What's cooking? part 4

nice job!

they'd better have some damn fiddleheads at the store this week

Still finding fish scales all over the kitchen.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/44/Fishscale-Ghostface.jpg/220px-Fishscale-Ghostface.jpg

So I've been eating the carnitas for a couple of days and I fucked it up slightly by taking out too much of the liquid midway through because I was afraid it was going to be inedibly spicy, and now it's bland and flavorless. So I'm willing to try it again. But overall my "barbacoa" beef kills the pork shoulder, I think because of the browning and also because I didn't put any tomatoes or tomato paste in the pork recipe (not called for). Needs more L-glutamate.

have you tried a shitload of salt? i think the stuff served in most restaurants is hella salty -- i just had some last night at our end-of-semester party and was surprised that the dominant flavor was salt. nothing else. just salty meat. it was good because those things are tasty, but the flavor was not distinctively CARNITAS! it was salty pork.

it was actually really good with the asian slaw salad thing i brought!

you could cobble together an asian-style taco, such as served from trucks in LA

that's exactly what we did, only with tostadas!! it was delicious! i brought limes and my squeezer, and some peanuts, and everyone went to town. there was also some strange pink salad with marshmallows in it, bread pudding made by my student's mom, and some other stuff i don't remember.

my salad was
cabbage carrots edamame pea sprouts kale mint cilantro
dressed with
rice vin peanut butter sriracha soy sauce sesame oil + lime

everyone was super into it! i was impressed.

Funny you should mention salt because I kept adding more and more and thinking, how can this still be so bland?? I'll add more (again) when I re-heat.

I'm not saying it's bad--it's good. It's just no beef brisket.

I hardly ever eat beef! Pork 4ever

beef gives me a stomach ache
tbh i still don't know what brisket is in spite of everyone talking about it all the time! maybe i'll look it up. in my mind it's a huge cooked piece of beef with little strings holding it together, maybe some pepper on the outside?

ok, now i know
i have never seen that served/made i don't think?! i always thought of it like pastrami.

Come back and I'll make it for you! But not if it gives you a stomach ache. :(

This is kind of my ideal but I don't go to this much trouble: http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/04/better-than-chipotles-beef-barbacoa-tacos.html

it looks tasty!! i just can't really eat more than a couple bites of beef without getting a stomachache. it's just not my meat. sad fact: i can't eat a burger :(

that looks delicious! i can't stand the knowitall tone of that recipe but the advice was good!!

The acids and glutamates are key to the flavor imo! I add a little sundried tomato paste, a handful of canned tomato, some dashes of fish sauce, and a good glug of apple cider vinegar. The pork is improved by more salt and more lime but then it tastes like...salt and lime. Eh.

I'm sorry your life is burger-free. Good thing you like other foods so much more!

Speaking of lime let's hear it for those squeezers, am I right??!? Man those are genius.

my stomach used to be much like that! I can have the occasional burger but not a very large one. I used to get so sick-feeling.

mysteriously I can eat huge steaks, though

wait what are these magical squeezers of which you speak?

show me your squeezers

(god I have wanted to type that for like an hour now)

quincie: http://www.elizabethannedesigns.com/living/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Citrus-Juicer.jpg

mh: You get nothing but side-eye.

I have a metal one like the one on left! Works well.

although I have to admit I somehow had it at a weird angle and it sprayed lime juice directly in my eyes once, at high velocity. could have been a time-traveling lime sent by in orbit from this thread.

meanwhile, i was hoping someone would ask that haha
my students all were familiar with and knew how to operate the squeezer.

also i have sprayed myself in the eye with lime juice so many times that i have a special pair of goggles i wear when i'm doing it at home. last night i just hoped for the best.

THE GOGGLES! THEY DO NOTHING!

