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

Mmmm, flautas. . . soooo good :-D

Tonight!

White pizza with spinach, feta, and balsamic glaze:


Same dough from two days ago, with a basic white sauce (butter, with garlic bits, then lots of flour, milk, cream, and parmesan, seasoned with salt, pepper, and basil), most of a bag of Italian 5-Cheese Blend (lazy, sorry), feta crumbles, a ton of spinach, and then later, some leftover balsamic glaze from my bruschetta earlier in the month :)

I smoked some shrimp tonight. They didn’t thaw evenly so they took over an hour at 225 in my smoker. I used a combination of cherry chips and some old houjicha tea (from when I accidentally bought it on two trips to the farmers market). Not the best ever but tasty with some lime broccoli slaw,and smoked jalapeno slices on corn tortillas.

She wants me to marry her as well!

Seriously, cooking is one of our mutual interests. You would think that works well cooking together, but the term, “too many cooks in the kitchen,” applies. It’s taken us some time to know not to jump in but to ask where we can help when the other is the main cook. And sometimes the answer is, you just sit there and enjoy watching. :)

I think she cooks better than I do, but her real strength is the assessment of what we have and then an immiediate, “we can make this,” followed by her making something without any recipe at all. She was the eldest of a single parent that worked a lot of nights, so she was essentially in charge of cooking. On the other hand, I really knew only bachelor style cooking until about 10-15 years ago when I decided to get serious and actually learn a few things. But I dove into multiple styles and cuisines. Unlike her, I don’t walk around with lots of recipes in my head.

That pizza looks awesome. It also makes me want to try a quesadilla with those same flavors. I think that would work with maybe a touch of a meltier cheese to bind it.

Haven’t had anything on the smoker in a couple of months, for various reasons. When I made pastrami a while back, my wife found the rub too strong with the black pepper. I have since modified the rub I am using to be a bit milder, but the last time I made pastrami I had a major screwup and it didn’t come out like it should have.

With St Patrick’s day recently, my wife was able to grab a bunch of corned beef points at the store (they don’t usually carry points, only flats). Several went into the freezer for later in the year, but I am planning on putting one on tonight. I trimmed off a bit more fat than I should have, but it should be ok. This is also the thinnest one I have seen, so not sure how quickly it will cook.

This is more nutrition related, and I’m too lazy to copy/paste all of the tweets here, but this Tweet thread thing is pretty cool to read through:

Coincidentally I’m just about to put two corn beef briskets into the smoker this morning. I might have made the same type of mistake - last time I felt the pepper was in large chunks and just fell off so I have ground it in the normal pepper mill. It’s probably too fine but we’ll see.

There is nothing worse than when you over-do a flavor to the point it kills a dish. I did that once with garlic. I had a recipe for garlic chicken that took a bulb of garlic, which they estimated at 20-30 cloves. Being dense, I pulled the cloves out and smashed them when they went into the slow cooker with the chicken.

I can confirm there IS such at thing as too much garlic.

LOL Yeah, I also learned the hard way that when they say 20 cloves they do not mean 20 deconstructed cloves.

Yesterday I decided to try something new and bake some homemade bread. Not just any bread though, I decided I wanted to try out a recipe I found for strawberry/banana bread. It really came out nice. If youre interested you can find the recipe here. http://therecipecritic.com/2015/07/strawberry-banana-bread/

I have a coarse black pepper that I love which is, itself, smoked. The recipe calls for 1/4 cup. It came out really strong. I’m now using only a tablespoon plus 2 more of a citrus pepper blend. Depending on how that goes, I can always kick the coarse pepper back up a little.

She’s never been a big pastrami fan, so it’s worth some experimentation to find something she likes more. Whole briskets are more readily available than points, but they are also huge. When the kids aren’t home from college and it’s just the two of us, it can take a week to finish one. The point is nice because it’s a much more manageable size.

Yep. I learned not to overdo dried oregano. A little bit goes a long way. I want my sauce to be tomato sauce not oregano sauce.

Maybe you should just go back to RUSSIA, COMMIE.

Continuing on from my conversation with @Skipper in the hot sauce thread. . .

