What's cookin' ?

[LittleFuzzy]

I am getting together the ingredients for a chocolate-mint bread I found in one of my baking cookbooks. It will replace the mint brownies I traditionally make for the Christmas reunion I do with some of my college friends every year. While that's rising I'll be trying to get some marbled peanut-butter brownies right for stocking stuffers, since the Secret Santa never got organized this year.

The peanut-butter brownies came out ok, not the appearance I was hoping for but they tasted fine. I won't be repeated the chocolate-mint bread. It wasn't bad but it wasn't anything like I was shooting for and wasn't worth the effort. Next year I'll just do the mint brownies again and maybe try a light lemon bread, or just do dinner rolls.

[wiggin]

Made dinner for a friend tonight:

Asian BBQ salmon salad (salmon baked with BBQ sauce, wasabi powder, garlic, teriyaki, toasted sesame oil. Toss with romaine, cukes, lemon juice, sesame oil, salt and pepper. Garnish with sesame seeds.)
Pasta Macedonia (sour cream, feta, parmesan, kalamata olives, scallions, butter. Garnish with steamed spinach and top with more feta.)
Key lime pie

Turned out pretty good.

[Timbuk2]

toasted sesame oil

One of my favourite ingredients. Amazing what a difference it makes to Asian cooking.

[wiggin]

Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Surprisingly hard to find at times, though. For those Americans out there, there's some great toasted sesame oil at Trader Joe's.

[Aimless]

scored a couple of beautiful salt-cured ham hocks at a very good price the other day. Now, after a long braise with onions and veggies and garlic and thyme in a dutch oven (inside a regular oven), it has turned into shiny gelatinous meaty deliciousness and mashed deliciousness. Probably one of the cheapest but also most rewarding cuts of pork, albeit difficult to find here in my town.

[GGT]

The prices of meat are rather astounding. Lamb is $15 per pound. Flank steak is $10 per pound, while rump roast is just under $9/pound. The best cuts of beef and steak are more than $15/pound. Pork tenderloin is $8 per pound, even higher if it's been tenderized/seasoned/hermetically sealed. Bacon is $5 per pound. But that's misleading, since no package of bacon has a full pound anymore. Chicken legs (with bones and skin) are $5 dollars per pound. Ground beef is between $4 and $7 per pound depending on fat content and farm source.

I can't recall a time when scanning the meat department meant such a big chunk of a grocery budget.

[Aimless]

Def. better with chick-peas or potatoes

[Aimless]

The ginger has vowed to learn how to make white fish taste good. I've really never been a fan of white fishes (eg. cod). I think they're flavourless, overpriced, and too easy to overcook. Nevertheless, last night we decided to try our hand at cod. Since we're both incredibly lazy we decided to do keep it very simple.

Take a medium-sized cauliflower, cut off the stem, place it whole in a pot with just a little bit (couple of cm) of simmering chicken broth and melted butter. We had no bouillon cubes so we used a spice packet stolen from a packet of ramen let it cook for 10 mins.

Take a few pieces of cod fillets, place them in an oven-proof dish, chuck it in the oven (preheated to ca. 150 degrees celsius with a pan of water inside so it's full of steam). Let it steam for 10 mins.

I can't leave things alone so I added some sambal oelek and some other spices and some lemon to the broth once the cauliflower was done and then thickened it just a little with flour.

Fish out the cauliflower, chop it into four large chunks and devour with fish and some fresh baby spinach. Pour the saucy broth potion over the whole thing for deliciousness. I was very skeptical at first but it was so ridiculously tasty and easy it made my heart sing Kool & the Gang songs

[Aimless]

I needed egg-whites so I invented the following in order to have something to do with the yolks.

Take 4 egg-yolks and whisk them with an electric egg-beater (or, better, in one of those kitchenaid-like things) while slowly adding sugar, about 0.5 dl or maybe a little more, until it's all pale and fluffy and looks like cake-batter.

Heat 0.5-1 dl of cream+milk (not whipping cream, more like 15%) in a double-boiler setup with cinnamon, cardamom and vanilla. You can skip the real vanilla and use vanilla/vanillin powder instead. Remove the spices and then add about 100g of nice dark chocolate (I use 70%, you can use 80% or greater but I think it dominates the other flavours too much), mix it all together as the chocolate melts. If it gets wonky just let it cool for a while and then whisk it together thoroughly. Beat the gloop into the egg mixture bit by tiny bit. Add some champagne or similarly flavoured bubbly, like 0.5dl or so. Pour into 4 or 5 cups or whatever (I used round-bottomed whisky-tumblers) and let them sit in the freezer for a few hours. Eat with sliced strawberries and coffee or some suitable booze

You can forego the bubbly in which case the end result will be more dense and chocolatey.

[RandBlade]

Its quite expensive (though on sale) but I'm tempted to get this: http://www.philips.co.uk/c/home-cook...hd9225_50/prd/

Air fryer to cook chips without deep fat. Anyone tried something like this?

[Aimless]

On the one hand, your fat intake may go down... on the other hand, your chip intake will quadruple still, nice looking product, and it's been getting great reviews online

[Aimless]

But given that it can do much more than chips it sounds like a great idea!

[Aimless]

Although it kinda sounds like a small modern convection oven

[Flixy]

Yeah, it does. Seems like a bit of a waste, considering you can already use your oven to make fries! I mean, my mum's oven also has convection and grill, and is bigger and has a wider range of temperatures.

[evenstar]

We were given a Tefal Actifry (which seems similar) last Christmas, and we absolutely love it. I used to always make fries in the oven, but these taste so much better. If you have the space and the extra cash, I think it's worth it.

