Hit me with your best sauce (dish, dessert, dip, whatever)

If Fake German Real Chicken goes on well, I'll plunk it up here.

I get spammy when I write recipes. Buckle up.

Design Philosophy: To make chicken gumbo with as much chicken flavor as possible; gumbo which is not soup, not stew, not curry, but gumbo, and yet still very chickeny; gumbo in which the chicken does not simply feature as an entertaining walk-on in an ensemble cast, in other words. Gumbo as a star vehicle for chicken.

Subsequent Execution Resulting from Philosophy: Take a chicken. Smack the flavor out of it and into the gumbo. Smacky smacky smacky mmmm.

Specifics:

Brining. Brined chicken is more flavorful, and more tender, because there's this stuff that goes on with the proteins and wacka wacka. What's the most flavorful part of the chicken in a reasonable size (therefore ignoring oysters and the lower part of the back)? Thighs. So. First you brine you some chicken thighs. I'm making gumbo-for-one, although it may end up being a large serving, or two moderate-sized ones, I dunno.

So, I have two chicken thighs. They brined overnight in a heated-and-cooled mixture of: water to cover, a palm full of kosher salt (half as much for table salt), a generous dash -- call it a zip, or a sprint -- of cayenne hot sauce, a fair bit of white pepper, a few shakes of ginger juice, and three cloves of garlic smooshed up a little. This is not the Extreme Brine I sometimes use, but it is a flavored brine instead of just The Gulf In A Bucket.

Everything except the salt and water (and chicken, dumbass) is optional. I prefer flavored brines. Picture the little saltwater solders storming the protein beaches of the chicken, lugging in mortars and launching flavor bombs every which way. I do. Kaboom.

So, now you wait a while. They have to brine overnight in the fridge, see -- in a nonreactive bowl, or a freezer bag, whatever. Doo dee doo. Dum dee dum. You can go watch TV or something. Maybe sleep. Whatever. Called your Mom lately?

Next day -- drain and rinse the chicken. Peel the skin off, and any of the visible fat you can scrape off. Don't discard it. If you've already discarded it, go get it back from the cat.

Debone the chicken thighs. Depending on the exact sort you have -- they're sold in at least two different configurations, one with one bone and one with an L-shaped sorta dealie -- this is as simple as zip-scoop, or as simple as zip-scoop-tug-whack-wocka. You don't have to be neat, we're not making fuckin chicken cordon bluh. It's all getting chopped up in just a sec.

Chop up the removed meat. See, I told you. Put aside.

Take the bones, which probably still have some meat clinging to them, and pop em in the oven at, oh, 350 or 375 for, I dunno, thirty or forty minutes.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH

Render the fat from the chicken skin and the fat you removed from the meat. Yes, you have to touch it. Yes, you can use tongs or something (not thongs -- well, you CAN, but don't invite me over for dinner. Ever.)

Just lay the chicken skin/fat out in a single layer in a frying pan, skillet, whatever you've got, and cook at medium heat, flipping from time to time, adjusting heat to suit you, until the skin is super-crispy. Like well-done bacon. Remove skin and solid bits and allow to cool. You now have rendered chicken fat.

You also have crispy chicken skin. And, sure, you COULD throw it away, but remember the flavor bombs on the protein beaches? The skin got hit, too, and it got hit -first-. There's a lot of flavor in there. It really is like chicken bacon, and I don't mean chicken-derived bacon substitute, I mean "Hmm, bacon -- but it tastes like chicken!" The French do this with duck skin all the time and put it on salad, but that doesn't prove a damn thing.

Go have a beer, Buckaroo.

All right. Take the chicken bones out of the oven. Put them in a pot. Cover, or half-cover if they're all piled up and such, with chicken broth or homemade chicken stock. Yes, I know you could just go buy more chicken and make stock from scratch without using stock to make stronger stock like this. But don't bother, I'm assigning you enough homework as it is. Wanna toss some onion, carrot, celery, bay leaves, garlic, or peppercorns in the stock there? Go for it.

Doo dee doo. Let the stock cook for at least ninety minutes, covered, simmering. Again, the mission objective here is to take every particle of flavor from that motherhumping chicken and get it into your gumbo.

Strain the stock.

Now we get to what is usually the first step of any gumbo recipe, so much so in fact that they all start with:

FIRST, YOU MAKE A ROUX...