Last night I made some shrimp-and-veggie korma, heavy on the coconut milk, but with plenty of ghee-fried golden raisins and cashews in the mix, too.


I also made some chana masala, but didn’t snag a picture of it. It was partially a lazy man’s variant, but I think it turned out really well. Recipe below, to hopefully tempt the ol’ Skip. This makes a lot, so consider halving it.

  • 1 lb of Chickpeas, pressure-cooked in 6-8 cups of water with two regular teabags (for color) and 1 tsp salt until tender (about 15m of pressure; could slow-cook for 8 hours or just boil for 1.5, instead)
  • 1 tbsp Vegetable Oil
  • 1 tsp Cumin Seed
  • 2 medium Red Onions, diced
  • 2 tbsp Ginger-Garlic Paste (or about 1 tbsp each finely minced ginger and garlic; but the paste is super easy to make)
  • 2-3 Green Chilies (I use Jwalas, but Jalapenos or Serranos work well), minced
  • 1 1/2 tsp Salt
  • 2 tsp Cumin Powder
  • 1 1/2 tbsp Coriander Powder
  • 1 tsp Turmeric
  • 1-2 tsp Red Chili Powder (or to taste)
  • 2-3 cans Diced Tomatoes (can use fresh if they’re good where you are)
  • 1-2 tsp Garam Masala (to taste at the very end)
  • 2-3 tbsp Cilantro, chopped

Reserve the cooking water from your chickpeas–it’ll help make your sauce later.

Heat your oil in a very large, deep skillet, or maybe just a Dutch oven/stock pot over medium heat (or medium-high, if you’re frisky). Toss in the cumin seeds. Optionally, if you wanna get real fancy, toss in 2 bay leaves, two cinnamon sticks, and 8-10 cloves while you’re at it. But fishing those out later is annoying enough that maybe it’s not worth it. . .

Anyway, once the seeds are all sizzly, add in the diced onions and cook, stirring frequently, for 12-15 minutes, until they’re starting to brown a little all over. Add in the ginger garlic paste, cook another minute (stirring more), then the green chilies, and another minute.

Add in the powdered spices (cumin, coriander, turmeriic, and chili powders + salt) and mix that into the masala you’ve got going, letting the oil heat them up for 30-60 seconds before adding in your tomatoes. Continue cooking, stirring as needed, for another 10-15 minutes, until the tomatoes are well softened and the mixture is thickening. Add water from the chickpeas to keep ti from sticking as needed, and pour in enough to achieve as saucy a texture as you desire. This is usually a bit of a chunky curry, but hey, it’s your dinner, right?

Add in the chickpeas and stir together gently with the cilantro and garam masala (if you opted for the optional stuff upfront, you can drop this back to 1 tsp to start with, but taste it! If it needs a little zing, go with more). Serve over rice :-D

That korma looks great!

Thanks for that chana recipe too. Sounds like my next attempt. This weekend I have waaaaay too many chicken breasts to get rid of, I’m thinking chicken tikka now after your mention in the other thread.

Chicken Tikka’s pretty fun. It’s also a recipe I’ve labored over a lot over the years. Here’s my current best attempt at restaurant styling it.

###Marinade

  • 1.5 lb Chicken Breast, cut into 1.5 - 2" chunks
  • 1/2 cup Plain Yogurt
  • 1 tbsp Lime Juice
  • 1.5 tsp Salt
  • 1 tsp Black Pepper
  • 1 tsp Cumin Powder
  • 2 tsp Coriander Powder
  • 1 tsp Red Chili Powder
  • 1 tbsp Paprika
  • 1 tbsp Ginger-Garlic Paste (or equal parts minced ginger/garlic)

###Main Recipe

  • 2 tbsp Butter or Ghee (it’s restaurant style, we’re not fuckin’ around with low-fat, okay)
  • 1/2 tsp Cumin Seeds
  • 2 medium Red Onions, diced
  • 1 tbsp Ginger-Garlic Paste
  • 1-2 Green Chilies, minced
  • 1 tsp Salt (or to taste)
  • 1/2 tsp Turmeric
  • 1 tsp Cumin Powder
  • 2 tsp Coriander Powder
  • 1/2 tsp Red Chili Powder
  • 1 tbsp Paprika
  • 2 cans Diced Tomatoes (or ~2lb fresh)
  • 1/2 cup Water
  • 1/3-1/2 cup Heavy Cream
  • 1 tsp Garam Masala
  • 2 tbsp Cilantro, chopped