[RandBlade]

I originally saw the Tefal Actifry and have been on-again off-again on whether to buy it. Its only now that I've recently thought yes go for it that I started looking seriously and came across this Philips one. The only thing different it seems is that this one can be used for baking cakes as well (big in our household, normally yes the oven though). Can you bake etc in the Actifry or is it just frying? Do you use it for just chips or much else?

[evenstar]

We've only used it to make different styles of fried potato, but it comes with a recipe booklet with other ideas, and if you look online you can find even more recipes for anything from breakfasts to soups to desserts. I don't think you could bake a cake with it, though, because it has a paddle that is constantly stirring the ingredients. That wouldn't work for a cake.

[RandBlade]

Got the airfrier. First thing cooked was some sweet potato fries - but we had no oil in, so just chopped the fries up and left them to soak in water before frying. Amanda said she liked them but I found them a bit dry, will try again another time coating with some oil as recommended.

Also tried frying some other things and its worked really well with them. First Amanda did some bacon yesterday and the bacon cooked better in the airfrier than I've ever been able to cook it in a pan. This morning I made a breakfast wrap for us with airfried sausage and bacon and the sausages like the bacon came out really good. Juicy, evenly cooked with no added oil or anything else.

Was worried about trying to cook fatty foods like that in it but the cooking actually comes blown in from above the pan inside so its quite easy to clean too . The food goes inside a mesh pan (like you'd put into a deep fat fryer) so any fat that comes out will go away just like a health grill.

This doesn't come with a paddle like yours, if you need to stir it then you need to do it manually.

[GGT]

I'm a really lazy cook, and not fond of "recipes". But I do like flavorful dishes, and using what's on hand to make a tasty meal. That's elevated peanut butter into the "staple" category. With nothing but a bunch of noodles, some miscellaneous canned or fresh veggies....adding some peanut butter can make a nice satay sauce.

[RandBlade]

My last post on this otherwise I suspect I'll sound like a salesman on commission.

Made most of a traditional Full English fry up last night in the machine for dinner. Put in Sausage first, then some chopped onions, before adding mushrooms, green pepper (not normally in a fry up but I improvised) and finishing with bacon. It's got a divider you can use so had e veg on one side, the meat on the other. Turned out brilliantly, the flavours of the veg really came out nice. I don't normally cook much veg (and normally burn onions) so was really pleased how it came out.

Its advertised for potatoes but seems to work really well for almost anything you fry*. I think Minx may have been been close on the money, fat intake may go down but sausage intake looks like quadrupling or more.

* Can't figure out yet a way to fry eggs. If I could sort that out it'd be perfect.

[Flixy]

So, what is the difference between this and a convection oven?

Making Beef Wellington tonight! Never done that before, but sounds tasty enough

[RandBlade]

I think they're quite similar really.

It heats up very, very quickly and cooks the food quickly too. I suspect the air movement is quicker in the airfryer than it is in a convection oven. I think it does cook closer to how a grill (oven not bbq) or convection oven does than a traditional fryer.

[Timbuk2]

In Portugal catching a week of sea and sunshine. Staying in a fishing village, thought we'd pick up some fresh prawns from a local merchant, which ended up being truly enormous.

Brought them back to our apartment, shelled them, chopped up a bit of red chilli which we stirred into a small cup of Portuguese olive oil, crushed some garlic, fresh parsley, quartered a lemon, and put some linguine on to boil.

Got a large pan and heated up the olive oil and chilli. Added the huge prawns and cooked for 2 mins. Added the garlic, cooked for a further minute, then chucked in the linguine, and stirred around for another minute. Finally, squeeze in the juice of half the lemon.

Serve up, and cover with the fresh parsley.

So simple, so few ingredients, but so fresh and zesty. The prawns were the best I've ever had. Yum.

[Flixy]

Sounds delicious!

Out if curiosity, is beef wellington supposed to be somewhat crispy on the outside? Mine was the first time I made it and quite soggy. Tasty too, though!

[Aimless]

When I've had it the outside has been like crispy-ish pastry but not for very long. It's tasty either way

[RandBlade]

Made a ratatouille tonight. Going to sound silly but often wanted to make one since movie came out at the cinema

Mixed an onion, aubergine, yellow and red pepper and tomatoes with a few cloves of garlic and some herbs. Diced some bacon and mixed that in too.

[Loki]

Making chicken wings in the rotisserie. Yum. Don't think I've ever eaten better wings at a fast food place or pizzeria.

[earthJoker]

Tenderloin beef steak, 7 minutes in the pan, 35 min at 80°C in the oven. Homemade noodles, beans in bacon, and sauce Béarnaise. I still struggle a bit to get the Béarnaise the way I want it, but at least I got the consistence quite good this time. Anyway the steak was just perfect

[GGT]

* Can't figure out yet a way to fry eggs. If I could sort that out it'd be perfect.

If you want to fry whole eggs (like sunny-side-up instead of scrambled) try putting a bit of water in a pre-oiled/pre-heated skillet, and use a lid to capture the steam. The egg will congeal faster and "float" above the surface a bit, leaving the edges white and cooked, not crispy brown, or stuck to the pan. The lid steams a nice "skin" over the yolk without hardening it too much, but if you like fully cooked yolks just let it steam a bit longer.

In PA, we call this "dippy eggs", because the yolk is soft enough to use toast to sop up the golden goodness, without being raw or runny or cold.


No idea if this would work in your "airfryer" machine, that sounds like a convection oven.

[earthJoker]

I just use a pan with coating for fried eggs (sunny side up), and a little oil. Never had a problem.

In PA, we call this "dippy eggs", because the yolk is soft enough to use toast to sop up the golden goodness, without being raw or runny or cold.

Well, we call them mirror-eggs.