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I'm kind of embarrassed that English is my first language after reading that title aloud, but it works I guess. Anyway, what I hope for this thread is basically two things; that people posting will recommend something food related that is a little bit different (and hopefully some recipes) to use in cooking, and that people reading will go out and buy/cook with something they haven't tried before. Living on my own for the last year or so as opposed to in a r'ship or in a share-house situation, it's pretty easy for me to fall into lazy cooking and eating habits because it's easier, and it's only me I have to cook for. GWS has helped keep me from eating lovely stodge meals and had me trying different things instead that I'd never have tried otherwise. But, enough background noise. The food something I'm going to talk about is probably something you walk past every time you take a trip to the supermarket if you live in Australia, but may take a little bit of looking for if you live elsewhere. Macadamia Oil. It costs maybe an extra $2 compared to a good olive oil and adds a great nutty flavour, and almost a sweetness to anything you want to cook with it. I rediscovered it over christmas and since then have been cooking with it a lot. Pan roasted brussel sprouts? Yep. Crepes savoury or sweet? Yep. Latkes and/or Mock fish (basically latkes but with grated carrot and onion added) aww yeah. Garlic seafood? Oh gently caress yes. I've even used it to fry a steak and some chicken breast. It does savoury foods well, but it works especially well with sweet foods. Basically anything you would normally use unsalted butter for. Next time you make pancakes or latkes, hunt down a bottle of macadamia oil and taste the rainbow. So, what is the something you cook with that most people might not know about? edit: If you want to go all out here is a treat I used to get after competing in Little Athleticss as a little tacker.... Take 2 slices of wholemeal bread, or wholemeal wholegrain if you want to feel fancy. Butter them with salt-free butter. On one side, place some thinly sliced banana. On the other, spread some dark brown sugar. Fry that poo poo up on either side in some macadamia oil, and go run another 1500m just because you can. Or... die like Elvis, Your choice. Favela Flav fucked around with this message at Jan 18, 2013 around 10:36 |
| # ? Jan 1, 2013 19:27 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 22:13 |
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Cooked radishes. They lose a lot of their heat, but still add a bit of spice and some beautiful color. Cut them lengthwise into wedges. Great sauteed with sugar snap peas and scallions or roasted with bite-size chunks of new potatoes.
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| # ? Jan 4, 2013 04:13 |
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*Roasted* broccoli- far far superior to steamed, especially when you add garlic, lemon, pinenuts and parmesan.
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| # ? Jan 4, 2013 19:03 |
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GiantAmazonianOtter posted:*Roasted* broccoli- far far superior to steamed, especially when you add garlic, lemon, pinenuts and parmesan. along the same vein: broccoli stems. Peel the skin off and it's better than the florets. Same with artichokes. Also, roasted brussels sprouts are so much better than pretty much any other prep. Almost any root vegetable can be used instead of all or at least some potatoes in a potato dish to make that potato dish significantly more awesome. Potatoes are pretty bland, turnips, rutabagas, and parsnips are awesome. Not to mention sweetpotatoes, beets, radishes, sunchokes. Unfortunately some recipes need that starchiness that potatoes bring, so for those recipes you can only substitute for some of the potatoload.
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| # ? Jan 4, 2013 23:28 |
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GrAviTy84 posted:Also, roasted brussels sprouts are so much better than pretty much any other prep. Seconded on brussel sprouts. Best vegetable. We recently tried parsnips as an alternative to mashed potatoes and it was weird how much it ended up tasting like cooked cabbage. Still good, just not what we expected at all.
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| # ? Jan 5, 2013 00:24 |
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Beef hearts. Cheap, flavoursome, surprisingly tender, and quite lean, if properly trimmed.
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| # ? Jan 5, 2013 17:49 |
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Loomer posted:Beef hearts. Cheap, flavoursome, surprisingly tender, and quite lean, if properly trimmed. I just had braised beef heart at a restaurant recently and I'm intrigued. I bet we could get some through our CSA for cheap or free as well. Do you have any good starter recipes for beef heart for the uninitiated?
