Let's cook!

[Meat Engine]

OK, we have an eating thread. That's fine. I want to talk about cooking. You can be making grilled cheese ( Gleeso), or you can be making some dish so difficult I can't properly conceptualize it. Maybe you want to learn how to cook something you enjoy. Maybe you want to cook something you don't know if you'll enjoy. Maybe you just want some general tips. Whatever. Let's hear all about cooking.



This weekend I plan to make some (mostly) vegetarian caldo in a crock pot. I'm looking at green cabbage, carrots, squash, onion and baby red potatoes as the bulk of the dish. I may get an ear of corn and some celery. I'll use beef stock for flavor, and finish out the liquid with water. I've done regular soups and stews before, but I love caldo even when it's hot.







It should look something like that, only no beef will mean none of the sheen of beef fat at the top. I may add some brown rice. The thing I like to do when I order caldo at Mexican restaurants is eat all of the solid stuff, and then put the side of rice in the broth, squeezing a little bit of lime over it. I'll skip the lime this weekend. Depending on my mood, I may make a last minute change and make it with a chicken stock base, adding some boneless skinless chicken thighs I picked up today. Dark meat is typical in caldo de pollo.



I was also going to try making a sandwich spread out of some garbanzo beans this weekend. I was thinking about cooking them as normal, letting them cool slightly, and then mashing them up with garlic, onion, olive oil and kosher salt. Has anyone ever made anything with garbanzo beans like what I'm describing? Any suggestions? I've never used shallots, but would this be a place I might consider them?



I was also considering chicken livers. They're cheap, and who doesn't like liver? I could make them into a sandwich spread as with the garbanzo beans. Any other suggestions?

[Devy]

Whatever that is in that picture, it looks like it's already been eaten once.

[Meat Engine]

I imagine Mexican restaurants around here start making a giant pot at around 5 a.m., and then let it simmer throughout the day. It is very tasty. I swear.

[Mesarthim]

I've been seriously sarding on the cooking lately. I need to start making elaborate dishes again.

[Meat Engine]

I find that getting elaborate discourages me at times. It's easy to spend two hours or more preparing, tending, and cleaning only to get burned out on cooking the next day. I like simple. I don't need quick. I can wait for something to bake in the oven or cook through on the stove top. I simply prefer not to have to write out a flow chart with task dependencies to efficiently cook a meal.

[Mesarthim]

it depends. elaborate for me is 1 hour prep time. usually I stick to stuff that is around 20 minutes or less to prep.

[Meat Engine]

I made stir fry on Monday, and it seemed to take that long. I had to start the rice, and then I prepped the broccoli, the carrots and the chicken breast. When the rice was about 3/4 done, I started the fry. The lack of a wok or similarly shaped cooking vessel made the process take altogether longer than I wanted. I don't know. Perhaps I could pick up efficiencies.

[Haunty]

Well, I'm off culinary school for the summer, so I've got a lot of time to experiment and come up with fun stuff. I'll try to lay out some good ones here when I get the chance.

[Meat Engine]

Well thank you for your input. I might try soaking in water, cooking in chicken stock as you suggested, but perhaps replacing mayo with olive oil. Maybe even a splash of vinegar if warranted.

[Mesarthim]

[quote name="The Fu Monster"]I made stir fry on Monday, and it seemed to take that long. I had to start the rice, and then I prepped the broccoli, the carrots and the chicken breast. When the rice was about 3/4 done, I started the fry. The lack of a wok or similarly shaped cooking vessel made the process take altogether longer than I wanted. I don't know. Perhaps I could pick up efficiencies.[/quote]



do yourself a favor and buy a cast iron wok with a glass lid. make sure to season it before use. I make stir fry a lot actually and a wok and additionally a rice maker make the process so easy and quick that it's not much effort at all to make delicious stir fry.

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Man]

I made some butter chicken the other night. Started out carmelizing onions in butter, then simmering a bunch of roma tomatoes on top of that until the water had burned off.



