***Official Cooking Discussion Thread*** (1 Viewer)

[heckmanm]

I've been making this a good bit lately. I think somewhere someone had a salad Jennifer Anniston supposedly loved. I took that and added more to it.

You can mix and match and omit whatever you don't like:

• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 2 cups water
• 1 15oz Can of Chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup roasted pistachios, chopped
• 1 1/4 cup cucumbers, diced
• 1 ½ cups thin sliced cabbage
• ½ cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup red onion, dicd
• 1/2 cup mint, chopped
• 3/4 cup parsley, chopped
• 3/4 cup feta
• ½ cup sunflower seeds
• 1 ½ cups finely sliced cabbage or cole slaw mix
• ½ cup craisins
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1 (14 oz) can artichoke hearts, rinsed and drained and then chopped
• 2 lemons, juiced
• ⅓ cup olive oil
• Salt to taste
• Pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Place quinoa and water into a medium sized pot and place over high heat. Once boil has been reached, reduce heat to low and place a cover on the pot. Allow quinoa to simmer for 15 minutes and then turn off the heat. Leave the cover on for 5-10 minutes and then remove and fluff with a fork. Pour quinoa into large bowl.

Now add in everything else.

cabbage twice?

 

[Cowboysfan8]

I searched yesterday to try to find out how Chinese restaurants’ chicken breast pieces are so much better than mine when I make stir fry at home.
I watched a video where a woman cut hers (1 lb) into thin pieces then sprinkled them with a tsp of baking soda and worked it in to make sure they all had the soda on them. Then covered in the fridge for 30 mins, rinse them in a colander then pat dry.
I tried this and the chicken was SO MUCH better than what I always make. Soft and juicy (for chicken breast). Just an amazing difference. I wish I’d known this 20 yrs ago, ill never make it again without doing this

 

[Eephus]

I searched yesterday to try to find out how Chinese restaurants’ chicken breast pieces are so much better than mine when I make stir fry at home.
I watched a video where a woman cut hers (1 lb) into thin pieces then sprinkled them with a tsp of baking soda and worked it in to make sure they all had the soda on them. Then covered in the fridge for 30 mins, rinse them in a colander then pat dry.
I tried this and the chicken was SO MUCH better than what I always make. Soft and juicy (for chicken breast). Just an amazing difference. I wish I’d known this 20 yrs ago, ill never make it again without doing this

This is called "Velveting". It can also be done in a mixture of cornstarch, oil, soy and just enough liquid (water, broth or Shaoxing wine) to make a slurry.

 

[Instinctive]

In my new role as #chefDad, I've had some awesome cooking these last couple weeks:

1. Double smoked ham: take a spiral cut ham from Costco, and smoke it with apple and maple for 2 hours at 275, then glaze it with the mix of glaze plus an izze soda, glaze again after another 30, take it off after ~3-3.5 hours. Tent with foil for ~45 mins, then basically butchered it all nicely into slices of the 3 core parts and kept a huge bone with some fat and a little meat to make a ham stock. Great on sandwiches, dice it up and put it in mac n cheese or pasta salad or on pizzas

2. Breakfast sandwiches: fry up a leftover meat (pulled pork, whatever steak we had, likely tri tip lately, and/or some of the ham from above), then fry an egg per sandwich (two for me) and melt a little cheese on the egg. Stack meat, bbq sauce, egg, cheese, hot sauce and then enjoy that gooey yolk just running down when you pick up the sandwich. Messy but delicious. Layers of flavor. I kind of hate toasted buns, but butter toasting them for my wife goes really well.

3. Sous vide tri tip: tons of options here, but marinade or heavy seasoning of your choice, 8 hours in the sous vide vac sealed, holding temp at like 132 or so (medium rare plus) and then resting for 15-45 mins, then a ripping sear on our infrared grill burner for just a minute per side tops. Slices beautifully, serve with my chimichurri (see below) and some maldon salt flakes. Then it's amazing thin sliced for sandwiches or steak and eggs.

