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alnilam posted:1. I cooked the farro in a rice cooker - you can do that apparentlty ?!? I used about 1 cup farro to 3 cups water and it cooked in a similar amount of tmie to brown rice I don't know much about cooking but i could really use more vegetarian cooking knowledge so how much tumeric? cooking with spices confuses and excites me |
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May 18, 2015 23:39
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Sloppy Milkshake posted:I don't know much about cooking but i could really use more vegetarian cooking knowledge so how much tumeric? cooking with spices confuses and excites me for a cup of dry grain maybe like 1/2 tsp ?? idk i don't measure things much but something like that, maybe a whole tsp. And one bay leaf. |
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May 19, 2015 01:48
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To get a good feel for spices, i highly recommend two courses of action: 1 add spices dash by dash and taste as you go, experiment a lot and eventually you'll just have a good feel for what works and how much-ish 2. look at a recipe and look at the spice combo it uses... don't fret over the quantities but rather just see that "oh i guess parsley sage rosemary and thyme work well together, so it's not just a song then". This will help you be able to improvise spice combos later. |
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May 19, 2015 01:51
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om nom nom posted:What is the function of salting the meat and leaving it out? I've never done that before. Well for this dish it's probably unnecessary. Typically yeah you salt the meat and give it a nice rest so you get some nice seasoning through the meat. Also the salt covered surface prevents nasty boogers from growing on the surface. I've just gotten into the habit of salting meat and leaving it to get closer to room temperature whenever I get something nice. For a straight steak it's compulsory. |
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May 19, 2015 02:31
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Bo-Pepper posted:For a straight steak it's compulsory.  I get nicer crusts and general improvements all around. also I love rolling the sides of the steak in the accumulated salt and pepper from seasoning it. |
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May 19, 2015 02:35
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I've done the room temperature thing, just never salted it first, always right before it gets cooked. I'll have to try that out |
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May 19, 2015 04:59
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om nom nom posted:I've done the room temperature thing, just never salted it first, always right before it gets cooked. I'll have to try that out I don't notice any real difference in the room temperature thing, but the salt thing, definitely. |
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May 19, 2015 05:21
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Farro Post #2 I made one of my favorite salads, and added farro to it. This salad is special to me because my sister and I invented it (i mean i'm sure it's been made before but we made it up on our own you know what i mean) while travelling in Barcelona and Nice and we mad eit a lot that trip, we carried a bottle of olive oil and shakers of basil and garlic everywhere we went and we made the hell out of this salad. Also it's just really good and it's easy to make, even on short notice (other than the farro). The farro:  Cooked 1 cup on stove top in 3 cups of veggie broth with a bay leaf. Took abut 45 minutes until it was a good texture, then I drained it. As om nom nom originally suggested, I spread it out onto a cookie sheet and put it in the frig to cool down while I did everything else The other stuff: 1 lg Cucumber, quartered and in ~1 cm slices 2 bell peppers (orange for color if you can find it), diced into ~1 cm pieces 2 lg tomatoes, in ~1 cm cubes Feta to taste (I like to use a bunch, like 1/4 lb) Basil to taste, I prefer to use quite a lot of basil, dried flake basil is fine here Garlic powder or dried minced garlic to taste Black pepper olive oil until all is wet lemon juice (optional) til it taste ggood then add the farro and toss it all together yummity yum also some of us added some good kalamata olives from a jar after the fact, i'm not a fan of briney things so i abstained, but they say it was v good As a side (or as a main??) I also made some seitan from scratch, cubed it into 2-3 cm bites, and browned it in some butter, then served with buffalo sauce and some sweet thai chili sauce see my post on the satan earlier itt alnilam posted:[satan post Anyway that's it. It was extremely tasty, the farro went really well with this salad. Sometimse I add chickpeas to this salad for a little more heft, but I like the farro even better, it was soo good. Serve outside with girlfriend, housemates, and friendly neighbors who share the courtyard with you, while the sun sets and venus and jupiter come into view, drinking homebrewed porter and listening to a cool bat fly overhead.  Damb. That is one bomn rear end salad.