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| # ? Jan 5, 2013 19:42 |
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On the brussels sprouts tip, they're super good if you take them to a mandoline and barely sautee them with some blanched almonds and a little olive oil and lemon juice. Or just mandoline them and make a simple slaw, it's awesome.
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| # ? Jan 5, 2013 20:20 |
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Nicol Bolas posted:I just had braised beef heart at a restaurant recently and I'm intrigued. I bet we could get some through our CSA for cheap or free as well. Do you have any good starter recipes for beef heart for the uninitiated? I have never had but there is a butcher right across the street that has and I too would love a recipe to try it
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| # ? Jan 6, 2013 00:06 |
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I like beef heart cooked rare and sliced with horseradish sauce. Take the leftover slices and put them on a piece of bread, smoked gouda on another piece of bread, put both in the toaster until the beef is warmed a bit and the gouda is melty. Throw a little arugula in the middle and eat the hell out of it.
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| # ? Jan 6, 2013 00:40 |
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Skinny King Pimp posted:On the brussels sprouts tip, they're super good if you take them to a mandoline and barely sautee them with some blanched almonds and a little olive oil and lemon juice. Or just mandoline them and make a simple slaw, it's awesome. I had shaved brussels sprouts on pizza recently and it was 
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| # ? Jan 6, 2013 03:16 |
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My absolute favorite thing in the world are Goya's anchovy stuffed olives! Anytime I bring these up in conversation people give me a disgusted look but when I bring a can they usually change their mind. These things also really kick up the flavor in a ice cold martini.
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| # ? Jan 6, 2013 03:20 |
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Nicol Bolas posted:I just had braised beef heart at a restaurant recently and I'm intrigued. I bet we could get some through our CSA for cheap or free as well. Do you have any good starter recipes for beef heart for the uninitiated? The quick and easy recipe I use is for fairly rare heart, so don't do it if you're squeamish. It can work for longer cooking, but I find you have to cook heart kinda like calamari - quick and hot, or it toughens, and the only way to undo that is to cook it for much, much longer. You don't want it in there for more than a few minutes, so cut it fairly thin if you're concerned about safety. Take a heart, trim off all the fat and membrane (use a sharp knife. The membrane, you can often peel off if you make a few nicks, which leaves you with more meat. Don't stress about the odd bit of it remaining, it's not that tough in small quantities). Once you've done that, cut the heart into centimetre wide strips or slightly larger cubes. Salt and pepper it now. IF you have a helper, get them to chop some celery (centimetre wide or so works fine), carrots (either disc or half-disc, fairly thin), and onions while you do this. If not, do it anyway. You're going to want about two cups of the mixed vegetables to each half-heart (which is how they're sold here). Stir-fry the vegetables with a little butter or olive oil. You want it to be long enough that the celery softens but still has a little bite, the carrots are crisp without being hard, and the onions are transparent. I'd tell you how long but my stove is a piece of poo poo so it'd be misleading. Add the heart. Stir fry it with the vegetables for a couple of minutes or until you feel satisfied. Rule of thumb I use is for thin slices (half a centimetre thick), no more than two minutes, or until the meat starts to sort of contract in on itself. Deglaze the pan with white wine or vermouth, simmer that deglaze down (don't use a lot, you want it to take all of a minute at most here), and serve on a plate. It's very simple and not very flash, but it preserves the flavour of the heart reasonably well and lets you get a feel for how it cooks, and like liver, it pairs very well with onions. It also takes, barring the heart prep (takes me ten minutes now, but took half an hour when I started) and veggie chopping, probably all of ten minutes. You can also make an excellent stew. I use a modified http://copperpots.blogspot.com.au/2...heart-stew.html recipe, substituting whatever stock I have on hand for the oxtail soup, removing the bay leaves, and adding smoked paprika. For the beer, I use something fairly dark and stouty. This one is easy and everyone I've fed it to likes it on a cold winter night. Bear in mind I'm not exactly a brilliant cook, so these probably won't floor you (not to mention there's really not much more basic than 'stir fry that poo poo' and 'put it in a stew'), but they're what I mostly use it for.