4. Chimichurri: I keep messing with this, but I do a molcajete of garlic and a little salt and sugar until it's kind of a paste, then add in chopped up parsley, a little fresh oregano, and about cilantro equaling about half the parsley. If I have dill on hand I toss a little bit of that in too. ALL fresh herbs don't use dried. Add in a minced fresno pepper (or two, but taste and see how hot or mild it is), add in a really nice italian finishing olive oil and a little champagne vinegar with a full lemon of fresh juice. Keep mashing mashing mashing, probably add more parsley and maybe more cilantro. TASTE TASTE TASTE every batch the ratios are a little different, so remember you can always add more salt and sugar. Last time I got it a little too salty, although my wife and guests said it was awesome, just felt salty to me.

(would love any chimichurri suggestions, because it's bright and fresh and amazing, tangy, herby, some heat...I love this topping).

5. Ramen from scratch. THIS was quite an undertaking, and I relied heavily on the Ramen Lord's book of Ramen from reddit.

• Some nice, mizunara aged shoyu, mirin, kombu, and a ginger miso paste to make the tare
• two rotisserie chickens totally broken down and used to make chicken stock with our stock scrap bag (tomato ends, onion ends, basically all veggies that aren't potatoes or leafy greens) and a little mirepoix, plus a big bouquet garni of like 90% thyme, 10% rosemary. DID NOT skim the stock - wanted to keep and try to emulsify the gelatin
• Made the tare overnight, let the stock rest, and made a batch with the remaining shoyu, mirin, and some sake for marinated eggs, to let the marinade flavor meld overnight
• Softboiled eggs. These have been a pain in the BUTT to achieve, so I went sous vide style and tried some at various points. So we did 3 minutes straight into boiling water, then a 1 minute ice plunge, then 90 minutes at 145 in the sous vide. We tried to shell one and it was still a bit too soft, so did another 3 minutes in a hard boil, one minute ice bath, and they were AWESOME (although I lost one to a sticky shell peel that obliterated it, and two almost broke to I didn't marinate those two). Then put them submerged as possible in the marinade (they want to float), and jostled it every hour in fridge for about 8 hours (this was all first thing in the morning prepping for dinner)
• Cooked my stock, added some water, and made it into a real simple broth (tasting, seasoning - NO SALT in my stock or at this stage, the tare will be plenty salty). Also cooked my tare - keeping it just below boiling for around 30 minutes, then draining and removing the kombu, and setting aside to use to season the broth.
• Back to the stock - I think what I need here is either to use a bunch of miso paste or add some gelatin, because even using an immersion blender to try and emulsify the fats in it and make it creamier, but it didn't quite work. It was smooth, didn't break, but was still pretty thin. Was gonna do some corn starch slurry but decided against as that's really more for a stew or a sauce, not what I wanted here. I think adding gelatin AND miso paste might do the trick next time.
• Finally, added the tare - now it's time for some tasting and seasoning adjustments if needed. When you feel it's ready (as ready as it was gonna be, lacking the creaminess I wanted), toss in all your noodles and cook them quickly (I'm a shortcut here, so room to make your own noodles and make this awesome, but I literally just use packets of ramen noodles without their seasoning packets). Then get noodles and broth to your desired amounts in bowls to serve!
• Topping time! I used rotisserie chicken dark meat we had broken down, a full scallion sliced real thin, some 3 hour roasted tomatoes (I'd have roasted even longer in hindsight), sliced jalapeno, some bean sprouts. I would have done some wood ear mushrooms for the texture but our grocery store was out of them the day before, and then added our amazing marinaded softboiled eggs

That was so good. And clearly ways to improve it still too.

 

[Cowboysfan8]

I searched yesterday to try to find out how Chinese restaurants’ chicken breast pieces are so much better than mine when I make stir fry at home.
I watched a video where a woman cut hers (1 lb) into thin pieces then sprinkled them with a tsp of baking soda and worked it in to make sure they all had the soda on them. Then covered in the fridge for 30 mins, rinse them in a colander then pat dry.
I tried this and the chicken was SO MUCH better than what I always make. Soft and juicy (for chicken breast). Just an amazing difference. I wish I’d known this 20 yrs ago, ill never make it again without doing this

This is called "Velveting". It can also be done in a mixture of cornstarch, oil, soy and just enough liquid (water, broth or Shaoxing wine) to make a slurry.

