What are you cooking?

theclockworkrat 2018-10-02 11:38:53 UTC #243

Compost heap (or your local alternative)

alms 2018-10-02 13:05:21 UTC #244

That’s harsh, man

PS: I was looking at:

And of course:

Thinking about the curried soup.

alms 2018-10-27 16:50:40 UTC #245

I made remoulade!

Working with fresh ingredients can be sooo rewarding, fresh sage off the plant for a shallow, butter and sage sauce to go with pork fillet. YUM! If I may say so?

ana 2018-11-07 10:44:12 UTC #246

Hello!

I usually cook pasta for my dinner. Eggs for my breakfast and chicken with rice and salad for my lunch.
I want to learn to cook Thai cuisine. Full internet of a good recipes !

alms 2018-11-14 21:22:23 UTC #247

Fresh mackerels in the oven!

jthornton 2019-03-06 07:19:56 UTC #249

Caesar salad with custom sauce

Pink_Gregory 2019-03-06 10:51:54 UTC #250

Sorry for the necro, but definitely soup.

I had a bloody fantastic celeriac/apple/hazelnut soup at christmas and it still weighs heavy on my mind.

Pink_Gregory 2019-03-06 13:03:49 UTC #251

Does anyone have any advice for making falafel without deep frying or using loads of oil?

I’ve been trying shallow frying but they don’t tend to cook all the way through without burning the outside.

alms 2019-03-06 13:41:43 UTC #252

No chance for a recipe…? (please say yes)

Maybe you could try borrowing some idea from parm, loads of people would rather not fry eggplant.

One such trick is coating with egg whites and cooking in the oven, on a baking sheet.

In that case, you might want to lower your heat. Using a lid can be beneficial as well (but pay attention because it will make temperature go up).

In terms of oil absorbed (assuming that’s the concern), I don’t think there’s an advantage to shallow-frying. If the opposition against deep frying is that it makes a mess, I have found it doesn’t really need to be very messy at all.

What I do is use a tall saucepot, covered with a lid. Unless the oil is too hot, or the food too wet, there’ll be no splashing outside the pot itself. Personally, I like to keep an eye on the temperature with an instant thermometer (oil has a way of heating up faster than I would have thought), however it’s not strictly necessary.

Number of handy tips by the Kenji here:

Pink_Gregory 2019-03-06 22:32:09 UTC #253

It’s more that it makes the fryer oil taste like falafel, otherwise I’d do it all the time.

Unfortunately no recipe, had it at a restaurant, but I wouldn’t assume that it had loads of stuff other than celeriac, a sharp apple (rather than a cooker), some blanched hazelnuts and seasoning.

If it helps, it was quite a thick soup, might have been bulked out with a potato but I assume that’s the point of the celeriac…

alms 2019-05-17 21:09:57 UTC #254

Sauerkraut with sausage, rosemary and garlic.

alms 2019-06-07 20:51:16 UTC #256

Sole fillets pan fried in butter.

While extremely simple, a true test of quality for a non-stick pan. Even with butter, the flesh will still stick to the surface if not perfect.

With the right pan, you get nice, browned fillets that are tender but firm, as well as very tasty.

alms 2019-12-06 23:52:12 UTC #257

Made French Fries for the first time ever!

I fry every now and then, always in an ordinary pot because I can’t see the point of having a dedicated frier, but always ready-made foods that just need finishing. This was a minimum-research experiment prompted by having:

some left-over frying oil that was still good but smelled of fish (unsurprisingly)
other stuff cooking for the weekend, which did require my presence bu not baby-sitting.

Frying potatoes is supposed to let the sacrificial tubers absorb the flavor/smell from the oil, the down-side is you get potatoes with an off-flavor, so in this case fish, which you are more or less expected to throw away afterwards, but they won’t kill you or anything, so I thought I should at least taste.

I have no picture of those golden brown ~~beauties~~ uglies for you! That’s because they came out surprisingly delicious and didn’t want them to cool down too much, so I ate them all right away. Not fantastically crunchy but just enough and creamy inside. YUM!

This being a here-goes-nothing run, fries were cut roughly by hand, the skin was not removed, and I let the temperature drop too much.

Despite all of my carelessness, the result was better than most French Fries I have eaten recently, at home or otherwise, with no detectable fish flavor either (so it remains to be seen whether the oil has been saved or not)

Once again I have to thank The Kenji for getting me started frying at home armed just with regular cookware and my trusty ThermoPop.

BTW somehow I ran out of table (i.e. finely ground) salt, so I (excuse me) MacGyver-ed it out of kosher (i.e. coarsely ground) salt and a grinder. The small pleasures of life.

chopper 2020-05-25 10:44:36 UTC #258

Not sure if this is the place to ask but I’ll throw it out there.

