What's cooking? part 4

But I'm thinking this isn't so much a red sauce as like er the kind of red wine mushroom sauce you would serve on a steak? OK maybe I am missing something here--ah, OK, pasta sauce. Yeah you could skip butter but man some butter would be good.

the marcella hazan book has a butter tomato sauce recipe that is awesome

the one with half an onion and a can of tomato and half a stick of butter? That is all time classic. So simple, so divine.

Cooking seriously got so much easier when my friend who is a chef/caterer pointed out that it's all a system. I was following recipes like each one was special and different, when really they all follow the same rules. It's great!

I mentioned the butter only bc one of my favorite pasta sauces is this tomato/orange pepper/spicy sauce with seafood, and the recipe for that calls for butter, even. So I figured, how could it be bad?

mushrooms and butter are a great combo anyway. that reminds me my mom got me this little bag of arrabiata spice a while ago. i should use it soon. maybe i am going to move from my curry phase to italian phase.

btw: the mario batali recipe for mushroom ragu does call for 1 tbsp butter!

it's hard for me to conceptualize red sauce with butter in it but I guess I put olive oil in red sauce all the time so

this came out great! (excuse greasy cooktop)
http://i.imgur.com/WcSGU.jpg?1

yummo!

I bought a bag of mystery mushrooms - these are oyster mushrooms right? got any good recipes?

http://i975.photobucket.com/albums/ae232/daggerlee/c36d138a.jpg

what else do you have? (note i like never use mushrooms so i probably have no ideas)

idk I'm at my parents so the pantry is pretty well stocked and I can drive in their car to the supermarket and buy things whenever I want to instead of planning my trips four days in advance

Mushroom tart? Mushroom DUMPLINGS!?

Mushroom soup?

Spaghetti with a garlicky herby mushroom cream sauce.

mushroom DUMPLINGS! sound great! but normally I think we use shiitakes for those? xp

Or a sherry cream sauce with sage and long pasta and parmesan shavings on top

sherry cream and mushroom, that is

what abt like pho-ey broth with mushrooms and other vegetable yumminess?

maybe! it's hard for me to imagine what an oyster mushroom tastes like. I guess I'll just put it in with a bunch of other ingredients

Ok how about oyster mushroom DUMPLINGS! with pho spices, chives or scallions and [xxx] dipping sauce?

Saute and eat a bit of one, and let its flavor guide you to the next step.

they don't have a super-strong flavor, not like shitake. definitely v mild tasting.

Spaghetti with a garlicky herby mushroom cream sauce.

Ho shit I am so making this week. Do you have recipe?

I just made angel hair for lunch for the first time in years and it was heavenly.

I don't have a specific recipe -- that's the kind of thing I would generally freestyle. I like to get a good brown sear on mushrooms, treating them more or less like little steaks, so I get big ones and slice them pretty thick.

Saute the mushrooms until they've given up their water and are good and brown, set them aside -- saute a little onion and a lot of garlic in a generous amt of olive oil, add a little flour to make a roux, add some chicken or veg stock. Add fresh or dried herbs (if using fresh, put some aside to add at the very end), salt and pepper to taste, put the mushrooms back in, let the sauce simmer a while.

Add cream (or maybe even sour cream) and let it simmer on medium low while you make pasta. This is one where I'd definitely use a long noodle instead of tubes or ears or corkscrews or whatnot, because what's better than rolling up a forkful of spaghetti and using a thick slice of mushroom as an anchor on the end of your fork?

I guess tarragon or rosemary would be the best herbs for this? If I used rosemary, I probably wouldn't add any fresh at the end, but I definitely would if using tarragon.

Try sage!

And deglaze the pan before making the roux with a splash of sherry! You won't be sorry.

^^^gonna do this tonight! Must remember to pick up some sherry. . . what is a good sherry for this purpose?

dumbest shit i've done in awhile

read an article in bon appetit that suggested throwing wet kale onto hot oil, then turning to low and covering pot and steaming for 20 minutes or so before adding it to a pasta dish

now my usual method for adding kale to pasta is to throw it in the pasta water in the last minute of pasta cooking to blanch (and then turning off all the heat as I add kale and pasta to the rest of the dish)

but i thought "sounds crazy bit what do i know? i don't write for bon appetit!"

of course it was predictably nasty, kinda like stewed cafeteria spinach with an aftertaste of mowed lawn

yuck. braising kale would be better than that weird steam method.

I use a cheap ($5.99 or so) California sherry from the (lemme double check) San Antonio winery.

http://www.wallywine.com/images/PRODUCT/large/105783.jpg

I never drink it, only use it for cooking. Makes a GREAT reduction w/ thyme & pan juices for chicken or w/e too.

my girl is makin french onion soup tonight. we're on a soup kick. off to help chop 5lbs of onions...

http://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attachments/2/2/3/9/0/0/a3460069-93-safety%20goggles.gif?d=1283812627

;_;

that's a lot of soup!

[faaaaaaaaaaart]

recipe says something like, "now you're going to think you have way too many onions..."

first thing you do is let them cook down in butter for about 40 mins so idk it won't be too bad

i have a recipe for four main course servings that calls for two pounds

haha, shit, well we'll see soon enough, won't we.

Yr house is gonna reek of cooked onions for weeks, just sayin.

when I realized that onions are kind of like, sugar, I understood why I love them so much

I made vege soup last night from a batch of frozen chicken stock I'd made ages ago, with all the leftover carrots, some capsicum, celery and a shit ton of garlic as N was whining about coming down with a cold.

As I'd had to dilute the stock to make enough liquid I thought "hmm I better add some salt" and unthinkingly threw in a large pinch of un-ground rocksalt, forgetting how much salt that actually is.

Yea, its a lot of salt. Haha. Ohwell it was still v nice, just VERY saltygarlicky.

i measure salt v precisely these days

yeah me too. when i first started cooking with fish sauce i thought the biggest danger was accidentally making everything way too fishy but i've found the salt content is more likely to be the first to ruin it all. so easy to f up w/ salt.

i don't measure salt but you gotta add a little and then taste with something like soup

i forget how the expression goes, you can always add salt later but you can't take it out once you add it, kinda like how you can always add more heat to something that's underdone but once you've overcooked something you're kinda fucked

I love salt so its hard for me to really overdo it, but Ive come close a few times! I dont measure anything tbh (except when baking cakes)

salt is serious business no joke

otoh sugar is hard to od on... well there's more of a buffer than with salt

Noooo way, for me, sugar is so easilyh overdone. Blech. something being even a little too sweet I just cant eat.

It's like the difference between a lightbulb and a pregnant lady