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I have access to a grill tonight; what's good grillin' this time of year?
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Mar 27, 2021 16:03
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The same typical stupid advice as any hobby applies here: just cook and eat more. When you’re learning (and even if you are a seasoned home cook) it’s usually a decent idea to closely follow a recipe the first time you make it, then allow yourself a bit of freedom to customize it each additional time you make it. Try doing one dish once a week for a month and see if you can produce meaningful differences using the cooking skills you already have. It’s important to choose a good recipe to start with for this, otherwise the first time is gonna suck and you’re not going to care for trying it again. Oh and if you’re not squeamish about taste it’s usually a good idea to try most ingredients raw, or prepared with very little addition of flavor even if they’re not necessarily palatable on their own. Garlic is something you could try if you haven’t already - try a little bite raw, then a head of roasted garlic smeared on some toast. Just cut the tops of the cloves off a head of garlic, plop in the center of a piece of foil, drizzle with oil then wrap in foil and roast at 350*F for maybe an hour, until a paring knife goes in and out easily.
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Mar 27, 2021 16:35
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bartlebee posted:I have access to a grill tonight; what's good grillin' this time of year? I'm partial to portobello mushrooms or the everpresent burger, really anything savory tho
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Mar 27, 2021 16:39
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Making pasta is a pretty great way to learn and experiment because there's endless combinations and its always going to taste good. Try fresh pasta with just olive oil, a little salt and oregano, then mix it up from there. What happens if you add fresh tomato, passata or puree? How about if you add minced garlic? Fresh oregano vs dried? What happens if you heat the tomato and add garlic right at the end? Or if you first fry the garlic in olive oil and then add tomato? Continue messing around with new ingredients and different preparations. Stews where you throw a little of everything in are great, buts its surprising what can be done with really basic stuff.
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Mar 27, 2021 16:46
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bartlebee posted:I have access to a grill tonight; what's good grillin' this time of year? Grilled vegetables and bread with romesco sauce! Any vegetables you like, but we usually do summer squash, asparagus, green onions / green garlic / leeks, eggplant, sometimes bok choy Roasted potatoes too, but that's more indoors. We use jarred roasted red bell peppers for the sauce itself but you could grill them instead, maybe char outside then foil packet for another 10 minutes. https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/romesco-sauce
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Mar 27, 2021 18:15
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I've always been too afraid to ask this. The roasted red peppers in a jar, for romesco purposes, are pickled, right?
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Mar 27, 2021 21:38
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I don't think the red peppers that come in jars are generally pickled? I think they're just canned and have some salt and maybe a little acid but they aren't super vinegary and don't taste significantly different than if you just roast red peppers yourself? Edit: Are non-hot pickled peppers even a thing that you can buy?
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Mar 27, 2021 21:46
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Jarred roasted red peppers are a thing, yeah.
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Mar 28, 2021 01:04
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Why does spicy food seem to come from regions with warm weather? Do peppers grow better in warm climates? Does inducing sweating feel better when it's warm? You'd think if the climate has you sweating the last thing you'd want to do is sweat more.
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Mar 28, 2021 02:42
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McCracAttack posted:Why does spicy food seem to come from regions with warm weather? Do peppers grow better in warm climates? Does inducing sweating feel better when it's warm? You'd think if the climate has you sweating the last thing you'd want to do is sweat more. I always heard it was because it was harder to preserve proteins because of the heat and the peppers help eliminate the smell/flavor of meat that's not as fresh as it could be. I've never once checked if that was true or not though.
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Mar 28, 2021 02:53
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McCracAttack posted:Why does spicy food seem to come from regions with warm weather? Do peppers grow better in warm climates? Does inducing sweating feel better when it's warm? You'd think if the climate has you sweating the last thing you'd want to do is sweat more. It's an interesting question. Maybe cold climate dwellers would want to avoid getting sweaty eating spicy food since it will make them colder? I'll also add another potential theory: the cuisines which we currently think of as having spicy foods were more compatible with the introduction of chilis after the columbian exchange and so adopted them more than other cuisines. Like as a counterexample, I'd consider Korea as having a cuisine that has a lot of spicy foods. But snow is relatively common in Seoul (it apparently has almost as many days with snowfall as Chicago, for example).
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Mar 28, 2021 04:16
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Stringent posted:I always heard it was because it was harder to preserve proteins because of the heat and the peppers help eliminate the smell/flavor of meat that's not as fresh as it could be. I feel like that's probably not true, with no evidence. People in warm climates aren't going to risk getting sick because they have spices to mask rotten meat flavors.
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Mar 28, 2021 04:27
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Since speculation is more fun than using Google, I'd guess because capsaicin is a deterrent to pests and ecological diversity increases near the tropics, you can rely on bird dispersion while warding off a variety of varmints
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Mar 28, 2021 04:41
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Chemmy posted:I feel like that's probably not true, with no evidence. People in warm climates aren't going to risk getting sick because they have spices to mask rotten meat flavors. Yeah, it sounds sketchy to me, like the beer instead of water thing in Europe.
