The lockdown cookbook

if you join the ilx slack that ed started, some pics of cooking have started.

Yerac I feel like that’s most cookbooks, I do love Fergus Henderson’s assertion that “white wine exists only to make you wish you were drinking red wine”

Actually almost every Fergus recipe uses words like “restorative” suggesting that he traffics entirely in hangoverfood

Novice!

Almost everyone who hangs out with me slowly grows to love white wine more than red. It's so much more flexible with food.

yeah, we started out with heavy reds and transitioned to lighter reds and now mostly whites as we started cooking more. use-everything-in-lockdown mode has turned me on to Italian salsa verde. so simple and cheap to throw some tasty stuff together. made some with carrot tops and parsley and it's brightened up fried eggs, vegetables, and sandwiches the past few days.

Tonight: white crabmeat mixed with lemon and parsley on rye bread, bottle of godello. Might have an egg if I'm still hungry.

Just got a load of kilner jars in the post so I'll be lacto-fermeting the shit out of all the veg I can get my hands om this weekend. Consulted my Noma guide to fermentation the other day and will be attempting some fake miso made from yellow split peas, as a months-long project to eat up some time.

Almost out of red wine but got some Mee Godard Morgon and some Envinate reds arriving soon.

Four cases of wine just added to the basement and I cleaned out an 8-shelf pantry yesterday, washed it all down, and am using all the Mason jars from last summer to hold flours, pastas, etc to thwart the pantry moths that haven't quite been eradicated. Wish C had bought a chest freezer when he started saying, "Maybe I should get a chest freezer" because then I could put so much more in it.

i've def been thinking about buying a chest freezer

looks like that won't happen for a couple weeks though

I just read something about a P.C. Richard & Son in the hamptons getting 700 orders last weekend for chest freezers.

My wife has been making various pickled things to last us a month or two, so I put a post up here.

https://haonowshaokao.com/2020/03/21/in-a-pickle/

Nice. Seems like a very sensible approach.

If I may jump in after a week of home cooking, almost all done by tt...well, I stepped in to do one thing and it was AMAZING haha, not to blow my own horn here - I will give credit where it's due:

https://veganonboard.com/creamy-wild-garlic-soup/

Hard to get hold of wild garlic now alas so probably no chance of a repeat. I also made croutons with some leftover seed-bread and they brought things up even more, probably the best meal I've made idk

wow! that Hubei one, but also the sichuan, and kim chee look so good. any chance of pointing to a recipe for any of those, please?
xpost

i've never heard of this wild garlic leaf before. do you think green garlic would be a decent sub?

what an awesome array of pickled things! everything looks great.

is wild garlic leaf like ramps?

oh, smart of me to read the recipe first which says yes

i think it'd be worth a go, yes, although wild garlic has more of a spinach shape and texture (while tasting of garlic, it is incredible stuff)

once you have a soup base of fried (red) onion, veg stock and coconut milk it's p hard to fuck up tbh

I need to make some of those Hubei style pickles.

Could you share the recipe?

Also garlic chives from a Chinese market make a good sub for wild garlic.

Just falling asleep, will ask my wife if she has a recipe in the morning

Many thanks

yes

in the grass near my house there are random bunches of wild chives and my bf always gets mad at me when i try to eat them. he's wrong! dog pee chives.

Oooh I planted Chinese chives and Chinese garlic chives last year and then didn't end up using them for anything so I just moved them to an ornamental bed with the decorative allium but maybe I'll try again.

Six Seasons raw asparagus salad is great.

Hubei-style pickles-

The main ingredient is Chinese radish AKA daikon AKA mooli - cut into strips (including skin) and dried in the fridge for a few days at least

Sauce - in equal weights; onions, garlic, ginger root, pear and apple - all blended with a cup of fish sauce, a teaspoon of shrimp paste, a tablespoon of demerera sugar, chilli powder to taste (she says "enough to make it red")

When all is ready mix radish with sauce and put in jars, can be eaten after three days - don't leave it too long or it will get too sour.

Thanks, this also solves the problem of what to do with the slightly dried out daikon in the fridge. I have everything in the house apart from pears.

