what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

You can just shunt rice into it and leave it be while you do other things. That’s a big benefit for those of us who frequently fuck up the rice/water ratio (me).

I dislike rice buuuuuut I eat enough sushi and poké that I should probably buy another rice cooker. Cooking it in a pot is very annoying even if it's only 1-2 times a week.

I've been kind of watching to see if they start making more rice cookers that make mochi.

our zojirushi makes rice so much better than we can do in a pot. I'm making fried rice tonight and ran the rice cooker earlier so that it'll have time to cool. since I soak rice before using it, it takes a while, but I mostly work from home so it's no big deal for me.

Very much a convenience thing. My wife likes to eat rice every day and it’s so simple to throw in some rice a slice of konbu water and walk away. It’s getting to autumn here so I should do some takikomigohan with red beans/mushrooms/chestnuts etc.

Walking around a Japanese department store I often get slightly lustily over the ridiculous, and ridiculously expensive, earthenware and iron pot rice cookers that make rice ‘just like grandma used to’. The ridiculous bit is, of course if you do have a heavy iron pot (as ogmor does) it will retain enough heat to cook the rice and even make it crispy if you get the timing right.

i made double chocolate cookies under the guise of getting rid of the two almost used up containers of baking cocoa in the cabinet

i also bought lard today. went to a farm stand that had meat and i was trying to make decisions. "i know, i'll get lard!"

http://imgur.com/gallery/RmC41Ur

Chicken, marinated in harissa and celery seeds, smoked over hickory, served with sumac onions, laffa bread, and tehina.

Ok that sounds amazing but I need clarity
Tehina
Tahoni
Tahini

Same or different, if same how tf are we supposed to spell it??! I need a straight answer please

There's two factors iirc.

1. Different methods of transliteration from arabic

2. Pureed sesame seeds are tahini and a sauce made from pureed sesame seeds with the addition of lemon and garlic is tahina

Jim bringing the knowledge. I always thought of it as tahini, until I got the Zahav cookbook (highly recommended), which uses tehina throughout in the fashion Jim notes in #2 above.

Really anything goes I think.

It is July 4. We won't be having a picnic today, but I expect my wife and I will eat dinner outside on our back deck. The menu is hamburgers, baked beans, potato salad, blueberry-raspberry cobbler & vanilla ice cream. All homemade, except the ice cream. Just playing the hits today.

Nothing wrong with that! We're having take-out BBQ, so technically what's cooking" is nothing. Pulled pork, mac and cheese, baked beans, coleslaw. I should make something green to get a proper veg in, but probably won't.

last night i made ethiopian foods: red lentils, cabbage/carrot/potato stew, tomato salad. i used up all my homemade niter kibbeh! but i resolve to make more lentils and more berbere-flavored foods in general. i might just buy more niter kibbeh because i hate messing around with buttery cheesecloth.

I was hoping one of you could help me out here. I was going to make paila marina, a simple Chilean fish stew. This is the recipe I found:

http://chileanrecipes.blogspot.com/2011/10/paila-marina.html

What I can't figure out is where the liquid comes from. 1/2 cup of wine, sure, but that doesn't seem like it would provide much for the fish and shellfish to float in, would it?

you add water

broth will be plentifully flavored from the sautéed vegetables and seafood bits (and the wine)

although a quick google shows me different recipes calling for fish stock in place of water!

I would probably just add broth (prolly chicken, since it's open; I don't have shrimp or fish stock handy), but I was surprised broth isn't mentioned in the recipe. At what point do you think I add it, or does it matter?

i'd add it after the wine. badly written internet recipe! if you like the ingredients of this one just google for other ones to check when to add it.

i have a question though: it's quite a good mass of seafood and the shellfish will release liquid. can't quite tell how much is in there from the photo. why don't you see what it looks like after the wine? it might not be wrong.

actually looking back at the link josh posted and in the Spanish language instructions it does have a quarter liter of fish stock as an ingredient and mentions adding the stock at the same time as the wine

though yeah I would go for after the wine personally, letting the alcohol cook off first.

I've never actually seen this dish cooked though I have eaten it

Ah, thanks! I didn't even think to look at the Spanish instructions, but there it is. Yeah, it says to put in the broth and wine at the same time, but I think I'll do wine first and let it reduce/ flavor the ingredients before I put in the broth.

yeah that's what most people would do

Recipe turned out well, btw! Though predictably nobody in the family would eat it but me.

I made delicious pesto in the blender last night and then proceeded to eat what LOOKED like a reasonable serving of pasta but with how rich the pesto was, ended up making me feel like a giant sleepy brick, borderline ILL. It was so good though. I'm just going to spread the rest of it sparingly on, like, tortilla sandwiches.

