Can I have some stir fry recipes? Preferably ones that use oyster sauce and fish sauce. I impulse bought them.
Oyster sauce and fish sauce make an excellent combo, along with some soy sauce (equal parts all 3). It's a common go-to sauce for me.
Anyhow, stir-fries. Here's how it was explained to me many, many, many years ago:
The are 5 things a stir-fry needs:
1. The ingredients.
For cooking for myself, my default amount of meat is 1 and 1/2 of a chicken thigh. This is around 5 ounces, and I want a rough equal (in volume) of veggies. Carrot, green beans, bok choy, asparagas, bell pepper, etc. Mushrooms! Baby corn!
For any other meats, I just figure on 4-6 ounces. Shrimp, pork shoulder/butt, sirloin tip/ball tip/rump steak is what I roll with, along with chicken thighs.
2. The marinade.
My go to marinade for the meat is 2 teaspoons of soy sauce, about 1/2 teaspoon of toasted sesame oil and a tablespoon of cornstarch. I get in there and rub that into the meat. If I were to cook chicken breasts, I'd go with an egg white, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, 2 teaspoons of rice wine and a tablespoon of cornstarch.
3. The seasonings.
In this context, these are your aromatics. Green onion, garlic, ginger, dried or fresh chilis, etc. You can add them to some hot oil and fry until golden brown, then remove, or you can mince it up a add it when you're cooking your meat. My go-to is 2-3 green onions, a garlic clove and 2-3 hot dried red chili peppers. I toss them into the hot wok, give it a quick mix around, then add the meat.
4. The sauce.
I make all of my sauces the same way: 3 units of salty stuff, 1-3 units of sugar, and optional extra stuff. The main unit for when I'm cooking for just myself is the half tablespoon. When cooking for 2, the tablespoon.
3 units of soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, doubanjian (fermented broad bean and chili paste), gouchujang, miso, black bean paste, etc.
1 unit of sugar gets you a savory sauce with almost no sweetness, but elevates the whole thing. 2 units is a lightly sweetened stir-fry, and 3 units is pretty sweet.
For vinegar, 1 unit gets you a little tang. 1 unit of rice vinegar to 2 units of sugar is great. 2 units of vinegar to 3 of sugar is a full on sweet-and-sour sauce.
Rice wine I'll add 1-2 units, depending on what I want. Or I leave it out.
If you want a saucier sauce, you can add chicken broth, or mushroom soaking water, or a little mildly hopped beer. You might need a cornstarch slurry if you add this. My normal amount of broth is equal to how much total liquid I used to make the sauce. So if I went with 3 units of soy sauce/fish sauce, 1 unit of vinegar and 1 unit of rice wine, I'd go with 5 units of broth.
5. The garnish.
An un-garnished stir-fry is an unfinished stir-fry! Fresh herbs, like cilantro or basil, fried basil leaves, toasted (or fried) peanuts, cashews or almonds, etc. If nothing else, give your dish a few drops of toasted sesame oil after plating up.
I cook my veggies first, take them out, give the aromatics a quick (10 second fry), then cook my meat, add the veggies back in, add the sauce. Let the sauce come to a boil, then see if you need to thicken it. You've got cornstarch coating your meat, so some of that will thicken your sauce and if you don't add any broth, will be enough. Toss to make sure everything is coated, garnish, and plate up.
+7
That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I don't know how you could stretch pizza crust into a 500f pan without sustaining 3rd degree burns.
I don't know how you could stretch pizza crust into a 500f pan without sustaining 3rd degree burns.
Very carefully. What I do is stretch it to a circle the same size as the pan first, then drop it in. Still gotta reach in there and make quick adjustments though once it's in the pan. There's probably a safe way to do it involving gloves of some sort, but I like to live dangerously.
Hypothetically, I suppose you could flip over a pot with diameter a little smaller than the pan's, flour it, stretch the dough over that, put the hot pan top side down on the dough, invert the whole thing, and take away the pot. Might require scraping. Might not work at all.
It's probably more risky than the simpler methods, but if everything goes to plan you use mitts to handle anything hot.
At some point it feels like it would be easier to get a pizza steel
0
ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
the serious eats, i think it was, skillet pizza had you proof it in the pan and i don't think you then took the dough out and then added back when it was hot
you kind of get a bit of detroit style with it, which is pretty much the easiest way i've seen to do that style of pizza, and is completely different from what you would do on a stone or steel
it comes out really nice
it does seem entirely impractical and gimmicky to try and make a pizza in cast iron and mimic how you would make pizza on a stone
Allegedly a voice of reason.
+1
AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
edited January 2019
Edit: Nevermind. Misread that post.
AbsoluteZero on
0
AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
Got my hands on some ground wild boar. To celebrate today being something like 90 degrees warmer than it was a few days ago, I'm busting out the grill to make wild boargers. Gonna throw some pecan and cherry wood in to get some smoke on em. Planning to garnish with sweet hot mustard, a little mayo, and red onion.
The packaging it came in says they also carry osterich. I wonder how that is?
Got my hands on some ground wild boar. To celebrate today being something like 90 degrees warmer than it was a few days ago, I'm busting out the grill to make wild boargers. Gonna throw some pecan and cherry wood in to get some smoke on em. Planning to garnish with sweet hot mustard, a little mayo, and red onion.
