what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

thanks for the encouragement! i had a friend in college who would be like "you look a little down, let me make you a pie" and honestly it was like knowing a good witch, she would just conjure one of those babies up and everything would be better

also savory hand pies are in my top five favorite foods, so i feel like i should learn how to make them

as to what i have cooked lately (since everyone cares): cacio e pepe last night for the first time, scandalously easy

hankerin for mapo tofu, but i'm out of fermented black beans and santa fe doesn't have an asian grocery as far as i can tell

after I read the extensive cacio e pepe discussion upthread I tried a recipe out of Milk Street, it seemed off somehow, too much water? the variation in recipes is staggering.

yeah if you let go of ideals of perfection it’s p dope

there’s definitely a lot of variables in pastry making that make it seem like a hellscape when you are reading about it but as long as you keep your fats chilled & dont let yr dough get too warm when you work it, it’s all good

and it’s kinda fun, i love rolling dough

and srsly if you like cacio e pepe then pastry making is a relaxing step down from that lol

i’ve used the one i copied into the thread multiple times since; it’s never let me down.

does the milk st. recipe have butter or oil?

i used something between kenji's recipe on SE, and uh basically every other recipe i found? except w/o butter because i didn't have any on hand (parm is usually the only dairy product in the house)

wasn't perfect (though i've never actually had it before), but i think in my case it was because i actually didn't have enough water

xxp

also i somehow missed the extensive cacio e pepe discussion???

maybe it was on previous thread?

to CAD: no, just water, cornstarch, pecorino Romano, pasta, salt, pepper

VG reminds me I do have basic advice for pie crust - everything as cold as possible. I used to chill the flour in the walkin fridge, in a metal bowl. pour your water directly off of ice for maximum coldness, frozen butter, everything as cold as possible.

wait re CeP -- no fat at all (aside from the cheese)???

also cooking homies i do not want to brag (i do) but i am currently living in an apt that is outfitted with a commercial kitchen for some reason and having lived with electric stovetops for oh about ten years i am pretty pumped

for the record I was deeply suspicious of the Milk St recipe but wanted to give it a try, I was underwhelmed

lol that bit about electric stovetops reminds me of one of my favorite food snob quotes, seen in some kitchen porn magazine around 17 years ago - "If you have to cook with electric, you might as well just go out to eat"

although I don't agree 100%, I've always found the quote amusing

i am using my friend's mom's very basic recipe but 1) it's vegan so my vegan friends will eat it 2) it's easy -- I made my first one with her two daughters, aged 4 and 6 and we rolled the dough with a Kahlua bottle and 3) the ingredients are shelf-stable and that means i can make one ANYTIME and 4) having the ability to make decent pie crust without complicating it totally makes me feel like a witch/wizard. i can post the recipe but i am sure you will find one.

i asked my friend to have me over to teach me because that works best for me and is also fun; then even though i was distracted by having fun, i wrote the recipe (and have added notes) in my purse notebook. whatever works, yknow.

wait re CeP -- no fat at all (aside from the cheese)???

― gbx, Saturday, September 29, 2018 12:10 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah! the versions with extra fat all just end up tasting like that fat to me.

Electric stoves are awesome if the alternative is a flat glass top one. I’ve used three of these - last place I rented before buying a house, my parent’s house, my mother in law’s - and they’re always awful

huh, I would have thought those were better!

They’re easy to clean but that is literally the only good thing. There’s always some sort of thermostat or safety thing that keeps the burner from overheating so they cycle on and off instead of being consistent. I often have to trick it by only covering half the burner surface

Our induction top is flat glass and it’s fabulous

the CeP recipe on Pasta Grannies, she just whips all the grated pecorino, pepper and hot pasta water together until she has a nice sauce. and then tosses the pasta with sauce in a pan.

Xps savory pies are one of things I miss most from New Zealand. The mince (ground beef) pie, the mince and cheese pie, the bacon and egg pie - all classic nz foods.

xpost to fionnland - quince makes very good relish and chutneys. I did a cranberry/quince/pecan relish a few years back that was really good. Quince paste, quincesauce (applesauce-ish), use it in baked goods etc.

Making potato leek soup rn. Love things made of like four ingredients.

I made potato leek soup last weekend using leeks from the garden, and it was glorious. Used the recipe below except:

* Used russet potatoes instead of Yukon gold ones because russets take in seasoning better.
* Left out sage cos I didn't have any.
* Put in a few chunks of cauliflower with the other veg.
* Used half chicken broth and half water for the liquid.
* Put in two cut up stalks of celery with the other veg.
* After all the veg were boiled through, I fished out the celery & herbs and threw away, then scooped most of the potato chunks into a bowl, then pureed everything that was left in the pot with an immersion blender, then added the chunky potatoes back in.
* Did not add any cream but did melt shredded gouda into each serving.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017981-golden-leek-and-potato-soup

What is it about soups that makes it seem like they're pouring health and life into your body?? Solid foods just don't have the magic no matter how good they are.

once I made a basic leek and potato soup and threw in leftover roasted parsnips and it was so good I always make it like that now

I made soup twice in the last week cause it's finally kind of cold out and the furnace kicked on for the first time in months.

