what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

One thing about making rice in a pot is make sure you don't stir it until it's completely done. Otherwise it will get mushy.

I made a big batch of quinoa today for the week. I didn't toast it, but I did add two spoonfuls of tumeric to the water while cooking. And then after cumin, hot chile powder, garlic, lemon zest and juice, coriander, cucumber, green onion. It will be the base for stuff later in the week

oh, you were making rice in the instant pot not regular pot. Disregard.

Ed: That looks tasty, and good timing - I just bought some "Golden curry sauce mix" on a whim and then wondered what I was going to do with it. How are your adjustments going?

kinder: yes, it's a pressure cooker. I must be putting too much water in but when I attempted to reduce the water it wasn't very happy - if the sauce is too thick things start to stick to the bottom and it complains and won't get up to pressure.

There are some tips about avoiding that here which look helpful (going to try the pot-inside-the-pot thing), but in general I don't know if I'm doing it wrong or just following not very good recipes which I've randomly googled, so ilxor-recommended recipes are v v welcome

Yerac: I suspect that's where my non-instant pot rice-making goes wrong, so still good to know, thanks!

I didn’t use a Japanese curry cube, just curry powder and left out the honey. I think I put too much mango chutney in and probably would just use mango pickle going forward.

I had a really amazing soup curry in Sapporo in January and I’m trying to get close to that flavour. They used a lot of fenugreek and so that’s where I’m going next, probably with some mustard seed and curry leaf - esstentially teying to make a more aromatic curry base.

Yeah, if you stir while cooking it breaks up the grains, releases starch, becomes a mess. I still hate rice, but I super hate bad rice. xpost

Ohhhh, we also brought back an on sale ninja blender from the US and used that for our hummus today. Sooooo smooooth. Especially now that we make sure to do the garlic, lemon, tahini whip before adding in chickpeas.

Not sure if it helps stop the rice go mushy but a slice of dried kelp/konbu always goes in with my rice and it certainly makes good rice.

Incidentally the Japanese really like rice that is slightly crispy and brown on the bottom. Just like grandma used to make on the fire with a donabe (earthenware pot). Whenever I am there’s I always see adverts for these horrendously expensive electric donabe.

https://www.amazon.co.jp/長谷園×siroca-全自動炊飯土鍋-かまどさん電気-SR-E111-乾燥モード/dp/B07B3JSM46

In many Latino cuisines the crispy rice at the bottom is prized as well

i made my last workplace (that used to go through vitamixes every few months or so) buy a ninja on account of the fact that consumer reports loved it. seemed to last and do a v nice job. yay! on the aerating the tahini part. once i learned that i knew next level had been attained.

xxposts

purple pasta just got rolled out. looks. . . interesting at least

Yeah, I got the basic ninja for like $60 which is a lot better than however much vitamixes are nowadays.

I also like crispy rice and sometimes will dig it out of the bottom of the pot, cut it and use it in my sushi rolls as crunch.

I made blue/purple potato gnocchi once. It was not great. I learned later that specific, more powdery types of potatoes are best for gnocchi otherwise the dough is too doughlike/wet.

I made the raw squash salad someone recommended from Six Seasons and it's one of the most delicious things I've ever made.

Wow, sauteed arugula is really GOOD. Only thing is, if you're serving more than one person, you have to dump an entire container of it into the biggest pan you've got. But it's fantastic, especially when the edges get oh-so-slightly crispy. A neighbor gave me a huge bag of black rice, so I've been serving it with that as a side dish. I like my black rice with the slightest bit of crisp, too. I'm not sure I will eat any other kind of rice again, unless I'm cooking Indian.

unless I'm cooking sticky rice I just wash it a lot first, put it in a heavy duty pot that will retain the heat so I can take the heat right down/off as soon as the rice is in (this is the biggest factor is reducing burning imo), salt it a bit and then NEVER STIR IT.

Have watched a couple of bagel-making videos and perused a few recipes. Not much consensus. High gluten flour vs. bread flour plus vital wheat gluten. With or without sponge. Let rise overnight or not. Barley malt syrup or no. Bake directly on stone or not. I mean it's /only/ a bread product but my head is spinning. Oy vey

i've used the cooks illustrated recipe multiple times and i think it works well

Thx! I think that was the first one I looked at last week. Will circle back to that.

hi dere I once made 250,000 bagels in around 3 years

we cooked 'em on wooden boards covered with strips of damp burlap

yes to barley malt

no to vital wheat gluten

if by "sponge" you mean mix yeast w/warm water and let it bubble before adding to mixer, then yes

definitely let rise for a good while, at least 8 hours? it's been almost 30 years, sorry.

imo the key step is the boiling, get that water hot

oh and cornmeal on the bottom before they go into the oven on the wet boards

Woah! Am I crazy or is that a lot of bagels?! One of the vids I saw was a guy with burlap covered planks. I'm sitting there watching thinking "you have got to be fucking kidding. He also started baking them upside-down so as to not burn seeds and flipped them after a bit. Sponge I was referring to was a little different than simple hydration. Think it involves flour, too,and time to develop some sour notes? Anyways, thx for input, sleeve.

oh man I forgot about the flip halfway through! that is correct.

