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I ate a ton of various tomatoes from my Aunt's dacha outside of Kiev. Had this big hot house with a bunch of varieties and they were better than any of the expensive fancy tomatoes I could get at the yuppie market at home.
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Jan 29, 2016 16:17
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Captain Bravo posted:Guys, if he likes them pureed and doesn't like them raw, I don't think a higher quality of tomato is the answer. It's not like they only put the good tomatoes into the sauce, if anything the quality of tomato that goes into the can is probably lower than the poo poo in the grocery section. Come on, now. Not true. Processing the tomatoes means you can pick them when they're perfectly ripe without having to worry about damage or spoilage in transit. Fresh-grown tomatoes can definitely be better than the kind that comes processed in a big can or carton, but the ones you pick up at the grocery store sure as gently caress aren't. I had some crushed tomatoes that came in a rather unimpressive cardboard carton that came from an Italian specialty store. Holy gently caress was that poo poo ever good. I was eating it on toast, like jam.
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Jan 29, 2016 17:16
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Captain Bravo posted:if anything the quality of tomato that goes into the can is probably lower than the poo poo in the grocery section lol no, there ain't nothing close to as bad as those nasty-rear end pink grocery store tomatoes
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Jan 29, 2016 19:10
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PT6A posted:Not true. Processing the tomatoes means you can pick them when they're perfectly ripe without having to worry about damage or spoilage in transit. Fresh-grown tomatoes can definitely be better than the kind that comes processed in a big can or carton, but the ones you pick up at the grocery store sure as gently caress aren't. This is correct. I live near a tomato cannery and you can sometimes see a truck at a field with the mexican migrants picking the tomatoes ripe, and a few hours later see the truck pull into the cannery. None of this "picked green and gassed with Ethylene to turn them red" bullshit. Field to can within a day.
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Jan 29, 2016 21:08
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Huh, ok then. I learned something today! 
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Jan 29, 2016 23:13
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Also don't keep your tomates in the fridge! Never in the fridge. (but do put your ketchup in there!)
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Jan 29, 2016 23:15
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Baronjutter posted:Also don't keep your tomates in the fridge! Never in the fridge. Man I'm living life the wrong way round.
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Jan 29, 2016 23:55
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As the son of actual tomato farmers I know tomatoes grown here in Finland in summer are picked when pretty reddish (but not totally mega-red will go bad in a day red). Only time we pick green tomatoes is the last pick of the season and we're taking the last harvest of the tomatoes, then everything on the vines goes. One gets paid less for green tomatoes. I myself always prefer tomatoes that aren't deep red if I am going to do anything else with it asides from making sauce, or an onion-tomato sallad. It has more zing and tastes fresher when it's not yet to the deep red stage. Beefsteak tomatoes are my definite favorite.
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Jan 30, 2016 00:37
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GORDON posted:This is correct. I live near a tomato cannery and you can sometimes see a truck at a field with the mexican migrants picking the tomatoes ripe, and a few hours later see the truck pull into the cannery. None of this "picked green and gassed with Ethylene to turn them red" bullshit. Field to can within a day. Tomatoes make their own ethylene btw, all you need is to keep them together in a plastic bag or heck just a bowl. I'll say that a tomatoes flavor has a lot more to do with the conditions of the parent plants more than when it's picked. I've eaten many thousands of dark red tomatoes straight of the plant in my lifetime, as well as green or orange-ish ones that matured later and never could detect much difference. Where I detect a taste difference is in winter tomatoes, growing tomatoes in finland in winter requires assloads of light, it just doesn't replicate the sunlight. But in summertime we have the midnight sun and our tomatoes get more sunshine hours than others and taste much better than those imported from spain in summer, whereas in winter spanish tomatoes are often nicer than finnish tomatoes.
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Jan 30, 2016 00:45
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Captain Bravo posted:Huh, ok then. I learned something today! You're still probably right though, since it's actually really common for people to not like raw tomatoes but be fine with processed ones or tomato sauces. It's about the texture, the skins, and the fact they are cold. I don't mind raw tomatoes but I must admit I much prefer cherry and campari tomatoes to larger varieties, and can understand why someone wouldn't like the latter at all.
