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IronGAF Cookoff (hosted by OnkelC)

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Tf53

Member
smirkrevenge said:
made some chocolate bouchons last night, from a thomas keller recipe. a light dusting of sugar, top quality chocolate and cocoa powder (scharffen berger) seals the deal.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3079/2801496654_76a15bb74a.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]
Those look really nice. I'm thinking of trying out a choco fondant recipe I found on the internets.

Here's yesterday's dinner:

[IMG]http://xs230.xs.to/xs230/08353/yummychickensalad983.jpg
Chicken salad

yummypotatobread275.jpg

Home-made potato bread (don't know the correct English term, even the Finnish one comes from Russian (it's a recipe from Eastern Finland)).
 

Priz

Member
Zyzyxxz said:
Man you are lucky to work near places with such good food. I have some local indian places around me but I have no idea if they are good, I assume they are pretty ghetto judging from the look of the places

I live by the whole "You need to try it once, it could be the best place you've ever eaten at, but until you've tried it..." thing. Maybe there's yelp reviews of them or something?

If you're ever out in the SF Bay Area, a meal is on me. Whatever food you want - Greek, Indian, Italian, Mexican, Japanese, Puerto Rican - whatever! :)

tf53: Yum! Wouldn't mind trying any of that. :)

Over the weekend I went up to see my band play just north of the Golden Gate (practically under it) and spent the night up there. The next day on the way home, I stopped for this amazing Puerto Rican place up there called Sol Food. I ordered their specialty chicken dish, Pollo Al Horno:



Boneless, skinless chicken thighs marinated with oregano and garlic then baked. served with pink or black beans, organic salad and 2 Pieces of tostones or maduros. (free-range chicken)

Ordered one of each (a tostones and a maduros). Everything tasted great!

(I showed all this to Onkel earlier today on AIM and he chastised me for not posting them in the thread, SO... :) )
 

Zyzyxxz

Member
Priz said:
(I showed all this to Onkel earlier today on IRC and he chastised me for not posting them in the thread, SO... :) )

we have a IRC?


Anyway I think my cast iron skillet is alright, but all those months of seasoning it have gone to waste. Back at one.
 

Priz

Member
Zyzyxxz said:
we have a IRC?

Er, I mean AIM. You know these Multi-system clients these days (Trillian, Miranda, etc.)

One of the Japanese Momoists tries to use AIM or Yahoo messenger, but can only get MSN to work properly, so I have a MSN account setup on there specifically for when he logs on.
 
Zyzyxxz said:
ugh I feel like such an idiot.

I left my cast iron pan to boil some salted water to clean out the grease and I forgot about it, when I remembered all the water was gone and now the pan's black coating has flaked off.

I dunno if its still safe to use? Anybody know?
Yeah, it's perfectly safe; that flaking is just iron and some bonded fats, after all.

Run some steel wool over it and give it a good rinse before you next cook in it so you don't end up with any of those flakes in your dish, for aesthetic reasons.
 

OnkelC

Hail to the Chef
Thanks for sharing, priz!

Crappy Convenience experimental-age: Toasties.
those are so weird, I had to try them out. They come in packs of five, 70 grams each, currently available are pork and chicken:
smallP1040265.jpg

smallP1040267.jpg


fire up ze toaster:
smallP1040266.jpg


What can I say, I expected grossness, but they are not THAT bad:
smallP1040269.jpg

smallP1040270.jpg

smallP1040271.jpg


chicken:
smallP1040274.jpg


Not as bad as I thought, not as good as the real thing. at around 3 EUR per 5-pack, they are quite costly.
 

OnkelC

Hail to the Chef
homemade seasonal goodness for a change: golden Chanterelles with pasta. These very tasty mushrooms have high season right now and if you happen to come across a basket of them, treat yourself to something nice! They are easily prepared, just brush them off dry then sautee them with a bit of oil, cubed onions and ham/bacon cubes. Serve on fresh toasted bread or pasta and...

smallP1040276.jpg

smallP1040278.jpg

smallP1040280.jpg

smallP1040281.jpg

smallP1040283.jpg


Enjoy.
 
Jirotrom said:
Well... here is something I made, just a little improvisation...


