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Idle Cook Club - Veggie Feeds-me: My Body Is Ready

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I finally got a chance to make ramen from scratch this weekend.  I used the process I linked earlier from Serious Eats

http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/02/how-to-make-tonkotsu-ramen-broth-at-home-recipe.html

 

along with their recipe for marinated soft boiled eggs

http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/03/the-food-lab-tonkotsu-ramen-part-how-to-make-ajitsuke-tamago-marinated-soft-boiled-eggs.html

 

and, instead of Chashu pork belly, I went with Sous Vide porchetta

http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/12/the-food-lab-deep-fried-sous-vide-36-hour-all-belly-porchetta.html

 

 

I took a bunch of pictures and was going to post them up here, all proud of my two day ordeal, but the broth didn't turn out great. The thing that seems to happen to all my complicated dishes happened to this one, it just didn't have any flavor. It was like eating ramen sitting in dirty tap water. If it had just tasted bad, that would be one thing, but no flavor at all is the most disappointing thing ever, especially when I had to get up at 6am to start cooking for a 6pm dinner. A little bit of my soul was crushed. I ended up boiling the bones on full tilt for another 3 hours, then reducing it down till I was afraid it was going to scorch, and it turned into a passable pork gravy at least, but definitely not ramen-like.

 

Also, I tried a lot of temperature settings and times for Sous Vide soft boiled eggs, but could never get it right. The yolk actually seemed to solidify faster than the whites, leaving a hard ball in the middle of a puddle of mucus. After going through almost a dozen eggs, I finally dumped the Sous Vide machine and just boiled the eggs for 6 minutes exactly, then chilled and peeled (which was it's own ordeal.) The marinade actually turned out really well though, and my wife loved them.

 

If there was a sunny spot in this whole thing, it's that the pork came out absolutely excellent. I would definitely use that recipe again. Frying the outside of the roll to give the rind a nice crispness was great.  

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I finally got a chance to make ramen from scratch this weekend.  I used the process I linked earlier from Serious Eats

http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/02/how-to-make-tonkotsu-ramen-broth-at-home-recipe.html

 

along with their recipe for marinated soft boiled eggs

http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/03/the-food-lab-tonkotsu-ramen-part-how-to-make-ajitsuke-tamago-marinated-soft-boiled-eggs.html

 

and, instead of Chashu pork belly, I went with Sous Vide porchetta

http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/12/the-food-lab-deep-fried-sous-vide-36-hour-all-belly-porchetta.html

 

 

I took a bunch of pictures and was going to post them up here, all proud of my two day ordeal, but the broth didn't turn out great. The thing that seems to happen to all my complicated dishes happened to this one, it just didn't have any flavor. It was like eating ramen sitting in dirty tap water. If it had just tasted bad, that would be one thing, but no flavor at all is the most disappointing thing ever, especially when I had to get up at 6am to start cooking for a 6pm dinner. A little bit of my soul was crushed. I ended up boiling the bones on full tilt for another 3 hours, then reducing it down till I was afraid it was going to scorch, and it turned into a passable pork gravy at least, but definitely not ramen-like.

 

Also, I tried a lot of temperature settings and times for Sous Vide soft boiled eggs, but could never get it right. The yolk actually seemed to solidify faster than the whites, leaving a hard ball in the middle of a puddle of mucus. After going through almost a dozen eggs, I finally dumped the Sous Vide machine and just boiled the eggs for 6 minutes exactly, then chilled and peeled (which was it's own ordeal.) The marinade actually turned out really well though, and my wife loved them.

 

If there was a sunny spot in this whole thing, it's that the pork came out absolutely excellent. I would definitely use that recipe again. Frying the outside of the roll to give the rind a nice crispness was great.  

I found my broth disappointing as well. I ended up adding hoisin sauce to my broth to give it some flavor. I think I will just use Miso paste next time. A lot easier, and way tastier!

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Not a fan of miso really but, this being Seattle, we have several good ramen shops pretty close by that will save a lot of time and money over attempting the recipe again. 

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Not a fan of miso really but, this being Seattle, we have several good ramen shops pretty close by that will save a lot of time and money over attempting the recipe again. 

 

Hah, we have 0 ramen shops of any quality anywhere within 25 miles, which is why we chose that for our recipe. Lucky you!

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The ramen broth is definitely the most challenging aspect for the home cook. The way restaurants make ramen broth is not something that can really be replicated at home. The home version often calls for stock with a mixture of pork and chicken bones. Which is fine, but I don't usually have pork bones a lot, so I end up making a chicken stock.

