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[Cooking Thread] Burning questions and searing remarks

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Posts

  • ChanusChanus Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster Apocalypse The Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User regular
    you probably get plenty of potassium in your normal diet if you don't eat, like, funyuns only, and too much potassium can be really bad for your kidneys, so i don't know that i would even recommend replacing all table salt with KCl

    seems fad dietish at best

    Allegedly a voice of reason.
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited September 2021
    Tarantio wrote: »
    I don't how many things food is made out of, but fat is definitely one of them.

    Hah, yeah, true. I added that to my post. I think I mainly left it out because I was talking about the bulk of a food. I left out vitamins, minerals, water and "whatever dirt is sticking to it." Maybe I'm just not considering a stick of butter "food", though I know some people that would disagree with me...

    dennis on
  • eMoandereMoander Registered User regular
    edited September 2021
    Apologies, I did not mean to come off as trying to attack your choices and I do support you making healthy changes!

    I will just say that potatoes have little to no appreciable fiber, and the starch (of which it is almost 100%) is converted into straight glucose very efficiently in your gut. So while it may not taste sweet, your body sees very little difference in eating a potato vs eating a cup of granulated sugar (the only real difference being more glucose and less fructose than you would get with cane sugar, but from a straight blood sugar level its basically identical). I say this as someone who grew up with the messaging of 'eat a healthy baked potato!' drummed into them constantly while growing up, and yet struggled with my weight constantly (even with exercise) until I actually started to cut back on total carbs. Just because its technically a vegetable does not make it healthy!

    Regardless of the carb tangent, the potassium chloride seems to be a winner. The granules in the Amazon stuff are different size than my normal sodium chloride so I don't want to mix them in one shaker. At the moment, I'm just adding them separately and eyeballing a 50-75% ratio of sodium to potassium. I put it on some tritips that I rotisseried for a couple hours last night (which came out perfectly cooked I might add!), doing the south american 'season meat only with salt'. Even with my wife's earlier complaints about thinking the potassium tasted bitter on its own (and come on, no one thinks you should just put straight KCl on your tongue and think its great), she had no issues with the tritip at all. So yeah, a little more work on the setup but no difference in taste on the outcome and hopefully everyone stays a little healthier!

    eMoander on
    Xbox: Travesty 0214 Switch: 3304-2356-9421 Honkai Star Rail: 600322115 Battlenet: Travesty #1822
  • GrudgeGrudge blessed is the mind too small for doubtRegistered User regular
    Well, I've eaten deep fried lard and it was frickin' delicious. And composed of maybe 99% fat.

    But sure, it's probably an exception.

  • ButtersButters A glass of some milks Registered User regular
    eMoander wrote: »
    Apologies, I did not mean to come off as trying to attack your choices and I do support you making healthy changes!

    I will just say that potatoes have little to no appreciable fiber, and the starch (of which it is almost 100%) is converted into straight glucose very efficiently in your gut. So while it may not taste sweet, your body sees very little difference in eating a potato vs eating a cup of granulated sugar (the only real difference being more glucose and less fructose than you would get with cane sugar, but from a straight blood sugar level its basically identical). I say this as someone who grew up with the messaging of 'eat a healthy baked potato!' drummed into them constantly while growing up, and yet struggled with my weight constantly (even with exercise) until I actually started to cut back on total carbs. Just because its technically a vegetable does not make it healthy!

    Regardless of the carb tangent, the potassium chloride seems to be a winner. The granules in the Amazon stuff are different size than my normal sodium chloride so I don't want to mix them in one shaker. At the moment, I'm just adding them separately and eyeballing a 50-75% ratio of sodium to potassium.

    Ok but the "empty calories" charge for a baked potato was objectively false. The fiber content is modest but that's the case for most foods and potatoes are good source for B vitamins (B6 and Niacin), vitamin C, and other nutrients when properly prepared. They can also be very satisfying especially compared to other starches which can make them essential to a healthy diet.