Yes. I watched a few of those videos also. The baking soda just seemed so much easier

 

[New Binky the Doormat]

I searched yesterday to try to find out how Chinese restaurants’ chicken breast pieces are so much better than mine when I make stir fry at home.
I watched a video where a woman cut hers (1 lb) into thin pieces then sprinkled them with a tsp of baking soda and worked it in to make sure they all had the soda on them. Then covered in the fridge for 30 mins, rinse them in a colander then pat dry.
I tried this and the chicken was SO MUCH better than what I always make. Soft and juicy (for chicken breast). Just an amazing difference. I wish I’d known this 20 yrs ago, ill never make it again without doing this

you didn't get any metallic taste?

 

[Cowboysfan8]

I searched yesterday to try to find out how Chinese restaurants’ chicken breast pieces are so much better than mine when I make stir fry at home.
I watched a video where a woman cut hers (1 lb) into thin pieces then sprinkled them with a tsp of baking soda and worked it in to make sure they all had the soda on them. Then covered in the fridge for 30 mins, rinse them in a colander then pat dry.
I tried this and the chicken was SO MUCH better than what I always make. Soft and juicy (for chicken breast). Just an amazing difference. I wish I’d known this 20 yrs ago, ill never make it again without doing this

you didn't get any metallic taste?

No, none

 

[Drunken knight]

I searched yesterday to try to find out how Chinese restaurants’ chicken breast pieces are so much better than mine when I make stir fry at home.
I watched a video where a woman cut hers (1 lb) into thin pieces then sprinkled them with a tsp of baking soda and worked it in to make sure they all had the soda on them. Then covered in the fridge for 30 mins, rinse them in a colander then pat dry.
I tried this and the chicken was SO MUCH better than what I always make. Soft and juicy (for chicken breast). Just an amazing difference. I wish I’d known this 20 yrs ago, ill never make it again without doing this

This is called "Velveting". It can also be done in a mixture of cornstarch, oil, soy and just enough liquid (water, broth or Shaoxing wine) to make a slurry.

this is how i do it... sometimes other ingredients as well (gr ginger, gr onion, sesame oil, sambal olek, mirin, etc

 

[gianmarco]

In my new role as #chefDad, I've had some awesome cooking these last couple weeks:

1. Double smoked ham: take a spiral cut ham from Costco, and smoke it with apple and maple for 2 hours at 275, then glaze it with the mix of glaze plus an izze soda, glaze again after another 30, take it off after ~3-3.5 hours. Tent with foil for ~45 mins, then basically butchered it all nicely into slices of the 3 core parts and kept a huge bone with some fat and a little meat to make a ham stock. Great on sandwiches, dice it up and put it in mac n cheese or pasta salad or on pizzas

2. Breakfast sandwiches: fry up a leftover meat (pulled pork, whatever steak we had, likely tri tip lately, and/or some of the ham from above), then fry an egg per sandwich (two for me) and melt a little cheese on the egg. Stack meat, bbq sauce, egg, cheese, hot sauce and then enjoy that gooey yolk just running down when you pick up the sandwich. Messy but delicious. Layers of flavor. I kind of hate toasted buns, but butter toasting them for my wife goes really well.

3. Sous vide tri tip: tons of options here, but marinade or heavy seasoning of your choice, 8 hours in the sous vide vac sealed, holding temp at like 132 or so (medium rare plus) and then resting for 15-45 mins, then a ripping sear on our infrared grill burner for just a minute per side tops. Slices beautifully, serve with my chimichurri (see below) and some maldon salt flakes. Then it's amazing thin sliced for sandwiches or steak and eggs.