So, you've got your three chicken-centric gumbo components now: fat, meat, and stock. Time to tackle the others. This is stuff you can do while the fat is rendering and the bones are cooking, or while the stock is ... stockading.

If this were another recipe, I could talk about tomatoes, okra, gumbo z'herbes (made with lots of greens), and other popular gumbo options. There's nothing wrong with them, but they don't fit into our design philosophy here. They detract from the chicken.

So, what components will be permitted in this, the poultriest of poultries? Vegetables, seasonings, and herb. Not herbs, herb. Pick one. One you don't smoke.

Vegetables:

Something from the lily family (onion, scallion/green onion, garlic, leek, shallot). Nothing complements chicken better. The green bits from scallions are best saved till later, as garnish -- not garnish in that "look, it's a radish shaped like SkyLab" kind of way, but FLAVOR garnish, man. Use the white bits, chopped small, in the gumbo. Garlic should be minced or coarsely chopped, but either way, squish it around or smoosh it with a mortar and pestle, because that crushes the cell walls and lets more flavor out. Personally, I'm using onion and garlic.

Other veggies: green pepper, red pepper, fresh chile peppers (don't go overboard, and don't use something with a flavor which is too contrasting -- jalepeno and poblano are good, but if using either I would not use green pepper), celery, carrot. Any or all of the above.

Your total amount of added veggies, uncooked, should be equal in volume to the amount of chicken meat you're adding, uncooked.

Seasonings:

White pepper (ground) and black pepper (freshly ground) are musts.

A Louisiana cayenne hot sauce -- the very basic sort, which should contain no sugar or additives, preferably nothing but vinegar, salt, and peppers, such as Louisiana brand cayenne sauce or Tabasco's basic sauce -- is a must unless you're spice-phobic.

Celery salt, onion powder, and garlic powder are traditional Cajun/Creole additives, and deserve a special mention. They are not substitutes for the fresh veggie versions of these flavors, and are usually used in combination. Why? Because they taste different. It's a whole separate flavor note.

Cayenne is good, too, for extra spice or in lieu of hot sauce.

Herb:

A small amount of a chicken-friendly herb. I'm using spinach, which I know is not an herb, but I sometimes use it as one, and this is one of those occasions. A small amount -- for spinach, several leaves, chopped. Spinach can be added with the veggies -- any other herb should be added at the very end and allowed to cook for a minute or less.

Possible contenders: basil, sage, marjoram. Fresh, of course. Don't overdo it, and don't use more than one or you'll dilute the smacked-out chicken flavor

Now what? Prepare all that stuff. And then:

FIRST, YOU MAKE A ROUX.

Gumbo is thick. That's what makes it gumbo. Roux is one of the things that most often makes it thick (the other two possible thickeners are okra and gumbo file powder, neither of which we're using here). It's a slow-cooked combination of flour and fat -- in this case, your rendered chicken fat. How much? That depends. You use an equal amount of fat and flour, and combine them over medium-low heat, stirring -constantly- until the desired color is achieved. The more roux you use, the thicker the gumbo will be -- but the darker it is, the thinner it will be. So it balances out. Darker roux ==> stronger roux flavor, and earthier gumbo.

I like mine dark and thick, so I'm using a tablespoon of each -- that's going to make a gumbo with broth nearly as thick as gravy. If you want yours thinner, use less; if you want yours both thinner and lighter, use about half as much.

As you cook the roux, it's going to smell like frying chicken because of the fat. You'll also smell the flour. Make sure to cook it enough, even if you don't want it dark -- otherwise your gumbo will come out tasting either a) like uncooked flour or b) like something French. Neither option is desirable.

If black flecks show up, ditch it, pitch it, and start over.

Don't get any roux on you. It's hot and it burns and it sticks and it hurts. I'm not guessing about that.

So you've got your roux going on, and now you need to bring it up. This is the bit where we do something you won't see in traditional recipes -- from the pile of veggies, we add whichever of the following you're going to use directly to the roux: onion, pepper, chile, celery. Why? Because bringing up roux involves incorporating liquid into it, and when you add veggies, especially veggies with a medium water content (if you were using tomatoes, you would -not- add them here), they'll sizzle.

That sizzling is the sound of water in the veggies escaping as steam, and as you stir, some of it's going to incorporate into the roux. It's also going to quick-cook the veggies a little, which gives them a flavor less like soup veggies. So, add those veggies, stir, wait a minute (still stirring!), and strain your stock into the pot with the roux and veggies.

