What's cooking? part 4

this is the way I do eggplant (learned from my mom):

use thin and slender eggplants, not the big fat ones
cut into chunks, not slices
toss into a pan with a lot of oil (eggplants soak up a lot of oil)
add salt cuz to make the eggplants sweat
knock around listlessly with your spatula, wait until they feel soft and creamy when you push down on them
when they get soft and creamy, add vinegar and sugar (I just eyeball it). stir it around with your spatula, taste your spatula to see if the flavor is one you like.
if okay, serve!

Making fake beef bourguignon tonight! This should be lolsy

Question: I'm looking at agree different recipes, one uses herbs de provence and the others don't - y/n? Some also use bacon - I have liquid smoke, maybe I should add a little?

Stupid ph - ” a few”, not ” agree”

Depends on what the bacon's in there for. If you're chopping it up and rendering the fat for something else to cook in it afterward, then no to liquid smoke.

Making fake beef bourguignon tonight! This should be lolsy

can not quite wrap my head around this!

god it's taking forever

Pork picnic was on sale, so. Breaking it down and making homemade sausage, ground pork for whatever, mincemeat, stock, cracklings. Also feeling confident enough in my kimchi that I'm going to try a couple new things, changing the seasonings - cilantro, cumin, and Mexican chiles; Indian curry seasonings; and Thai curry paste, which if it comes out well would be a nice and easy thing.

I'm too scared to try my bourguignon because it smelled gross but jordan says it's really good. Guess I'll bite the bullet when I get home tonight.

Also: the vegan recipe I used as a base required that the sauce be simmered for 2.5hrs, but after an hour there was pretty much no sauce left.

i am kind of drunk and the only fresh item in the house was three heads of bok choy. so this is called hot and sour bok choy:

slice up bok choy
sautee it on high heat for a minute
add enough rice wine to cover the bottom of the pan, splash in some rice wine vinegar and sesame oil
sprinkle very liberally with salt, pepper, and cayenne
reduce heat to medium, cover, and let it braise until you get bored of drinking canned guinness that someone left at your house
scoop out bok choy, salt and pepper to taste, serve in a bowl

a+

oh i forgot! also sprinkle a little sugar in there for the hell of it.

i've got zucchini! i'm soliciting for some ways to cook it/season it

i have a way that i do it now that's basically salt + pepper, garlic butter, soy sauce, which i like a lot but it's kind of gluttonous and also need to switch shit up

doing basic olive oil + salt + pepper tonight

y'all have any ideas

zucchini pancakes? tza swears by this recipe: http://www.justhungry.com/zucchini-and-chickpea-pancakes

my vegan bourguignon was disappointing - the sauce was alright but the texture of the seitan was yuck.

i love them!

i will throw zucchini in just about anything tbh.

i guess i mean more as a side

zucchini is an incredible vegetable -- eating a zucchini/carrot/onion has right now that kinda has me over the mooon

long slices of zucchini roasted or grilled are otm

see also: making manicotti using zucchini (or eggplant) strips instead of noodles.

long slices of zucchini roasted or grilled are otm

― tehresa, Thursday, October 13, 2011 10:29 PM (8 minutes ago)

^^ My favorite.

you have to make TZA's pancakes, they are AMAZING and super fast/easy
mine wound up way smaller, like falafel sized, than the ones in the recipe, but they taste a lot like falafel because of the chickpea flour. totally going to try that with other vegetables btw. soon!

i like to grill (stovetop grill) long zucchini spears and portabello slices -- surprisingly filling with a little cheese and crackers or w/e for a weeknight easy meal

! Reading that zuke pancake recipe, someone in the comments mentions removing the juice from the shredded zuke using a salad spinner. Why didn't I think of that, thats genius! Ive been using paper towels and making a soggy mess!

but the juice helps bind the chickpea flour!

I have never been able to love zucchini :(

im ok w/ it but j0rdan saying its an incredible vegetable is kinda o_O to me

it is!

i had to add a little bit of water to the zuke cake mixture -- def don't remove any!

xp I find it slightly less disgusting than eggplant.

just like a * -...- * spritz, not a cupful or anything

these pancakes will make anyone like zucchini, i swear.

I have also made the zuke chickpea flour pancakes! A+

O sorry I should have clarified I meant the de-juicing zuke with a salad spinner *in general* is a great idea, obv for this recipe it would be madness.

red snapper red curry "mousse" steamed in banana leaf cups. the banana leaves add a lot of flavor, i was surprised.

pork tossed in tapioca starch, white pepper, fish sauce and a ton of garlic, then deep-fried

(homework - i am taking a class)

I can't stop eating toasted whole wheat covered in avocado, radish sprouts + salt & pepper. It is the best lunch of the world even though it gets avocado on my nice work clothes.

Yesterday featured an epic brisket battle: that fucker was still not up to temp after almost 12 hours in the smoker! Finally I said screw it, wrapped the bastard in foil, and threw it in a low oven overnight. Woke up to the whole house smelling like brisket, which is a little weird at 7 a.m. on Monday.

Fingers crossed that it is edible tonight.

camping this weekend, peripherally involved in the preparation of pork ribs, wrapped in foil w/marinade, and slow cooked over a fire pit with a bike wheel for a grill. seared on the spokes to finish (to get those classy three-cross grill marks). really totally excellent.

did you use the bike wheel afterwards?

yes....for more grilling

white bean chicken chili for the first time & it turned out really well. one of my favorite things that i've made in a long time.

i made the korean chicken soup found here http://food.lohudblogs.com/2010/01/20/believe-in-the-healing-power-of-broth/
because the soup place near me makes something like it. i put some cauliflower in it since i had some in my fridge. i think it needs about half the broth and 2-3x as much chili paste but could be just me. it's satisfactory.

Ooo that article reminds me I have a roast chicken carcass in the fridge I gotta make stock out of.

i just realized what i said could sextuple the concentration of hot pepper. i mean i tripled the paste this time, but if i had to do it again i would use half the broth and maybe only 1.5x the paste.

do we have a thread that's just like "post soup recipes for winter"

I don't think so but that would be a good idea. Just made a lentil soup that's pretty damn good. Not soup but also made a roasted broccoli and penne pasta with balsamic butter for later in the week.

Here is soup! where I just posted my new favorite easy hearty Thai coconut pumpkin soup.

Yay lentils! I made my lamb ragout recipe with stew beef because lamb was expensive and harder to come by. It's good, but it's missing some kind of...oomph? I browned the heck out of the meat AND bought a beef soup bone and browned IT, and threw it into the slow cooker to break down over 4 hours.

I don't understand. It will be delic, no problem, but it could be so much more.

Thinking of also hitting the curry-and-coconut-lentil-soup train and socking it away for the week.

lamb is pretty game-y, maybe that was what the original recipe relied on...?

Oh, I know, but this has the mirepoix, red wine, tomato, rosemary, it should be bursting with richness. I'm going to shred the meat and see if getting more sauce throughout helps.

usually letting it sit for a day helps ime
at first taste stews don't really taste as rich as they do the following day
(i don't really make that many meaty stews though)

Lamb has all kinds of gelatin which really adds to the sauce. A beef knuckle bone instead of a soup bone maybe would have done it, or adding some demiglace.

A knuckle bone! Who knew?? I'll ask for that next time, but, it being Sunday, there were no butchers working today. And I'll be eating this sauce for like 4 days, so Amanda's suggestion is also sure to be true.

One of these days I hope to reach Jaq-like levels of making gallons of stock and reducing it to jelly in my own home. One day....