The packaging it came in says they also carry osterich. I wonder how that is?
I've had osterich quite a lot. It's very, very, very, very lean dark meat. You've got like 2 1/2 seconds between undercooked and overcooked and bone dry.
It tastes fine if you manage to cook it to that perfect medium, though it's going to be dry no matter what, so you'll want a rich fatty sauce.
I've been making homemade hummus lately and it's kind of absurd how much you get out of a half pound of dried garbanzo beans. This round I ended up making my own tahini too as I was just about out and trader Joe's didn't have any in stock.
Curious: I've had roasted chicken peas /garbanzo that are seasoned with curry powder. Do you think there'd be enough moisture left if you did a partial roast, or roasted half? Do you think there would be any change in flavor?
I've never had roasted garbanzos before but I'd imagine if you keep them decently soft it'd work. May not get quite as smooth as the simmered ones though. I'd be worried that anything gained from the roast might have problems standing up to the tahini.
You might be able to achieve something similar through seasoning the tahini sauce itself. I put cumin in mine and I could easily see other seasonings working well there.
I was sort of inspired by the Salvadoran place we went for lunch, so this is sort of striped bass a la plancha.
Salt/cumin/pepper/paprika/garlic dusted then pan fried for about two minutes a side. Over some seasoned rice and topped with pico de Gallo. Salad is a bagged avocado ranch thing that was actually pretty good.
Hmm.. Not sure if these were necessary, but they do what they say they do on the label, and it has been an eventful week at my house:
Pipe Cleaners (Pumpkin spice muffins)
Dry Stuff
50g whole milled flax seed
50g whole flax seed
60g oatmeal flour
180g whole wheat flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
~1 tsp kosher salt (start w/half, depends on brand)
2 tsp Pumpkin Spice seasoning (see below, this is what I used)
Wet Stuff
1/2 cup dark maple syrup (the real stuff only, please)
2 eggs
100g coconut oil
2 Tbsp sugar, for creaming coconut oil
1 cup pureed pumpkin
1/4 yogurt
Milk
Heat your oven to 375 degrees. Grease a muffin tin or alternatively use muffin paper cups.
In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients together well, reserving 1/2 of the salt for later if needed.
In a spice grinder, mix the whole spices (except for the nutmeg) and grind until a fine powder has formed. Add the nutmeg and blend to mix again. Reserve in a cool dark place.
Cream the coconut oil and sugar together well until the coconut oil is light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing until well incorporated and an emulsion has formed. Add the yogurt, maple syrup, and pumpkin puree and mix.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold together. Take care and mix well, but lumps are OKAY and do not need to be completely beat out.
Spoon enough batter to fill the muffin cups nearly to top; 12 takes about 18-20 minutes in my oven. Check with a toothpick when nearing completion.
Steam - Synthetic Violence | XBOX Live - Cannonfuse | PSN - CastleBravo | Twitch - SoggybiscuitPA
Mrs Hedgie: It's sad we can't stay at work for lunch - they made lasagna.
Hedgie: Well, I can make lasagna this weekend.
And so begins getting up at 6 am to make lasagna mostly from scratch. To start, making the red sauce, which needs a good 4-8 hour simmer. This involved minced garlic and Italian herbs being sautee'd, before introducing one large onion. Once everything was nice and fragrant, several cans of San Marzano tomatoes were dumped in and let to simmer while I made meatballs. 2 pounds of ground chuck, 2 eggs, Worcestershire sauce, a bit of A1, and Italian breadcrumbs along with salt, pepper, and other seasonings got mixed, then formed into balls that got baked for half an hour, along with some sweet Italian sausage. Then all the meat went for a dip in the sauce after further seasoning, and left on low heat for several hours, skimming oil off the sauce occasionally.
Once it came time to make the lasagna itself, the meat was extracted, and a quick batch of bechamel was made, before assembly in the order of pasta, red sauce, ricotta, bechamel, mozzarella, repeat. Top with red sauce and mozzarella, and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes, then rest for 30. Serve with the meat on the side and enjoy how decadent half a day in the kitchen can be.
There are some pretty good Crockpot lasagna recipes that probably don't come out as well as half a day in the kitchen, but they're pretty okay. My mom used to make a vegetarian one growing up and I'm pretty sure I saw one on an old episode of Good Eats. Has anyone tried one they can recommend? I now desire noodlecheesenoodleproteincheesetomato.
So this is where I have to say I Can Lasagna, And So Can You. Honestly, the process isn't nearly as bad as you might think - once the red sauce is assembled, it can go on autopilot for the most part until you're ready to put the lasagna together. For the sauces, I worked off of the recipes that Andrew Rea laid out in the following video for red sauce and bechamel:
1/2 small jar minced garlic (about 1 1/2 tablespoons or so)
1 large yellow/sweet onion
2 sprigs fresh basil
1/2 tube/can tomato paste (I'd recommend the tube for this application)
Seasonings to taste
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
To start off, in the stockpot, we put in enough olive oil to cover the bottom in a thin coat, then get it heated to where it's shimmering. While it's heating, dice the onion finely, and set aside. Once the oil is hot, put in the garlic, and let it saute until aromatic. At this point, you'll want to add any seasonings other than salt or pepper (I went with an Italian blend I had on hand.) Let that get aromatic as well, then add the onion and saute until translucent and beginning to caramelize. Add the tomato paste, and incorporate, then add the tomatoes, using your spoon to crush them against the wall of the stockpot. Toss in the basil, then let simmer on low heat for an hour, with the lid slightly cracked to let moisture escape. This needs to sit for an hour, so it's time to turn to...
