What's cooking? part 4

I've never made arepas but I have at times served it over polenta!

Same thing, basically. Arepas are just fried/grilled polenta blobs only you get to call them arepas.

They were delicious smothered in my chicken adobo tomato saucey and potato soup.

I found the GOYA yellow masarepa at the first West Indian vegetable market I went into, btw! Score.

Nice! Leftovers?

"Leftover" is a relative term; I usually eat the same thing for about 4 days. I figure I'll get tonight's dinner out of the stew, and I am looking greatly forward to that.

made a stir fry with chicken thighs and some frozen corn and green beans but somehow botched things by putting basmati rice in the rice maker. it was ok, but not the right match.

A few weeks ago I put orzo (pasta) in my rice maker ;_; That was a very sad stir fry.

I think I need a new rice maker, or at least a new rice maker pot. I have no idea wtf I did, but the bottom has scrape marks and I think I ate a batch of rice that had material from the rice maker in it :(

Yeah I am getting a new rice maker I think. I want one with a timer and that will make oatmeal in the morning

Anyone have any recommendations? I mean, any old rice maker will work, but those fancy japanese ones are pretty awesome. Zojirushi or something?

yeah zojirushi

they're pretty pricey tho

It can cook as little as 1/2-cup of rice and also bakes cakes.
Menu settings include: white/mixed/sushi, porridge, cake, rinse-free and quick cooking

wtf

http://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-NS-LAC05XA-Uncooked-Cooker-Stainless/dp/B000G30ESY/ref=br_lf_m_1000220711_1_5_img?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=kitchen&pf_rd_p=385185701&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_i=1000220711&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1NZGEYCT3AYKSVMPVMPF

130 bucks for the best electronic kitchen thing i own

With such an endorsement, how can I go wrong? I shall order this small godlike rice appliance.

yeah maybe I'll pick one up today. also want to get an over-the-sink cutting board and some food-grade storage bins for like, everything you could possibly store. a little gunshy after the mouse debacle.

on the upside, nuking my entire pantry means I get to start from scratch. a lil pricey, but I just got my loan money and it's nice to have a clean start.

I think I need a new rice maker, or at least a new rice maker pot. I have no idea wtf I did, but the bottom has scrape marks and I think I ate a batch of rice that had material from the rice maker in it :(

― mh, Tuesday, May 8, 2012 10:25 AM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark

we have a zojirushi but I think whatever coating hte pot uses isn't very durable, our pot has lots of scratches and you can see the bare metal in places (nb I don't know what my parents do to that pot, it might be okay if you don't abuse it like they do)

you are fucking up your pot, i've had my pot for three years and it's fine. don't put it in the dishwasher.

yeah I wanna order a replacement pot but I know they'll just fuck it up again

we never put things in the dishwasher! we never use our dishwasher for reasons unknown

are they like scrubbing it with steel wool or something? this is really weird to me.

yeah I have no idea. I just ordered a replacement pot out of shame.

Probably using other utensils in the pot instead of the little plastic rice paddle it comes with.

good point; you def want to use that thing

i need a more fancy rice cooker but i need so much stuff right now so probably not getting it soon

I got some dumb red rice cooker at Target for $13 and it works a treat. Brand is Aroma. It came with a little metal container with holes in the bottom so you can steam food, too.

i have the cheapest zojirushi. i need more capabilities.

yeah i used to have one of those cheap ones but having the timer actually changed my life; in addition to overnight oatmeal you can go to work and come home to cooked rice--esp with brown rice the cooking time is long enough that if i waited to start it until getting home i'd just snack and snack and etc.

I still make rice on the stovetop #littlehouseontheprairie

have any of you guys done any brining of poultry? tonight i brined a couple of bone-in chicken breasts and roasted them and i did less than the minimum brining time but i can't decide if it was too damn salty.

ooh yes mr veg has brined chicken and turkey before.

