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Pollyanna posted:What's a good choice for daily protein? I've been eating mostly beef, but that's not a good long term choice at all since it's pricy. Honestly? You can eat beans and rice and veggies every day and get all the protein you need from that, too, but if you are stuck on a meat craving--chicken thighs are a great bet. But if you're flexible, eggs are also very cheap. Edit: quote:Apart from the Pro advice on beans and eggs, pork butt / pork shoulder etc is usually very cheap. You're gonna want to either trim fat before or skim fat after cooking as it's usually going to be really fatty but it's cheap meat (in the USA at least). This is also good advice, but don't throw out that fat--if you want to really add oomph and meatiness to your beans (& rice or otherwise) you render down that fat and cook onions & garlic & spices in it, and THEN cook your beans as usual. And use your leftover braising liquid from your pulled pork to cook your beans too! (Soaking beans with baking soda means you can cook them up in salted liquid.) Nicol Bolas fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 20:45
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Bollock Monkey posted:Basic pasta sauce - fry off garlic in olive oil until it's starting to go golden, add passata, salt, and white pepper. Keep on a gentle bubble until the pasta is cooked. You can add whatever you want into that, so if you cooked up some chicken thighs you could shred/chunk those and throw the meat in. I would probably cook the thighs separately as they're quite a fatty, juicy cut and that wouldn't necessarily play well with the sauce. Thanks! I tried the olio e peperoncino to start. I burned the garlic and I don't think I added enough pepper but I think I can make it work with a couple more tries.
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Mar 27, 2017 01:35
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Pork cheeks are cheap and loving awesome.
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Mar 27, 2017 01:46
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Tuna Pasta (makes 4 generous serves) 250g spaghetti 2 large red onions, cut in half then cut into 5mm slices 4 cloves of garlic, cut into thin slices 185g tin of Tuna in olive oil (I use sirena italian style tuna, no idea if this is sold in the US, but buy any 'chunk' style tuna) extra virgin olive oil 2 tins of diced tomatoes (try and buy italian brands, or if you're using brands produced elsewhere check the ingredients carefully to make sure they don't have extra crap added - in particular avoid any brand with added firming agent. My recipe also assumes your tinned tomatoes don't have added salt) 1 flat teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon sugar optional - pinch of chilli powder (or to taste) grated parmesan cheese put the pasta on to cook in a large pot of boiling salted water. heat some olive oil in a large nonstick pan, over a low-medium heat. add the onions, and stirfry till till they turn translucent, then add the garlic and half the salt and continue stir frying till they get soft. add the tuna, using your spoon to break up the chunks. fry for another couple of minutes. add the sugar, remaining salt, chilli, and the tinned tomatoes. Add a ladle full of the pasta cooking water. turn the heat down and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 10 mins. toss the sauce through the pasta before serving. sprinkle parmesan cheese over each person's plate. Also if you want to cook a whole chicken, Jamie Oliver's chicken in milk is loving amazing.
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Mar 27, 2017 05:44
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I've also only recently moved into my own apartment and I can cook things like pasta and rice just fine, the only thing that I'm intimidated by is meat. From handling, to storing and preparation, I just never learned how to do it. I cook pretty irregularly so whenever I do groceries I shyly eye the chicken thighs and then don't buy them, for fear they'll spoil before I come around to make them into a meal. Can you freeze them? What's the best way to thaw and cook them, do you bake them in the oven? I'd like them crispy and browned or something. Do you need to marinate them first? Is there other meat that's better for freezing?
