The Cooking Thread

[Supe]

I made my "you've goat to be kidding me" burgers the other day.

-80/20 chuck with some minced onion
-brioche buns
-caramelized yellow onions with a splash of balsamic vinegar during the last 10 minutes or so
-goat cheese medallion, dipped in flour, egg, panko bread crumbs

Cook burger to medium rare. Deep fry goat cheese at 375F until golden brown. They were AMAZING. Didn't even need condiments, warm goat cheese just smooshes over the burger top to add the salty to offset the sweetness of the onions. That said, I am going to try it again, but this time, with a thin layer of my habanero jelly on it.

 

[LyceeFruit PE]

I made my "you've goat to be kidding me" burgers the other day.

-80/20 chuck with some minced onion
-brioche buns
-caramelized yellow onions with a splash of balsamic vinegar during the last 10 minutes or so
-goat cheese medallion, dipped in flour, egg, panko bread crumbs

Cook burger to medium rare. Deep fry goat cheese at 375F until golden brown. They were AMAZING. Didn't even need condiments, warm goat cheese just smooshes over the burger top to add the salty to offset the sweetness of the onions. That said, I am going to try it again, but this time, with a thin layer of my habanero jelly on it.

want

 

[NJHHEngineer P.E.]

Sweet Potato Ground Turkey Chili - Evolving Table

One of my go-tos especially fall/winter time. Just made a batch last week.

 

[jeb6294]

Tried HelloFresh a couple weeks ago. My sister got it as a Christmas present for Jack, our burgeoning chef. Gotts say, I wasn't terribly impressed. The meals weren't bad, but all the ingredients for a meal are thrown in one paper bag together and then all the bags are boxed up. We had a tomato get crushed so all our bags were soaked in tomato juice. On the website they've got a ton of meals, but when we went to do the next week, the number you can choose from was only about a dozen and I couldn't find three that we'd probably like short of adding the "gourmet" meal which cost quite a bit more.

They give you most of the exact ingredients (might need to come up with your own salt/pepper/olive oil/etc.) you need for each meal and the step-by-step instructions are pretty easy to follow so I could see it being a good choice for someone who doesn't know how to cook, but even Jack thought he could do fine without it.

 

[leggo PE]

It’s what’s for dinner tonight:

https://smittenkitchen.com/2020/04/roast-chicken-with-schmaltzy-cabbage/

 

[snickerd3]

Tried HelloFresh a couple weeks ago. My sister got it as a Christmas present for Jack, our burgeoning chef. Gotts say, I wasn't terribly impressed. The meals weren't bad, but all the ingredients for a meal are thrown in one paper bag together and then all the bags are boxed up. We had a tomato get crushed so all our bags were soaked in tomato juice. On the website they've got a ton of meals, but when we went to do the next week, the number you can choose from was only about a dozen and I couldn't find three that we'd probably like short of adding the "gourmet" meal which cost quite a bit more.

They give you most of the exact ingredients (might need to come up with your own salt/pepper/olive oil/etc.) you need for each meal and the step-by-step instructions are pretty easy to follow so I could see it being a good choice for someone who doesn't know how to cook, but even Jack thought he could do fine without it.

THat's my biggest issue with these types of things. They show lots of choices to hook you in then reduce it quickly. Add in gluten free and minimal dairy and there goes another chunk out the window.

Roasted meat and potatoes basically has become the new staple. I can't eat instant potatoes anymore...within the last year most have upped the amount of milk powder. We have tried a couple different brands for when don't have 45-60 minutes to boil potatoes, and they all have noticeably increased the amount of dairy.

 

[leggo PE]

Real potatoes for the win! Though yeah, they do take time. But if you are looking for mashed, cut them small and they boil in like 20 min. You can make a hash with parboiling and then baking or frying on the stove in less than 40 minutes, too. I get that it’s not nearly as convenient as instant potatoes, but man, it’s so good!

 

[jeb6294]

Jack was talking about one of the meals he made from HelloFresh. Did a quick search and found out you can still get all the recipes even if you're not active anymore. They're the .pdf's that come with the meals so they have ingredients, quantities and the prep steps. All you get with paying for HelloFresh is the ingredients delivered to your door for twice the price of getting them yourselves.

