The General Questions thread - for quick questions, recipe requests, help.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > The General Questions thread - for quick questions, recipe requests, help.

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SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Steve Yun posted:

Is there a good gin drink that would go with paella or etouffee

I wanna make paella or etouffee and I also want to get rid of 1.5 L of gin

Assuming you're not asking just to be told a simple g&t: Ramos fizz.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2019 14:46

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 22:14

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

TychoCelchuuu posted:

Baingan bharta, di san xian, yu xiang qie zi, 红烧茄子, brinjal moju, any of a dozen Thai recipes - all good places to start.

Yeah, fish fragrant is my standard go-to for the oh-poo poo-the-garden-is-producing-a-shitload-of-eggplants months.

I've also been making a lot of dry pot with random bits of veg that have been coming out of the garden and/or the CSA box. Mostly for dealing with when I've got like one ripe eggplant, three ripe longbeans, a single carrot, two heads of broccoli, and like that. I like eggplant in dry pot because eggplants are basically little sauce sponges so they're flavourful as gently caress in dry pot.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2019 08:24

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Grand Fromage posted:

For Japanese/Korean I prefer Yamasa, Kikkoman is too salty.

That's my experience as well. Most of the Japanese cooking I do is slanted toward fast food/food stall type stuff, and Yamasa is more or less exactly the flavour profile that I'm expecting for soy to go with it. No idea if it would be different if I was doing more upscale or whatever Japanese cooking.

For Chinese I pretty much always use PRB gold label, just because it's pretty good and you can get it in the giant plastic jerrycans.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2019 05:19

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Steve Yun posted:

I have a four cup granite mortar and just ordered a one cup porcelain. Could I have just used my big one for tiny spoonfuls of spices?

Yes, although it's sometimes kinda a pain in the rear end if the spice you're trying to grind is wee and spherical (black pepper, mustard seed, whatever), because they tend to try to jump out of the mortar.

Or at least I notice it a lot more when I'm doing a small batch of something in my fuckoff big granite m&p than if I'm doing larger batches or using a smaller m&p.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2019 23:35

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Chinatown posted:

Anyone got a simple marinara/tomato sauce recipe? I got a bunch of ripe tomatoes I picked from my summers potted patio tomato crop.

I mean I could just go to google but

2# tomatoes
5 Tbsp butter
1 onion, halved

Simmer ~45 minutes, discard onion.

Add fish sauce if you have it salt if you don't to taste.

You can add some oregano at the start or basil at the end if you want to tart it up, but we're talking week night gently caress it sauce here so don't overthink it.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2019 23:45

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Nephzinho posted:

Save the onions to caramelize and use on something else later.

They're pretty good as-is as a sandwich/burger topper or just on toast too.

For anyone unfamiliar: if you take an onion, halve it, and then simmer it in sauce for 45 minutes it'll hold its shape until you touch it, and then it'll separate into a bunch of sheets of tomato-braised onion.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2019 23:58

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Shine posted:

It's time to buy new nonstick pans. I had some Scanpan cookware like 15 years ago that I adored (until they got lost in a move), and I see the company is still around.

What are the best of the best nonstick pans? I don't mind paying a bunch of money for something I'd adore like I did that Scanpan.

Well I guess All-Clad will happily let you pay US$200 for a 12" nonstick fry pan. And they're nice fry pans. But I don't see any reason to pay more than the like US$30 for a Tramontina unless you really loving hate the handle or something.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2019 03:58

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Suspect Bucket posted:

How do you guys store your rice? The bags they come in are quite ponderous. Should I go for giant square Tupperware?

Most of my (bulk) dry goods are stored in various size stacking cambros:

The 4 qt cambros (the bigger ones there) are exactly the right size to hold a 5# bag of flour.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2019 23:53

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Speaking of storage, does anyone have a clever solution for clean/unused delitainer storage? I mean obviously you can just nest them and stack them up...and then have a jenga tower of lids perched next to 'em waiting to tumble all over the floor.

What I'd like is something like a commercial cup/lid holder, but most of those seem to be around 4" across and I need more like 4 3/4".

# ¿ Sep 27, 2019 03:34

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Steve Yun posted:

Hey Subg, here�s a 10x10x5 box with the lids folded in holding four stacks of delitainers

Eh. Yeah, I could just stuff them in a box, but I'd prefer something a little more durable and easy to use. Like a cup/lid dispenser. I should probably just got to a local restaurant supply and see if they've got 'em for stupidly large beverages. I don't know what all the common diameters are, but I'm sure some of those crazy litre-sized cups are probably like 5".

