What's cooking? part 4

i actually use limes/lemons way more frequently, too.

trayce i made that mushroom pate and it was really disgusting

Aw bums! It seemed like such a great idea on paper! I wonder if it'd work with field mushrooms?

yeah i think it was mostly the porcini - i've never had them before, and just opening the packet up had me feeling a little gaggy tbh.

i have:
ooh la la fancy balsamic
cheap balsamic
white balsamic
rice
malt
red
white
white wine
sherry
champagne
ume plum
apple cidar

cider, even

the supermarket we go to has an insane variety of flavoured vinegars - i want to buy them all!

They're crazy expensive, but Gegenbauer vinegars are worth at least gawking at. Instead of infusing a wine vinegar with something, they take the something, ferment it, and then turn that into vinegar - so the apricot vinegar is all apricot, the tomato vinegar is all tomato (and was tomato wine at one point), etc. I really want to make shrub with the sour cherry one.

hey btw what is the vinegar chicken recipe!?

Oh! Weirdly, I don't think I have it on my blog, but -

Vinegar chicken, a likely Italian precursor to Buffalo wings

Chicken parts, bone-in, skin-on
Crushed red pepper
Red wine vinegar or any other kind of vinegar
Salt
Heavy metal cleaver, or at least a good strong chef's knife

Chop each chicken part into several pieces, whamming the cleaver through the bone. They're hollow, it's fine. If the bone splinters a bit, you can run it under some water to make sure you rinse off any little bone fragments.

Brown the chicken in a pan, sprinkle with salt and crushed red pepper (it always seems to work better with crushed red pepper than powdered chile), add enough vinegar to come about halfway up the chicken, and then cook the vinegar off until it's become infused with the peppers and reduced to a sauce that's now clinging to the chicken.

You can add onions, garlic, etc., but it seems to work best when it's kept pretty simple. Tangy, spicy, a little sticky from the gelatin in the skin.

ooh. how much pepper do you use?

tehresa the recipe i use for carbonara just has cracked black pepper in it rather than red pepper, maybe worth giving a go

Yeah tbh I dont think ive ever had carbo with chilli. Its meant to have black pepper cos its meant to imitate miners coaldust.

I just bought one of these on student recommendation, but there's one fatal flaw. Anyone care to guess what it is?
(the flaw or the thing)

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5065/5599910025_f180a92cd8.jpg

chocolate frother?

yup, molinillo

the only problem is that it's kind of huge -- i don't make hot chocolate for 5 ppl at a time (usually just one, two max), and it's not fully submerged. still, it's a fun little thingie to have.

also my mom never cooked (like pretty much EVER) but she would occasionally make carbonara and OH HOW WE WOULD FEAST. It never had cream, just egg and bacon and parmesan. I still have no idea how she did it, but I would love to eat it again.

ooh. how much pepper do you use?

A liberal shake - you definitely want pepper flakes on every piece.

Damn, this looks interesting.

i would def use red pepper again in carbonara! just not as much. i also used black pepper.
amanda, it's totally easy! you just saute the bacon, throw in garlic + red pepper, deglaze w/ a touch of white wine. mix 2 egg yolks w/ a ladle of the pasta water, then put pasta in the bacon/garlic, add yolk mixture, and fold it all together. then fold in cheese, salt and pepper. garnish w/ parsley.

last night i sauteed a piece of chicken to throw into the leftovers. nom.

yeah cabonara is super easy isnt it, it's one of me + my gf's go-to meals when its the end of the week and we're feeling lazy. and it's always delicious.

i can't believe i'd never tried it!
well, maybe i can. it's not partic healthy!

shhhhh yr not meant to mention that

god that sounds so delicious right now
don't know why i've never tried it either?!?! i guess i thought my mom's carbonara was magical and i could never do it.

Made a crazy amount of al pastor marinade this morning -- will freeze it in 2-cup units for future use. Now the question is, do I want to slice up this pork shoulder and marinate it in strips for quick grilling, or marinate it whole and cook it in the marinade until it's pull-apart-with-forks tender?

Isn't it usually slow roasted (dry, not in a mop or w/e it's called) and then carved off in pieces gyro/shwarma style? That's how I've seen it. Since that might not be an option, maybe strips for grilling might be the best alternative?

Also yummmmmmmmm

Yeah, I don't have the gear for gyro/shwarma style. I think I've decided on slicing the meat and grilling it.

Man, that sounds good.

Come on down, you can get here by dinnertime tomorrow. Bring pie.

btw, after looking at a dozen recipes, this is what went into the blender:

about 15-16 reconstituted guajillo chilies
1 large onion
about half a head of garlic
half of a pineapple
(I didn't have any orange juice, so) a peeled and segmented grapefruit
about 2 oz. of chipotle chilies + adobo sauce
about 1/2 cup cider vinegar
freestyled spoonfuls of cumin, cinnamon, black pepper, salt
palmful of dried oregano

After letting it sit for a while, it smelled a bit "hot" with raw onion and garlic, so I simmered it (covered, didn't want to reduce it) for 30 minutes. Much sweeter now, and the Scovilles are farther out front.

