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Fluffs McCloud posted:Are there any lower calorie equivalents to peanut oil and coconut milk that could be used in thai curries? Generally the calorie count can be kept pretty low using veggies, chicken, and replacing rice with shiritaki noodles, but the minute you have to add a can of coconut milk or almost half a cup of peanut oil, calories per serving skyrockets. In my experience you can generally get along with using less oil. It does change it a bit, mostly in that it is less oily, and the sauce is possibly thicker and doesn't go quite as far. Then again I was taught to make curry by my dad who was pretty health conscious of oil and thus I make a curry that's very different from the rest of his side of the family. Bengali curries are oily as gently caress. I don't imagine you'd get the same taste as using anything but coconut milk though. I don't, however, use coconut milk in my curries so I could be wrong.
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Feb 21, 2013 17:50
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Casu Marzu posted:Don't marinate your steak. Not even chicken?? I don't think I've ever personally marinated steaks, but I definitely do with chicken at times. Though I admit I wouldn't know anything about malliard reactions and stuff so, uh, someone educate me?
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Feb 21, 2013 18:21
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THE MACHO MAN posted:Not even chicken?? It's basically when the outside is crunchier than the inside. The outside of bread? Malliard reaction.
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Feb 21, 2013 18:32
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I'm pretty sure the maillard reaction is accelerated in a more alkaline environment, which is why sodium bicarbonate is sometimes used to help. I suppose that conversely, acid might slowdown or inhibit the reaction. But basically the maillard reaction are when sugar and amino acids (and normally heat) work together to create a variety of tasty (brown) flavor compounds.
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Feb 21, 2013 18:55
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Also, the actual "flavors" you put into the marinade barely penetrate the meat at all. You might as well just brine the meat, pat it dry, and make a sauce or baste while cooking.
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Feb 21, 2013 18:59
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While we're on the topic, why do people put oil in marinades? What's the perceived benefit?
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Feb 21, 2013 19:01
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Casu Marzu posted:Edit: Don't marinate any meats. I don't know how I feel about this.
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Feb 21, 2013 19:01
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:While we're on the topic, why do people put oil in marinades? What's the perceived benefit? You know, I have no answer for this. I've always just had oil in it. I usually do something really simple like "oil salt and garlic" and just throwing meat and some garlic in a bag didn't seem as effective. edit: This is a pointless argument overall because I can't exactly prove to you guys that my steaks aren't loving awesome, but everyone who has had them says they are and they can't all be wrong, especially since a few can outcook me pretty handily in other ways.
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Feb 21, 2013 19:03
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:While we're on the topic, why do people put oil in marinades? What's the perceived benefit? I've wondered that too. Especially since a lot of the time it is sesame or olive oil on foods that will get grilled at high heat, therefore just making the oil taste bitter.
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Feb 21, 2013 19:03
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:While we're on the topic, why do people put oil in marinades? What's the perceived benefit? I found this: quote:Using acids (usually along wines) makes sense because it tenderises the meat and allows the spices, herbs and other flavourings in the marinade to transfer into the meat. If it sounds dumb and wrong, that's because it is. Mostly. Marinating apparently used to be for tenderizing crappy tough cuts of meat, but the rest of that is just complete nonsense. Just brine and then finish with a sauce.
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Feb 21, 2013 19:05
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I was under the impression that putting oil in marinades was for flavors that might be oil soluble, but not water soluble. But even then, you're not getting the oil into the meat in any meaningful concentration (if at all), and if you are using cold oil it would take a long time for any flavors to get into the oil anyway.
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Feb 21, 2013 19:12
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Saint Darwin posted:You know, I have no answer for this. I've always just had oil in it. I usually do something really simple like "oil salt and garlic" and just throwing meat and some garlic in a bag didn't seem as effective. No one is saying they're not awesome. It's not like marinades prevent your food from being good (although they can apparently inhibit maillards). I think most people just argue they are unnecessary and don't work. I bet if you just dipped your steak in the marinade after you cooked it you would get the same flavor transfer without the time spent marinading or the potential drawbacks.
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Feb 21, 2013 19:19
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Marinating isn't totally useless. It is just a really inefficient vector for either providing flavor or tenderizing the meat. First of all, think if ceviche. When you make ceviche you are marinating the seafood in acid and salt. This toughens the meat, which is what you want in ceviche. If you let it stew in that soup for a few days, it will turn to mush, but that's because seafood has a lot shorter muscle fibers. By comparison, if you marinate a land animal for the same time as seafood, you're going to get very little effect besides a slight tightening of the muscle structure, thereby resulting in no tenderizing whatsoever. In fact, the only sort of tenderizing noted from a couple tests by Harold McGee is: quote:[A]fter leaving meat in a slightly salted solution or an acidic solution for about a week, the marinade had penetrated not more than 1/8 of an inch (about 3mm), and that the meat marinated in the salt solution was somewhat more tender because age had relaxed some of the muscle fibers. So basically the only tenderizing going on is the aging of the meat for a short period of time. Regarding flavor additions, I guess the herbs and salt will provide flavor to the meat, but it seems like a really ineffective method to provide flavor. As noted above, marinades penetrate really loving slowly. That's not really providing much flavor either, since there's no real infusion of the other ingredients. The only sort of flavor additive is whatever clings to the meat due to surface tension. If you want to marinate, I guess go right ahead, but that's a waste of a lot of ingredients in my mind, since it would be far more efficient ingredient-wise and flavor-wise to make a sauce to coat the meat at the end, or at least lightly baste while cooking instead of marinating prior to cooking. Edit: Also, marinating is just one more step for potential cross-contamination and spending an evening on the toilet holding a garbage can to vomit in.
