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BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
Related thread:
BS: The other recipe thread is too long (888)
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Thompson Date: 09 Feb 19 - 09:58 AM Ah, that most delicious of all dishes, ad hoc leftovers jazzing up fresh vegetables! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 08 Feb 19 - 11:59 PM This evening I made a batch of my own invention, chunks of zucchini in a casserole with onion, green pepper, Italian sausage, pasta sauce, Parmesan cheese, some wine, egg noodles, and I cleared out some partial things in the fridge and freezer. A couple of peppers I needed to dice and freeze, some went in the skillet, a small container of frozen diced tomato, the rest of a jar of fancy roasted red peppers and feta cheese (by Peloponnese) from lunch a couple of weeks ago. That last ingredient made this dish amazing. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Donuel Date: 08 Feb 19 - 01:39 PM I never eat tiger But I do eat meat As a good driver the drive throughs are sweet Food is violence No matter your mood You will break silence When you are the food Tigers get hungry In the wild or Zoo When not caged but free the new food is you |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Mrrzy Date: 08 Feb 19 - 11:48 AM Heh heh you are *already* food, Donuel! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Donuel Date: 08 Feb 19 - 09:38 AM food is violent Vegans won't eat meat Living things with eyes will not be their treat Pigs feet make them cry Food is violent Organic or not Screams are silent What ever you got I've beaten some eggs Not a sound was made I've fried chicken legs There was no first aid I've peeled bananas Potatoes I've mashed It sounds like torture the food that I've thrashed Make a melon ball slice a tomato Your food has been mauled As if torpedoed I've whipped cream, crushed nuts burned red onions vegetables cut all by the dozen Food is violent no matter your mood After an ambulence You'll one day be food |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Thompson Date: 07 Feb 19 - 12:49 PM The only alcohol I've ever found had a slightly bitter taste was the Guinness in Guinness stew, but I don't mind it there. Maybe my tastebuds are lacking (quite possible as many years of sinus infections have played merry hell with my sense of smell), but I don't get any bitter undertaste from the slosh of red wine I'll put into a stew or the slosh of vermouth I'll often put in when cooking fish. Steve, how do you get your sirloin flat? I went to the butcher's today and got him to flatten it, which he did, saying any further flattening would wreck the fibres of the meat. But do you flatten it yourself, for instance by beating the tripes out of it with a rolling pin while invoking the name of your favourite government minister? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Mrrzy Date: 07 Feb 19 - 06:44 AM Was negligible, sorry. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Mrrzy Date: 07 Feb 19 - 06:43 AM Right, cook with the wine you're drinking, that's what I learned. Also there was a lot of liver damage in my family... Mom could not eat one chocolate with cordial in it... But we were never triggered by food with wine, or flambeeing, so I am pretty sure the alcohol left in, say, mom's coq au vin or beef bourguinion was anything other than negligeable. Also my sheperd's pie failed: too much liquid, it got above the mashed and created an awful texture. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Feb 19 - 06:33 PM Well you know me - I have nothing whatsoever against booze, and there's nowt nicer than a boozy trifle or a big glug of Baileys poured over ice cream. But I don't want that boozy edge in a slow-cooked dish, for example. All I can say is try it and see. Burn it off! There are some booze additions I dislike. For me, using cider to boil a ham is a no-no. Not keen on beef in beer/Guinness either. In Italian cooking, my speciality, if you're going to use wine, you should use the same wine that you're going to drink with the dish. Using a cheap wine that you wouldn't drink, or worse, "cooking wine," will always give you poor results |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 06 Feb 19 - 06:11 PM This discussion got me thinking about all of the okra I have in the freezer, so I pulled out a gallon ziplock bag (about 5 pounds?) and took it next door. Her husband isn't allowed okra now (he loves it fried) due to kidney stones, but she can eat it. She really likes it boiled and he can easily resist the boiled version—you had to grow up with it fixed that way. Alcohol in wine used for cooking adds a harsh edge to the dish. I don't cook often with anything other than regular table wines, but I've had a bottle of Marsala unopened forever because I hadn't thought about how long it would last once opened. There aren't that many things I would make to use the rest of it in a week. But this is what I learned:
From here. And from another site, the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services in New York State, this one with clinical studies into the question: Alcohol can be found as an ingredient in many recipes. It can be added as an ingredient to add specific flavors or it can be part of an ingredient, such as extracts. Many cookbooks and cooks tell the consumer that the “alcohol will have burned off," however the process is more complicated than this simple statement implies. Alcohol does boil at a lower temperature than water - 86 degrees centigrade vs. 100 degrees C. for water, though one may have to boil a beer for 30 minutes to get it down to the NA or nonalcoholic category, which by law means it contains less than .5 percent alcohol. I am happy with the way food tastes with no extra effort to remove alcohol beyond the natural cooking time and low boiling point of alcohol. I do use it to deglase, so there it has been happening unconsciously. But last night's delicious teriyaki simmered for 30 minutes so no doubt still contained some alcohol. I'll pass on the boiled beer. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Mrrzy Date: 06 Feb 19 - 05:01 PM You guys have Better Than Bouillon? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Charmion Date: 06 Feb 19 - 04:35 PM The Instant Pot multi-cooker does boffo beans. I made a beans-and-ham-hock stew for the ages yesterday, and it took only an hour, plus time to bone the hock and cut up the meat. Perfect texture, great flavour. Further to the discussion of stock, above: I'm with Steve Shaw on bouillon cubes. I read the labels on the packets at the supermarket, including the ones that say Organic and whatever, and always end up putting them back on the shelf in favour of the cut-up veg and chicken wreckage that I have used for some fifty years. It isn't just that I don't know what the finished article will taste like, it's also that properly made stock behaves in a particular way when you boil it down, and I have no idea whether the bouillon cube will produce a similar result. I'm not so sure of Steve's analysis of the effect of wine, but then every cook has his/her own special understanding of "harsh". Come to think of it, everything I put wine in gets flambéed or cooked for ages, and sometimes both. As for okra, I have no idea. The only place to buy okra around here is more than half an hour away in Kitchener, and I don't consider it worth the trip. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Jos Date: 06 Feb 19 - 06:25 AM On the sliminess of okra, which always puts me off, I saw a television programme in which they said you could cure it by soaking the okra in salt and vinegar. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Feb 19 - 05:23 AM Alcohol in wine used for cooking adds a harsh edge to the dish. Unless you're heating the booze very fast, when deglazing for example, it takes hours to evaporate away and there will be some left if the cooking temperature is kept low, even for hours. In a slow cooker the alcohol will hardly evaporate at all even if you leave it cooking all day. It's the fruit and acid elements in the wine that you want, not the alcohol. And burning it off is fun! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Feb 19 - 05:15 AM Delia Smith always recommended Marigold bouillon powder for veg stock. I found it disgusting and threw it away. I won't use veg stock cubes or powder. If I can't use chicken stock I'll boil up a carrot, onion, celery stick and herbs for half an hour to make my own. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Thompson Date: 06 Feb 19 - 02:43 AM Ooooh, will try that beef stock base, Steve. Will try that next time. As for the strips, ahhh. Like what my father used to do with veal scallopini for a toast treat - mushrooms simmered in butter, Marsala... Of course nothing cabbagey in stock, who would DO that! I’ve just got a tub of bouillon powder - re-familiarising myself with cheap old hippie recipes in case Brexit gets as terrifyingly economy-destroying as looks likely. Do he use it? We make a cold spinach salad from Japan here that would go nicely as a side dish with your teriyaki chicken, Stilly. Blanch the washed spinach quickly in boiling water, drain it and rinse it off in cold water (this removes any