2 lbs of marinated chicken (Fage yogurt, coconut milk, garam masala, and Frank's Red Hot ) then simmered on top of that. I had way too much sauce, so I skimmed off a couple cups, add some turmeric for color, and used them to cook jasmine rice.



Fucking :::::::::::



The most beautifully above-average thing I've ever made, and it totally violated every nutritional principle out there. Tons of saturated fat and refined carbs, FFFFFFFUUUUUU lowfat dieters.

[Meat Engine]

I love Frank's Red Hot.



I don't avoid fats, as a rule. I definitely avoid saturated fats, though. I have stopped most dairy consumption, which is a shame, because I love malts from Whataburger and Blizzards from Dairy Queen. I probably cook with olive oil more now than I did before I worried about my food intake. It's my go-to cooking fat. And it's working, too. I made some lovely blackened catfish over the weekend using olive oil. The flavor wasn't as good as it could have been, but the meat was done perfectly. If I had a cast iron skillet and a good sized cooking hood, I would replace the olive oil with something that smokes at a higher temperature, get the skillet blazing hot, and start a small fire.

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Man]

Coconut is a different kind of saturated fat, though. It's made of short and medium chain triglycerides, which get burned quickly as energy rather than stored. Drinking an entire can of coconut milk will yield effects not unlike downing several shots of espresso.

[beandorkio]

I had a couchsurfer over the other night who has been living on beans for the last month, so I decided to blow his mind.



I made a chicken thigh casserole, with mushroom and madeira puree, handmade truffle gnocchi, dressed with celery leaves. I'll nerd up and upload photos next time I do it. If anyone wants the chicken/mushroom part of the recipe then sing out, it's piss-easy to prepare (10 minutes, tops), takes an hour to cook, is cheap as fuck, and tastes like rock solid awesome. The gnocchi is a bit harder.

[Verbal]

fucking go for it

[beandorkio]

BEANDORKIOS CHICKEN AWESOME WITH MUSHROOMS



ingredients:

4-6 chicken thighs

1 onion

3 cloves garlic

small b-o-x of mushrooms (button/paris, or wild if you're lucky)

2 glasses dry white wine

1 glass madeira

2 tablespoons goose fat or 2 tablespoons olive oil

bay leaf

salt

teaspoon of thyme leaves



Preheat oven to 140 C.

Finely chop onions, garlic, and mushrooms.

Heat fat/oil in a casserole dish on high.

Quickly sear chicken skin side down ONLY until browned, remove from dish.

Remove casserole dish from heat, wait for it to cool down a little.

Add onions and garlic, cook for 2 minutes, try not to let them brown. If they burn, start again.

Add mushrooms, return to medium heat, cook for 2 minutes. Stir occasionally so all the mushrooms get the heat and fat.

Add thyme and bay leaf.

Pack chicken thighs on top of mushrooms, garlic, and onion skin side up

Pour in white wine - it MUST not fill the dish to the point where all the chicken is submerged! The skin must be above 'sea level' and uncovered!

Put lid on dish, stick in oven for 1 hour.

Remove from oven, remove chicken and put on roasting tray. Salt it. Put chicken back under grill on high for 5 min until skin is crispy.

In the meantime put casserole on high heat until liquid is reduced, add madeira, reduce for a further 5 min. Should finish the same time as the chicken.

Can either serve mushrooms as they are, or puree them with a bamix.

[Verbal]

thankss, but whats madeira?

[ANGEL OF DESEASE]

I'd like to cook some tits with my penis. I got the sauce.

[Verbal]

the only question is who will sig that

[Meat Engine]

What are some good options for cooking hearty greens like kale, collard and whatever else?

[Verbal]

You can be making grilled cheese ( Gleeso),

whats wrong with grilled cheese?

and why am i being blamed for grilled cheese?

[Verbal]

the fuck did i do

[zim]

meat engine was cool