Oenis fucked around with this message at 14:00 on Mar 27, 2017 |
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Mar 27, 2017 13:55
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Most meat freezes well. Optional step that can slightly improve quality, put any meats into the fridge for a few hours first to get them as cold as possible before putting them in the freezer. Being warmer after a trip from the grocery store to your home means longer to freeze, which means bigger ice crystals and more cell damage. This changes the texture a little bit, and you'll notice more moisture coming out of the meat when thawing. To thaw, you can either pull the meat out of the freezer and put it back into the fridge for a day or two, or put it into a plastic bag and submerge in cold water for about an hour. I highly recommend against trying to defrost in the microwave. Every piece of meat I have ever done this way ends up having a really off-putting taste, even if you do manage not to cook the edges a little by the time the center is defrosted. As far as what to do with meat, the sky is the limit. Marinate if you want, just know that any marinade is likely to burn pretty easily on high heat, so be a little more careful. Just go check out recipes that look good. Try new stuff. Experiment. It's hard to make good meat taste BAD, it's just varying degrees of deliciousness. I would recommend just getting some of those chicken thighs (bone in/skin on are a little better if you can get them, but boneless/skinless are still great) and just heavily salt and pepper them, then fry up in 50/50 oil and butter. That by itself is delicious. Bonus points if you smash a clove of garlic and toss it into the oil in the last 2-3 minutes. If you have an herb garden/balcony planter, a sprig of rosemary tossed in with the garlic is awesome. Experiment with the amount of salt you put on the meat. At first, the right amount will actually look like a lot, but a good bit comes off in the pan when you cook it, and you also have to have enough salt to account for all of the meat on the inside that doesn't get direct contact. The one "trick" with cooking meat, is to always let it rest after cooking(unless cooked sous vide). Take it off the heat, put it on a plate and either put it into a warm oven (like, 140f or lower), or just cover in foil and let it sit on the counter. This allows the juices inside the meat to redistribute and settle back into the meat, instead of being squeezed out. If you don't, the meat will feel drier in your mouth, even if there is a big puddle of juice on your plate. Any juices that do accumulate on the resting plate, pour back over the meat when serving. It's loving delicious, and looks like you made a sauce. The general rule for how long to let it rest is "Half the time it spent cooking", so if it takes 10 minutes to cook the chicken thighs, let them rest for 5 minutes. There are a lot of good resources out there. Watch some videos. Read some recipes. If/when you go out to eat and order meat, pay attention to what you like about it. How cooked is it? How salty? What cut of meat did the menu say it was? Take of note of these things and you can try to replicate at home. My last tip: get a meat thermometer like this guy. Learning to cook to the temperature that you like is important. 10 degrees can be the difference between deliciousness and dry, chewy jerky. Doom Rooster fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Mar 27, 2017 |
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Mar 27, 2017 14:43
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plz dont pull out posted:Thanks! I tried the olio e peperoncino to start. I burned the garlic and I don't think I added enough pepper but I think I can make it work with a couple more tries. Pasta poo poo I wrote years ago, probably many errors as i wasn't brought up eating it and also hardly eat out as an adult. I hardly cook pasta these days so haven't re-read it, Corrections welcome so goon learn and poo poo. Main thing was I tried to learn all the names and ingredients so I could search for real recipes. No tomato 1. Aglio e oilo is the simplest pasta dish, ("spaghetti garlic and oil"), often just literally that, with Pecorino Romano cheese and a good flavour EVOO for dressing. But also served with parsley and lemon, or chilli ,garlic bread crumbs, seafood, or capers. 