The dinner thread - Post Nood(les) - The Something Awful Forums

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Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Theophany posted:

Trigger warning - there are eating utensils in the photo below.

Bacon-wrapped pork faggots with saut�ed mushrooms and spring onions.

Gonna need the recipe for those mushrooms.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2017 04:21

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 11:30

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

emotive posted:

Sure.

Kung Pao (just subbed tofu for the chicken... i baked mine first to get it crispy): http://www.fuchsiadunlop.com/cooking/
Eggplant (didn't have the pickled root so I omitted it and the tofu): http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/02/braised-eggplant-with-tofu-in-garlic-sauce-recipe.html

The bok choy I just blanched and then quickly stir fried with a little light soy, minced ginger and a pinch of white pepper.

I've stir fried bok choy before and it just made it weird and squishy (no idea how). What's the best way to stir fry it? Chop it up fine?

Also, any tips for cooking yu choy/mustard greens? I've never managed to get those down right.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2017 18:43

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Beef shank braised in diced onions, beef stock, and red wine with blanched broccoli. Brown on a plate, but at least the broccoli added some color. I failed to remove the grease from the gravy/sauce so there's a noticeable ring of grease around the gravy :cry:

is it even considered a gravy, or just a sauce? Tasted really good, though. I'm not sure what else I could add to the plate to give it more variety/more color, cause it needs some.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2017 21:38

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

I'm avoiding carbs, so no cornbread or pasta or anything. I was thinking of adding a salad with some sliced carrots or sth.

The flavors are great, I guess I just wanted a bit more texture or crunch to the dish - hence the broccoli. The feedback makes a lot of sense, thanks!

# ¿ Jul 30, 2017 22:41

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

That Works posted:

Lightly pickled or some braised red cabbage.

Pickled would work, I think I still have my old salt pickler. I've braised/stewed red cabbage before, is it normal for it to take on a sweet/sugary taste? I kind of avoided cooking it often as a result, cause it tasted weird to me. I couldn't figure out whether it was the red cabbage or something else, but red cabbage dishes out there tend to incorporate a lot of sugar.

EDIT: Day two resulted in the addition of some potato salad to round the plate out. Technically not lo-carb, but I wanted to use up some leftover potatoes. Made it with minced onion, scallions, and cilantro, mayonnaise, dijon mustard, rice vinegar, and paprika. Came out alright!

Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Jul 31, 2017

# ¿ Jul 30, 2017 23:18

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

POLLYANNA'S rear end poo poo gently caress YOU CHICKEN KORMA

Ingredients:

Whole spices: cardamom, cloves, bay leaves, cinnamon
Ground spices: cumin, turmeric, garam masala, paprika
Onions, sliced
Minced garlic (use mortar and pestle since you don't have a blender)
Chicken thigh
Coconut milk (not too much)
Cashews

Steps:

Chop onion into slices. Make lots of it. This stuff has to caramelize for a while so it'll shrink.
Fry your whole spices in butter on high heat. Make sure your cloves, cardamom, etc. are lightly crushed to release the scents or whatever inside.
Once their flavor infuses the butter, fish them out with a metal spoon and get hot oil splattered on your hand.
Fry your not-whole spices in hilariously burnt butter on high heat.
Burn the poo poo out of the spices and almost cause your smoke alarm to go off because you have no idea what you're doing.
Reduce heat to medium, add onions and garlic, and cook until onions are deep brown and caramelized to poo poo. Not visible in this photo, because the spices make it look like it's dying already.
Remove onions and garlic to a bowl. Add more butter to the skillet, melt, and begin searing your chicken thigh. Make sure they get a nice sear on them, they will (probably) be simmering for a while. Fail to get anywhere near a nice sear.
Pour one out for your homies that didn't make it.
Once the chicken is "seared", fill the skillet with some of the beef/pork stock you've been collecting over the past two months.
Add the onions and garlic back, cover, and simmer until chicken is cooked. This will probably be 10-15 minutes. Do NOT do what I did and set the timer for 20 minutes and walk away.
While the chicken is simmering, crush half of your cashews in a mortar and pestle, and combine with coconut milk in a bowl.
Once the timer goes off, take a look in the skillet, figure that it looks kinda dry, and add some more stock.
Add the coconut milk+cashew mixture, and stir.
Curse yourself as you realize that your gravy is now way thinner than you like it because you added more liquid than you really needed and now you have to wait another 10+ minutes for it to reduce.
Lightly crush the remaining cashews - not all the way, just enough to break them up a bit.
Once the gravy is finally reduced, add the lightly crushed cashews, ~~cilantro~~ your massive bunch of cilantro is all wilted and soggy because you barely loving use that much cilantro in a week why do they sell so much at a time so just forget it, stir to combine, and season to taste.
Serve without rice because you're on a diet. Marvel at how much goddamn cashew you ended up using. Feel like you need a nap after a single bowl.
Look at the mess you made and all the dishes you have to wash and wonder why you didn't just order Indian from Foodler. Oh, right, because last time you did you found a rusty screw in your rice.