Stir.

Raise the heat to medium or medium-high.

At first you're gonna be like, "I have a pot with flour and chicken fat and veggies. This sucks." Then it'll start thickening -- it needs to come to a boil to do so. As soon as it does, reduce the heat to low, and add your remaining veggies, as well as the chicken meat and your seasonings.

Keep stirring and keep an eye on it. It should be a little thicker than you want it to be, because the chicken and veggies will release liquid which thin it out. If it's way too thick, add a little chicken broth or water.

Cover it.

Have a beer, buckaroo.

Cook it for at least an hour, and not more than two and a half hours -- the longer you cook it, the lower the heat should be. While it's cooking, cook up a pot of rice, preferably long-grain and definitely white, not brown or wild.

When you're ready to serve, add the herb, stir, let cook, spoon the rice into bowl(s) and spoon the gumbo on top of it.

Garnish as appropriate, keeping in mind the maxim that the only difference between "garnish" and "garish" is "n."

Recommended accompaniments: oven-warmed pistolettes with unsalted butter; boiled crawfish or deep-fried crawfish tails; boudin with creole mustard; Abita Root Beer or any Dixie beer (especially Crimson or Blackened Voodoo).

But all that is just on the side, man. This is all about the gumbo.

Lemon Chicken Variations.

There are a lot of different kinds of lemon chicken, of course. The kind at Chinese places tends to be chicken-with-lemon-sauce. This is chicken infused with lemon. You'll need to start the day before. Same concept as brining, or that fish "cooked" in citrus juice.

You're Gonna Need:

Three large-ish, boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips. Not thin stir-fry strips. More like chicken tenders.

A large number of lemons. A bit over a pound. The fresher the better. Keep em room temp.

Ginger, in some form. I use ginger juice.

Seven or eight leaves of fresh basil.

Garlic, in some form. I used garlic puree. Fresh would be better.

Chile heat, in some form. Dried chiles, hot sauce, sriracha, what have you.

We're making three kinds of lemon chicken here.

Juice and strain all the lemons. The easiest way to do this is to have them at room temperature (the colder the lemon, the less juice you'll get -- if they've been in the fridge, microwave each lemon for 15-20 seconds), cut them in half, stick a fork in them (the cut end, you doofus, not the rind) and, with one hand holding the lemon and the other guiding the fork, twist and turn over a strainer which has been placed over a bowl. You probably have a preferred method of juicing lemons. Use that. It's all good.

Put an equal amount of chicken strips in each of three small Zip-Loc or otherwise sealable bags. Bags are important. Better than other containers, because you're going to squeeze the air out. Divide the lemon juice equally amongst the bags.

Lemon Chicken #1: Add ginger to one of the bags. If you're using juice, say half a tablespoon. Grated fresh or dry, about the same, maybe a little more. I don't think I'd use ground ginger, but I generally don't anyway. If you don't like keeping fresh ginger around (it's more work, it's inconvenient if you use it infrequently, etc.), and can't find ginger juice (which keeps for a long time and has amazing, non-harsh flavor), I really recommend dried whole ginger. You can grate it or just chop it up, and it's so much more flavorful than ground ginger.

Lemon Chicken #2: Add two tablespoons or so of garlic. Roasted garlic would be good, or garlic puree -- it'll spread the flavor better. Fresh garlic is fine, but chop it up pretty small. Pickled garlic also works, and is tasty. Also add the fresh basil leaves, torn up and bruised between your fingers (just rub them back and forth -- it brings the oil to the surface).

Lemon Chicken #3: Add your heat source. Hot sauce, what have you. Add a LOT. It takes a lot to be really spicy. I added a tablespoon of habanero sauce and you could only faintly taste the spice. If you want it very spicy, you want large, large amounts. Sriracha is good for this because of the low vinegar content.

Press out as much air as you can in each bag and seal. Refrigerate until the next night. Within a few hours, the chicken will lose most of that pink color and get this whiteness going on, and the texture's going to change -- it'll look more fibrous, almost.

It's also going to cook very quickly.

THE NEXT NIGHT:

Drain the chicken, wipe off any basil, garlic pieces, what have you.

Roll the strips in breadcrumbs or Panko and bake on a baking sheet at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or so. They really don't need to cook long.

THINGS TO SERVE THEM WITH:

1) White rice with some lemon juice, lemon zest, and chopped onion thrown into the rice as it cooks.

