what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

Your review of Jane Eyre made me chortle.

xpost I always just do flour, water, salt (not a fan of egg in it) for asian noodles but I would want to try those salts.

thx Yerac

and just to chime in I had success with using baked baking soda to make chewy ramen noodles, but only tried it once. easier than ordering chemicals.

Y'all I'm making strawberry rhubarb jam this weekend, has anyone done this? I have found a million diff recipes with a million diff proportions of straberry to rhubarb (ranging from like 1:4 to 4:1). I THINK I'm going to do 1:1?? I def don't want it to taste like strawberry jam w/ no rhubarby flavor but I still want a nice strawberry flavor too, I just don't know!!!

Can you go in small batches until you zero in on the right ratio? Like, enough for 2 half-pints at a time.

a nancy silverton style brute force optimization

just pick one. do 1:1. it will work. if it's not just right do it different next time! i have the same analysis paralysis about EVERYTHING.

I think macerating the non-avocado ingredients for guac ( we did one hour) did make a noticeable difference. I am still saying "think" because I only project managed the making from another room so didn't ensure the usual proportions were kept. The onion seemed less sharp and everything was nicely acidic right away instead of needing some time to chill out. The day ofter leftover was noticeably better as well.

lately been lightly roasting brussels, cutting them into shreds, and dressing in the fish sauce vin to add as slaw in whole grain bowls with shaking tofu and other toppings. also added to the trader joe's thai veg burgers (which aren't so great). good topping for stuff, especially where you can't add fish sauce vin alone without making a mess.

I had a spectacular raw Brussels sprout salad at a restaurant the other week which I need to try and recreate. Soft goat cheese pine nuts and a tart light lemony dressing.

oh, those both sound great.
Sufjan, what you're doing puts me in the mind of my fave brussels dish (from momofuku)https://food52.com/recipes/19682-momofuku-s-roasted-brussels-sprouts-with-fish-sauce-vinaigrette xpost

The one time I was at Momofuku ages ago my wife and a friend and I were ordering a bunch of dishes to share and they wanted the Brussels sprouts which seemed like a waste to me because I thought I didn’t like Brussels sprouts. This was like a life altering dish for me because they were so good and it made me drastically rethink a bunch of my food opinions for the better.

I remember Ilan who had just won Top Chef was at a table with a bunch of important looking white guys in suits who seemed to be sniffing him out and he looked absolutely terrified and out of his element.

i bought strawberries and rhubarb this morning. i will be making a pie. i got a new tart/quiche dish on amazon yesterday but if it's not here by the afternoon i'm just going to use my regular pie dish. might go strawberry picking sometime next week. i want to make a jam, too.

Oh, I want to try that momofuku brussells sprouts recipe. I buy about a kilo every week to roast, and I am questioning whether I can make myself not wash them (as the recipe brings up).

I am not in love with the fish sauce I have here though. The one with the squid on it. It's a little too pungent for me even though I know a lot of that smell blows off.

that looks good but i need to buy a bottle of cheaper fish sauce! a half cup!
i am always not washing brussels sprouts, out of pure laziness. fuck washing brussels sprouts.

i never wash them! just peel off the outer layer of leaves.

i think i've recently started giving 'em a little wash on account of all the public health classes i've been taking. but it's probably pointless as far as pesticides go if outer leaves are removed, as per cad. as far as the recipe goes, i've never roasted 2# before, but i'm thinking for that amount of sprouts one could halve the dressing recipe and be fine. they'll absorb some of the dressing after roasting and if you douse the heck out of 'em they may get too salty

a foodie place in my town used to serve them roasted in escarole wraps, with cashews, thick bacon bits, and a vinegar/mustard sauce, so good.

All these sprouts ideas sound so good. I’m currently trying to figure out my new (first attempt) dog food cooking routine. The people food is gonna have to wait a minute.

Translation: one of my dogs had dental surgery and I’m trying to distract all of us by making dog food.

don't think you can go wrong with some steamed carrots mashed with tofu and peanut butter imho. not sure what other nutrients are essential for dogs, but i can't imagine any not liking carrots and peanut butter
and awww get well soon little friend!

find myself with some okra that needs to be dealt with. last summer i made a recipe that simulated fried okra perfectly. didn't save recipe but am gonna try and recreate.

I feel like i only ever ate tempura okra growing up.

I am psyching myself up to not wash the bruselas.

Guess my last post was vague. They're breaded but then baked on a hot sheet pan that has a good layer of oil in it, do it's sorta like shallow frying but without the mess.
I miss tempura. Have not had since leaving sf like 3 years ago ::sigh::

do=so. I mean what is the bloody point of autocorrect!

aul fella tribute breakfast this morning because herself could never believe it works as a meal

smoked mackerel fillets, warmed til the oil released

strong cheddar, preferably waxy and reddish, todays is a lighter one but nice and sharp

brown bread that has higgs bosuns visible at the core its that denseand dark

cup of strong breakfast tea

verdict: dmac sr vindicated on all counts obv

Would eat that breakfast 1000x.

that sounds **cking heavenly imho

I was reading (NYT) about the insalata verde that Samin Nosrat loves at a particular restaurant. It's interesting that they talk about the maceration of shallots in dressings. But instead of doing the acidic maceration they shock the minced shallots with cold water instead. I am going to try this dressing this week because supposedly adding in the warm water is also key. And I really really love mustard based dressing.

