Happy Mutants food and drink topic (Part 1)

general topics
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It’s those two teaspoonfuls of salt! :wink: (To me that seems like a lot for the amount of other ingredients—or at least, enough to make it all tastier!)

You just reminded me of something that I used to make fairly often…

Brown rice with pork chops, apples, and onions:

In a covered glass casserole dish put a cup of uncooked brown rice and the normal amount of water for it (2.5 cups water). On top of that lay two or three pork chops. On top of them put chopped apples and onions. Sprinkle on salt and ground black pepper. Cover and bake (at 350F or so) til the rice is cooked and the pork is done as you like it.

I like to leave it in the oven for some extra time to brown and develop more flavor. I leave the cover on the whole time to keep the oven clean, but even with the cover on there can be some browning. A good dish in the winter in Minnesota, when it’s nice to have the oven on to help warm the house.

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That’s the other ‘note’ for this recipe – the seasonings may definitely need to be tweaked depending on what sort of baked beans you’re using. I used B&M brand and I’m sure they have much more salt and sugar in them than whatever canned baked beans had in the 20s.

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I like them and, of course, ATK because if it takes cooking a hundred chicken to get it right they will cook 105 chickens. On YouTube Townsend’s channel for old cooking, Binging With Babish for fun, and Food Wishes because Chef John is a true professional and makes complicated dishes approachable and doable. Sign of a good teacher rather than a “celebrity”.

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Poor man’s ortolan?

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I thought I’d share my best trick for avoiding having to clean the oven :smiley:

Once when I moved into an apartment, I discovered a cheap 12-inch diameter pizza pan in the narrow space between the oven and the sink cabinet, presumably forgotten by the previous tenant. Ever since, I’ve been using it in the oven under any dishes/pans that will fit on it. I put it on top of the rack, and set the dish on it. (I’ve heard of people lining the bottom of the oven with aluminum foil—but with that, if something runs over, you still have to clean the oven rack.) I just automatically put the pizza pan under anything that fits on it…8-inch square pans, pie pans, round casserole dishes, etc.

Although I’m an experienced home cook and baker, I still sometimes throw a few too many ingredients into a dish (trying to use all of something up, usually) to get it in/out of the oven without spilling…or misjudge the juiciness of fresh fruit for pies and don’t put in enough thickener to keep the pie from running over…or misjudge a pan size when I’m experimenting with a recipe. On the odd occasion that I’ve had something run over in the oven, I’ve always been glad that I only had to clean the pizza pan that was directly beneath the dish, and not clean the rack and the whole bottom of the oven.

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107

Tip from my Chinese mother in law…
Don’t get the cooking Xiaoxing. It is inferior and horribly salty. Get real drinking Xiaoxing.

The problem with this as a substitute for sake is that it is, well, completely different. It is made with yeast. Sake, like Batavia arrack and tequila, is produced by bacterial fermentarion which gives them all that special funk and the tastes you either love or hate

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Those are all good points.

I confess that I don’t use good cooking wine (whether Xiaoxing, Mirin, sherry, or burgundy) when I cook. It seems to stem from my much poorer youth, when it wasn’t affordable. I need to ‘grow up’. Thanks for the nudge.

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109

I have successfully made hummus with Chinese “sesame paste”. I’m not sure how it compares to tahini, which I haven’t found, but as far as I can tell it should be basically the same stuff. So for anyone who can’t find tahini, try a Chinese supermarket if you have one of those nearby.

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I have a similar pasta recipe. I love it because it’s just complex enough to make me feel like I actually cooked something, but easy enough for a weeknight. And all the main ingredients are shelf-stable so I can always have it ready to go as a fallback.

  • 1 cup dry penne
  • salt
  • Olive oil (a few tablespoons?)
  • 2-3 cloves garlic, smashed
  • red pepper flakes (depending on preferred spiciness, I like around a teaspoon)
  • 14oz canned whole tomatoes (1 small can), drained
  • dried oregano
  • pepper

Prepare penne. Meanwhile, heat oil in a skillet or sauté pan. Add garlic and red pepper flakes and sauté until garlic begins to brown. Reduce heat and add tomatoes (beware exploding tomato juice and oil). As tomatoes soften, mash with a potato masher until smooth-ish.

When pasta is done, add a splash of the pasta water to the sauce, then strain the rest. Turn off heat. Season sauce with salt, pepper, and oregano to taste. Add pasta to sauce and stir until coated.

Finish with whatever’s handy. Last time I used fresh basil (chiffonade’d) and cashew “mozzerella” (chopped into bite-size chunks and stirred in until just slightly melted), it was delicious.

