what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

Been using an air fryer constantly since buying it. Saves me the couple of hours of chopping veg I used to do for the story fries I was making before getting it. But think I need to rethink my diet.
Mainly been root vegetables since they seem to work well in it.

Pilfering the delicata/tahini idea for tonight. Thx!
xpost to quincie

We used to use our toaster oven constantly, but I think a big part of that was having a trash oven. In our new place we have this nice convection oven that heats up quickly and way more consistently, so we haven't replaced the old toaster oven. Roasted vegetables are more uniformly cooked, bread is springier, it's a beautiful world.

i was watching an air fryer infomercial at the gym last week. i was tempted, but i can't take anymore large kitchen items!

i resolve to cook more from cookbooks in 2020. because i have a lot of them. i got a persian cookbook for xmas and went to a middle eastern grocery today. i am missing one thing called golpar/angelica. i asked the guy at the store and he said he would buy it so now i guess i have to go back there. my brother got me ottolenghi simple. i don't have any ottolenghis. it looks great. everything has less than 10 ingredients and it gives you a list of what you will need a lot of at the front of the book.

i love those stores, anyway, i got a huge quantity of dried dill and dried mint for like no dollars

i haven’t really figured out what an air frier can do that a screaming hot oven and a sheet pan can’t.

I always figure air fryers are for those living a potato/food stick type of life.

xp reheat fried stuff so it's nice and crispy again? I have only experienced an air fryer once, in Holland, heating up leftover fried calamari

i don't even know what it does either, tbh. lol @ potato/food stick

I have been considering an air fryer but also can’t think what I’d use it for that I don’t already do with the oven.

I've just about talked myself into making Mushroom Wellington for a NYE potluck, will report back if it turns out good.

ysi plz and thank u

made some "turkish hummus" that uses a roasted garlic and butter sauce instead of tahina sauce. you eat it warm. it is good but feels like mashed pochickpeas. Made a savory dutch baby this morning, and i think i will need to fight making one every morning for the rest of my life. this is the curse of the savory dutch baby.

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/polenta-and-sausage-stuffing-233030

This toasted polenta cube and sausage stuffing was the crowd favorite at Thanksgiving, for two different dinners. I added lots of fresh sage and a diced apple into the mix and used store-ready polenta instead of making it from scratch. Made it again at Xmas for family, doubled the qty, should have adjusted the cooking time but didn't so the deeper casserole didn't quite bake through, but...lessons learned.

It's gluten-free and delicious.

Made shrimp & grits for New Year’s day and it was way easier than I expected. So full of shrimp and grits 😀

My tip is to make the grits in a rice cooker

For lunch today I made fresh saimin noodles (bought) with a cold pourover yellow miso and broccoli, enoki mushrooms, ginger, scallion and fried tofu topping.

i am looking at this turkish hummus, but I kind of feel like it wouldn't feel light enough? Would you make it again xpost?

I need to try this Turkish hummus, I have developed a raw sesame allergy and a I miss hummus. (Although I think what I really miss is Tahina and hummus is merely a carrier substance)

I will make it again because it's cheaper and very good. My 1 year old also loved it. But your feeling is correct. it's very rich. You can't really go nuts on it without feeling a bit gross. It'd be a great thing to put on the table and split among 6 people or bring to a party. You won't want to make a meal of it, though.

Is your sesame allergy a gastro issue? Spouse has some kind of food allergy and I have been suspicious of sesame.

It feels more like a rich cheese dip when you're eating it. Which is a great but different kind of hummus experience. Ed, I think it's a pretty great workaround for a sesame allergy. I wonder if you can dial back the buttter and add something bitter to make it feel more like hummus tehina.

maybe some natural peanut butter?

yeah, or sunflower? Something like that should work. Might take some iteration.

It’s not gastro I get itchy ears and sometimes mine breathing constricts a little. I set myself off recently by absent mindely tasting some amazing palm oil free halva in the local Greek deli. It seems to be getting worse. Cooked sesame seems to be no issue at all. I can happily slather sesame oil on things all day long which is a relief given how much frying in sesames oil happens in japan.

I’ve managed to replace sesame in Some Japanese dishes by roasting and grinding walnuts, it makes a good ersatz goma’ae sauce. I should try pine nuts as well.

I had a quick look at Turkish hummus recipes and some seems to be made with butter and some with yoghurt. I should try both ways and report back.