The Meatballs
Ingredients:
2 pounds ground chuck
2 large eggs
~1-2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
A-1 steak sauce to taste
~1/2 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
Seasonings (Italian blend, salt, pepper) to taste
In a large bowl, mix the above ingredients together by hand until they form a paste about the consistency of Play-Doh. (If too wet, add breadcrumbs, if too dry, add more of the liquid ingredients.) Form into balls about an inch in diameter, and place in an oven safe vessel. Put into a 350 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes, just enough to hold their shape in the sauce.
Also, you'll want to give a package of sweet Italian sausage a quick run through the microwave (8-10 minutes should be good). We're not looking to fully cook, but to just get the casing browned - the meatballs and sausage are going to be in the equivalent of a tomato sous vide for the next few hours, so that will do the cooking for us.
At this point, we're ready to finish the sauce. Go in, and pull out the spent basil, and then add salt and pepper to taste. Once seasoned properly, add the meatballs and sausage in, set the heat low, and let simmer for 4-6 hours.
Okay, Why The Meatball Jacuzzi?
Well, as Andrew points out in the video above, a red sauce needs fat to come together. This is because you need something to counterbalance the acidity of the tomatoes, which can be done with either fat or sugar (which is what most jar sauces use.) As my mother taught me, one way to add the fat as well as further flavor is to cook your meat in the sauce, which works when you're doing a low simmer. That said, you will need to remove the oils on the surface every couple of hours - use a ladle to remove the oils to a measuring cup, then let settle and then decant the oil off the top, then return the remaining sauce to the pot. But other than that, the sauce can be left to just simmer to deliciousness. Once we're ready to begin assembling the lasagna, we need to make...
The Bechamel
Ingredients:
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
~1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (sliced/shredded, optional)
One of the "mother sauces", bechamel is actually really easy to make. Start by melting the butter in a pan, then when fully liquid, add the flour and stir until you have a blond roux form. Once formed, slowly introduce milk while stirring until a white sauce without any lumps is formed. I added a half cup of mozzarella to thicken the sauce further and add additional flavor.
Now, we are ready for...
The Lasagna
Ingredients:
One package oven ready lasagna noodles
4 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese
1 large container ricotta cheese
The Red Sauce (see above)
The Bechamel (see above)
Fish out the meatballs and sausage from the sauce and put aside, and give a good stir to fully incorporate. Then in your baking vessel, lay down a layer of sauce as a base. Then, starting from there, we build each layer as such:
Noodles, overlapping slightly
Red Sauce, forming a base
Ricotta, laid out in small spoonfuls over the surface
Bechamel spooned out over the top
Mozzarella to cover
Repeat until you are at the top of your vessel. Then lay down a final layer of noodles, Red Sauce, and mozzarella to form the top crust. Place in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes, then remove and let rest for what will be an excruciatingly long 30 minutes. Once allowed to rest, serve with the meatballs and sausage on the side, and enjoy your hard work.
So this is where I have to say I Can Lasagna, And So Can You. Honestly, the process isn't nearly as bad as you might think - once the red sauce is assembled, it can go on autopilot for the most part until you're ready to put the lasagna together. For the sauces, I worked off of the recipes that Andrew Rea laid out in the following video for red sauce and bechamel:
1/2 small jar minced garlic (about 1 1/2 tablespoons or so)
1 large yellow/sweet onion
2 sprigs fresh basil
1/2 tube/can tomato paste (I'd recommend the tube for this application)
Seasonings to taste
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
To start off, in the stockpot, we put in enough olive oil to cover the bottom in a thin coat, then get it heated to where it's shimmering. While it's heating, dice the onion finely, and set aside. Once the oil is hot, put in the garlic, and let it saute until aromatic. At this point, you'll want to add any seasonings other than salt or pepper (I went with an Italian blend I had on hand.) Let that get aromatic as well, then add the onion and saute until translucent and beginning to caramelize. Add the tomato paste, and incorporate, then add the tomatoes, using your spoon to crush them against the wall of the stockpot. Toss in the basil, then let simmer on low heat for an hour, with the lid slightly cracked to let moisture escape. This needs to sit for an hour, so it's time to turn to...
The Meatballs
Ingredients:
2 pounds ground chuck
2 large eggs
~1-2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
A-1 steak sauce to taste
~1/2 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
Seasonings (Italian blend, salt, pepper) to taste
In a large bowl, mix the above ingredients together by hand until they form a paste about the consistency of Play-Doh. (If too wet, add breadcrumbs, if too dry, add more of the liquid ingredients.) Form into balls about an inch in diameter, and place in an oven safe vessel. Put into a 350 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes, just enough to hold their shape in the sauce.
