What's cooking? part 4

Keep an eye on Woot.com - I got a Rival vacuum sealer that works great for <$20. Works with the less expensive rolls or the precut bags. I've been using it to bruise and sous vide asparagus etc as well as pack perishibles.

Father's day celebration w/ my pops. He's taking care of chicken, I've made:

Goat cheese, red pepper and roasted eggplant sandwich on tomato basil bread (bought Pop a panini press – this is his favorite sandwich). Surprise!
Blueberry buttermilk upside down cake from the latest Bon Appetit magazine. It is splendid.
Chiogga beet and carrot slaw with coriander and sumac
Ravioli filled with sweet potato, honey, Szechuan pepper, five spice, and garlic. (This is kind of a rip off from Ming Tsai's latest, amazing, book.)

Had amazing tequila and food in Mexico (in a little tourist enclave ...) and we're going to try to recreate the experience. I'm responsible for hot sauces. I remember a wonderful habanero sauce which i believe was just minced habanero in vinegar. Anyone have tips about salsa fresca? Or any other ideas?

i have been mad lazy lately and got one of those tubes of cilantro (mixed w/ a little oil to form a paste)... have been squeezing that into salsa to perk up boring jars.

tbh it's good cilantro flavor and so much easier than chopping. also it doesn't go bad. i can never get through a bunch of cilantro before it starts to turn.

Bayless salsa recipes are pretty foolproof and easy if you have a food processor. I love his Mexico Everyday book. A little googling will serve your needs, I'd imagine.

Yeah, I don't have an especially ambitious goal here. More talented chefs will be making actual food. Thanks!

Bayless recommendation seconded. And any time you're looking for a specific Mexican dish, Diana Kennedy is another good one to check - can't remember if you can search her books on Amazon (which saves a trip to the library).

For the first time since Christmas I found duck in the supermarket here - just in time for my birthday! I have some unbelievable bullshit to try to deal with this week, so if I succeed at doing so, this weekend will be a combined birthday/bullshit-survival celebration with smoked duck, foie, Georgia peaches, Hubig's pies, and whatever else celebratory I can dig out of the cupboards.

awesome!! sounds great :)

i am trying to figure out how i will celebrate the end of my week (and this job) but that may be less about cooking and more about the cocktails thread...

i have had good luck w/ easy bayless recipes, but his moles are prone to disaster in my experience. i have made 3 of them, and all of them have turned out weird and crappy

made a slaw this am for work potluck. lots of ppl were bringing in meat-heavy dishes (chicken meatballs w/ peanut sauce, bbq pork loin, etc.) so i went with savoy and red cabbage, mango, jicama, yellow pepper, carrot. made vinaigrette last night and let it marinate red onion pieces: lime & lemon juice, rice vinegar, sesame oil, s&p, a dab of honey, cilantro, something else i'm forgetting now... i hope it's good and not too acidic. i'm bringing fresh mint to garnish it before serving.

Whole Foods, I'm gonna hate how much I spend on you when the local one opens next year, but man am I happy to have sunflower greens and pea shoots. (And three kinds of miso and six kinds of cheese, and hanger steak.)

crossposted from the Father's Day thread because my wife and daughter can't get too much credit for the work they put in on this:

badam sandheko (Nepalese spiced peanuts)

chicken beli ram with chapatis
pan-fried halloumi
coconut shrimp with 2 dipping sauces
portobello banh mi "sliders"

mojito ice

cedar planked salmon with dill mustard
wild rice, roasted asparagus

berry ice

kulfi
green tea & mint biscuits

Every bit of it was fantastic.

sounds good, but i do not understand what a portobello banh mi slider is. pls to explain?

Roasted portobellos; marinated daikon/carrots; cucumber, sliced jalapenos, basil leaves; sauce of soy, lime juice, fish sauce, sesame oil, garlic, sugar. They toasted hoagie rolls a bit, added a good bit of the sauce and a very light amt of mayonnaise (all the recipes J. found called for mayo), loaded the roll up with mushrooms and vegetables, sliced it into small slider-sized portions.

If anybody is feeling like being critical of any lack of "authenticity" in this sandwich, please keep it to yourself.

(not meant at you, remy)

That sounds awesome!

It was a full day of eating, six hours total with a couple of long breaks to digest and let our eyes uncross.

Mentioned it on a couple other places, but it was THE best piece of fish I've ever eaten. (Copper River wild-caught)

Finally the payoff for having procreated!

holy shit that banh mi sounds phenomenal

and TOTALLY inauthentic

the inauthenticity was the tastiest part

yeah, it sounds great!

For ages I've had "bahn mi hot dog" on my whiteboard - if anything invites personal touches, it's the bahn mi.

made my own salsa and refried beans today, and had a boned chicken leg which i grilled with this. salsa i put in...red onion, a chilli, 6 tomatoes, lime juice, spoon of cumin, pinch of chilli powder, clove of garlic, salt/pepper, tiny bit of water. didn't have coriander/cilantro or i would have used that too.

for the refried beans i sort of adlibbed, fried a chilli and some garlic with a spoon of cumin, threw black beans in a pot, added a bit of water, mashed it up, added lime juice and salt/pepper and some hot sauce.

it was a really nice meal.

I made katsu curry tonight. I needed a comfort meal!

