@Piglet, truth be told they were just plain flat patties from the supermarket. Cheery son did start a conversation with husband but I walked away before hearing the outcome. Cheery son's tastes are so plain that we don't even have onion in most things. When we find something he likes, we do not deviate and I think we discovered a type of patties that were acceptable many years ago and we have just stuck with them, because we got tired of him wasting food and constantly trying to find alternatives he would accept.
As a Johny-come-lately to this cooking lark, or an old beans-on-toast dog learning new tricks, I’m eagerly devouring recipes from across the Web. Many of them are on American sites. ...... and they list items which are proprietary tat from Walmart which nobody has heard of outside of that benighted land (or if they have, they make it themselves from the underlying and healthier ingredients. “Half and half” comes to mind).....quote]
Not only American - It was challenging to cook Delia Smith recipes from "abroad"! - several thousand miles from the nearest Waitrose! - not to mention "strong" flour.....
Having I think found my spiritual home, gastronomically speaking, in China I have ordered a second cookbook by the memorably named Fuchsia Dunlop. I've done several recipes from her one on simple Chinese home cooking*. I'm taken by the way a few simple ingredients can have a transformative effect - eg tiny amounts of sugar and vinegar in stir-fried courgettes. Also ways to make tofu tasty.
The one I've sent for is specifically on the food of Sichuan.
In the 90s and early 2000s I was busily flogging capital markets software all over the globe, including, for a spell, in India. What a pity that I didn't join the Ship until 2005, so I never met Welease Woderwick 🕯️on his adopted home turf. One of my clients was Karnataka Bank, in Mangaluru, Karnataka being a neighbouring state to WW's (and Uncle Pete's 🕯️) beloved Kerala. All of that South Western coast up to Goa is known as the Malabar Coast.
So tonight, as I prepare and serve a Malabar Biryani with prawns, I'll raise a glass of Grant Burge bubbles in their memory. May it be eternal.
I think of WW whenever I put twice as much garlic into a dish as the recipe states.
That would be every time the recipe calls for garlic ...
That is wise counsel that I always follow. If the garlic is weak, following the recipe can be a disaster. If it is strong, then the truism that there is no such thing as too much garlic is proven yet again. We are fortunate in having excellent locally grown garlic available here, with no need to buy the stuff that has been frozen on a slow boat from China.
Tonight's comestible is duck breast with potato croquettes, porcini mushrooms, and asparagus. And butter and garlic, of course, goes without saying. No pics, I haven't started cooking yet. And nary an air fryer, slow cooker, tagine, or immersion blender to be seen. Just an old-fashioned oven and stove-top frying pan. @Clarence wielded the immersion blender (she thinks that's a posey name, she calls it a stick mixer, philistine) to fab effect yesterday when she blended/stick mixed left over lunch chicken in preserved lemon to a yummy soup for supper.
Your dinner plans sound delicious @Foaming Draught . We are having steak sandwiches with fried onions and salad. Cheery husband always cooks on Sunday nights, so I love having an evening off duty.
In our house we call the stick blender a whoojj because that's the sound it makes and we've called in that ever since Cheery son was a little one. We did have an earlier version of an expensive brand name one, but we wore it out and ended up buying a couple of cheapo ones that if we lost them at hospital it didn't really matter.
I'm wondering what Cheery daughter is having for dinner as she's taken herself off to the not capital for a few days doing touristy things and I'm sure she'll be having some nice meals over the next few days.
@Foaming Draught, that looks so scrumptious!
I will be heading to the Asian market later to get the ingredients for beef with shining noodle soup tomorrow. Daughter asked me to make it! Dear Son-in-Law probably will want something more substantial, however.
I made a pot of chilli yesterday for supper today and tomorrow, and when I was adding the crushed chillies, a twitch of the hand resulted in rather more going in than was intended.
I managed to scoop some out with a teaspoon, but I suspect it may require copious quantities of water to offset the heat. I haven't got any soured cream, but I do have crème fraîche - I wonder if a splat or two of that would help?
I made a pot of chilli yesterday for supper today and tomorrow, and when I was adding the crushed chillies, a twitch of the hand resulted in rather more going in than was intended.
