Cooking

I love lamb, but I don’t think I do it justice. Typically, I just sear it in a pan like you would with a steak. Are there any good recipes or go-to tricks for cooking lamb shoulder chops? Please let me know.

If the sole purpose of the mangoes is to make a smoothie, should I freeze skinned and cubed up, or blend it then freeze?

I usually start with Food Wishes, Serious Eats, or the New York Times. Julia Child for French food, Just One Cookbook for Japanese food. Budget Bytes when the bank account is looking a little thin. Dessert Person when I have a lot of time and want to knock the socks off my friends.

seasoning: garlic, madras curry powder, cumin, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, oregano (and other mixed herbs)

cross-posted from: https://yiffit.net/post/280723

Not sure if I need to elaborate. I'm sick of having to scroll through an entire fucking novella just to find the recipe when I do a search for something.

Finding a good recipe isn’t as simple as it should be. Photos can’t always be trusted and estimated cooking times can be a bit too optimistic for the everyda...

Just bought way too many green onions so I can make ramen. What are some other good uses?

Saw my old foodnetwork hero AB disgrace himself on a commercial for snake oil brain sharpening pills. Such a pity to see someone that has a keen scientific mind turn his back on sound scientific logic for a quick buck. He knows this is garbage and it preys on his own fan base and the elderly. Suck on a cheesecloth sack of uncooked Rocky mountain oysters Alton.

Just started playing around with sunflower leaves, and I'm really liking the flavor they add to stuff, and am looking for other ideas I have not thought of as of yet.

What I have planned to try at some later date.

• Either boiling noodles with a few leaves, or boiling some leaves and concentrating the mix down to add to the noodles during the making.
• Making a tea with fresh peppermint and/or hyssop.
  • Update: Just made a peppermint and sunflower leaf tea...Not too bad. I'd give this about a 6:10 in taste (but then , I do have odd tastes, heh. Plus am getting older so senses have dulled a bit, meh, I'd drink it again).

Hmm! Another thought crossed my mind, I wonder about using some tender shoots (stems) in place of asparagus. Don't have enough growing this year, but the 7 foot tall hybrids I've got growing are producing a large number of offshoots. So if I keep the seeds to plant next year, I could easily have an abundance. Meh, just a thought, and I'm definitely curious enough to try it, heh heh heh.

2nd attempt to create a post...O_o.

I'm always messing it up either too much or too little for 2-4 eggs. How do I become more consistent?

What is everyone's preferred cookware around here? I have usually preferred cast iron cookware for most things that don't involve acids but have recently started using carbon steel and prefer it for the lighter weight, longer handles and similar cooking properties. Enameled dutch oven for braising of course. I tried to stop using non-stick pans (Teflon and the like) but for certain egg and crepe recipes it just seems absolutely necessary. I would like to get a nice collection of multi-ply stainless steel / aluminum pans when I get the budget for it.

my recipe if you want it: https://www.thinkingtasty.com/2023/03/matcha-cake-with-white-chocolate.html

i'm calling this a success

my first attempt at a bundt cake... i think i need a better tin but it tastes nice

I have just discovered the amazing wonder that Japanese curry blocks hold. I've made curried pork and curried chicken with them, but I'm guessing there are all kinds of things you can do with them besides using them the way the box suggests. What other things do you make with them, fellow cooks?

I just picked up a Dutch Oven last week, it’s the first time I’ve ever owned one, so far I’ve cooked a stew and also roast chicken and it turned out great.

What are your go to Dutch Oven recipes?

(Recipe in the link)

I prefer blueberry and rhubarb over the strawberry, but they were cheap and thought I would like them. Welp, that was a surprise. O_o.

The biggest issue I have with making these is with the fruit. The bean paste has way too much liquid and it makes it difficult to form the gorditas without squeezing the boans out. Luckily, I didn't have too many problems with this batch.

I cook these on my griddle either 300° or 325° for about 7 to 9 minutes per side.

Here is the video I used to devise the creation of these. https://youtu.be/dRGKjQh3wVM

I love a good air fried party snack, like these sweet and salty devils, but I mostly use my air fryer to turbo roast vegetables. The little tabletop convection oven gets incredible results in a short amount of time without heating up my kitchen; it’s rare that I have to air fry carrots or broccoli for more than 15 minutes. Now I’ve added corn to my easy vegetable repertoire: frozen corn, to be exact.

Sweet corn is in season right now, and I plan to eat a lot of it, but I always have a bag of kernels in my freezer, for tossing into ramen, pasta, and rice dishes. A few days ago, I found myself with a meager cup of kernels left in the bag, and decided to go ahead and air fry them, to see what that was like. (It was good.)

