Oh hell yes. Living in Italy at 28-years-old was the first time I had Carbonara. And to be honest, the first time I truly appreciated a good number of Italian dishes. And the first time I had non Americanized anything, to be honest. The Italians love of cheese, fresh ingredients and bold tastes went beyond my palette level of understanding at the time. I really, really hope I can go back one day. I also lived in a coastal town, and their love of seafood presented in any number of Italian dishes really highlighted the tastes to a point they became lifelong favorites. An example from back then: grilled squid salad. So good.
I’m drooling man. I’ve never made it. I want to, so I need to ask, worth it? Everything about those flavor combinations tells me I would love it and it would indeed be worth it. Beyond the long braise time though, an hour-ish for prep?
Armando, the feast looks great. And this is a good example of how things go. We come here, we paste, “look at this dish we made.” You post entire meals. Sometimes even feasts. And they look amazing, and sound like they taste amazing as well, especially because we see the love you put into making these things repeatedly to nail the final outcomes.
So though it may never happen, again I say, cooking is a calling for you. Maybe if not a restaurant or food truck, consider catering?
Also, based on the HUGE uproar at Blizzcon, I’m wondering how the crowd took news of that announcement of a Diablo-like going mobile?
And yeah, our group was. . . distinctly unimpressed. But I think all of us also realize we’re not really Blizzard’s target demo anymore. So long as they’re still running the Starcraft World Championship Series at Blizzcon, we’ll keep watching, cuz fuck yeah competitive Starcraft, but they’ve left most of us behind with everything else they’ve done for the last decade (or more–the last two Blizz games I’ve liked at Starcraft 2 and Warcraft 3…but hey, War3 Reforged looks neat!).
So yeah, not the 24/7 ragefest that some places were. Besides. We had okinomiyaki to console us.
We always go to new Japanese restaurants but so far not a one has offered this. We usually go izakaya style, so you would think we would hit it sooner or later.
I did get my wife hooked on takoyaki balls, hence the beeline to izakaya restuarants, so I will dutifully keep looking for it.
I mean, it really wasn’t that hard. Not a simple dish, but not complicated by any means either. I had the butcher cube the meat for me, and so all I had to really do was cut up all the veggies. It takes a few minutes to peel all of the pearl onions, but you blanch them for about 60 seconds in boiling water, then slice off the tip and they come right out of the skin. It’s a nice weekend dinner though because once you get it all in the pot you can throw it in the oven and only really have to check back every hour or so. Just soooo much flavor to it though, definitely try it out.
From what I can tell, the flavor profiles are very similar, albeit sub out the (typical) octopus bits for shredded cabbage. But that said, if you guys do dig takoyaki, then yeah, definitely keep an eye out for okinomiyaki.
It’s also super hard to find around here; hence why I just went and made it. I hope it’s reasonably close to “right” :)
Yeah, okonomiyaki is just flat takoyaki. #hottakes#comeatme#changemymind
Some people put cabbage in takoyaki. Well, I’ll just quote my favorite Japanese food YouTube channel:
There is a much heated debate whether cabbage leaves can be used in takoyaki. If your guests are Japanese, make sure to get permission so that nobody gets upset.
(Basically, some people claim that you put cabbage in okonomiyaki but not in takoyaki, and that doing so is just making okonomiyaki balls rather than takoyaki. Others think the cabbage tastes good, so why not?)
Today I had a cooking disaster: I made a slow cooker chicken noodle soup, and stupidly put the noodles in at the beginning. You’re supposed to cook the noodles separately and add them at the end. Instead, the noodles cooked, absorbed the broth, and became mush. My wife won’t touch it and she’s cooking dinner instead. Fortunately I discovered this disaster early enough for plan B.
And no, I’m not throwing it out. I’ll add hot sauce and take it for lunch.
If it’s really mushy, chill it down until it solidifies, form into patties, dip into egg wash, panko breadcrumbs, then fry them up in a little olive oil. Call them chicken pot pie croquettes. Spicy dijon/mayo sauce would go well on the side.
Serve with a garlicky sauteed bitter green like radicchio or a green salad.
There’s a place near here that does nothing but takoyaki. And every time, without fail, the center is undercooked and is a warm gooey batter. I don’t know how they are still in business, let alone not knowing how to cook the damn balls through.
@ArmandoPenblade Do you use vinegar when cooking the eggs, or afraid it’ll affect the taste?
@Eric_Majkut That looks amazingly good! I’ll need to find and work on a slow cooker or instant pot version.
Interesting thingy. I made meatballs the other night. The ‘recipe’, AKA what I do, called for two eggs. I bake my meatballs these days. The problem with two eggs in an oven is that the meatballs sometime have a skirt of egg white that is expressed. It’s kinda gross. So this time I used an equal volume of mayonnaise instead.
I don’t; humorously, I’ve had both that and baking soda suggested to me (separately, of course). Not sure which would help, but I’ll probably try one or the other next time around.
Mayo is an amazing secret cooking ingredient. It can be really nice for brownies, too.
It shouldn’t be a secret. It’s only egg, oil and an acid. Anything that can use those ingredients, with understanding of the volume of each, can use it. And it’s already an emulsion. Less work for you!
A brilliant idea. And I did exactly that: https://i.imgur.com/dr77JWj.png
The mush that I started with. It was supposed to be chicken soup, except I’m an idiot.
I’m doing some work here, my cooking brothers and sisters.
I saw some chicken gizzards at the store. For some reason, i thought that i needed to do something with them.
They were basically free… Like, literally, a $1.23 for a big package of them. Normally, pan front then would be too much of a pain in the ass and messy, but if you recall, I got that breville toaster oven air fryer thing. I figured it to give it a shot.
Now, interesting thing here… I’ve cooked chicken wings in this thing, and I’ve pretty much perfected it, but this is the first time I’ve tried doing something that was actually battered.
So, they definitely cooked … if anything, they are kind of overcooked, but they are gizzards… so i don’t mind then being crunchy and chewy.
But notice, some of the flour in the outside didn’t get dark. It’s not raw… It tastes cooked. Really good, actually, with the spices i added to the flour.
But still… Weird. I’m thinking that maybe it’s because there was no oil, and so that kept it from Browning? Anyone have any ideas?
Either way, it was really easy, and not bad for a little over a dollar.
Yeah, I figure that’d be it. Maillard reaction and caramelization both kick off in the low-300s, temp-wise. If it was a wet batter or even a moist breading, it would probably hung around 212F (give or take for the various stuff affecting the water boiling point) until it started to dry out, then started to rise to the temp of the surrounding air. Except air is a way worse conductor than oil, so even if the temp was similar to frying (say, 350-400F), it’d have taken longer to really get the exterior flour to those temps and start browning it all over.
Honestly, the air fryer setting in that thing is amazing. It’s awesome for lots of stuff… Things like tater tots? It makes them better than anything other than deep frying, and really the difference is negligible.
Also, it makes awesome chicken wings.
If definitely recommend it for folks… It’s nicer than a normal air fryer too, because it can hold so much more with good air flow.