I either made/rolled or baked like 1000 a day fulltime for >3 years, so yeah a lot :)

now that I think about it that number is probably closer to 750,000 - like I said, it's been a long time

the wet burlap prevents the seeds from sticking on that side, iirc

ok, might as well post in proper thread. will make some adjustments wrt the cooking process next time. but was a reasonable facsimile to a actual bagel once i toasted one just now. not as daunting a project as i anticipated.
https://i.imgur.com/0djkhTs.jpg

did you use the CI recipe?

i get paywalled trying to look at CI recipes so got annoyed and went with the ATK one i had originally looked at. dough recipe *seems* spot on - had a perfect texture to work with and fair amount of salt. as far a shaping i sort of diy'd it. maybe i'll use neighbor's outdoor pizza oven next time and cook them directly on stone. i think that might give a marked improvement to get exterior crispy

those look great!

lol, thx. i think i'll get it down after another 249,000? glad i finally started this though as i don't live anywhere near a good bage rn

Yeah, those look totally on point.

I got the French Laundry book checked out through amazon prime and am going to make their gazpacho today going into tomorrow (since they say macerating the ingredients overnight is key). I could not find tomato juice or tomato paste or kosher salt in the supermarket (sigh) so had to get the nearest thing to those. It's a good thing I always bring back so much fleur de sel and maldon into the country.

The gazpacho was superb. Letting the veggies and other ingredients macerate overnight before blending just really really did it right.

so what did you sub for tom. juice? was looking at that recipe and (of course) it looks nice. seems like it doesn't call for v much actual tomatoes which surprised me, but probably allows all the veg. equal flavortime?

I was surprised about how simple the recipe was and how little actual whole tomatoes. I always assumed gazpacho had bread in it too. I got some tomato puree in a glass bottle and some tomato paste like thing in a can (I had always gotten it in a tube so was not sure I had tomato paste). Since i was concerned about it being too thick I just put twice the amount of cucumber in and then a little water after blending and eyeing it. I like it super smooth and my spouse likes it rustic so we went halfway. Also we ate half today for lunch and for that batch we put in like an inch of ginger (for health benefits) just to test out the taste. You couldn't even taste the ginger but maybe it gave it an extra spiciness? And I couldn't find cayenne so used indian red chili powder.And didn't do the balsamic reduction dots but put thinly sliced avocado and cilantro on top. I forgot that I had bought chives for it as well. Gazpacho is one of the only soups I like and I give the recipe an A+.

Like it was so good and easy, I want to serve it to people who come to our place.

on a similar front, tonight i made the chicken bouillabaisse recipe in the zuni cafe cookbook. that book is almost alchemical as far as having extremely simple preparations that taste amazing. in this one, you sweat some sliced onion, add thyme, bay, and a dried chile and boil off a little white wine, then add garlic, saffron, and diced tomato along with some broth and some chicken legs. cook for an hour (i threw it in a low oven for about half the time b/c the liquid level wasn't high enough for me to feel confident in a stovetop braise).

the next bit of magic was the recommended plating--a chicken leg, some of the cooking liquid, and a piece of grilled bread smeared with aioli. i had never done a mayonnaise-like thing in a mortar and pestle before. it was fun!

i am making skyr
i am also working on a sourdough starter
i may use the whey from the skyr to start some vegetable pickles

it's the circle of life

I don't generally like soups or stews, but since the gazpacho I made was so good, I am going to make that spinach/tahini soup from the NYT this week.

And as usually I will have to sub things. We never have veg stock so I might just use some of the carmelized onions, that TJ's mushroom umami powder or a little miso after.

i'm not a soup fan either. i made a mexican chicken and cabbage soup this week that was quite good though.

last night i made some sous vide elk backstrap w/"spicy" kale and satueed porcini

it were good

first time cooking something sous vide for ~24hrs and man it really works

that sounds really good. but there's an image in my hatebank of Ted Nugent holding a ridiculous bow and saying something about "backstraps" in his episode of Mtv Cribs.

I feel like using the phrase "sous vide" in the presence of The Nuge would cause him to melt like a witch.

gbx that sounds awesome. what is your apparatus?

i left my cat a half cup of whey near her food to see if she'd like it. she walked by and gave it an aggressive sweep like she was cleaning her litter box. she does that when she's done eating food too but this was like, angry.

I think I am finally going to use this stupid spiralizer that I have taken with me to four different countries and never used. All those poor zucchinis that were never spiraled. Albatross.

Haha my sister randomly bought one of those a couple years ago and it has never been used. I was looking at it one day thinking about putting it to use but then I laid down and the feeling went away

I have two largish trips coming up this year so I am trying to forcefeed myself as many vegetables as possible before then (thus the spinach soup and gazpacho above).

Last weekend when I made my quinoa bowl for the week, I did the French Laundry recommendation of blanching veggies in a huge pot of salted water. I did two heads of broccoli that I used in the quinoa. It was so much better, bright green and still crisp and slightly seasoned already.

haha i huff vegetables before traveling too :) spinach in particular!

gbx that sounds awesome. what is your apparatus?