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Hi guys, I've just finished my undergraduate degree and started a PhD, and i realised it was probably time to stop eating utter shite constantly and eat a better diet, mainly to try and shift lots of the unacceptable weight i'm carrying! I'm trying my best to only eat foods cooked up from fresh produce, including vegetables, meat, dairy and fish, however i do include some preprocessed food including sugar free cereals and sensible breads (a company called Burgen happen to do an extremely nice Soya and Linseed bread). To this end i make a trip to the market each week and come back with a bag full of fresh veg and meat. Typically i'll turn that into some great sandwiches for lunch, but i'm having trouble coming up with good ideas for an evening meal (also i'm yet to sort out a sensible breakfast as of yet). As i'm not a good cook, normally i just boil up a selection of the veg and cook up a piece of meat. For instance this evening i boiled up some brocolli, bobby beans and leek, with a pork loin steak i rubbed with olive oil, mixed herbs and garlic and shallow fried. The biggest problem i have is thinking of sensible sauces/gravies to go with this kind of stuff. As good as that all sounds, it all fell to pieces when i slopped instant gravy over it ... So, does anyone have any sensible ideas for easy to make sauces that'll go well with these sort of meals (typically meat of some form with various winter vegetables)?
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 21:57 |
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| # ? Nov 21, 2009 11:32 |
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Semen
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:04 |
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GWS Hall Monitor posted:Semen No... you should go with more complex carbs!
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:18 |
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Happy Hat posted:No... you should go with more complex carbs! Whole wheat semen.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:19 |
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GWS Hall Monitor posted:Semen His spelling looks English so perhaps we should call this Creme Anglaise. Kelp! fucked around with this message at Nov 06, 2009 around 22:28 |
| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:19 |
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I ate Jesus posted:Swole meat semen.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:21 |
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Think about just using things like Sesame or virgin olive oil or butter to dress your vegetables. You can use a little lemon or vinegar to enhance the flavor. Salt and freshly ground pepper to season. Getting over having sauce all over everything will help you to cook your food better. Ed. Seamen prefer "ketch up" sauce.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:24 |
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Magnetic you're doing it wrong.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:26 |
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a lot of times you can replace the sauce with a little bit of water drizzled over the top
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:27 |
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you can use different kind of water with different dishes, too. match it to the protein; sea water goes with chicken whereas for a steak you just want tap water
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:28 |
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some of the fancy places will experiment with different forms of water as well. blumenthal does a fantastic "fish con ice cubes"
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:29 |
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andres has been working on a steamed dish that actually has the steam come up at you when you open the cover, like when he did that smoked thing on iron chef
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:30 |
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I've already tried spunking all over my pork, but frankly it tasted a bit bland ...
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 23:52 |
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Just crumble an OXO buillion cube over the food, and you won't need a sauce.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 23:54 |
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Obviously you need some Sriracha. It goes well on pretty much anything.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 06:27 |
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steam not boil
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 06:52 |
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Your problems are that you're boiling your veggies and probably overcooking your meats if you think you need sauce. Stop boiling and look more into light sauteeing and roasting. Often, a little olive oil, salt and pepper is all you need. And try cooking your meats to the proper temp, and let rest before eating so the juices get reabsorbed.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 07:04 |
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To rescue you from this mockery, you must do the following. This is kind of a not-completely-basic thing, but it will show you how to make an amazing sauce for any occasion: 1) Heat up a couple tablespoons of canola oil until it`s ripping hot. 2) Take about a pound and a half of chicken/duck/beef/veal/whatever bones and brown them. Do not touch them. You want them to stick and leave awesome stuff at the bottom of the pan. 3) Once everything is awesome and browned, add a cup of water to the pan and stir, scraping up all the stuff on the bottom, cook until the water evaporates. 4) Do this again with a cup of chicken stock 5) Add a bunch of sliced onion and carrot and maybe leek, cook until they`re lightly browned 6) Add a diced tomato, cook until liquid is mostly evaporated again 7) Add a 2-3 cups each of chicken and veal stock, maybe a bunch of peppercorns and some bay leaf, simmer for 30-60 minutes. 8) Reduce a bunch until you have about two cups of liquid left. Strain. Pour into an ice cube tray. Freeze. This is a base for a sauce. Now when you want to make your sauce, you, for example, sautee a bit of garlic and shallot, splash the pan with red wine, add an ice cube of base and a sprig of thyme, and reduce some more. Tasty tasty!
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 07:05 |
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Oh yeah, and kiteless is right, stop overcooking things.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 07:06 |
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Boiling veggies ruins them and makes me want to cry! I get sick of steamed or sauteed broccoli, but to dress it up when I get tired, I make my own balsamic-lime dressing to drizzle over it or other veggies to give them a kick. I don't measure, but basically I mix some lime juice, olive oil, balsamic vinegar (or a good light balsamic dressing), thyme, salt, pepper, and occasionally chives, which looks and sounds odd, but it's good. It's tangy heaven on fresh spinach and all steamed tender veggies.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 18:08 |
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If your dinner consists of boiled broccoli and leeks (yeccch) and a chunk of (underseasoned? overcooked?) meat, I can see how it would benefit from being drowned in gravy. I agree with the posters ahead of me who have said that vegetables benefit from not being slowly tortured to death. You can steam, blanch, roast, sautee, or braise your veggies and they will taste MUCH better plain than plain boiled veg. Do you season your vegetables at all? Salt, pepper, cayenne, curry powder, dried herbs? Anything? I'm a vegetarian and I don't know anything about cooking meat, so I can't help you there, but there are plenty of vegetarian cookbooks, magazines, and blogs which can give you ideas and techniques for interesting and tasty (read: not boiled) things to do with your veg. You made it clear that you're trying to lose weight, so the recommendations of using oil and butter might not be what you're looking for. Healthy fats like olive oil are good for you in moderation, but if you want a sauce that won't add extra fat to your meal, try reducing some balsamic vinegar. Reduced balsamic has (as far as I know) no fat, it's very flavorful, and it tastes good on almost anything (even fruit and desserts). These instructions make about 1/4 cup of reduced vinegar. Take 1 cup of thin balsamic vinegar (if you have a good, thick, aged balsamic sitting around then you clearly don't need this recipe). Put your vinegar in a small skillet on medium to medium-high heat and bring it to a boil. Turn the heat down a bit, so that the vinegar stays at a simmer. Watch it carefully, and turn the heat down further if the vinegar starts to burn (you'll be able to see/smell it burning). It's done when there's about a 1/4 cup of vinegar left in the pan--it usually takes me three or four minutes, depending on how far down I have to turn the heat. Remove from the heat, let it cool for a couple of minutes, and then drizzle over your vegetables or meat.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 22:47 |
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landofcake posted:I've already tried spunking all over my pork, but frankly it tasted a bit bland ... Try aiming away from your lap.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 22:53 |
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