Soup002.jpg


Turned out great:D

I'm vietnamese, and we're BIG into one-pot meals, especially "soups" that we can pour over rice for a hearty, blood warming meal. That looks awesome.
 

Jirotrom

Member
PartlyCloudlike said:
I'm vietnamese, and we're BIG into one-pot meals, especially "soups" that we can pour over rice for a hearty, blood warming meal. That looks awesome.
I'm og Nigerian decent and sups and rice are big with us as well:D
 

OnkelC

Hail to the Chef
really nice pot-au-feu, Jirotrom! thanks for sharing. I'm off to the westfalian outback until saturday noon now, keep sharing, folks!
 

Zyzyxxz

Member
Jirotrom said:
I'm og Nigerian decent and sups and rice are big with us as well:D

holy shat you are an O.G. Nigerian!

:lol

but yeah as a lazy college student I can appreciate one pot meals, less mess and more time to enjoy.
 

OnkelC

Hail to the Chef
there are 8,000 calories hidden in the picture, it's Gyros topped with a Metaxa Sauce, then gratined with two handful of cheese, served with raw onions, tsatsiki and french fries/mayo. Heaven in a tray and only 8.20EUR.
smallP1040284.jpg
 

lobdale

3 ft, coiled to the sky
Zyzyxxz said:
time to clean out the fridge

spaghetti with mushrooms, onions, spam cubes and alfredo sauce

Man, I love all those things separately but together I am seriously having difficulty imagining that it could taste good.

Verdict?
 

edbrat

Member
I'm vietnamese, and we're BIG into one-pot meals, especially "soups" that we can pour over rice for a hearty, blood warming meal. That looks awesome.

Vietnamese food has probably been my favourite cuisine of the last few years, getting better in London too (but nothing beats my two trips to the country itself :))

Onkel, that is the greatest fast food platter i have seen in some time.
 

Zyzyxxz

Member
Hey guys I'm having a steak lunch tomorrow at my place with my friends.

I was thinking steak (not sure which type yet), grilled corn on the cob, honey baked beans.

I'm not sure what else to do, I feel I should have some sort of potato but I don't have an oven just a gas BBQ grill. So any suggestions on what else I should cook up?
 

Tf53

Member
Zyzyxxz said:
Hey guys I'm having a steak lunch tomorrow at my place with my friends.

I was thinking steak (not sure which type yet), grilled corn on the cob, honey baked beans.

I'm not sure what else to do, I feel I should have some sort of potato but I don't have an oven just a gas BBQ grill. So any suggestions on what else I should cook up?
One of my favorite ways to cook potatoes is on a grill. What you'll need:

Potatoes (duh...)
Tin foil
Olive oil
Butter
Basil
Black pepper
Sea salt

Slice the potatoes into thin slices. Put in a bowl. Add olive oil, chopped basil, black pepper and sea salt. Wrap into tin foil in portions. Put a nice chunk of butter into each portion. Cook semi-slowly on the grill. Enjoy.
 

Zyzyxxz

Member
Schrade said:
Ribeye. It's the only steak.

I was thinking the same. Last week I cooked steak several times to practice.

Tf53 said:
One of my favorite ways to cook potatoes is on a grill. What you'll need:

Slice the potatoes into thin slices. Put in a bowl. Add olive oil, chopped basil, black pepper and sea salt. Wrap into tin foil in portions. Put a nice chunk of butter into each portion. Cook semi-slowly on the grill. Enjoy.

sounds like a good recipe but should I close the tin foil or leave a hole open on top, also does it matter if I close the grill cover over it?
 

Blablurn

Member
OnkelC said:
there are 8,000 calories hidden in the picture, it's Gyros topped with a Metaxa Sauce, then gratined with two handful of cheese, served with raw onions, tsatsiki and french fries/mayo. Heaven in a tray and only 8.20EUR.
smallP1040284.jpg

hoky shit, that looks awesome!

btw, i love those toasties :D
 

OnkelC

Hail to the Chef
you could pre-cook a few potatoes, slice them in chunks, butter them and throw them on the grill for a few minutes.
 