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May 20, 2015 16:25
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I couldn't get the bat to fly overhead so the experience was incomplete... this recipe is hard... Great looking salad though alnilam! |
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May 20, 2015 19:11
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I've decided that when I get paid, I'm gonna hunt around and find a good farro supplier. This is clearly a wonder grain, and anything that fills you up and keeps you full is a-ok in my book. These recipes all look so good ahhhh. The braised short ribs look amazing, and that salad looks delicious, alnilam, and I don't even like cucumber. landy, I feel like you need more food photography practice, but that's ok because I do too. |
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May 21, 2015 05:12
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I just finished my first dish. I thought it was going to be a total disaster. It did take a lot longer than I was guessing... I don't know if it's the farro or what, but the dough just seemed to take forever to get elastic / smooth. Anyway. I'll upload photos and give the whole deal in the morning. Edit: Yeah it's 1:00 in the morning here. I just finished dinner. |
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May 21, 2015 09:04
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meteloides posted:I've decided that when I get paid, I'm gonna hunt around and find a good farro supplier. This is clearly a wonder grain, and anything that fills you up and keeps you full is a-ok in my book. I'm sure you'll love it. I made pasta... I'm not super experienced at it, but its basically the most toothsome pasta I've ever had. I was thinking it would be kind of crunchy like the grain, but instead it's just got a modified texture. It's really good, just needs experimentation to figure out the water / ground farro / real flour ratio that works best. |
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May 21, 2015 09:27
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Very well wrapped. Thanks om nom nom.  Total weight: 673 grams.  Turns out my grain mill attachment is broken, so I just fed some bread through my old burr coffee grinder until it seemed to stop having coffee grains and then it was farro grinding time.  Looks pretty interesting first time through, but definitely not fine enough:  2nd time through it looks better. I think I should have put it through again, or used an actual grain mill in the future.  Flour cut 50/50 with regular AP.  Eggs.  I took 5 yolks and 1 whole egg. To seperate egg yolks from egg whites, just transfer them back and forth between halves of the shell. (Sorry the photos aren't more illustrative, it's hard to take photos of stuff when you need to use both hands).   A little oil in cast iron.  Throw a bunch of basil and spinach on there. (Should be about as much by weight as your flour: The farro though seems to have changed the dynamic though. More on that later.) Make sure you wash your greens (and preferably dry them with a salad spinner or something) before this. Remove the stems if you want, it's going into the food processor anyway but it's nice to if you aren't lazy.  Stir it around some.  You're waiting for it to just start to 'wilt' and for the color to look a bit more vibrant, like this:  Now throw all that in the food processor.  Squeeze some lemon in there.  Puree. A vitamix would probably be better here. This is the cuisinart mini-prep, a tiny little food processor that is helpful and easier to clean than the 12-cup one.  Yeah ok. I topped it off with water to get close to 10 ounces, which I think was a huge mistake. My dough was nothing like I was expecting at first. Next time I will try it without adding any additional water.  So, then I probably made another mistake. According to pasta-making tradition, you're supposed to make a mound of the dry ingredients on the counter, then make a well in it, then dump your liquid / eggs in that well, and slowly incorporate it with a fork. I thought, why not just do it in a dough tub? Well, I guess one big reason is it's hard to incorporate stuff from the sides; you can just use a bench knife on the counter to keep folding your ingredients over top of themselves.  At this point I was pretty confused and annoyed. Was not coming together.  Had some chocolate.  And a beer.  So I added some flour and kept kneading it. It was a mess. Very wet doughs are incredibly sticky to start with. You can either flour your hand or wet your hand in warm water and that will keep your hands from sticking for a few manipulations of a dough but obviously you're transferring more water to it. I had wanted to knead it by hand, but my hands got tired.  Almost looks right. It should be more smooth and elastic. I don't know if I just didn't need it enough or what. I worked it over a bit more on the counter now that it had more or less became a ball of dough.  Rolled it out to roughly the right size for the pasta roller.  It went through the pasta roller beautifully and I thinned it into a huge long sheet.  Then I should have just cut the noodles with my knife. It would have ended up better. It was not the right texture to go through the cutter. It was a mess, the noodles were awful looking. They look like the remains of a hideous monster on the drying rack:  Whatever. It's 1:00 AM. Had to stay late at work then spent waaay too long trying to get that dough perfect. I boil them. Fresh pasta boils VERY QUICKLY, so have everything else ready.  Fennel spicy italian sausage, lots and lots of freshly microplaned parmesan, some butter, radishes, spring onions and parsley.  Sorry to end it all on a terrible photo but it was actually very delicious pasta, somehow. I had big plans for fancy plating but at this point I was like 'UGH, lemme eat this so I can get to bed.' I guess the dough was alright after all, just not too suitable for the cutter. If I had just thinned it more and cut it with the knife, I think it would have looked a lot better. Hopefully I can debug the dough for next time I did it. This is under 1/4th the noodles the recipe makes; I vacuum sealed and froze the rest of the dough as that's way more noodles than I need at the moment so we'll see how it holds up later I guess. The farro definitely changes the end result of the pasta in an interesting way. My hypothesis when I started was that the crunchiness of the would show up in the end pasta, hopefully in a good way. It doesn't at all, but the texture of the pasta is firmer in a really good way. It's definitely noticeable and still pretty filling. Thanks om nom nom for the very interesting grain! |
