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[H.Protagonist]

I really love seeing everybody's creations. It's inspiring, seriously. I can't quite make that kind of stuff yet, but I did finally manage a proper steak today thanks to my guy who showed me the secret to a great steak (aside from not fucking up the cooking part): searing it in garlic saturated olive oil.

Gently supported by buttered toast and bleeding right into the crust... Tasted friggin' amazing. Best meal ever for an uncomplicated Monday night (parsley sprig added for laughs).

 

[OnkelC]

I really love seeing everybody's creations. It's inspiring, seriously. I can't quite make that kind of stuff yet, but I did finally manage a proper steak today thanks to my guy who showed me the secret to a great steak (aside from not fucking up the cooking part): searing it in garlic saturated olive oil.

Gently supported by buttered toast and bleeding right into the crust... Tasted friggin' amazing. Best meal ever for an uncomplicated Monday night (parsley sprig added for laughs).

looks awesome! The proper description for the parsley twig is "side salad"

 

[Etrian Oddity]

thespot84, all of those treats look amazing.

 

[Tc91]

My word that steak and a Boddingtons as well, being from Manchester that is perfect.

 

[Facetime with Dr. Bruce]

Garam masala time!
I threw cinnamon, black pepper, cumin, cloves, coriander, and a bay leaf in a pan and roasted them low and slow for about a half an hour. In hindsight, I could've went with higher heat to get some more browning going on. Unfortunately I only had ground cardamom to work with so I added that after the roasting part.

Roasted:

After 15 minutes of strenuous grinding:

I'll use it on some lamb shoulder, which I have marinating in yoghurt right now. Will report back with the results. Thanks a lot for the inspiration, Yes Boss!


Also: The sear of that steak, man... beatiful

 

[Phat Michael]

I made this Laksa the other night.

Singapore Laksa with Enoki Mushrooms, hardboiled egg, prawns, chicken thighs, crispy onion and coriander.

I dont go much for cooking things that look pretty - but it sure was tasty...

 

[nakedsushi]

^-- That is a beautiful bowl of noodles. Those prawns look perfectly done too.

 

[Phat Michael]

^-- That is a beautiful bowl of noodles. Those prawns look perfectly done too.

haha cheers man. yeah it tasted pretty good! laksa is one of my favourite dishes and its rare to find here (dubai) so I just make it myself.

 

[Dynedom]

God I love Singapore laksa.

 

[Rei_Toei]

Thanks for that Beef Bourguignon receipe. I think I'll have a stab at it soon, didn't know it wasn't that complicated a dish to make.

 

[Yes Boss!]

Garam masala time!
I threw cinnamon, black pepper, cumin, cloves, coriander, and a bay leaf in a pan and roasted them low and slow for about a half an hour. In hindsight, I could've went with higher heat to get some more browning going on. Unfortunately I only had ground cardamom to work with so I added that after the roasting part.

I'll use it on some lamb shoulder, which I have marinating in yoghurt right now. Will report back with the results. Thanks a lot for the inspiration, Yes Boss!

Awesome!

Man I wish I had mortar and pestle/molcajete. I don't even have a spice grinder so I have to use my blender, ghetto style!. I forgot to mention, when I made mine I also did not roast the spices since I was going to fry them up (as well as keep it coarse). Also, omitted black pepper corn, simply because I don't keep it in my kitchen. Cumin seed left out because that always goes in every dish I make, no matter what. Here are my five spices I put into the garam masala. I'm usually a bit more heavy handed on the clove and cardamom:

 

[VanWinkle]

Celebrating just getting my own stand mixer by trying my hand at a calzone. I think it looks pretty decent for my first time trying it. I have been using my fiancee's Kitchenaid which is awesome, but I wanted something of my own, so I got a Hamilton Beach Ecletrics and I'm really enjoying it.

 

[CrankyJay]

Good god that looks awesome.

 

[Keen]

Agreed, that is pure awesomeness!

Recipe, stat!

 

[Metroid Killer]

At first I thought it was some weird mutation of an apple pie, but that does indeed look like a really nice calzone. I haven't had one in aaaages as I never ever buy pizzas, and whenever we make our own, we just go for a regular size.

 

[rossonero]

Have any of you tried to do a Japanese meat bun? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=R3gYNExl6wk#t=21s

I'm thinking about getting a bambu boiler and try it out. It certainly looks awesome on that cooking show, which is btw awesome too

 

[nakedsushi]

Wow, nice crust! That's one of the best looking calzone's I've seen.