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| # ? Jan 6, 2013 06:59 |
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Loomer posted:eat your heart out Awesome. That's exactly what I was looking for, actually. When I had it, it had a super-strange texture, almost spongy. It's something I hadn't encountered before and I wasn't sure if "throw it in the pan with other stuff what tastes good" was a viable method. And I'm not afraid of rare, and not squeamish at all, so that sounds right up my alley for some new meat experimentation. Next time we do a pickup from our CSA I'll ask if we can get some!
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| # ? Jan 6, 2013 18:47 |
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Broccoli stalks. I used to toss them, but they're mild and crispy and delicious. Just peel them if they're particularly woody.
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| # ? Jan 6, 2013 20:46 |
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Loomer posted:Beef hearts. Cheap, flavoursome, surprisingly tender, and quite lean, if properly trimmed. I feel like this is true of all offal and otherwise "off" cuts. Then again, I never understood why some meat eaters would think that only select parts of the animal were delicious but the rest were "gross" or whatever.
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| # ? Jan 6, 2013 23:27 |
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Loomer posted:Beef hearts. Cheap, flavoursome, surprisingly tender, and quite lean, if properly trimmed. I agree and would like to add turkey hearts too. If you take turkey hearts and grill them with a little pimenton dulce, salt and pepper they come out pretty nicely.
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| # ? Jan 6, 2013 23:33 |
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GrAviTy84 posted:I feel like this is true of all offal and otherwise "off" cuts. Then again, I never understood why some meat eaters would think that only select parts of the animal were delicious but the rest were "gross" or whatever. Some organ meats I have serious texture issues with, however I always at least try things before passing judgement upon them. I like to use turnips and rutabagas for soups and mashes. They are definitely under-appreciated veggies. I'm probably the only person I know in the real world who cooks turnips on a regular basis, but they're great in anything that would normally call for a potato.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 00:07 |
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GrAviTy84 posted:I feel like this is true of all offal and otherwise "off" cuts. Then again, I never understood why some meat eaters would think that only select parts of the animal were delicious but the rest were "gross" or whatever. I can understand that in a way, given that most people's only experience with offal meats is liver. It's easy to turn people off of trying other offal meats with liver. Not me though. I love me some offal. Eel (aka "paling" in Dutch) is one of my favorite fishmeats. I know that in England there's jellied eel, and in Japan you have unagi, but I'm reasonably certain that smoked eel is a Dutch-only thing. Still, however you prepare it, I love the heck out of it.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 00:31 |
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Wahad posted:I can understand that in a way, given that most people's only experience with offal meats is liver. It's easy to turn people off of trying other offal meats with liver. I go hot and cold with offal, it's all in preparation for me. I think amongst people who are "foodies"(I hate that term) eel is something that's widely loved. I know I love the drat stuff. I need to find somewhere to try those fancy baby eels that people always talk about.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 02:13 |
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Chicken livers make a great spread for crackers when boiled and blended with salt, pepper, garlic and olive oil.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 02:56 |
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Pretty much all offal, but tongue, more specifically. I've found that even people who can take liver will shy away from it, which is a shame because it's my absolute favourite cut of meat. A properly cooked slice of tongue, with a crispy crust and meltingly tender interior, is a thing of beauty. Sardines, herring: any oily, strongly flavoured fish. There's a confusingly large amount of people who like fish, but only if it tastes absolutely nothing like fish. Or anything at all, really. One of my sister's favourite meals is a completely unseasoned Tilapia filet baked in the oven... It's not as overlooked as the other items I've listed, but I don't feel kale gets its rightful due. It makes great salad fare when raw, but is still sturdy enough to be cooked. It's bitter enough to have some character, but not bitter enough to be disagreeable. The perfect green, in my book.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 03:23 |
