What's cooking? part 4

Vegan dinner was excellent, thanks again Justine! I loved the pasta/pepper sauce. It's amazing how the ingredients come together and taste nothing at all like themselves. The cheesecake was a bit too wobbly and too sweet for me but that could easily be adjusted if I make it again.

yay!!!

Also I'm definitely going to use that caramel sauce for ice cream.

So, some of you may and some of you may not follow Tep's food blog. His most recent post was about butter -- http://okaycheckitout.blogspot.com/2014/05/what-we-blog-about-when-we-blog-about.html -- and we've been shooting the breeze lately by email on food and other topics, so I decided to follow his inspiration and make garlic butter by fat-washing garlic in whipping cream and turning it into butter. I used a whole bulb of garlic, and grated it rather than chopping it so it was extra stout -- possibly too stout. Two cups of heavy whipping cream plus two tablespoons of buttermilk, in goes the garlic (1/4 cup? possibly a bit more), let it sit at room temp for 16 hours then whooped on it hard in the mixer with the whip attachment. Beware, when the whipped cream breaks down into butter and whey, the whey will want to splash everywhere. Washed the butter as well as I could with two changes of ice water to get as much whey off of it as possible.

This stuff is an aggressive raw-garlic punch in the mouth, but it doesn't stay with you the way eating raw garlic does. The taste dissipates pretty quickly. So far I've just had a bit on a toasted english muffin -- I think it'll make great garlic toast and be useful for pan-grilled sandwiches or tossing with pasta to make buttered noodles. I think it's a bit too radioactive just to spread on warm bread, but since I'm making a batch of bread right now I'll find out soon enough.

just curious, what else can be fat-washed

Hmm, you could combine rum and butter and have butter-flavored rum for your hot toddy and rum-flavored butter for any number of things -- hard sauce for a bread pudding, spread it on your pecan waffle, etc

just1n3, after making that black lentil quinoa salad you posted and based on how amazing it is i hafta work my way through the rest of those recipes. thankyou!
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never heard of "fat washing" - innerstin'!

I could use some fat-washing myself /jk

The jury's still out on this first stab at garlic butter. It's extremely harsh with hot/raw garlic, but it might work as a cooking fat. If I do it again, I'll either use much less garlic or use roasted garlic. In the meantime, this seems like a brilliant way to make herb butters. Next time I get a big bunch of fresh dill, it's going into some cream, and the resulting butter is going to get on some corn on the cob.

Or on a baked potato or some asparagus.

now you're talking! I know I'm not going to get around to doing it, but I love the idea of fresh dill butter.

Just1n3, I'm still eating that pasta with the pepper sauce - I made a ton. Today I had some cold, with hot buttered spinach and dill. It was superb.

Peach peelings, cinnamon stick and vanilla bean steeped in cream; whipped into peach cobbler butter, omg.

OM, did you make it with cilantro or basil?

cilantro was what was on hand. such a crazy delicious and texturally out of this world dressing!

i made a strata for my class this morning
it's pretty good but i think i should have used more eggs and milk

xp def try it with basil next time. i mean, i'm not a fan of cilantro so clearly i'm biased, but the basil makes a great alternative.

makes sense. and i def. will

vegan bacon wrapped scallops!? holy cow that sounds and looks yum

i made this chana masala, first time for me

http://orangette.blogspot.com/2006/02/public-display-of-chickpeas.html

it was good, had to do w/o actual cumin seeds and cardamom pods but seemed ok anyway. could have used a bit more bottom end somehow, not sure if that was my choice of spices (definitely under-did it out of caution, working w/ so many crazy unknown spices at once). looking forward to second-day leftovers.

also british and/or indian people yes i know this is some kind of american travesty, oh well.

I suspect this has already been discussed itt, but I will throw it out again: wtf do I do with the miso that I bought with no actual plan in mind?

I bought a whole box of amchoor powder and a container of tamarind paste last weekend and I have next to no idea what to do w them! Going to TANGY, TART, HOT, AND SWEET for ideas (very bad travel guide, pretty good cookbook). I also have seasoning mixes for like 6 difft kinds of curry--korma, karahi, karachi beef biryani, kahari gosht, fish masala, etc--and am so excited to use them I think I'll pound some raw cashews and make butter chicken tonight.

^^^^SAME HERE only mine is spelled amchur

amchur is necessary in chana masala imo. something else i used it for too but can't remember.

what type of miso, quincie?
miso butter (2 parts softened unsalted:1 part white miso) is lovely on just about any steamed veg i can think of. you can miso glaze fish (salmon, cod both work well) and also eggplant. mixed with tahini and you get a brilliant salad dressing. i think that's all i got right now,except for the obvious - soup. but also, if you keep plastic directly on top of it it can last up to a year (or so) properly refrigerated. if you got a dark miso then most of my ideas may be void.

