what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

maybe some natural peanut butter?

yeah, or sunflower? Something like that should work. Might take some iteration.

It’s not gastro I get itchy ears and sometimes mine breathing constricts a little. I set myself off recently by absent mindely tasting some amazing palm oil free halva in the local Greek deli. It seems to be getting worse. Cooked sesame seems to be no issue at all. I can happily slather sesame oil on things all day long which is a relief given how much frying in sesames oil happens in japan.

I’ve managed to replace sesame in Some Japanese dishes by roasting and grinding walnuts, it makes a good ersatz goma’ae sauce. I should try pine nuts as well.

I had a quick look at Turkish hummus recipes and some seems to be made with butter and some with yoghurt. I should try both ways and report back.

Interestingly sesame is the second item on the Japanese equivalent of the food pyramid 「まごわやさしい」

https://images.app.goo.gl/HvqSZ5uZGZ6HbYEt7

The full thing being

Beans
Sesame
Seaweed
Vegetables
Fish
Mushrooms
(Sweet) Potatoes

We ate in a restaurant named that in Tokyo last week that produces a delightful and inexpensive meal hitting all of those points. The sesame was main represented by some toasted sesame seed and a piece of sesame tofu* in some soup and I was fine.

*sesame tofu is not really tofu it’s a jelly made with kudzu and sesame paste.

wait, kudzu?!?!

Yes, that kudzu. It’s a type of arrowroot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudzu_powder

I also made shrimp and grits today

Mushroom Wellington turned out well -- I wasn't worried about the filling, just hadn't used frozen puff pastry before. It was a big hit at the party. I thought the pastry sheets would be bigger, so I wound up making two with the filling I had.

My mother-in-law's fiance is a hunter and gave me a 2-3 pound frozen elk roast from an elk he shot in Montana. Any suggestions? NB: Elk is even more lean than venison.

He also gave me some backstrap (a kind of loin), which I cooked sous vide and served with a sour cherry mostarda. I might do the same with the roast.

Since it is frozen you could try a shaved meat stew

https://globalgastros.com/nordic/shaved-meat-stew-recipe

Or something with mushrooms and lingonberries

My mother-in-law's fiance is a hunter and gave me a 2-3 pound frozen elk roast from an elk he shot in Montana. Any suggestions? NB: Elk is even more lean than venison.

He also gave me some backstrap (a kind of loin), which I cooked sous vide and served with a sour cherry mostarda. I might do the same with the roast.

totally agree. cook sous vide to a nice medium rare and make a rich sauce to accompany.

Thanks for the sous vide confirmation.

Rare treat tonight in that my wife is doing the cooking: galumpkis made with ground elk and moose. Her family is Polish, so it's in her blood.

ground elk and moose pierogi, please

was trying to use up some ham i have in the freezer. yesterday i began to make instant pot pinto beans and ham by throwing a partially thawed chunk of it into a regular instant pot beans recipe. i had forgotten how stupid it is to put frozen meat in the instant pot. after failing to reach pressure and steaming for an hour because the cold thing was holding down the temp, the thing stopped steaming. the beans had absorbed part of the liquid and the rest had steamed out. burnt beans and ham coating the bottom of the pot. what a genius i am. i tried again today with the other half that had thawed. great success! plus cornbread

I was hungry and did not want to cook so I made a thing that sounds disgusting but was merely disappointing. Do not recommend.

Flour tortilla + melted extra sharp cheddar + natto w/ asian mustard + spinach + kimchee.

that does sound bad, but i can't hang with natto at the best of times tbh.

i got a dutch oven, after not having had one for ... maybe my entire life since moving out of my parents' home? makes me almost want to eat meat (I'm pescatarian) when i think about all the braising i could be doing. maybe there's a good fish braise i can do. also going to make bread in it

you could become a braiseatarian

any meat you want as long as it's braised

I had never used a dutch oven before until I got one 3 years ago? I am glad I got a cheaper one (Lodge) because I probably did all the things you weren't supposed to do it so it is discolored and has hairline cracks in the bottom. I was thinking about getting a new one when Le Creuset and Staub had sales around the holidays but didn't commit.

find ye a Le Creuset outlet if possible - good deals at clearance level esp if you dont mind color mismatch pot + lid

Man yerac I really don’t know where you were trying to go with that combo

Tortilla plus cheddar plus mustard would have worked, greens and kimchi on the side, natto in the trash

in my mind natto is still beans and i have seen natto pizza before ( I ate it not rolled up). And I thought the kimchi would spice it up. I just had natto for the first time recently and am into it.

maybe there's a good fish braise i can do.