    PSN: idontworkhere582 | CFN: idontworkhere | Steam: lordbutters | Amazon Wishlist
  • eMoandereMoander Registered User regular
    Chanus wrote: »
    you probably get plenty of potassium in your normal diet if you don't eat, like, funyuns only, and too much potassium can be really bad for your kidneys, so i don't know that i would even recommend replacing all table salt with KCl

    seems fad dietish at best

    to be clear, the NEJM article tested a 25% replacement of NaCl for KCl and showed significant benefits to both heart disease and stroke, with no significant difference in hyperkalemia (multi-year study focused on actual health related endpoints rather than just a clinical marker like blood pressure). To be fair, they did not test any other ratios, but I don't think anyone is suggesting to replace all table salt with KCl. This is a rigorous peer-reviewed study in a very reputable journal; to dismiss it as fad dietish is 'fake news' level of anti-science imo. I would encourage you to review the actual primary data rather than just dismissing it outright.

    Xbox: Travesty 0214 Switch: 3304-2356-9421 Honkai Star Rail: 600322115 Battlenet: Travesty #1822
  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    edited September 2021
    Grudge wrote: »
    Well, I've eaten deep fried lard and it was frickin' delicious. And composed of maybe 99% fat.

    But sure, it's probably an exception.

    Fat is delicious, because it's tremendously energy-efficient and we evolved in an environment where it was practically impossible to get too much of it. You're basically eating a battery that someone helpfully charged up for you, of course your system is going to say "yes, good, more of that, please." (and being able to go down to the corner shop and just... buy batteries is absurd, how could that ever happen?)

    UNLIMITED calories, readily available? Haha, sure, maybe in some crazy dream world. Now get back out there and hunt or gather something before you starve.

    Commander Zoom on
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited September 2021
    Tarantio wrote: »
    I don't how many things food is made out of, but fat is definitely one of them.

    Hah, yeah, true. I added that to my post. I think I mainly left it out because I was talking about the bulk of a food. Maybe I'm just not considering a stick of butter "food", though I know some people that would disagree with me...

    I also left out water, but I'll be damned if I'm putting that in! :biggrin:
    eMoander wrote: »
    Apologies, I did not mean to come off as trying to attack your choices and I do support you making healthy changes!

    I will just say that potatoes have little to no appreciable fiber, and the starch (of which it is almost 100%) is converted into straight glucose very efficiently in your gut. So while it may not taste sweet, your body sees very little difference in eating a potato vs eating a cup of granulated sugar (the only real difference being more glucose and less fructose than you would get with cane sugar, but from a straight blood sugar level its basically identical). I say this as someone who grew up with the messaging of 'eat a healthy baked potato!' drummed into them constantly while growing up, and yet struggled with my weight constantly (even with exercise) until I actually started to cut back on total carbs. Just because its technically a vegetable does not make it healthy!

    First off, this "no appreciable fiber" business is just flat out goose juice. Do you think spinach has "no appreciable fiber"? Because cooked spinach has 2.4g of fiber per 100g. Baked potatoes? 2.3g of fiber per 100g. Cooked carrots? 3g/100g. Cooked broccoli? 3.3g/100g. To say they have no appreciable fiber is flat out wrong, or ignoring that I'm saying baked potatoes, which implies you're not tossing the skin.

    On to the "converted into straight glucose very efficiently in your gut" and "your body sees very little difference in eating a potato vs eating a cup of granulated sugar". It's just bunk. Or at least to say it with certitude. There's a lot of research about GI and GL and guess what? It's incredibly contradictory. Even the measurements done are pretty contradictory, as they take averages and then averages of averages. And it's done without considering where a food fits into the rest of a diet, pretending like you're eating it 100% of the time. It's very much in the vein of other junk science and fad diets where they take a bit of scientific information and sprint as fast as they can with it.

    I hope I don't have to talk more about this topic, because it's really starting to piss me off. Finding a diet that works for you isn't simple. But about 90% of it is just paying attention. I think that's why so many diets, even when they have totally different lists of what is the Good Food and the Evil Food still work (while you stick to it). It's because you're actually thinking what you're about to put into your mouth fits into everything else you're eating that day. You're eating with intention, rather than just eating with desire.