chalkiness) and squash out the water; mix in ground-up sesame seeds, a little sugar and soya sauce (we use Kikkoman). It’s also lovely hot. Here’s a proper recipe https://www.justonecookbook.com/spinach-with-sesame-sauce |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 05 Feb 19 - 09:52 PM Yes, the gel and everything that roasted with the chicken goes into the stock. If I don't have any homemade I use bouillon cubes (I found a robust variety a while back and bought a lifetime supply). I have some beef bouillon in the fridge also. That can help boost the cooking liquid when starting out to braise a pot roast or make stew. More than once I've seen people mentioning burning off the alcohol in wine. Why? It adds more flavor to whatever you're cooking and is gone by the time cooking is finished. This evening I made teriyaki chicken, that I haven't made in probably years. Here in the states one of the earlier cooking programs on Public Broadcasting was with Jeff Smith, who was The Frugal Gourmet. Alas, his program disappeared from sight when he was charged with abusing the young man who was his assistant, but his teaching of how to make dishes was top-rate and I have a number of his recipes I still use. And his cookbooks are out there in the used book stores. I gave one to my son, and explained that while the man himself was in disgrace, his cookbook was helpful in teaching how to do the things needed for various recipes. 1/2 cup of sherry (though I didn't have any so used Marsala) 1/4 cup of soy sauce 2 tablespoons sugar grated ginger (as much as seems right) Pour the marinade over the chicken and let it sit for at least a few minutes; I turned it every so often and left it in the fridge for a couple of hours. I usually use cut up whole chicken parts in the past, but on this occasion I had a deeply-discounted package of organic chicken thighs that had been deboned and no skin. I buy it frozen. Normally skin and bones go in the dish, but when the thighs were half-price to start with and if you bought two you got the second package for 1 cent, I got them. And thighs have so much more flavor. Anyway, use peanut oil if you have it and put enough in a deep skillet or a other lidded pan to brown the chicken. Do it in a couple of batches if needed (I had about 3.5 pounds of meat, so it took two batches). Once it is browned, return all meat to the pot, pour the marinade over the meat, cover it and let it cook for 30 minutes. Serve over rice. Because I had as much chicken as I did I made half-again as much marinade to work with. And I'll have some wonderful leftovers for the rest of the week! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Steve Shaw Date: 05 Feb 19 - 08:52 PM For a glorious lamb stew, watch Gennaro Contaldo on YouTube making one in Malta (it Googles). It works a treat. If you're making it for the next day hold back the peas until then, then they won't lose their colour. Frozen peas work a treat and don't need long. I used diced shoulder for this. My butcher dices it for me but I found with him that I needed to do a bit of trimming on some of the pieces, but the connective tissue does cook nicely. Not so much dried skin. A great one-pot dish. It may need bit longer to go tender enough than Gennaro says. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Steve Shaw Date: 05 Feb 19 - 08:40 PM I like the organic Kallo stock cubes too, Thompson, if I need a lighter stock. And your stock recipe is right up my alley. Here's a cheat's secret: add a Kallo cube to your stock pot. The stock comes out even richer! I never add brassica trimmings to stock. If I want stock for something like a slow-cooked pot roast, I'll use one Kallo beef cube to 500ml water, I'll soak a handful of dried porcini in 300ml boiled water for 20 minutes and use the liquor from that (look out for the last drop which can be gritty), and I'll boil a glass of red wine in a small saucepan and set fire to it to burn off the alcohol. Mix that lot together and you have a super stock. You can chop up the porcini and chuck that in the pot too. Why not. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Steve Shaw Date: 05 Feb 19 - 08:28 PM I said thin slices, Thompson, not strips. In effect they are just very thin-cut sirloin steaks. The butcher I get them from calls them flash-fry steaks. Best not to have that edge of fat, then they won't curl up. Bash them even thinner if you like. The other night mine got thirty seconds each side in a very hot pan of the garlicky oil. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Thompson Date: 05 Feb 19 - 03:53 PM Made Steve's sirloin-tomatoes-capers-garlic-pepper casserole tonight. It was good, but I was a little stymied by the instructions to cut 300g of sirloin into 6 thin strips. Making thin strips, I had about 15. I'd be inclined to put on some more tomatoes, maybe…? As for what to do with lamb, Irish stew is nice - traditionally it's a white stew, with just lamb and onions and potatoes and herbs and stock, and sometimes barley; however, I happily add carrots. There are lots of Arab lamb dishes which are very nice - try Yotam Ottolenghi as a source. And the Caribbean curried goat is nowadays mostly made with lamb or mutton rather than goat. Artificial stocks: I use those gloops of chicken gel by Knorr often, and if a bit more stocky strength is needed without more salt, one of the Kallo very low salt cubes. Real stock: any roast chicken that passes through our house, the bones and skin go into the pressure cooker, and also the jelly part of the juice of chicken and vegetables and lemon and vermouth that's strained off from the roasting dish. I'll add a couple of stalks of celery, two big carrots, two bay leaves, a whole onion with the skin on, and the green of any leeks hanging around, plus a few herbs - a bit of thyme, mostly. That's pressure cooked for about an hour or an hour and a half, then the dog gets the carrots and celery and the rest of the solids go in the compost bin; the liquid is cooled, poured into plastic boxes and kept in the fridge. Anyone got a nice recipe for fish stock? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: gillymor Date: 05 Feb 19 - 01:13 PM I have fond memories of okra fried much like that by a friend from Valdosta, GA, along with farm-raised catfish. The boiled stuff can just too slimy. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 05 Feb 19 - 12:53 PM The okra I eat has usually been picked that day or very recently; I started growing it because my next door neighbor was having trouble growing it. I thought "how difficult can it be?" and put in four plants - and as a result sometimes had to pick twice a day to keep up with it. I gave her most of it, and suggested that she should show me how she cooks it (not boiled!) because I hadn't eaten it that I could remember. Her fried okra was an instant hit. Cut into about 1/2 inch pieces on a bit of a diagonal, moist pieces rolled in seasoned cornmeal (fish fry is good) with a little white flour for sticking purposes. Place in a skillet in shallow hot corn oil, and don't crowd the pieces. They cool on a plate with paper towels and many of them are eaten at the stove by the cook. If I'm here by myself they sometimes never reach the table. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: gillymor Date: 05 Feb 19 - 10:12 AM Cornmeal thickening works well in Chili too, leenia. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: leeneia Date: 05 Feb 19 - 10:04 AM Thanks for that nice recipe, gillymor. I'll have to try thickening with cornmeal, as you say. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: gillymor Date: 05 Feb 19 - 09:49 AM I love it in black-eyed peas but the "fresh" stuff we get around here is usually dried out and flavorless. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 05 Feb 19 - 09:46 AM I have a lot of frozen organic okra that came out of my yard last fall. I mostly eat it fried (when fresh) and my daughter swoops in periodically for a bag when her household decides it's time to make gumbo. I've used it in stir-fry a few times. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: gillymor Date: 05 Feb 19 - 09:28 AM Bean and Bean Gumbo READY IN: 50mins YIELD: 8-9 cups 2 teaspoons olive oil 1 large onion, chopped (about 2 1/2 cups) 4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed 1 -2 fresh green chili, minced 1 tablespoon paprika 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 3 stalks celery, diced 1 large bell pepper, seeded and diced 3 cups water or 3 cups vegetable stock, plus 3 tablespoons water or 3 tablespoons vegetable stock 2 cups fresh sliced okra or 2 cups frozen sliced okra 1 1/2 cups cooked black-eyed peas (15-oz. can) 1 1/2 cups cooked white beans (15-oz. can) 1 tablespoon brown sugar 2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes 3 tablespoons cornmeal 1 cup minced fresh parsley 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice salt & fresh ground pepper Directions (In spite of the all the ingredients it's pretty easy to make, mostly chopping) In a saucepan, warm the oil. Stir in the onions, garlic, and chiles. Cover and cook on low heat, stirring frequently, until the onions are tender, about 8 minutes. Add the paprika, cumin, thyme, celery, bell peppers, and 3 cups of the water or stock. Bring to a