2. Cacio e Pepe This is a simple dish of just spaghetti, good evo oil, good cheese, and pepper. 3. Pasta primavera is a dish that consists of pasta and a few various spring vegetables (so like a pasta stirfry). Use carrots, peas, snow peas, squash, red onion, capsicums etc. Classic primavera sauce was based on “spaghetti aglio olio” and finished with emulsifying pasta water, oil and cheese to make it creamy. 4. Carbonara is an italian pasta dish based on eggs, cheese (pecorino romano or parmigiano reggiano), bacon ( or guanciale, pancetta), and black pepper. Spaghetti is usually used as the pasta, however, fettuccine or bucatini can also be used. 5. Tagliatelle alla Boscaiola (Woodsman’s Pasta) – usually mushroom based, can add pancetta, with olive oil and basil, (sometimes cream sauce based versions are used too.) 6. Fettuccine Alfredo is a pasta dish made from fettuccine pasta tossed with lots of parmesan and butter. Mixing a buttery sauce with well tossed pasta and some pasta water emulsifies them into a sauce, forming a smooth and rich coating on the pasta. No cream or milk in original With Tomato 7. Pasta al pomodoro is a sauce usually made with fresh tomatoes with 1/4 cup or more of oilve oil with fresh basil and cheese. Try replacing some of the oil with some butter (whisking it in) for a good sauce to put on veg and give it depth 8. Marinara is an Italian tomato sauce usually made with tomatoes, garlic, herbs. It can be made with white wine, parsley and lemon for seafood. 9. Arrabbiata sauce, or sugo all'arrabbiata in Italian, is a spicy sauce for pasta made from garlic, tomatoes, and chillies. Arrabbiata sauce is usually served with penne and chopped fresh parsley on top. 10. Bucatini all' Amatriciana, is a traditional Italian pasta sauce based on cured pork cheek (Guanciale), pecorino cheese, and tomato. While the dish can use penne or rigatoni, the use of bucatini (hollow spaghetti) is more common, hence the name. 11. Napolitana can be similar to a vegetarian amatriciana, replace pork with feta and olives, basil. 12. Orecchiette alla Pugliese is tomato, eggplant, olives with orecchiette pasta shells. 13. Spaghetti alla puttanesca (literally "spaghetti a la whore" in Italian) is a salty Italian pasta dish. Classic ingredients are tomatoes, olives, capers, garlic and anchovies. 14. Pasta alla Siciliana is another marinara based tomato sauce. Often served with eggplant, garlic, olives and capers. Topped with mozzarella for vegetarian, or use sardines for meat. Stew 15. Cacciatore (Hunters stew) is a slow simmered chicken or rabbit dish with meat on the bone cooked in a tomato and herb sauce. 16. Tagliatelle al ragů, AKA Bolognese. Meat based sauce with minced or finely chopped beef, veal or pork in various ratios, and with small amounts of pancetta or bacon. Cooked in a tomato based sauce with a base of onion, celery, carrot, garlic and herbs. 17. Pasta alla genovese, is a stewed beef Neapolitan dish like a ragu, but with chuck or shin beef instead of minced beef and pork. Usually served with rigatoni instead of tagliatelle or spaghetti E: wow, that was an autists sperg from back then but the source was something that just fit onto a printed page in 11pt. Fo3 fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Apr 8, 2017 |
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Apr 8, 2017 14:56
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Is there a good option among those to make with chicken? I have some frozen chicken breast to use up and I'm wondering if I can't throw some of it in an aglio e olio pasta dish.
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Apr 10, 2017 20:02
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Chicken is a really neutral meat that I would guess would work well enough in most pasta dishes. You'll just end up with [recipe] + chicken, it won't severely gently caress with the flavour profile or anything. Cooking is all about experimenting and figuring out what works for your tastes, anyway. Personally, I'd do something different with the chicken instead of just adding it to pasta. If you already have it, cooking it up with some herbs and spices and putting it over rice should be pretty cheap.
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Apr 10, 2017 20:11
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Yeah, that makes sense. I should use my rice cooker more, anyway. I just don't find pasta-only recipes to be very filling.