Also, you'll want to give a package of sweet Italian sausage a quick run through the microwave (8-10 minutes should be good). We're not looking to fully cook, but to just get the casing browned - the meatballs and sausage are going to be in the equivalent of a tomato sous vide for the next few hours, so that will do the cooking for us.
At this point, we're ready to finish the sauce. Go in, and pull out the spent basil, and then add salt and pepper to taste. Once seasoned properly, add the meatballs and sausage in, set the heat low, and let simmer for 4-6 hours.
Okay, Why The Meatball Jacuzzi?
Well, as Andrew points out in the video above, a red sauce needs fat to come together. This is because you need something to counterbalance the acidity of the tomatoes, which can be done with either fat or sugar (which is what most jar sauces use.) As my mother taught me, one way to add the fat as well as further flavor is to cook your meat in the sauce, which works when you're doing a low simmer. That said, you will need to remove the oils on the surface every couple of hours - use a ladle to remove the oils to a measuring cup, then let settle and then decant the oil off the top, then return the remaining sauce to the pot. But other than that, the sauce can be left to just simmer to deliciousness. Once we're ready to begin assembling the lasagna, we need to make...
The Bechamel
Ingredients:
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
~1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (sliced/shredded, optional)
One of the "mother sauces", bechamel is actually really easy to make. Start by melting the butter in a pan, then when fully liquid, add the flour and stir until you have a blond roux form. Once formed, slowly introduce milk while stirring until a white sauce without any lumps is formed. I added a half cup of mozzarella to thicken the sauce further and add additional flavor.
Now, we are ready for...
The Lasagna
Ingredients:
One package oven ready lasagna noodles
4 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese
1 large container ricotta cheese
The Red Sauce (see above)
The Bechamel (see above)
Fish out the meatballs and sausage from the sauce and put aside, and give a good stir to fully incorporate. Then in your baking vessel, lay down a layer of sauce as a base. Then, starting from there, we build each layer as such:
Noodles, overlapping slightly
Red Sauce, forming a base
Ricotta, laid out in small spoonfuls over the surface
Bechamel spooned out over the top
Mozzarella to cover
Repeat until you are at the top of your vessel. Then lay down a final layer of noodles, Red Sauce, and mozzarella to form the top crust. Place in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes, then remove and let rest for what will be an excruciatingly long 30 minutes. Once allowed to rest, serve with the meatballs and sausage on the side, and enjoy your hard work.
Why the additional meatball making step? I've never even heard of lasagna with meatballs, clearly it's a thing, as both your recipes have it. Are you just making meatballs to have fat? I've always just put ground beef or pork in the red sauce after Browning.
Lasagna is easy though, very little active time and provided you simmer the tomato sauce for at least 2 hours will be delicious even if you add nothing else but salt, garlic, bechemel, cheese and noodles. Tomatoes develop so many flavors while cooking.
So this is where I have to say I Can Lasagna, And So Can You. Honestly, the process isn't nearly as bad as you might think - once the red sauce is assembled, it can go on autopilot for the most part until you're ready to put the lasagna together. For the sauces, I worked off of the recipes that Andrew Rea laid out in the following video for red sauce and bechamel:
1/2 small jar minced garlic (about 1 1/2 tablespoons or so)
1 large yellow/sweet onion
2 sprigs fresh basil
1/2 tube/can tomato paste (I'd recommend the tube for this application)
Seasonings to taste
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
To start off, in the stockpot, we put in enough olive oil to cover the bottom in a thin coat, then get it heated to where it's shimmering. While it's heating, dice the onion finely, and set aside. Once the oil is hot, put in the garlic, and let it saute until aromatic. At this point, you'll want to add any seasonings other than salt or pepper (I went with an Italian blend I had on hand.) Let that get aromatic as well, then add the onion and saute until translucent and beginning to caramelize. Add the tomato paste, and incorporate, then add the tomatoes, using your spoon to crush them against the wall of the stockpot. Toss in the basil, then let simmer on low heat for an hour, with the lid slightly cracked to let moisture escape. This needs to sit for an hour, so it's time to turn to...
The Meatballs
Ingredients:
2 pounds ground chuck
2 large eggs
~1-2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
A-1 steak sauce to taste
~1/2 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
Seasonings (Italian blend, salt, pepper) to taste
In a large bowl, mix the above ingredients together by hand until they form a paste about the consistency of Play-Doh. (If too wet, add breadcrumbs, if too dry, add more of the liquid ingredients.) Form into balls about an inch in diameter, and place in an oven safe vessel. Put into a 350 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes, just enough to hold their shape in the sauce.
Also, you'll want to give a package of sweet Italian sausage a quick run through the microwave (8-10 minutes should be good). We're not looking to fully cook, but to just get the casing browned - the meatballs and sausage are going to be in the equivalent of a tomato sous vide for the next few hours, so that will do the cooking for us.
At this point, we're ready to finish the sauce. Go in, and pull out the spent basil, and then add salt and pepper to taste. Once seasoned properly, add the meatballs and sausage in, set the heat low, and let simmer for 4-6 hours.
Okay, Why The Meatball Jacuzzi?
