What's cooking? part 4

do you have a proper gas range? you can wok away happily while pitying those of us with electric stoves

I dunno about 'proper' but I have a gas range yes

Put out chix breasts to thaw today because I knew it would force me to cook them. Put olive oil over some heat, dumped in garlic until it just started to smell, took off heat and added chix broth, lemon zest, lemon juice, thyme, and sage, poured over chix in pain. 400 degree oven for 40 minutes. Then while the chix rested I reduced the pan sauce a little. Holy mother of all poultry.

"...poured over chix in pain..."

What's going on over there?!

I got given a cool wok cookbook, so I went to the azn grocery to get exciting ingredients like chili bean sauce & black vinegar

On Monday I might be making kung pao chicken from scratch weer

I'm in the process of trying to cook my way through the extra stuff in my kitchen before we move, so tonight it was chicken w/ sherry reduction (goodbye frozen chicken, goodbye sherry), green beans, and couscous.

My first go at chile rellenos. Pain in the ass tbh.

*weee

I'm excited for your wok adventures!

Today is kitchen day - 6 lbs of kerrygold butter in the oven for ghee, slow cooker chicken with leeks and shallots on, first batch of coconut butter treats hardening up. Cat food, roasted beets for a week of lunches, and maybe some sweet potato muffins coming up after lunch.

Cat food, roasted beets for a week of lunches

;)

Heh! Well, it is chicken and pumpkin mostly ;-)

drudge sirens i am moving and i am getting a new stove and it has 6 burners drudge sirens
---------> WATCH OUT, STOMACHS <-------------

it has been an ordeal. i bought a normal 30" stove at a normal price and then realized that the stove i'm replacing (which is about as old as i am) is 36" and those stoves are waaaay more expensive

for a few days i thought, oh i can live, i can fill those extra 6" with something
and then i realized

i spend hours every week -- every day! -- standing in front of this thing
do i want it to look like shit or do i want to pay a little more and get a good one
i got a good one
i feel good about it

also two different salesmen called me amana

6 burners!! Oh man I am envious. Post pics please!

when I moved into my new place it had a range with 5 burners and I thought *I* was the shit! 6 is awesome!

this is it -- bottom end for 36-inchers
i'll take a photo once it's installed because that's just about how excited i am about it

this is just from the website
http://content.abt.com/image.php/big_P36S148BP.jpg?image=/images/products/BDP_Images/big_P36S148BP.jpg&canvas=1&quality=100&width=285&height=200&ck=252

i am gonna go to town on that thing

I'll be honest and say I sometimes have a tray with oil, salt, pepper etc covering 1.5 of my back burners (I have no adjoining surfaces)

also two different salesmen called me amana

― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Sunday, April 21, 2013 4:31 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hahahaha

what is that side cabinet thing btw??

i think it's a storage area? seems like a good place to keep large flat baking sheets/pans, etc so they don't take up as much storage real estate as they would in a cabinet?

omg LL that is exciting! 6 burners :D

xp oh ok, that's what i suspected, but never seen one built in like that

My, that is gorgeous!

The house we are currently renting has a 6 burner gas stove, and it is gonna be hard to go back.

Our stove at home is OK--big (old school 36", probably like the one you are replacing) and gas, but instead of two extra burners it has one flat-grill thingie in the middle. If it got evenly hot, that would be cool and useful; instead it is just kind of cumbersome and difficult to clean.

Congrats on your new stove, totally the right move to upgrade!

this is the old one
there's just a big space in the middle of it, no idea why
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8258/8669064977_65dc527ca0_m.jpg

Dang I'm super jealous too! 1 of my large elements doesn't even work :(

To be fair I usually max at at two simultaneously, maybe three, but roasting chilies now has be going full-bore with four, plus it is nice to have a space to shift pans off for a bit when needed.

made my Grace Young kung pao chicken last night and it turned out great! definitely glad I decided to dig back and consult some 'hand rail' beginner wok recipes; kind of clear out what I thought I knew and approach it as though I'm completely new to it. It's already helping me get into the groove of the methodology, get a better feel for what to add when and how, etc.

the only thing is that the recipe didn't have much heat - I used dried szechuan peppercorns, and dried whole chilies but I guess I didn't use enough of either.

my next experiment will be szechuan beef with flatiron steak later this week. :D

I think my problem was I had learned quite a bit from my Mum growing up, but she had the kind of suburban 80's chinese cooking in an aluminum wok, and most of my methodology was based on that...so I was very adept at stirfry braising :( but not stir fry frying.

tonight: pork tenderloins marinated overnight in pinot noir, juniper berries, bay leaves, red pepper flakes, i forget what else. + roasted red potatoes w too much butter bcz i'm rubbish at paleo.

i forgot the gf was going out of town for the entire weekend so this feels completely absurd to be making for just me.

holy shit also mad jealous of lechera's stove. would slave over.

i bought a small bunch of ramps (like just a handful), any suggestions on how to cook??

in the past i've just sauteed 'em up, separating and chopping the fat scallion-like bits and starting them first, then adding the leaves at the very end.

one of my goals this spring was to find other stuff to do with ramps.

ramping up for spring

sorry

haha I was gonna say "I like to put them in the road and do sweet kickflip 180 off of them"

loool

-panfry organic, varietal potatoes from farmers market. admire their delicate taste and difference from big supermarket potatoes. then slather in sriracha + kewpie mayo, because that is how i do things.

ramps are really nice, there's sort of a sweetness to them that you don't get with scallions

Mr. Jaq is wrapping asparagus spears in prosciutto to grill for dinner tonight.

ramp recipes seem to by and large call for pickling them, turning them into pesto, or eating them with fried eggs. was hoping for more variety.

i'm happy to eat them straight

cooked broccoli raab last night, a real treat as well

So, you wanna be a Breakfast Rockstar??

-heat some butter in a non-stick skillet
-crack two eggs into the pan, and crumble Trader Joe's soy chorizo on top
-after a few minutes, flip that bad boy over to finish it up
-when its all done fryin', slide that sucker onto a flour tortilla, and top with shredded Mexican cheese and black bean + corn salsa
-fold it up like a gnarlyrad burrito

This powerful pocket is packed with protein and filled with flavor and is sure to give you the PowerBoost you need to shred ANY riffs life throws your way!! Rock on, dude; you just became a BREAKFAST ROCKSTAR!!

xp yeah, theyre fine straight. might make some ramp compound butter, sounds like it would be amazing with toast and soft-boiled eggs

Just thawed out some adobo/barbacoa brisket I made last month and shit, I shd just keep 4lbs of brisket on my permanent grocery order because hot or cold, in a taco or in eggs or just off the spoon out of the fridge, brisket is effing amazing.

I've never fucked w brisket; in my mind it's just like what ppl eat if they don't eat pork

Ideas for half a pound of tomatillos besides salsa? I have 3 chicken drumsticks in the freezer too.

tomatillo/white bean chili
chicken tinga

tomatillo chili! fuck yes!

do you have a partic fav recipe?