No measurements cause I have no loving idea how much of anything I used.

SOURCE

Youtube videos and also I read on Wikipedia that korma is basically cashews + yogurt or coconut milk.

LESSONS

I am not good enough to bullshit my way through without using a real recipe. Use a recipe next time, fucko.

VERDICT

:ramsay:

Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Aug 4, 2017

# ¿ Aug 3, 2017 23:32

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

That Works posted:

Experiences like this are good. You can rapidly troubleshoot everything here and make a really good batch next time. I'd suggest using ghee instead of butter at least for the spices since butter will burn pretty easily. I also like to temper my spices in a small skillet so heat control is easier and I can cool them down quick in case I burn. Also, if you're going to sear chicken thighs, add about 1/3 or 1/2 as much as you did to your pan and don't crowd them. Do them in batches if you need to. Having so many of them in there means they just all stay close and as they release liquid turn that to steam. You end up with more of a poach than a sear if you overcrowd the pan.

Yeah, I can identify a good few things that made things harder on me:

I need to prep all my ingredients in advance, just so I have more space to work with and don't have to scramble to get poo poo done. I should buy more bowls...
Frying the poo poo out of stuff on high heat doesn't work for waking spices up. It just burns it. For Indian food in particular, I need to learn how to properly make a tarka.
It has a strange aftertaste which I suspect to be the result of one or more of the spices - I need to be more selective in which ones I use.
More is not necessarily better, since I think I used too much spice somehow.
I somehow used a lot of spice and still ended up with a very bland dish. It doesn't taste of anything except cashews, and the spices are very subtle if even noticeable. I need to figure out how to properly season something, maybe it needed more salt, maybe the spices just got overpowered. Something.
As you mentioned, get better at searing chicken thigh. I definitely just kinda plopped it all in there and cooked them all, and if I had maintained a high heat they would have overcooked on the outside while still being kinda raw on the inside. Get smarter about controlling heat and doing things in batches (get more bowls and manage your space better).
I used way too much cashew and seriously overwhelmed the dish. I'm clearly not at the level where I can eyeball stuff and consistently get it right (or even acceptable).
I need a dishwasher

I have this strange issue where I look at a recipe that has 20~25 lines of ingredients and I just sort of shut down. It's intimidating as hell and it always means the recipe is a pain in the rear end to put together. There's maybe 10 ingredients in this one but I've seen recipes get up to the 30s and 40s and that's ridiculous.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2017 16:51

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

I tried to make salmon meuniere again and completely hosed it up :negative:

The salmon was thick in some places and thin in others, so by the time the thick part was fully cooked the rest was chalky and dry. The butter sauce ended up being thin and watery, and I still haven't figured out how much I should make at a time, so I basically poured it all onto a plate and it was like a soup.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2017 02:55

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Breath of the Wild, yeah, and it's what the recipe uses (I found a video that makes it and it looked easy enough). I've had mediocre experiences pan frying a filet of salmon, the steak cut or a cross section of the fillet is easier IME. Maybe it's a Japanese thing. Some of those other fish (like tilapia) would be a much better idea.

The video in question:

https://youtu.be/LtioJ6hMyQo

# ¿ Aug 10, 2017 19:42

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

I figured it was a matter of proportions (too little butter) so I tried to reduce the sauce after I had already mounted the butter. It broke :downs:

# ¿ Aug 10, 2017 20:20

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Gonna need that broccoli soup recipe. Can't believe I didn't think of pressure cooking the poo poo out of broccoli to make soup.