simmer, cover,and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the okra, black-eyed peas, white beans, brown sugar, and tomatoes and simmer for another 5 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender. In a small bowl, whisk together the cornmeal and the remaining 3 tbls. of water or stock and stir into the gumbo. Simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, until the cornmeal is cooked and the gumbo thickens slightly. Add the parsley, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. I made this for a Super Bowl gathering the other day with cornbread and brought along some McIlheny's hot sauce. I got it out of the Moosewood Low Fat Favorites cook book and it turned out well, it got all ate up by a bunch of skeptical carnivores. I used frozen okra because we just don't seem to get the good kind here in S.W. FL, canned diced tomatoes because the fresh ones are out of season right now and used half smoked paprika and half sweet paprika otherwise I followed the recipe. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Charmion Date: 05 Feb 19 - 09:16 AM We have a smoked ham hock and some Great Northern beans. Today, I shall conduct an experiment with the Instant Pot multi-cooker to see whether a proper mid-winter bean soup can be achieved in one afternoon. Tune in tomorrow ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Mrrzy Date: 05 Feb 19 - 08:14 AM Yeah, hating cilantro is indeed a single gene mutation. I called my mom and blamed her when I found that out! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 04 Feb 19 - 12:30 PM There is apparently a genetic connection to who likes or doesn't like cilantro. Something to plug into Google. . . I burned my mouth on hot cheese on a pizza a few days ago and keep re-injuring it, so today is a day for cooler foods. I had some left-over pancakes in the freezer that were reheated (they never exceed comfortable temperatures and don't have scratchy edges like toast might) and I'm letting my tea cool a bit before drinking (pity, but it must be done.) Salads for lunch and dinner. I put fruit into my steam juicer periodically, and most recently used it to juice some cranberries that had been in the freezer for a long time. I now mix up a can of frozen apple juice with the regular amount of water, and add a can's worth of my cranberry juice for a nice (and affordable) cranapple juice. I mostly drink tea or water during the day, I gave up regular pop (soda, coke, etc.) years ago. This fruit juice is mostly carbs but is a treat on occasion. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Mrrzy Date: 04 Feb 19 - 11:09 AM Made a wonderful-seeming leg o'lamb then got the whirlies and never made the party. And a bunch of parker house rolls. Can they become the top to a sheperd's pie? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Steve Shaw Date: 03 Feb 19 - 09:53 AM Fennel seeds I've found unpleasant in everything I've ever tried them in. I can't use coriander (cilantro) because Mrs Steve sez it tastes like Fairy Liquid though I love it. That has a serious effect on my guacamole but I've found that I can use fresh parsley to advantage instead. I find the inclusion of orange peel or zest very odd in savoury dishes and I won't use it. I'm thinking of my chorizo and cannellini bean Spanish stew (which is supposed to have both orange rind and fennel seeds, though not in mine) and my Elizabeth David boeuf en daube. I don't miss it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Mrrzy Date: 03 Feb 19 - 08:30 AM Fennel as a veg is yum: as an herb, it's too liquorice-y. Weird. Coriander seeds are good, cilantro blechhh. Nutmeg is nicer than mace, too. Love nature. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: leeneia Date: 01 Feb 19 - 03:13 PM I just made some: Pork Meatballs with Fennel Mix together: about 1 pound ground pork, 1/4 cup oatmeal, 1 tablespoon fennel seeds (I get mine from an Indian grocery store.) Roll into small meatballs, about 1- 14 inches across. For easier clean-up, put parchment paper on a sheet pan with low sides. Bake 20 mins at 350 degrees. These freeze well. Sauce: saute some minced garlic in olive oil. Add more oil and lemon juice until you have a reasonable amount of sauce. If you have an actual lemon, you can add the zest as well as the juice. Add black pepper and some herbs, if you wish. Rosemary and basil are nice. Cook some noodles. Drain. Return to the pot and gently heat up the noodles, meatballs and sauce. Serve. Add salt at the table as desired. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 01 Feb 19 - 11:31 AM Mrrzy I do the same thing with guacamole. It freezes well. Best to thaw on the counter top, not in the microwave unless you use very short spurts of energy and turn the cubes a couple of times. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Mrrzy Date: 01 Feb 19 - 09:09 AM Trick from my mom: when you've made stock and used some for soup put the rest in old-fashioned ice cube trays in the freezer (when frozen put in ziplock bags). Each stock cube is about 2 tbs, useful for flavoring up lots of things. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Steve Shaw Date: 31 Jan 19 - 09:05 PM I've just remembered my Mediterranean roast potatoes, brilliant with a barbecue or with anything, and they are so easy. For two people you need 500g salad potatoes. They must be of the waxy type. You need a baking tray big enough to spread the spuds out. Scrub the spuds but don't peel. Hack them into chunks about a half-inch in size and scatter them on your baking tray. Add several good glugs of extra virgin olive oil, two or three sprigs of rosemary, salt and pepper and a couple of cloves of bashed but skinned garlic. Toss all that lot together and put into an oven at 180C. After fifteen minutes, remove from oven and toss everything around. At this stage, add the cloves, still in their skins, from a whole head of garlic. Mix everything around then put back in the oven for another 20 minutes or so. Once the spuds are golden they're ready, and you can eat the garlic cloves by sucking out the middles. The recipe is more of a summery thing for us, but it's lovely with some cold meat and a few greens or a salad. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Steve Shaw Date: 31 Jan 19 - 08:00 PM We had dab fillets tonight. I'm not all that confident with fish but I've learned not to overcook, the killer secret. We had four fillets each (they are small) which cost just over three quid. Dead cheap. I seasoned some flour and I dredged the fillets in it, then pan-fried them quite gently in half olive oil, half butter. Three minutes skin down, one minute flipped. We had the fish with Morrisons mushy peas (the ones that come frozen in 1kg bags) and my home-made oven chips (I will not buy oven chips, which are an abomination). My God, it was the meal of the week. My oven chips: the spuds are paramount. They have to be the salad waxy types such as Charlotte or Nicola. Starchy collapsibles won't cut it here. Scrub the spuds and cut off bad bits but don't peel them. Cut them into thick chips or wedges, whatever you like. Parboil for eight minutes in well-salted water then drain. Put the drained spuds back in the pan and shake vigorously to rough up the outsides. Don't omit this crucial step. Put the spuds into a baking tray, tossed with a few good glugs of groundnut oil. Put the tray into a very hot oven (250C) for about 20 minutes. I'm telling you, you can't buy chips as good as that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 31 Jan 19 - 12:01 PM I leave the fat on the stock, and when I decide to soup it up, then the rest of the flavorings you suggest are used. It heats enough to get those flavors then the veg is discarded and the onions and carrots and whatever are going to stay in the soup are then sauteed and added to the stock. In the US it used to be difficult to find no-salt vegetables. Now they're pretty much everywhere and don't cost more than their salted variety (fewer ingredients but they have to use a bit fresher food and process it separately.) Salt can disguise some quality issues. This is why I also use frozen vegetables sometimes; they are frozen closer to the field and are usually picked closer to ripe when used for freezing. I use a lot of frozen strawberries because those fruits didn't get as much of the nonsense as the big beefy flavorless berries that appear fresh (probably picked green and ripen on their way to the store). Frozen fruit is usually smaller, riper, and better tasting at the time it's frozen. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Jon Freeman Date: 31 Jan 19 - 11:24 AM Last year was a poor year for tomatoes at home too, Leenia. The plants grew and flowered well but few fruit set for some reason. Again I've not heard of no salt tomatoes. We do use canned ones though. Napolini chopped tomatoes are a sort of stock item for the cupboard here. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Steve Shaw Date: 31 Jan 19 - 11:18 AM Can you actually buy salted tinned tomatoes? I came across a can once in Spain of all places many years ago. Disgusting! SRS. Adding vegetables to a stock, along with a bayleaf, some parsley sprigs and a couple sprigs of thyme, adds much depth to the otherwise rather insipid bone stock but without any of the flavours intruding. It's a brilliant way of using up the outer bits of onions that you're not sure you should or shouldn't be chopping up, the coarse outside stringy sticks of celery and the carrot trimmings and peelings (or just a scrubbed carrot that's getting on a bit). It avoids food waste and adds greatly to the vitamin and mineral content of the stock. Next controversial assertion: I never skim the fat off my stock, for therein lieth the flavour...... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: leeneia Date: 31 Jan 19 - 11:00 AM Thanks for the straightforward stock idea, SRS. Yesterday I asked the DH to buy one pound of ground beef, and he emerged from the checkout with 3.1 pounds. I like to cook ground meat right away, so I promptly made meatballs for spaghetti and a big meat loaf with it. One half of the meatloaf is now in the freezer. I have a small collection of ziploc bags containing tomato sauce made with homegrown tomatoes. Last year was not a good year for tomatoes, so these bags are precious. I've found that I can take one and add a can of no-salt tomatoes to make it go further, and it still tastes homegrown. As I mentioned before, the no-salt tomatoes taste better than salted. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 30 Jan 19 - 10:35 PM Speak to Jacques Pepin about it. I think he's the one who talked about making stock. Or perhaps Hubert Keller. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Steve Shaw Date: 30 Jan 19 - 09:20 PM It doesn't work like that! Just bung everything into your stockpot... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 30 Jan 19 - 08:53 PM All of those go in when I'm actually making a dish with it. I don't remember which celebrity chef I was listening to who said this gives you the most versatile stock, but I have to agree. I don't really want all of the onions and carrot and leafy stuff seasoning my rice, I like the simple chicken or turkey flavor. I can add the rest and make a richer broth when needed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Steve Shaw Date: 30 Jan 19 - 07:59 PM Well I reckon your stock would be twice as good if you chucked in an onion, two celery sticks from the outside and a big carrot, all chopped up. A handful of parsley, a bay leaf and a sprig of thyme would complete the picture. Just boil up that lot for couple of hours, sieve it out and you have magnificent stock. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 30 Jan 19 - 07:41 PM Every time I have the bones and skin from a roasted chicken I put them in a pot, just cover them with water, and simmer for stock. I did the same thing last fall with the turkey carcass. No vege added until it's being used for soup or something else. I freeze it in pint canning jars and lately I've thawed a couple for making rice (in a rice cooker - as careful as I am the rice in a pan on the stove always seems to stick or burn to the bottom. The cooker is perfect every time). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Steve Shaw Date: 30 Jan 19 - 06:17 PM I have a cheapie stick blender, Kenwood I think, around fifteen quid, that I've had for donkeys' years. It has its own plastic jug thingie. I've told Mrs Steve that, in the extremely unlikely event of a divorce, she's not getting it. Along with a particular carving knife and my cherished stainless steel heavy-based lidded frying pan. My blender-with-jug makes soups, mackerel pate and passata, and, my coup de grace, salmorejo in summer. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating? From: Jon Freeman Date: 30 Jan 19 - 03:26 PM I like the idea of the split “blended” and “with bits” soup. Food processors, etc. I think the only thing I’m currently using ours for is to grate cheese. I’ll chop a block of the extra mature cheddar mum gets in half, 2 pushes through and done and I’ll bag up what isn’t needed. I find this one convenient. I think mum does use it for a couple of recipes including one for cheese scones. I’m not sure the blender attachment for the food processor is any more hassle to clean than the stick blender which would get used say to whip cream. In fact the stick one can be a bit of pain getting the cream out of the tool (without wasting it) but maybe you can recommend a better one? One tool that sits in the bask of a cupboard is a mouli. That was bought to process a glut of tomatoes we had one year and would still be good for that sort of sieving use if we ever wanted to deal with another one. I have sometimes wondered about using it for mashed potatoes but that is one where getting it out of the cupboard, disassembly and washing up after is (I think) beaten easily by just using a hand masher. |