Well, as Andrew points out in the video above, a red sauce needs fat to come together. This is because you need something to counterbalance the acidity of the tomatoes, which can be done with either fat or sugar (which is what most jar sauces use.) As my mother taught me, one way to add the fat as well as further flavor is to cook your meat in the sauce, which works when you're doing a low simmer. That said, you will need to remove the oils on the surface every couple of hours - use a ladle to remove the oils to a measuring cup, then let settle and then decant the oil off the top, then return the remaining sauce to the pot. But other than that, the sauce can be left to just simmer to deliciousness. Once we're ready to begin assembling the lasagna, we need to make...
The Bechamel
Ingredients:
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
~1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (sliced/shredded, optional)
One of the "mother sauces", bechamel is actually really easy to make. Start by melting the butter in a pan, then when fully liquid, add the flour and stir until you have a blond roux form. Once formed, slowly introduce milk while stirring until a white sauce without any lumps is formed. I added a half cup of mozzarella to thicken the sauce further and add additional flavor.
Now, we are ready for...
The Lasagna
Ingredients:
One package oven ready lasagna noodles
4 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese
1 large container ricotta cheese
The Red Sauce (see above)
The Bechamel (see above)
Fish out the meatballs and sausage from the sauce and put aside, and give a good stir to fully incorporate. Then in your baking vessel, lay down a layer of sauce as a base. Then, starting from there, we build each layer as such:
Noodles, overlapping slightly
Red Sauce, forming a base
Ricotta, laid out in small spoonfuls over the surface
Bechamel spooned out over the top
Mozzarella to cover
Repeat until you are at the top of your vessel. Then lay down a final layer of noodles, Red Sauce, and mozzarella to form the top crust. Place in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes, then remove and let rest for what will be an excruciatingly long 30 minutes. Once allowed to rest, serve with the meatballs and sausage on the side, and enjoy your hard work.
Why the additional meatball making step? I've never even heard of lasagna with meatballs, clearly it's a thing, as both your recipes have it. Are you just making meatballs to have fat? I've always just put ground beef or pork in the red sauce after Browning.
Lasagna is easy though, very little active time and provided you simmer the tomato sauce for at least 2 hours will be delicious even if you add nothing else but salt, garlic, bechemel, cheese and noodles. Tomatoes develop so many flavors while cooking.
Because I like meatballs, and that's how my mother taught me to make the sauce.
Caramelization, mostly. You want as much caramelization as possible to enhance the flavors, but that's not really possible while keeping something at a simmer, or even a boil, since sugars don't caramelize until 300 degrees or so. It's also why most vegetables are better in the oven that a wet method like boiling or steaming.
This can also be achieved by just not stirring it as often as you might otherwise on the stovetop, but this is harder to control and see.
It's also easier, since it requires less stirring in general, and allows you to better control the temperature.
A thicker sauce (which is more easily achieved in the oven) is also better for lasagna specifically, since between the sauce and the cheese, there tends to be a lot of extra moisture that seeps out of the ingredients when you actually do get around to baking the entire dish, which you don't want. Baking the sauce separately first helps with that, by getting all the moisture out beforehand.
+4
That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Picnic pork was on sale today. I got a 5lb roast for just over $5. I started trying to cut nice neat slats in the skin before giving up and just stabbing at it with a knife to make holes. I sealed it up in a gallon sized zip top bag in a containment bowl with salt, sugar, oil, lemon juice, worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, a touch of liquid smoke, and a bunch of seasonings I think I'm going to slow roast it in the oven tomorrow or Tuesday. I'm thinking 250 until it temps at 140 than crank it up to 400 to crisp up the skin and bringing it up to around 150f internal.
In addition to what Javen said, heat transfers in three ways: Conduction, convection, and infrared.
If you're boiling water on a stovetop, you have lots of convection. But a red sauce isn't water. It's nowhere near as fluid. Which means that you mostly have conduction at the very bottom, resulting in burning. There's also a splattering issue: Since all the heat is concentrated at the bottom, you have small pockets of water converting to steam very rapidly. Also, since these bubbles form at the very bottom, they build a bit of pressure, and basically explode when they reach the top. In the oven, convection happens from the surrounding air, conduction happens from all sides, and you benefit from infrared coming from the oven walls. This produces much more even heating and less splattering.
If you really want strong carmelization for a super meaty sauce, you can add some baking soda. The change of pH will promote browning. The reverse is also true: Acidity will slow it down.
Of course, too much carmelization can dull the flavor. Even more so if you add cream, or if there's a lot of beef fat. Acidity also adds depth and brightness. I usually add a can of diced tomatoes, apple cider vinegar, ketchup, etc. at the end. But I don't really follow recipes, it's mainly improvisation.
Me and my girlfriend wanted a unicorn meal-prep idea, something that is relatively healthy compared to a lot of the shit we eat, easy to make, and cheap, and I think we finally found one, Hawaiian BBQ Chicken Foil Packets. We used this as an inspiration so I can't take credit for it unfortunately, but it's exactly what we're looking for and delicious.
4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast, Red Bell Pepper, Zucchini, Squash. Canned pineapple slices. BBQ sauce, soy sauce, and garlic powder.
