The lockdown cookbook

"hunting for fennel in the time of pandemic"

the daal i made yesterday is in fact a five-spice daal acc.madhur jaffrey, it just didn't advertise as such on the one-line site i raided (bcz i wanted slowcook advice)

that advice in full btw: "8-10 hours on low"

This is a good thing to do with sichuan pepper and fish - though in the picture they have squeamishly taken the fish off the bone, also I would expect a lot more oil in there.

https://thewoksoflife.com/sichuan-boiled-fish-shui-zhu-yu/

that looks excellent

it was the star anise that put me off I think .I am not a fan of that flavor.

but i had a far of the five spice from forever ago and used it when I made these scallion flower buns and it was good.

I'm wondering wether its time to find some interesting WWII rationing style recipes that involve bulking things out with like jello.

we are just doing avocado, scallion, raw garlic, cooked mushroom do it yourself sushi handrolls tonight.

+ jalapeno.

Because it was an activity in and of itself, we itemized everything we had in freezer/storage and will be focusing on that first and foremost. It's a good excuse to eat some stuff we forgot we bought. For example, a whole turkey we bought for pennies the day after Thanksgiving 2 years ago.

basically, I am eating a lot of beans and drinking a lot of protein shakes (which are disgusting, but one thing the situation has done is completely destroy my appetite, and it is easier to drink calories than eat them)

tofu grapow 3 nights in a row, but now we are out of tofu and rice. no regrets. holy basil doesn't last forever. it's funny (well, gross) how people have raided the asian markets for rice but left all of the rice noodles because they don't know what they are. hopefully nobody tells them.

weird how things differ per place; the grocery store near me is floor to ceiling huge sacks of rice

if you make a thick enough dal you can bubble-and-squeak it on day three

you can what

katherine, if these are not premixed protein shakes and you have a blender you should try it with frozen bananas, berries, peanut butter, ginger, spinach (not all together, or altogether up to you).

these specifically are premixed -- planning ahead for days when my roommates are using the kitchen, there's only room for one person to cook at a time -- but yeah, that's the plan for when they run out (in the past I've used tofu as well)

i am gonna make a pizza tonight. a week or so before the panic i went ham on canned tomatoes at the grocery store.

We made a huge batch of pesto and froze most of it, but are doing pesto, sundried tomatoes and radiator pasta tonight.

The pesto is basil, pistachios, too much garlic (no cheese).,

radiator pasta?

Radiatori!!!

pot roast beef as previewed in our ilx chatz

pasta with parsnips and pancetta, which wasn't bad, needed something else though

made big batch of sri lankan curry that makes SO much sauce it made whole new second dinner with different meat & a lots more veg added

yesterday was some chicken and eggplant thai curry. today was corned beef hash, this is the only time of year you can actually get corned beef around here. we also made some baba ganoush with the rest of the eggplant, it's super good.

Made red curry beef stew tonight for the first time, a big hit.

kimchi brussels sprouts with broken rice

I just made okonomiyaki on the griddle on my roof. Barely made a dent in the enormous cabbage I hoarded at the weekend.

Finally dug out the slow cooker i bought in 2010 and have never used. A good red-lentil dal yesterday and have an eight-hour leek and potato soup on the go.

The biggest change is likely to be making much more bread from scratch. If i'm going to be making a lot of dal, i need to dust off my tawa and get some buss-up-shut going.

Sourdough flatbread

200% hydration rye leaven
Starter: 5g
Water: 50g
Wholemeal rye flour: 25g

Aim for a leaven that's about 27 degrees C. Mix the above ingredients and leave covered 8-12 hours at room temperature. Leaven is very wet so might not rise a lot but when ready should look very bubbly and smell v sour.

Final dough
200% WM rye leaven: 75g
Water (or milk): 125g
Oil: 12g
Strong white bread flour: 125g
Stoneground white flour: 100g
Salt: 5g
Sugar: 5g
Total: 447g

Mix the leaven, water and oil and then mix in the dry ingredients. Dough temp should be about 26 C.

Bulk ferment for about 3 hours, giving 3 sets of stretch and folds during the bulk.
Divide into 95-100g pieces, pre-shape and let rest for 1 hour
Preheat oven as high as it will go with a baking stone.
Roll each piece out to about 3 to 5mm thickness, place on semolina sprinkled peel or parchment and load onto the stone
Take out as soon as it puffs up and gets just a bit of colour
Let cool a bit but when still hot pack in a plastick bag so it holds the moisture and stays soft

Update! we did not use the radiatore pasta and used fusilli instead.

wildly overestimated how many parsnips I'd need for the pasta so I'm probably going to make this parsnip-date muffin recipe I found online (they have enormous tubs of dates on sale sometimes, before all this escalated was one of the sometimes)

Radiatori!!!

There is a bougie/hipster BK pasta company that makes hemp radiatori that are so good. The hemp gives them a gritty texture that is really strange the first time you try it, but I am so into it now.

I dethawed some of my tomato sauce I made last fall and mixed in a little burrata (just a little) that melted into the sauce at the end for a really great body. Added some parsley/almond pesto on top. It was the shit

I am going to make a quick store run today for some more green veg. Making and freezing a bunch of pesto is my plan, since you can put it on almost anything.

you mean 'thawed'? :)

the day I discover radiatori pasta when my roommate used it in mac and cheese was the day I realized the universe had been holding out on me.

i need a pasta only pornhub channel.

