Please use this thread to talk about cooking, recipes you want to try, how to do some type of cooking, etc.
(Sorry, I'm really tired. I'll try to make this more eloquent at a later date.)
So I tried Gordon Ramsay's scrambled eggs with sour cream instead of creme fraiche. I took internet advice to add some mayo and also added a few drops of balsamic vinegar.
Then my pinch of natural salt accidentally was a little bigger....
Who knew that if you scatter a handful of lemon-grass seeds in a pot in the garden in the spring, ignore it until August and then, as you are surveying the estate so to speak you, come across said (unlabelled naturally) pot full of delicate little leaves, you wonder what it is, you try a leaf and it has a subtle taste of lemon? Then you remember scattering the lemon-grass seeds!
I suppose that it is no surprise really and I suppose too that if left for long enough the root will develop into the lemon-grass we use in Oriental cooking, but you know the leaf itself is just fine to add to a salad of mixed leaves.
Quote from: Bobster on Aug 21, 2017, 09:35 PMSo I tried Gordon Ramsay's scrambled eggs with sour cream instead of creme fraiche. I took internet advice to add some mayo and also added a few drops of balsamic vinegar.
Then my pinch of natural salt accidentally was a little bigger....
And were they much different from non-Gordon Ramsay scrambled eggs?
Mayo? Really?
Recipe videos in the style of famous directors. (http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/08/24/recipe_videos_in_the_styles_of_wes_anderson_tarantino_and_more.html) The Wes Anderson one is perfect.
@Gordonb - I never thought of the lemongrass leaves on their own. What a wonderful discovery! I may have to try that next summer.
@Chris L - I also like the
Tarantino video, especially because it has two parts.
During Amazon Prime Day I purchased an Instant Pot. It is an electric pressure cooker.....sort of a reverse slow cooker. It cooks things pretty fast although some foods aren't much of a time saver. Like a slow cooker, you don't have to watch over it while it cooks - that is what is great about it. You can throw in stuff for dinner and within 45 minutes have a meal. And most of that 45 mins can be devoted to doing other things you need to get done. You can even cook a main course and a side dish at the same time using the "pot-in-pot" method so everything doesn't have to be a soup/stew/casserole type thing.
I've cooked a few things in it so far. I like it but it is a brand new way of cooking and it will take me a while to learn the nuances of it. So far, one of the things I like best is that you don't have to soak dried beans before you cook them. Beans, water, seasonings, and 30 minutes cook time gets you tasty, just tender beans.
As a break from the "shit-it's-only-4-weeks-till-we-go-on-holiday-let's-eat-lentils" diet, for lunch today we had a Dorset crab and avocado salad with "tostones" which is a Venezuelan dish of twice-fried plantain slices; as it has been in the mid 80s today (it's a Bank Holiday in England) we ate in the garden in the shade and it was all rather lovely and good practice for our upcoming trip to Turkey.
Quote from: Gordonb on Aug 24, 2017, 10:18 AMQuote from: Bobster on Aug 21, 2017, 09:35 PMSo I tried Gordon Ramsay's scrambled eggs with sour cream instead of creme fraiche. I took internet advice to add some mayo and also added a few drops of balsamic vinegar.
Then my pinch of natural salt accidentally was a little bigger....
And were they much different from non-Gordon Ramsay scrambled eggs?
Mayo? Really?
Yes they were,
@Gordonb. I'm used to fully cooked and solid scrambled, not loose and in a mound as it were.
I was trying to cut the strongness of the sour cream since I didn't have creme fraiche and was trying ANYTHING I could to have that happen. :(
Tonight I tried making a pancake in my electric pressure cooker. The Instant Pot Facebook group of which I'm a member was raving about this a month or so ago. My thoughts: It was nice to try. Not sure I'll ever do it again. The best thing that can be said about it is that you don't have to watch over it while it cooks. It might be better with a higher quality pancake mix or a really good "made from scratch" recipe. Might.
A few days ago
@JustTheOneAnne posted on FB that she was making pasta e ceci. I didn't know what that was so I looked it up. For those who aren't familiar it is Pasta & Chickpeas (https://smittenkitchen.com/2017/10/quick-pasta-and-chickpeas-pasta-e-ceci/). I found a recipe that I thought she might use on Smitten Kitchen (which I nearly always read as Smitten Kitten). It turns out that is the recipe she uses. There are many out there but this one is pretty basic. It is so easy to make and doesn't use a lot of ingredients. Peruse other recipes if you'd like to jazz it up. I made this last night and it was fantastic. It will be my lunch today. I've added a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese to give it a slightly different flavor profile. But the recipe as is is so good because nothing gets in the way of the tomato flavor.