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Jan 30, 2016 05:09
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Captain Bravo posted:Guys, if he likes them pureed and doesn't like them raw, I don't think a higher quality of tomato is the answer. It's not like they only put the good tomatoes into the sauce, if anything the quality of tomato that goes into the can is probably lower than the poo poo in the grocery section. Come on, now. Canned tomatoes are always the better choice out if season, especially in colder places where the tomato season is teeny.
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Jan 30, 2016 08:38
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Personally I think it is false advertising to call what supermarkets sell in winter "tomatoes." Fauxmatoes? Barely edible poo poo.
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Jan 30, 2016 20:36
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Really, the solution is just to grow your own tomatoes. They're one of the easiest plants to keep alive.
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Jan 31, 2016 00:09
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Captain Bravo posted:Really, the solution is just to grow your own tomatoes. They're one of the easiest plants to keep alive. One of our tomatoes started just growing on its own, little sprouts coming through the skin. So we put it in a pot by the window and it grew up to the ceiling and stayed alive for almost a year. Never got anything out of it, but boy did it grow.
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Jan 31, 2016 00:26
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Baronjutter posted:One of our tomatoes started just growing on its own, little sprouts coming through the skin. So we put it in a pot by the window and it grew up to the ceiling and stayed alive for almost a year. Never got anything out of it, but boy did it grow. Tomatoes are pretty hungry plants, and they will suck up all the nutrients in a pot of soil fairly quickly. They need to be fed regularly when flowering so that they have enough nutrients to fruit. Lots of fun to be had with randomly sprouting produce you bring home though - you can even grow garlic indoors by sticking it in the fridge for a week or so (to convince it that there has been a winter "frost") and then into 6" pots. Personally I think that courgettes and potatoes are the easiest things to grow and keep alive. For potatoes, just dump them into anything with some dirt. Even a bucket with a hole in it. Even for a newbie gardener who has no idea what they are doing, courgettes will keep growing and growing and growing and growing until you have exhausted every possible recipe for them and start foisting them off on friends and neighbours and random people you come across just to keep the stupid things from colonising your house.
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Jan 31, 2016 01:03
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Enfys posted:
Ha! I've never heard the word "courgette" before, but after half a sentence I knew exactly what vegetable you were describing - we call them "zucchini" and they'll take over the world if you let them.
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Jan 31, 2016 16:53
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Baronjutter posted:One of our tomatoes started just growing on its own, little sprouts coming through the skin. So we put it in a pot by the window and it grew up to the ceiling and stayed alive for almost a year. Never got anything out of it, but boy did it grow. At Epcot, Disney keeps plants alive for almost 2 years, and get tens of thousands of tomatoes from each plant that they serve in their restaurants. http://thephotogardenbee.com/2010/01/03/disneys-epcot-greenhouses-are-amazing-part-i-the-land/
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Jan 31, 2016 22:32
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Just want to point out to everyone how cool and good it is when you learn to cook. One of my goals this week was to learn to cook things I'd never cooked before. I made a lovely duck breast with orange sauce earlier this week, some roasted carrots with thyme and garlic as a side dish, and I just finished off a loving awesome wild mushroom risotto. All of these things were inexpensive to make and you'd have to be either extremely lazy or retarded to gently caress them up. Cooking is pretty much the best thing ever.
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Feb 1, 2016 03:59
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I decided to try to teach myself how to cook asian foods... turns out I need to take a class because I don't even know how to wok.
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Feb 1, 2016 21:36
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You don't need to take a drat class to use a wok. Literally google "how to use a wok" if you're that concerned about how to use a differently-shaped pan. One of the worst myths ever foisted upon the working masses was the idea that cooking is hard
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Feb 1, 2016 21:57
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GORDON posted:I decided to try to teach myself how to cook asian foods... turns out I need to take a class because I don't even know how to wok.