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Apr 10, 2017 20:15
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Pollyanna posted:Is there a good option among those to make with chicken? I have some frozen chicken breast to use up and I'm wondering if I can't throw some of it in an aglio e olio pasta dish. To be honest I never really bothered with chicken (or prawns and white fish) with pasta, there are heaps of recipes out there for that of course. What I posted was ideas that came in handy when clearing out the fridge of any old veg, having some pasta and tinned tomatoes in the pantry, and maybe having some bacon in the freezer. There are heaps of pasta recipes with chicken, most common with a quick internet search though they separately cook the chicken, then add it and also cream to dish make it saucy enough, so it's not something I did. So it's either using cream, or having dry chicken breast with pasta from what I know. Most pasta recipes above just don't have enough sauce for chicken breast IMO, or are stews that would be better with bone in legs or thighs (like cacciatore). Maybe try using tomato based recipe and using extra tomato and butter for a sauce? Normally if I had chicken I would do a curry (indian with spinach), thai green or yellow or jungle; or something with rice and chicken stock like a paella or jambalaya. Something spanish, mexican or american. E: or asian stirfry, or make a satay sauce if I had peanut butter. Or grill it, make a sauce and serve with potatoes and green beans. Fo3 fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Apr 10, 2017 |
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Apr 10, 2017 23:02
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A cream sauce like an alfredo would be my choice of chicken breast
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Apr 11, 2017 00:40
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Chicken parm is the first thing I think of when considering using chicken breast with pasta & any sort of sauce.
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Apr 11, 2017 01:35
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Always wanted to make chicken parmesan, but it looks like a pain in the rear end to make. I'll have to get a Pyrex dish 'n mozzarella, too... I generally prefer thigh and leg myself, too, but I'm looking to use up what I've already got. I'll see if there's a cream sauce I can make...
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Apr 11, 2017 15:02
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Pollyanna posted:Always wanted to make chicken parmesan, but it looks like a pain in the rear end to make. I'll have to get a Pyrex dish 'n mozzarella, too... I generally prefer thigh and leg myself, too, but I'm looking to use up what I've already got. I'll see if there's a cream sauce I can make... My wife isn't big into cooking but makes it. It is pretty straight forward. Butterfly chicken and pound thin, egg wash/breadcrumbs then pan fry. Red sauce in the bottom of a pyrex, in goes chicken, red sauce and cheese on top. Into the oven. We then serve it over some pasta alfredo.
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Apr 11, 2017 15:44
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When I have some older cooked or dry chicken breast left I cube it up and toss into a cassoulet near the end of cooking. It's a good filler in that and stays nice and moist.
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Apr 11, 2017 17:41
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I've been looking at all the different variations of mujadarra and am now wondering, does anyone have a particular recipe that they can vouch for?
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May 2, 2017 16:24
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IBroughttheFunk posted:I've been looking at all the different variations of mujadarra and am now wondering, does anyone have a particular recipe that they can vouch for?
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May 2, 2017 17:35
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So especially over the last year or two meat prices seem to have risen significantly for most types of meat, pretty consistently.. In particular, bacon has gotten to the point where I have trouble justifying spending 4-6 bucks for a 12 oz package of lovely bacon, so I've been doing some experimenting. For instance I was making potato salad the other day and I usually rely on extra-crispy bacon bits for a little chew.. But then I cooked a pork loin and then shaved off the fatty edges and then diced and cooked them like bacon, and it came out pretty satisfactorily. Today I had a craving for carbonara and bought two slices of bacon from the grocery store's deli (which still was over a buck good lord) but I wanted to make a big batch, so I chopped up some leftover pork loin and fried it up in the bacon, and then added some thin-sliced zucchini and tomatoes. It wasn't the best carbonara I've ever made but it was damned good, and because of the extra veggies I added it was probably a little healthier than otherwise. My friends think I'm weird because I make chorizo and potatoes but it's got more vegetables in it than meat or potatoes, but I've been steadily losing weight and it's fun to find ways to add in vegetables.. For instance throwing in a couple of chopped up zucchini or other summer squash into fajitas or tacos, adds a nice sweetness and bulks it up without relying on another pound or two of meat, the real trick is learning when to add the squash in so it doesn't cook down to nothing or remain half-cooked and leaking extra water into the taco filling. I('d like to experiment with jackfruit sometime, but I didn't realize that they're the size of a watermelon until I saw a couple at my local latin grocery.. Good lord what can I do with that much?! How quickly will it go bad if I only use part of it, and how should I store the uncooked portions? 
coyo7e fucked around with this message at 10:01 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 09:53
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Ask the grocery butcher about bacon ends and scraps. Or find a butcher that makes their own bacon and they'll definitely have ends and scraps for sale.