2) Baked potatoes with basil garlic lemon butter (take some butter, melt it in a pan, add minced garlic, let sizzle until it's fragrant, add minced basil, pour into a container and let cool in fridge).

3) Salad of mixed greens, red onions, and orange slices with lemon vinaigrette. ... you Atkins diet wuss.

WHAT TO DRINK:

Hard lemonade would be good. Homemade lemonade would also be good (for each glass, use the juice of one lemon, a handful of sugar, a small small pinch of salt).

I don't drink enough wine to know what goes well with tart. Personally, cold Coca-Cola works best for me here. But I like lemon cokes and lime cokes, so there you go.

Dr Pepper Float

Obviously you can just take Dr Pepper and add a scoop of ice cream, but where's the fun in that?

One large coffee mug, you know, the jumbo ones. CafePress has them. Mine says "Jesus saves and takes half damage." Ceramic holds cold better than glass, plastic, etc.
An appropriate amount of cold Dr Pepper.
A scoop or two of premium vanilla ice cream. Breyer's makes handy little single-serving containers now.
Cherry juice concentrate, which Knudsen's makes, if I remember the brand right.
Powdered vanilla bean.

Fill the mug halfway with Dr Pepper. Add the ice cream. Add a spoonful of cherry juice concentrate. Pour more Dr Pepper until full. Sprinkle with vanilla powder.

Two pie crusts (I can't make pie crust, so use the Pillsbury pre-made ones; pastry is my cooking blindspot).
A large thing of fresh strawberries (I bought a 2 pound container of them, could have used them all but didn't).
Tequila. Good tequila.
One can of sweetened condensed milk.
Three or four limes, or twice-thrice as many key limes.
One egg yolk.
Sugar -- quarter to half a cup.
Flour -- quarter to half a cup.

Okay, so first, put one pie crust in the pie plate and bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes, until it's pretty much cooked -- so that when you put the custard-type filling in there, it won't get its sog on.

While that's cooking, pour the condensed milk into a bowl, and juice the limes into it (through a strainer if they have seeds). Now pour some tequila in -- start with two shots, taste it, and keep adding it until the flavor is slightly stronger than you want, because the flavor will diminish some with cooking. You pretty much want this to be like margarita pudding here. Maybe three shots. If no one's looking, go for four shots. Now add the egg yolk, beat it all up with a whisk or whatever you've got, and when the pie crust is cooked, pour it into that.

Slice strawberries, sans tops, and toss with flour and sugar -- how much depends on how sweet they are and so on, but you have a lot of leeway. The flour helps balance out the strawberries' high water content, and make it more like a pie filling. You want enough of both to coat the strawberries well.

Pour strawberries over condensed milk mixture; add top pie crust; bake at 375 for thirty minutes. Let cool to room temperature and refrigerate.

Ingredients:
1 Twinkie
Some Butter.

Preparation:

Heat the butter in a pan at medium heat. Wait until it's good and hot but do not burn. Add the Twinkie. Flip it whenever a side becomes browned, until all four sides are dark golden. Don't bother with the two little sides at the ends.

The "sponge cake" should now be crispy and golden, while the "creamy filling" is oozing out of the suspicious egress holes on the flat side.

IMPORTANT RULES FOR FRIED TWINKIES:

DO NOT OVERCOOK. If the filling becomes too hot it will melt and disappear like butter into the nooks and crannies of a Thomas's English muffin (the only English muffin worth mentioning) as it is reabsorbed, fetus-like, into the spongey cakey tissue surrounding it.

DO NOT FEED TO ANYONE SOBER AFTER MIDNIGHT. They will dislike you and/or become strange creatures courtesy of the monster stylings of Mr Rick Baker.

DO NOT TAUNT HAPPY FRIED TWINKIE. It's just crass.

GILDING THE LILY:

Place a Fried Twinkie in a dish. Add a scoop of premium vanilla ice cream. Drizzle with hot fudge or caramel.

When consuming a Fried Twinkie, you may hear a "little voice" in the "back of your head" suggesting that it is possibly "not the wisest idea." IGNORE THIS VOICE, FOR IT IS THE DEVIL.

3 c. oats
1 t. vanilla extract
6 T. cocoa
2 c. sugar
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. peanut butter

Heat in large saucepan cocoa, sugar, milk, and butter. Bring to rolling boil and add vanilla, peanut butter, and oats. Stir. Drop by teaspoons on waxed paper. Chill until set.