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Feb 1, 2016 23:13
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Not a Children posted:One of the worst myths ever foisted upon the working masses was the idea that cooking is hard Especially "fancy" foods. After I finished cooking my duck breast, I thought "this is it? I've been paying $20-30 for this loving thing in restaurants!" It's literally harder to gently caress up than a steak. Also, wok-guy: look on YouTube. This applies to any cooking-related thing. I haven't used a wok before, but I don't see why it would be different than using any other pan except for the shape. What is confusing you about wok cookery?
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Feb 1, 2016 23:18
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Put meat in pan when pan hot, take meat out when meat not red any more. Same with most other not meat foods. Make hot until good colour, eat. Repeat until good. It's not haute cuisine or anything but do it enough and you'll figure out how to make stuff you like.
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Feb 2, 2016 01:34
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Nobody needs to get nasty about it... ...but I go online and find these asian recipes, and it assumes all kinds of knowledge to which I've never been exposed. Is my wok seasoned? I don't know. Why do they say "stir fry for 1-2 minutes until meat seared" when it seems to take my meat like 12 minutes even with a hot pan. There were other boggles that I can't remember. It has been a couple years but I was never able to adequately duplicate pepper steak, or broccoli chicken, or any of my other fave chinese dishes. I can cook other things, but my asian dishes all tasted like half rear end. When I gave it up I remember thinking, "I just need to take a class for this poo poo."
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Feb 2, 2016 02:10
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GORDON posted:Nobody needs to get nasty about it... Just so you know, using a wok properly is actually hard and takes some skill and practice, and its tough/borderline impossible to get stuff seared like youd get at a chinese restaurant if youre at home on a bad electric or induction stove top So dont feel bad that some people who started cooking a couple days ago are like "ive never tried it before but I dont see how it could possibly be hard" in the Everyone is Stupid Except Me Megathread
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Feb 2, 2016 02:21
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GORDON posted:Nobody needs to get nasty about it... It's seasoned if it's not bare, rusting metal. Stir fry assumes really high temperatures, like top heat on your biggest burner, but if you've got a lovely stove you can make do longer cook times at lower temperatures and it won't kill you. It takes a couple tries that'll probably be marginally edible at first but eventually you get the the intuitive principles behind it and will get good enough that you can start throwing together recipes out of whatever's in your house on the fly. I would not recommend a class, which is 99% likely to be taught by an insane white woman who combines soy sauce and Hamburger Helper under some crystals to make her "asian" cuisine, just practice it and ask folks who know anything about it questions - if you don't know any competent cooks personally there's probably a restaurant or two around where the chef'll talk to you on a slow day. this is probably not a good thread for questions because it's full of mostly equally insane people who think heart disease is caused by an entire loaf of bread containing an RDV of salt A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Feb 2, 2016 |
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Feb 2, 2016 02:40
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Using a wok on an electric hob is basically pointless, it needs constant high flames. Electric is likely to give you a very lovely stewed result. If you google 'restaurant wok burner' you can see the set-up they use there to get high heat - it really is all about controlling the heat through stirring, tossing, and moving the wok about (it's easy enough). You can kind-of get away with using your gas hob at home.
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Feb 2, 2016 18:04
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Woks are good because they're a deep, high sided pan. But yeah they're just a funny shaped frying pan otherwise, I imagine you need gas to use them properly. I think the point is you can rotate the wok around to get an even heat? I generally prefer a nice deep copper bottomed frying pan for an electric hob.
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Feb 2, 2016 18:48
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OwlFancier posted:Woks are good because they're a deep, high sided pan. A wok is designed to get really, really hot as the shape is good for making maximum contact with flame. Using one on electric is going to be an exercise in frustration and a flat bottom pan is a better idea in that instance.
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Feb 2, 2016 19:13
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Yeah, I'm far from an expert in these things, but pretty sure the point of a wok is to very quickly sear the poo poo out of everything at a high temperature. Dishes should take a very short amount of time to cook. Unless it's a non-stick wok, non-stick doesn't like super high temperatures. I'm not sure what the point of those even is.
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Feb 2, 2016 19:43
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I have an ok cast iron frying pan, but I cook a lot of "asian style" food and always wanted a wok but have a lovely old electric range. What's this copper bottom business??