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Happy Abobo posted:It's not as overlooked as the other items I've listed, but I don't feel kale gets its rightful due. It makes great salad fare when raw, but is still sturdy enough to be cooked. It's bitter enough to have some character, but not bitter enough to be disagreeable. The perfect green, in my book. It's also really inexpensive! So it's a win win.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 03:59 |
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indoflaven posted:Chicken livers make a great spread for crackers when boiled and blended with salt, pepper, garlic and olive oil. They're also great in Ragu, or to round out any similar "meat sauce". Tongue's nice but don't forget to remove the skin (  )I really enjoy Kvass (no, it's not pronounced like "rear end", the a's like in "father"; I don't know why there's two s's in English, it's more like Kvas (Kvaas)).. It's... weird, a sort of love it or hate it acquired taste. A beverage made from fermented bread, specifically "black bread" which is sort of akin to a very dark rye or a pumpernickel - all whole grains/flours, baked for something like 12-24 hours, very intense. If you ever see black bread and there's coffee grounds or cocoa or anything like that in the ingredients, it's fake - the dark color should come only from the long baking process and the taste won't be right otherwise. If you don't see the ingredients, it shouldn't be a really uniform dark brown or black either - just a few shades past dark rye, with the crumb a different color from the crust. There's several types of it. Borodinsky is the most newbie-friendly IMO, it's a bit sweet. (Black bread, as an aside - I don't much like it untoasted (at least by itself), but toasted and/or paired with something strong like a spicy salami or fish preserve or something it's great. Sometimes I like to toast it, spread taramosalata, cover it with a whole bunch of garlic slices (sometimes chili olives if I feel like something extra), put a pickle slice on top, and have it with a nice cold glass of refreshing Kvass. All the pungent factors sort of cancel each other out and it's a pretty great, unique flavor, but not for people with heartburn... ) Anyway, Kvass. I love it in the summer. It's sort of like if beer didn't have any hops in it, and was milder and more coriandery. There's a bunch of brands out there and most of them are kind of crap, but off the top of my head All Star Bakery's is great (just be really, really careful opening it, in the sink, maybe give it a few hours rest in the fridge first. Or it'll go all baking-soda-volcano all over your kitchen.). Podlaski (Polish... if I'm not confusing it with some other Polish Kvass) and Obolon are nice (if your Obolon's from some OK-tunrover-rate place, I think their bottles can go flat after a while), and Monastirskiy's a big brand that's okay if it's all you've got, but see if you can at least get it in cranberry. If you can read the ingredients, a general guideline is bread crumbs > sourdough >>> artificial flavors; but there's a ton of brands and it's really a bit of a crapshoot. If you're in a Slavic store ask for recommendations I guess, but it's sort of in that beer realm of different tastes and too many people going for mass-produced mediocre stuff. Or try making it yourself, if you've got a source for good black bread or a sourdough starter, there's a bunch of recipes out there. My favorite Kvasses (...Kvassi?) are all homemade. It's not too finicky, just shouldn't end up bitter or any more sour than a lemonade. Every good Kvass is a bit different. People like to flavor it with different stuff, mint, cranberries, raisins, etc. You can make it a bit alcoholic; there might be a name for that but I forgot. It's more of a drink than an ingredient, though I know some people make soups with it. That's really weird to me since I grew up with it as a soft drink, so it strikes me a bit like pouring coke into a soup, but I'll try it at some point. Okroshka is a popular Kvass soup. Oh, yes, there's also horseradish Kvass. I'm convinced it's like some sort of joke. Maybe it's for cooking, or for hangovers. Do not drink horseradish Kvass as an introduction to Kvass. In fact, don't drink it at all, unless you're the type of person who eats hot sauce for fun. It's also a magical substance. Nothing I've ever added to it has ever made it taste any different. You can't even tell if you pour vodka in it (  ).
Goddamn fucked around with this message at Jan 7, 2013 around 17:51 |
| # ? Jan 7, 2013 17:49 |
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Wahad posted:Eel (aka "paling" in Dutch) is one of my favorite fishmeats. I know that in England there's jellied eel, and in Japan you have unagi, but I'm reasonably certain that smoked eel is a Dutch-only thing. Still, however you prepare it, I love the heck out of it. Yes, I LOVE smoked eel. Just covering the table to absorb all the oil that will be leaking out, then sit down to strip the skins of these babies, and washing them down with a good glass of white wine, heaven! 