- chop about half of a large red tomato (preferably heirloom - brandywine is good) into small/medium cubes.
- cut into bite sizes about 1/2 a cup to a cup of a single variety of firm, green (and maybe also yellow) in-season vegetables, e.g. asparagus, or mixed green and yellow wax string beans, or broccoli, or green and yellow squash (with squash, i leave out the tomato), into large-bite sizes
- boil water and make long pasta, e.g. linguine (for the harder vegetables) or spaghetti (for the softer). it may help the eating process to split the pasta in half before cooking
- steam the vegetables (but not the tomato) until al dente - i steam them over the pasta water, turning it green
- add pasta to bowl. drizzle olive oil (italian better than california) on top. add the steamed vegetable and raw tomato pieces and toss. if you have to add anything, parmesan and/or black pepper can work, though neither is necessary in most cases.
- eat if not inhale.

(also very good and easy - cut yellow onions, e.g. walla walla sweets, into very thin slices and brown in a pan. add to spaghetti with olive oil and parmesan and maybe pepper. works alone or as steak accompaniment. add meat juices to pasta.)

CafePress has them.

Q. Knock knock.
A. Who's there?
Q. Banana.
A. Banana who?
Q. Knock knock.
A. Who's there?
Q. Banana.
A. Banana who?
Q. Knock knock.
A. Who's there?
Q. Banana.
A. Banana who?
Q. Knock knock.
A. Who's there?
Q. Banana.
A. Banana who?
Q. Knock knock.
A. Who's there?
Q. Orange.
A. Orange who?
Q. Orange you glad I've got this great recipe for Bananas Foster?!

Actually, people have asked for a recipe collection/ranting about food collection/etc. thing before (I used to have real issues with French cooking and would get, uh, Kinisonian about it). Now that CafePress has made hardcopies easy, who knows.

fast & easy

Save everything. Buy the quality freezer bags to help with this.

Bones left over from dinner? Put them in the bag. Use them to make stock.

Tops of strawberries left over? Keep them. Boil them, strain them, reduce the juice, you got strawberry syrup, Sport.

Onion skin, garlic paper, tomato tops, zucchini and cucumber peels, the ends of celery stalks, scallion roots? PUT THEM IN THE BAG. Bam, vegetable broth. Add a little salt, cause it'll taste a little bitter, and you'll be all "What's up with that, Bill, you fucked up my broth," and it's cause you didn't put the damn salt in.

Bacon grease, chicken grease, etc., sitting in the bottom of the pan? What, you didn't make gravy? Keep it. If you don't pour it all in to whatever you're saving it in, just most of it, you'll likely miss the solid bits, and in a cold enough refrigerator the fat will last for a very long time. Nearly any baked good, especially biscuits and breads, is improved by using animal fat instead of vegetable fat. And no, it won't taste like bacon or chicken.

Milk gone sour? Keep it. Use it in baking. Some recipes will specifically call for it, but by and large -- for baked items -- you can substitute sour for fresh and never notice.

You only used the caps of the mushrooms and you have the stems left over? For the love of God, PUT THEM IN THE BAG. Do you have any idea how good mushroom broth can be? Even from just the generic white button mushrooms? Keep a freezer bag, put the stems in, and when it's full, make mushroom broth. It's just as easy as the salad you had the mushroom caps in. You can just have the broth straight up; you can reduce it down, swirl in a little cream and green peppercorns and have a nice sauce for beef or chicken (or mushrooms!); you can make lamb stew; etc.

Egg whites left over from having used yolks for something? Make upside-down lemon pie. Did I post upside-down lemon pie?

Yolks left over? Make creme brulee. Buy a torch. It's like thirty bucks. You know how much you pay for creme brulee in a restaurant? The torch will pay for itself pretty quick.

Ingredients:
Chicken Thighs, bone in
potatoes
corn on the cob
green beans
carrots
onions
celery
jalapeno peppers
fresh cilantro (or coriander, same herb different name)
lemon
garlic
large can of tomatoes with liquid
chicken stock
kosher or sea salt
bay leaf
mexican oregano (different from Italian Oregano)
powdered Sage
dried Thyme
Nutmeg
Dried basil
sugar
white vinegar or white wine vinegar
old fashioned traditional style tortilla chips

mise-en-place: chop it all up! thinly slice the garlic

coat a skillet in olive oil
salt and pepper the chicken thighs
put some garlic and onion in the hot oil and brown the chicken in batches, Remove.
de-glaze with a little chicken stock

put a mixture of butter and olive oil in your soup pot, just enough to coat the bottom.
Add garlic and onion, until they sweat--don't brown them.
Add celery, carrots, stir well to coat with oil, sweat them until the release their aromas.
Add potatoes, green beans, same story

Add chicken stock, tomatoes, and chicken.