Last week I made a kimchee stew - kimchee and pork belly and onions and doenjang and gochujang fried together with broth added and soft tofu and green onions at the end. I never really ate a lot of Korean food until a couple years ago and just started getting into cooking some of the dishes that seem to exist to use up kimchee. Unlike gbx I lived in a place with no real asian market for a decade and now live less than a mile from an incredible one with literally everything I've ever wanted and it's amazing.

Last night I made chicken and leek soup with peas and tarragon and old timey DUMPLINGS! on top.

I’ve been using japanese recipe apps a lot recently. The best two are Kurashiro and Delish Kitchen and the recipes feature little videos. Last night I cooked Fried beans with Chirimen (sardine fry) 揚げ大豆のじゃこ炒め. Really delicious although I’m not sure where I can get more chirimen in Australia. The ones I have were a souvenir of the Kyoto railway museum.

I've been working toward the unachievable perfect biscotti the last few months -- about 25 batches now, mostly for family and friends and a couple of failures into the trash. For a brief moment I thought about trying to pitch them to the local coffee shop. Getting the right balance of dough to fruit/nut/chip additions, playing with flavor extracts.

I know this is ultra trendy right now, but I have been making golden milk a lot (tumeric, black pepper, ginger, etc. milk). It's very soothing.

ooh i love golden milk. i have never ordered it out but make it at home as needed. i think i first had it as a free sample at whole foods and i looked at the ingredients and was like oh i can do that. i have tried it with different milks and settled on coconut or almond as the most delicious. i like regular milk in coffee though.

I have only used soy milk because it was what was available. It's amazing how you can't even taste the black pepper. I should try the almond/coconut versions. Do you put anything else in it? I realized that we ran out of cinnamon so i put in some pumpkin spice (blech). It was either that or garam masala.

i keep it simple -- grated fresh ginger, a shake of dried turmeric*, a twist of black papper, spoonful of honey. that's all it needs to be delicious imo!

* (i use fresh in smoothies if i can find it)

also those were the ingreds on the bottle that i sampled at whole foods and i was like oh wow this is super easy so i kept making it that way

for one very, very large mug I put in almost two teaspoons of tumeric and maybe 5 grates of pepper and maybe an inch of grated ginger? Ha. That sounds like too much comparatively.

My co-worker makes it for her kids when they have a sore throat and they call it caca milk.

Lol.Have successfully used garam but it was homemade and had no cumin or fennel. I love making this either hot or cold. Have done turmeric (fresh grated is ideal), grated ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, teeny bit of clove, pepper, maple syrup & soymilk.

ooh yeah cardamom! that is what i forgot! i crushed cardamom seeds in there too

also strained it before serving

two teaspoons of turmeric is enough to make liquid turmeric?

this is for the golden milk? I just use a lot of tumeric in general. For a mug that holds ~16 oz of liquid about 2 teaspoons of tumeric. I don't really measure.

i will never give my kids liquid turmeric. They will dye the whole house. Might make this for myself, though, sounds good.

I just saw it in 3 different coffee places in the city. I am trying to drink it 3-4 times a week. I need all the anti-inflammatories that I can get.

since you're doing this for medicinal purposes you know abt the positive effect piperine in black pepper (even white pepper) has on the circumin in turmeric? i'd heard about this before, but i found a olde paper that was looking at this. "increased bioavailability 149%"!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9619120

xxpossts to Sufjan - it IS good. kinda sorta like chai, but different

xpost, i didn't know about white pepper, but only knew about the black pepper. And that it has to be heated/cooked together?

never heard abt heat being required to lower the activation energy. doesn't really make sense to me that they would have to be cooked at all or together. but i'm not a food biologist or organic chemist. does make me think about how "they" used to say that you have to combine rice with beans for a complete protein. but in reality the foods just need to be eaten the same day so the body breaks them down in a similar timeframe on the molecular level

https://i.imgur.com/hcLaPmD.jpg
Enchiladas w/mashed purple sweet potato and russet, pintos, & goat cheese w/ghost pepper sauce.

jeez, i am not a shutterbug by nature. hope they taste better than pic looks

Lately - Joanne Chang's apple cake. Some basic cassoulet (I call any slow-cooked duck and beans combination cassoulet; this was limas and black-eyed peas). Resisting the temptation to make a million apple desserts - it's barely felt like fall yet, but the apples here are good, and won't be around for long.

I picked up some goat and goat stomach at an Asian/African market, but haven't decided what to do with the stomach yet. Presumably something braised.

xpost was the ghost pepper sauce from scratch?

Wow, report back on the goat stomach.

I have become very good at making orcchiette.

has anyone ever used dried hominy before? I bought some at Berkeley Bowl, and I soaked it overnight and cooked it for quite a while, but it didn't soften much. Was I supposed to nixtamalize it?

Yeah I bought a few dried ghosties in la last summer. Super simple - sauteed onion added garlic, then cumin and coriander. Then added a can of crushed tomatoes and the Chile and simmered any 10 minutes. Pureed b4 using. Xpost