 

[Metroid Killer]

Have any of you tried to do a Japanese meat bun? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=R3gYNExl6wk#t=21s

I'm thinking about getting a bambu boiler and try it out. It certainly looks awesome on that cooking show, which is btw awesome too

Yes! It's called a nikuman and the ones I've had were amazing. I'm going to order a bamboo boiler in the near future and between dango/mochi and dim sum, nikuman will deffintely also be made! I love how versatile they are just like making wok.

 

[VanWinkle]

Wow, thanks guys. Really appreciate the kind words. I use this dough recipe. That's my go to recipe. Just works really well, and it makes two medium pizzas or calzones. I hand-tossed one half of it out into a 12-inch circle (I'm sure you could just roll it out. May even work better that way, who knows). Then just put whatever you want on one half of the pizza dough, while keeping about 3/4 inch of the outer edge topping-free. I kept it simple with a bunch of mozzarella and some pepperoni. Then lightly wet the outer edge, fold it over, and seal the edges. I just used a simple technique of holding your finger down at an angle and folding the dough over my finger, and just repeat that all around.

Oven preheated as hot as it'll go (525 degrees for me), preferably with a pizza stone, and bake that baby up. Can't remember how long it took. Probably 10-15 minutes. Then I lightly brushed the top with some EVOO after it was out of the oven.


I used the other half of the dough recipe to make some cheesy garlic bread, and that turned out great. The overnight cold rise made the dough nice and airy. This is the recipe from the link and it turned out exactly how I would have wanted. I'll have to make it more often because it was insanely delicious, lol.

Sorry for the bad picture:

 

[ElectricThunder]

Screw that, some awesome calzone and cheesy bread right there!

 

[Defyler]

Seems about time to contribute to a thread I end up lurking in

Charcoal grilled NY strip with asparagus and a baked potato

Made my own pizza steel over xmas break. 3/8" thick a36 grade steel. Wasn't too difficult to prep and have been getting great results with it so far!

Tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil

Green Olives, artichoke hearts, and prosciutto.

Bake times have been roughly sub 5 minutes so far. Have been using Kenji's NY style pizza dough and sauce recipes.

 

[VanWinkle]

Made my own pizza steel over xmas break. 3/8" thick a36 grade steel. Wasn't too difficult to prep and have been getting great results with it so far!

Tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil

Green Olives, artichoke hearts, and prosciutto.

Bake times have been roughly sub 5 minutes so far. Have been using Kenji's NY style pizza dough and sauce recipes.

Looks GREAT. I've been looking to upgrade my stone to a baking steel. Seems to really do great work from stuff I've seen, like yours and from Kenji's on Slice.

 

[Metroid Killer]

oh! oh! All that pizza and bread! Also every single crust on those pictures looks perfect, jesus...

 

[SquiddyCracker]

Made a sandwhich the other day with my homemade veggiemeat patty (a mix of chickpeas, kidneybeans, refried kidneybeans, carrots, potatoes, paprika, pepper, soy sauce, bread crumbs, cumin powder):

Messy, but tasty.

 

[n0n44m]

Made my own pizza steel over xmas break. 3/8" thick a36 grade steel. Wasn't too difficult to prep and have been getting great results with it so far!

...

Bake times have been roughly sub 5 minutes so far. Have been using Kenji's NY style pizza dough and sauce recipes.

that looks awesome ! any idea what your oven/plate temperatures are ? regular/convection/broiler ?

 

[Defyler]

that looks awesome ! any idea what your oven/plate temperatures are ? regular/convection/broiler ?

At my parent's we have a top notch Viking stove from our recent kitchen renovation. That oven bakes the pies perfectly at 550 with a 60 minute preheat on convection. The convection does really well to brown up the cheese, otherwise it cooks too fast from the bottom. It's usually a 4:30 to 5 minute bake depending on toppings.

At my college apartment I have a basic Hotpoint stove which goes to 550. No convection and it has a lower level underneath broiler placement :/ My solution is to preheat the steel at 550 for 90 minutes, bake the pie on the steel for 3:30 to 4:00 and then swap the pie to a cookie sheet and place under the broiler for a minute. Still experimenting.

Next time I try I'll thermapen the steel to see where it's at.

The 3/8 in. steel is great if you do multiple pies. I've been able to do 3 in a row without appreciable loss of heat from the steel. If you only do one pie I'd go with 1/4 inch steel as mine weighs in at an uncomfortable 24 pounds. Kenji mentions diminishing returns with a 1/2 in. steel.