    If you're doing some serious training, sure, you might have to really turn the screws and compare one healthy thing to one other even more healthy thing so you can eke out the greatest benefit. But for the average person, it's going to be much simpler than that. When I say simple, that doesn't mean it's easy. It's pretty damn difficult, because like Commander Zoom mentioned, our bodies are driven to consume things that were scarce in our environment thousands of years ago. But jeez, just stop demonizing the baked potato.

    dennis on
  • ChanusChanus Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster Apocalypse The Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User regular
    eMoander wrote: »
    Chanus wrote: »
    you probably get plenty of potassium in your normal diet if you don't eat, like, funyuns only, and too much potassium can be really bad for your kidneys, so i don't know that i would even recommend replacing all table salt with KCl

    seems fad dietish at best

    to be clear, the NEJM article tested a 25% replacement of NaCl for KCl and showed significant benefits to both heart disease and stroke, with no significant difference in hyperkalemia (multi-year study focused on actual health related endpoints rather than just a clinical marker like blood pressure). To be fair, they did not test any other ratios, but I don't think anyone is suggesting to replace all table salt with KCl. This is a rigorous peer-reviewed study in a very reputable journal; to dismiss it as fad dietish is 'fake news' level of anti-science imo. I would encourage you to review the actual primary data rather than just dismissing it outright.

    yeah i did read it

    i don't think an 8% decrease in stroke risk is worth a 1% increase in hyperkalemia, especially when the study was for at-risk 60+ year olds. there's not much reason to conclude that means this is a change everyone should make

    a single study, even a seemingly robust one, is not good enough to base changing your diet off of, especially if you're not even in a similar group to those the study tracked

    you're basically just increasing your risk of hyperkalemia for no good reason

    Allegedly a voice of reason.
  • eMoandereMoander Registered User regular
    Chanus wrote: »
    eMoander wrote: »
    Chanus wrote: »
    you probably get plenty of potassium in your normal diet if you don't eat, like, funyuns only, and too much potassium can be really bad for your kidneys, so i don't know that i would even recommend replacing all table salt with KCl

    seems fad dietish at best

    to be clear, the NEJM article tested a 25% replacement of NaCl for KCl and showed significant benefits to both heart disease and stroke, with no significant difference in hyperkalemia (multi-year study focused on actual health related endpoints rather than just a clinical marker like blood pressure). To be fair, they did not test any other ratios, but I don't think anyone is suggesting to replace all table salt with KCl. This is a rigorous peer-reviewed study in a very reputable journal; to dismiss it as fad dietish is 'fake news' level of anti-science imo. I would encourage you to review the actual primary data rather than just dismissing it outright.

    yeah i did read it

    i don't think an 8% decrease in stroke risk is worth a 1% increase in hyperkalemia, especially when the study was for at-risk 60+ year olds. there's not much reason to conclude that means this is a change everyone should make

    a single study, even a seemingly robust one, is not good enough to base changing your diet off of, especially if you're not even in a similar group to those the study tracked

    you're basically just increasing your risk of hyperkalemia for no good reason

    My intent was not to come in here to attack anyone, and given the tone of responses, I'm going to bow out of the thread for now as I seem to be causing more harm than good.

    I would encourage you to review your statistics though, as the 1% risk was not significant and therefore cannot be interpreted the way you are doing it.

    Xbox: Travesty 0214 Switch: 3304-2356-9421 Honkai Star Rail: 600322115 Battlenet: Travesty #1822
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Chanus wrote: »
    eMoander wrote: »
    Chanus wrote: »
    you probably get plenty of potassium in your normal diet if you don't eat, like, funyuns only, and too much potassium can be really bad for your kidneys, so i don't know that i would even recommend replacing all table salt with KCl

    seems fad dietish at best

    to be clear, the NEJM article tested a 25% replacement of NaCl for KCl and showed significant benefits to both heart disease and stroke, with no significant difference in hyperkalemia (multi-year study focused on actual health related endpoints rather than just a clinical marker like blood pressure). To be fair, they did not test any other ratios, but I don't think anyone is suggesting to replace all table salt with KCl. This is a rigorous peer-reviewed study in a very reputable journal; to dismiss it as fad dietish is 'fake news' level of anti-science imo. I would encourage you to review the actual primary data rather than just dismissing it outright.

