what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

not because it really needs to go to 2027 because we'll all be under the ocean by then but because part 4 started in 2007

i made some pretty great tomato soup yesterday

san marzano toms + butter in pressure cooker w salt and baking soda
veggie stock + drained liquid from toms + a few bags of lapsang souchong
puree toms w stick blender, drain through sieve, combine with liquid ingredients
maple syrup + fish sauce to taste

how do you get to the point in life where you're putting heterodox ingredients like tea, maple syrup and fish sauce in tomato soup? is this entirely your own invention or are you following some unknown and wild tradition?

its the food of my people

bored single men who spend a lot of time on food blogs

well I am impressed, it sounds delicious (though not sure about the tea). how long did you cook it for?

toms were in the pressure cooker for 20mins, which is the bulk of the cooking time

in the context of bold tomato flavor and stock, the tea adds primarily smokiness and some sweetness. it's worth trying, i think!

Were these canned whole toms? Why pressure cooker? Why baking soda???

whole canned toms

pressure cooker reaches higher temperatures, which, in combination with the increased pH you get with baking soda, leads to caramelization that would be impossible otherwise

i actually made a batch earlier in the week that i forgot to add baking soda to and the difference is pretty noticeable --- w/o it the soup is much brighter and more acidic/tomato-y (which might be what you want!)

i have a bream in the oven, stuffed it with lemon, garlic and parsley, threw a few slices of potato around it and i've got cabbage braising in some stock on the hob. been roasting fish a lot in the last few months, feels like one of the nicest things to eat without much effort.

Making a lamb shoulder tonight with broccoli and the serious eats roasted potatoes that I believe somebody posted on the other thread and have been intriguing me since.

how do you get to the point in life where you're putting heterodox ingredients like tea, maple syrup and fish sauce in tomato soup?

otm

its the food of my people

bored single men who spend a lot of time on food blogs

loltm

What are these blogs? Are they instant pot propagandists?

hey gbx do you do a natural release or quick release on the p.c. with this method?

mine's electric so i just do a slow release

should I get an instant pot? it seems like more like an appliance of convenience rather than one of, like, some crazy new benefit (like sous vide)

rfi: what is yr favorite way to prepare fennel?
preferably side dish but i'll take all comers

one place i worked at useda make a potato, fennel and leek gratin that was nice. other ideas: superthin sliced and put in a salad is great, too. or "melted", cooked slowly in olive oil with onions and garlic to get it really soft and borderline carmelised could be a nice side?

fennel is nice roasted

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/02/vegan-ramen-miso-creamy-vegan-vegetarian-food-lab-recipe.html

going to cook this at the weekend

I like fennel raw in salads, sautéed with leeks & green beans, roasted & carved up with a piece of meat or fish

Jim: it's good. Double and freeze, for all the effort.

thanks everyone! pretty new to fennel. i tried braising it in stock & vermouth last night & it turned out delicious, keen to try some of these recommendations

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/02/vegan-ramen-miso-creamy-vegan-vegetarian-food-lab-recipe.html

going to cook this at the weekend

― Islamic State of Mind (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, January 10, 2017 5:28 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh man i've been wanting to try that but its daunting --- soda, you've done it? how long did it take?

i like fennel here are some things

fen risotto, maybe w/ salami
fen & chickpea broth w/ lemon zest and chilli
fen & potato soup
baked fen in like a puttanesca sauce w/ orange zest and feta
roast pork w fen (add fen seeds to pork herb rub too)
any bit of wite fish w/ fen, thyme, rosemary, lemon zest, capers etc

pernod good to have around just for fen

also if u ever want to parboil fen for anything do it in milk, or mostly milk, and keep for mash potato or gratin later

I don't like fennel because it is anise-y. I feel like I need to broaden my horizons tho w/r/t winter vegetables, I can't only eat potatoes all year, and I love kale but let's be honest it's not in season in February.