Edit: Oh, right - do I need a stick blender or something for it?

Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Aug 16, 2017

# ¿ Aug 16, 2017 03:46

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

My local grocery store doesn't actually have a butchery department and the only flank/skirt steak available is the expensive pre-packaged kind. Could be worse.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2017 03:06

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

I made a really nice chicken and lentil soup in my Instant Pot and upon taking a few spoonfuls I realized that I forgot to wash the lentils.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2017 03:49

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Random Hero posted:

No specific recipes really but I made it after going to Flour + Water in SF: https://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/agnolotti-dal-plin.html

The pasta was about 2 cups of flour, 2 full eggs, 4 yolks, 1tsp salt and 2tbsp of water. I just made up the filling but I have done braised short ribs several times and they're pretty forgiving. In a dutch oven, I cooked some bacon, removed that and then seared the short ribs and removed those. Then I sauteed some onion, shallots, garlic and carrots before adding red wine and beef broth and scraping the bottom the whole time. Then I added the short ribs and bacon back in along with some fresh thyme and rosemary and cooked that in the oven at 350 for ~2 hours.

When the meat was done, I put the shredded short rib and some of the onion mixture into a food processor to get it nearly pureed and then mixed that with the ricotta and pecorino before putting into a piping bag.

Stuff like this makes me really sad that I'm doing lo-carb, cause that sounds loving delicious. Totally stealing that short rib recipe, though.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2017 12:46

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

oooooooooo meatloaf :swoon:

I should get one of those meatloaf pans myself.

vv Yes, but I don't bake bread, so they're meatloaf pans to me :colbert:

Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Aug 25, 2017

# ¿ Aug 25, 2017 18:37

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Brown butter as in butter that's melted, browned, and translucent? I usually just call that a separated butter sauce and a failure on my part

# ¿ Sep 9, 2017 17:53

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Wait, maybe I'm confused. What's the difference between a separated butter sauce and brown butter?

# ¿ Sep 10, 2017 03:28

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

POLLYANNA'S MAGICAL STEAK ADVENTURE

I suck at making steak. I don't know why that is, I think it's got something to do with the fact that it's really sensitive to timing and heat, and that I'm liable to set off the smoke alarm if I do anything other than stick it directly under a broiler.

But I had the good fortune to find a nice large strip steak for $10 off! I'm going to cook it and I absolutely refuse to gently caress it up this time.

MATERIALS

Cast-iron pan
Big lovely oven I have no idea how it got up these narrow steps
Tin foil

INGREDIENTS

Salt and pepper
Strip steak @ 1.35 lb / 1.25 in
Pat of butter
Some olive oil

I'm not going to marinate it or anything, it'll be straight up beef.

STEPS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Pull steak out of the fridge. Let sit for 10-15 minutes.
Pat steak dry. Nice hands, fatty.
Stick a bunch of salt and pepper in your hand, sprinkle it all over the steak, make a huge loving mess and let sit for 5 minutes.
While the steak is resting, pull out your cast iron pan, pour in a little olive oil and put it on high. Get it rippling hot.
Marvel at all the crap you have stuck to the pan.
The pan is smoking I repeat the pan is smoking!!!!! RIP smoke alarm, RIP my ears, RIP my cat's sanity. This is why I hate putting my cast iron directly on the burner.
Pat steak dry.
Place steak onto the pan. THIS IS IMPORTANT: your pan has to be really hot before you put the steak on. Make sure it makes a significant sizzling noise when you place it on, or it's no good. Test with a drop of water if you're not sure.
Sear for three minutes, flip over, sear for three minutes. Begin descent into panic attack as you become utterly terrified of the smoke alarm going off even though you opened two windows and put the fan on.
Once both sides are seared, pick the steak up and sear the strip of fat along the edge. Please please please don't neglect this step. The texture is god awful if you do.
Turn off the heat, and move the pan+steak to the oven.
Bake until the internal temperature is 140 degrees.
How the gently caress do you know if it's at 140 degrees.