Dice up all those veggies. Whisk together in a bowl 1 cup BBQ sauce, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, and the juice from the can of pineapple, and as much garlic powder as you feel it needs per taste.
Get some heavy duty foil, make some pouches where you put in one chicken breast, 2-3 pineapple slices, a handful of the diced veggies, 2-3 Tbsp of the mixed sauce drizzled over it all, wrap up the foil pouch nice and tight. Throw the pouches on the BBQ at medium heat for ~15m, flipping halfway. When it''s done and you unwrap the pouches, drizzle a bit more of the sauce on them.
I need to practice more with the timing because when I first pulled them off, the first one I unwrapped was slightly underdone, so I threw them back on and they were just slightly overdone, but this was such an easy meal to prep and so tasty that this is definitely going to be one of our new go-tos. The squash and zucchini absorb the flavors of the sauce and chicken, and EVERYTHING absorbs the flavor of the red bellpepper and pineapple, which is one of our favorite vegetables/fruit combos. Highly recommend it if you like these flavors.
edit: And it also seems super moddable, like I proposed I could make a pouch with mushrooms instead of squash for variety
Posts
Oyster sauce and fish sauce make an excellent combo, along with some soy sauce (equal parts all 3). It's a common go-to sauce for me.
Anyhow, stir-fries. Here's how it was explained to me many, many, many years ago:
The are 5 things a stir-fry needs:
1. The ingredients.
For cooking for myself, my default amount of meat is 1 and 1/2 of a chicken thigh. This is around 5 ounces, and I want a rough equal (in volume) of veggies. Carrot, green beans, bok choy, asparagas, bell pepper, etc. Mushrooms! Baby corn!
For any other meats, I just figure on 4-6 ounces. Shrimp, pork shoulder/butt, sirloin tip/ball tip/rump steak is what I roll with, along with chicken thighs.
2. The marinade.
My go to marinade for the meat is 2 teaspoons of soy sauce, about 1/2 teaspoon of toasted sesame oil and a tablespoon of cornstarch. I get in there and rub that into the meat. If I were to cook chicken breasts, I'd go with an egg white, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, 2 teaspoons of rice wine and a tablespoon of cornstarch.
3. The seasonings.
In this context, these are your aromatics. Green onion, garlic, ginger, dried or fresh chilis, etc. You can add them to some hot oil and fry until golden brown, then remove, or you can mince it up a add it when you're cooking your meat. My go-to is 2-3 green onions, a garlic clove and 2-3 hot dried red chili peppers. I toss them into the hot wok, give it a quick mix around, then add the meat.
4. The sauce.
I make all of my sauces the same way: 3 units of salty stuff, 1-3 units of sugar, and optional extra stuff. The main unit for when I'm cooking for just myself is the half tablespoon. When cooking for 2, the tablespoon.
3 units of soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, doubanjian (fermented broad bean and chili paste), gouchujang, miso, black bean paste, etc.
1 unit of sugar gets you a savory sauce with almost no sweetness, but elevates the whole thing. 2 units is a lightly sweetened stir-fry, and 3 units is pretty sweet.
For vinegar, 1 unit gets you a little tang. 1 unit of rice vinegar to 2 units of sugar is great. 2 units of vinegar to 3 of sugar is a full on sweet-and-sour sauce.
Rice wine I'll add 1-2 units, depending on what I want. Or I leave it out.
If you want a saucier sauce, you can add chicken broth, or mushroom soaking water, or a little mildly hopped beer. You might need a cornstarch slurry if you add this. My normal amount of broth is equal to how much total liquid I used to make the sauce. So if I went with 3 units of soy sauce/fish sauce, 1 unit of vinegar and 1 unit of rice wine, I'd go with 5 units of broth.
5. The garnish.
An un-garnished stir-fry is an unfinished stir-fry! Fresh herbs, like cilantro or basil, fried basil leaves, toasted (or fried) peanuts, cashews or almonds, etc. If nothing else, give your dish a few drops of toasted sesame oil after plating up.
I cook my veggies first, take them out, give the aromatics a quick (10 second fry), then cook my meat, add the veggies back in, add the sauce. Let the sauce come to a boil, then see if you need to thicken it. You've got cornstarch coating your meat, so some of that will thicken your sauce and if you don't add any broth, will be enough. Toss to make sure everything is coated, garnish, and plate up.
Release dough from a significant height.
Very carefully. What I do is stretch it to a circle the same size as the pan first, then drop it in. Still gotta reach in there and make quick adjustments though once it's in the pan. There's probably a safe way to do it involving gloves of some sort, but I like to live dangerously.
It's probably more risky than the simpler methods, but if everything goes to plan you use mitts to handle anything hot.
This was a silly idea.
you kind of get a bit of detroit style with it, which is pretty much the easiest way i've seen to do that style of pizza, and is completely different from what you would do on a stone or steel
it comes out really nice
it does seem entirely impractical and gimmicky to try and make a pizza in cast iron and mimic how you would make pizza on a stone
The packaging it came in says they also carry osterich. I wonder how that is?
Probably more earthy and grounded than most other fowl.
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I've had osterich quite a lot. It's very, very, very, very lean dark meat. You've got like 2 1/2 seconds between undercooked and overcooked and bone dry.