:Links to shitty air friers on amazon here

I tossed the corn in a little melted ghee, seasoned it with a few shakes of garlic salt, and dumped it in the basket of my air fryer (without the tray). I cooked it at 400℉ for 5 minutes, just until the kernels started to take on a little color.

The corn that came out of that basket was delicious—buttery, toasty, and a little chewy on the ends, yet somehow still juicy. I ate the whole bowl in about three minutes. The garlic salt was lovely—I’ve been a on real Lawry’s garlic salt kick recently—but any spice blend would work. (I’m working my way through the Trader Joe’s line of seasoning blends. The elote blend is next.) Is air fried corn groundbreaking? No, but it is fast, delicious, and cheap, and sometimes that’s more than enough. Easy Toasty Air Fried Corn Ingredients:

1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 teaspoon melted ghee (or bacon fat, or olive oil)
5-6 shakes of your favorite seasoning blend

Dump the kernels into a colander and rinse them with warm water to knock off any ice crystals. Dry them on paper towels, then transfer them to a bowl and toss with ghee. Season with your favorite seasoning blend.

Remove the tray from your air fryer basket—the kernels will just fall through and get caught—and heat the air fryer to 400℉. Add the kernels to the basket and cook for 5-6 minutes, until they begin to take on color at the edges. Serve immediately.

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I love coleslaw of all kinds. I love sweet slaw, tangy, vinegary slaw, and hot slaw that’s been dressed with a little pepper jelly. What I don’t love is watery slaw. If you’ve ever observed coleslaw that’s been sitting out for a few hours, you know what I’m talking about. The mixture of cabbage and carrots starts out cool and crunchy, but an hour or so later, you find it swimming in watered-down dressing. Luckily, you can stop the sog with a little bit of salt.

Cabbage, like most vegetables, holds a lot of water in its cellular walls. When you toss it with a dressing that contains salt and sugar (common ingredients in coleslaw dressing), the water in the cabbage flows out of the vegetable and in to the bowl, in an attempt to equalize the concentration of salt and sugar in the cabbage and dressing. This is called “osmosis,” and it’s going to happen no matter what, so you might as well harness its power and draw out a little water before dressing your slaw.

A few things happen when you salt cabbage (or any vegetable). The salt draws moisture out from the plant, which means the solutes in your dressing can’t draw it out later. The shreds also soften a little, but not too much. They retain their crunch, but lose that raw, cruciferous quality, and become pliable, but not soft. (If you want to soften cabbage, for sauerkraut or something similar, you’ll need to massage it with salt.) Removing excess moisture also concentrates the cabbage’s flavor (water dilutes, after all), leaving behind crisp, flavorful shreds that are just a little easier to chew, for a slaw that can sit out without devolving into a watery mess within the hour. How to salt cabbage for coleslaw

Start by shredding your cabbage. I like to do this with a sharp knife or mandoline, but if you must automate it, use the slicing attachment on your food processor, not the shredding attachment. The shredding attachment (or box grater) is a lot rougher on the cellular walls of the vegetable, which can lead to mushy slaw. Get the tools for better slaw:

A sensibly priced chef’s knife: Mercer Culinary M22608 8-Inch Chef’s Knife
A colander for draining: ExcelSteel Stainless Steel Colander
A collapsible salad spinner that won’t take up tons of space: Prepworks Salad Spinner

Once your cabbage is prepared, toss the shreds with 1 teaspoon of fine salt per pound of cabbage, transfer it to a colander, and let it drain for a couple of hours. Rinse off the salt, and dry it completely; use a salad spinner, or gently press the cabbage between clean kitchen towels (or paper towels), repeating with fresh towels as needed. Do not soak you cabbage in ice water

Some recipes recommend a cold soak, but you shouldn’t do this. Soaking cabbage in cold water will plump it up and make it crunchier, at least for a moment. (This is why storing lettuce with a damp paper towel keeps it feeling fresh; the moisture keeps the leaves firm and crunchy.) Unfortunately, you’re just introducing more water for the solutes in your dressing to pull out, which will result in even more water pooling at the bottom of the bowl. Dress right before serving

The longer your cabbage sits in dressing, the more time the salt and sugar in the dressing will have to their thing. Salting will buy you more time, but dressing just before serving adds an extra layer of protection against the sog, and the sog is the enemy of appealing cole slaw. If you need a good dressing recipe, try ours. (It’s got mayo and sour cream, and I think that’s pretty tight.)