1 large shallot, minced
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon aged sherry vinegar, plus additional, as needed
1 tablespoon warm water
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 ½ teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 ½ teaspoons whole-grain mustard
1 ½ teaspoons honey (optional)
2 sprigs thyme, washed and stripped
1 large clove garlic, finely grated
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

that looks good. and i am always looking for good sherry vinegar uses outside of ginger scallion sauce to have a reasonable burn rate on the bottle. though we might eat enough of that these days to do the trick.

what's your recipe for that? Sounds great.

momofuku ginger scallion sauce:

2.5 C thinly sliced scallions (greens and whites, from 1-2 bunches)
0.25 C finely minced peeled fresh ginger
0.25 C grapeseed or other neutral oil
1.5 tsp usukuchi (light japanese soy sauce)
0.75 tsp sherry vinegar
0.75 tsp kosher salt

you let it sit for at least 20 minutes, and it keeps in the fridge for awhile. he recommends stirring in a tablespoon of that per ounce of noodles. we always just eyeball it and adjust to taste. you can use rice, alkaline, or egg noodles. we've used dark japanese soy sauce with a bit of mirin when we couldn't find usukuchi.

we then always add the quick cucumber pickles. you just slice a small (kirby or persian) cucumber into pickle-thickness coins and sprinkle a 3:1 mixture of sugar:kosher salt in a bowl (about 0.5 tablespoon of mixture per cucumber). let sit for 20 minutes.

and we also usually add Angrea Nguyen's shaking tofu to the bowl if it's a meal:

https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/shaking-tofu

Chang recommends roasted cauliflower. it is awesome, very cheap meal! (as long as you don't buy the usukuchi, sherry vinegar, etc and never use them).

you can also play with the ratio of scallion and ginger, obviously. for some reason, there's twice as much ginger in the "same" recipe in the Lucky Peach book, and I thought it was too much. I also mince the hell out of it though, because I hate eating big pieces of ginger.

this stuff also definitely fits the theme of maceration that Yerac brought to the thread

mmmm def gonna try that

ooooh, I am going to try that too. It would've never occurred to me to make that type of sauce with so little liquid. I would've also automatically done sesame oil instead but that would change the profile totally.

I've seen variations with a bit more oil in them. always neutral though. i like to heat the oil and put it on some of the scallions for a bit so that they mellow a bit - i preserve some that i add later so i don't lose too much rawness

i have made it & it is vvvvv good

xxp it is a strangely small amount of liquid, but the liquid seems to grow a bit with sitting. the shaking tofu has some sesame oil on it, so I don't think it's incompatible. the sauced noodle flavor is definitely subtle, though, with the neutral oil. some would probably disagree with throwing sauced up tofu in there, but we do it. weird thing about that shaking tofu recipe is how it gets a bit of heat from just a huge amount of black pepper.

xp there's a second version in the lucky peach book that involves heating the oil, jim. interested in trying that way as well.

and VG otm. I think VG and others had posted itt about it before. and I was a hater at first because I made some poor substitutions and, I think, even used it in stir fried noodles the first time. imo it is better as a subtle thing mixed into noodles that complements some other stuff in the bowl. it also just really grew on us.

Yeah I would've assumed there was equal parts of oil with vinegar and soy. I need to figure out what I will eat with it.

it keeps for a decent amount of time too, which is a plus

My first instict with that recipe would be to hit it with the boat motor and smooth it out rather than to leave the scallions and ginger chunky.

i microplane-grate the ginger and thinly slice the scallions

not v chunky

I think I would microplane the ginger too although sometimes I really do like the texture of minced ginger, like when I make DUMPLINGS!.

you have dumpling making recipe or link or tips, Yerac?

Not really. I sometimes look at dumpling recipes online but I still kind of make them the same way I made them with my mom. My spouse doesn't eat meat so the filling is always tofu and whatever other onion/scallion, green veg we have on hand. I got lazy for a couple of years and just pureed everything for the filling together but now I try to be better by cooking the onions and kale (if using) a little first and crumbling the tofu with everything else with my hands. We add a lot of fresh ginger. Like the amount of ginger keeps going up.

The dough is basic. Just flour, warm water, a little salt. Getting a dowel is key to rolling it out. I don't even think I could use a rolling pin. When I make them I usually try to do 50-75 at once. And then they get boiled, dried out and pan-fried before eating.

Hmm. Thx. Want to try making but unsure when. Seems like seitan might be a good protein for this. Also,wish I knew where to score wood ears nearby.

Just make sure to add some cornstarch to the filling if you think the veggies might release a lot of water while cooking if you don't cook them beforehand. I've never used seitan. If I had a good asian market near me I would probably try to add some tofu skins. The dumpling sauce is just soy sauce, vinegar, fresh garlic and maybe hot oil. Since that is so strong, I've never been concerned too much about the filling needing to taste perfect. I just try to make it somewhat healthy since we eat a shitload of DUMPLINGS! at once.

Tofu skins sound ace as well. So what's the difference between the DUMPLINGS! you make and using won ton wrappers? Tempted to try and find a easy way into dumpling-making