Tell us what you have cooked lately (that's interesting)

Damien_Neil · 2010-11-16T15:04:12.000Z

Chowder recipe:

     2 lbs clams, live in shell
      1 lb mussels, live in shell
   1/2 lbs scallops, shelled
         3 large baking potatoes (e.g., russets), peeled
         5 small red potatoes, unpeeled
  6 pieces bacon (about 1/3 lbs), more if bacon is particularly lean
         1 yellow onion
  2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 bottle Sauvignon Blanc
  1 bottle clam juice
     1 cup heavy cream
           thyme
           parsley
	   salt
	   pepper
	   garlic powder
	   bay leaf

Peel baking potatoes and boil until soft.  Drain and mash or blend
thoroughly.

While potatoes are boiling, chop bacon into half-inch strips.  Dice
red potatoes (about 1/2 inch) and finely chop onion.  Fry bacon
until done and remove from pan.  Fry red potatoes, onion, and garlic
in bacon fat until onions are translucent.

Steam clams and mussels over wine in a large pot until they open
wide.  (It may be necessary to steam shellfish in several batches.)
Remove meat from shells and set aside.  Remove steamer tray from
pot.  Add any juices from shellfish and bottle of clam juice to
remaining wine.  Set pot with wine and juices to simmer on medium
heat.  Adjust heat as necessary to maintain at a simmer.

Add baking potatoes to the pot, and stir to combine.  Add red
potatoes, onions, and any remaining bacon fat.  Stir.

Add bay leaf, thyme, parsley, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.  Stir.

Rinse scallops and pat dry with paper towel.

Add clams, mussels, scallops, and bacon to the pot.  Stir.  Add
cream to taste, about one cup.

Adjust flavor with thyme, parsley, garlic powder, salt, and pepper
until desired taste is achieved.

Serve with oyster crackers or good Italian-style bread.

This makes a very thick chowder. If you want something soupier, use the whole bottle of wine.

interman · 2010-11-17T01:26:42.000Z

Thanks Damien, that sounds great.

cheapfilms · 2010-11-17T10:11:58.000Z

Not the crock pot thread, which I can’t find, but I made this yesterday: whole chicken crock pot. Came out really good, though I did cut the amount of salt in half.

There’s about 3 cups of chicken juice. Great for gravy. Next time I’ll put in the bird upside down and add carrots and potatoes. The top white meat came out a little dry. I could also cut my time from 6 hours to 4 I think.

I wish I had a crock pot with an auto-start timer. The bird sat on auto-warm for three hours before I got home from work.

I kept thinking about the thing cooking all day.

XPav · 2010-11-17T12:13:12.000Z

I was just about to come ask for good Crab recipes, being as how dungeness crab season just started. Thanks Damien!

Waltzer · 2010-11-17T12:18:45.000Z

AlanC:

Same method as Broccoli Strascinati which is awesome as well. I’ll have to give this a try with brussels sprouts.

You can get this result much more easily by preheating a sheet pan in a 500 degree oven for half an hour and then dumping your veg onto it. Works with cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, parsnips, turnips, brussels sprouts - basically any vegetable that you can roast. You want to cut the veg to maximize surface area, and flip it roughly half way through. Cook times are generally about 20 minutes. You get more intense browning without having to tend a pan. Oh, and as an aside, add the garlic at the end or it will burn and everything will be ruined.

Waltzer · 2010-11-17T12:30:23.000Z

cheapfilms:

There’s about 3 cups of chicken juice. Great for gravy. Next time I’ll put in the bird upside down and add carrots and potatoes. The top white meat came out a little dry. I could also cut my time from 6 hours to 4 I think.

This is counterintuitive, but the part of the chicken that’s submerged in the liquid will cook faster than the part of the chicken that is not - even though the steam at the top of the crock pot has a higher temperature, it’s much less dense than the liquid and cooks less efficiently. The white meat was dry because white meat dries out really easily. I’d leave the chicken right-side-up and put the crock pot on a Christmas tree timer or something. You can braise a whole chicken in less than two hours, so six hours of cooking is WAAAAY too much.

cheapfilms · 2010-11-17T13:12:20.000Z

Will try that out on the next bird. Thanks.