I managed to scoop some out with a teaspoon, but I suspect it may require copious quantities of water to offset the heat. I haven't got any soured cream, but I do have crème fraîche - I wonder if a splat or two of that would help?
Sugar. A little bit of sugar will counteract/balance the heat of the crushed chilis. Add a little and then taste, until you get it where you want it.
And yes, any kind of dairy will also help—sour cream, crème fraîche, shredded cheese, etc.
My recipe and method for 'Scouse'. A delightful, tasty treat.
Beef (or lamb if preferred) cubed.
Stock. (Or water if you like. My advice is don't spare the OXO.)
Onion (sliced or diced.)
Celery (sliced.)
Swede/turnip or other root vegetable. Cubed.
Cabbage (shredded).
Carrots (sliced or diced).
Potatoes - cut into bite-sized chunks.
Seasoning to your taste.
(I am not giving quantities but a general guide is about three times the weight of vegetables to the weight of meat. You can adjust the proportions to suit your taste, or to use up whatever remnants you have lying about. (I tend to go quite heavy on the potatoes, but you could equally go heavy with (say) carrots.)
Place a small amount of cooking oil in the bottom of a pan and heat the onions and meat until the latter is 'browned'.
Add stock. Then add all ingredients except potatoes.
Add seasoning to taste. (E.g. salt, pepper, paprika, fenugreek, garlic, mixed herbs - whatever suits your requirements.)
Boil the mixture and then simmer for two hours in the covered pan.
After two hours, add the potatoes.
Then simmer for a further two hours, stirring occasionally.
I made a pot of chilli yesterday for supper today and tomorrow, and when I was adding the crushed chillies, a twitch of the hand resulted in rather more going in than was intended.
I managed to scoop some out with a teaspoon, but I suspect it may require copious quantities of water to offset the heat. I haven't got any soured cream, but I do have crème fraîche - I wonder if a splat or two of that would help?
Capsaicin is soluble in milk, so drink that rather than water.
Also, cooking reduces the heat in chillies in any case. My chilli con carne was forever coming out as merely savoury mince until I started using Scotch Bonnet, and even then...
Thanks for the advice, folks. As it turned out, it wasn't anything like as scary as I'd imagined*, and a splat or two of crème fraîche was easily enough to bring it to Piglet-friendly heat levels.
I did use a couple of drops of chilli oil along with the olive oil, and I nearly bought an actual, real green or red chilli when I was buying the veggies, but my nerve failed me.
I didn't even need water; I washed it down with a nice glass of Merlot. 🍷
* Firenze, as you're used to using Scotch Bonnets, you'd probably reckon it was just lightly flavoured mince, but I quite enjoyed it!
@Foaming Draught I think at our end of the world cilantro is called coriander. My husband made what we call Dad burgers for dinner tonight, I haven't eaten mine yet because I think that the evening meal at 5.30pm is way too early and would have me raiding the kitchen by 8.30.
Mum or Dad burgers are nothing special, they are just what we used to call the more budget friendly version of fast food, when our kids were little and funds were quite tight. Funnily enough the kids still love them even though they are now adults. I suspect that being able to customise the salad toppings has a certain appeal
I think of WW whenever I put twice as much garlic into a dish as the recipe states.
That would be every time the recipe calls for garlic ...
I've never seen a recipe that distinguishes between the large Russian garlics that have just four cloves and the smaller ones with 1/4 of the volume and a dozen cloves. So I just use my own judgment,
I could have helped Jeremiah out when he wrote "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears". I've just peeled a kilo of onions. Soupe à l'oignon gratinée tonight. It also features items from the Fermented Fluids thread, namely a cooking white (a not bad Evans & Tate Margaret River Sem Sav Blanc, I managed to keep back 150ml for the recipe) and a cooking VSOP. Recipe and pics later.
"Good salt"? I realize I am exposing my ignorance here, but isn't salt salt?
Well, different kinds of salt—kosher, sea, etc.,—can be better for different purposes. But I have no idea what is meant when a recipe simply calls for “good salt.” Unless it means “anything but iodized.”
"Good salt"? I realize I am exposing my ignorance here, but isn't salt salt?