    yeah i did read it

    i don't think an 8% decrease in stroke risk is worth a 1% increase in hyperkalemia, especially when the study was for at-risk 60+ year olds. there's not much reason to conclude that means this is a change everyone should make

    a single study, even a seemingly robust one, is not good enough to base changing your diet off of, especially if you're not even in a similar group to those the study tracked

    you're basically just increasing your risk of hyperkalemia for no good reason

    And this, in a nutshell, is the problem with the way people approach health and medicine. Cherry-picking from a few (sometimes one) study, extrapolating, not taking a holistic approach, etc. And it's not an entirely new thing. It's how we got "quick, everyone switch from butter to margarine!" There's so much we still don't know about how the body works, much less how it works in the huge variety of bodies with their own genetics and epigenetics.

    I can't think of any more appropriate way to close this discussion than this:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ua-WVg1SsA

  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    Life: it'll kill ya.

  • CauldCauld Registered User regular
    I made a delicious meatloaf last night. Just thought you all should know. I didn't measure or really follow a recipe

    1lb ground beef & 1 lb ground pork
    2 sliced of bread ground into breadcrumbs
    6ish ritz crackers ground up
    some heavy cream until wet, but without excess liquid
    Grated in a small onion & a few cloves of garlic
    added in some chopped mushrooms & chopped spinach
    maybe 1/3cup of ketchup
    1 tbsp of mustard
    1 tsp of liquid smoke
    salt & pepper

    then a glaze made of (again only estimates)
    1/2 cup ketchup
    1 tbs mustard
    2 tbs apple cider vinegar
    2 tbs brown sugar
    1 tsp garlic powder
    1/2 tsp onion powder
    1 tsp smoked paptrika
    1 tsp liquid smoke

    baked at 350 until internal temp of 145. Took it out and cranked the temp to 500. Put on the glaze while it heated up then threw it in for 5-10 minutes to set the glaze a bit.
    Let it cool and sliced

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Normally I'd want pictures but... meatloaf.

  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    Alright, so next week I'm supposed to make food for our weekly work lunch, and I want to do curry, but I'm not sure how to translate it to a slow cooker.

    Normally (when I'm not feeling lazy and just skip all the veggies), its

    Onions, Garlic, Bell Peppers, Sweet Potato (parboiled), and Tofu, with coconut milk, curry power, and paprika, plus maybe some extra spices depending on how much I want my wife to hate it.

    Parboil the sweet potatoes in a pot, dump them out, saute the onions and garlic in the pot, add the bell pepper, let it cook for a bit, push everything to the side, add a little more oil and toast the curry powder/paprika, stir it together, add a can of coconut milk, dump the potatoes and tofu in, done.

    I'd like to do this in a slow cooker, but I'm not sure I can really get it hot enough to get the veggies cooked properly in a slow cooker, and the last time I tried with chicken instead of tofu it ended up super watery thanks to the veggies not being cooked down at all. Does anyone have suggestions? Should I just cook it all the night before, then dump it in the slow cooker to reheat the next day at work?

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • ChanusChanus Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster Apocalypse The Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User regular
    edited September 2021
    you could maybe precook the veggies a bit so they release some water first. you could try reducing your coconut milk before adding it

    don't parboil the potatoes if you're using a slow cooker. throw them in raw and let them break down and the starch will help thicken up the rest

    e: to be clear, don't add less coconut milk, put it in a pan first and simmer it until it thickens up a bit (stir a lot so it doesn't burn)

    Chanus on
    Allegedly a voice of reason.
  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    edited September 2021
    Chanus wrote: »
    you could maybe precook the veggies a bit so they release some water first. you could try reducing your coconut milk before adding it

    don't parboil the potatoes if you're using a slow cooker. throw them in raw and let them break down and the starch will help thicken up the rest

    So one point for the saute everything the night before? I guess I'd also have to figure out what an ok length of time to cook for the sweet potatoes to not just fall apart, but google usually seems to have answers for that shit.

    Yeah, I figured thats what you meant with the coconut milk. If I were going to do that I'd probably just skip adding some of the clear part of the can of milk. Mostly my issue is that the one time we tried a hotplate (for bacon) we set off the fire alarm, so we've been trying to avoid anything that might actually be called cooking in the office.

