What's cooking? part 4

I knnnooooow, god. At that point I had never cooked w ginger before or seen anyone else do so, I just took her word for it. Thank you, this thread!

I think lentils in a red curry coconut sauce is my favorite. I also love barley and lentil stew, but I've never tried to cook stew yet. I've decided this winter I will after hearing that anchovies are the secret ingredient to making a great stew.

I meant Anchovy paste.

You use the tip of the spoon, I think. I have a gimmicky ginger peeler that looks a lot like that. It works really well once you get the hang of it.

http://www.thekitchn.com/oxos-good-grips-ginger-peeler-96763

this is insane. i never knew there was such acrimony about ginger.

V, I used 2C of lentils, one large carrot, two medium stalks of celery, half a large onion, like 6 cloves of garlic because <3 garlic, 2 bay leaves, 1 stalk of rosemary, and 6C of water. Oh, and one diced tomato because that's all I had tho the recp called for 2C of diced tom.

Currently on the hob I am attempting the Hazan tomato sauce using San Marzano tom. I can't quite believe you just...put the stuff in there all together.

i prefer lidia to hazan personally, really <3 her alla vodka and all'amatriciana recipes

All this lentil talk reminds me I gotta cook and chill some tonight to make into my patented lentil and antipasto salad.

Ohhhhh this sauce is so beautiful

It has all the acidity that I crave but richness too. I over-dried it a little so I added some pasta water back in. It's like velvet.

my ginger strategy is usually to start with a bigger piece than i need, do a really rough chop into a rectangle to get the skin off, and then chop it down into matchsticks and dice it from there. it's tolerable.

estela you're a genius. am going to freeze my ginger from now on.

I freeze mine just so it keeps, but it's harder to peel that way. :D

I make something that needs fresh ginger probably half the time I cook anything and I hate peeling it and grating it but it's part of the deal. I wish there was some equivalent of a garlic press for ginger, but instead I have to mess around with scraping or shaving the peel and running it through a microplane.

It's onion, potato, cabbage, and squash season at the farmer's market and I ended up buying like ten pounds of onions for maybe five or six bucks. I filled my 8qt all clad dutch oven and my 14 inch lodge cast iron skillet to the point of overflowing and cooked them down for like six hours total.

I probably have a pound of caramelized onions now which means there is nine pounds of onion juice evaporated into my house which is kind of insane to ponder.

I freeze mine just so it keeps, but it's harder to peel that way. :D

this freezing of ginger is a revelation to me but how about... peeling before freezing?

Yes, and mincing.

I'm trying to cook though all 100 of Saveur magazine's 100 classic dishes from around the world. Martin Yan's scallion pancakes, and the African peanut stew variation have been best of the dozen I've tried so far. The hot and sour soup recipe I tried was far, far worse than the Andrea Nguyen (or Bobby Chin) one I usually make.

In unrelated news, my quest to make a "Thanksgiving in a bowl" soup got sidetracked by my discovery of the polygamous marriage of kaffir lime, cranberry, kabocha and fresh ground pork.

I never peel ginger, is the skin really that bad?

usually what I do (learned via my parents) is to cut one or two big slices, and just toss it in at the beginning in the oil, ginger is pretty resilient to high heat I find. I kind of like eating big slices of cooked ginger after the dish is done, it makes me feel tough.

if it's a big stew type thing then yeah I'll just cut it into matchsticks, then tiny cubes, and I find that I can't even find it at teh end.

I guess if you're used to eating the skin it'd be fine.

I peel before freezing. The thing to remember is that if you use a microplaner or need to slice it, you need to do it while it's still mostly frozen. Thawed ginger is very squishy.

If you want to juice the ginger, though, freezing it and then thawing it makes it really easy. Mmm, ginger juice.

ginger seems like a miracle root to me. I love how it 'self-heals' after you cut off a slice.

ginger skin isn't even a thing - it's not like garlic or onion skin that's still papery and tough and impossible to chew even after you cook it.