A friend is coming over on Sat bc she wants advice on cooking large hunks of meat. Considering a pot roast alongside a rolled stuffed pork loin -- one easy, one complicated.

try parsnips! one of our favorite winter things is just roasted winter veggies (beets, onions, carrots, garlic, parsnips, turnips, potatoes) mixed up with some olive oil, rosemary, and a bit of sausage, cover and bake.

best way to enjoy fennel is to throw it in the damn garbage bcz it tastes like licorice and it is GROSS

I made a great pork dish with star anise the other night and the first time I made it I used like one star anise (recipe says 5) because I hate licorice but actually it's so subtle it's really good so I always use 5 now

THANK U STEVIE YOU <---> ME = SAME TEAM

anise and fennel are wonderful flavors

that said i have bought fennel bulbs in the past and they have rotted in my fridge bc i couldn't decide what to do with them fast enough :/

tbh I wish I didnt' loathe anise/fennel bcz it wd make things a lot easier but welp here we are, what can ya do

parsnips are the devil fyi

hmph

parsnips are fine, they're sweet and a lil weird but they're fine

quickest way to ruin a soup imo

THE DEVIL

parsnips are good caramelized together with other vegetables as the base for a winter soup stock, they contribute a lot of complexity and are similar to carrots w/ their sweetness. im not a fan of plain parsnips though

for burly winter root vegetables i prefer celeriac

I stand with VG.

Honey roast parsnips are my secret ingredient in a veggie soup

monsters, all of u

mushroom pizza that has a bunch of rehydrated porcinis sauteed with a load of criminis and garlic, on top of fontina, carmelized onions with rosemary playing the role of sauce on some bland-o plain white dough i made

haven't had farinata in years, might attempt this recipe for saturday lunch http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/05/how-to-make-farinata-italian-chickpea-pancake.html

we had my brother and his family over for dinner the other night. they love cooking indian and so do we, so we made a huge feast. i haven't cooked this much food in a while:

masoor dal
benghali green beans and potatoes
tomato sambal
summer squash w/ mustard seeds
saag tofu

All the way at the other end of the vegetarian-omnivore spectrum, I'm making beef stock today.

I agree with VG that parsnips would not work well in any soup I know about, but they roast well and were quite acceptable in a beef and peanut stew recipe my wife made just a few days ago.

I really like roasted parsnips but they are such a damn awkward shape--the top fat part and the itty bitty skinny end make it diffcult to get evenly-roasting pieces.

that nyt taverna salad recipe which tracer posts is one i've made a few times. love it.

You can think of it (as I do) like a chickpea salad with whatever choppable fresh vegetables and bread happens to be left over

not forgetting the tang of the halloumi of course

There's a really good satay chickpea salad recipe somewhere I use. It's from the Bold Bean Company and their chickpeas in a jar are so nice.
https://boldbeanco.com/blogs/beanspo-recipes/chickpea-satay-salad?

Made blackened mahi mahi tonight, clean plate club all around. The following makes enough rub for four fillets:

1 1/2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp sea salt
3/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
3/4 tsp cayenne pepper

yum

I made guacachile this weekend, don't think I've posted it before

boil for 10 minutes but take tomatillos out at 8 mins:
1 poblano (or ideally a chilaca if u can find it)
1 anaheim
4-5 jalapenos
(all seeded except 1 jalapeno)
2-3 tomatillos

let cool completely, reserve cooking water

blend with 1 avocado, 4 cloves garlic, 1/4 onion, and 1/4 bunch cilantro until smooth and fully blended

add salt, pepper, lime to taste

if desired, add more of the cooking water to thin it more

That sounds delicious but I must express some confusion at the measurement of “1/4 bunch”

sleeve, what do you serve that with?

"1/4 bunch" sounds to me like "a small handful"

No I need a conversion to metric

like, you buy a bunch of cilantro in the store, and use 1/4 of it?

this is intended as a dip for chips

it's fun b/c people expect guacamole and it's similar but noticeably different

I initially balked at the number of jalapenos but once you boil and seed them it isn't that hot

literally all I am requesting is the number of grams of fresh cilantro to measure with my kitchen scale

some grams

OK ok I will stop trolling the recipe channel

I just wanted attention

i got a buncha cilantro for ya right here pal

Can I eat it tho

who is out there measuring their cilantro!??!

lol tombot

our scale is broken, sorry. we really need a new one.

i feel like there's a perfection to a quarter-bunch like

you, a person, has in their head a notion of a bunch, its equivalent to your own idea of a concept as nebulous as 'plenty'

nobody gonna be able to tell you what a quarter measure of 'plenty' is but you could do it if told _for you_

maybe in that spirit it's actually the only way to measure out herbs

I made a rosemary/garlic pork loin roast with mashed sweet potatoes and sauteed apples to celebrate the arrival of fall. I cut a hunk off the loin and froze it for future pork chops and now I wish I hadn't, because the roast turned out great and we'll run out of leftovers before we get tired of it.

making PBKR's tomato/zucchini sauce again tonight as we continue to have an absolute overload of San Marzanos from the raised bed.

Nice! My CSA is done with tomatoes now. 'Til next year!