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Feb 2, 2016 20:11
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Baronjutter posted:I have an ok cast iron frying pan, but I cook a lot of "asian style" food and always wanted a wok but have a lovely old electric range. What's this copper bottom business?? Copper is, I think, a particularly good heat conductor, so copper bottom pans get hot fast and spread the heat out nicely. Basically I have a heavy pan with a big thick copper coloured bottom (teflon inner) and it's just really nice to use. Tall sides so I don't get the food everywhere and a nice weight so it doesn't move around when you stir. Also gets real hot and holds a lot of heat too because of the thick base. But then I also just like heavy cookware in general. Heavy pans have a high thermal mass so they hold a lot of heat (which is nice for keeping things to temperature, but it means you can't take them off the heat quickly, so it can be awkward if you're used to thin pans) and I think copper pans (or copper bottom pans, at least) heat up quickly and transfer a lot of heat into your food. They're just nice to cook with I think, if you want something that can cook meat at high temperature but don't have a fancy gas range (or don't like gas) I think the main thing you probably want is a heavy pan because just having more metal there will give you a lot of the benefits, but copper is a good conductor so it helps mitigate some of the problems of having a heavy iron pan which is that it can be a bit slow to heat up if you have a lovely old cooker. That said though, if your cooker isn't a great one, you'll need to spend some time getting your pan hot before you can flash fry things in it, because heavy pans are a bit slower to heat than thinner ones. But once it's hot it should be evenly hot and it should stay hot for a good while even off the heat. That's all for a frying pan though, I just use normal steel saucepans, because I don't really cook anything in a saucepan that needs to get very hot very fast. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Feb 2, 2016 |
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Feb 2, 2016 20:38
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I wish I had a gas range, but that would mean everyone else in my building would have that option too, and I don't want that because they are retards and the building would eventually blow up.
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Feb 2, 2016 21:33
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Fruits of the sea posted:Yeah, I'm far from an expert in these things, but pretty sure the point of a wok is to very quickly sear the poo poo out of everything at a high temperature. Dishes should take a very short amount of time to cook. Unless it's a non-stick wok, non-stick doesn't like super high temperatures. I'm not sure what the point of those even is. the same as the point of all nonstick pans: suckers keep buying them and they die in like a month so they'll go back and buy another.
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Feb 2, 2016 22:09
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:the same as the point of all nonstick pans: suckers keep buying them and they die in like a month so they'll go back and buy another. Or you heat them up to full temperature and get non-stick teflon flakes in your food since they can't tolerate high heat. Yummy!
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Feb 3, 2016 13:39
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MikeCrotch posted:Or you heat them up to full temperature and get non-stick teflon flakes in your food since they can't tolerate high heat. Yummy! Isn't that also ultra bad for you? I want to say carcinogenic but not totally sure.
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Feb 3, 2016 14:03
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You've gotta focus on the positive, not the negative. Eat enough teflon, and you're immune to constipation!
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Feb 3, 2016 15:45
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Not a Children posted:One of the worst myths ever foisted upon the working masses was the idea that cooking is hard Which in turn leads to people being lazy and going the cheap, processed food route. That and telling people that healthy food is more expensive - sure, the ingredients look more pricey, but once you actually divide them out, make your meals and stock your fridge, a lot of times it ends up being on par or cheaper than fast food. There's the automatic "hey that healthy option costs <x> but I can go to Wendy's and get a whole pre-made meal for $5" mentality. Personally I like cooking and knowing exactly what goes into the food I make. Too much of a crap shoot going to fast food places, especially after all the craziness with stuff like Taco Bell's "oatmeat", horse meat in imported food, or just the general health scares over things like E.Coli and all that.
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Feb 3, 2016 16:03
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Isn't that also ultra bad for you? I want to say carcinogenic but not totally sure. it's pretty unlikely that any meaningful amount will end up in your bloodstream instead of just passing through your digestive system untouched, it's still pretty foul tho
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Feb 3, 2016 17:45
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:it's pretty unlikely that any meaningful amount will end up in your bloodstream instead of just passing through your digestive system untouched, it's still pretty foul tho Uhh, non stick emits toxic gas that has killed peoples pet birds. Granted it has to be pretty hot.
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Feb 3, 2016 17:56
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