She says you can substitute apple for the pear - only a little of both required, maybe one apple is fine.

Interesting to see how many different names luobo has in English - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikon#Names

Making smokey paprika chicken with potatoes and cauliflower, really love this recipe

Thanks, Cameraderie! Sadly I didn't keep my shrimp paste last time I moved but should have some anyways so will reacquire

Zahav salmon kebab w/ pilaf coquelicot

realizing i've had a pound of semolina not getting use i made pasta from scratch a couple times the last few days. had made some sundried tomato pesto the other day, too, so that's worked out well.
gonna make lockdown cookies today.but leaving out the "salted" part. i don't care for salty sweets, tbh:
https://food52.com/recipes/76919-salted-chocolate-buckwheat-cookie

very rarely cook ottalenghi, but i'm a big fan of the slow-cooked mushrooms and butterbean puree here:

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/jan/18/yotam-ottolenghi-slow-cooking-recipes-mushrooms-parsnips-and-brussels-sprouts

had it last night and it was great. incredibly satisfying, good for vegans too (i'm not a vegan, but it's always good to have excellent vegetable only recipes to hand).

Made a lot of chicken soup this weekend. We're freezing most of it in case we catch it and don't have the strength to deal with cooking.

having lots of opportunity to do bigger breakfasts on weekdays (other meals shrinking in size accordingly) - today we had some bread getting old, so made french toast bread pudding with sliced banana (also rapidly aging) on top and some goat caramel drizzled over it for moisture and extra sweetness.

Yum that sounds amazing

What is goat caramel?

*breathes raspily* DON’T ASK

onion and tomato egg fried rice satay

(that's fusion baby!)

had some sunchoke in fridge for awhile and didn't know what to do with it, so married it with the leek i had no real use for into a (puree) soup. with a tiny bit of cauliflower. i need to do something more exciting for my palate soon, but at least am using up stuff

i wasn't expecting much since i can hardly ever recall eating a sunchoke before, but the soup is downright stellar. will make again

i have been trying to make yogurt for a week now and failing. i feel like someone is trying to tell me something.
failure 1: heated milk, added packet of starter that has been in the fridge (and not expired). incubated 9 hours. nothing happened, starter was probably dead.
failure 2: ordered new starter on amazon. package delivered. picked up "package" from porch. it was empty because the glue on the bubble wrap envelope had come undone and the thing was probably dropped in the truck. amazon refunded and said order again.
failure 3: reordered the same thing. it was delivered wednesday. i heated the milk just now and opened package. i received...dog treats. it's only a quart so i'm gonna just add-in some storebought now. i wanted to use the starter so i could repeat it, store-bought doesn't work that well with that.

I made about 8 quarts of ribollita, an Italian vegetable and bean soup. Of course I started of with two slices of bacon and threw in an old rind of parmagiano reggiano that I saved for this purpose, but you could omit both and it would be vegan and still awesome.

Salmon, asparagus w/garlic sauce, and brown rice tonight.

Cooked panko crusted buffalo salmon last night, easy and good

pasta with too-lazy-to-get-the-food-processor-out pesto, i.e. tossed with zucchini slow-cooked in olive oil, garlic, peppercorns and a jar of anchovies (yes, the whole jar, just imagine the "one clove = one bulb" garlic conversion meme, except with anchovies), with romano cheese and crushed walnuts on top

xp -- sunchokes are amazing roasted, just, uh, also might give you an extra reason to stay 6 feet away from anyone

fartichokes

Lockdown has been great for cooking (mostly vegetarian Italian).
Two days ago I made for the first time a great orzotto (orzo risotto) with mushrooms and various leftover veggies. Very earthy and definitely a winter dish so probably the last time I oculd make it tis year. Yesterday I made a soup-y pasta with borlotti beans for dinenr and eggs Kejriwal (ie "Indian croque monsieur") for lunch. At some point, I'll need to go to the supermarket though...

Clearing out stuff from your freezer/pantry cooking: scrapple with snails, mustard, horseradish, and salad. This is based on a dish I had at the old M. Wells Diner.