I don't find it too salty, makes the meat so juicy and yum. I love it!

was your brining solution designed for brining just pieces, or for a whole bird? If you use that same solution for pieces I could see how you might end up with a saltier piece of meat

I want to do either of these two

http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2012/03/the-pizza-lab-awesome-pizza-without-an-oven-aka-skillet-pizza.html

http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2011/07/the-pizza-lab-how-to-top-grilled-pizzas.html

I still make rice in a pot on the stove too, absorption style, always comes out perfect. Ive never had a rice cooker not flake off its teflon on me within 3-6 months, theyre all made like shit. And no, I dont scour, use forks on it, or put it in the dishwasher. It just loses its integrity after minimal amounts of time. Theyre always made with shitty cheap aluminium bowls. I dunno.

xxp nope it was designed for pieces--it's the brining instructions for bone-in breasts in all about roasting by molly stevens. she really recommends a 24-hour-in-advance presalting so maybe i'll try that next time.

hhmm, yeah probably. that's the only downside to brining, you kind of have to give it the time it requires. no shortcuts.

my dad taught me how to make scallion pancakes yesterday and they were great!

curiously, one uses 'hot water dough' as a base. I am wondering why that is, so I e-mailed harold mcgee. I wonder if he will get back to me!

Does it have yeast? My bread recipes always ask for slightly warmed water - 80 to 90 degrees celsius (lol canadian)

I make hot water dough for the crust of pork pies - flour, butter, lard, salt, boiling water. It changes the texture of the crust - crispy and toothsome without having the long flakes of a cold water pie crust. Stands up really well to handling/shaping.

no yeast, no lard to be melted

Craved DUMPLINGS!; made DUMPLINGS!. (pork and shrimp + pork)

My daughter absolutely loves lemon curd, learned how to make it herself, and has been experimenting with lime curd, grapefruit curd, and last night she tried blueberry curd. (We have quarts and quarts of blueberries in the freezer with the prospect of gallons more coming in the next few weeks.) I approve of all of this fruit curds.

coming over right now, fyi

The blueberry curd is really good, btw -- she added a bit of citric acid and got just the right tartness.

hay, i'm trying to make this indonesian soup right now and the recipe for the bumbu paste calls for five shallots (this feels like such a yahoo answers kinda question but) five whole shallots seems like a lot? u guys think the recipe just means the bulbs?

the ingredients for the paste:

5 shallots
3 garlic cloves
1/8tsp cardamom
1/2tsp nutmeg
1/4tsp cloves
2 chilies
1/2" slice ginger
2tbs kecap manis or soy sauce
12 macadamia nuts

Five doesn't seem too many

hm, cool, thx.

oh i left out the 1/3 cup broth. anyway...thanks

If you did use 5 whole shallots would that seem to be a proper amount of paste for the dish? Shallots (and onions, garlic) get much milder in flavor when they're cooked, so if you're worried about it being too strong I don't think there's a problem there. And based on the other ingredients that sounds like a reasonable amount of "base" for a sauce/paste.

X-post!

ha, yeah, i think it'll be ok, i worked myself into paranoia considering that if the author meant cloves i would be using like 3 or 4x the intended amount. how my brane works. i have the shallots all peeled and in the food processor, it seems right.

oh good, i am out of ginger. darn.

My 2 sets of muffin/scone rings arrived yesterday...made my first batch of crumpets this morning. A+++, especially with the lemon curd and blueberry curd. Also with just butter...also with butter and honey. I'm full.

I'm not nearly as experienced w/ Indonesian cuisine as I am with Vietnamese/Chinese, but in the latter case I've found there's a lot of slipperiness in the naming of alliums. 'Shallots' might be intended to indicate chives, leeks, garlic, scallions, just as 'limes' might signify lemons, bergamot, tangerines, grapefruit, some strange local thing that has no analog known to English speakers. Coupled with the (relatively) impressionistic style of most Asian recipes, and a total lack of standardization w/r/t size, 'five shallots' can mean, anything from a handful of chives to six vidalia onions.