It tastes fine if you manage to cook it to that perfect medium, though it's going to be dry no matter what, so you'll want a rich fatty sauce.
Been using this recipe and just kicking up the garlic a ton.
https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/03/israeli-style-extra-smooth-hummus-recipe.html
It’s extremely lean. I think more like turkey than anything else.
I had emu once, but there was so much soy sauce in the marinade that I couldn’t tell you what it tasted like.
You might be able to achieve something similar through seasoning the tahini sauce itself. I put cumin in mine and I could easily see other seasonings working well there.
am making air fryer collard green chips with everything bagel seasoning on top
This is weird
I was sort of inspired by the Salvadoran place we went for lunch, so this is sort of striped bass a la plancha.
Salt/cumin/pepper/paprika/garlic dusted then pan fried for about two minutes a side. Over some seasoned rice and topped with pico de Gallo. Salad is a bagged avocado ranch thing that was actually pretty good.
Pipe Cleaners (Pumpkin spice muffins)
Dry Stuff
50g whole milled flax seed
50g whole flax seed
60g oatmeal flour
180g whole wheat flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
~1 tsp kosher salt (start w/half, depends on brand)
2 tsp Pumpkin Spice seasoning (see below, this is what I used)
Wet Stuff
1/2 cup dark maple syrup (the real stuff only, please)
2 eggs
100g coconut oil
2 Tbsp sugar, for creaming coconut oil
1 cup pureed pumpkin
1/4 yogurt
Milk
Pumpkin Spice (Optional)
1 tsp whole peppercorns
3 4-in cinnamon sticks
1 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
1 tsp whole allspice
1 tsp whole clove
1/2 tsp whole decorticated cardamom
Heat your oven to 375 degrees. Grease a muffin tin or alternatively use muffin paper cups.
In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients together well, reserving 1/2 of the salt for later if needed.
In a spice grinder, mix the whole spices (except for the nutmeg) and grind until a fine powder has formed. Add the nutmeg and blend to mix again. Reserve in a cool dark place.
Cream the coconut oil and sugar together well until the coconut oil is light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing until well incorporated and an emulsion has formed. Add the yogurt, maple syrup, and pumpkin puree and mix.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold together. Take care and mix well, but lumps are OKAY and do not need to be completely beat out.
Spoon enough batter to fill the muffin cups nearly to top; 12 takes about 18-20 minutes in my oven. Check with a toothpick when nearing completion.
Mrs Hedgie: It's sad we can't stay at work for lunch - they made lasagna.
Hedgie: Well, I can make lasagna this weekend.
And so begins getting up at 6 am to make lasagna mostly from scratch. To start, making the red sauce, which needs a good 4-8 hour simmer. This involved minced garlic and Italian herbs being sautee'd, before introducing one large onion. Once everything was nice and fragrant, several cans of San Marzano tomatoes were dumped in and let to simmer while I made meatballs. 2 pounds of ground chuck, 2 eggs, Worcestershire sauce, a bit of A1, and Italian breadcrumbs along with salt, pepper, and other seasonings got mixed, then formed into balls that got baked for half an hour, along with some sweet Italian sausage. Then all the meat went for a dip in the sauce after further seasoning, and left on low heat for several hours, skimming oil off the sauce occasionally.
Once it came time to make the lasagna itself, the meat was extracted, and a quick batch of bechamel was made, before assembly in the order of pasta, red sauce, ricotta, bechamel, mozzarella, repeat. Top with red sauce and mozzarella, and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes, then rest for 30. Serve with the meat on the side and enjoy how decadent half a day in the kitchen can be.
I'll marry you for some of that
Boxed noodles
Jar sauce
Hamburger
Ricotta
So, let's get started.
The Red Sauce
Ingredients:
To start off, in the stockpot, we put in enough olive oil to cover the bottom in a thin coat, then get it heated to where it's shimmering. While it's heating, dice the onion finely, and set aside. Once the oil is hot, put in the garlic, and let it saute until aromatic. At this point, you'll want to add any seasonings other than salt or pepper (I went with an Italian blend I had on hand.) Let that get aromatic as well, then add the onion and saute until translucent and beginning to caramelize. Add the tomato paste, and incorporate, then add the tomatoes, using your spoon to crush them against the wall of the stockpot. Toss in the basil, then let simmer on low heat for an hour, with the lid slightly cracked to let moisture escape. This needs to sit for an hour, so it's time to turn to...
The Meatballs
Ingredients:
In a large bowl, mix the above ingredients together by hand until they form a paste about the consistency of Play-Doh. (If too wet, add breadcrumbs, if too dry, add more of the liquid ingredients.) Form into balls about an inch in diameter, and place in an oven safe vessel. Put into a 350 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes, just enough to hold their shape in the sauce.
Also, you'll want to give a package of sweet Italian sausage a quick run through the microwave (8-10 minutes should be good). We're not looking to fully cook, but to just get the casing browned - the meatballs and sausage are going to be in the equivalent of a tomato sous vide for the next few hours, so that will do the cooking for us.
At this point, we're ready to finish the sauce. Go in, and pull out the spent basil, and then add salt and pepper to taste. Once seasoned properly, add the meatballs and sausage in, set the heat low, and let simmer for 4-6 hours.