 

I've been kind of fascinated for the last year with the different techniques involved in Asian and Western stocks. In a Western stock for example you would never allow the water to boil, you just keep things simmering for a long time. But I've seen lots of examples of Japanese stocks that call for boiling. The types of vegetables to season the stock also change, for a Western style stock I use carrots & celery, maybe a bay leaf. In an Asian style stock I would use things like ginger and green onions. But I've also seen Japanese stocks that only used animal bones (see for example this Saveur recipe: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Sesame-Chile-Ramen ) and that appealed to my preference for minimalist recipes. I don't really buy chicken wings, but I do roast whole chickens quite a bit for dinner so I decided to try this minimalist approach out using the leftover bones and carcass. I toss all that stuff into a pot and fill it with water and bring that to a boil (that should loosen up a bunch of stuff), and then throw that in a colander, and then rinse it off with cold water until everything is cleaned out. Then I put it back in the pot again, covered it with water, and brought it back to a boil. I reduced the heat and then let it do its thing until the volume of water reduced down by about a third. At that point it has a super nice, clean flavor. At that point you remove and discard the bones, and use the stock, store it, whatever. For the tan tan style ramen I combine it with a Japanese sesame paste (you can substitute tahnini sauce if you don't have access to Asian grocery stores that would carry something like that, the color will be a little weird, but the flavor is basically the same) and that's the soup. Obviously for other styles of ramen you do something different, but I think that is a pretty good base to start with!

 

For the eggs I haven't done sous vide stuff (because I have a tiny kitchen and don't have room for stuff like that), but otherwise the serious eats link you posted is not too dissimilar to what I did. I boiled the eggs for about 5 to 7 minutes (I have tried 5, 6, and 7 minutes and liked the texture for all of those, but basically it is a question of how runny vs firm you want your yolk to be). But before boiling the egg I take a needle or pin, and poke a tiny hole in the bottom of the egg. While the eggs are boiling I stir them constantly with a spoon or chopsticks. I think those two steps are kind of crucial for the texture of the eggs so I would recommend giving that a shot if you're having issues with the texture. It also makes peeling the egg shells off less of a hassle. The soy marinade sounds totally right to me: a mixture of soy sauce and mirin. I also throw in a bunch of other stuff: green onions, ginger, garlic, and star anise. It's the sort of thing where you can experiment a lot with the stuff that goes into it. I prepared the eggs at night before going to bed, would stick them in the marinade overnight, and then remove them to a separate jar in the morning.

 

Anyway, I hope all of that is potentially useful info. I love talking about the nitty gritty of cooking because I feel like paying close attention to a couple of small things can really make a huge difference.

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Everyone, i made a shephers pie neeeeeearly. I always get too hungry to do the last step, and honestly, crunchy bits aren't mandatory for me (i used to pick them off when i was a kid). My pie filling with mash was well tasty though.

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I was lazy this time and made my usual shepherd's pie recipe. Nothing fancy, but damn good. Mushrooms, onion, peas and carrots with veggie mince.  Also tons of tinned tomato with mashed potatoes on top.

 

post-34425-0-37880900-1460069541_thumb.jpg

 

Also due to deferrals, I'm taking an early turn, and my suggestion is Burgers! You can make a burger out of lots of things, beef, chicken, beans, tofu or burgers! You might eat them a lot, but how often do you actually try to make a burger from scratch? Making burgers is often a relatively quick and easy meal, goes good with home made chips or a salad. Plus you get to pile on toppings too.

 

 

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I'm totally going to try

a) hambāgu (no bun, and a gross looking sauce that i will leave on the side)

and

B) some sort of bean burger.

 

anyone got a good bean burger recipe? or lentil or something?

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They sound good tabacco!

Anyone know what is a good binder instead of panko? I can't have the glutens. Might jsut get some gf bread and blitz that as best i can.

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He notes in the comments:

 

I'm not too up on my gluten-free products, but some good quality gluten-free breadcrumbs should work, or make your own by toasting gluten-free bread and running it through a food processor.

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Burgers!

 

Serious Eats is part of my food bible when I want to consult on a lot of dishes, but I'm pretty sure the first thing I ever saw there were hamburgers. Kenji has cooked literally thousands of them. If you want a recipe that's one of the best sources I can think of.

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I made this recipe, turned out well, nice and tasty, the burgers were a bit more crumbly than I would like, not sure if it was my fault or the recipe (I accidentally used 1 cup of cashews instead of 3/4 cup)

 

The burger itself was quite tasty.

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Okay, so I picked up a burger recipe back when I lived in Chicago from a friend that worked as a chef. Burger purists turn their nose up at this because it adds a bunch of stuff to a burger that isn't strictly necessary, but whatever, in my experience it has always been a hit.

 

Mix together:

-Your ground meat or fake meat as it were

-Worchestire sauce
-Your favorite BBQ sauce
-Something like 6 cloves of minced garlic
-Honey
-Chile powder (or any sort of hot powder)
-Diced onions
-Italian seasoning

 

My friend didn't give a lot of details about how much stuff to use except for the 6 cloves of garlic, but even that is totally negotiable as far as I'm concerned. The important thing is to make sure no one particular element takes over. Once the patties have been formed add salt & pepper. Cook, enjoy.

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Ok, we have actually done some cooking! I'm so late on these, and apparently I lost the picture of shepherd's pie we made but we made a veggie shepherd's pie and it was really good.

