What's cooking? part 4

well if it smells fishy (like ammonia, not salty-ish) it's bad

If it smells okay but you can't get to cooking it tonight, wrap it well and toss it in the freezer. Thaw and cook within a week though, don't forget it's there.

forgot about freezing, duh! thanks!

You sons of bitches are making me want quinoa so bad & I've never even had any. In my imagination it is kinda chewy like barley: is this the case?

Sort of, but the grains are so much smaller. It's not as gluey as barley. Send me yr addr and I will care package you some, pronto.

xp - Yeah it fights back a little. (I've only had it once.)

also, anyone (US-based) who wants some Thai forbidden (black) rice, a 5 lb bag has turned out to be a whole awful lot and I would love to share it. email me @ isthatpie-wp (at) yahoo (dot) com Webmail doesn't work for this ILX account.

i have not heard of this rice!

It makes great black rice pudding w/ coconut milk/cream! And is v. v. pretty.

ok so this didn't go perfectly, but:

seared tuna w/"white sauce" over baby spinach

"white sauce"

walnuts
cooked quinoa
reconstituted shiitake mushrooms
coconut milk
shiitake mushroom stock
garlic

boiled water, covered dried shiitakes.
sauteed garlic in OO until golden.
newly moist shiitakes into processor w/quinoa, walnuts, 1/2 can coconut milk, garlic + oil, salt and pepper.
splashed mushroom water w/apple cider vinegar, cooked way down.
added stock to processor, blended the shit out of it.

heated peanut oil in fry pan.
patted tuna steak w/salt and pepper.
steak in oil on HOT, sear each side for one minute.
moved fry pan to other burner, on medium (lolectric).
((FUCKED UP THIS PART))
"cook until down" on medium. i cooked about 2-3 minutes too long, which kinda ruined the steak, but w/e

bed of baby spinach, steak on top, pour sauce over, yum!

(tbh, the sauce was def missing something (more acid?), but it's a pretty good idea fundamentally (walnuts + quinoa + coconut milk + stock), but would benefit from tweaking for sure)

bout 40 min

cool!

jaq i would love to try a bit of this rice, but you don't have to mail it ;)

Coconut rice pudding sounded great, black rice or not, and I had just the right amt of rice left over from lunch, so I made that for dinner. Tossed a few dried cherries into the bowlful I had for dinner...might toss a few pistachio nuts into the bowl I have tomorrow morning.

i'm not usually a rice pudding person but coconut sounds ace.

I've been craving coconut lately. I have a recipe for coconut bread pudding that's been sitting on my desk for a couple of weeks...may make a halved version of it later this week.

i kinda hate bread pudding, too!

COMFORRRRRRRRRRRRRT

i find my comfort in the potato, i think.

Speaking of food going off - is there ever a time that chicken meat should have any kind of a "smell"? It seems weird to me that packaged commercial chicken (skinless breast for eg) has no smell at all. So I wondered if very fresh very organic chook might smell... unusual?

I only ask cause I cooked some chook breast last night that had a distinctly meaty sulphur smell. It didnt make me sick in the least but the smell was very odd and I got the meat from a good butchers instead of the supermarket.

Depending on how the meat is handled and packaged, it can definitely get some odors. If commercially packaged chicken doesn't seem to have a smell, it can be due to bactericide treatment (even something as simple as a salt water rinse/soak, which a lot of commercial chicken is subjected to) or the use of CO2 or N2 to blow the film of the packaging line open (occludes O2, so bacteria don't grow as quickly). So yeah, properly handled fresh meat from the butcher can develop odors and all fresh whole muscle meats should generally be rinsed off and dried before you cut them up any more at home.

i ate chicken breast tonight for the first time in a while and i am having a hard time digesting it. very strange and also kinda :(

So I should have rinsed it off to clear the odd smell maybe. It had sat in a plastic bag in the fridge a day or so. I do try and be ultra careful and also trust my instincts when it comes to bad food.

I made dashi stock for the first time, by straining out dried konbu and bonita flakes from boiled water. It was good, but I'm not sure it was worth the effort. Then made soba soup, with miso, tofu, carrots, shitake and enoki mushrooms, Napa cabbage, and seaweed.

How is coconut rice pudding formed? It sounds amazing.

Ha VP I made dashi for the first time too, same way, last Sunday-ish. "I am boiling a vat of sea goo."

