What's cooking? part 4

that is weird! in the uk its a standard supermarket ingredient

I get side pork (sliced pork belly) all the time - so good. But I've also got access to awesome asian markets (and some discount groceries in lower income areas) that carry it.

pingpong can you send us a good recipe for that thing you just made?

Okay, I am going to make beef massaman curry and then somehow incorporate it into puff pastry. Is there a trick to doing this successfully? Do I just plop the beef/potato/shallot in the middle of a square of puff pastry and bake it? I am guessing I should be careful not to make it too goopy drippy saucy.

OH apparently you can make puff pastry CUPS!! That sounds like a wicked good idea!

it's gonna be pretty seriously soggy if you do that -- i don't usually put anything too liquidy on uncooked puff pastry
gonna say: not recommended

HOWEVER, if you precook the pp and then spoon beef curry over it to serve, that would be tasty and good, imo. OR do it up like a totally bananas pot pie with the pp on top of individual ramekins or something?

oh shnap! We don't have individual ramekins but maybe I'll cook it first and spoon it over to serve? I want them to be finger foody party type jawns and not mess :( I wish my pp would just do exactly what I wanted.

i think in order for it to do what you want (remain delicious and crispy?), you need to cook it and then spoon over to serve
that's just imo, but think of it as a reeeeeeeally fancy deluxe international biscuits and gravy, same basic concept.

you could try muffin cups but i think they will be a bit small but maybe ok for a buffet type potluck thing

I want to make my display name "precook the pp and then spoon beef curry over it to serve" or "totally bananas pot pie with the pp on top of individual ramekins"

When you say "to serve" can it just be like at the beginning of the party or will it get soggy w/in like 10 minutes? I mean I am planing on letting quite a bit of the curry sauce drain off of the meat/potatoes/etc before I stuff it in the pp.

ha, be my guest.

I believe it would get soggy pretty quickly, so I meant when you plate the food. You could precook the pp in squares (or whatever shape you want) a while before serving if you want to make it easier for yourself?

you could also make/use a regular pizza dough type dough and make little empanadas/calzones/samosas/pierogies/pasties/foldover dough with filling thingies and serve them with, i dunno, a mint chutney/pesto/salsa/chimichurri/sauce

ah damn, I already bought the pp and and we're not rly serving so much as just having a table w/ lots of food on it that ppl can arrange onto plates and eat at their leisure. I will def cook the pp first though and try to put relatively dry filling into/onto it.

Please note that I also like my pp to be crispy/well browned and i also like a lot of crunch/texture generally speaking. Not everyone does! If you prefer a softer bite, maybe a different approach would be better.

If you made the pp into little cups, with even a tiny bit of raised edges, they could hold a bit of sauce on them. But yeah, they're going to be soggy in a second. Maybe a little warming pot of sauce and a plate of pastry squares?

I am not a big fan of soft pp; the mouthfeel's no good and there's not much you can do with it.

If you score a square into the middle of your pastry (not all the way through, just an easily visible cut), and just put the curry inside the square, the pastry will magically raise around it.

Smoke #4 today, a large rack of spareribs with a Memphis-style dry rub applied last night. Smoke #3 was 2 lbs. of shrimp, oversmoked, undercooked and too salty. Won't be smoking shrimp anymore, I think. Working my way up to beef brisket.

My friend brought over a whole salmon fillet last night and I learned to use my broiler! It works perfectly; I love you, open flames on my food.

Oh how I miss having a gas stove!

Two huge pot roasts in the slow cooker with onion halves, smashed garlic cloves, bacon and 3/4 bottle of delicious red wine. Big pan of bacon-wrapped chicken pieces going in the oven later. There's a week of good eating heading our way.

Roy oh boy there is really nothing better than roasted brussel sprouts. Made a bunch of them, and this soup:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/chicken-dinners-chicken-pasta-e-fagioli-with-smoked-paprika.html?ref=search
I feel LIKE A GOD!

Seriously, like 1.5 lbs of the b-sprouts, roasty toasty, told my boyfriend (who works graveyard and is never around for suppers) that I'd leave him some since he's never tried them. After a few hours of just snacking on them it became clear I would have to set aside a little container just for him, or he would never get to try them, not tonight anyway.
The little blackened leaves that fall off all salty toasty, the soft and sweet middles, god.

yeah they're basically the best

They had awesome ones on sale at Sprouts grocery store for $1.69/lb (about as cheap as they ever are?) that were all like guinea pig skull size.

I feel like I better roast all the freaking vegetables I can bcz it is going to be sweaty sweat city in Tucson soon enough.

i am being really good about not buying kitchen things but as a sort of late engagement present (or maybe early wedding present, idk) my aunt gave us a le creuset grill pan which i took for a spin tonight. i never would have bought this thing on my own but getting perfect grill marks on a flank steak in the comfort of my kitchen was immensely satisfying.

I loooooove my cast iron grill pan! It's a Lodge and I use it all the time. Good gift!

yeah having used it i can now see that it's maybe more versatile than i initially thought

I use it to make all taco meats because it makes great crispy bits.

Also grilled veggies yes pls

The little blackened leaves that fall off all salty toasty, the soft and sweet middles, god.

I try to make all the leaves fall off because I like them a lot more than the middles.

I have the le creuset grill pan too -- so handy!

i have it too and i don't understand how to use it. everything sticks to it and i can't get it clean :(

I use a brush and lots of elbow grease.

my flank steak did not stick but i preheated it for a long-ass time over medium heat. i saw somewhere there's a water test you can do to see if it's hot enough. seems like food should be lightly oiled until you've built up a coating on the pan.

I have a grill pan that I didn't use for ages because everything stuck to it. I just didn't have it hot enough I think.

i don't think the water test works for cast iron (or cast-iron-like "preseasoned" finish enameled cast iron), that's for stainless. i preheated it for a long time. i don't want to have to use elbow grease. i give up.

oh, someone on chowhound says this water test is to see if it's too hot. i was thinking of the stainless one to see if it's hot enough. i can't keep track of all this!

yeah it's subtly different from the stainless test. all i did was put it over medium heat for like 6-7 minutes.

Choreboy copper scrubber for cast iron works pretty well.

If I need kombu for cooking beans, would I find it in the asian pantry aisle or in the produce section?

It's dried seaweed, right? Probably in the asian pantry aisle, but you never know.

Yeah I think you can get it dried and fresh? That's why I'm not sure what I'm looking for

hey thanks to whoever mentioned this blog, i am a paleo faker on a good day but she does pretty interesting stuff regardless. i made this tonight--http://nomnompaleo.com/post/3762844557/slow-cooker-korean-grass-fed-short-ribs# with some changes (mostly oven braise not slow cooker) and the sauce was unbelievable.

sauce is the bomb

justin3 – Asian pantry aisle – I have read the dried kombu in beans protip and done it many times but never tried to note if it made a diff.

i think it's supposed to aid digestion? bc beans can be rough on your stomach

Try adding some epazote - traditional mexican herb sort of like minty oregano.

do i just put in the cooking water? what kind of amount?

Yep - maybe a half tsp per cup of dried beans. I just toss in a handful usually.

I have one of those grill pans! I just rarely clean it and only vaguely do so when I do. At first I thought the weighted top was stupid, it didn't seem to do much but squeeze out the fat of the meat, but then I started doing eggplant and zucchini slices on it and it was super effective

I am in love with savoy cabbage + a Japanese mandolin = chiffonade cooked in a pot with bacon fat and fennel seeds