 

[n0n44m]

At my parent's we have a top notch Viking stove from our recent kitchen renovation. That oven bakes the pies perfectly at 550 with a 60 minute preheat on convection. The convection does really well to brown up the cheese, otherwise it cooks too fast from the bottom. It's usually a 4:30 to 5 minute bake depending on toppings.

At my college apartment I have a basic Hotpoint stove which goes to 550. No convection and it has a lower level underneath broiler placement :/ My solution is to preheat the steel at 550 for 90 minutes, bake the pie on the steel for 3:30 to 4:00 and then swap the pie to a cookie sheet and place under the broiler for a minute. Still experimenting.

Next time I try I'll thermapen the steel to see where it's at.

The 3/8 in. steel is great if you do multiple pies. I've been able to do 3 in a row without appreciable loss of heat from the steel. If you only do one pie I'd go with 1/4 inch steel as mine weighs in at an uncomfortable 24 pounds. Kenji mentions diminishing returns with a 1/2 in. steel.

Really nice convection results! Will try that this weekend. Currently using broiler like I detailed here http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=46936103

1/2 inch shipping costs were 400 USD unfortunately lol... Still I can boost the 1/4 to around 625F with the broiler actually haven't even tried NY style since I discovered that, as I'm now trying to mimic a wood fired oven as much as possible... Family & friends sure love it hehe

 

[CrankyJay]

At my parent's we have a top notch Viking stove from our recent kitchen renovation. That oven bakes the pies perfectly at 550 with a 60 minute preheat on convection. The convection does really well to brown up the cheese, otherwise it cooks too fast from the bottom. It's usually a 4:30 to 5 minute bake depending on toppings.

At my college apartment I have a basic Hotpoint stove which goes to 550. No convection and it has a lower level underneath broiler placement :/ My solution is to preheat the steel at 550 for 90 minutes, bake the pie on the steel for 3:30 to 4:00 and then swap the pie to a cookie sheet and place under the broiler for a minute. Still experimenting.

Next time I try I'll thermapen the steel to see where it's at.

The 3/8 in. steel is great if you do multiple pies. I've been able to do 3 in a row without appreciable loss of heat from the steel. If you only do one pie I'd go with 1/4 inch steel as mine weighs in at an uncomfortable 24 pounds. Kenji mentions diminishing returns with a 1/2 in. steel.

Confused me for a second, you're talking about pizza...right?

 

[Defyler]

Confused me for a second, you're talking about pizza...right?

Yep

 

[Etrian Oddity]

• I bought a Japanese pumpkin and made kabocha no nimono (simmered Japanese squash)
• I learned sweet potato fries go amazing with Japanese spicy mayo (Kewpie mayonnaise + Sriracha)
• Gonna hit up Austin's best fishmonger tomorrow and see what I can find

 

[Metroid Killer]

Why make one entremet dessert, when you can make two?

And what better day to server them on than your girlfriend's birthday?

Chocolate Entremet

Mango Entremet

Her parents came by and luckily I had made a batch of 6 entremets each

The chocolate consits of a tear-drop bitter dark chocolate ring, a chocolate spongecake at the bottom, bitter chocolate mousse, caramel mousse, a brush of coffee and an apricot glaze.

The mango consist of a erm, cracker? crumble? I made it completely blind... Figured it would be nice to have something with more bite in it, in contrast to the rest of the entremet. But basically digestive mixed with butter and baked, had no idea what I was doing but somehow it just worked... Then we have two layers of spongecake filled with passionfruit jelly, all of it covered in mango mousse and then again in passionfruit mirror glaze.

This is also one of the rare times where I came up with the designs myself. Of course highly inspired by other stuff, but starting from scratch by scetching the entremet:

I was really lucky this time, everything went as planned which just goes to show that the more you plan stuff the better your results will be (duh). Only thing I would change, or try to remember is that the bitter chocolate can be very dominating, less is more. Oh and mirror glazes can be some fickle stuff to work with…

 

[SquiddyCracker]

They look both beautiful and tasty!

 

[Kaako]

Mmm Chocolate Entremet. Want now.

 

[codswallop]

Stumbled onto this post. Subscribing. That Rajma Masala a page or two back looks awesome.

Anyone got a good recipe for baked beans (that aren't a ripoff of Heinz, and aren't sweet like the maple/molasses ones I seem to find)?

I have the hair-brained idea to make quail burgers in the next few weeks (since I picked up some quail cheap). Why? Because I can. If I remember I'll post the results here.

 

[Maklershed]

Celebrating just getting my own stand mixer by trying my hand at a calzone. I think it looks pretty decent for my first time trying it. I have been using my fiancee's Kitchenaid which is awesome, but I wanted something of my own, so I got a Hamilton Beach Ecletrics and I'm really enjoying it.