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It seems like everyone is obsessed with Outshine Fruit Bars, the inexplicably smooth popsicles studded with bits of whole fruit. I am particularly smitten with the lemon and lime varieties, which taste like perfect frosty lemonade on a stick.

I do, however, become annoyed as all heck when I encounter a processed food I cannot make better at home. Previous attempts to dupe these popsicles have been disappointing. The trouble with popsicles is that you end up with an ice block from which you have to suck out all of the juice. It’s fine when you’re five, but loses its appeal as an adult. How the heck are the Outshine guys doing it?

Gum. That’s the answer. More specifically, stabilizers like guar gum, agar, or gelatin. Before you castigate me for recommending “additives,” please remember each one is a natural food byproduct. Guar gum, for example, is just beans. I ordered some bean powder off the internet and started doing a deep dive, all in pursuit of a better pop, and I’m thrilled to share my findings with you. Here are three tips for making a fruit pop that has a deeply satisfying flavor and mouthfeel. Start your popsicles with cold ingredients

My most successful fruit pops were made with frozen fruit, but to make lemonade, you need to melt sugar into lemon juice. I tried pouring the resulting warm syrup directly into the mold, thinking it would freeze just fine, but it didn’t. It cooled inconsistently, fracturing the popsicle. The ones I made with blended frozen fruit turned out fantastic and froze really quickly.

This makes sense. In large, commercial operations, they use super fast chilling systems to get the temperature down quickly, much more quickly than your home freezer is capable of. There’s also a side benefit to agitation when using guar gum, and though I don’t have hard science to back this up, I suspect using the blender helped. If you want to make a pop that requires a heated base, such as lemon or limeade, freeze it on its own, then use your blender to break it up into a slush. Guar gum for the win

Guar gum—which, again, comes from beans—is a common thickening and stabilizing agent used in a wide variety of foods. It’s wildly good at its job, and more effective than other thickening and stabilizing agents (such as cornstarch and the like). It’s also naturally gluten-free, which is great because there is no reason for gluten to be in a popsicle.

Because it’s so effective, you don’t need a lot of it—just ¼ tablespoon of guar gum for every four cups of fruit. Sprinkle it in, then agitate it in a blender, which helps the guar gum get into solution and eliminates clumps. Combine fruit puree and pieces for a better pop

I read a lot about using “fruit pulp” when conducting my research for these fruit pops, and that definitely made sense. The texture of whole fruit pieces in my pops was part of what appealed to me. To achieve this at home, pour most of the fruit you’re using into the blender and blend with sugar until you have a puree. Add your guar gum, then add your whole fruit and pulse it in the blender just enough to break it up a bit, but not puree it. Now you have fruit pulp. How to make your fruit pops look profesh

Silicone popsicle molds do the heavy work here. They make it easy to pop out your pops one by one, and keep the popsicle stick solidly in place. I do not like popsicle molds that come with their own plastic stick bases, because I’m definitely going to lose one, and it ties up the base until I eat the popsicle. I wanted to be able to make a bunch of fruit pops and keep them in the freezer until I was ready to eat them. Everything you need for perfect pops:

Guar gum (duh): Judee’s Guar Gum Powder
Silicone molds, for pretty pops: Silicone Popsicles Molds
Cello bags, for storing: Popsicle Bags
Sticks (gotta have ‘em): Natural Wood Popsicle Sticks
A blender, for making pulp: Hamilton Beach Power Elite Wave Action Blender

Once the pops are done, and they really only need a six-hour freeze, pop them out and transfer them to cello bags made specifically for popsicles. They can live in your freezer until you’re ready, like the boxed kind you buy from the store. Perfect Strawberry Fruit Pops (makes six) Ingredients:

16 ounces frozen strawberries
One cup of white sugar
¼ tablespoon of guar gum

Add 12 ounces of the berries to your blender, along with your sugar, and blend until you have a smooth puree. Sprinkle the guar gum on the puree and blend for 20 seconds. Now add the rest of your berries, and pulse for one second five or six times to break them up, but not puree them.

Immediately pour the mixture into your silicone mold and freeze. You want the mixture to be as cold as possible when it goes into the freezer, so don’t dawdle; have your mold ready to go as soon as you’re done blending.

After six hours, un-mold and eat or transfer cello bags and store them in the freezer.

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Anything expensive, unhealthy or a combination of both. Just recently I cooked an overly rich steak dinner of filet mingon topped with foie gras and a variety of sides. Eaten on the couch, of course, because I’m truly a glutton.

Why or why not? How do you go about it if you do? App/Pen paper? Once a week or more?