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 18:31 |
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Okra. Specifically pickled okra. My sister pestered me to try some for the longest time and I resisted, but now I love the stuff. So much more interesting, taste and texture wise, than cucumber pickles.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 19:29 |
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One of my dad's former coworkers is from Montreal and every year around the holidays he'd bring my dad a jar of pickled beef tongue. My stupid younger self was really turned off by the jellylike consistency of whatever they were pickled in and refused to try them, not to mention they just looked like straight up beef tongues. He's since retired and they've fallen out of touch so I never got the chance. 
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 19:51 |
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Socal Sapper posted:My absolute favorite thing in the world are Goya's anchovy stuffed olives! Anytime I bring these up in conversation people give me a disgusted look but when I bring a can they usually change their mind. These things also really kick up the flavor in a ice cold martini. Speaking of anchovy stuffed olives, anchovies in general. They're little umami bombs that melt in your mouth and are incredible if used correctly.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 19:52 |
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Arkham Angel posted:Some organ meats I have serious texture issues with, however I always at least try things before passing judgement upon them. I always use turnips and parsnips in shepherd's pie.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 20:06 |
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Humboldt squid posted:Speaking of anchovy stuffed olives, anchovies in general. They're little umami bombs that melt in your mouth and are incredible if used correctly. What's in a Umami bomb? I've never heard of it.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 21:49 |
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he just means it is an intense delivery of umami, not that it is in ingredient in something named an Umami Bomb.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 21:53 |
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Socal Sapper posted:What's in a Umami bomb? I've never heard of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 21:53 |
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pile of brown posted:he just means it is an intense delivery of umami, not that it is in ingredient in something named an Umami Bomb. Ahh got it. Sounds like someone needs to make something called an Umami Bomb. 
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 22:02 |
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Socal Sapper posted:Ahh got it. Sounds like someone needs to make something called an Umami Bomb. Grant Achatz already did with the black truffle explosion at Alinea, and it is loving awesome.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 23:13 |
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Pork cheek, it has the same flavour as belly yet it costs nothing. (1gbp per half face at my local butchers) Try it slowcooked rolled in a stuffing (like chorizzo and apple for an easy winner)
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 23:14 |
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The Midniter posted:One of my dad's former coworkers is from Montreal and every year around the holidays he'd bring my dad a jar of pickled beef tongue. My stupid younger self was really turned off by the jellylike consistency of whatever they were pickled in and refused to try them, not to mention they just looked like straight up beef tongues. He's since retired and they've fallen out of touch so I never got the chance. Just make one yourself! Brine a tongue for week or so, then simmer it until it's tender. It'll basically be the greatest corned beef you've ever eaten.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2013 23:52 |
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Ham bones. We just had christmas, so this is a good time to mention. When you finish carving off delicious meat from your leg of ham, don't throw that poo poo to the dogs or in the garbage. Wrap it up in plastic and keep it, freezing if need be, for a soup. Ham and pea normally calls for hocks, but if you don't mind having a compositional texture imbalance in favour of the peas and vegetables but a very strong, delicious flavour of ham, hambone works perfectly well. EDIT: "It's so watery... And yet there's a smack of ham to it." Loomer fucked around with this message at Jan 8, 2013 around 03:39 |
| # ? Jan 8, 2013 00:21 |
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Beets. Eat your goddamn beets, they're delicious almost any way you want to prepare them. Boiled, sauteed in butter, pickled, all amazing.
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| # ? Jan 8, 2013 00:52 |
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Can we talk about cooking gear too? Because it makes me sad to know how few of my friends/coworkers have (or use) a slow cooker. Before I moved to grad school I bought a 30-year old 4 qt cooker for $3 at a garage sale and I've used it probably once a week on average for the 2+ years I've been here. I can't tell you how nice it is to come home after working 12+ hours to a ready meal, and how each slow cooker meals leaves me with enough leftovers for three or four more lunches & dinners. It's really simple but buy a slow cooker and use it, you won't be disappointed.
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| # ? Jan 8, 2013 01:18 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 22:13 |
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Liquid Communism posted:Beets. I love beets. I generally roast mine. Also eel is a top contender for my favorite sushi filling. What's the texture on tongue like?
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| # ? Jan 8, 2013 02:59 |
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