Quote from: DiveMilw on Oct 24, 2017, 06:02 AMA few days ago @JustTheOneAnne posted on FB that she was making pasta e ceci. I didn't know what that was so I looked it up. For those who aren't familiar it is Pasta & Chickpeas (https://smittenkitchen.com/2017/10/quick-pasta-and-chickpeas-pasta-e-ceci/). I found a recipe that I thought she might use on Smitten Kitchen (which I nearly always read as Smitten Kitten). It turns out that is the recipe she uses. There are many out there but this one is pretty basic. It is so easy to make and doesn't use a lot of ingredients. Peruse other recipes if you'd like to jazz it up. I made this last night and it was fantastic. It will be my lunch today. I've added a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese to give it a slightly different flavor profile. But the recipe as is is so good because nothing gets in the way of the tomato flavor.
I like this dish a lot too - simple but refined; I'd usually use dried chickpeas and cook for longer obviously - tinned chickpeas are fine but they tend to be a little softer than I like. I looked at the link you added Tom and was THRILLED to see that it linked to Rachel Roddy's Thursday Guardian column which is an absolute joy to read and so evocative. We're going to Rome in mid December and we are staying in an apartment in the Trastrevere area of the city which is where she lives and where there are fabulous markets, food shops etc.
Oh my goodness!! Just reading the summaries and looking at the photos is making me hungry and I just finished eating dinner. I can't wait to dive into her blog/column.
Congee is like a rice porridge. I prefer mine on the thicker side but you can make it any constancy you'd like. This time I made it in my electric pressure cooker but you could use a slow cooker or even, gasp, the stovetop.
I prefer to make congee in the slow cooker because I like the texture better that way. But I used my IP last night for a couple of reasons. 1) I wanted to brown my Italian sausage but didn't wish to wash a frying pan. 2) A really long slow cook (8+ hours) tends to leech all of the flavor out of the meat. That makes for tasty congee except for the meat. 3) I actually got out of bed last night to throw this together because I decided I wanted it for lunch today.
This is almost like a risotto knockoff. ;)
30mins, Porridge Setting, NPR until I got up in the morning.
If your pressure cooker doesn't have a "porridge" setting use Manual at High Pressure.
(It might have switched to keep warm. I opened the cover to add some more water and I'm not sure if that function turned on again.)
This is what I put in it. (more or less)
1 Cup Brown Rice
(Normally, I use white rice but I had some brown rice I wanted to use up. You can use any type of white rice. It didn't get as creamy as it normally does and I think that is because of the brown rice. )
1/4 Cup Glutinous Rice
(If you don't have Glutinous/Sweet/Sticky rice use whatever type of rice you have on hand.)
2 cans low sodium chicken broth
2.5 cans of water
1 lbs sweet Italian Sausage
Some mild peppers
2 smaller carrots
Spanish Smoked Paprika
7 cloves of Garlic
2 Bay Leaves
1 Small Onion
2 Tablespoons Tomato Paste
Oregano, dried onion flakes, parsley, roaster garlic powder, other assorted herbs, black pepper.
My husband, half jokingly, asked for this for New Years Dinner. Has anyone made beef wellington? Any helpful hints??
https://www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com/recipes/beef-wellington-for-two/
I bought Amy an Instant Pot for Christmas. Last week she made a terrific rice pudding that we dined on all week. Last night I passed her some recipes I found, via the New Yorker, for Indian cooking. The woman who created the recipes, Urvashi Pitre, has an entire book of Instant Pot Indian, Mexican, Korean and Thai recipes for sale, but quite a few of her recipes are available on the Instant Pot website:
https://recipes.instantpot.com/author/beverlyhaney/
Apparently Indian cooks now regularly use the Instant Pot to create meals, so the results must be authentic. I'm looking forward to our first 15-minute butter chicken.
Butter chicken is all the rage on the Instant Pot Facebook group.
Quote from: DiveMilw on Jan 13, 2018, 06:33 PMButter chicken is all the rage on the Instant Pot Facebook group.