If you don't mind the spice, chop your jalapeno, sans seeds, and add it.
if you want to flavor but not the bite, tie a string around the jalapeno stems and leave them dangling in the liquid--tie the other part of the string to the pot handle.

Add corn on the cob, which you have chopped into smaller round sections.

Simmer. Do NOT add salt, repeat do not. The tortilla chips you are adding later, unless you have bought salt-free, will add plenty. Add salt as needed right before serving, or at the table.

Add bay leaf, a pinch of oregano, a dash of sage, thyme, basil; slightly more nutmeg.

At the end of cooking, add fresh chopped cilantro and taste it for balance.
Add a pinch of sugar and a spalsh of vinegar. Taste again and adjust as needed.

Break tortilla chips into serving bowls. ladle soup on top, taste for salt, adjust as needed. sprinkle with fresh cilantro and a little freshly ground black pepper.

2 c. pitted kalamata olives
1 tsp. capers
zest of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp. of said lemon's juice
1 tbsp olive oil.

step 1: MAKE SURE THE OLIVES ARE PITTED. trust me on this one.
step 2: put ingredients in a food processor.
step 3: pulse until the olives don't look like olives anymore, but like a paste.

serve with stoned wheat thins for ultimate yum

two pork fillets - sealed in a hot pan (with olive oil), then when they're done, push them to the outside and put in a couple of very finely chopped shallots and a couple of very finely chopped cloves of garlic, colour slightly and add an apple cut into eight, brown these ever so slightly. When everything is starting to go soft tip in half a bottle of good French cider and scrape any stuff off the bottom of the pan. Leave this with the lid on for a while (I did it for twenty minutes which was probably five minutes too many). Then, add half a carton of double cream, season with salt and pepper and cover again for 5 or 10 minutes. Then it should be ready and the sauce will have loads of apple and pork goodness. We served it with jacket potatoes and some green beans.

Tep's magical calorie-free sandwich. By Tep.

Bake one Chocolate cake (from box)
Make vanilla pudding
Whip large carton of whip cream (real - not cool whip)
Three or four scor bars if you can find them (or weirther? chocolates would do nicely)chop coarse - or freeze and break on counter
Kalua or other coffee liquor

In a big glass bowl layer cake about 11/2 inch in bottom pour 2-3 shots of booze on top. Then bit of pudding. Then whip cream.Last crunchie bits. Repeat once again cake - booze -pudding -crunchies.
Cover in cling film, and refrigerate till serving.

* note: You will have extra cake and booze left over so what you do with it is up to you.

You won't convince me it's a good thing. It's like the Carrot-Top of the recipe world. You think 'oh this might not be so bad' and then OH MY GOD SCREAMING HORROR at the end.

best sentence in the english language ever.

margarine
icing sugar
brandy

will always leave you with a migraine but the pain is worth it!

Not that I would, but if I did, then I ... would.

I had no idea that this/these were a real thing and have been making fun of the advertising on the bottle of Sam Adams' Summer Ale stuff, which claims it contains 'grains of paradise.' Now I have to apologize for all of those mean things I said.

So just what are grains of paradise, anyway?

Now this is a combination I had never considered. Was that another reading comprehension thing or is it for real? If real, what proportions?!!! I'm trying to imagine this: smoky hot chiptole w/ balsalmic--my initial reaction is ewwww!

Just so we're clear on context here.

(Oh God, always check your hand before putting Jelly Bellies in your mouth, some of these flavor combos you just don't want to live through.)

Anyway, grains of paradise are not peppercorns. If I remember right, they're actually related to the ginger (rhizome?) family, but you'd never guess it. They look a lot like black peppercorns, and they grind much like them -- brown-black on the outside, bone-white on the inside. Toasted and/or ground, they have a very peppery-like taste with more complexity to it than you find in most (not all) black peppercorns ... enough so that it's easily used, sparingly, in non-savory dishes. I often use them in brownies, for instance, and they're one of the key ingredients in my mulled wine.