 

[akwooly]

Roasting garlic right now and the aroma from downstairs is making me hungry.

 

[Dothracki PE]

Spring’s Hottest Drop Is This New Shape of Pasta

 

[JayKay PE]

Jack was talking about one of the meals he made from HelloFresh. Did a quick search and found out you can still get all the recipes even if you're not active anymore. They're the .pdf's that come with the meals so they have ingredients, quantities and the prep steps. All you get with paying for HelloFresh is the ingredients delivered to your door for twice the price of getting them yourselves.

That is something I do. My landlords had a delivery of HelloFresh that they didn't want to use, so they gave it to me (for free) and I went on the website, not to buy, but one of the recipe cards were missing. Once I realized I could just follow the recipes, after going on reddit to see what the 'spice mixes' were, it was super easy to just do that. I'd rather go to the store and buy my own groceries and not just the 'specific' amount they include, which always seems much smaller than if I buy local.

 

[squaretaper LIT AF PE]

Spring’s Hottest Drop Is This New Shape of Pasta

Looks like a nudibranch!

 

[Supe]

Made a couple of decent sauces over the weekend.

First one I stole from "Sam the Cooking Guy" - no secret that I hate vegetables, so trying to find ways to make them palatable. Sauce was butter, lemon, thyme, garlic and a bunch of anchovy paste. I don't like anchovies by themselves, but they definitely gave it a salty/savory flavor. Put it on some peppers, asparagus, green beans, and red onions on a baking sheet for about 15 minutes, and they were awesome. You can eat damn near anything slathered in that stuff.

Second one was a DIY concoction of leftovers - cilantro, ginger, lime, garlic, salt, pepper, honey, and olive oil in the food processor for a sort of cilantro chimichurri sauce for kebabs. Came out pretty good.

Also did a quickie hibachi steak recipe - steak, mushrooms, soy sauce, white vinegar, little sugar, garlic, ginger, and white pepper. I made a ton of it, and there wasn't much in the way of leftovers between the three of us, even after making a bunch of fried rice to go with it.

 

[Supe]

My new tools arrived today from Canada.

My Henckel has a crack in it, and the only other knife we had was a battered old Cuisinart. Decided to upgrade. Both are fantastically sharp out of the box. The Gyuto is longer than I'd have thought, but is so sharp it's actually slowing my cutting down because the cutting board isn't resilient enough. White #2 steel, clad in SS. The cleaver is great too. Got it for big vegetable chop/scoop sessions, super fast with some serious heft to it. Just waiting on my honing rod to show up to keep it sharp.

Knife #1: Masakage Yuki Gyuto (210mm)



Knife #2: An inexpensive Tojiro Chinese Cleaver

 

[squaretaper LIT AF PE]

Just waiting on my honing rod to show up to keep it sharp.

Gahhh! No honing rods with Japanese knives! I highly, highly recommend using a whetstone instead (you can get VERY good el cheapo two-sided 1000/3000 grit ones for ~35 bucks, and of course fancier).

Decided to upgrade.

Ooh! New knife day! I will play.

Top is a Dexter carbon steel Chinese cleaver, ground to a 90/10 bevel (kind of extreme, but I like to slice smoothly, not hack chop). Sooo cheap, I love this thing. I...kind of wish I didn't buy the others and just had this one knife since I use it for pretty much everything (fine and coarse work).

Second is an el cheapo Minonokuni carbon steel yanagiba slicer. I only use it for proteins. It's scary sharp. Got the cheap-ish one in case I screwed up the single bevel sharpening.

Third is a 810mm gyuto like yours with a 70/30 bevel. It's a Togiharu carbon steel but I cut a kiritsuke-style tip. I like to claim it's for fine work but honestly I just did it because it looks cool.

Fourth is a stupid New West utility knife that I hate. They run a fantastic marketing campaign and I was bamboozled into getting one. Happy to support USA manufacturing but TBH...the Japanese stuff is better.