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Jun 23, 2017 13:42
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Suspect Bucket posted:Ask the grocery butcher about bacon ends and scraps. Or find a butcher that makes their own bacon and they'll definitely have ends and scraps for sale. How is "bacon scraps" even a thing
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Jun 23, 2017 13:43
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Bob Morales posted:How is "bacon scraps" even a thing Because the average US consumer expects to get a thin even slice of perfect belly bacon, or at least that's what it looks like on the front of the package. So a fair bit of waste and off-cuts happen.
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Jun 23, 2017 14:55
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coyo7e posted:I('d like to experiment with jackfruit sometime, but I didn't realize that they're the size of a watermelon until I saw a couple at my local latin grocery.. Good lord what can I do with that much?! How quickly will it go bad if I only use part of it, and how should I store the uncooked portions?
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Jun 23, 2017 18:17
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Bob Morales posted:How is "bacon scraps" even a thing Pork belly isn't a perfect rectangle, it has to get trimmed down. There are surface bits and corners and chunks that are leftover no matter how carefully you slice the pig. That's before you even get into the basic math of slicing up a 14oz piece of pork for a 12oz package of bacon. Ends, pieces, and scraps are a normal part of butchery, and also good eatin'. Buy scraps.
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Jun 23, 2017 19:57
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Tendales posted:Ends, pieces, and scraps are a normal part of butchery, and also good eatin'. Buy scraps. I was semi-joking because what part of bacon wouldn't be delicious even if it was a trimming or end
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Jun 23, 2017 21:51
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Tendales posted:Pork belly isn't a perfect rectangle, it has to get trimmed down. There are surface bits and corners and chunks that are leftover no matter how carefully you slice the pig. That's before you even get into the basic math of slicing up a 14oz piece of pork for a 12oz package of bacon. This really isn't how it works at all. There is no 14 oz piece cut down to 12 oz. In commercial bacon production the entire belly is removed from the carcass, injected with the brine and then smoked. Very minor trimming happens on the whole belly and then it is put into a piece of equipment that compresses it on all six sides to create a rectangular prisim shape. This is why you see waves in the middle of a bacon slice or hook shaped pieces at the ends where the belly is narrower. The bacon is then sliced to a specific thickness and operators may cut off certain end pieces that are mainly fat, however this is a quick process and some fattier ends move through. This is on a production line where belly after belly runs though at high speeds and is generally automated. The real ends and pieces come from center cut production where the edges of the belly are removed allowing for a more standard slices. The edges that are removed are not only the ventral and dorsal but also the anterior and posterior ends. Many of these end up as bacon bits but are also sold as ends and pieces. These are indeed good eating because they have considerable lean mixed in with the fat.
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Jun 24, 2017 04:50
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Roxy Rouge posted:This really isn't how it works at all. There is no 14 oz piece cut down to 12 oz. In commercial bacon production the entire belly is removed from the carcass, injected with the brine and then smoked. Very minor trimming happens on the whole belly and then it is put into a piece of equipment that compresses it on all six sides to create a rectangular prisim shape. This is why you see waves in the middle of a bacon slice or hook shaped pieces at the ends where the belly is narrower. The bacon is then sliced to a specific thickness and operators may cut off certain end pieces that are mainly fat, however this is a quick process and some fattier ends move through. This is on a production line where belly after belly runs though at high speeds and is generally automated. thought the context was buying from a butcher who makes their own bacon in house- I know my butcher isn't using a compression machine or w/e.
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Jun 24, 2017 06:04
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Ah, sorry my mistake. I would have guessed that your butcher who brines and smokes his own bacon would be more into showing the natural form of the belly, but I guess not. The process I described is one I have seen multiple times and is standard commercial bacon production. Clearly your experiences are different but maybe someone got a little insight into how things are made.
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Jun 24, 2017 06:24
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Nah, I'm for sure being a bit of a dick- I've just never seen bacon ends sold in a situation where mass-produced commercial bacon is also what's on sale. Very likely a regional/store by store thing. I didn't know about the compression process before. It's an interesting look behind the curtain of commercial bacon.