-----
TODO: I DON'T HAVE AN OVEN-PROOF PROBE THERMOMETER!!! PLEASE FILL THIS IN WITH AN ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION BEFORE POSTING!!!
-----
Pull it out of the oven when it's done.
Place the pat of butter on the steak, and tent with foil.
Wonder out loud if you're supposed to clean cast iron pans or anything. Shrug, and stick it back in the oven.
gently caress off, Jet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLit9IKzEMY
After 10 minutes, steak is ready. Look at all that juice. Get confused as to where the roasted broccoli went then realize you were hungry and ate it all while waiting.
Eat steak. Yes, the whole thing is for yourself, why do you ask? Also, clean your loving apartment.

SOURCE

mindphlux, Casu Marzu, poop dood et al

LESSONS

Pan searing a steak will never not be terrifying, not after the many many smoke alarms you've set off...
Work on getting that crusty sear done right. It didn't exactly have a crunchy exterior.
Let's say it takes 8~9 minutes in the oven until the steak is ready. Yeah, let's go with that and never actually check what temp the steak is at again.
The cat instantly goes to his hiding spot when you turn the range fan on.
You need to go on a diet.

VERDICT

# ¿ Nov 9, 2017 01:38

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Okay, so yes clean cast iron pans. I thought you weren't supposed to, and it'd strip the seasoning off/make it rust. How do I clean it? I assume not with water?

# ¿ Nov 9, 2017 02:32

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

I have steel wool, so it's fine - my pan is clean now. I'll re-season it Kenji style :drum:

I don't make steak terrifically often, but I find the pan is pretty great for roasting veggies. I make broccoli, carrots, onions, garlic, etc. in it pretty regularly. That's where most of the olive oil comes from.

I also have trouble finding larger-sized salt grains at my local supermarket...kosher is as big as I can find.

vvv Morton's is the one I typically use, yeah...it could stand to be a bit larger still.

Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Nov 9, 2017

# ¿ Nov 9, 2017 22:01

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

atothesquiz posted:

This. Instead of buying six 8ounce steaks, buy 3 16ounce or even better, 2 24ounce steaks. Thicker steaks (1.5" and thicker), when cooked properly, will always be superiour smaller cuts (when appropriate for the cut of steak).

This way you only have to sear two steaks which shouldn't add much more time or effort versus 3 times the work for less flavorful dinner.

Edit: Example:

Woah. Can I get the recipe for that asparagus?

# ¿ Feb 8, 2018 21:38

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

The Midniter posted:

does not compute

Seriously. You can't have too much cooked onion. Note that I bolded cooked, because raw onions aren't so great.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2018 14:43

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

That looks loving stunning.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2018 18:28

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Tried making chicken calvados tonight, and...I don't think I liked it. I don't know if it was the stringy, tendony boneless chicken drumsticks, the two cups of calvados, or the bland-rear end cream sauce, but it really didn't taste very good.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2018 01:02

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Shroomie posted:

Growing up my dad always tossed black eyed peas and the ham bone from Christmas into the Crock Pot on New Years Day. I figured I'd step it up a little this year and toss black eyed peas and a smoked pork jowl into the Instant Pot. Publix had BOGO collard greens, so I made some of those too. The girlfriend made jalapeno cheddar cornbread.

Any chance I can get the recipe for this? Can I use smoked pork hocks?

# ¿ Jan 5, 2020 01:40

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Carrot peels in Chinese vinegar dressing ((1 tsp Chinkiang vinegar, 1 tsp soy sauce, 3 tsp vegetable oil, a pinch of salt and pepper) /2, since I didn�t use all the dressing). I�m trying to learn how to make good vegetable dishes. Mock away, I know it sucks

# ¿ Jan 9, 2020 17:53

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Ma po tofu by Serious Eats.

I couldn�t find Sichuan peppercorns, but this is plenty tasty enough!

Quiet Feet posted:

Its important to make good veggies. Growing up I thought I hated vegetables but it runs out I just didnt like that everything was boiled. I could eat leftover sauteed broccoli or green beans cold straight out of the fridge and I'm fine with meatless curries and stir fries.

Good on you for trying something new.