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Feb 21, 2013 19:21
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I mean, I've been switching to a salt-the-poo poo-out-of-it-let-it-rest-an-hour-wash-off-then-grill approach (not really brining since there's no water involved, right?) and it seems pretty good. Next time I'll probably just bust out a garlic finishing butter or something and pull it off the heat early so I can finish it in the pan in the butter. Seems legit?
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Feb 21, 2013 19:24
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I think they call that dry brining or something. But it's good, because it gets some salt in there and also dries the exterior a little so you can get a better crust. edit: Butter on steak is so good. I like to do a compound butter with Stilton.
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Feb 21, 2013 19:26
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So, question then. If I wanted to make something like, say, fajitas with some flank steak, usually I'd marinade the steak in oil, lime, cumin, red pepper, mexican oregano, garlic, black pepper, and a bit of worcestershire. If this isn't really doing anything for me, should I just make a sauce of the wet ingredients and drizzle them on the meat after it's cooked, while it's resting? Or brush them on the meat while it's on the grill?
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Feb 21, 2013 19:52
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When I fajita, I grill the flank whole, baste while cooking, then slice thin after resting.
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Feb 21, 2013 19:57
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rj54x posted:So, question then. Marinate for 15 minutes. Thats enough time for the marinade to get in the cracks and crevices.
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Feb 21, 2013 20:14
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I just made kimchi. It tastes pretty good, but it stinks - in large part, I think, from the garlic and ginger fermenting away. It got me thinking about fermenting other foods, or in other ways. Would this work? I want to slice up a cabbage, and submerge it in brine with some sugar and vinegar for that lovely sweet-sour taste, and ferment in glass jars for a few days until it starts bubbling vigorously. (I suspect that this is probably just sauerkraut). What other foods can one ferment like that? I imagine that the possibilities are endless. Finely sliced carrots and beetroot? Red cabbage? Cucumbers? We should have a fermented food thread.
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Feb 21, 2013 20:19
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You can kimchi anything.
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Feb 21, 2013 20:23
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Sauerkraut is cabbage and salt. The salt extracts water from the cabbage and yeasty things that live on cabbage leaves turn that water into tasty sour juice.
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Feb 21, 2013 20:24
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therattle posted:I just made kimchi. It tastes pretty good, but it stinks - in large part, I think, from the garlic and ginger fermenting away. It got me thinking about fermenting other foods, or in other ways. Would this work? I want to slice up a cabbage, and submerge it in brine with some sugar and vinegar for that lovely sweet-sour taste, and ferment in glass jars for a few days until it starts bubbling vigorously. (I suspect that this is probably just sauerkraut). What other foods can one ferment like that? I imagine that the possibilities are endless. Finely sliced carrots and beetroot? Red cabbage? Cucumbers? We should have a fermented food thread. I'd read the poo poo out of that. I haven't made anything fermented yet but I have my eye on basic kimchi.
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Feb 21, 2013 20:28
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Best roast chicken recipe? Planning on doing a chicken, rinsed and dried, lightly cover in kosher salt and olive oil, put in a roasting pan with root veg underneath for about 45 minutes at 375. Anything better?
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Feb 21, 2013 20:55
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Sounds perfect.
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Feb 21, 2013 20:55
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Not a question, but you all might be interested in this. http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...ry.html?hpid=z2
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Feb 21, 2013 20:59
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Casu Marzu posted:Sounds perfect. That's what I figured. Thanks for the confirmation.
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Feb 21, 2013 21:12
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Charmmi posted:Sauerkraut is cabbage and salt. The salt extracts water from the cabbage and yeasty things that live on cabbage leaves turn that water into tasty sour juice. Charmmi beat me to this, but I've been making sauerkraut with the following method: slice cabbage in food processor, gently massage in some salt (about 1 teaspoon per head of cabbage), cover with a plate, put a weight on the plate (plastic gallon jug filled with water), cover with a towel and let sit for around five weeks. The only trick part is the massaging: you want to break down the cabbage just slightly, just enough to get some of the moisture flowing. Supposedly, organic cabbages will have livelier yeast, but I've never had a failure. I suppose that it just takes a little longer to get to the right level of acid? To that end, spiking the new batch with a little of the (live) brine from the old batch will cut your fermenting time in half.
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Feb 21, 2013 21:22
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Casu Marzu posted:marinating I like to let meat sit in yoghurt and herbs/spices for a while before I grill it sometimes. It's pretty good you should try it.