Damien_Neil · 2010-11-17T17:01:46.000Z

XPav:

I was just about to come ask for good Crab recipes, being as how dungeness crab season just started. Thanks Damien!

But…there’s no crab in there. Just lots of shellfish!

Waltzer · 2010-11-17T18:38:20.000Z

cheapfilms:

Will try that out on the next bird. Thanks.

Actually, don’t, because I must have been high when I wrote it, and you’ll kill your whole family with salmonella or something. You can’t leave a big vat of water and chicken lying out at room temperature while you’re at work. Stupid, Marcus! Stupid!

TimElhajj · 2010-11-18T19:01:15.000Z

blackened shrimp by tim_elhajj, on Flickr

Peeling shrimp and pomegranates is hard.

XPav · 2010-11-18T22:09:29.000Z

Damien Neil:

But…there’s no crab in there. Just lots of shellfish!

You wrote clams and I read crab.

Crab on the brain, I guess.

Timemaster_Tim · 2010-11-19T08:17:15.000Z

TimElhajj:

Peeling shrimp and pomegranates is hard.

But the shrimps peeled and deveined.

As for the pomegranates, it is a bit of work. The way I got at it is to cut the top off and score the skin of the pomegranate. I dunk it in a mixing bowl full of water to soak for a bit of time. I then break it apart in the water and extract the seeds. It is time consuming.

CheesyPoof · 2010-11-19T09:02:40.000Z

Pomegranates aren’t that hard. My wife saw a tip from Martha Stewart. Basically you cut them in half and whack the skin of it with a heavy spoon and they’ll fall out. Pretty easy and keeps the mess down.

Damien_Neil · 2010-11-19T11:59:28.000Z

XPav:

You wrote clams and I read crab.

Crab on the brain, I guess.

If you make crab chowder, I want to hear about it. I’m now curious how it’d turn out.

playingwithknives · 2010-11-20T12:24:20.000Z

I made lamb sweetbreads (European definition: thymus gland, rather than testicles) for the first time tonight.

Soak sweetbreads in ice cold water for 1 hour - overnight. Change water at least a few times. Dry and chill.

Bring some vegetable bouillon to boil, add sweetbreads, turn down and simmer for 5 mins. Allow to cool. Keep some bouillon.

Peel the membranes and cartilage from the sweetbreads.

Heat some butter in a pan, add sweetbreads, cool until golden brown. Remove sweetbreads.

Ladle some bouillon into the pan, de-glaze, add chopped parsley, sage, seasoning. Reduce. Add cream. Finish.

I put the sweetbreads and sauce on a bed of savoy cabbage.

WarrenM · 2010-11-20T13:06:00.000Z

Just made my first pumpkin pie with crust from scratch … here’s hoping it’ll set up right! Cooling on the counter and making the house smell amazing.

Sarkus · 2010-11-22T20:58:05.000Z

I had some hamburger buns, hamburger, garlic salt, bacon, cheese, and eggs available to make something out of tonight.

It wasn’t meatloaf. ;-)

Athryn · 2010-11-22T21:08:51.000Z

Meatloaf is yummy!

I made some brownies that were almost like fudge, using melted chocolate and cocoa. I am always nervous about brownie recipes that don’t have leavening, but this one turned out pretty good.

jerri_blank · 2010-11-22T21:29:00.000Z

Dunno how interesting this is, but I just baked an Italian Cream cake. It fell a little in the middle, but hopefully it’ll be tasty when we tear into it at the office tomorrow.

Dejin · 2010-11-23T21:33:18.000Z

I’ve got a baking question I’m hoping some of you can help out with. If I’ve got a recipe for muffins, can I use it to bake a loaf of bread or vice versa? For example, can I take the ingredients for banana bread and pour it into cupcakes and create muffins instead or take the ingredients for a cranberry muffins and pour it into a loaf pan and create cranberry bread? I assume the answer is yes, but I don’t want to have a disaster for Thanksgiving, if I’m missing something.