# ¿ Sep 30, 2019 09:20

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Crumbling bacon is obviously too complicated and divisive an issue, get some pork belly and make char sui instead.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2019 09:04

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:

�As much spinach as I can grab with one hand for my green. It's got way less flavor than kale or broccoli. I *think* it will get bitter if you let it sit for a few hours, at least in my experience

Ever try Malabar spinach? It tastes sorta like a milder form of spinach (which it's not actually related to). I don't know how it looks from the standpoint of min/maxing micronutrients or whatever if you're worried about that. But I'll throw it out there anyway because it's one of those leafy greens that's consumed a lot in Africa, India, Asia, and the Pacific but I don't see it discussed much on the English-speaking internet.

You probably won't find it in the produce section of the corner store but Asian and Indian markets often have it. It's also easy as gently caress to grow in a backyard garden unless you're in a cold climate. I planted some three or four years ago and the original vine is still alive and it's propagated itself well enough that I pull up a few volunteer seedlings every season.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2019 22:04

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Bluedeanie posted:

Yo this air fryer is tite as hell

The lighting for food photraphy in my house is the opposite of tite though

The lighting looks like it unevenly burned your frozen fries.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2019 06:19

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Jaded Burnout posted:

Agreed. Fortunately I love garlic.

I would like nothing more than to be able to wolf down a bowl of rando lettuce mix. As it is the bitter ship sailed decades ago and I'm trying everything I can to deal with the aftermath.

What's the specific problem/problems you have with veg in general? You mention not liking grassy flavour/odour notes of greens. What else? Because there are other approaches to veg consumption that offer more flexibility than blending poo poo into a smoothie and hope you don't notice. Like how are you with spicy poo poo? Does the texture of greens bother you, or just the grassy part of the flavour?

# ¿ Oct 15, 2019 21:52

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Lawnie posted:

What makes it a jacket potato?

Common usage in the UK.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2019 03:54

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Rocko Bonaparte posted:

Yeah that's fair. Even without considering paint, I have to look at how some of this is made. If it's folded into shape, then just a little warping can open it up at some corner to leak out all the water.

I was seriously rooting for the steam table pans too because they're stamped out of one piece. I just imagine they'll get really warped from being next to a fire, but they only have one job.

Is there some reason why you're not just getting a smoker if you want a smoker?

# ¿ Oct 18, 2019 20:31

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Rocko Bonaparte posted:

My wife is really pushing me to try some cheap terracotta planters, but I'm really paranoid about those cracking from the temperature differential. That's assuming I found some without holes.

It's a totally fair question. I have two reasons in general why I'm trying to do it this particular way.

1. It almost does work unattended overnight so I'm trying to carry it over with hopefully just a little extra thing. I had a small offset smoker before and it required regular attention. Funny enough, I had to put a firebrick between the chambers to prevent line-of-site to the fire in that too. The fit-in for the Weber kettle is also pretty fussy for extended smoking. My goal here is to be able to slap some meat in the oven with a little more fuel overnight and have stuff ready at or before noon the next day. Pork shoulder seems to be working out but nothing else due to needing longer cooking and/or lower temperatures. So it's able to at least carry a decent amount of heat without me having to feed it more. Being able to insert a barrier like that basically gives me a two-chamber smoker.

2. Steam and a fire wall for bread. I'd still want something like this for bread even if I just gave up and got a smoker. I am also trying to get some method for generating steam and be able to block off direct line-of-sight of a fire in the oven if I'm trying to do some loaves without having to just pull out everything.

That all makes sense, but at bottom I kinda feel like you're taking something that's purpose-built for one kind of cooking---high, direct heat---and trying to kludge together something that'll work for exactly the opposite kind of cooking---low, indirect heat. And if that's what you want to do, well, you know, cool. Don't let me discourage you. But I feel like the fundamental problem here is that you're trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.

If you want to do long, overnight cooks I'd suggest something like a WSM or BGE, depending on how much you want to spend. Either will do an 18 hour cook without any problems by itself, and if you're really worried about it these days you can get electronic vent controls that make the whole thing more or less impossible to gently caress up. Even if you had a custom-built water-filled baffle for your oven, it would probably still be a lousy smoker just because the chamber isn't designed to be one---vent's probably in the middle of the ceiling and if your fire's at one end of the chamber and the food's at the other with a baffle in between you're not getting a nice flow of smoke around the cooking food like you'd want for smoking, and stagnant smoke in the chamber means undersmoked meat (e.g. poor smoke ring development) and a tendency to deposit creosote on the surface of the food.

For steam yeah I'd just throw a hotel pan filled with water in there with the bread, but that won't make the heat indirect but, you know, you don't cook in a Roman oven if you don't want direct heat.

Like I said, not trying to talk you out of it, and I'd be happy to be proven wrong by you coming up with a clever solution to the problem.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2019 22:07

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Pollyanna posted:

I asked this in the Chinese food thread, but I tried to make biang biang noodles from some leftover AP flour and the dough remained sticky and didn�t stretch well at all. I ended up rolling them out with a rolling pin. Do I need to use a specific kind of flour or flour:water ratio or something? Did I knead the dough wrong?