I think I got the recipe from Alton Brown? I just do it from memory now…

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RHUBARB!!! It’s up in the back yard now, yay!!!

Here’s an easy recipe for a delicious topping for vanilla ice cream. “Delicious” assuming that you like both rhubarb and balsamic vinegar. [edit: and ginger.] It has a lot of flavor. Note that it’s not cooked. It has a nice zing to it. (I tried cooking some of it once to see what that would do to it, and it turned it into something very…ordinary. Don’t cook it.)

Most of the people I’ve served this to have really liked it. A friend served it to her book club and every one of the attendees loved it. But one of my siblings didn’t care one way or the other. If you try it, let me know how you liked it.

If you have rhubarb growing, I’d recommend using young, thin, tender stalks if you can—1/4 to 3/8-inch thick would be good—since it won’t be cooked. I think it looks nice with 1/4-inch stalks cut into 1/4-inch slices so it looks diced. And since it’s very tart and each piece of rhubarb packs a wallop of flavor when you bite into it, small pieces work well taste-wise, I think.

The rhubarb of course will have some crunch to it. Be sure to let the compote sit a bit (at least 30 minutes) before you serve it. It’s quick to make. If you don’t make it earlier, make it before the meal, and it’s ready to serve for dessert.

Best with good-quality vanilla ice cream.

Balsamic Rhubarb Compote

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon grated peeled fresh ginger root
2 cups chopped fresh rhubarb stalks (leaves discarded, ends trimmed, and stalks cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices)

Procedure:
Mix.
Let sit 30 minutes (or more) to draw the juices from the rhubarb and allow it to soften a bit and let the flavors meld.

Makes about 2 cups

Recipe initially found at The Rhubarb Compendium by Dan Eisenreich. “More than you ever wanted to know about rhubarb” http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/sauce
I changed the wording a bit.

Last summer I had some Balsamic Rhubarb Compote left over, and I put it in the freezer. Recently I put it into a frozen-fruit smoothie that I was making in the blender—frozen banana, frozen raspberries, frozen concentrated orange juice, and whole milk, as I usually do—plus some of the frozen balsamic rhubarb compote. Wow, delicious, I’m going to do that again!

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Maybe not the right thread for this, but I had to put it somewhere.

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Based on your recommendation of Claudia Roden (who is fantastic) I’m going to follow up on some of these. “Dining by Rail” in particular really appeals.

On a long road trip last year I listened to Ken Albala’s lecture series, Food: A Cultural Culinary History (excuse the Audible.com link) over a couple of weeks, and can’t recommend it enough. It’s well written and well argued, and Albala is an engaging lecturer. If you enjoy food history it may cover a lot of familiar ground, but it’s well worth it.

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This seems almost like halfway to twice-cooked pork, almost, except 2CP also has lots of Szechuan pepper and dried chiles (and is sliced and cooked again).

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The easiest pork recipe I know of is bo ssam.

Buy a pork butt / pork shoulder (probably about $15) and rub it all over with equal amounts of salt and sugar. Sit it in the fridge overnight uncovered. Cook it at 300 for about six hours, basting every hour or so. Take it out, coat it with plain brown sugar, and cook for ten minutes at 500 degrees to make a glaze. That’s it. It’ll be fall-apart tender and delicious.

When they used to serve this at Momofuku Ssam Bar, it came with ssamjang and gochujang sauces, sesame-scallion sauce, raw oysters, and bibb lettuce & buns to eat it with.

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Japanese home cooking recipes lean heavily into soy sauce & sugar combinations and simmering.

It is especially big for New Year’s preparation

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Conversely, I’ve used a recipe for (ostensible) Szechuan noodles* that calls for tahini. I’d always figured that it was called something else in China, but it wasn’t until now that I see there’s actually some kind of Chinese sesame paste.

*Szechuan or not, the noodles are delicious.

For years I would make something very close to this, but would not use sauce in a jar because it somehow seemed like cheating. I mean, it’s not like I grew (nor even canned) the tomatoes myself, so what’s the big difference? (This was long before I was concerned about the sugar and/or salt they add to jar sauce.) These days, well, I’ll usually open a jar… :roll_eyes:

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Copied that off to try, with our rhubarb starting to come in now. Will report back! Our asparagus patch is in full howl too, and that is one of my springtime faves, just steamed with a little salt and hollandaise.

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Read your description, and decided I had to try them. Agree and would totally recommend them. I got them on Amazon, but then my wife found them at our local SharpShopper! On Amazon for the princely sum of $0.80/pack, she found them 6/$1. Of course, she is that kind of person. :grin:

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