Mix together all the marinade stuff and seal it away for 4-8 hours. When you’re ready to deal with that, I like threading the chicken-chunks onto water-soaked skewers, laying them across a baking sheet (to slightly elevate the chicken), and broiling for 5-8 minutes, turning once, and cooking till starting to blacken. You could grill them or even just cook in batches in a pan. Anyway, reserve cooked chicken :)

Heat butter/ghee in a deep skillet/dutch oven/stockpot over medium heat. Add in the cumin seeds, let 'em sizzle for half a minute, then add in the onions and cook for about 10 minutes, until softened noticeably and translucent, but not really browning yet. Toss in the ginger garlic paste, cook another minute, then in goes the green chilies for a minute before the dried spices (cumin/coriander/turmeric/chili/paprika/salt) for 30 seconds or so.

Add in the tomatoes and really cook the dickens out of 'em till they’re completely softened (15m or so). Add water to thin it out a little and, ideally, use an immersion blender to puree smooth. You could let it cool and blend it, or just stir/mash it enough to get it mostly smooth, but immersion’s the easiest.

Add in the chicken, cream, garam masala, and cilantro, stir together, and taste for seasoning. I personally like to add about 1-2 tbsp of honey to offset the sourness of the tomatoes, but that’s a personal call, tbh.

And another recipe thank you, sir!

One of the things I learned from doing a lot of the recipes out of Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at home, is to create satchels using cheesecloth tied with cooking twine. It’s really easy to fish the satchel out.

So I had a tooth pulled and was looking for something soft to eat. So I thought maybe some potato soup would be nice. Then I remembered it’s Lent and all the places around here have been doing fish fry lately and I’ve been craving it. Then I thought well, potato soup is basically just clam chowder without the clams. And then it devolved into the mess you see below lol

The beginning! Aromatics and some salt pork.

Potatoes

There’s a lardon joke in here somewhere

All the base together along with some butter

So I guess I forgot to get a pic, but after you sweat down the celery / onions for a little bit you add the clam juice and whole milk and potatoes. Then you simmer that for about 15 mins until the potatoes start to get soft. Then you strain out all the solids, chuck the liquid into a blender and puree for about 2 minutes. This basically creates an emulsion out of the dairy / potato starch / fat from the pork and makes the final product MUCH creamier. It goes from being a semi-broken broth to this lovely creaminess

It probably seems weird to add the clams this late but you’re really just re-heating them unless you’re lucky enough to be somewhere you can get them nice and fresh. Cooking them too long makes them all rubbery

And then just to make it even more lovely and creamy :)

Everything all together for a final simmer

On to the fish fry part. Tartar sauce!

Man your breading stations!

Chowder

Fish fry! :D

Got a chili-rubbed pork belly on the smoker as we speak. Never done this before. Not really sure how it will turn out.

I have a pork tenderloin that was marinated in ponzu, mustard, brown sugar and olive oil. It was originally supposed to be a 24 hr marinade but we went out for drinks last night so it turned into 48 hrs. I took it out of the bag a while ago and patted it dry. Then I put it uncovered in the fridge to dry a bit. Hitting the grill shortly. More to come.

Edit1: The wife is working the line. Earlier today she made pasta salad. She’s presently working on brussels sprouts with olive oil and garlic. Usually my dish but she does it well. We’re going to make the boxed version of Cheddar Bay Biscuits as well. Back to the grill.

A Lesson Learned

Why do you cook first and then come on line to tell people how good you cook?

Sprouts are great.

Biscuits too.

Looks okay, I guess.

But this is the first side.

I put this here as an example for those afraid to cook. We all fuck up. The internal temp was about 145F. After resting it will probably be around 155. The 48 hr marinade may just save this fiasco. Regardless, the fail is all mine.

This certainly fits the title of this thread. Interesting, eh? :)