As @Nick Tamen replied, some salt is better than others for cooking. There's nothing wrong with using table salt, so long as you remember that you'll need half the amount for a recipe which calls for kosher salt.
"Good salt"? I realize I am exposing my ignorance here, but isn't salt salt?
As @Nick Tamen replied, some salt is better than others for cooking. There's nothing wrong with using table salt, so long as you remember that you'll need half the amount for a recipe which calls for kosher salt.
Yes, but it seems a lot to expect someone to know that from “good salt.” It’s not just that some salts are better for cooking generally—some are better for baking, some are better for seasoning, some are better for brining, etc.
It would have been just as easy to specify the kind of salt instead of leaving readers to guess.
I know more about what kosher salt is thanks to the link @Foaming Draught posted. In this bit of the UK there's salt (or table salt) which comes from any supermarket or Co-op, usually in a plastic container with a pourable lid, and is small grains, tends to have some anti-caking agent in there too; and there's sea salt, which is pure crystals. You might find pink salt or smoked salt in a fancy deli.
Most UK salt doesn't have iodine added (one of our pickling recipes specifies kosher salt and says to use it because it's non-iodised). If I saw 'good salt' in a recipe I wouldn't have a clue, would just use what was to hand!
Salt aside (🙄), who else has produced a French Onion Soup? All recipes are composites of myriad preceding recipes, so there isn't a canonical French Onion Soup.
Just put on my multigrain dough for its first rise. I make a batch of three loaves about every ten days.
It's not sourdough as I didn't have much success with that. Perhaps multigrain flour isn't good for sourdough. In any case, I like to spread things on my bread/toast and they drop through sourdough holes.
I like to hand knead and have never had a bread machine, except in a holiday rental.
I think at one point we discussed immersion/stick blenders - well I got one. The big jug attachment for the food processor is unwieldy, a faff to clean, and beginning to look its age. The stick head rinses clean in seconds.
I'd used it on an amalgam of sweet potato, carrot, onion and mushrooms which it mulched fairly successfully- albeit into a khaki sludge. Tasted ok though.
I think at one point we discussed immersion/stick blenders - well I got one. The big jug attachment for the food processor is unwieldy, a faff to clean, and beginning to look its age. The stick head rinses clean in seconds.
I'd used it on an amalgam of sweet potato, carrot, onion and mushrooms which it mulched fairly successfully- albeit into a khaki sludge. Tasted ok though.
I use the mill attachment for mine to do more of a coarse chop/shred.
It's perfect for shredding tomatoes for our breakfast pitufo con tomate which is a toasted baguette drizzled in olive oil and topped with shredded tomato. Kind of like bruschetta except without the garlic and basil.
Also the mill is great for grinding almond flour since I make marzipan for my beloved. Cheaper than buying the ready milled stuff.
I'm sure I'll find uses for it. I have a mini blender I use a lot for breadcrumbs and chopping herbs and making spice pastes. The whisk attachment is fairly small and I can't see it doing much beyond beating an egg or frothing hot chocolate. For serious egg white I'd still use my hand mixer.
Your tomatoey bread brings on misty-eyed memories of a lunch bar in a department store in Barcelona. It did one thing only -pan con tomate y jamón . One of those and a glass of Rioja remains my Ideal of lunch.
Glad to hear it. Tonight was another Fuchsia experiment using a bamboo steamer. Not a cooking method I've ever used, probably because my mother used a metal one to produce sodden cauliflower. She was of a generation that believed all vegetables required at least 30 minutes.
I believed microwaving, being a hot/moist method, replaced steaming. However, this was the proper thing - a shallow bowl with marinated chicken strips, mushrooms and wind-dried sausage (which turns out to be Chinese for salami).
The result was savoury, but very light, and utterly unlike anything you would get in a Chinese restaurant. Next up, experimenting with wontons.
Oh my! You remind me of the time I cribbed a recipe for Asian nachos from a Toronto restaurant that is just addictive.
Cut the wontons into triangles and fry them until curly and crispy.
Layer on a baking sheet with julienne strips of carrots, spring onions, caramelized onions, hoisin sauce, and a shredded mild melty cheese like mozzarella or jack and pop in the oven at 180C/350F for about five minutes until cheese is melted. Serve with hoisin or thai chili for dipping.
