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

Me too. Nothing like some crispy cheesy edges.

OK, I keep forgetting to do this justice and it’s actually not a long story.

So, my wife is an awesome cook, but she’s not the type who reads recipes for fun. Or very often at all. So when Armando says “Reserve the veggies and cooking water” she read it like “save the veggies and cooking water and add them into the pot later” rather than “save the veggies and cooking water and await further instuction”.

So she dumped all of the water and veggies into the pot with the masala/spices/tomato/etc. Which means we had a soup. I took a picture while she was doing it.

I saw what she was doing and kept saying, “are you sure you need to put all that water in there? That’s like wayyy too much water” and she kept saying “yeah, that’s what the recipe said”. So I looked up the recipe on my phone, saw what it said, and started the rescue operation shortly after.

I can’t really stress enough that despite this misread, my wife is a good cook. She cooks 95% of the meals that happen in our house and I’m a happy camper almost every time.

So, I bailed/strained out probably a full quart of liquid from the pot while keeping it cooking so the liquid came to the top. So, there goes a ton of flavor and spices, and there goes consistency (since I’m cooking it now way past how long it should be cooked AND it’s really soupy). :( We added a lot more of the pav bhaji spice mix in afterwards to try to get it to the spice level we want.

There were two of these after the bailing out (any good things you can think of to do with this “stock”?):

But, all in all, it was still a success. And all of our kids ate it, liked it, and asked for it again, which is good enough for me. Our kids are not notoriously picky like many kids, so don’t be too surprised. :P

This was my youngest and pickiest “smiling” for the camera:

For future reference, you can just take that excess liquid, and reduce it as much as you like by continuing to simmer at a low boil. It would add more time, but you wouldn’t lose any of the spices, and when sufficiently reduced, you can re-add it back in.

I considered doing this, but we had kids waiting for dinner (it was already late), and it was already mushy, so I didn’t want to keep cooking it for that long and I didn’t want to wait an hour for a quart of liquid to boil off. As is it took me ten minutes to get all that liquid out of there and it was simmering the whole time, and I doubt it reduced much in that period.

Edit: Ohhhhhh I misread you. Yes, I seriously considered throwing that liquid in a pot and reducing it, but time was an issue. In fact I’m wondering if I should take it out of the freezer and do that and make a pav bhaji “sauce” to put on something, but I’m guessing someone here will have a better idea of what to do with it. :)

Sure, use the leftover stock to make a biryani. Probably cook some chicken wings in it first or add some better than bouillon, unless you want to keep it vegetarian.

Hmmmmm, the flavor I usually associate with biryani and this flavor are pretty distinct.

Edit: Still, it’s not a bad idea.

Biryani is designed to use all your leftover crap, that’s basically its purpose. I’ve made it with andouille sausage and leftover pork fried rice and it came out amazing. Weird, mixing creole, chinese, and indian flavors, but amazing.

I think it might be a good sauce for infusing flavor into stuff, yeah. Biryani would be an odd mix, but there’s enough regional variations it probably tastes like one of 'em somewhere :). It would be a bit Creole-esque with the tomato, so nice call on the andouille, @stusser :-D

I’d say maybe make some muttar paneer or aloo muttar with it. Both are curries I associate with the sort of sweetly spiced profile of pav bhaji. They’re more or less the same apart from ingredients, too: a similar masala base of onion/ginger/garlic/chilies as before, spice blend of your preference (I like to briefly fry off whole garam masala–cinnamon, cloves, green cardamom, bay leaves, and cumin–in the hot oil before adding the onions, then go with my usual mix of 1:1:2:4 ratio of turmeric powder, chili powder, cumin powder, and coriander powder), some tomatoes and water (here’s where your leftover pav bhaji water comes into play). Simmer, then add in either seared, cubed paneer or parboiled, chopped potatoes, plus some frozen peas, finish with cilantro and a little more garam masala, plus a bit of cream if you’re feeling fancy.

Heck, you could probably even just use the pav bhaji masala in place of the spice blend above and it’d still taste mostly right. And no worries if you elect to skip the whole garam masala spices. Lots of Indian families are super used to eating around them, but I still don’t love it and usually keep em in a teaball while cooking so I can pull em out more easily.

In any case, I am really glad you enjoyed it, @arrendek, and I can’t blame your wife at all for eyes-glazing-over a bit. I tend to go overly long in my recipes :(

You can do two things to speed that up to 10-15 minutes instead of an hour:

  1. Divide it into multiple pans
  2. Use wider pans such as skillets or dutch ovens

Good overview here (I wanted to confirm the wide pans as I always do it this way b/c of my Mom, but I wasn’t 100% positive as I didn’t recall reading it)

Dude, your recipe is fit for a good cookbook, don’t knock yourself. It was just a mistake on our part. :)

Thanks, that’s good info.

I made tempura, based on the Serious Eats tempura batter, which seems pretty typical. I was familiar with the use of seltzer and vodka. The most notable thing here being the substitution of corn starch for half the flour:

It came out pretty well, the asparagus didn’t really fit in the bowl I used for my batter, so they weren’t coated quite correctly, but the shrimp, green beans and broccoli were all pretty good.

I’d use that liquid as the base for lentils with extra carrots, onions, and tomatoes.

Requisite: “Baby you’ve got a stew going!”

I usually take leftover liquids like that and use it for the water in rice that I make frequently. The same with leftover stock (does anyone ever really have leftover stock?)

Oh, extra thought.

@arrendek, if that was the water that the potatoes et. all were boiled in, I’d actually recommend against making rice with it, biryani or otherwise: it might be too starchy and get either gummy or burnt onto the bottom when cooked. Better to stick with things where it will remain a sauce and where a little thickening isn’t a bad thing.

Excellent catch, sir Penblade. Carry on!

Great advice, thanks.

No kids this week, so the wife and I get to try more creative dinners :) Tonight we had stuffed zucchini boats
and vegetable stuffed portabela mushrooms:

New photo by John Graham

Good hot summer night dinner

God I wish my GF liked mushrooms. I really, really miss them.

That looks great, man.

It has begun. I now have about a dozen peppers (jalapeno, poblano and mild green,) and 3 varieties of tomatoes all starting to ripen. I need someone with mad salsa skills to recommend me a recipe, or better, tips on what takes it from good to awesome.

I’ve made salsa about 3 times, once with all fresh ingredients and the salsa came out like watery pulverized pico (which is was technicall.) The second time a little better with canned tomatoes and a slight cooking to even the flavors. And the third was the best so far with everything roasted under the broiler, and using cherry tomatoes, ala Chef John’s recipe.

But I have some fantastic tasting fresh ingredients I’d like to use, I just need some guidance.

(Not pictured, heirloom and hybrid tomatoes, mild chili peppers, and a ton of fresh herbs. Sadly no home-grown onions/garlic/cilantro.)