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May 21, 2015 16:26
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I love you guys, awesome stuff. This has been a lot of fun start to finish. I hope you guys read the the cute letters I wrote on the paper with your username (explainer's pic reminded me) Now it's time for the  Prestigious Awards CeremonyMost Original Use of Farro goes to joke_explainer for milling the grains into flour and making pasta. Food Cost Award goes to landy. for presumably not spending a penny on that plate, all profit baby. Most Effortful Effort Post goes to alnilam for an absurd amount of detail, technique, and humor in his post Chef's Chef goes to Bo-Pepper for veal stock and braised beef. If I had only a couple of servings of farro this is totally what I would cook for myself Awesome stuff everyone! |
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May 21, 2015 21:33
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Thank you om nom nom for the gift of farro, and the general contest idea. I look forward to using this ancient grain in the future. Gonna do this one for brunch some day this week: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/fried-farro-with-pickled-carrots-and-runny-eggs |
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May 22, 2015 05:13
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Bo-Pepper: Is my cutting board ok |
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May 22, 2015 05:22
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joke_explainer posted:Bo-Pepper: Is my cutting board ok it is very nice likely better than mine also i appreciate the seasoning on your cast iron pan |
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May 22, 2015 05:25
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Bo-Pepper posted:it is very nice likely better than mine also i appreciate the seasoning on your cast iron pan Thank you! I actually ordered it in response to your post on end grain cutting boards. It's certainly not a top tier one (I think yours looks like a John Boos or some other even nicer brand; the really large end grain pieces look great to me) but I think it's one of the few things I've ever bought for my kitchen that I have never regretted. It holds together so well and maintaining it is oddly satisfying. That is my favorite pan, I like it better than the all-clad stuff. It's really dialed in on the seasoning. The key to seasoning those things is really just frequent use (and a metal spatula, which a lot of people avoid because of non-stick cookware but I couldn't ever not have a big flat metal spatula in my kitchen). Also animal fat helps a lot somehow. |
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May 22, 2015 07:08
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hah my board is a cheap hunk from ikea but it's always been a nice solid does what i want piece i think we have the same bog standard lodge pan and why not it's pretty much the one to get now unless you get all eBay and yard sales looking for griswolds |
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May 22, 2015 12:49
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My pan is decades is old does that mean it's probably a griswold |
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May 22, 2015 12:51
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possibly you can look at the bottom of the pan and it will tell you but honestly it's the sort of cooking tool fetishism i've never gotten too deep into |
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May 22, 2015 13:22
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Bo-Pepper posted:possibly you can look at the bottom of the pan and it will tell you but honestly it's the sort of cooking tool fetishism i've never gotten too deep into They're great pans, Griswold and Wagner, but yeah. Lodge pans work just as well after sufficient seasoning. And I'd still be upset if one of them got ruined somehow but I wouldn't be completely devastated like losing a 1905 Griswold. (Though, even then you can just sand the outer surface off and start over with any cast iron basically.) I think Lodge would be just as good if they stopped putting their 'pre-seasoning' gunk on them and just shipped bare metal, but I guess they worry about people who don't know what they're doing. |
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May 22, 2015 17:14
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yeah it's probably about guarding against people who don't know what they're doing. in general in the world of consumer products, most producers don't like to lean on the idea that "the customer ought to know what they're doing" in other words, "if someone is using our product incorrectly, it's our fault, not theirs" is the MO of most businesses who make things, and I don't necessarily agree with it but i can understand why it's a good philosophy for business sake 
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May 22, 2015 17:17
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I tested the salt the meat and leave it out for an hour or so thing last night. I'll also cover how your $55 steak gets cooked and bearnaise like a boss. Images are uploading. May be a little while before this post goes up though |
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May 24, 2015 23:38
