3441

Any kind of cooked tomato is ok. Chilled in a pasta salad? Major nope.

Which, on the few occasions I’ve had it, I’m perfectly fine with. Enjoy even.

And here I was worried I’d be branded a wierdo or heretic. Apparently Qt3 skews disproportionately towards the same tomato peculiarity as I!

3442

I don’t love the pop, but like Rich, I think it’s mostly the gooshy innards that kinda bug me out with tomatoes, plus the sort of weird “sandy” texture refrigerated tomatoes can get (or faux-ripened-but-not-ripe storebought tomatoes in general).

Indeed, when making curry, I’ll usually quarter Romas and then scrape out the inner seeds before dicing them. But that’s mostly cuz the seeds really get in the way when you’re blending the masala base down into a smooth sauce later on, which the gf strongly prefers. As, again, she hates the texture of whole tomato, cooked or otherwise. :)

Love me some roe on sushi, though. Sadly, my three favorite joints closed (one went out of business, one changed owners and killed their own menu, and one burnt down), so I never get to have it. . .

I managed to make it through my revelation that I don’t really like dark meat chicken without getting banned, so I think you’re safe, @CraigM.

3443

This makes me smile. Because I started my post with all this “I don’t get you people” kind of stuff I used on @ArmandoPenblade when he revealed how dark meat is his vampire holy water. Then I started thinking about all the people I have cooked for, and do currently cook for…and I realized I’m the weirdo.

So I set about trying to figure this out. Which is to say…this kind of makes me feel better about cooking with canned tomatoes most of the time. Even though I live in California. Because it solves most of these problems.

-xtien

3444

Apparently, a lot of tomato flavor compounds live in the jelly that the seeds are suspended in, so you lose a lot of flavor if you de-seed them. Now, that’s no great loss with most store tomatoes, but farm fresh or garden grown ones you may lose a lot of the character.

I generally just use canned whole tomatoes unless I specifically want texture (Pico, etc.)

If I want a pasta with whole-ish cherry tomatoes, I personally dislike the whole tomato “pop”, so I just halve them, which gives the same flavor without the unpleasant textural element.

(Salmon roe is a completely different experience, due mainly to the size)

3445

If you’ve never had a true BLT you haven’t lived :P

If you guys are into sun dried tomatoes, I came across this recipe a year ago and have made it a few times and it’s REALLY good. Also one of those recipes you can do all sorts of customization with :)

3446

IMG_20160914_194927.jpg1451×1935 984 KB

I made a thing. I don’t think it actually has a name, but maybe someone knows of something that I accidentally created. It’s good though.

For some reason, I wanted something like stoffer’s chicken ala king with rice. I don’t know WHY, as I haven’t had it since I was a kid, literally decades ago. But I wanted something like that, so I started cooking.

I started with a roux of butter and flour, figuring that’s a good place to kick things off. Then I added some onions and jalapeno peppers. After I cooked that a bit, I added some skinless, boneless chicken thighs. Also added some mushrooms.

For spices, I added garlic, some berebere spice mix, and some zataar.

Cooked that for a bit, then added in some chopped up kale, some cauliflower and broccoli, and some carrots. Finally, I added a can of coconut milk, and let all that simmer away in the Dutch oven.

While that was simmering, I cooked some farro. Once that was done, I mixed it in with the stuff I was cooking, as well as a bit of the water the farro cooked in.

The end result was just what I going for, while not really liked anything I’ve had before. It was kind of chicken ala king, but with North African flavors going on. And the farro is a lot heartier than rice.

3447

Bizarrely, Chef John, the FoodWishes guy, posted a Chicken Ala King video today, @Timex. Obviously goes a different direction than yours, but clearly there must be something in the water :)

As described, that sounds freakin pretty good–chicken thighs and all!

3448

That’s funny… I’ve never seen that guy before, but watching his video, I’m kind of pleased with myself that I apparently had the right idea when making my thing, with the goal being something like chicken a la king. :D

Also, the Chef John guy has a hilarious cadence to his voice when he narrates his video. Does he do that every time?

3449

Oh yeah, that’s more or less how he always talks. He’s played it up over the years for sure, though. But it’s basically “Cooking with Mark Summers, but Without Mark Summers.”

Dudes pretty good, though. Not everything of his I’ve tried is perfect, but the technique is usually more or less spot on; as I recall, he had fairly legit chef training and a lot of years’ experience before starting the Food Wishes blog. So there’s almost always something to learn in his videos, even if you wind up making changes to the recipe.

Made shredded chipotle chicken, black beans, and cilantro-lime brown rice tonight. Didn’t really get any finished product shots, but that’s mostly because it took forever and we were too busy devouring food to worry about photography. Good night, though!

3450

I’ve been visiting my parents so mostly I’ve been eating what they cook, but I did volunteer to contribute a couple of dishes to the rotation. They eat paleo, so I used America’s Test Kitchen’s Paleo Perfected (their copy, not mine) and made Latin-Style Chicken With Cauliflower Rice last week and Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder with Red Pepper Chutney today. Both were really good, just richly flavorful and tender (the pork especially was fall-apart tender) even though I did not execute either perfectly. (Not my kitchen, and we made a few errant assumptions we probably shouldn’t have. Plus I don’t do a lot of meat-centric cooking and have never roasted anything before.)

With the chicken, it called for 6-8 oz breasts, but we got 1 lb breasts (for $2/lb - crazy), so they took a bit longer to cook and didn’t cook evenly. I ended up just removing them from the “rice” (in which they cooked) as they hit the target temperature. We also didn’t have a 12 inch stovetop skillet so I used a slighly wonky electric skillet. But man, minced cauliflower really does do a pretty good impression of rice when cooked long enough, and it had plenty of yummy southwestern spices and tomatoes and olives to round things out.