    Brody on
    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited September 2021
    Brody wrote: »
    Alright, so next week I'm supposed to make food for our weekly work lunch, and I want to do curry, but I'm not sure how to translate it to a slow cooker.

    Normally (when I'm not feeling lazy and just skip all the veggies), its

    Onions, Garlic, Bell Peppers, Sweet Potato (parboiled), and Tofu, with coconut milk, curry power, and paprika, plus maybe some extra spices depending on how much I want my wife to hate it.

    Parboil the sweet potatoes in a pot, dump them out, saute the onions and garlic in the pot, add the bell pepper, let it cook for a bit, push everything to the side, add a little more oil and toast the curry powder/paprika, stir it together, add a can of coconut milk, dump the potatoes and tofu in, done.

    I'd like to do this in a slow cooker, but I'm not sure I can really get it hot enough to get the veggies cooked properly in a slow cooker, and the last time I tried with chicken instead of tofu it ended up super watery thanks to the veggies not being cooked down at all. Does anyone have suggestions? Should I just cook it all the night before, then dump it in the slow cooker to reheat the next day at work?

    In many ways just cooking it properly before hand and reheating it at work the next day is the simpler and easier move since you don't have to try and figure out how to make it work with a different cooking method. And it's not like this kind of dish usually suffers from reheating or sitting around overnight.

    shryke on
  • ChanusChanus Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster Apocalypse The Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User regular
    Brody wrote: »
    Chanus wrote: »
    you could maybe precook the veggies a bit so they release some water first. you could try reducing your coconut milk before adding it

    don't parboil the potatoes if you're using a slow cooker. throw them in raw and let them break down and the starch will help thicken up the rest

    So one point for the saute everything the night before? I guess I'd also have to figure out what an ok length of time to cook for the sweet potatoes to not just fall apart, but google usually seems to have answers for that shit.

    it will help a little bit

    if you're adding tofu you'll want to dry that out as much as possible. that's probably where most of your liquid will come from

    Allegedly a voice of reason.
  • ChanusChanus Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster Apocalypse The Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User regular
    good way to dry tofu is wrap it in a towel and put it between two plates with some weight on the top to squeeze water out

    leave it in the fridge like that for a few hours

    Allegedly a voice of reason.
  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    Chanus wrote: »
    Brody wrote: »
    Chanus wrote: »
    you could maybe precook the veggies a bit so they release some water first. you could try reducing your coconut milk before adding it

    don't parboil the potatoes if you're using a slow cooker. throw them in raw and let them break down and the starch will help thicken up the rest

    So one point for the saute everything the night before? I guess I'd also have to figure out what an ok length of time to cook for the sweet potatoes to not just fall apart, but google usually seems to have answers for that shit.

    it will help a little bit

    if you're adding tofu you'll want to dry that out as much as possible. that's probably where most of your liquid will come from

    Oh yeah, I always squeeze the shit out of that stuff.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • ChanusChanus Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster Apocalypse The Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    Brody wrote: »
    Alright, so next week I'm supposed to make food for our weekly work lunch, and I want to do curry, but I'm not sure how to translate it to a slow cooker.

    Normally (when I'm not feeling lazy and just skip all the veggies), its

    Onions, Garlic, Bell Peppers, Sweet Potato (parboiled), and Tofu, with coconut milk, curry power, and paprika, plus maybe some extra spices depending on how much I want my wife to hate it.

    Parboil the sweet potatoes in a pot, dump them out, saute the onions and garlic in the pot, add the bell pepper, let it cook for a bit, push everything to the side, add a little more oil and toast the curry powder/paprika, stir it together, add a can of coconut milk, dump the potatoes and tofu in, done.

    I'd like to do this in a slow cooker, but I'm not sure I can really get it hot enough to get the veggies cooked properly in a slow cooker, and the last time I tried with chicken instead of tofu it ended up super watery thanks to the veggies not being cooked down at all. Does anyone have suggestions? Should I just cook it all the night before, then dump it in the slow cooker to reheat the next day at work?