Hand pulled noodles are notoriously difficult to master and it's virtually impossible to troubleshoot over the internet without just going point by point through the process, but if your dough is super sticky then yeah, it sounds like your dough was too wet. AP flours are usually around 10% protein, which is around what you want for hand-pulled noodles. Flour water ratio is usually around 2:1.

There are a billion different ways to approach kneading, but the thing they have in common is a lot of loving resting. As a general outline you usually mix until you have a dough, rest, knead until there's some stretch/spring, rest, possibly repeat here, divide, rest, flatten and rough shape (into long flat rectangles), brush with oil, long rest, hand pull, no rest, and immediately cook.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2019 22:57

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

BrianBoitano posted:

it's tyool 2019, you can use simple syrup for convenience

Muddling the bitters with the sugar is how I measure the bitters. But I also think that most people make an old fashioned (or a Sazerac) with too little bitters.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2019 23:50

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

spankmeister posted:

Get a bunch of bones and simmer them for 12 hours

Or use a pressure cooker and get it done in an hour.

In general at home you're just going to get a richer stock because you're cleaning the carcass/bones yourself, and you're going to be a lot less efficient than anything that's done at scale. So you're just naturally getting more meat, connective tissue, fat, and so on in the pot. And when I'm making stock I usually intentionally add some random meat scraps to get a richer stock.

As for measuring the proportions of stuff: well, I guess you could just weigh a litre of stock subtract a kg. But that'll tell you how much of everything else is in there, not just protein.

Got a centrifuge?

# ¿ Nov 1, 2019 22:26

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

barkbell posted:

That's kind of what I was asking. Since store bought stock is less rich in nutrients/calories is there a certain way of cooking that produces one more calorie heavy. Or is it just the normal way to make stock which results in 50calories per cup and the store bought stuff is just weak or watered down or something. I know there is no way to get an accurate measurement but I was wondering if there was just an okay way to estimate.

Measure out a litre of stock you know the caloric content of, subtract a kg, call the result n and the number of calories per litre (which you'll have to figure out based on the serving size) is k. Now compute k/n, which we'll call r, our notional ratio of kCal/g of the `stuff' in the stock.

Make your stock, measure a litre, weigh it, subtract a kg. Now just multiply the result by the r we obtained above.

Unless you happen to have a bunch of lab grade graduated cylinders and scales in your kitchen this inherently inaccurate measure will probably turn out to be no better that just eyeballing it and guessing, but hell, it might be fun.

Alternately: find out who has access to a centrifuge at your local community college.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2019 22:51

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Qubee posted:

Why is lamb so expensive? �13 for 1.3kg of shoulder at my local butcher, it hurts my bank balance. And most of it was fat and bone.

Since you're paying in pounds lamb (probably) means the meat of a sheep in its first year. If you're stewing, braising, making curry, or something like that you might try mutton instead. That's meat from older sheep. It tends to be less tender but more flavourful. Also less expensive.

Disclaimer: if you're buying from the US (for example) `lamb' is often applied to all sheep meat regardless of age, and if you're in India `mutton' is usually used for goat meat.

And all lamb and mutton tends to be expensive because raising sheep is enormously land intensive. Producing a kilo of lamb meat uses more land than producing a kilo of beef, for example. Affects the price, and if you're concerned about the environmental impact of your consumption habits it's something to keep in mind as well.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2019 23:16

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Mr. Wiggles posted:

Strong disagree on your last point - land is not land is not land. Sheep and goats can be efficiently raised on marginal land which is not suitable for cattle. It is the ability of cattle to exist in a feed lot that gives them the efficiency advantage, but that's not necessarily an ecologically friendly efficiency. It makes more sense to use the soybeans we feed to cows to feed humans, and raise goats in deserts where we can't grow soybeans.

They can be, but if you go to your local supermarket and buy a pound of lamb meat it's unlikely that you're going to be getting meat from an animal that actually was raised that way. I mean you could make the same argument for pork---in principle pigs can be raised so that they are a net benefit to the environment, but it turns out that's not what the market optimises for and so most industrial pig farms are loving superfund sites, and that's what you're buying from the grocery store.

I mean yeah land use for grazing cattle and grazing sheep looks different but at scale none of them are exactly what you'd call environmentally friendly.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2019 07:04

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

BrianBoitano posted:

I'd guess the lovely smoker done fresh would be better than a traveling bird

Given the constraints, if I absofuckinlutely had to do this kind of thing I'd smoke the bird, part it out, vac seal the pieces, freeze them, then ship them ahead of time in a styrofoam container with some dry ice and ice packs, have the family put them it all in the freezer when it arrives, and then take an Anova or something in my carryon and reheat via s-v.