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Jun 24, 2017 06:42
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It is definitely regional. Even down to neighborhoods especially now given today's grocery retail sales and profit woes. Anyway, we can def agree that bacon is delicious, middle, ends and pieces included.
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Jun 24, 2017 06:48
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Roxy Rouge posted:This really isn't how it works at all. There is no 14 oz piece cut down to 12 oz. In commercial bacon production the entire belly is removed from the carcass, injected with the brine and then smoked. Very minor trimming happens on the whole belly and then it is put into a piece of equipment that compresses it on all six sides to create a rectangular prisim shape. This is why you see waves in the middle of a bacon slice or hook shaped pieces at the ends where the belly is narrower. The bacon is then sliced to a specific thickness and operators may cut off certain end pieces that are mainly fat, however this is a quick process and some fattier ends move through. This is on a production line where belly after belly runs though at high speeds and is generally automated. A thrill ride of industrial meat production from start to finish! Also, good to know. Is the brine injection also when they add the cure? Do you work in the industry?
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Jun 24, 2017 15:48
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I am not in manufacturing, but part of my job is doing facility audits of manufacturing plants-so I have seen my fair share of meat processing plants. The cure is part of the brine and in the facilities that I have been in it is usually injected into the bellies using a huge grid of needles that injects the entire belly in one go. They are then hooked on racks and moved to the smoke boxes. Most of the smoke boxes are controlled by computers to regulate time, temp etc but most places I have seen still have a guy that could run multiple boxes manually. These guys are usually older, having done this for most of their lives and are somewhat revered in the plants. I find that pretty cool.
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Jun 25, 2017 03:10
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Veritek83 posted:Nah, I'm for sure being a bit of a dick- I've just never seen bacon ends sold in a situation where mass-produced commercial bacon is also what's on sale. Very likely a regional/store by store thing. I didn't know about the compression process before. It's an interesting look behind the curtain of commercial bacon. Y'all know that even Trader Joe's sells "ends and bits" packages of bacon? You're not on the cutting edge.
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Jun 25, 2017 03:25
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MAKE NO BABBYS posted:Y'all know that even Trader Joe's sells "ends and bits" packages of bacon? You're not on the cutting edge. oh no I was wrong on the internet
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Jun 25, 2017 03:45
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Veritek83 posted:thought the context was buying from a butcher who makes their own bacon in house- I know my butcher isn't using a compression machine or w/e. In the "Help! I'm poor and want to make good food! " thread, we of course have a half-dozen douches telling everyone to befriend their local artisinal butcher. 
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Jun 25, 2017 07:23
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Veritek83 posted:thought the context was buying from a butcher who makes their own bacon in house- I know my butcher isn't using a compression machine or w/e.   Thanks for the tips on saving money, bro. But I'm sure your quips about how all real goon cooks have a sideline to a local artisinal butcher, were totally non ironic and 100% honest as a way to save money for people who struggle to cook a pot of beans. Aka :gtfo: u obnoxious wankbag coyo7e fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Jun 25, 2017 |
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Jun 25, 2017 07:27
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coyo7e posted:
Ah right, can't even admit I was wrong in good faith. Good times. e: coyo7e posted:I'd be a bit worried about buying duck from a chain store, why not just look up a local butcher? A lot of the better butchers will have all kinds of exotic meats. Most of the duck I consume comes from asian markets where they're already cooked up and ready to go, though - it's one of those things I just can't resist getting once or twice a year. 
Veritek83 fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Jun 25, 2017 |
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Jun 25, 2017 14:32
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Lol
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Jun 25, 2017 16:11
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So how about beans on toast eh.
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Jun 25, 2017 18:07
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Trader Joe's sells pretty inexpensive odds and ends bacon. I think it's 2.99 for 12 or maybe 16 ounces?
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Jun 25, 2017 18:47
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