Oh OK, there is one of those (but metal) here at the house we are renting, and it is awesome because it is sized for Mexican limes, which are very small! I lugged my electric citrus juicer down here thinking it would be U&K for margarita-making, but it is pretty useless with the lil Mexican limes.

oh man I want a squeezer now

still giggling at my own comment :/

Somehow I have managed to elevate my breakfast burrito game w broccoli: I steamed a cup or two of frozen TJ's broc until almost-but-not-quite done and stuck it in the fridge and I throw 5 or 7 florets in the pan after I flip the egg.

TO REVIEW:
-melt butter in pan
-add two eggs, sprinkle soy chorizo over the uncooked egg
-flip egg and add broc to pan
-heat a flour tortilla up
-slide egg and broc onto tortilla, top w melted cheese and salsa, fold up
-be the queen of breakfast

The nickn variation:

-heat olive oil in a pan
-add chopped onions and cook until starting to brown, set aside
-add sliced mushrooms and cook until starting to soften
-add diced Pancetta to pan and cook with the mushrooms until most of the fat is melted, set mushrooms & pancetta aside
-cook an egg over easy while heating a middle-Eaatern flatbread in the toaster oven
-when egg is done wrap it and the rest in the flatbread, adding salt, pepper, and hot sauce
-enjoy with coffee

middle-eaten flatbread

i did this soyrizo/egg thing yesterday. in taco form. and it was GOOD!
'miner variation: saute wee bit of chorizo sans added fat, when browned coat bottom of pan with butter and add a couple beaten eggs. (meanwhile heat up corn tortilla in another pan). after flipping tortilla toss some shredded cheese on to melt. once it's melted, plate. top with soft cooked eggmixture, couple slices avo., and some habanero hot sauce.
i could eat this everyday.
xpost: i like the brocoli idea

I made a thread for sous vide: Sous vide

^^^gonna check out this thread in just a minute, but first:

How do I shot pizza dough? Anyone have a fail-proof (AHAHAH SEE WHAT I DID THERE) recipe that will also freeze well?

I'm pretty happy with the tasty food I can obtain/make in rural Mexico, but missing pizza :(

This one is my favourite:
http://thescrapingbowl.wordpress.com/2007/12/02/pizza-dough/

hahah I first read that URL as "the crapping bowl" and thought omg how did the hipster non-potty training technique get mixed up in the cooking thread!

Hah! No, no.. this dough is 100% feces free. Haven't tried to freeze it though, just saw your comment about that.

That looks like something I can attempt! I will make it a project for later in the week and will report back.

if we're talking pizza i want to put a word in for poached eggs as a pizza topping. i only did this once because my family/friends weren't into it, and so maybe it has been built up in my mind over time, but it was good.

there was no tomato sauce on this pizza though, just like arugula and ricotta cheese

i might try that pizza dough though, it looks good and also simple. i bookmarked the page. i haven't cooked very much lately, unfortunately.

Poached eggs, wow! I'm not sure if that would be my thing (though I love poached eggs in general), but I've been doing a tasty one lately with minced garlic as a base with a little tomato sauce on top, spinach, celery (good crunch), chicken & BBQ sauce. I'm not working now so it's a nice substitute for the delivery food we'd usually order in 1-2x a week (RIP General Tao chicken, you never taste as amazing when I make it.)

I made a ton of tzatziki for our BBQ last night and made pork souvlaki to go with it & extra pitas we had. Rolled in a little spinach orzo feta salad and it made for a delicious wrap.

It's been insanely nice for a week now - I grilled a tri tip last Sunday as I've seen them for years out here but never cooked one. Apparently there's a whole prescribed set of dishes you eat with grilled tri tip but I opted for salsa, avocados, beans, and grilled onions.

Right now I am in my yard in shorts and a t shirt after digging up my lawn and pruning trees all day, drinking my Jauques Pepin glass of wine while waiting for the rack of lamb to finish grilling before I throw the asparagus on.

Someone just gave me a BOATLOAD of loverly yellow summer squashes – all I do w/them is sautee or calabacitas. Any tips on switching up my Some Are Squash game?