4. Chimichurri: I keep messing with this, but I do a molcajete of garlic and a little salt and sugar until it's kind of a paste, then add in chopped up parsley, a little fresh oregano, and about cilantro equaling about half the parsley. If I have dill on hand I toss a little bit of that in too. ALL fresh herbs don't use dried. Add in a minced fresno pepper (or two, but taste and see how hot or mild it is), add in a really nice italian finishing olive oil and a little champagne vinegar with a full lemon of fresh juice. Keep mashing mashing mashing, probably add more parsley and maybe more cilantro. TASTE TASTE TASTE every batch the ratios are a little different, so remember you can always add more salt and sugar. Last time I got it a little too salty, although my wife and guests said it was awesome, just felt salty to me.

(would love any chimichurri suggestions, because it's bright and fresh and amazing, tangy, herby, some heat...I love this topping).

5. Ramen from scratch. THIS was quite an undertaking, and I relied heavily on the Ramen Lord's book of Ramen from reddit.

• Some nice, mizunara aged shoyu, mirin, kombu, and a ginger miso paste to make the tare
• two rotisserie chickens totally broken down and used to make chicken stock with our stock scrap bag (tomato ends, onion ends, basically all veggies that aren't potatoes or leafy greens) and a little mirepoix, plus a big bouquet garni of like 90% thyme, 10% rosemary. DID NOT skim the stock - wanted to keep and try to emulsify the gelatin
• Made the tare overnight, let the stock rest, and made a batch with the remaining shoyu, mirin, and some sake for marinated eggs, to let the marinade flavor meld overnight
• Softboiled eggs. These have been a pain in the BUTT to achieve, so I went sous vide style and tried some at various points. So we did 3 minutes straight into boiling water, then a 1 minute ice plunge, then 90 minutes at 145 in the sous vide. We tried to shell one and it was still a bit too soft, so did another 3 minutes in a hard boil, one minute ice bath, and they were AWESOME (although I lost one to a sticky shell peel that obliterated it, and two almost broke to I didn't marinate those two). Then put them submerged as possible in the marinade (they want to float), and jostled it every hour in fridge for about 8 hours (this was all first thing in the morning prepping for dinner)
• Cooked my stock, added some water, and made it into a real simple broth (tasting, seasoning - NO SALT in my stock or at this stage, the tare will be plenty salty). Also cooked my tare - keeping it just below boiling for around 30 minutes, then draining and removing the kombu, and setting aside to use to season the broth.
• Back to the stock - I think what I need here is either to use a bunch of miso paste or add some gelatin, because even using an immersion blender to try and emulsify the fats in it and make it creamier, but it didn't quite work. It was smooth, didn't break, but was still pretty thin. Was gonna do some corn starch slurry but decided against as that's really more for a stew or a sauce, not what I wanted here. I think adding gelatin AND miso paste might do the trick next time.
• Finally, added the tare - now it's time for some tasting and seasoning adjustments if needed. When you feel it's ready (as ready as it was gonna be, lacking the creaminess I wanted), toss in all your noodles and cook them quickly (I'm a shortcut here, so room to make your own noodles and make this awesome, but I literally just use packets of ramen noodles without their seasoning packets). Then get noodles and broth to your desired amounts in bowls to serve!
• Topping time! I used rotisserie chicken dark meat we had broken down, a full scallion sliced real thin, some 3 hour roasted tomatoes (I'd have roasted even longer in hindsight), sliced jalapeno, some bean sprouts. I would have done some wood ear mushrooms for the texture but our grocery store was out of them the day before, and then added our amazing marinaded softboiled eggs

That was so good. And clearly ways to improve it still too.

My chimichurri recipe (my mother is from Argentina, so this is the style it's based on):

1 cup parsley
3/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons vinegar (white for me, but can use red wine)
1 tablespoon oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3-4 cloves of garlic, finally chopped
red pepper flakes to taste

I hand chop the parsley. I find it comes out better than trying to use a food processor or blender.

And this tastes better the next day and beyond.

This on skirt steak is :chefskiss:

Skirt steak with nothing but generous salt, 2 minutes each side on a hot cast iron pan. Doesn't get any easier and so, so good when topped with above chimichurri.

 

[Wingnut]

Did a little surf and turf tonight;

Grilled beef filet, sautéed mushrooms, asparagus, and pan seared scallops with a celery root puree.