Jirotrom

Member
djtiesto said:
I love the look of some of your dishes... are they all Nigerian recipes in origin?
nope not a single one... that was just some stir-fry I threw together. Guess what this will be...

surprise001.jpg


surprise002.jpg


btw there is a picture of onions, celery and bell peppers missing...

MickeyMoose said:
I'm so hungry now.
of course you are...because you miss the good stuff:p
 
tamale.jpg

A (store-bought) 'green corn' tamale. 'Green' here means that the corn is fresh from the cob. Tamales are normally made with corn meal; in this case fresh sweet corn is cut from the cob, and then run through a grinder to create a dough-like mush which is then slathered into a corn husk and steamed as usual. This one here had some mild white cheese and green chiles as filling, which is pretty standard. Not really my favorite kind of tamale as they're generally quite a bit sweeter than I like my 'meal' food, but kind of a nice seasonal change of pace.

chiles.jpg

Giving some habanero chile peppers a light toast. I stemmed these and combined them in a blender with just enough cider vinegar to cover to produce
sauce.jpg

a fairly passable, and very simple, homemade hotsauce.

enchiladas.jpg

An approximation of some New Mexico-style 'stacked' enchiladas, complete with fried egg. You can see how I got lazy and didn't actually dip the tortillas in the chile, thinking the stuff I ladled over each would do the trick. No way, and never again!
 

beelzebozo

Jealous Bastard
thanks duuuuude!

the rise on the loaf was so massive that i had to make a collar for the loaf pan out of aluminum foil, else the dough threatened to spill out into the oven and lose its shape. ha.

for anyone wanting to take on bread-baking as a hobby, this book is awesome:

The-Bread-Baker-Apprentice-Mastering-the-Art-of-Extraordinary-Bread-1580082688-L.jpg
 

beelzebozo

Jealous Bastard
OnkelC said:
really impressive result! Do you mind sharing the recipe/preparation?

not at all, but it will be in english measurements, not metric. i'm sort of not that adept with the metric system, pathetically :lol

ingredients:
-----------------------------------
4 cups high-gluten bread flour
2.5 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
~3 tablespoons lukewarm water
1.5 cups milk (high fat, low fat, whatever you prefer)
0.5 cups warm water
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons honey

whisk the flour and salt in a large bowl to aerate and combine. in a small cup, combine the yeast, teaspoon of sugar, and 3 tablespoons lukewarm water. whisk with a form to dissolve the yeast and sugar, and let sit for a few minutes to bloom the yeast; it should foam, or "bloom." combine the milk, 0.5 cups warm water, honey, and unsalted butter in a bowl, and heat until warm in the microwave. the butter should be melted. pour the milk mixture over the flour, and with a wooden spoon, combine until it forms a rough, very wet, spongy ball. add the bloomed yeast mixture and stir.

move the mixture (which is very wet at this point) to a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook and knead on medium-high for ~15-20 minutes. the dough will start to look less sticky. if it looks too wet initially, don't panic. the flour needs to hydrate with the liquid, and that takes a bit. you'll know the dough is ready when you take out a small ball of the dough (you may need to put some nonstick spray or wet your hands to do this; again, the dough is very wet) and can stretch it until you see the baker's windowpane.

move the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, spray with oil or nonstick spray, and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. put in a warm place to rise for approximately 1-2 hours, or until the dough doubles. when it does, dump it on a lightly (VERY lightly) floured counter, and carefully pat it to a rectangle, taking care not to degas the dough too much. then, roll it into a cylinder like a jelly roll, and put seam side down in a greased loaf pan. here's a youtube video explaining the shaping process better.

cover with plastic wrap again, put in a warm place, and let rise again until the dough is nearly cresting the top of the loaf pan (that's how i get the nice cap on mine, anyway). you might need to make a little aluminum collar around the loaf pan if it rises too much. frankly i like doing it that way--more rise means a better aerated bread. not degassing earlier when you patted out the dough also helps this. you can use an egg wash on the top with some sea salt or not, depending on your preference (i love it), but bake the loaf for ~30-35 minutes at 375 degrees.

when it comes out, remove immediately from the pan, and cool. and voila! sandwich bread. and much better than any you buy in a store, at least in the u.s.
 
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