I signed up for the IP Facebook group and signed Amy up to. She's already posted, briefly, in it. The message flow is pretty intense even by Facebook standards.
It was an article about the "Butter Chicken Lady" (who posts in that group) in the New Yorker that led to the trove of Indian recipes I passed on to Amy.
Quote from: Chris L on Jan 13, 2018, 11:17 PMQuote from: DiveMilw on Jan 13, 2018, 06:33 PMButter chicken is all the rage on the Instant Pot Facebook group.
I signed up for the IP Facebook group and signed Amy up to. She's already posted, briefly, in it. The message flow is pretty intense even by Facebook standards.
It was an article about the "Butter Chicken Lady" (who posts in that group) in the New Yorker that led to the trove of Indian recipes I passed on to Amy.
Okay, okay. I get the hint. I'll make it this week and leave some for when I'm out of town.
Drool! :P
I made the Butter Chicken (https://recipes.instantpot.com/recipe/butter-chicken-murgh-makhani/). It was a little too much sauce for the amount of chicken the recipe called for. Maybe they expect you to eat a lot of rice with it. Also, the chicken was a bit overcooked for my taste. It took a long time for the Instant Pot to achieve pressure and I ended up stopping it and starting it again, reducing the pressure time down to 6 minutes from 10 when I restarted. That solved it but may have been part of the reason the chicken was overcooked.
But the sauce was tasty. I'll make it again with some adjustments next time.
The chicken may have been overcooked (I thought it melted in my mouth wonderfully), but the whole thing was delicious. And there was enough left over that Amy has set me up with three containers of what are essentially frozen microwave dinners that I can make while she spends a few days in DC so I can remember what a great cook she is while she's gone.
I'm making the butter chicken tonight. I have twice as much chicken so we will have plenty of leftovers. I figure this will work out since the sauce makes twice as much as you need for one batch. I'll let you know the verdict after I'm done.
Also on the docket for tonight is Instant Pot Chashu. This is pork belly prepared to accompany ramen. Even in the pressure cooker it takes 90 mins to cook and then should "soak" overnight to absorb flavor and firm up to facilitate the cutting of thin slices.
I've been cooking my little heart out for the past 2.5 hours. The Butter Chicken is on the table. I think it turned out OK. I skimped on the butter using only 2 oz (1/2 stick) instead of 4 oz since I used skin on chicken thighs and there was some chicken fat in the sauce.
The pork belly is in the Instant Pot for 40 mins. Then I'll release the pressure, turn it over and continue to cook for an additional 40 mins. I might make that cook only 35 mins because I doubled the amount of cooking liquid and it will take longer to come up to pressure the first time around. In hindsight I should have brought the cooking liquid up to at least a simmer before I added to pork belly. (You can easily do this by using the "saute" feature on the IP (Instant Pot). I'll have to keep that in mind if there is a next time.
My pork belly is done cooking. Now it needs to sit in the cooking sauce for at least overnight.
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Here's Donna's sausage roll recipe that I made today. I love how easy it is to throw together. The hardest part is rolling out the dough and that's not very difficult.
Sausage Roll a la Donna Migliaccio
Pizza dough, shredded cheese and sausage from our local Italian store. Bring dough to room temp. Pre-heat oven to 350. Remove sausage from casings and fry up in skillet. Drain off fat and let sausage cool while you roll dough into a large rectangle (ours was about 14x9 inches).
Spread cooked sausage across dough, leaving an inch-wide border all the way around. Follow with shredded cheese. Starting at the long edge of the dough, begin rolling toward you, tucking in and pinching the outside edges as you go. When you get to the end, pinch the dough to seal along the length of the roll and place the roll, seam side down, on a parchment-covered baking sheet. Brush with beaten egg and bake for 30 minutes or until a deep golden brown. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes and then cut in inch-wide slices. You can serve with marinara sauce or just devour as is.
Sounds yummy. What temperature do you set the oven to?
Quote from: KathyB on May 09, 2020, 05:59 PMSounds yummy. What temperature do you set the oven to?
350 degrees.
I might make these Chickpea Tacos (https://instantloss.com/instant-pot-chickpea-tacos/) this week. They are basically chickpeas mashed up with taco seasoning. If you use canned chickpeas you don't need an Instant Pot to make the recipe.
We'll see if I remember that I want to try this when I think about meals over the next couple of days. I am very good at forgetting about the many, many recipes I want to make once it comes time to actually cook. :D