Weekly Cooking (and related issues) Thread

[mylife]

Kids! Who needs them? LOL

[mylife]

We used to put the kids to work on the pasta

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/italian-wedding-soup-recipe

You got ants in your pants? Make pasta!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4UoOFqmcBU

[Jamestown1630]

I guess your parents did...:-)

G’Nite, mylife!

[CottonBall]

I’ve seen those eggs on foodtv and was never quite sure what they were talking about

Somehow I think eggs and tomatoes just seems wrong. So I should make it so I change my mind about that ;)

[Jamestown1630]

I always thought my husband’s practice of putting hot sauce on scrambled eggs was ‘wrong’ - just didn’t seem appetizing to me. But the Eggs in Purgatory look interesting to me. Go figure.

[txhurl]

It’s a tricky dish, and why one must typically go to fine-ish eateries to have them, easy to mess up as a souffle.

When I was a fish at UT I worked at at the Driskill early mornings and learned how to mass-produce Eggs Benedict, and some other nice things; scaling that down to six or two breakfasters is something I had to deduce early.

In esteemable commercial operations, you plan for 33% failure, as in produce 130 products in one pot and throw out the 30 least perfect. Fishing out the un-shapely poached eggs - one DID NOT have an egg seperate/break in the pot - taught me to ‘plunk’ the eggs one at a time quickly. A piece of shell in a $10 dish (’84 dollars) would mean a return you’d do anything to avoid.

[mylife]

Think I’ll get a few over easy in the AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWlX-1pZuMs

[Jamestown1630]

I like these things; they’ve made my poached eggs painless:

https://www.amazon.com/Fusionbrands-Set-Silicone-Poach-Pods/dp/B000P6FD3I/ref=pd_sim_79_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=1NZ4YK6VXHNC1F0MDAM4

[JayGalt]

That sounds like experience you would find very useful in later years.

[Liz]

Glamorizes a plate of scrambled eggs.

Praline Meltaway Biscuits

Ingredients 1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted save $ 1/3 cup packed brown sugar save $ 1/3 cup chopped pecans 2 1/4 cups Original Bisquick™ mix 2/3 cup milk or Cream s2 tablespoons granulated sugar.

PRALINE Stir butter, brown sugar, pecans in small bowl; Divide among 12 sprayed regular size muffin cups.

BATTER Stir Bisquick mix, milk, sugar to soft dough . Place a spoonful of dough in muffin cups. Bake golden four25 deg 11-13 min.

FINAL Turn pan upside down onto cookie sheet. Leave a few minutes to allow praline to drizzle over biscuits. Set right side up=---liftout topping from pan onto biscuits. Cool slightly before serving.

SERVE warm.

[JayGalt]

Welcome!
Its a simple recipe.Very forgiving
2 containers of chicken broth (College Inn 32oz) bring to a boil.
Whisk 5 eggs with 1/2 cup of lemon juice.
Add 1T white pepper to the chicken broth & 1/2 to 3/4 c grated Parmesan, fresh does make a difference but already grated is still good.
Whisk to blend.
Add 6-8oz of sour cream to the stock and whisk until mostly blended. Its OK if there are still a few visible bits of sour cream because you will be whisking again after you add the eggs in.
Now lower the heat to a slow boil.
Using a 1/4 cup measure start adding the stock to the egg lemon mixture, whisking as you go. Keep adding 1/4 cup at a time until the container with the egg mixture is warm to the touch.
Then switch and start adding the egg mixture back into the chicken stock, whisking continuously.
When the egg mixture is completely added set the timer to 4 minutes and whisk until the timer goes off. Lower the heat to low and whisk occasionally for another 3-4 minutes. I often leave the soup on low a few more minutes to let it thicken more.

I like those proportions of lemon & pepper but they give a mild kick so add or subtract according to taste. If you make it too peppery for your taste 1T of sour cream added to a bowl of soup will gentle it down.

[txhurl]

Learning scalability young is good practice, in any industry.

I’ve been called a bitchy perfectionist more than a few times in my life, and it’s more about planning to ditch the sub-par products by inputting more ingredients than the expected yield, than being a judge of the inputs that failed.

The next year I worked at our local country club where our Chef demanded the same: make 30% more than you need, and ditch the imperfect ones.

[JayGalt]

Looks so good!

[mylife]

Lovely.

Life is simple

[JayGalt]

Imperfect still tastes good, I think I would have hung around to see what was rejected.

[Yaelle]

I missed the problems thread! Bummer! I will have to go search for it.

I too loved Mollie Katzberg’s cookbook. A friend had it and I tried a bunch of recipes a long time ago. Thanks for that blast from the past! Exciting.

Fellow cooks, I am desperate for a THICK brownie recipe. I found one last night and it does make thicker brownies. I want at least 1.5 inches. But this recipe has not much flavor and the consistency is dryer than the masses wanted.

I think there is a chemistry issue. I need the 9x13 pan quantity. But I don’t think you can get a chewy, tasty, chocolate chip studded brownie that is really thick in that size without some compromises somewhere, or else the insides might not be solid enough to eat.

Anyone have the secret? I have not found anything online.

[Yaelle]

That is gorgeous. Who makes that in LA?

[Aliska]

I never got around to making these but they still look delicious. Pan Fried Pork Chops with Juniper Berries and Peppercorns. There is a rub with a little brown sugar which makes the beautiful crispy edges. Pulled pork never particularly appealed to me because I don't like meat shredded or not cut across the grain but I should try some from Chipotle's, never tried them yet either.

I wondered where I would get juniper berries and discovered I have some on my tree I planted in a little well off the front porch. The little trees come up as volunteers, and I transplanted it from behind the garage. I'll check and see if there are any berries on it. I should be saving and drying them. I saw several of the dark blue ones on it, also the green, different times in the season.

Poor little tree got bent in every ice/snow storm; I'd clean off as much as I could safely, and now it reaches past the eaves of the roof. They are very resilient to bending.

[Aliska]

That’s why Bird developed Bird’s Custard Powder, England I think, for his wife who couldn’t eat eggs but wanted to enjoy stovetop custard pudding or pastry cream filling. I tried it once for that (use it to good effect in some cakes), and maybe I didn’t do it right but it tasted awful, no pudding flavor at all imo.

[txhurl]

Oh, but that is what the *staff* is for, evaluating the imperfect results :)

Say, are you Greek, you just described Avgloemo.. Avgolemono.. the egg/lemon/garlic soup.

I learned some tricks from a prominent Greek family at precisely the same timeframe, namely fish tips.