@Piglet, Do you have closet space and can make counter space to use it? I keep mine in the living room coat closet in my small mobile home and set it on a sheet pan on the stove to use it. I really enjoy having it.
@Piglet, Do you have closet space and can make counter space to use it? I keep mine in the living room coat closet in my small mobile home and set it on a sheet pan on the stove to use it. I really enjoy having it.
Not quite same here, but was for a while. @Clarence didn't really approve of the device, even after she had given grudging approval to get one of our own. So it lived in the laundry, and was brought out as needed. So far, GI's solution, which could work for you, @Piglet.
Here, we deviate. We had a large kitchen bench space at the manse, but when we bought our retirement cottage (my retirement, Clarence still works to keep me in the manner to which I'm accustomed), we have quite a small space. And Clarence hated our original air fryer, "It's so black!" At the same time, we were using it more. So we bought a larger, but white with gold trim, Philips, which didn't look too bad on the more constricted cottage bench top, and swapped it with the toaster, which has been relegated to a cupboard.
Malabar prawn biryani again tonight, one of the easiest and tastiest curries.
And one of my favourites. If ever you see "oil" in an Indian recipe, always use ghee instead. And a more generous dollop than whatever sliver of oil is listed.
Comments
The one I've sent for is specifically on the food of Sichuan.
*Every Grain of Rice
So tonight, as I prepare and serve a Malabar Biryani with prawns, I'll raise a glass of Grant Burge bubbles in their memory. May it be eternal.
That would be every time the recipe calls for garlic ...
That is wise counsel that I always follow. If the garlic is weak, following the recipe can be a disaster. If it is strong, then the truism that there is no such thing as too much garlic is proven yet again. We are fortunate in having excellent locally grown garlic available here, with no need to buy the stuff that has been frozen on a slow boat from China.
@Clarence wielded the immersion blender (she thinks that's a posey name, she calls it a stick mixer, philistine) to fab effect yesterday when she blended/stick mixed left over lunch chicken in preserved lemon to a yummy soup for supper.
In our house we call the stick blender a whoojj because that's the sound it makes and we've called in that ever since Cheery son was a little one. We did have an earlier version of an expensive brand name one, but we wore it out and ended up buying a couple of cheapo ones that if we lost them at hospital it didn't really matter.
I'm wondering what Cheery daughter is having for dinner as she's taken herself off to the not capital for a few days doing touristy things and I'm sure she'll be having some nice meals over the next few days.
Behold
That looks delicious...and I wouldn't normally choose duck!
Bugger. Just slobbered over my phone.
But you'll have to take my word for it.
I will be heading to the Asian market later to get the ingredients for beef with shining noodle soup tomorrow. Daughter asked me to make it! Dear Son-in-Law probably will want something more substantial, however.
That looks heavenly!
I made a pot of chilli yesterday for supper today and tomorrow, and when I was adding the crushed chillies, a twitch of the hand resulted in rather more going in than was intended.
I managed to scoop some out with a teaspoon, but I suspect it may require copious quantities of water to offset the heat. I haven't got any soured cream, but I do have crème fraîche - I wonder if a splat or two of that would help?
And yes, any kind of dairy will also help—sour cream, crème fraîche, shredded cheese, etc.
Beef (or lamb if preferred) cubed.
Stock. (Or water if you like. My advice is don't spare the OXO.)
Onion (sliced or diced.)
Celery (sliced.)
Swede/turnip or other root vegetable. Cubed.
Cabbage (shredded).
Carrots (sliced or diced).
Potatoes - cut into bite-sized chunks.
Seasoning to your taste.
(I am not giving quantities but a general guide is about three times the weight of vegetables to the weight of meat. You can adjust the proportions to suit your taste, or to use up whatever remnants you have lying about. (I tend to go quite heavy on the potatoes, but you could equally go heavy with (say) carrots.)
Place a small amount of cooking oil in the bottom of a pan and heat the onions and meat until the latter is 'browned'.
Add stock. Then add all ingredients except potatoes.
Add seasoning to taste. (E.g. salt, pepper, paprika, fenugreek, garlic, mixed herbs - whatever suits your requirements.)
Boil the mixture and then simmer for two hours in the covered pan.