 

RAMEN! We cooked our own challenge hooray. We used a combo of http://food52.com/recipes/31889-vegetarian-ramen and http://minimalistbaker.com/easy-vegan-ramen/. The results were a little funny because we were pulling from multiple recipes and also just winging it, but it came out well. An interesting effect - the broth by itself was very flavorful. It had a lot of vinegar taste, which I would absolutely use less of in the future. But when it had ingredients all up in, so much of that flavor disappeared. I think we would try again. Definitely try and cut the stems off the mushrooms if you plan on eating them as well. Hannah did NOT like those. I think maybe using dried in the broth and fresh in the served dish would work.

 

Applications to use outside of just ramen: crispy tofu. The instructions for the crispy pan tofu are potentially life-altering. It came out super light and so crispy. I really liked the bok choy and she really liked the carrots. Unfortunately neither of us are super crazy about the other thing, but I think that's something you can put in your back pocket to use as its own dish.

 

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BURGER TIME

 

I threatened, and am using, Serious Eats' Ultra-Smashed Cheeseburgers recipe. It is extremely fast and delicious. The mis en place I showed is part decorative but also totally essential. If you don't have an easy way to transfer these on to a plate by the time they're ready to flip over you done messed up. They are surprisingly juicy, create an IMMENSE amount of smoke if you're doing it right (be warned), and from the second they hit the pan to being fully dressed on the bun is well under 90 seconds. I didn't grease my smashing implement so they're a little messy, but it turns out all the same.

 

Notes:

 

-This post potentially took longer for you to load and read than it took to cook these. It's so fast.

-The bun is not upside down, I built it that way on purpose to soak up the juice. These don't rest, they go directly into face.

 

 

That beer was weird. It had all kinds of little things floating in it that I hope were hibiscus. Beer recommended for burger applications.

 

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I made burgers. In the end i just made plain old regular ones and they were delicious. Night one with salad and oven wedges. Lunch next day, in a bun with cheese and bacon. Both great, though i like with wedges better.

 

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http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/trisha-yearwood/cheese-stuffed-burgers-recipe.html

 

We made these w/ mozzarella. We added some greek seasoning to the hamburger mix, and used those little fresh mozzarella balls.

 

I would recommend using a stronger cheese w/ a lower melting point. The mozz didn't really melt so you just hit a single pocket of mozz at the end of your burger rather than evenly distributed like a juicy lucy.

 

post-34173-0-74922900-1461034315_thumb.jpg

 

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Ok ladies and gent's SBM has informed me it my turn this week

After a quick consultation with our benevolent overlord to check it was acceptable i can announce the theme this fortnight will be "the packed lunch"

 

so rules are, any dish is fine as long as:

 

- It can fit inside a Lunch box, Tupperware, Bento box or equivalent

- It is ready to eat with minimal if any utensils (a spork or equivalent is acceptable)

- It can be be prepared a decent amount in advance (overnight as a minimum).

 

basically anything which you could pre prepare take with you to work or a picnic etc


just some jumping off points to get people started here are things like sandwiches 

Pan-bagnat-007.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=forma
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jun/11/sandwich-recipes-hugh-fearnley-whittingstall

 

or salads

Nigel-Slater-salads-007.jpg?w=620&q=55&a
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jun/19/nigel-slater-summer-recipes-light

 

or pasties

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http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/gluten-free-veggie-pasties/

 

and if people are feeling more ambitious they can go for more complicated combinations like these

sobanoodles-645x428.jpg

http://www.brit.co/vegetarian-bento-box-lunch/


 

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Great theme! I need to make more of my lunches, for money and taste reasons. There's one I meant to do from my book that's basically a DIY 'pot noodle'. The idea is that you prepare all the ingredients and put them into a container. Then when you want to eat it, you just let it sit in hot water for a little bit to 'cook' it and eat. I'm super intrigued and I bet it'd be good if I do my usual thing of dumping too much spices on it. :tup:

 

I really ought to do multiple of these.

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Heyyyyy time to whip out this classic

 

Im looking for a bento box, it cant be pinku (thats japanese for pink) or any girl color. It has to be of 2 or more kotoba (thats japanese for 2 compartments) and has be be chibi (small) sized. And has to be really kawaii (cute). Also It has to be about 10-20 bux. And you have to post pics of it first (i want to make shure it's kawaii [cute]). And it would be nice if it came with matching chopstick holder (WITH chopsticks). OH! and it CANNOT have any cartoon pictures, or be made out of plastic. It has to be made of ceramic, or something like that. Also it would be nice if it was made in japan. and not in china or corea (korea) or whatever. I have found a bento box similar to the one im describing in e-bay, but it was 1 kotoba, and i dont want my gohan (rice) to touch my other things (it can get wet and i would not like that, plus 2 compartments looks more kawaii)

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Gonna post my burger here before I start working on a packed lunch. 

I used sclpls's recipe but substituted BBQ sauce for Sriracha

wish I used better meat but that's what happens when you go shopping on a Sunday and all the butchers are closed. That also meant I had to use massive bready burger buns. Still came out good though! 

 

Came out good, a lil spicy which was perfect. 

 

 

post-34564-0-61919600-1461319796_thumb.jpg

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Simple burger with cheddar, pickled cucumber, red onion, basil, and devil's jam (chilli jam). I was really happy with the consistency of the burger, and the devil's jam was delicious (then again, I did not make it myself).

 

burger.jpg

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