I'm using no/minimal salt on tomatoes these days and less salt overall. Salt reveals but it can also obscure and the line between the two is closer and not where I thought it was.

I've ordered a few cans of San Marzano tomatoes this month, each one costing the same as a 4 pack of standard tinned tomatoes. They better be bloody worth it!

My partner has never had goulash in her life so I found a recipe and we are now on the lookout for szeged sweet paprika at our neighborhood grocery stores. Another good excuse to break out the Beyond “steak tips”

The FNB distro yesterday was overwhelmed with bulk produce that was dropped off by a mystery person in a truck! Like 50lb bags of onions and carrots and many many crates of squash and eggplant.

Today's project is roasted bnut squash and assorted other vegetable soup :)))))) I need at least a whole head of garlic for this don't I. Might have to walk to the store actually.

update: fake meat goulash was a hit

Made tofu vindaloo last night and is was decent but not enough tofu content vs the amount of bean and cauliflower content. As an added “bonus” all the turmeric in the vindaloo paste turned our daughter’s blue braces green and now we are desperately attempting baking soda toothpaste to reverse that

haha! good time to watch Troll 2 (seriously though i hope she wasn't too upset about it)

I have successfully made my first batch of lacto-fermented tomatoes courtesy of Noma:

https://www.wired.com/story/noma-guide-to-fermentation-book-review/

looking forward to exploring the book further!

mmmmm terrior

Tomatoes? Cool (and weird). Do they hold together or are they fermented whole?

I recently made a batch of lacto-fermented jalapeños. I feel like fermentation never really goes bananas for me.

you cut 'em up, small ones in quarters and large ones in eighths, add 2% salt by weight, press down solids in a jar, let sit at 70-80 F for a week or so.

Thanks. I would have thought they would turn to mush sitting in the brine for a week.

well it's spreadable (e.g. on bruschetta), but not really mush - skins still intact etc

so now I have a bunch of tomato water to use for seafood marinade

That makes more sense. I might have to give that a try. It probably makes even mediocre offseason tomatoes taste great.

Was out late last night and needed some healing comfort food, so I deep fried a few prawns breaded with panko and made tartare sauce, then had onglet with a gratin that I threw a few anchovies into, and a pan sauce from some leftover stock and vermouth. Lovely glass of pinot noir now and the new Necks record!

ha I had to look up "onglet"! sounds lovely.

oh and xp to PBKR - you let the completed ferment sit and strain in cheesecloth overnight, so you end up with the liquid and the solids separately.

After 25 years of regular cooking (six days a week the last 10 years), I finally cut myself bad enough to require professional medical attention. Of course this happened the day after I had my knives sharpened. I chopped the very tip of my ring finger nearly off last night requiring an urgent care visit and eight stitches. Feeling pretty foolish right now.

when you have absolute confidence in your cutting skills you still get humbled occasionally. I nicked my finger the other week, not requiring any medical attention. but it sure bled a lot

I was rushing, so that was the main issue.

i sliced my thumb a few months back, it was gushing. i guess you can do a fair bit of damage to a thumb before you'd go to a and e. it's healed now but still a bit sore to touch.

a few drinks while cooking obv does not help us in these scenarios.

xpost

ouch. I cut myself (not to that extent) every time I sharpen my knives tbh. I was in A&E one Christmas day (not knife-related) and there was a guy there looking incredibly sheepish with a bloody bandaged hand.

I was thinking to myself recently that I've got so competent with a knife that I can't see myself having an accident again. Pure big-headed hubris of course. But I do aim to be very good in a kitchen and I have an inner kitchen-boss voice criticising me when doing I'm anything that is taking me too long or my technique is sub-par shit.

Anyone ever made the chicken with forty cloves of garlic recipe? Think it's a fairly traditional Provence one that I've often seen mentioned but never made until today. You slowly roast the cloves unpeeled with the chicken, some spring onions, thyme and vermouth, so it doesn't equate to eating forty cloves of live garlic.

Really enjoyable dinner, it comes together beautifully. The smell when you add a huge pile of chopped spring onions to the pan after searing the chicken was one of those lovely cooking moments.

Had some roast potatoes and butter-poached carrots alongside.

i did one of the recipes with a filthy amount of garlic lately can't remember was it that tbh

Not having any “knife skills” has perversely become a point of pride for me - I give myself plenty of prep time to get my mise together, chop my veggies at the speed of a septuagenarian driving in the slow lane on a highway, and regardless of whether I’m using recently sharpened blades or not, I manage to avoid injury. Tortoise vs Hare.