I’m starting to feel like I should be moving towards a more vegetarian lifestyle, say 2 to 3 main meals a week increasing gradually to 4/5. Does anyone know of any decent resource that would help me along here?

I don’t necessarily want recipes, as I can cook a little bit, but more ideas for what to cook, how to vary it, how to switch etc. And without wanting to come across as a dick, I’d be more interested in realistic, grounded options, none of this fantasy cooking stuff like soaking the chicken in buttermilk for three days leads to an amazingly moist bird -type thing

Any pointers gratefully received!

TheDreamlord 2020-05-25 11:43:45 UTC #259

I might be able to offer my thoughts on this.

Some background. I eat everything, but at least for the last decade I try to have a balance died, together with excercise of 5 times per week, for two main reasons. Maintaining health (I have family history of food related cancers - stomach / colon and the like, and everyone in my family who had cancer was due to very bad died of fatty meats and zero excercise together with plenty of excess body weight), as well as maintaining a fairly slim and athletic figure (vanity, I guess).
I do not eat ready made stuff, I cook most of my meals from scratch and I try to have variety. I love meat.

Now, I realised lately that I want to cut down on meat (and especially any processed meat, which I do not really eat much of, but it is not negligible amount either - home made pizza with prosciutto or chorizo, etc). The main reason for this, is so as I increase my intake of other proteins and add variety.

Here are some examples of what I cook, trying to do without meat:

Fish with vegetables in the oven. For example, sea bass or sea bream, either whole or fillets, cooked in the oven with veg. Example veg: carrots, broccoli (broccoli florets in the oven with salt, pepper and olive oil, baked at 180 for 25 mins is surprisingly tasty), broad beans
Thai curry with fish or vegetable only. You can try mushrooms, broad beans, aubergine.
Pasta bake.
Pulses. For example lentil soup, red kidney beans with salad, broad beans baked in the oven with tomato sauce (here is an example https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/gigantes-plaki Greek style!)
Chicken. Whilst still meat, it is much leaner and has a lot of protein. The only caveat is that I will only buy good quality chicken or no chicken at all. No way I will ever eat again battery chicken, it is not only unethical, it is absolutely disgusting. Plenty of simple ways to cook chicken. Whole in the oven with potatoes and a side of salad, remains (usually breasts) cooked as a different meal the next day, or even sandwiches.
Salads as main meal. If you add some sort of protein (pulses like black eyed beans or brown lentils) they make a very decent meal. I particularly like beetroots in salad.
Eggs. Fried or various omelettes, can easily take up one meal per week.

I can try and think of more if you want and if this is at all helpful!

alms 2020-05-25 13:16:14 UTC #260

Of course it’s a good idea to have enough vegetables, ideally you’d have some with almost every meal throughout the day.

But that doesn’t mean switching to vegetarianism; that’s kind of hard to sustain, unless you put a lot of thought and attention into what you eat, something that most people cannot really do for a variety of reasons. It essentially turns eating into a full-time job. It’s just plain stressful and hard, and thus hard to stick with.

If it’s half-assed, the shift means less quality proteins and micronutrients that the body either needs or could use for better health. Lots of people find their health deteriorating a few years down the road because of this, and give up.

That is especially true for veganism. Lacto-ovo-vegetarianism is way more acceptable, but not everybody has positive reactions to dairy, and as someone who has eaten a lot of eggs, there is a point past which I find I must take a break.

(BTW eggs have a lot of water so to make a meal -not a snack, hard-boiled eggs are a great one, tho- you’re looking at about 200 grams, 4 medium-sized eggs around these parts)

A trend that is kind of worrying is ready-made vegetarian meals, which are marketed as healthier alternatives to traditionally prepared meals.

Whenever I look at the ingredients list, they’re highly engineered products with lots of water and very little nutritional value.

I’ll take salad with either hard-boiled eggs or fish any day of the week. Speaking of favorite veggies, some of mine:

cruciferous vegetables; broccoli, savoy, cauliflower, romanesco, brussels sprouts and so on. They’re great roasted in the oven with olive oil. Easy to make, super yummy.
spinach and other green-leafed veggies, my go-to is usually garlic and butter.
among legumes, I like lentils and peas make a great soup.
squash is awesome, roasted in the oven in the same ways as cruciferous. Bit carby, tho.
Tomatoes are great in a variety of recipes, but hard to find of good enough quality
I’m not a super-fan of aubergines by themselves, however they’re absolutely fantastic in some recipes, like parmigiana (usually I don’t fry them, though)
'shrooms are just so yummy, I love to grill’em in a skillet, seasoned with butter, garlic and thyme just before serving.
The aniseed smell of fennel is absolutely marvelous - thinly sliced raw fennels is excellent in salads. Cooked, I’m less of a fan but I did find that lemon helps (balsamic vinegar, too, although less so).