Interestingly sesame is the second item on the Japanese equivalent of the food pyramid 「まごわやさしい」

https://images.app.goo.gl/HvqSZ5uZGZ6HbYEt7

The full thing being

Beans
Sesame
Seaweed
Vegetables
Fish
Mushrooms
(Sweet) Potatoes

We ate in a restaurant named that in Tokyo last week that produces a delightful and inexpensive meal hitting all of those points. The sesame was main represented by some toasted sesame seed and a piece of sesame tofu* in some soup and I was fine.

*sesame tofu is not really tofu it’s a jelly made with kudzu and sesame paste.

wait, kudzu?!?!

Yes, that kudzu. It’s a type of arrowroot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudzu_powder

I also made shrimp and grits today

Mushroom Wellington turned out well -- I wasn't worried about the filling, just hadn't used frozen puff pastry before. It was a big hit at the party. I thought the pastry sheets would be bigger, so I wound up making two with the filling I had.

My mother-in-law's fiance is a hunter and gave me a 2-3 pound frozen elk roast from an elk he shot in Montana. Any suggestions? NB: Elk is even more lean than venison.

He also gave me some backstrap (a kind of loin), which I cooked sous vide and served with a sour cherry mostarda. I might do the same with the roast.

Since it is frozen you could try a shaved meat stew

https://globalgastros.com/nordic/shaved-meat-stew-recipe

Or something with mushrooms and lingonberries

My mother-in-law's fiance is a hunter and gave me a 2-3 pound frozen elk roast from an elk he shot in Montana. Any suggestions? NB: Elk is even more lean than venison.

He also gave me some backstrap (a kind of loin), which I cooked sous vide and served with a sour cherry mostarda. I might do the same with the roast.

totally agree. cook sous vide to a nice medium rare and make a rich sauce to accompany.

Thanks for the sous vide confirmation.

Rare treat tonight in that my wife is doing the cooking: galumpkis made with ground elk and moose. Her family is Polish, so it's in her blood.

ground elk and moose pierogi, please

was trying to use up some ham i have in the freezer. yesterday i began to make instant pot pinto beans and ham by throwing a partially thawed chunk of it into a regular instant pot beans recipe. i had forgotten how stupid it is to put frozen meat in the instant pot. after failing to reach pressure and steaming for an hour because the cold thing was holding down the temp, the thing stopped steaming. the beans had absorbed part of the liquid and the rest had steamed out. burnt beans and ham coating the bottom of the pot. what a genius i am. i tried again today with the other half that had thawed. great success! plus cornbread

I was hungry and did not want to cook so I made a thing that sounds disgusting but was merely disappointing. Do not recommend.

Flour tortilla + melted extra sharp cheddar + natto w/ asian mustard + spinach + kimchee.

that does sound bad, but i can't hang with natto at the best of times tbh.

i got a dutch oven, after not having had one for ... maybe my entire life since moving out of my parents' home? makes me almost want to eat meat (I'm pescatarian) when i think about all the braising i could be doing. maybe there's a good fish braise i can do. also going to make bread in it

you could become a braiseatarian

any meat you want as long as it's braised

I had never used a dutch oven before until I got one 3 years ago? I am glad I got a cheaper one (Lodge) because I probably did all the things you weren't supposed to do it so it is discolored and has hairline cracks in the bottom. I was thinking about getting a new one when Le Creuset and Staub had sales around the holidays but didn't commit.

find ye a Le Creuset outlet if possible - good deals at clearance level esp if you dont mind color mismatch pot + lid

Man yerac I really don’t know where you were trying to go with that combo

Tortilla plus cheddar plus mustard would have worked, greens and kimchi on the side, natto in the trash

in my mind natto is still beans and i have seen natto pizza before ( I ate it not rolled up). And I thought the kimchi would spice it up. I just had natto for the first time recently and am into it.

maybe there's a good fish braise i can do.

― bidenfan69420 (jim in vancouver), Friday, January 24, 2020 3:15 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

salmon braised in red wine can be a surprisingly luxe dish. usually do it in a big saute pan but dutch oven would work too.

aaah, that sounds interesting

Natto + kimochi in scrambled egg is delicious. I have a recipe using this as the stuffing for inari tofu packets. Should be delicious in a tortilla as well.

Will try with eggs. I think I needed to add something saltier to the natto ( I didn't add any soy sauce or anything). It only came with the tiny mustard packet. It was overall surprisingly one note. But I got a bunch of natto that I think Is shiso flavoring that is better.

I thought I had read this somewhere but now can't find it, but supposedly you should not cook anything very acidic (like tomatoes or wine) in newer enamel pots because it's not seasoned fully yet. I had thought why mine got so discolored. But maybe I completely dreamed this up.

all this natto talk is really making me consider unbookmarking this thread lol