African peanut stew

I have a recipe for something of this nature!! I think it calls for peanut butter.

I thought the bamboo ginger grater were p effective - though I've never used one. Is this true or no?

Microplane is ok but I find I end up with more schmutz on my side of the grater than on the grated side, it kinda comes out like ginger juice

that's why i use a cheese grater! it's more like a pulp and loosens with a little tap tap tap.

That's it, Veg! The fibers clog the teeth, it sticks inside the curved-over back side, blah. Remy is prob right and I should set aside 30 mins once a month and just dice a whole bunch and freeze in an ice cube tray.

xp or buy another grater. :)

maybe I will investigate a bamboo hoonja doonja

speaking of ginger, my favorite thing when I'm sick is to make a hardcore ginger/lemon/cayenne + honey infusion. I love ginger in citrus juices, god it's so good and zingy

xps Yeah, I've started using the finest-mesh of my 3 graters for ginger. I've also started using it for garlic -- 1 large clove grated brings as much flavor and pungency as 4-5 slivered or chopped.

I just read a short story that mentions a dinner of fettuccine with a pesto and cream cheese sauce. I need to figure out how to make that.

Like I kept rereading it and salivating more and more each time.

i dunno, pesto and fettuccine sounds great but ... cream cheese?

made my french lentils today, nothing pretty enough to take a picture of but totally yum

Has anyone cooked curry butternut squash soup? I've got two large butternuts and thinking of making soup with them tonight.

Yeah lentils are not photogenic, but they are delicious! Had soup for lunch. Will also have soup for lunch tomorrow. May freeze the rest, because I'm about to leave town for two days on business and venture into the wilds of PA where everything will be covered in dairy products or sugary icing.

yes, it's delicious. i make the one from the williams-sonoma vegetarian cookbook (only difference is using vegetable stock)

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/roasted-butternut-squash-soup.html

xp

yes, it's delicious. i make the one from the williams-sonoma vegetarian cookbook (only difference is using vegetable stock)

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/roasted-butternut-squash-soup.html

― the late great, Monday, October 22, 2012 6:14 PM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh i'm so making this

yeah that looks good!

So the grocery store had no hazelnuts at all, any idea of another garnish in it's place?

walnuts

im making the nigel slater warm mustard/vinegar potato salad that is like the only recipe i've ever made from the book i have because it's so good

that sounds so good! i love vinegar potato salads, especially warm omg yum

My grandmother's german potato salad is vinegar based with cucumbers and onions, served warm reminds me being a kid.

i can type it out pretty fast bc none of the things in this book (tender) are actual recipes brb

24 new potatoes
a bulb of garlic
olive oil
rosemary or thyme - a few sprigs

dressing:
2 T red wine vinegar
2 T smooth dijon mustard
5 T olive oil

400º oven. put the potatoes in a pan. break the garlic into cloves, don't peel. add to potatoes. drizzle a little olive oil. add some salt and leaves from rosemary or thyme. bake 45 min to an hour until puffed and golden and insides are fluffy.

mix dressing. press down hard on each potato with a spoon, then pour over the dressing. mash the garlic as u eat it :)

i usually use more mustard and vinegar and less oil because i love vinegary things

On Saturday I made this:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8192/8114494154_c428ec5fc7.jpg

A Pavlova. I feel much better.

But next time, slicing the strawberries thinner.

i love pavlova, it's our (new zealand's) national dessert. yours turned out great.

harbly, i'm going to make your potato salad, it looks so good.

it's nigel slater's and i'm eating it right now! i got these potatoes yesterday when i bought 100 vegetables and they taste like clouds

i just made up a thing that tastes really amzing: apple pie baked between two layers of yogurt gingerbread

also vegan

Thank you, estela!
Harbl: Sounds delish!
Soda:Yum! I still want gingerbread....

soda, how is yogurt vegan? :)