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Feb 21, 2013 21:34
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Norville Rogers posted:Best roast chicken recipe? Planning on doing a chicken, rinsed and dried, lightly cover in kosher salt and olive oil, put in a roasting pan with root veg underneath for about 45 minutes at 375. You can mix some herbs in with some softened butter and separate the skin from the meat and work all that buttery goodness up under the skin. It's a nice way to get some extra flavor into the meat without burning the herbs.
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Feb 21, 2013 21:45
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Norville Rogers posted:Best roast chicken recipe? Planning on doing a chicken, rinsed and dried, lightly cover in kosher salt and olive oil, put in a roasting pan with root veg underneath for about 45 minutes at 375. I've been roasting my chicken at a higher temp the past couple of times (400, maybe even 425?) to get extra crispy outside. Doesn't seem to dry out the chicken either which is cool. But otherwise that's what I do. Try butterflying or spatchcocking the chicken. It's fun to cut things up and you can control doneness much better. Doh004 fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Feb 21, 2013 |
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Feb 21, 2013 21:52
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If you have time, spatchcock it and leave it uncovered in the fridge for a day. That will take a lot of water out of the skin, giving you a super crispy skin. When I don't plan that far ahead, I just lay the chicken out and salt it heavily and leave it out for an hour or two. When it's ready to go in the oven, I use paper towels to soak up all the water the salt has pulled off and brush off any remaining salt. The skin will still be nice and salty, and again it will get crispier when you cook it because there's less water that needs to cook out.
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Feb 21, 2013 21:57
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Norville Rogers posted:Best roast chicken recipe? Planning on doing a chicken, rinsed and dried, lightly cover in kosher salt and olive oil, put in a roasting pan with root veg underneath for about 45 minutes at 375. Cram a loving ton of garlic and butter under the skin. Make it look like it has some horrible disease. I also cram an onion inside. Spatchcocking is pretty cool as well, the way I've done it is split the sucker in half down the back, spread it out, put a tin foil wrapped brick on top. I put some Moroccan seasonings on it and it was great.
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Feb 21, 2013 22:19
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I like thinly sliced lemon underneath the skin.
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Feb 21, 2013 22:26
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This chat makes me want to pick up a chicken on the way home. drat you all.
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Feb 21, 2013 22:26
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Oh man I'm going to combine all this advice. Makes me want a perfect chicken and I hope I'll make it happen.
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Feb 21, 2013 22:31
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These chicken roasting recipes are reminding me of a recipe I had but lost. The short version is that you roast the chicken on a broiler pan, and underneath, you have thinly sliced potatoes, so that as the chicken cooks, all the schmaltz drips down and flavors the potatoes. Pretty sure it was a test kitchen recipe, but I can't find it in my collection. I may not need that, if someone can point me in a proper direction. Could I get the same results using a cooling rack and a rimmed baking sheet? Hoping for something where I wouldn't have to move the bird around too much to toss the potatoes.
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Feb 21, 2013 22:52
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CzarChasm posted:These chicken roasting recipes are reminding me of a recipe I had but lost. I took my cast iron skillet, put a butterflied chicken on top of chunks of butternut squash and onions and threw it in at 425 for like 40 minutes. Took the chicken out when it was done, turned on broiler, threw veggies back in to remove some of the moisture for 10 minutes. Delicious.
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Feb 21, 2013 23:08
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Squashy Nipples posted:Charmmi beat me to this, but I've been making sauerkraut with the following method: slice cabbage in food processor, gently massage in some salt (about 1 teaspoon per head of cabbage), cover with a plate, put a weight on the plate (plastic gallon jug filled with water), cover with a towel and let sit for around five weeks. The only trick part is the massaging: you want to break down the cabbage just slightly, just enough to get some of the moisture flowing. Thanks guys! Would vinegar and/or sugar affect fermentation negatively? The only thing I can think of is that the acidity from vinegar might retard fermentation, but I did add a splash to the kimchi and that stuff was fizzing like soda water. When I made kimchi there was very little liquid, which concerned me, so I topped it up with brine until covered. Is this not needed? I thought fermentation required an anaerobic environment. It doesn't have the depth of flavour of a restaurant kimchi (I was lacking Korean chili paste) but its still a tangy deliciousness. I stir fried some with rice the other day and topped with soy sauce and a fried egg: v good. Does sauerkraut also smell?
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Feb 21, 2013 23:16
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I have some pork "Country style ribs." I want to do something cool with them. Suggestions? I usually just slow cook em but I need them for dinner.
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Feb 21, 2013 23:18
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Casu Marzu posted:When I fajita, I grill the flank whole, baste while cooking, then slice thin after resting. Would basting be prefered for chicken fajitas as well? I always did some kind of mix of oj, onions, spices, pepper and let it sit for a few hours. I need to experiment now to prove this to myself haha. This is all earth shattering to me  so I apologize if my questions seem kind of retarded. I know what tastes good, but I don't know the science of cooking, why things taste good. Would you happen to have further reading about all of this or know of something on Serious Eats Food Lab that talks about this?I think the only time I've ever marinaded red meat is making bulgolgi from a recipe in the thread that was here a few months ago. I assume that's done because you're using such small pieces of meat?
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Feb 21, 2013 23:24
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