After two hours, add the potatoes.
Then simmer for a further two hours, stirring occasionally.
This should give a delicious, comfort-food treat.
Capsaicin is soluble in milk, so drink that rather than water.
Also, cooking reduces the heat in chillies in any case. My chilli con carne was forever coming out as merely savoury mince until I started using Scotch Bonnet, and even then...
I did use a couple of drops of chilli oil along with the olive oil, and I nearly bought an actual, real green or red chilli when I was buying the veggies, but my nerve failed me.
I didn't even need water; I washed it down with a nice glass of Merlot. 🍷
* Firenze, as you're used to using Scotch Bonnets, you'd probably reckon it was just lightly flavoured mince, but I quite enjoyed it!
We have very similar terminology chez twang
I've never seen a recipe that distinguishes between the large Russian garlics that have just four cloves and the smaller ones with 1/4 of the volume and a dozen cloves. So I just use my own judgment,
"Good salt"? I realize I am exposing my ignorance here, but isn't salt salt?
They're not going to help if you've got perfect eyesight though ... 🙃
As @Nick Tamen replied, some salt is better than others for cooking. There's nothing wrong with using table salt, so long as you remember that you'll need half the amount for a recipe which calls for kosher salt.
It would have been just as easy to specify the kind of salt instead of leaving readers to guess.
Most UK salt doesn't have iodine added (one of our pickling recipes specifies kosher salt and says to use it because it's non-iodised). If I saw 'good salt' in a recipe I wouldn't have a clue, would just use what was to hand!
It's not sourdough as I didn't have much success with that. Perhaps multigrain flour isn't good for sourdough. In any case, I like to spread things on my bread/toast and they drop through sourdough holes.
I like to hand knead and have never had a bread machine, except in a holiday rental.
I'd used it on an amalgam of sweet potato, carrot, onion and mushrooms which it mulched fairly successfully- albeit into a khaki sludge. Tasted ok though.
I use the mill attachment for mine to do more of a coarse chop/shred.
It's perfect for shredding tomatoes for our breakfast pitufo con tomate which is a toasted baguette drizzled in olive oil and topped with shredded tomato. Kind of like bruschetta except without the garlic and basil.
Also the mill is great for grinding almond flour since I make marzipan for my beloved. Cheaper than buying the ready milled stuff.
AFF
Your tomatoey bread brings on misty-eyed memories of a lunch bar in a department store in Barcelona. It did one thing only -pan con tomate y jamón . One of those and a glass of Rioja remains my Ideal of lunch.
I believed microwaving, being a hot/moist method, replaced steaming. However, this was the proper thing - a shallow bowl with marinated chicken strips, mushrooms and wind-dried sausage (which turns out to be Chinese for salami).
The result was savoury, but very light, and utterly unlike anything you would get in a Chinese restaurant. Next up, experimenting with wontons.
Oh my! You remind me of the time I cribbed a recipe for Asian nachos from a Toronto restaurant that is just addictive.
Cut the wontons into triangles and fry them until curly and crispy.
Layer on a baking sheet with julienne strips of carrots, spring onions, caramelized onions, hoisin sauce, and a shredded mild melty cheese like mozzarella or jack and pop in the oven at 180C/350F for about five minutes until cheese is melted. Serve with hoisin or thai chili for dipping.
AFF
I'm still swithering about getting an air fryer; I really don't have the counter space, but I like the look of how things are done in it.
Not quite same here, but was for a while. @Clarence didn't really approve of the device, even after she had given grudging approval to get one of our own. So it lived in the laundry, and was brought out as needed. So far, GI's solution, which could work for you, @Piglet.
Here, we deviate. We had a large kitchen bench space at the manse, but when we bought our retirement cottage (my retirement, Clarence still works to keep me in the manner to which I'm accustomed), we have quite a small space. And Clarence hated our original air fryer, "It's so black!" At the same time, we were using it more. So we bought a larger, but white with gold trim, Philips, which didn't look too bad on the more constricted cottage bench top, and swapped it with the toaster, which has been relegated to a cupboard.
And one of my favourites. If ever you see "oil" in an Indian recipe, always use ghee instead. And a more generous dollop than whatever sliver of oil is listed.