Okay, Why The Meatball Jacuzzi?
Well, as Andrew points out in the video above, a red sauce needs fat to come together. This is because you need something to counterbalance the acidity of the tomatoes, which can be done with either fat or sugar (which is what most jar sauces use.) As my mother taught me, one way to add the fat as well as further flavor is to cook your meat in the sauce, which works when you're doing a low simmer. That said, you will need to remove the oils on the surface every couple of hours - use a ladle to remove the oils to a measuring cup, then let settle and then decant the oil off the top, then return the remaining sauce to the pot. But other than that, the sauce can be left to just simmer to deliciousness. Once we're ready to begin assembling the lasagna, we need to make...
The Bechamel
Ingredients:
One of the "mother sauces", bechamel is actually really easy to make. Start by melting the butter in a pan, then when fully liquid, add the flour and stir until you have a blond roux form. Once formed, slowly introduce milk while stirring until a white sauce without any lumps is formed. I added a half cup of mozzarella to thicken the sauce further and add additional flavor.
Now, we are ready for...
The Lasagna
Ingredients:
Fish out the meatballs and sausage from the sauce and put aside, and give a good stir to fully incorporate. Then in your baking vessel, lay down a layer of sauce as a base. Then, starting from there, we build each layer as such:
Repeat until you are at the top of your vessel. Then lay down a final layer of noodles, Red Sauce, and mozzarella to form the top crust. Place in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes, then remove and let rest for what will be an excruciatingly long 30 minutes. Once allowed to rest, serve with the meatballs and sausage on the side, and enjoy your hard work.
Why the additional meatball making step? I've never even heard of lasagna with meatballs, clearly it's a thing, as both your recipes have it. Are you just making meatballs to have fat? I've always just put ground beef or pork in the red sauce after Browning.
Lasagna is easy though, very little active time and provided you simmer the tomato sauce for at least 2 hours will be delicious even if you add nothing else but salt, garlic, bechemel, cheese and noodles. Tomatoes develop so many flavors while cooking.
Because I like meatballs, and that's how my mother taught me to make the sauce.
I'm good doing it the way my Italian grandmother taught me to.
Why?
Caramelization, mostly. You want as much caramelization as possible to enhance the flavors, but that's not really possible while keeping something at a simmer, or even a boil, since sugars don't caramelize until 300 degrees or so. It's also why most vegetables are better in the oven that a wet method like boiling or steaming.
This can also be achieved by just not stirring it as often as you might otherwise on the stovetop, but this is harder to control and see.
It's also easier, since it requires less stirring in general, and allows you to better control the temperature.
A thicker sauce (which is more easily achieved in the oven) is also better for lasagna specifically, since between the sauce and the cheese, there tends to be a lot of extra moisture that seeps out of the ingredients when you actually do get around to baking the entire dish, which you don't want. Baking the sauce separately first helps with that, by getting all the moisture out beforehand.
If you're boiling water on a stovetop, you have lots of convection. But a red sauce isn't water. It's nowhere near as fluid. Which means that you mostly have conduction at the very bottom, resulting in burning. There's also a splattering issue: Since all the heat is concentrated at the bottom, you have small pockets of water converting to steam very rapidly. Also, since these bubbles form at the very bottom, they build a bit of pressure, and basically explode when they reach the top. In the oven, convection happens from the surrounding air, conduction happens from all sides, and you benefit from infrared coming from the oven walls. This produces much more even heating and less splattering.
If you really want strong carmelization for a super meaty sauce, you can add some baking soda. The change of pH will promote browning. The reverse is also true: Acidity will slow it down.
Of course, too much carmelization can dull the flavor. Even more so if you add cream, or if there's a lot of beef fat. Acidity also adds depth and brightness. I usually add a can of diced tomatoes, apple cider vinegar, ketchup, etc. at the end. But I don't really follow recipes, it's mainly improvisation.
It good come at me
I heard a comparison to gumbo before.
4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast, Red Bell Pepper, Zucchini, Squash. Canned pineapple slices. BBQ sauce, soy sauce, and garlic powder.
Dice up all those veggies. Whisk together in a bowl 1 cup BBQ sauce, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, and the juice from the can of pineapple, and as much garlic powder as you feel it needs per taste.
Get some heavy duty foil, make some pouches where you put in one chicken breast, 2-3 pineapple slices, a handful of the diced veggies, 2-3 Tbsp of the mixed sauce drizzled over it all, wrap up the foil pouch nice and tight. Throw the pouches on the BBQ at medium heat for ~15m, flipping halfway. When it''s done and you unwrap the pouches, drizzle a bit more of the sauce on them.
I need to practice more with the timing because when I first pulled them off, the first one I unwrapped was slightly underdone, so I threw them back on and they were just slightly overdone, but this was such an easy meal to prep and so tasty that this is definitely going to be one of our new go-tos. The squash and zucchini absorb the flavors of the sauce and chicken, and EVERYTHING absorbs the flavor of the red bellpepper and pineapple, which is one of our favorite vegetables/fruit combos. Highly recommend it if you like these flavors.
edit: And it also seems super moddable, like I proposed I could make a pouch with mushrooms instead of squash for variety