I've been to a million pizza places in my lifetime and even worked in one for a year or two and this is by far the best looking calzone I've ever seen.

 

[rossonero]

Yes! It's called a nikuman and the ones I've had were amazing. I'm going to order a bamboo boiler in the near future and between dango/mochi and dim sum, nikuman will deffintely also be made! I love how versatile they are just like making wok.

Well that seals the deal, will definitely try to make some buns soon!

Wow, thanks guys. Really appreciate the kind words. I use this dough recipe. That's my go to recipe.

VanWinkle, I have to thank you for that link to that dough recipe. You linked to it in the pizza thread and it really is awesome. Have made pizzas twice now with that recipe and had the best result ever.

 

[VanWinkle]

I've been to a million pizza places in my lifetime and even worked in one for a year or two and this is by far the best looking calzone I've ever seen.

Oh man thank you! I must be doing something right!

VanWinkle, I have to thank you for that link to that dough recipe. You linked to it in the pizza thread and it really is awesome. Have made pizzas twice now with that recipe and had the best result ever.

Awesome man! Yeah, I REALLY like that dough.

 

[sharkmuncher]

Originally posted in the beer thread, but I thought I might get some good suggestions here as well.

So thinking of making some beer cheese bread for a beerfest doing multiple loaves with different beer/cheese pairings. So far, my potential combos are:

Aged Gouda and Stout
Pils and Fresh Cheese (or Mexican Beer and Asadero)
English Cheddar and Brown
Blue and IPA
Aged Swiss or Gruyère and Bock (maybe a Doppelbock)
Chèvre and Hefe

Using this recipe

8 ounces all-purpose flour
4 ounces whole-wheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
4 1/2 ounces sharp Cheddar, grated
12 ounces beer

Bake 375

Any other ideas of good beer/cheese pairs or suggestions? I've made this bread before with cheddar and pale ale, but I've always wanted to play around with it a bit.

 

[Argyle]

I think I just made the best Hainan chicken I've ever tasted. Now I just need to be able to replicate it hundreds of time when our new venture opens up come March.

Do tell! I dunno if you remember me (I dropped by Spirit House a few months ago with another GAFfer) but I have since moved to Hawaii where Chinese food is...somewhat less good, overall, than in LA. Since the move I have been obsessed with making the stuff that I can no longer find (Cantonese food is well-represented here, other styles of Chinese food, not so much. One of the two Taiwanese restaurants just closed and was replaced by a Hunan restaurant, which I think is the only one here, and most other regional styles are completely MIA.) You don't have to spill all your secrets but there aren't too many options for Hainan chicken here...

As for me, I've been working my way through Fuchsia Dunlop's cookbooks (Land of Plenty has been amazing so far, and her new one, Every Grain of Rice has also been quite helpful. I haven't made too many dishes from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook as many of the recipes require deep frying, which I am trying to avoid). I used to eat out almost every day, but now I find myself cooking almost every meal, and I've lost a ton of weight because of that alone, haha...

Anyway, tonight, I found myself scrambling around - I was going to make a Japanese pork and squash dish called Togan to butaniku no suisho-ni ("Glazed pork with squash") but I discovered that my squash had gone bad when I wasn't looking, and only a small portion of it was recoverable. Fortunately, I had just found some Pixian Doubanjiang (chili bean paste from Sichuan, which was challenging to find here) at a market in Chinatown, and I was itching to try it out. So I pivoted and made braised pork with potatoes (土豆烧&#32905, and I threw in some carrots and what was left of my squash.

I didn't get to eat it for dinner (it took too long to cook - I just grilled some hebi, which is short-billed spearfish, with some yuzu kosho for dinner) but I tasted it and I think it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself...

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Anybody know the difference between these two All Clad fry pans?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001QJEWB2/?tag=neogaf0e-20

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009WNVBPY/?tag=neogaf0e-20

 

[jet1911]

Made bread today. Chocolate/cranberries. Turned out really good.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Been looking at knives over at http://www.japanesechefsknife.com/ and also looked at the Shuns.

In my moving and 3 month trip to India, lost a box with Kitchen stuff and need new knives.

Wondering if anybody has any Damascus Santoku or Chef's knives? Just need some recommendations

 

[VanWinkle]

^Looks perfect, jet. Great job.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Terrible picture but I have to share this recipe of mine derived from a ribs recipe. Works great with pretty much any piece of beef, be it ribs or in this case bottom blade roast (~600mg). If you like sweet sauce with meat you'll like this.