"island style" pork tenderloins last night. rub the meat w/cumin-cinnamon-chili powder and S&P, brown it. leave it in the pan and coat w/a mix of brown sugar (one cup) chopped garlic and tabasco. cook at 350 for 30 min or so. serve on a salad of spinach, napa cabbage, bell pepper, orange sections, avocado and golden raisins dressed w/vinaigrette including toasted curry powder, lime, orange juice.

every time I make this it seems a little busy flavor-wise but it tastes good and people love it.

I made my comfort meal yesterday, it was scratch pancakes with Michigan maple syrup and it was exactly what I needed. Pancakes can be SO GOOD, people, and yet in public they're almost invariably tasteless mouth sponges!! Why is this??? I make them with an extra egg (so 2 total) and a lot of cinnamon and I try to use a nice flour or even a whole-grainy one -- right now it's the King Arthur's normal unbleached.

They can be delicious, I swear!

my ones can turn out a bit sponge-y :/ what is yr recipe laurel???

P sure it's a basic from like BHG or sthing but I just tried to google it and none of the recps match up, so it might be my mother's personal adjustment. My copy is scribbled on a scrap of paper in my recipe binder. Taking a shot at it, I think it's:

1.5 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
.5 tsp cinnamon (I'm positive I used more)

1 - 1.25 C milk (depends on desired consistency)
1 - 2 eggs (I use 2)
3 tsp melted butter

Mix wet into dry; do not overmix.

I'll double-check that tonight, don't anyone go out and make that yet in case you get a mouthful of salt or something.

this weekend will be a combined birthday/bullshit-survival celebration with smoked duck, foie, Georgia peaches, Hubig's pies...

I was half-right! (But did survive the bullshit.) Due to some sort of confusion, the peaches have not yet been shipped, so we're having them for the Fourth of July weekend up at the lake instead. I didn't break into the foie or the truffle salami, but the smoked duck was pretty decadent alongside radishes and potatoes roasted together, and quickly seared snap peas. Also made steak subs with hanger steak marinated in comeback sauce, with sunflower greens, spring onions, sharp provolone, and a sauce of steak drippings, pecan oil, barley miso, and sherry vinegar.

Big fan of snap peas cooked that way - grilling would be just as good or better, but I just tossed them on a cast-iron pan on medium-high heat for a total of about two minutes, until at least one side had been deeply browned. Ought to have taken a photo, but I never think to when the girlfriend's here.

can't remember if i posted this already but:

oyster mushrooms dipped in milk (i use soy or almond) and then dredged in a mixture of chickpea flour and a generous amount of dried thyme + s&p and fried in some manner (prob deep fry would be best but i only had about 1/4" in the pan) = delicious. not as good as the ones from millenium, though. there's are somehow super crispy but also not-brown and very dry (i.e. not as greasy as mine).

Just made rainbow chard with tilapia filet topped with pickled ginger
Really tasty, and SO fast; the whole thing took about 15 min start to plate. I always lose my appetite in the summer because it's so hot, but this was worth it.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5266/5879359582_8ba4b03764.jpg

the fish is shiny b/c it has sweet chili sauce on it; it's not greasy!

nom

that looks outrageously tasty

weird make it up as i went along cooking today, found pork mince reduced in supermarket and i am quite broke, had a lemon, a red pepper, and a red onion and some couscous at home so bought a tin of tomatoes and made a sort of lemony tomato pork meatball thing, also had a few sprigs of rocket in the fridge. it tastes so good, love when experiments go right.

Figs are here!!!

Browned up some sliced chorizo and carrot/garlic mirepoix, cooked for 10 mins with sliced Yukon potatoes, deglazed with 1C chicken broth and slivered leeks, laid just over a pound of cod on top. Supposed to bake in oven for 20 mins at 400deg but couldn't get oven temp up, ended up doing an hour at 250deg to cook the fish through and then put the pot back on burner to reduce the liquid/finish potatoes.

But whatever, man. It tasted GREAT.

spanish or mexican chorizo? sounds great btw.
why are leeks so expensive? i bought some today and they were $2.99/lb! i would have bought more than 2 leeks but they were so expensive that i didn't.

nm i guess it must be spanish if you sliced it, right :)

Dude, the cheap stuff, I have no idea. It was nothing special.

I mean, I didn't go out of my way to get it or anything! It was delicious, naturally, but not of any particular note.

Had some lovely discount porterhouse steaks to cook last night, so for a side, I made a delicious mash of potato and celeriac, mashed with milk, sour cream, and finely chopped spring onions (scallions - the long skinny green ones). Sooooo good. I'm such a celeriac convert lately.

I can not find slice-able chorizo here!

that's spanish chorizo! they're quite different. spanish is dried and mexican is...not. i don't know the vocab for discussing sausage, but the spices are different too iirc.

spanish: http://www.saveurdujour.com/images/DriedChorizo.gif

mexican chorizo is more like this:

http://cdn.eatingoutloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/lentil_frutas_chorizo-540x363.jpg

the one in front

http://www.foodsubs.com/Photos/mexicanchorizo.jpg

Oh yes, okay! Then Spanish, definitely.

My recip is also supposed to have saffron in it but I don't have any. It's okay, though, the carrots lent sweetness and some color, and the 2nd day taste was EVEN BETTER once the oils and flavors saturated the potatoes. The leeks almost just break down into a sauce. Making it again tonight with my other package of scrod. Scrod. Scrod.

portugese chorico is even differenter, and kind of good but not a good replacement for either spanish/mex chorz.

portuguese, even