JiC there is nothing in that recipe that doesn't sound COMPLETELY AWESOME. Was it hard to get all those different seafoods, or expensive? I feel like that would end up being a $40 bowl of soup!

We've been having a constant supply of pesto from the garden, a batch of sourdough, so the last four nights were pesto pizza with various squashes and tomatoes (also from the garden), life is amazing.

I think I'm going to order a mortar bc I could have used less olive oil if the blender had been willing to actually blend the non-liquid mass. It wouldn't fall back into the blade uh vortex until I added what was probably too much oil.

mortars are awesome and i highly recommend having one. another good tool for the issue you're describing is a mini food processor which ime can pull stuff together with much less liquid than a full-size blender.

Good point. I'm not at home and don't have a processor here (at my partner's house). But I think I'm gonna get a mortar anyway because they seem cool.

We have been going through, like, restaurant quantities of olive oil over here, it goes on everything. Buying it by the gallon.

Maybe strain the [resulting paste] pesto with cheesecloth or a tea strainer to get some of the oil out at the end? You could probably use that oil for something else (garlic bread, etc).

lockdown cravings forced me to learn how to make gongbao chicken, fuchsia dunlop recipe is extremely good

i made a salvadoran red bean soup. it's a little more spicy than i wanted--i put a jalapeno in with the beans while they were cooking and it got pureed, then i forgot about it and added cayenne. but GOOD. i cleaned up at the mexican store and got queso para frijoles (that's what the label said, it's just aged queso fresco afaict???). i put that and some avocado and pico de gallo on top and it looks like i'm a pinterest mom now.

mmm got a link for the recipe? I got a bag of those beans just b/c they looked so cool but haven't investigated yet.

We made this INSANE egg w/chilis recipe from Acurio's Peru book (my first foray into it)

1 1/2 slices bread and 1/2 milk in a blender for the thickener, fry up 2T mirasol pepper paste and 1 large ahi amarillo pepper w/1 T paste, 1/2 small red onion, 2 cloves garlic, add 2C stock then thickener, cook for 10 mins on medium then add 4 beaten eggs. serve over cold boiled potatoes, with cotija and black olive garnish. like a thick migas sauce with light chili heat and flavor. for two but hearty, double for 4-5.

it takes a long time to thicken, I underdid the stage before adding the eggs.

they are my new favorite bean, very creamy taste, less "bean" taste imo. i sort of made it up/synthesized other recipes. i pressure cooked them (2 cups dry) with 1/2 onion, 1 or jalapeño cut in chunks, salt, and olive oil. when they were done i set aside most of the broth then put the beans in the blender, dumped back in the pot, added 1 t cumin, 1 t coriander, mexican oregano, more salt, and the cayenne. i didn't end up adding back any of the liquid but you could for desired consistency.

i made this yesterday https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/southern-style-peach-cobbler-recipe
it came out very good, as it says in the description, not liquidy but a cake with peaches. i like cobbler both ways.

Made the mushroom and spinach ricotta gnudi from the Mozza book. Very easy and good fall recipe imo.

i found a tub of Italian meat sauce from last spring in the freezer this week - just pork, canned tomatoes, garlic, and onions - and made fresh pasta to go with it along with roasted broccolini with lemon and chili oil.

this with wine and good cheese (parmigiano but pecorino might have been slightly better) is one of my potential last meal choices

sounds about as good as it gets

Waiting for the next cold snap to make this so I can just use my oven as home heating
https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/12/ultra-crispy-slow-roasted-pork-shoulder-recipe.html

there was a shiro recipe in nyt this week so i want to make it, going to ethiopian store now to see if they have the powder--this recipe just used regular chickpea flour which i will use if they don't have it. anyway i can never see the word shiro without thinking of shiroibasketshoes.

lmao i immediately thought the same thing

I made miso aubergines last night, and it made my kitchen unexpectedly smell like a good pub.
Probably the fermenty goodness of miso and soy and the bitter aubergine juice escaping. It was kind of nice but also made me really want to go to the pub. (We are in lockdown)

do you think one could make that using red miso but cutting the amount?

yeah! my recipe was 3tbsp red miso paste mixed with 1.5tbsp soy sauce and 2tbsp runny honey. and 1.5 tbsp oil. cut 2 aubergines into quarters lengthways, put on a baking tray lined with baking parchment. cover/rub with the sauce all over and bake 1 hour, turning every 15 mins or so.
I had them with spring onion rice, seasoned plain yoghurt, pul biber, chilli and cilantro.

for whatever reason I started really liking roasted radishes this year to the point where I make them at least once a week. this time I also threw in a couple pickled turnips, which is probably sacrilegious but the texture is amazing, like biting into butter