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Mar 28, 2021 05:08
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Fruits of the sea posted:What happens if you heat the tomato and add garlic right at the end? What DOES happen? I've made tomato sauce over 9000 times and never done it in that order
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Mar 28, 2021 05:17
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Instead of getting a way too large amount of horseradish root for my Passover seder tonight, I picked up a small jar of horseradish sauce as a "close enough" substitute. Thing is, the only option without corn syrup (no corn on Passover) was extra hot, and even a small amount (about the size of a large pea) went straight to my sinuses and... well, really not fun. Definitely caught me off guard, I don't have an issue with the basic root in other years, wasn't expecting something so concentrated and intense. I don't usually use horseradish sauce. If even that small amount's overwhelming is there a way to take the edge off or should I just write it off as out of my league? I'm not going to throw it out without experimenting on a few meals where it won't ruin the whole dish, but I figure I may as well ask.
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Mar 28, 2021 05:27
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Would mixing yoghurt in with it be something you could do?
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Mar 28, 2021 05:30
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Eeyo posted:Like as a counterexample, I'd consider Korea as having a cuisine that has a lot of spicy foods. But snow is relatively common in Seoul (it apparently has almost as many days with snowfall as Chicago, for example). This has a couple bits. One, Seoul is fairly far north in Korea's farming area. Historically, most of the farming was done in what's now South Korea, and still today there's more farming in the southern reaches of SK than north. I lived in the southern part of SK in the farm country and it basically never snows down there. Two, Korea is a lot hotter than you might imagine from its latitude. The climate is more comparable to like, Georgia maybe. It was actually hotter in a Korean summer than it was when I moved to subtropical China. And three, the prevalence of chilies in Korean food is quite new. The dominant cultivar of hot chili in SK is the cheongyang, which is a hybrid of the pre-existing Korean cultivar (much more mild, often green and long--Japan has a similar one) and Thai bird chilies. That was developed in the 1980s, and peppers were fairly expensive back then. Prior to the 50s using a lot of chili was considered kind of unrefined and Korean food didn't do much in the way of hot and spicy. And Korean spicy is pretty weak compared to most places even today. It's rare you get anything there that's more than mild. Also in the 80s, instant noodles in Korea started using spiciness a lot, and that sort of kicked off a trend towards using more and more chilies. So, yeah. Korean food has this pepper reputation, Koreans insist it's the spiciest food on Earth and foreigners cannot handle it, but Korean food using lots of peppers is change so recent it's well within living memory. This is also why if you find North Korean recipes you'll notice waaaaaaaay fewer peppers. It's closer to how things were before. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Mar 28, 2021 |
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Mar 28, 2021 05:30
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McCracAttack posted:Why does spicy food seem to come from regions with warm weather? Do peppers grow better in warm climates? Yes, they do. That's all it is, y'all are overcomplicating it.
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Mar 28, 2021 06:46
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I have a feeling there aren't any simple answers, like why Japan never really used them or the variances of Chinese regional cuisines.
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Mar 28, 2021 08:29
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Helith posted:Would mixing yoghurt in with it be something you could do? Not if you want to have it with meat.
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Mar 28, 2021 08:34
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When horseradish is too hot, you can mix it with cream to tone it down a bit. If dairy is an issue, then I would say oat cream is probably your best bet.
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Mar 28, 2021 08:54
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Meat/dairy isn't an issue for my particular way of doing things, so I'll experiment with that. Thanks.
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Mar 28, 2021 09:07
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I had some horseradish cream cheese once that was pretty good.
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Mar 28, 2021 09:14
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McCracAttack posted:Why does spicy food seem to come from regions with warm weather? Do peppers grow better in warm climates? Does inducing sweating feel better when it's warm? You'd think if the climate has you sweating the last thing you'd want to do is sweat more. Capsicum annum is grown as an annual in most of the world, but it's actually a tropical evergreen perennial. If you grow them somewhere warm enough, they'll live for several years and you don't have to wait for the initial growth period after the first year, so you have an extended productive season. Environmental stressors like high soil humidity can also increase capsaicin production. In cooler countries where it's a major culinary staple (e.g. Hungary's paprika), it's often dried, which knocks back the potency a bit since capsaicin is somewhat volatile. (Plus the seeds may be removed for storage, since removing oils from plants before drying them extends their shelf-life.) Capsaicin is also a vasodilator in high enough concentrations, which might help make the evaporative cooling from sweating more effective in hot, humid environments. Additionally, capsaicin is antimicrobial (which is more important to short-term storage of prepared foods in warmer areas) and discourages most mammals (humans being the notable exception) from eating whatever you've added it to.
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Mar 28, 2021 10:45
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poeticoddity posted:Capsicum annum is grown as an annual in most of the world, but it's actually a tropical evergreen perennial. Ah that's cool about it being perennial in the tropics, that would definitely make me want to cook with them more. Perennial basil is what I really want.
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Mar 28, 2021 10:52
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Paperhouse posted:What DOES happen? Gives a little fresher and sharper garlic taste, that's different from what you get just frying it in oil. Not always desirable, but if I have a dish simmering for a while I'll sometimes toss in a minced garlic clove towards the end as well as frying some at the start.