The roast is real simple, just crosshatching the fat, a maple sugar/salt rub, a day or so in the fridge, add pepper, 5-6 hours in the oven on 325 over four cups of water (basting twice, adding water as needed), and then an hour on a cutting board under foil to rest. But it’s probably the best meat I’ve ever tasted and without adding any post-roasting seasoning. Once you splash on the chutney…so good. Mind you, we didn’t have the V-rack called for (and had to go out to get a large roasting pan at all), and I let the water get low enough that the bottom of the pan stuff was scorching at one point, and the chutney was supposed to thicken and didn’t (a problem I’ve had on their stove before - it’s induction so it cooks a bit differently and perhaps the “simmer” setting doesn’t actually accomplish that), plus was chunkier than it was really meant to be because I am bad at fine chopping. But it turned out excellent nonetheless.

3451

One of my co-workers keeps a nice little garden, which produces tomatoes and jalapeños for the office, and with that bounty in store, there’s only one thing to do: pico de gallo! Three smallish tomatoes, five jalapeños, some onion, a pinch of oregano, a larger pinch of cumin, and obviously, tons of cilantro. (In my half of the batch, anyway; my wife, unaccountably, doesn’t like cilantro.)

Since I don’t have a food processor, there’s quite a bit of fiddly dicing involved, but my wife (from a Mexican family) tasted it and told me (categorically not Mexican) that it’s pretty good, if a little chunkier than usual. I’ll take it.

3452

Moving through my own Mexican-inspired menu today.

Had Chilaquiles for lunch-breakfast today.

2016-09-18 15.07.06.jpg2548×1433 839 KB

Fried chopped corn tortilla into little crisps, then added in the leftover chipotle-tomato sauce from my chicken earlier in the week and stirred to combine. Topped with two fried eggs, some cheese, Crema, and diced green onions, with a little helping of (storebought) refried beans on the side.

Tonight, I make some (surprisingly delicious!!) fried fish tacos:

The fish itself was cod, sliced thin, then tossed with pepper, salt, and a little flour. The batter was flour, sugar, cumin, cayenne, oregano, lime zest, and some baking powder, mixed well, with a full bottle of Corona Extra added in. It was very light, airy, and crispy, with a nice bright, lightly spiced flavor.

Underneath I had crema that I’d blended with cilantro, lime juice, salt, pepper, and half a jalapeno–it was very herby, spicy, and tangy. On top, I added some spicy slaw (red and green cabbage, shredded carrots, cilantro, green onion, and jalapeno tossed with apple cider vinegar, oil, sugar, salt, pepper, cayenne, and celery seed), as well as yellow corn, green onions, and cilantro.

On the side’s a nice chunky guacamole I made last night–lots of tomato, red onion, jalapeno, cilantro, and lime in the mix–and of course some corn chips (storebought, alas).

These items, alongside the Mexican-style black beans, cilantro-and-lime brown rice, chipotle shredded chicken, and some pico de gallo I made (plus shredded cheese, sour cream, iceberg lettuce, and more cilantro as toppings/taco-stuffers), made the basis for a very delicious week.

I used some of those (particularly the chicken and cheese) to make this little plate of flautas last night–chicken, cheese, and green onions mixed, then rolled in corn tortillas and fried in a thin layer of oil in a small pan, with sour cream, shredded-lettuce-and-pico salad on the side.

Overall, pretty pleased!!

3453

Sorghum!
So I’ve been playing around with various grains, and then I learned about this one. I’ll probably do some stuff with it in the near future, but the first thing I have done is true it in my awesome nordicware microwave popcorn popper. Because apparently you can pop sorghum.

And the result is tiny popcorn!

IMG_20160919_163605.jpg1935×2580 977 KB

Amazing. Took less time than corn, so at two minutes it burned a bit. Will need to adjust that. Has less hull than corn too. Overall the flavor is similar, but nuttier, perhaps more akin to puffed barley? Indeed, if you like puffed barley cereal, this would replicate it almost exactly, but with a bit more hull.

3454

Apparently you can pop other grains, like quinoa and amaranth. I’ve been experimenting with using these things in granola, and find the tiny little “dots” aren’t very pleasant, fun to eat, or easy to incorporate into granola, uh, “chunks,” so I’ve been thinking about popping them to make 'em both softer and a little larger. Apparently popped amaranth grains are adorable.

How do you find the Nordicware popper? I’ve been kinda lowkey considering one, given how much the gf loves popcorn and how much I hate doing it in a pot. . .

3455

I’ve been doing the same thing, just haven’t even thought to use sorghum. But barley, bulgur, quinoa, faro and the lot have been getting mixed in on a regular basis. Now I’m going to have to keep an eye out for sorghum.

3456

Amazon. I think it cost me like $8. Best thing ever. 2 minutes on high in my microwave perfectly pops popcorn. It’s just a plastic bowl with a lid… Apparently you can also do other stuff with it like queso and stuff.

I cannot recommend it enough.
BOOM
https://www.amazon.com/Nordic-Ware-Microwave-Popcorn-Popper/dp/B00004W4UP

It’s way better than ones that require disposable pieces that need to be replaced. You can pop with oil and stuff in there too, if you want. Infinitely faster and easier than air popping.

3457

Why not just use a wok?

-xtien

3458

Because putting a wok in the microwave will cause it to explode, and using a wok on the stove is going to take a lot longer than 2 minutes.

3459

But what about putting a microwave. . . in a wok?

3460

Go home Armando, you’re drunk.