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A spoonful whisked into just about any soup stock adds depth and richness imo. I never think about doing miso-glazed fish -- I gotta try that.

Thanks! It is a white miso, and I honestly wasn't sure how long it would last once opened (and have thus hesitated to open it). I'll plan to put plastic wrap down on the surface and then stick on the snap-on top. I have tahini in the fridge as well and will try a salad dressing for tonight--I had already planned mixed greens plus steamed asparagus :)

Good tips, thanks! Proportions for miso-to-tahini-plus-other-ingredients for dressing???

I've had good luck with miso kept in the fridge with a bit of plastic cling film on the surface to keep it from drying out. It has kept for many weeks that way.

you'll need to mix the tahini with water first to make it more user friendly. 1/4 cup of each, it'll seize at first but will be fine. i reckon up to 2 tablespoons of miso for that amount. could use a squeeze of lemon if you have, no biggie if not. also a pinch of pepper if you like.
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I beat you to it, but ended up doing something similar and it was GREAT! Approximately 2:1:1:0.5 of rice wine:tahini:miso:honey, thinned out with a bit of warm water. Just making enough for myself, so mixed a small portion in a single bowl, tossed in the veg, profitted.

I usually (er, only?) make vinaigrettes, so this was an excellent change up to something more creamy/different. Amazing what that lil bit of miso does! A++ will miso salad dress again.

Also: will definitely miso fish this weekend, on grill.

Oh man I have kale in the fridge, gonna shot miso butter on kale. Tips on how to prep the kale and combine with the miso butter? Thinking maybe I can do the miso butter melted/warm and then toss sliced kale in to soften? I dunno probably hard to go wrong here.

Nigel Slatee did a thing on miso a couple of weeks ago: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/apr/27/simple-joy-miso-soup-nigel-slater-recipes

careful with the grilling. miso doesn't like high heat. it might burn and you could lose a lot of its nutritional value.
for miso butter applications i always steam the veg in question then slather it with softened miso butter.
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i have a nice miso glaze recipe if you want

Yes please!

1/2 cup miso
5 Tablespoons rice vinegar (unseasoned)
1 T sugar
2 T soy sauce
whisk in 1/4 cup neutral flavored oil
coat fish (saving some of the sauce to slather over fish when it's done) and bake. i like to do this on a lower heat like 350 or 375 and ideally have a thermometer handy and just take the fish to 135. recipe i have says bake @ 425 which works fine, you just have to watch overcooking . and in a pinch i've made this with seasoned (sushi) rice vinegar and just halve the sugar and soy sauce.

Am attempting some sort of one-pan (i.e. you MIX IT IN THE BAKING PAN!!!) strawberry rhubarb bars later today. Will report back.

Still dreaming of that fried chicken.

We have buttermilk left, it's like 2 weeks old, is it still good? What should I do with it?

Buttermilk lasts a long, long time. Even if it's separated, shake it up and give it the smell test. I've used month-old buttermilk for cornbread many times and it was fine.

Speaking of cornbread, that's a good go-to. Make corn cakes aka savory cornbread pancakes if you don't want to do a whole pan at once. Buttermilk pie (similar to chess pie).

Once buttermilk is opened, I've had ok luck with it keeping up to one month. It usually starts getting dicey sometime after that. The sniff test is a good thing.

I'm a fan of the powdered buttermilk! Sticks around for forever, and you just mix it up with water in whatever quantity you need for a particular recipe. It probably doesn't taste as awesome as the real deal stuff, though.

But buttermilk always smells tangy, no? How does it smell when it's bad?

it will stink

if you can put your nose to it & not gag, it's fine

one of my coworkers has cancer and is starting chemo. her supervisor asked if we would volunteer to cook dinner for her and her family for the next couple weeks as she's starting chemo. i would do one night of cooking. it would be her, her husband, and two kids (5 and 7, i believe). i need something i can bring into work and refrigerate all day before it goes to her. also i think she has a lot blander taste than i, the OP of curry chronicles. ideas pls?

although...i could make a mild chicken curry and rice and a vegetable maybe.

I have zero chemo experience, but I think targeting the tastes of the husband and kids might be the most helpful approach--at least 3/4 would be into it!

Lasagna is usually welcome imo

yeah or a chicken congee kinda thing? lasagna seems like a good idea though

Mac and cheese

oh yeah i meant she and her family. i also work with her husband. he actually does the cooking most of the time.

Maybe this is Midwest of me but a lot of people wouldn't touch a curry of any description--all the seasonings would be unfamiliar. Esp to kids.