Thank you

I�m trying, especially now that I�m at risk for heart disease. There�s good vegetable stuff out there, I just don�t know how to make it.

Junior G-man posted:

No joke, this cookbook has completely changed how much veggies I cook - from like once a week to 3-4 nights - and how I perceive cooking them. It's pretty great for any skill level. I think it's the only cookbook where I've cooked literally all the dishes from.

This is a good start. Thank you!

# ¿ Jan 11, 2020 00:21

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

I have no idea what to make for this week. My staples of meatballs, Japanese curry, and broccoli soup are getting me a little down. I get that we're hunkered down, but I wanna eat something new this week. Any suggestions?

The hard part is choosing something, cause there's so much choice

# ¿ Apr 5, 2020 15:12

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

VelociBacon posted:

Fresh pasta? Braised Lamb?

Low carb, so no pasta. Though that might be changing due to our situation...

Braised lamb sounds dope though! Ooh, wait a minute, I've actually been meaning to make this: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/04/jewish-braised-brisket-recipe.html and I'm not jewish, but passover food looks delicious and I want some.

Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Apr 5, 2020

# ¿ Apr 5, 2020 15:23

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Entropic posted:

The BA chicken recipe I keep going back to is the slow-roast gochujang chicken. It's ridiculously easy (get a whole chicken. Slather it in a mix of gochujang, olive oil and garlic, and bake at 300 for 3 hours) and is delicious.

I tried making this tonight, and I don't think the recipe is accurate at all. 3 hours at 300, and the chicken is cooked, but not as impressively brown as it looks in the picture, and the potatoes are still hard.

It might be that my oven can't hold the right temperature. I'll have to buy a thermometer to check. In the meantime, back in it goes at 400 for another hour and a half.

E: Yeah, I think it's my oven. 400f and it's a lot closer to how it looks in the picture now. Jesus, what a lovely loving oven.

Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Sep 22, 2020

# ¿ Sep 22, 2020 00:39

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

I will admit, once the dish is properly cooked, it's quite tasty.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2020 02:05

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

I just made chicken under a brick, and it might be the worst chicken I've had in my life. It's somehow still underdone despite going for even longer than the video suggests because even after 30 minutes it didn't look anywhere near as properly browned.

Something went horribly, horribly wrong, and I suspect it's one or two things:

1. My oven, either not being able to hold the right temperature, or not having the heating element on top (I have no idea where the heating element is, I think it's on the bottom somehow? that's where the fire is), and/or
2. The chicken, which exuded so much loving water that it basically steamed instead of roasted.

My money is on probably #2, but #1 is hard to discount. Would that recipe have worked for an oven that didn't have the heating element on the ceiling?

# ¿ Oct 21, 2020 23:50

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

The chicken was some rando 4-pounder that was probably previously frozen, but a lot of that chicken water hosed off when I salted it and let it sit. The cast iron pan had easily at least a couple cups of water by the time

Also, I think I just realized the problem. Apparently this oven has a broiler drawer at the bottom, or something. That means the heating element is on the bottom of the oven instead of the top, like it is in the video. I actually had no idea that broiling things in this oven happened at the bottom :psyduck:

So maybe I've been doing this wrong the whole fuckin' time?

# ¿ Oct 22, 2020 03:19

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Drone posted:

My plating sucks as does my photography but who gives a drat:

Chicken ~~marsala~~ madeira with roast potatoes. Both recipes from Kenji.

The sauce is goddamn delicious, drat. I had a little bit of difficulty getting the creamy consistency to it that was written in the recipe, so I added a few little sprinkles of flour to get it to thicken up. Very hearty and savory and great. :chefkiss:

I would make this except Kenji seems to assume everyone has access to unflavored gelatin regardless of what podunk-rear end grocery store they go to, and I can't find any at mine at all.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2020 20:49

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

I made these sweet potato pan dumplings for dinner.

They're okay, but not terribly impressive. Mostly I felt they kinda tasted a bit flat, a lot of richness from the fat and butter and sweetness from the potato but not much else. I ended up putting a dash of lemon juice on them and that improved it for me. Any thoughts on how to add acidity to it without messing up the rest of it? I didn't use goat cheese because that poo poo's too expensive for a recipe I haven't tried before.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2020 02:02