They're also one of the ingredients used in Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray Malacca, I forget which -- one of the two gins in my cabinet, anyway. I doubt anyone, except maybe a professional ginnist (that isn't a word), has ever taken a sip and said, "Yep, I can taste the grains of paradise there," but they're there anyway.

Chipotle and balsamic: no, really, it works! It can be tricky finding something that goes equally well with both, and you don't much want to sit there just dipping chipotles in balsamic and munching away, but think of it as a strange variation on Tabasco sauce: peppers which aren't aged but are smoked, combined with vinegar that has been mellowed by its aging process. The most basic combination, I guess, is in quesadillas, although I'm not sure I'd ever be allowed back in Texas after putting this forth: fill your tortilla with mild cheese and some sliced chipotles, quesadilate[1], and drizzle with balsamic to serve.

[1] I just made that word up. It means "turn into a quesadilla." It's a great word, everyone should use it.

My current favorite peppermill content is a mixture of black, white, red, green, and ____? peppercorns.

I don't like pickled cucumbers very much, ordinarily. I like raw cucumber, and it's one of the few things I'll put in salad (I like lettuce, and want to be able to taste it), and once when I was visiting my mother she served sliced cucumbers which had been lightly dressed with white wine vinegar and salt -- just for about twenty minutes or so. I liked em. So I changed em up.

One sliced cucumber, peeled or not, as you like.
Some red wine vinegar, enough to cover those cucumber slices when they're in a Zip-Loc bag. Just sprinkle some salt on the cucumber slices, put them in the bag, and pour enough vinegar in that they're all wet.
Dried Thai chile peppers, crumbled, to taste. A pinch per cucumber is about what I do. Optional, I guess.
Garlic, chopped, pretty much any amount. At least a pinch.
Lemon juice, just a dash.
Grated carrot, optional, about the same amount as the garlic.

Combine all the ingredients in the bag. Let sit in the fridge at least an hour, and as long as ... well, really long. There's no container sterilization here, so probably not longer than a week.

These are very vinegary, because normal pickles will have water and sugar diluting the vinegar, and these don't. They stay pretty crispy. The longer they sit, the more vinegary they'll get, and the spicier. I like em on sandwiches and cheese plates.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1970000/images/_1972511_patsy-and-edina300.jpg

"HELLO, ladies..."

Usually buttermilk is made with just buttermilk, but since the girlfriend's a northwesterner, I tossed together something that cut the buttermilk taste a little, in case she didn't like it.

One prepared graham cracker crust or a pretzel crust, as follows:

2 - 2 1/2 cups sourdough hard pretzels (Snyder's in the box), crushed enough that the largest pieces are smaller than Lifesavers. Use a Cuisinart, or maybe a rock.

3-4 tbsp sugar

3/4 cup butter, melted

Combine ingredients. Press very firmly into pie plate and up around edges to form a crust-like shape-thing. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

On to the pie:

1 cup buttermilk, low-fat or whole doesn't matter; on the off chance that you live somewhere where this isn't the default-and-only-option, it's cultured buttermilk we're using, not real buttermilk. I'm not sure how real buttermilk would work.

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup butter, melted

1 cup sugar, or sugar mixed with molasses or cane syrup

1 egg

4 tbsp flour

dash of salt

Combine ingredients together and whisk very well, until there are no lumps of unincorporated flour or undissolved sugar. There will quite probably be lumps of unmelted butter that resolidified once it hit the cold liquids; that's fine, it adds character.

Pour mixture into crust. Bake at 375 for 45-60 minutes, until top is golden and bubbling and when you shake the pan a little, it doesn't slosh out all over the bottom of your oven and turn black and make a big stinking mess.

It's best served cold (and the pretzel crust firms up a great deal once it cools, so if you try it warm and discover I've tricked you into making upside-down buttermilk cobbler, that's why, Skippy). I like it just plain, but if I had some Steen's cane syrup I'd probably drizzle a bit of that over it.

Good dessert to follow a particularly spice-heavy meal.

3 fresh kaffir lime leaves, finely chopped (or 6 dried leaves crumbled)
handfull of fresh coriander leaves
2 shallots (or 1 small onion) very finely sliced.
3 tbsp fish sauce
Juice of one lime
Sesame oil
Black Pepper
2 birds-eye chillis finely chopped
Tsp sugar
1 tsp Marigold Vegetable Buillion powder (or your choice of stock)
300g of mixed fish (prawns, squid, monkfish, whatever won’t flake when cooked)
Lettuce, cucumber and whichever other salad ingredients you feel like.
Thai rice

Start cooking thai rice.

