Happy Mutants food and drink topic (Part 2)

[Mindysan33]

@ClutchLinkey

Yes, I much fondled the hot nuts at this point.

[OhHai]

[nick_warr]

We had a lot of luck scoring them about halfway through, soaking them in cold water for 2 hours, then baking them at 170 C (I think) for about 30 minutes.

[MrShiv]

Christmas gumbo!

I made the roux in the oven. Takes a while but it’s much easier.

[ClutchLinkey]

Mmmmm, gumbo!
Please tell me more about making roux in the oven. I don’t mind if it takes longer, I want the “easier/not so much time on my feet” version.

[MrShiv]

Equal parts flour and canola oil - I used one cup each for this batch. Just mix it up and put in a deep cast iron in the oven at 350°F. Pull it out and stir with a whisk every half hour. I got to a nice dark brown in about 90 minutes. Watch closely near the end, but at 350 there’s little chance of scorching.

You could use a shallow cast iron pan, but I like a deep one so I can just go straight from oven to stovetop and throw in the holy trinity

[GilbertWham]

I had duck confit for Xmas dinner, like a fat, lazy Frenchman.

What are those brown crispy bits on the mashed potatoes, you say? Well, I’m glad you asked: those are smashed up bits of duck confit schmaltz, and they are fucking delicious.

(It’s a shit picture cos the lights in our kitchen are rubbish)
ETA: it’s not a shit picture. It looks it on my phone tho

[snigs]

Mainly my partner’s handiwork. We forgot to bring the mixer to her folks, so had to whip the meringue by hand.

[OhHai]

I just got an Instant Pot for the first time, and I think the the ch-chunk sound it makes when I lock the lid might be the most satisfying sound in my kitchen. It’s like the engineered sound of the door closing on an expensive car or something. I can believe that their other stuff is high-quality, too.

Oh, it cooks good, too. But that sound…

[danimagoo]

My Instant Dutch Oven has this heating base part. There’s no ch-chunk, but it’s pretty cool. It’s a precise temperature controller for the dutch oven. So you can use it like a slow cooker that has way more precise control than your typical Crock Pot, but it will also get hot enough to saute onions. And then, the dutch oven part is just a regular cast iron, ceramic coated dutch oven, so you can pull it out of the base and use it on the stove top or in the oven. I try to stay away from kitchen gadgetry, but when one device can do multiple things that I do a lot already, that to me is a useful gadget. Honestly, if I had limited kitchen space (thankfully I have a pretty big kitchen), I think I could get by pretty well with just an Instant Pot, and air fryer, and this dutch oven.

[OhHai]

That sounds great! I don’t understand why more slow cookers don’t have actual temperature controls. I used to do pulled pork in a similar, but less useful device. It had temp control, but the pan wasn’t really suited for the stove top. But I could set the temp low, at like 300 or 325, and let the pork cook for 12-14 hours. It would turn out great. I love kitchen gadgets, but can’t really justify the space or money for single-purpose gadgets. Like, I love a good rice cooker, but the Instant Pot does well enough that I probably won’t ever buy another one.

If I had to pick one piece of cookware, though, it would be a big enameled cast iron dutch oven combo-cooker with a skillet lid. It’s good for almost anything.

[FGD135]

@OhHai

But that sound…

Can’t really compete with a sousaphone played with vigor and passion?

[danimagoo]

I didn’t bake any cookies this Christmas. Instead, I made my grandmother’s chocolate fudge. I emailed my mom and asked her for the recipe, and she sent it with a puzzling message that someone told her “that isn’t really fudge. It’s chocolate something.” She couldn’t remember what the something was. That caused me to do a little research on what exactly fudge is, which then prompted me to reply to her that her recipe absolutely qualifies as fudge. I suspect it was my cousin who fancies himself a world class chef because he’s worked as a cook in restaurants for 15 or 20 years. He’s a bit of a “well akshully” kind of know-it-all, and he’s often wrong. He’s also a cishet white man in Texas who’s a leftist and Neil Gaiman fan, so I’ll forgive him. Anywho, here’s the recipe. It’s quite simple. It’s also highly addictive and I wish I hadn’t made it because I can’t stop eating it.

MOTHER’S FUDGE

1 stick butter (or margarine)
4 ½ cups sugar
1 can evaporated milk

Stir and boil 7 minutes. Remove from heat and add:

3 packages chocolate tid bits (3 rounded cups?) [I used semi-sweet chocolate chips]
1 jar marshmallow filling
1 t. vanilla [I just realized I left out the vanilla…it doesn’t seem to need it]
1 lb. nuts [totally optional]

Pour onto cookie sheet or similar lipped pan

[NukeML]

1 t. Vanilla - is that teaspoon, tablespoon, tin?

[danimagoo]

Teaspoon. A tablespoon would be T.

[NukeML]

Well today I learned. I’ve seen tsp and tbsp before.

Gracias!

[danimagoo]

I don’t know if t and T are standard for teaspoon and tablespoon, but all of my grandmother’s and mother’s recipes on index cards use that notation.

[zfirphdn]

@NukeML

1 t. Vanilla - is that teaspoon, tablespoon, tin?

“tactical measuring device”. There should be one in your EDC

[FGD135]

This is why we have SI units.

[danimagoo]

I mostly measure things by weight these days in my baking, using grams. However, for very small measurements like a teaspoon, or a half a teaspoon, measuring that accurately and precisely by weight is beyond the capabilities of most digital kitchen scales, so I still measure those quantities using a set of measuring spoons.