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Mar 28, 2021 11:04
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They grow them in greenhouses here, I'm sure they produce year-round if they can.
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Mar 28, 2021 11:48
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Grand Fromage posted:This has a couple bits. Thanks, that’s interesting. I figured I was being a little unfair singling out Seoul, I don’t know much about Korea to begin with, and especially not much about what’s south on the peninsula. It being somewhat modern also makes sense, maybe it’s more of a trend of modernization than anything else. Maybe the US will have a similar trajectory, but instead of spicy ramen it’ll be spicy chicken sandwiches and hot Cheetos or something.
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Mar 28, 2021 16:18
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Eeyo posted:It being somewhat modern also makes sense, maybe it’s more of a trend of modernization than anything else. Maybe the US will have a similar trajectory, but instead of spicy ramen it’ll be spicy chicken sandwiches and hot Cheetos or something. Honestly, spicy food in the US is way hotter. We're not at the put peppers on everything stage, but the hot wings at any random bar are hotter than just about anything you'll get in Korea. We build tall and they build wide.
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Mar 28, 2021 17:47
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Yeah, I’ve just gotten into cooking Korean food during the pandemic and it seems that their reputation rests on the volume and ubiquity of chilli in their food rather than its heat.
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Mar 28, 2021 17:54
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While Korea's on topic I'll make my usual shill for https://www.koreanbapsang.com/ as the place to go if you want to learn about Korean food in English from the internet. Maangchi's food is bad, avoid it.
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Mar 28, 2021 18:03
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Grand Fromage posted:While Korea's on topic I'll make my usual shill for https://www.koreanbapsang.com/ as the place to go if you want to learn about Korean food in English from the internet. Maangchi's food is bad, avoid it. Woah that's interesting, Maangchi is fun to watch but I've never tried making any of her specific recipes. Are there ones in particular I should know about?
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Mar 28, 2021 18:05
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Booyah- posted:Woah that's interesting, Maangchi is fun to watch but I've never tried making any of her specific recipes. Are there ones in particular I should know about? Maangchi's japchae is fine. Everything else sucks, if she was running a restaurant in Korea she'd be out of business in a month. She's just not very good at cooking. I have run my opinion by everybody I know who is Korean or has lived in Korea and cooks and gotten universal agreement on it. It makes me sad she's the go-to English source for Korean recipes and is teaching a generation to make lovely Korean food.
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Mar 28, 2021 18:07
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I’m not familiar with her. What makes her recipes bad?
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Mar 28, 2021 18:20
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Someone always asks that when I bring it up and I don't have a specific answer to give you. She's your mom's friend who doesn't know how to cook. If you lived in Korea, went to a restaurant, and ate food made with her recipes, you'd think "well, that sucked" and never go back there again. I don't know how to be specific about it. It's just bad Korean food.
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Mar 28, 2021 18:27
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Grand Fromage posted:While Korea's on topic I'll make my usual shill for https://www.koreanbapsang.com/ as the place to go if you want to learn about Korean food in English from the internet. Maangchi's food is bad, avoid it. A++ I love Korean Bapsang. Pretty much everything I've made of hers has turned out spot on. Re: Maangchi I'm not sure if it's due to her being from the super south of the peninsula and it's just super regional takes on the typical Korean foods, but nothing of hers ever tastes right to me. Admittedly, I've spent most of my time around Seoul. I think the furthest south I ever got was Jeonju. But making her recipes as-is never tastes like anything I've had in restaurants or cooked at home. I find a lot of her recipes are too sweet, but not in the "add sugar to everything even corndog coating and egg sandwiches" way, but in a way that's kinda odd to my palate, as well as lacking in something I can't quite put my finger on. I've collected quite a few Korean cookbooks over the years, from super traditional ~~~passed down for generations~~~ recipes, to Korean Americans creating their own takes on Korean food, and some of her techniques and ingredients are just baffling. Edit: Also  at NYT calling her YouTube's Korean Julia ChildEdit 2: I gotta give Maangchi some credit, she got me cooking Korean at home. But, it's a lot like Alton Brown, she's a gateway into cooking, but once you branch out, you realize both her's and Alton's recipes kinda suck balls. Casu Marzu fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Mar 28, 2021 |
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Mar 28, 2021 18:46
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I lived way south in Ulsan and her food all tastes wrong to me too. I just don't think she's good at it. Never been to Yeosu though. If I didn't know she was from Korea, just from her recipes, I would assume she had never been to Korea and was trying to re-create Korean food from pictures and incomplete information. It's like when someone I know got a baked potato in Korea and the cook, not knowing what sour cream was but having seen a picture of a baked potato before, put a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle. Casu Marzu posted:Edit: Also 
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Mar 28, 2021 18:51
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Grand Fromage posted:It's like when someone I know got a baked potato in Korea and the cook, not knowing what sour cream was but having seen a picture of a baked potato before, put a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle.
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Mar 28, 2021 18:53
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mystes posted:Lmao Same guy also got tacos with spraycan whipped cream on them once.
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Mar 28, 2021 18:56
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