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So I found ribeyes on sale for 7.99/lb. I figured it would be the perfect time to test the salting method you guys just taught me! Steak will not be my next meal. I'm gonna take my time with these.  Searing in cast iron. I'm no home cook so I may not be the best at keeping it...  ...but this is the knife I keep at home  I took this time and processed some strawberries we had bought in bulk. 3.99 for 3lbs. Bought 6lbs, left about 2 in the fridge. The rest are topped and frozen for smoothies and to use instead of ice cubes. After an hour 15, I patted the couple pools of water that appeared on the steak dry, added a tiny bit more salt and plenty of pepper  Preheat oven  Super hot pan with a decent amount of oil. Dropped the steak in and after a minute or 2, then added some thin pats of butter. In a restaurant I would more than likely use beurre monte instead of cold butter.  Once the first side has a sexy sear, flip, and baste that poo poo  Noice. I'll be pre salting now. This is done while your apps are being served, a half temp under what you ordered.  I'm guessing these were on sale because the butcher took off just too much of the fat cap, but the marbling is gorgeous and I don't care that it looks like a bunch of meat glued together. If you were wondering, this is the best butter  Rest. Like at least 10 minutes. Another situation for beurre monte in a restaurant.  Bearnaise mise  Yes, cold cubed butter. I'm sure there's some dead french chef rolling in his grave. Yolks, equal parts lemon juice and white vinegar, tarragon. In a restaurant I'd have made a tarragon reduction. For hollandaise I would have used all lemon juice.  In a sauce pan with the burner on high(like a boss). I adjust by moving the pan on and off the heat.  Stir constantly till it's really thick. Like a custard. If you make scrambled eggs start over. Use a double boiler (like an apprentice) if necessary.  Start whisking the cold butter in. The first few cubes are where it's easiest to gently caress up...it will be really obvious right away if you broke the sauce(like a bitch). Have your girlfriend take pictures because this requires your undivided attention.    At this point salt and pepper to taste. If you need more acidity add some vinegar or lemon juice, but that will effect the consistency. A boss gets it right in the beginning. It should be noted that since this is almost 100% fat, salt will move through it a lot slower than a water based sauce. So salt... ... ... ...taste, adjust ... ... ... ...taste, etc.  Noice When the server fires your main course, into the oven with the steaks for 3-5 minutes. Just long enough to heat it up, which will get you your last half-temp.  This is a bad method for cooking a steak if you aren't one for perfectly rested medium rare piece of beef. |
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May 25, 2015 00:40
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om nom nom posted:Amazing things 
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May 25, 2015 01:15
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om nom nom posted:This is a bad method for cooking a steak if you aren't one for perfectly rested medium rare piece of beef. This is a polite way of saying, "if you hate things that taste good". Looks amazing om nom nom. I think I'll do a bernaise next time... 7.99 a pound too, that's crazy. Also yeah Plugra is great, that's the butter I generally get. (I think I have some kerrygold in the fridge right now for some reason though. It's good but not worth the markup compared to plugra). |
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May 25, 2015 01:18
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joke_explainer posted:This is a polite way of saying, "if you hate things that taste good". Looks amazing om nom nom. I think I'll do a bernaise next time... 7.99 a pound too, that's crazy. I've never actually had kerrygold, if I'm getting good butter I tend to stick with plugra. Our FSA sales rep bought a 36lb case that sat around in the freezer for too long for like 60 bucks. He had it dropped off to my restaurant, when he came to pick it up I asked if I could buy some and he gave me 5lbs (purchasing is a large part of my job and I make that man a lot of money, he's pretty good to me). I buy amish butter sometimes, it's hand churned and wrapped in parchment/butcher's paper. Available at the 2 local grocers in town, I don't think I've seen it at Safeway or albertsons. Its awesome and I know it's from cows that have been treated well, but plugra is just too drat good and actually cheaper than the amish stuff. |
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May 25, 2015 04:42
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om nom nom posted:
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May 25, 2015 04:56
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Do you suffer from Morning Hunger? Waking up, wanting to eat, and not knowing what to do? What if I told you there could be a technique that would solve this problem for you? You'd call me crazy right? Well, I'm not crazy, and lucky for you, there is in fact a solution. Make an egg scramble. It's easy and fast. I made one this morning with mushrooms, shallots, scallions, garlic (optional but good) and parmesan/cheddar. Some people don't like cheese on their eggs. I find this works well: Just cheddar is too sharp and overpowers other stuff and just parmesan tastes weird, but mix them both and its pretty good.  First assemble your mise. Clean and slice up mushrooms, should have about 12 crimini's worth or so depending on the size. Two big heaping handfuls. Grate your cheese, tiny holes for the parmesan and medium holes for the cheddar. Just a small handful is all you need. Thinly slice those shallots, dice garlic, and break 3 eggs and mix them up in a cup or small bowl. Section out a few tablespoons of butter, it does take a bit. Not pictured: The large chunk of butter and the finely diced garlic, and the cup with the eggs in it, ugh, I did a bad job photographing the stuff you need. For stuff like this I don't microplane the garlic. Put the burner on medium-high heat or so. Stovetops are kind of different so you want the butter to be melting and bubbling up quickly. Throw the mushrooms on there and toss them to coat with butter, keep them moving around the pan a bit.  