Also below, my beater Masahiro molybdenum gyuto upon which I also cut a kiritsuke tip (come on...it looks cool!). Had some scrap mahogany laying around so I made a little saya for it. This brand is kind of cool because it's a true one-sided knife (the cross section is a right triangle) but without being as fragile as a traditional Japanese slicer.





Edit: Stabby stabby.

 

[squaretaper LIT AF PE]

Also, here's my ready-to-deploy chef kit for when I'm going to a friend's place, they're hosting, but they don't really know how to cook.

It's my degustatory battle sling complete with plating spoon, ceramic peeler (to avoid oxidation on garnish), silicone mini spatula, bench/dough scraper, offset spatula, handle-free Microplane (to feel/appear extra "chef-y"), and probe thermometer because food safety.

Edit: that little MAC 5.5" utility knife is the shiznit. I'm 100% certain I could ditch all the other knives and accomplish everything I need to with just the Chinese cleaver and the little utility knife.

 

[Supe]

Knifewear recommended the honing rod. It's a very mild ceramic one just for maintaining between sharpening, not even aggressive enough to take a burr off. I have one of the whetstone sharpener kits that uses the articulating ball and blade clamp because I'm terrible at holding the right angle, but it's also time consuming to use, so I pretty much will only bother using it on a really dull knife. Since I can just toss the honing rod in the cutlery drawer, it's the thing I'm most likely to actually use. I may consider grabbing a leather strop for it.

I do have to get accustomed to holding the gyuto, though. There's a pretty sizeable gap between the handle and the back of the blade, so you feel really far forward on the blade when holding it with a pinch grip like you should. It's so much lighter than the German knives I'm used to, it's just a strange feeling.

I'm already in love with the $60 Chinese cleaver though. It is the bees knees for chop and scoop. I suspect it will become my go-to for 90% of what I do if I can keep an edge on it.

I wish I had room for a knife stand, but we have zero countertop space. May see if I can find a small magnetic strip for the two, assuming I can find somewhere to put it.

 

[squaretaper LIT AF PE]

Deep fry goat cheese at 375F until golden brown.

Hey @Supe how do you fry things? Just curious how people fry small quantities of things (I rarely fry b/c it's such a pain to get oil in/out of the dutch oven, clean it, etc, etc).

 

[Supe]

Hey @Supe how do you fry things? Just curious how people fry small quantities of things (I rarely fry b/c it's such a pain to get oil in/out of the dutch oven, clean it, etc, etc).

If its something I can flip, I do it in my cast iron skillet. I did salt and pepper shrimp last night, so it only took about 1/4" of oil in the pan. Anything big, I use my regular big non stick cooking pot. Small stuff that needs submerged, I will use just a regular small cooking pot (like the goat cheese rounds, I would just do two at a time in a small pot to save on oil). As long as you're doing small batches, you won't lose enough heat from the oil that cast iron is a necessity. I found it was just easier to clean than my dutch oven, which has the ceramic coating in it. I dump the waste oil in a big wide mouth container like a pretzel jar or something. It is indeed a PITA, though.

 

[Supe]

Speaking of salt and pepper shrimp - Junior requested them this weekend. They were one of her favorites at the Chinese buffet we used to frequent before COVID hit. We bought them from the local Asian Market, because the grocery stores don't care them head/shell on.

• Whole shrimp. Trim off the barb on the head and all the legs. This is the biggest PITA part, and those kitchen shears kill your hands after a while.
• Dust the shrimp with corn starch
• Roast some whole peppercorns and salt in a pan. Once they get super fragrant, grind them up, set aside.
• Add some oil to the pan. In goes some garlic and some thin cut Thai chili rounds. Put them on a paper towel to drain.
• Add some more oil to the pan, just enough for half the shrimp to be submerged. Fry the shrimp for about 30 seconds per side. I can fit about 8 large shrimp at a time in a pan without overcrowding.
• While they're still hot, sprinkle with salt/pepper mixture, and toss in a bowl with the fried garlic and hot peppers.

They were damned good. Mrs. Supe has a textural freakout over things that are in shells and wouldn't eat them, so Junior and I ate way more than we ever should have. Way better than the buffet shrimp.