In a saucepan put fish sauce, lime juice, chilli, sesame oil, black pepper and Marigold powder and heat til simmering. Add fish and cook for 1 or 2 minutes. Add lime leaves, coriander leaves and shallots, stir for 30 seconds and poor contents of saucepan in a bowl ready prepared with salad. Gently toss and eat with rice. Beautiful.

(I did find a place that sells it online, though, fresh.)

Sometimes I take it for granted how easy it is here in Melbourne to get exotic foods - many immigrants here have market gardens that grow every concievable asian or european herb and veg you can think of. Even the supermarket now has bok choi, asian greens and herbs, strange fruits etc, it's really cool.

Now I have the urge to go shopping at Prahran markets dammit.

Turns out I can get Persian dried limes, which I might could use as a kaffir leaf substitute, I'm not sure.

1 1/2 cups walnuts, toasted
1 clove garlic, quartered
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh marjoram, chopped
or 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup milk, (or more)
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

In a blender chop nuts, garlic, and herbs together. Add oil and blend until incorporated, then add milk, cheese and cayenne and process again until smooth. (Thin with additional milk if too thick)

Goose... first off, start it the night before. Give it about 45-60 minutes each side in a medium oven - use best judgement as to when it's had long enough. You should be looking for crispy skin and (obviously) clear juices. There'll be *lots* of fat, so you need a very deep pan and/or a trivet dish and you'll need to empty it at least every 20 minutes. It goes without saying you'll need a suitable container to store the fat in - you'll use some of it later (and once you've seen the results you'll want to keep the rest for future use - it'll keep for about 3 months in the fridge, but you'll need to take it out before you use it to let it warm up...). This assumes you haven't got one of those turkey skewer things, in which case it'll probably take about 90 minutes on that. OK, now drain the whole thing one last time and turn the oven off - leave it in there overnight.

The next day you can stuff it if you like (I don't normally bother, but if you do you'll need something that works with the fat content i.e. it'll need to be a sausage based stuffing rather than a cereal based one, and remember it's a *big* cavity) and put it back in a low-medium oven for about 60 minutes. We'll call this T0.

T0: Take your giblets and get the gravy going - put them, about half a pint of water and half a glass of brandy in a pan and simmer them very gently on a low heat.

T0+15: Put about a dessert spoon and a half of your goose fat in each of two oven dishes. Put them in the oven to heat.

T0+20: Put your potatoes on to boil - after about 5 minutes boiling turn them off and shake them in a sieve (this roughs them up more than a colander...). Sprinkle a little plain flour over them while doing so, but don't overdo it.

T0+30: Take out your now very hot goose fat. Put your potatoes in one and your carrot and parsnip batons in the other. Baste thoroughly with the fat - it'll mostly disappear in the case of the potatoes. Return to oven. Periodically turn and re-baste.

T0+60: Red cabbage on, with half a cooking apple and a glass of wine (a light fruity red, probably New World) in with it. Goose out to rest.

T0+75: Everything else is finished. Drain cabbage, remove giblets from gravy (may need sieving).

Arrange and serve. You may wish to accompany it with whatever wine remains, bearing in mind you've been drinking it in secret in the kitchen - I find a glass every 10 minutes or so is about right.

its georgian, and it fuckin rocks.

Put a big slug of olive oil in a frying pan - don't scrimp. Put in the anchovies and stir them about over a lowish heat until they dissolve. Add the garlic and chilli flakes and stir about until the garlic is golden, then add the courgettes. Keep them over the lowish heat for about 15 minutes until they relax and sink down a bit. Serve with pasta, orecchiette for choice.

Duck varies a lot in cost and quality by region, because most parts of the country don't have local "duck traditions" (duck isn't part of the regional cuisine), so they aren't raised or hunted in quantity. I'm guessing goose is expensive because there's so little demand for it, with turkey having replaced it in Big Feast traditions cause it was so plentiful here. But I'm not sure.

Would there be enough love to support an "I Love Food" board? Or "I Love Cooking"? Or finding some other acronym in the ilX stable that hasn't been used thus far?

I suspect I would use it, and Tep would, but is there enough support elsewhere to make it viable or should we just use threads like this one?