Wrap meat in aluminum, twice, and put in oven for 3 hours and 10 minutes at 300F (I don't pre-heat).

When nearly done, chop around 1/4 of a medium onion (can be red or white/yellow, up tp you), a good chunk of ginger (1"x1"), oil a pan and cook on medium heat.

Add half an orange (no pulp), chopped, when the onions and ginger have started cooking. Mix together and crush the orange bits a bit with the spatula to get the juices out.

Add at least one big tablespoon of hoisin sauce, if not one and a half.
Add one big tablespoon of sriracha.
Add two table spoons of white wine.
Throw in some chopped mint leaves.
Stir until the sauce has thickened.

Pour on meat, then put the oven tray in the top part and broil for 2-3 mins (500F).

The meat is melt in your mouth and the sauce is a really good mix of flavors. You're supposed to have a lot of sauce, so when you pull the meat apart (it becomes extremely tender), you can mix the meat with the sauce.

I've done this recently with short ribs too, it was great, since the meat is less thick the sauce mixes in with the meat more easily.

 

[Sofiya]

I tried my hand at meatballs tonight. The recipe is from Ad Hoc at Home and each meatball is stuffed with mozzarella....so good!


Before baking:

After baking:

Some pan-frying goodness:

Here's the final product. Served with penne and homemade tomato sauce.

Bonus picture of shakshuka. Thanks to Irongaf for introducing me to this delicious dish. (A couple of the eggs are buried to make sure they were hard cooked.)

 

[thespot84]

Been looking at knives over at http://www.japanesechefsknife.com/ and also looked at the Shuns.

In my moving and 3 month trip to India, lost a box with Kitchen stuff and need new knives.

Wondering if anybody has any Damascus Santoku or Chef's knives? Just need some recommendations

You might peruse the kitchen knife thread:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=458439

 

[Keen]

Pulled pork sandwich with mustard and pork jus, mayo, sriracha, and parmesan

 

[Facetime with Dr. Bruce]

Awesome!

Man I wish I had mortar and pestle/molcajete. I don't even have a spice grinder so I have to use my blender, ghetto style!. I forgot to mention, when I made mine I also did not roast the spices since I was going to fry them up (as well as keep it coarse). Also, omitted black pepper corn, simply because I don't keep it in my kitchen. Cumin seed left out because that always goes in every dish I make, no matter what. Here are my five spices I put into the garam masala. I'm usually a bit more heavy handed on the clove and cardamom:

Thanks! I'll have to experiment some more with the individual amounts. Mine turned out quite nice but something was off/missing for that authentic Indian aroma. Also, when I saw your picture I noticed that your bay leaf looked nothing like what I thought a bay leaf looked like and a quick detour to wikipedia taught me that there are actually all kinds of different types of bay leaves with completely different tastes. Didn't know that...

As for the actual dish: I mostly winged it and browned the lamb shoulder with some onions and the garam masala and braised it in tomato sauce with chickpeas and green peas. I was surprised how the sharpness of the masala completely disappeared and gave way to a much more mellow and balanced taste.


Today's lunch (and dinner) was garlic pork chops inspired by a foodwishes recipe. I don't like pork that much but my butcher sells pork chops that are among the richest, most beautiful meats I have ever had:

Every inch has a different taste and texture and even those lean, less marbled parts in the center are as succulent as can be.

I topped the pork chops with a little bit of balsamic vinegar and a few garlic cloves slowly roasted with rosemary in olive oil until the they turned a beautiful golden brown (photo is pre-browning):

Finished plate:

And my try to be artsy:

The garlic gets infused with the tastes of olive oil and rosemary and has an almost butter-like consistency after roasting and the leftover oil will be used to make tomato sauce later this week.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Made Batata Poha this weekend first time (Potato with flattened rice flakes). Forgot to take an after pic

Was decent for 1st attempt, next time I am making some changes.

Dinner was Chicken Tacos, made using El Paso dinner kit though, but it was really good. I make some adjustments to it, like adding the salsa sauce to the chicken when its cooking instead of using it separately with the taco

Finally getting back into the groove of cooking

Oh, and still looking for good Santoku/Chef's knife suggestions apart from Shun!

 

[Silkworm]

Oh, and still looking for good Santoku/Chef's knife suggestions apart from Shun!

I saw a nice review for the MAC Superior Santoku Knife (model # SK-65) at Cook's Illustrated and it has good user reviews at Amazon. *shrug* Personally as for a chef's knife I just want something like the Victorinox 40520 Fibrox 8-Inch Chef's Knife which doesn't cost and arm and a leg ;-)