Okay, my official ramp to-do list / ideas for anyone else picking up ramps:

Preserving: ramp kimchi, pickled ramp bulbs, a few frozen bulbs.

Easter weekend ramp feast: ramp deviled eggs, ramp dip, ramp / bacon / ramp-sausage pizza, leg of lamb stuffed with ramps, ramp cheeseburger possibly with truffle cheese (if we have any leftover from Caitlin's birthday), ramp/bacon/asparagus/fried spaghetti frittata

And then ramp falafel with whatever ramps I have left.

i need some advice re brownies:

i made these vegan brownies and while they were completely delicious, they were a little too dry and not gooey in the middle. any tips on how i can retain a crunchy crust on top but allow the middle to be nice and fudgey?

i also need some advice on pan frying:

i dredged some oyster mushroom chunks in chickpea flour and dried tarragon and pan fried them in a mixture of peanut and safflower oils. they tasted great but they were really oily. now, this creation was my version of a dish i had at a fancy vegan restaurant, but theirs were pale and crispy and not oily at all. what am i doing wrong? i really have no clue about proper frying techniques.

My instinctive guess would be they need to be rapidly flash-fried in very hot oil, so they dont get a chance to soak it up? I'm not sure tho.

Generally fudgeyness vs cakeyness has to do with the ratio of fat to flour (less fat -> more cakey). (I don't know if you'd have to increase the margarine, necessarily - that recipe seems to get most of its chocolate from cocoa powder with only a little chocolate and therefore only a little cocoa butter, so maybe you could change that part.) Crust I'm not sure of - egg is a major contributor to forming a crust on brownies, and I don't know how vegan recipes usually make up for that.

I thought I had a McGee article bookmarked, but it's not McGee - it is food science, though: http://acselementsofchocolate.typepad.com/elements_of_chocolate/ACSBrownieChronicles.html

the egg in vegan cakes is usually replaced by flax meal or some other pea protein-based egg sub. the crust on top of these was fine - the problem was the fudgey part was pretty minimal. what about covering the dish with foil for 2/3 of the cooking time?

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5266/5614861222_94ce2d0b2d.jpg

Yuzu pie, huckleberries.

Had to google that. Never heard of a yuzu! It looks like custard pie tho!

It is - it's just key lime pie with yuzu juice instead of the key limes. You can see where the custard separated from the crust at the edge because I left it in too long (no timer, no watch, and when I switched to HD I found out my cable box no longer has a clock on it).

The weather's calling for slow cooking so I'm gonna throw on a pot of bolognese sauce for dinner tonight. I think to change up my usual I might add a couple good italian pork sausages to the mince mixuture if I can find some quickly after work.

The only disadvantage on a weeknight is I can only cook it down for about an hour (or we'll be eating at 10pm!) but thats ok.

Made this caramel chicken tonight after my mom suggested it would be a good way to take care of surplus chicken thighs. I was worried it would taste like, you know, caramel, but it is more fish saucy rich nom.

ooh i was just thinking about something like that the other day - there's a local vegan restaurant that does an amazing caramelized chicken i was wondering if i could imitate it. what do you think i could sub for the fish sauce? i have vegan hoisin sauce... would that do?

maybe soy mixed with something else?

soy is the usual substitute i think....i also think i've seen vegan fish sauce for sale, made from mushrooms or something.

so not fish sauce really.

According to The Internet, veg fish sauce is available commercially (this link I am reading says Vietnamese stores are a good source).

http://www.vietworldkitchen.com/.a/6a00d8341ef22f53ef013487c816d1970c-500wihttp://farm4.static.flickr.com/3249/2946691780_e49aca8507.jpg

I think soy + a little of the hoisin sauce would be a good sub in that recipe if you don't want to do Asian grocery detective work.

Recipes for cherry clafouti say to leave the pits in for the smell boost. Here: "Clafouti aficionados claim (and I believe them) that as the cherries bake, the pits give off a sexy, sensual scent that is missing from the pitted version." Ok ––– is this something that actually shows up in the flavor, too? I guess you guys wouldn't know? What a mysterious world we live in.

Maybe I could do a side-by-side of both & do the science for y'all. I have to say this is the #1 most vexing part of cooking for me tho.

It does, a bit like the difference in flavor between boneless meat and that cooked bone-in. More depth or something. Have you had the Armenian pastry from Costco that's made with mahlub? That's ground sour cherry pits, slightly almondy and nutty. Leaving the pits in adds some of that.

can i use all butter for a recipe that calls for butter + shortening?

Yep, might be more greasy but will taste awesome.

hmm any way to cut down on the grease? probably not...