Not my best plating cuz I was starving, but it was tasty AF.

Deeelicious

 

[Ron Swanson]

Did a little surf and turf tonight;

Grilled beef filet, sautéed mushrooms, asparagus, and pan seared scallops with a celery root puree.

Not my best plating cuz I was starving, but it was tasty AF.

Deeelicious

MInd sharing the celery root puree recipe?

 

[Wingnut]

Did a little surf and turf tonight;

Grilled beef filet, sautéed mushrooms, asparagus, and pan seared scallops with a celery root puree.

Not my best plating cuz I was starving, but it was tasty AF.

Deeelicious

MInd sharing the celery root puree recipe?

It's pretty much like THIS ONE but I simmer in chicken stock instead of water, add 2 garlic cloves and a Bay leaf to the boil, use milk instead of cream, sub fresh cracked black for cayenne, and add a bit of umami powder and parmesan cheese.

And I save the stock afterwards, it's great for soups, stews, sauces, etc.

 

[Scoresman]

So my New Year's resolution this year was to perfect pizza. First up is New York style "dollar slice". Made my first attempt last weekend, and it came out better than expectations.

I used kenji's dough recipe. Basically put everything in a food processor and pulse until it forms a blob, knead for a couple more minutes and refrigerate 24 hours.

For the sauce, I was trying to replicate my favorite pizza sauce that I've had at various places. I always had a hard time describing it much less recreating it. Then I saw a post somewhere that said most places just use a can of good tomatoes, add a little sugar, and that's it. No cooking. It cooks on the pizza. So I did that and it was exactly like the sauce I remembered.

Cheese was whole milk low moisture mozzarella grated myself. Deitz and Watson pepperoni.

Cooked in a 500 degree oven on a pizza steel. Only change I would make going forward is to cook it a minute or two longer.

 

[Chemical X]

low on my list, but i actually bought and seeded a pomegranate. i found a way to pop the top and section it for ease.

 

[The Gator]

So my New Year's resolution this year was to perfect pizza. First up is New York style "dollar slice". Made my first attempt last weekend, and it came out better than expectations.

I used kenji's dough recipe. Basically put everything in a food processor and pulse until it forms a blob, knead for a couple more minutes and refrigerate 24 hours.

For the sauce, I was trying to replicate my favorite pizza sauce that I've had at various places. I always had a hard time describing it much less recreating it. Then I saw a post somewhere that said most places just use a can of good tomatoes, add a little sugar, and that's it. No cooking. It cooks on the pizza. So I did that and it was exactly like the sauce I remembered.

Cheese was whole milk low moisture mozzarella grated myself. Deitz and Watson pepperoni.

Cooked in a 500 degree oven on a pizza steel. Only change I would make going forward is to cook it a minute or two longer.

No pics??

:zipsup:

 

[Ron Swanson]

So my New Year's resolution this year was to perfect pizza. First up is New York style "dollar slice". Made my first attempt last weekend, and it came out better than expectations.

I used kenji's dough recipe. Basically put everything in a food processor and pulse until it forms a blob, knead for a couple more minutes and refrigerate 24 hours.

For the sauce, I was trying to replicate my favorite pizza sauce that I've had at various places. I always had a hard time describing it much less recreating it. Then I saw a post somewhere that said most places just use a can of good tomatoes, add a little sugar, and that's it. No cooking. It cooks on the pizza. So I did that and it was exactly like the sauce I remembered.

Cheese was whole milk low moisture mozzarella grated myself. Deitz and Watson pepperoni.

Cooked in a 500 degree oven on a pizza steel. Only change I would make going forward is to cook it a minute or two longer.

I went through the same process. Landed on Wingnut's dough recipe from the Canadian couple and cold ferment it for several days. Hormel uncured pepperoni won the pepperoni battle for me along with Polly O mozzerella. San Marzano whole tomatoes crushed up and cooked on the pizza. No sugar. I add a little diced sweet onion. Cook on a 700 ish degree gas grill pizza oven. Perfect pizza.