― bidenfan69420 (jim in vancouver), Friday, January 24, 2020 3:15 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

salmon braised in red wine can be a surprisingly luxe dish. usually do it in a big saute pan but dutch oven would work too.

aaah, that sounds interesting

Natto + kimochi in scrambled egg is delicious. I have a recipe using this as the stuffing for inari tofu packets. Should be delicious in a tortilla as well.

Will try with eggs. I think I needed to add something saltier to the natto ( I didn't add any soy sauce or anything). It only came with the tiny mustard packet. It was overall surprisingly one note. But I got a bunch of natto that I think Is shiso flavoring that is better.

I thought I had read this somewhere but now can't find it, but supposedly you should not cook anything very acidic (like tomatoes or wine) in newer enamel pots because it's not seasoned fully yet. I had thought why mine got so discolored. But maybe I completely dreamed this up.

all this natto talk is really making me consider unbookmarking this thread lol

lol, for real. one of the few foods i am truly disgusted by! that and maggot cheese.

i would try the maggot cheese rather than have natto again

I've been pretty scared to try it because of the talk surrounding it and hating to waste food. I was very surprised how not offensive it is, I expected a much stronger taste. But I guess the texture is the part that is hard to take, like okra. It's kind of like that snail mucin face stuff.

or having a very good night.

http://feastofjoy.blogspot.com/2010/10/salmon-fillets-braised-in-pinot-noir.html

this is a copy of the recipe i've used, i don't think you're losing a ton omitting the bacon in favor of more mushrooms.

oh, that looks really good. It's like coq au vin but no coq.

never thought about it that way but yeah, definitely!

I made Asturian fabada today. One of my favorite recipes in the entire world because the effort : outcome ratio is so favorable. Soaked beans, water, blood sausage, chorizo, bacon, garlic, paprika and that is about it.

i hadn't heard of fabada but i did make cassoulet for 15 guests yesterday so i feel like we're on the same wavelength

I was really into 3-hour braises but now the weather is springlike and also we're getting fat so I have to lighten up. ..............idk, I'm not really feeling it. Especially because there are so many foods I can't eat (that fabada looks wonderful btw). The only thing that seems appealing is onigiri and Japanese/sushi/miso/umami flavors.

Also I went to Joe's Steamed Rice Roll to try to hit that craving and it turns out their flour blend is NOT gluten-free--it's a mixture of rice and potato starch and wheat flour. So no rolls for me. /shrug emoji

in orbit you should start making spam and egg (+cheese) musubi for breakfast.

made the mushroom based oyster sauce substitute linked long ago to host some strict vegetarians. it was good but not as good as the oyster for tofu pad see ew, but it really improved veg/tofu fried rice. We put fish sauce vin on fried rice, though, so suppose i need a veg version of that now too.

been also doing the momofuku buns with veg shortening in the dough, rice vinegar based pickles, ginger scallion sauce, hoisin, and sriracha/soy marinated baked tofu that we also firm up in a little oil in a pan. Could eat them every day.

what do people make to use up all this miso? I have a large container after making that mushroom sauce and would appreciate any inspiration.

a container of miso paste?

I use it to marinate fish (using the miso black cod recipe for salmon or tuna). I've been making a thicker cold miso soup to do a pourover for noodles. I never, ever have stock so I add it to things that require something extra.

also miso paste will last for a really long time so don't stress about getting rid of it

i suspected that. It has a best by date about 1 year away. But all recipes require so little!

xp Thanks, yerac. It does look a lot like better than bullion paste. And fish is perfect. Must be some tofu marinades out there as well.

If you can ever find black cod, it's so delicious and rich but using other fishes is also great.

miso basically lasts forever

i hadn't heard of fabada but i did make cassoulet for 15 guests yesterday so i feel like we're on the same wavelength

― call all destroyer, Monday, 3 February 2020 03:29 (two days ago) link

Definitely. The cassoulet recipe I use (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/michael-lewiss-cassoulet-de-canard-104755) is so complicated I haven't made it in years. Fabada is a much easier substitute. I can be lazy.

got to love a recipe with section titled "First seasoning of the beans"

that's a beast of a recipe!

i use the seriouseats one with chicken legs, salt pork, and toulouse sausage--long time in the oven but the prep is easy and it's pretty economical for feeding a lot of people.