    In many ways just cooking it properly before hand and reheating it at work the next day is the simpler and easier move since you don't have to try and figure out how to make it work with a different cooking method. And it's not like this kind of dish usually suffers from reheating or sitting around overnight.

    yeah also just make it at home and then serve it in the slow cooker at work to warm it up

    curry is the kind of thing that's better the next day anyway

    Allegedly a voice of reason.
  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    Chanus wrote: »
    good way to dry tofu is wrap it in a towel and put it between two plates with some weight on the top to squeeze water out

    leave it in the fridge like that for a few hours

    Yeah, we are semi vegetarian, so we eat a lot of tofu. Recently been looking at getting one of those tofu press thingies I saw linked in one thread or another a while back.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Better the next day, but also typically spicier. Keep that in mind unless you're already making it for tame palates.

  • ChanusChanus Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster Apocalypse The Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    Better the next day, but also typically spicier. Keep that in mind unless you're already making it for tame palates.

    they're the same picture.jpg

    Allegedly a voice of reason.
  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    Better the next day, but also typically spicier. Keep that in mind unless you're already making it for tame palates.

    Eh, usually we make stuff fairly spicy at work. I'll be making rice so people can try and drown it in rice if they need to.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited September 2021
    Chanus wrote: »
    dennis wrote: »
    Better the next day, but also typically spicier. Keep that in mind unless you're already making it for tame palates.

    they're the same picture.jpg

    To clarify, since you were kind of vague and this could be taken ambiguously, food can indeed taste spicier the next day. This is for the same reason it can taste better the next day. After all, the same ingredients are all there, so why doesn't it taste identical?

    It's all about blending. When you first cook it, the capsaicin is more concentrated in chunks, as it's not very water soluble. The parts where spice affects you above the throat depend on how much capsaicin comes into contact with your tissues. You give it time, and more of it dissolves into the liquids of the dish, making it coat your entire mouth when you eat it the next time. It won't keep getting spicier, as there's a limit of it getting well distributed in the dish.

    I feel like this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that regularly eats spicy Indian or Thai food. Maybe you never have any leftovers? :biggrin:

    (There's also a smaller factor of evaporation concentrating food.)

    dennis on
  • ChanusChanus Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster Apocalypse The Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User regular
    i meant better and spicier are the same picture hehe

    Allegedly a voice of reason.
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Chanus wrote: »
    i meant better and spicier are the same picture hehe

    Hah, yes. And depending on how much leftovers you want to be bringing home from work for yourself, that may also make it better. :biggrin:

  • evilmrhenryevilmrhenry Registered User regular
    I noticed I had been falling into a cooking rut over the last few months. Dietary restrictions mean that it's just too easy to flip through a cookbook, and not find anything I both want to eat, and can eat. I'm good enough at recipe adjustments that I could fix most of these, it's just easier to not bother. So, I'm going through a recipe book, and at least trying to make something resembling each of the recipes in it.

    First recipe was "fennel-crusted chicken with fennel & herb salad". I'm generally not a fan of "slab of meat" dinners, so I decided to just do the fennel salad part. I looked up variations on fennel salads, and found a fennel and apple salad that I liked better, so made that instead.
    1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced. (Stalks and rest of the fennel fronds were chopped and put in the freezer for the next time I make veggie soup.)
    1 tablespoon fennel fronds
    1 apple, thinly sliced (I used honeycrisp, but just because those were on sale)
    half a lime of juice (other half was squeezed into ice cube trays and put in the freezer.)
    2 tablespoons oil (as if I measured)
    chopped almonds
    mustard
    salt
    pepper

    Combine and toss.
    r1iq844xhbu5.jpg
    If making this again, I would halve the length of the slices; the matchstick (ish) cuts were a bit too long to be convenient. I would also add more almonds or leave them out entirely; I landed in an awkward middle. Maybe also go a bit lighter on the lime.

    As for how I feel about it? Well, the apple contributes a lot more to the flavor than the fennel. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; I tried fennel by itself while making this, and wasn't overly fond of the taste by itself. Combining it with a second flavor seems the obvious solution. The main issue is that fennel is currently $4 a bulb here, which is a lot to spend on something that doesn't contribute much to the taste. (Even if the stalks will end up in soup later.) I assume it's possible to dial in the fennel quantity so that it's present but not too much, but I don't plan on making it again.