They start to look really delicious fast, just a couple minutes or even less. Add some freshly ground black pepper and kosher salt. Then add the scallions, stir to mix into the bunch of cooking ingredients. Reduce heat slightly.  Make a well in the center and toss the egg in there, maybe melt a little extra butter first if you think it needs but it probably doesn't.  Do not take pictures at this part. You need to integrate the ingredients into the egg mixture.  Good enough. Smoosh it down so it's flatter and covers more of the pan, makes it easier to portion and split.  Cut it along the middle with your spatula and flip both halves.  Should be a less browned than this. Eggs are best when cooked gently. I was distracted with the whole photo taking though. I reduce heat more after just like a minute on the other side, flip, and gently set the grated cheese on top. It melts in about a minute, and then all the egg inside will be firm. Otherwise take it off heat immediately, the heat from the other ingredients will soften the cheese anyway.  Add a little more black pepper and a little more salt and sprinkle those scallions on there and it's ready to go, two delicious portions of mushroom-shallot-scallion-garlic scramble. Bonus pic: After you're turn, your cast iron should look like this with just a couple swipes of a kitchen towel. Cast iron is pretty amazing at cooking eggs. 
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May 25, 2015 23:22
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How are those photos anyway? Was hoping for some feedback. I think I'm hitting on as good as I can get with my lovely phone camera, but not sure if I want to go for a DSLR yet tho I'm sure I'd find more use than just food. |
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May 26, 2015 04:15
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joke_explainer posted:How are those photos anyway? Was hoping for some feedback. I think I'm hitting on as good as I can get with my lovely phone camera, but not sure if I want to go for a DSLR yet tho I'm sure I'd find more use than just food. I thought you actually used a camera
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May 26, 2015 04:32
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joke_explainer posted:How are those photos anyway? Was hoping for some feedback. I think I'm hitting on as good as I can get with my lovely phone camera, but not sure if I want to go for a DSLR yet tho I'm sure I'd find more use than just food. pictures look nice. im not a huge fan of mushrooms though. |
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May 26, 2015 04:33
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landy. posted:I thought you actually used a camera I was aiming for that look, but its mostly lightroom trickery. Thank you. I want to get better at it tho. |
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May 26, 2015 04:35
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my parents always marinate their meat in adobo, sofrito, onions and garlic overnight and then cook them. can I do this with tofu? if not, is there anything I can do this with?
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May 26, 2015 04:52
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Use firm tofu, then use paper towels I guess to dry the tofu. Once you've taken as much moisture as it practical out of it, add those in a bag and seal the tofu up. Should work great. Then pan fry the tofu the next day or so. Should absorb a ton of the flavors. This would work for eggplant too, though not as well as tofu. |
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May 26, 2015 06:12
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And you can press the water out of tofu by putting it between 2 pans and weigh it down with cans or something and leaving it in the fridge over night |
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May 27, 2015 01:23
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joke_explainer posted:Use firm tofu, then use paper towels I guess to dry the tofu. Once you've taken as much moisture as it practical out of it, add those in a bag and seal the tofu up. Should work great. Then pan fry the tofu the next day or so. Should absorb a ton of the flavors. This would work for eggplant too, though not as well as tofu. thank you. I'm doing this and I'll cook and post about it tomorrow. om nom nom posted:And you can press the water out of tofu by putting it between 2 pans and weigh it down with cans or something and leaving it in the fridge over night I would love to do this, and I may do it at some point, but I don't have enough space in my fridge right now.
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May 27, 2015 01:49
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When I was in a commercial kitchen, I did the weight-on-pan thing in the fridge overnight, but at home I just do it on the counter for an hour or so and leave it tilted for the water/soy-juice to drain off and I don't think the difference is too significant. I always end up with little paper towel bits on my tofu if I use that method, but that's probably because I buy weird paper towels and am dumb. |
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May 27, 2015 01:53
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hey BP have you ever done a cooking thread on low effort bachelor/bachelorette style cooking? the stuff itt looks tasty but is a whole lot of effort and food for one person. if you have recipes that involve throwing some random poo poo into a crockpot and coming home to a culinary delight that would be right up my alley.
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May 27, 2015 02:00
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