Abbott, this was the basic recipe I used --

* 1 1/2 cups cold unsalted cooked rice
* 3 cups whole milk
* 1/2 cup well-stirred canned unsweetened coconut milk
* 1/3 cup sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Simmer rice, milk, coconut milk, sugar, and salt, uncovered, in a 2 1/2- to 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until thickened, about 40 minutes. Stir in vanilla. Serve warm.

-- except I didn't measure the rice so I think it was a little more than 1.5 cups; I didn't want to use half a can of coconut milk so I put a whole can in a big measuring cup and added (2%) milk until I had 3.5 cups of liquid. Also I thought it needed to be a little sweeter, but it was easy enough to add sugar or honey to individual servings. It was really good.

i once made a crazy rice pudding from available items, which included:

*leftover cooked rice
* vanilla flavored "international creamers" (2)
* milk
*crushed cardamom seeds ( why i had these and not vanilla extract: i was at a vacation house and someone brought the cardamom*)
* crumbled up stale gingerbread cookies
* sugar
*coconut flakes (unsweetened)
* raisins

it was delicious! you couldn't even tell that there was gross "international creamer" in there.

*"brought the cardamom" has to be a euphemism for something. "I thought the party was a real dud, but then [person x] brought the cardamom and we had a blast"

I'm boiling a chicken right now to tear the flesh up for salads, curries, etc. I got this from my mom, buying fryers when they're cheap & just boiling 'em. Makes cooking a lot faster to have this premade chicken sitting around. This time, tho, I'm more stoked on getting stock out of it than the chicken itself!

This time of year always gets me in a stock-making mood.

oh hey that is a good idea

There's a spot in Tupelo that can't keep a tenant more than a year or so -- it's been three different incarnations of barbecue joint, and also a sandwich shop, soul food place (twice), and now it's a carniceria. I need to check it out -- if that craphole town has finally gotten big enough to support an actual butcher, I need to give them my bizniz. Will probably go up in the next day or three and get beef neckbones for stock.

I've got oxtail, beef soup bones, pork neck bones and trotters in the freezer for stock making. It really is that time of year!

You two are inspirational to me btw

I've never made pork stock, but Tep talks about using it fairly often. Sounds too strong!

just turned leftovers into delicious fajitas!

I keep wanting to make beef stock (and eventually demi glace) but I never have the time or inclination. I need freezer space too.

Tonight I brewed beer with some friends and made pizzas with carmelized onions and olives, tomato basil mozzarella, tomato mozzarella potato and spanish chorizo, and arugula prosciutto and goat cheese.

i wish Tep would post again :(

He has a pretty awesome cooking blog now.

A cauldron of beef stock is now simmering.

Abbot I am a big proponent of I think a Jacques Pepin method of cooking a whole chicky (~3 lbs): put chicky, onion, celery, carrot, bay leaf, couple of whole cloves (secret ingredient!) in dutch oven type pot; cover with H20, bring to simmer and simmer 10 min, then cover, remove from heat, and let sit and gently poach for 40 min. Pull out the bird and remove meat, then chuck the carcass back in, refresh veg, and simmer down for a couple of hours or however long it takes to get tasty stock. Two birds, one stone yadda yadda.

sounds perfect.
<3 pepin.

Any Pepin method of cooking also would probably require you to be drinking at least one glass of wine while doing it.

Any Pepin method of cooking also would probably require you to be drinking at least one glass of wine while doing it.

pot of chili on now. i used a bunch of guajillo and some cayenne and some fire roasted tomatoes with green chilis (canned from tj's)... it's kinda smoky and i think i like it!

Pepperoni rolls!

How do you cook lentils? I cooked them in a recipe last night for an hour, and they were still crunchy.

hmm brown lentils shouldn't take longer than 40 min at most, i think

Good lord, I buy cheap green lentils from the grocery store -- GOYA or the kind with the cute jackrabbit on them -- and they only take like 15 mins to simmer until soft. Actually I sautee them in the oil + aromatics before I add the water/stock, so that they crisp up a little better. And I think that "green" and "brown" lenils are the same, technically?

What kind of lentils are you getting, Mary?

yeah it might be closer to 20 min, i never time it tbh. an hour should turn them to mush.

I think I got the cute jackrabbit brand. My instructions were to cook sausage, remove, add oil, add lentils, water and red wine, bring to boil, then simmer for 40 minutes. But in a skillet. After 40 minutes (sauce has evaporated, but lentils still hard) add kale and sausage and cook for 10 minutes. I couldn't wait any longer to eat, so I put some on a plate and left the rest on low to see if they would get softer. After 20 minutes--still hard lentils. Where did I go wrong? (The directions on the package say to cook for 20 minutes.)