    On the other hand, I might try some kind of apple salad again. The sweetness and crunch of the apple and the tartness of the lime combined well. All I need is a third ingredient that completes the two. Also, now I know how fennel tastes and how to prepare it. This is knowledge that is unlikely to be useful, but it's still knowledge.

  • BurtletoyBurtletoy Registered User regular
    Feta/goat cheese goes real well with apple in salads!

  • GrudgeGrudge blessed is the mind too small for doubtRegistered User regular
    I just had a vegan kebab made of seitan, which was surprisingly good. This made me a bit curious, and apparently seitan is pretty easy to make yourself. Has anyone here tried?

  • VishNubVishNub Registered User regular
    One of my coworkers brought in fresh horseradish he had grown today

    We had planned on burgers tonight, but that was an easy enough swerve

    oh0z15gs3uxf.jpeg

    I made a little sauce out of yogurt, mayonnaise, salt, and fresh grated horseradish to go underneath and added some caramelized onions over the top.

    An absolute joy.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Chef John (from Fooood Wishes dot com) dropped this video a few days ago:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fjSRCd5cM4
    For crispy potato puck things. But done without needing to actually fry them yourself in a pan or pot or anything. So obviously I had to try them, as a fan of all things crispy and potato.

    They worked super well. And are super tasty. And probably not at all healthy. But they were delicious and crispy fry-esque puck thingies. And other then having to wash a bunch of starch off the potatoes and then squeeze all the water back out of them and the inherent messiness of dealing with shredded potato, they were super easy to make.

    One big thing though is the flavour in these suckers gets really concentrated. Like, they shrink a bunch during cooking and whatever spices you put in gets intensified way more then you'd think. I put in my normal shake of cayenne for most dishes that my wife, who's sensitive to heat, usually doesn't notice. And these things came out genuinely spicy. And very garlicy too. So just, watch out for that.

  • evilmrhenryevilmrhenry Registered User regular
    Remember how I made fennel salad, but didn't like it all that much? Well, I tried again, this time making Apple-Pepper salad:
    One apple, diced (I used Honeycrisp)
    One green pepper, diced
    half a lime of juice
    2 tablespoons oil (again, as if I measured)
    chopped almonds
    mustard
    salt
    pepper
    (I also added a bit of chives as well, since I had those available)

    Combine and toss.
    7dwv45t6y4fh.jpg

    This worked much better, since I like the taste of the pepper better than the fennel, and it had a much better appearance, as it was no longer white on white. I still feel the dressing wasn't great; I think my next step will be to replace it with some kind of vinaigrette dressing. (This dressing is basically just lime and oil.)


    I also moved on to the second recipe in the cookbook. This one was Spanish Tortilla With Leeks. This was a bit of a problem, as I don't have a good frying pan for this. (I have a cast iron skillet with very low sides for eggs and pancakes, and a stainless steel pan that's too large for any of my plates, so I wouldn't be able to flip it. I'd also be making something close to an omelette in a stainless steel pan, which sounds like a recipe for disaster.) However, I eventually found a recipe for making this in the oven.
    https://acleanbake.com/spanish-tortilla/
    Yeah, I basically followed the recipe as given. I used half a yellow onion instead of one small sweet onion, but whatever.
    abrdup20pkhy.jpg

    This came out well. I decided to use onions instead of leeks, as I wanted to follow the recipe I was actually using more closely. Since I was making this for dinner, if I was to make it again, I think I'd chop up and add some pepperoni or similar heavily-spiced meat, as it's a bit bland when following the recipe. Also, I had it stick to the pie tin I used on the edges, because I didn't oil all the way up to the top. (Protip: when deciding how many potatoes to put in, just chop them one by one, and put them in the pie tin. Eventually, it'll get full, and that's when you stop.)

  • KamiroKamiro Registered User regular
    I love spanish tortilla and make it regularly. Though I've never tried a baked one.

    The recipe I use calls for 4 medium sized potatoes, one large onion, a few cloves of garlic, 5 eggs, and salt and pepper.

    break open the eggs in a large mixing bowl and whisk till it's all mixed up.

