 bunches)
0.25 C finely minced peeled fresh ginger
0.25 C grapeseed or other neutral oil
1.5 tsp usukuchi (light japanese soy sauce)
0.75 tsp sherry vinegar
0.75 tsp kosher salt

you let it sit for at least 20 minutes, and it keeps in the fridge for awhile. he recommends stirring in a tablespoon of that per ounce of noodles. we always just eyeball it and adjust to taste. you can use rice, alkaline, or egg noodles. we've used dark japanese soy sauce with a bit of mirin when we couldn't find usukuchi.

we then always add the quick cucumber pickles. you just slice a small (kirby or persian) cucumber into pickle-thickness coins and sprinkle a 3:1 mixture of sugar:kosher salt in a bowl (about 0.5 tablespoon of mixture per cucumber). let sit for 20 minutes.

and we also usually add Angrea Nguyen's shaking tofu to the bowl if it's a meal:

https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/shaking-tofu

Chang recommends roasted cauliflower. it is awesome, very cheap meal! (as long as you don't buy the usukuchi, sherry vinegar, etc and never use them).

you can also play with the ratio of scallion and ginger, obviously. for some reason, there's twice as much ginger in the "same" recipe in the Lucky Peach book, and I thought it was too much. I also mince the hell out of it though, because I hate eating big pieces of ginger.

this stuff also definitely fits the theme of maceration that Yerac brought to the thread

mmmm def gonna try that

ooooh, I am going to try that too. It would've never occurred to me to make that type of sauce with so little liquid. I would've also automatically done sesame oil instead but that would change the profile totally.

I've seen variations with a bit more oil in them. always neutral though. i like to heat the oil and put it on some of the scallions for a bit so that they mellow a bit - i preserve some that i add later so i don't lose too much rawness