The only flour left at the store was semolina so pasta it is

i had to dig up my favorite twitter thread

In honour of #WORLDPASTADAY, I present the following scientific thread that constitutes definitive ranking of Non-Primary-Canon pasta shapes

— ཊལབསརངཧ (@David_Rudnick) October 25, 2017

"just a disc" someone clearly has not had rice cakes

he has a point but i'd probably like that disc pasta. i like the edges of ravioli, the part with no stuffing. i like the soft starchiness of it.

I mostly agree with that list. My favorite is bucatini but mostly because malfadine is not often around. I spent too much time trying to figure out the difference between campanale and gigli.

aren't there shells in this picture, correct me if i'm wrong https://www.haaretz.com/food/.premium-yotam-ottolenghi-s-gigli-with-chickpeas-and-za-atar-1.5467081

yes, those are big-ass shells

i'm really not inclined to post in covid-19 threads b/c i don't think my experiences will be particularly notable but i did make a couple things this week designed to have lots of leftovers and now i'm preoccupied with my inventory of useful containers and freezer space : /

I acquired a bag of rice and some tofu. Big day.

I had hiyadofu with ginger and wasabi and pickles for lunch.

Made my favorite Cooks Illustrated chilli recipe tonight. Lots more cooking to come.

still experimenting with bubble-and-squeaked breakfast daal

(viz shallow fried in butter and oil with onions, or this morning MUSHROOMS as they were looking a bit mummified)

basically it's too wet to caramelise much at all but it does a little, and it's cheery (i have made a fvckton for just one self-isolated person, so difft ways of serving it = U&K)

My ex is a better cook than me-- really a culinary prodigy tbh, never trained or anything but just makes miracles-- and yet I did 80% of the cooking when we were together. Either out of spite or out of post-breakup-reinvention, he's trying his hand at being a Domestic King post-breakup and posting photos of shit he's been whipping up for him and his new roommate, @'ing Alison Roman, and just generally making me feel confused and rueful but also very hungry and wishing he'd invite me over to eat some of that shit.

Anyway we been on good terms and he's been trying to convince me to get on the Alison Roman train. I kind of skeptically made a couple of things from her book and they were fine, I get it, her plating ideas are really interesting sometimes. That said, a couple nights ago I made something of hers so spectacular and amazing that I'm gonna make it every couple of weeks for the rest of my life, for sure. I sent photos of the results to my ex and he replied "I've overdone it with shrimp" and "you eat too much pasta" lol.

Here's the wonderful recipe, with some edits:

Sungold Pasta with Lemony Shellfish, Garlic, and Pistachios

1/3 cup olive oil
8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 large fennel bulb, thinly sliced
1 T fennel seeds, crushed
1 t crushed red pepper flakes
1 lb grape tomatoes
12 oz linguini (I made mine fresh)
1/2 c dry white wine
1.5 lb clams (I used 3/4 lb frozen clam meat, defrosted)
1.5 lb med. shrimp (I used 1.5 lb frozen, defrosted, and peeled them)
1/2 c shelled pistachios, coarsely ground (I throw em in a coffee grinder for a few seconds) (expensive to purchase w/out shells, but Ottolenghi uses them so much that I always have them in my pantry; they're very nice in this recipe but not 100% necessary)
1 lemon

Heat water
Heat oil in enormous pot with lid, med high
Put in garlic and fennel and stir 'til starting to caramelize, 8-10 min, season
Add seeds and flakes, stir
Add tomatoes-- I halved the grapes but you don't need to, season
Cook 10-12 min, breaking down the tomatoes with a spatula
Cook the pasta
Add wine to the sauce, reduce for 4-5 min
In go the clams and the shrimp (if you're using fresh clams, put them in before the shrimp, add shrimp when the clams start to open)
Shrimp should be cooked through but I always err on the rawer side
Throw pasta with a little pasta water and the sauce in a huge salad bowl and toss
Check seasoning, sprinkle with pistachios and finely chopped fennel fronds, additional pepper flakes and Maldon if you like
Serve with a lemon wedge

Right, it's that or a new knife/new skillet pan. How do I choose?!

that's a tough one. what is your current skillet and knife situation?

that's a tough one. what is your current skillet and knife situation?

Honestly, both kind of ordinary. Knives are ordinary - could do with a better chef's and cook's knife (the shame).

if you're committed to the idea of cooking meals for yourself over the long haul, I'd say buy the knives before you buy the One Pot. good ones last for many decades while electronic gadgets rarely have such staying power.

yeah agree

good knives first

fancy gadgets later

good knives is a game changer

i agree with that. i like to pressure cook but went so long without it, it's fine.

Knives it is. Cheers.

At the start of August, we decided to try a more vegetarian diet and haven't looked back. My wife has continued with dairy but, the odd dalliance here and there, I'm basically vegan. It's been such a fucked up year, I've no real idea if I feel 'better' as such but I'm not missing meat at much at all and dairy even less. The big question is why didn't I do it sooner?

chicken strips or nuggets seem to be one of the most desirable meals for young dudes under 7, and I also like to make meals the whole family can eat. Lately I've been making chicken strips using the ad hoc fried whole chicken recipe. They are good! The brine is also a great way to get rid of some extra fresh parsley and thyme.