    Slice the potatoes about 1/4" thick, slice the onions a little thinner than that.

    cover the bottom of a skillet with olive oil (like, way more oil than you would use to fry something) and heat up on medium heat.

    then start layering the ingredients. cover the bottom of the pan with the potato slices, then a layer of onion slices, then sprinkle some garlic. then potatoes -> onions -> garlic again and then finally with a layer of potatoes.

    there should be some light frying going on. after a few minutes, carefully start flipping sections of tortilla with a spatula so that the top part gets a chance to cook. do this all over the pan for a few minutes until the potatoes are mostly cooked.

    now comes tricky part #1: drain the oil from the pan into a small bowl that you'll reuse later, then slide the contents of the pan into the big mixing bowl with the egg. adjust so that it's evenly covered in egg and let sit there for 15 minutes.

    clean the pan you just used.

    after 15 minutes, fire up the pan to medium heat and add a bit of the oil you had saved (not nearly as much as the first time around, just enough to prevent sticking.

    slide the eggs/potato/onion mixture into the heated pan. as it cooks, sorta flick the pan to the side (all in the wrist) to turn the tortilla so it doesn't stick. do this for a couple of minutes.

    then comes tricky part #2: put a plate over the pan, flip it all the way over, then slide it back into the pan and repeat the process of lightly frying and turning. then when done, put another plate on it and flip for your final project.

    lh8kBn0l.jpg

    bonus: the first time I tried this I didn't drain the oil. enjoy this gif

    https://imgur.com/a/u1Hd7Cj

  • evilmrhenryevilmrhenry Registered User regular
    I'll note that the "proper" technique for the flip is very exaggerated. You don't want the arc to look like a half-circle, where one edge of the pan just sits there while the far edge does all the movement. Instead, the arc needs to look more like a rainbow or arch, where even the closer edge moves significantly. Otherwise, any liquid will just pour out the closer side when you flip. (As demonstrated by Kamiro.) The idea is that the acceleration will hold everything in the pan even after it get turned upside down.

    Physics! It's what's for dinner.

  • KamiroKamiro Registered User regular
    I also always flip over the sink these days and with oven mits on. just in case

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    Did another taco party. Barbacoa de Res Estilo del Norte and the worlds most half-assed version of Kenji's chicken tinga (I was 4kg across two cocottes, random canned tomato bits, running them on the back of the stove with the big-ass oval cast iron doing the beef in front, randomly remembering to add crucial ingredients or not, just a mess), and the chicken tinga was snarfled up by people like crazy. It's not like the barbacoa was bad, but that chicken tinga appears to be crack infused or something.

    The barbacoa:
    2.5kg cowy goodness. Cheeks, shank, neck. I used cheek. it's cheep, so that's nice.
    One onion, sliced (thickish).
    5 bay leaves.
    1 1/2 tsp salt.

    3/4 tsp marjoram
    3/4 tsp thyme
    15 peppercorns
    1/8 tsp whole cumin.
    Grind up those last two and add them to the thyme and marjoram.

    Put half the meat in the pot.
    Cover with half the salt, bay leaves, and onion.
    Repeat with the rest of the meat/salt/bay leaves/onion

    Cover with water and bring to a boil.
    Skim of the nasty foamy goop.
    Let the pot boil over so that the electric halogen cook top shuts down and you need to transfer the whole damn mass off of it to a cooling rack/hot plate and then wipe down the bajillion degree surface with a cloth to get it working again and now your kitchen smells like beef stew and your next day cleanup is even more funner. (Optional step)
    Add all the other stuff to the pot.
    Boil for two hours 20 minutes.
    Remove, shred, pour a little of the liquid over the beef for moar flavor.

    I did a double recipe of the barbacoa and shredding 5kg of beef isn't a super duper fun time. Plus there's enough grease around that the handle of your knife starts to get slippery, which makes things even less fun.

    Main takeaway: He who controls the chicken tinga controls the universe.

    daveNYC on
    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Kenji's one-pot chicken tinga is fantastic stuff. One of my favourite recipes (along with his carnitas) whenever I can get my hands on tomatillos.

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