I’m sure I could come up with more, but that will have to do for now.

chopper 2020-05-25 14:06:17 UTC #261

Thanks so much for the replies and the effort that went into them guys. Much appreciated.

I’m definitely aware that jumping into something too enthusiastically is often a sure way to not stay with it, but don’t worry, I’m not signing up for the full membership. It’s just that I eat meat seven days a week now, and want to cut back on that.

This describes me to some extent, and is something I need to work towards.

There are a few things you both mention that I’ve definitely overlooked - fish, and roasted vegetables. Fish was something I’d have occasionally when I’d have lunch out rather than cook, before the lockdown, and should be easy to incorporate. Vegetables have traditionally been steamed or boiled with me (Irish) and I’ve been very slow to adopt roasted so that is huge.

I already was thinking of making my usual regular dishes like curries etc without meat, so that will work.

Chicken has been a staple but I’m becoming more and more uneasy about it. One of the things that prompted this was that I bought a pack of chicken pieces in Tesco at the weekend, and when I was preparing them earlier, they turned out to actually be individual chicken breasts, but tiny, about one fourth the size of normal. What are these, all the stunted battery chickens that didn’t make the size grade? I do usually go to a butcher but every butcher seems to take out the same tub of chicken breasts with the same packaging from the NL/Thailand. So are you saying cook a whole chicken and use that as the basis? Makes sense.

Yeah, tomatoes have become so bland now that I feel that they almost wreck any meal they are used in.

Salad and eggs - acknowledged.

I think I’ll make a trial menu for the next two weeks, and see how it goes. Thanks again for all the feedback, really appreciated!

alms 2020-05-25 21:52:37 UTC #262

Having meat every day isn’t such a terrible idea at all health-wise. You could do worse: for instance you could have none all week long.

The risks of eating meat are largely overstated; the last bit of terrorism was when the headlines claimed “red meat” is a known carcinogenic. Which is strictly true but widely misrepresented: the actual risk is extremely low and there are many other things we ordinarily do or are exposed to which are way worse for our health and, to add insult to injury, possibly have little or no upside at all.

Also keep in mind that:

if you practice any sport
you are older or getting there
you are dieting
you are recovering from an injury or disease

Your protein requirements go up, not down.

The WHO recommendations for protein intake are also (I quote) “very conservative”. Research has shown there are a number of advantages connected with higher protein intakes.

For instance 1.5 g/kg is associated with higher cognitive performance. The WHO recommendation is 0.8. And with increasing prices, also the scaremongering, I’m pretty sure lot don’t even clear that low of a bar. And you can bet they think they’re already eating too much, sadly.

A lot of the more alarmist data and discussion bits concerning meat come from the US. There’s a few things worth clarifying:

the average US citizen eats a lot more meat than the average European.
Food has to meet much higher standards in the EU. Conversely, this is one of several reasons why food and meat is more abundant AND cheaper in the US.
Conclusions about SAD (Standard American Diet) are often carried over as is to EU leading the so-called paradoxes. For instance if all they say in the mainstream about food and nutrition was true, the entirety of France should have been wiped out a long time ago. Similar considerations also apply to Southern Europe.

I have had pet birds for many years and I’d keep pet chickens, if I could (I have an acquaintance of sorts who has bantams!). I am the kind of person who loves watching cams like chicks hatching.

It’s not lost on me what sometimes makes its way to my plate.

There are some compromises that are hard to avoid making.

BillButNotBen 2020-05-26 03:27:33 UTC #263

Although you might have to watch out for chemical limits, tuna (canned or not) is very handy to substitute into lots of things such as quick pasta dishes.
If you live in a country where beans aren’t crazy expensive, they can also be very healthy, filling ans substitute into many dishes.
It doesn’t sound like weight loss is your goal, but I’ve had a lot of luck with substituting in beans, and also with swapping white rice for brown, plain pasta for brown, and oatmeal for breakfasts.

chopper 2020-05-26 11:30:12 UTC #264

@Alms Yes, as a northern European who grew up with a fairly basic/frugal diet, that first trip to the US was a real eye opener, so I can see how that data could be potentially influenced by an American point of view.

Good call on the tuna, though past experiments in this line have not gone well for me.

When people talk about beans, what are they talking about in general? My experience is limited to baked and kidney, so I am a bean novice. TheDreamlord’s recipe above linked to butter/broad beans, so it’s something I need to figure out.

Just went down to the fishmonger in order to suss things out a bit before next week and bought a few whiting, which I’ll fry in flour later (keep things simple for the moment). Plans are afoot!