This works better for pork and beef than for poultry, but l o fuckin l at the idea of trying to knock out a big family holiday dinner on a bunch of random gear that you've never seen and have every reason to expect is going to be poo poo.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2019 00:30

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Jose posted:

I just made fried chicken for the first time to make some fried chicken sandwiches and I'm happy enough with the coating flavour but it fell off pretty badly once I started cooking it and was crispy on the outside and soggy on the inside in places. I did a flour > buttermilk + egg wash > flour coating and wondering what I need to do to make sure it adheres better and isn't soggy in places. I know I need to use more oil next time because some of it stuck to the bottom of the pan though

Got a thermometer? Sounds like either you started at too low a temperature or the temperature took a nosedive once you added the food.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2019 01:40

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

toplitzin posted:

I've got way too much carrot and celery due to circumstances outside my control.

Outside of making a bunch of mirepoix, ants on a log, and crudites, WTF can do with 2lbs+ of carrots and celery?

It's the perfect season for Potage Cr�cy. Unless you dwell in the antipodes. Which sounds like a euphemism involving pr0k's Mom but isn't, because if it was you'd already have something to do with all those carrots.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2019 23:32

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

SardonicTyrant posted:

What is a good way to bake juicy chicken? I heard 450 at ~20 minutes, but it's pretty inconsistent when I do it.

Brine, fabricate or at least spatchcock, use a thermometer.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2019 02:27

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

That Works posted:

Greens like lettuces will do OK. Same for green onions, cilantro, some other herbs.

Alliums in general do well in shade---so onions, garlic, shallots, chives, leeks, whatever.

And while lettuces and cabbages do want shade, the so do pro-tier greens like gai lan and yu choy. Although it looks like that soil needs some tilling before I'd try to sow greens in it.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2019 22:18

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Steve Yun posted:

So buy a bag of manure and toss the dirt a little?

Depends on what condition your soil is currently in. It looks pretty compacted in that photo. If you can't easily poke it with your finger then you're going to want to get a spade, mattock, or whatever and loosen it up and work your soil amendment(s) in.

When I had to improve the soil in a patch of ground like that--it had been ornamental shrubs along the fenceline--I just took a couple years planting pioneer crops and then just tilling them in. poo poo like winter wheat and ryegrass are traditional for that kind of thing, but I threw in some sweet potatoes (which will break up the soil pretty well but produce low yields while they're doing it) and winter beans (specifically favas) that grow like weeds and help fix nitrogen.

I also ended up just dedicating a bunch of the space to a couple large perennials that don't give a poo poo about soil quality--a Sichuan peppercorn tree, blackberries, a fig tree, rosemary, and so on.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2019 01:16

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

DasNeonLicht posted:

pyf roast chicken recipes please, tia

Small bird, high heat, lots of salt on the skin before it goes in, some rosemary into the drippings to baste it at the end, done.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2019 22:07

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Mezzanon posted:

It�s a weird thing my mom used to do when she made things so now I just do it by default. I have no idea if it actually adds anything but I mix it in with the wine and beef stock to cook under the roast.

Most onion soup/dip mixes are just dried onions, a shitload of salt, and usually a little sugar. If you're already using a mirepoix you can adjust all the same knobs with stuff you already have in the recipe. Not trying to talk you out of doing it the way you're doing it, but you're basically using the soup mix as very expensive salt.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2019 21:29

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

captkirk posted:

How long does dashi last in the fridge? I made a batch before heading out of state for the holidays and forgot to parcel it out into single servings in the fridge. Doesn't smell funny or anything but I've always read you it has a fridge life of a few days.

Assuming that you just used bonito flakes and kombu I wouldn't feel bad about using it after it had been in the fridge for a week or so, but I wouldn't trust any stock stock that hadn't been canned (or whatever) for longer than that.

I don't think I've ever made dashi any way other than � la minute though, just because it's so loving simple and I always have the raw materials on hand.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2019 08:56

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 22:14

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

The King Arthur Baker's Companion is a pretty good intro-level general baking text. It's kinda like the baking equivalent of Bittman, if that makes sense. Once you start wanting to drill down on specific subjects you'll end up looking for better specialty texts on those subjects, but until you get there having something super broad and general that doesn't have a lot of fiddly or fussy recipes is what you really want.

And unless you don't want to do business with amazon, it's worth knowing that baking texts go on sale regularly for crazy cheap if you're willing to get them on kindle. I think I got Beranbaum's Bread Bible and Baking Bible for around US$3 apiece, and a have a shitload of random other baking texts I've picked up because they were just a buck or two and haven't even bothered looking at them yet.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2020 03:24

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > The General Questions thread - for quick questions, recipe requests, help.

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