Idle Food - Cooking!

[Dewar]

Nope! Just electric.

 

You should try and get one of those butane burners they sell at asian food and restaurant supply stores. Cooking with a wok on gas is a whole new experience.

[undermind9]

One of the podcasts I listen too has been advertsing this: http://www.blueapron.com/

 

I've heard good things, though no personal experience. I'm also not sure about the cost.

 

my wife and i got a free week trial and it was pretty good.  The recipes were pretty simple and the packaging shows up with everything measured out, down to the little baggies filled with pepper.

 

Our major issue was that it didn't yield a lot, enough for a dinner - but never would get left overs.  So, depending on your vehicle availability, area, or work conditions it could be a nice fit - except we have a car, grocery store down the street, and i bring left overs 4-5x a week to work.

[Blambo]

I bought a wok. Everything's better when you cook it in a wok, as I've found.

 

 

Whooo wok n' roll

[YoThatLimp]

Alright I bought a dutch oven to play with it comes tomorrow, first two meals will be a chili and some sort of braised meat. 

[osmosisch]

That's the type you fart in right?

I'm loving autumn, so far I've made pumpkin risotto, pumpkin chili soup and last night's highlight: thai pumpkin curry

[Blambo]

I have no pics from before I ate it but recently I've been eating only udon and tempura its delicious but please make it stop.

I could slice my own udon but ~poor~ and ~no time~ so I buy sliced, precooked stuff, boil it up, add thinly sliced pork, mushrooms and carrots, and bok choi at the last minute. The soup is water, a little soy sauce, some white pepper, and some meat broth if I have it. Tempura is just shitty mix batter stuff.

Apparently this is super wrong and I should brew the soup first, put the raw/semiraw ingredients together in the pot, pour in the soup and let them all cook together. Anyone make udon before?

[tegan]

Whooo wok n' roll

 

Wok and load?

[SecretAsianMan]

Wok and load?

 

All wok and no play?

[JonCole]

I have no pics from before I ate it but recently I've been eating only udon and tempura its delicious but please make it stop.

I could slice my own udon but ~poor~ and ~no time~ so I buy sliced, precooked stuff, boil it up, add thinly sliced pork, mushrooms and carrots, and bok choi at the last minute. The soup is water, a little soy sauce, some white pepper, and some meat broth if I have it. Tempura is just shitty mix batter stuff.

Apparently this is super wrong and I should brew the soup first, put the raw/semiraw ingredients together in the pot, pour in the soup and let them all cook together. Anyone make udon before?

 

Yeah, I think it's supposed to go stock/meat/veg -> udon noodles -> bok choy. I might even reserve the mushrooms to be added at the same time as the bok choy, as it really doesn't need to be cooked very much either. Also, you should really get some dashi unless you're opposed to fish stock. It's the best way to go.

 

Don't really know why you're going with a mix batter for tempura, either. I just have the recipe in my head because it's so simple - 1 egg, 1 cup of cold water, 1 cup of flour (I use rice flour if I have it), 1 pinch of baking soda. Whisk them all together and you're good to go.

 

In other news, I have a Chinese restaurant near me called Wok 'n' Roll.

[syntheticgerbil]

Wobert Cwampett

[Space Anchor]

In other news, I have a Chinese restaurant near me called Wok 'n' Roll.

 

When I was still a student I lived near a takeaway called HomeWok, and to this day I've never managed to get my head around the name. It was near the university so my guess is that they were either trying to position their food as a study supplement or suggesting you should pick some up while walking back from class.

 

Fish and chip shops round here are also wont to some pretty torturous wordplay: The Codfather is a very common one, though probably not as prevalent as [insert Proprietor's Name]'s Plaice.

[Dewar]

Over the weekend I bought myself a nice beef heart from this recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/beef-heart-braised-in-wine/

 

It turned out all right, but the red wine had a pretty strong flavor that kinda covered up the beef taste. Oh well.

[tegan]

Wok, Stock, and Barrel.

[YoThatLimp]

I am braising a piece of beef for the first time today, I kind of just winged it so hopefully it turns out! 

[Blambo]

Do you Wok the Wok?

[Blambo]

I kind of wish that "asian food" wasn't created as a homogenous lump of stereotypical stuff from chinese takeout and hibachi steakhouses. It makes looking for more specific, nonwesternized chinese food recipes online difficult without knowing any chinese.

[dibs]

Blogs might be your best bet, there are some very specialised ones around.

 

Edit: What are you looking for? Not that i'll be able to find it, i'm just curious!

[SecretAsianMan]

I kind of wish that "asian food" wasn't created as a homogenous lump of stereotypical stuff from chinese takeout and hibachi steakhouses. It makes looking for more specific, nonwesternized chinese food recipes online difficult without knowing any chinese.

 

I know exactly what you mean.  I also have similar issues with the "Asian food" aisle in most grocery stores.  I know of a couple specialty food stores I can go to for better, more specific ingredients but they're really far out of the way for me.

[Badfinger]

I feel similarly, except that I wish I was better at cooking any of it. In general, if I'm just in the mood to cook something but just do it quickly, I'm never going to just happen to whip up any sort of Asian cuisine. For the folks that do, where do you get your inspiration? And even though I realize I'm lumping all the cuisines together (this is a thing that's true of basically all food cultures, frankly (the melding of Mexican and Spanish food?!)), what are some easy or go-to Asian recipes you use? I want to cook more of it and I don't know where to start.

[SecretAsianMan]

I pretty much only know how to cook meats, mostly pork.  A lot of what I make is stuff my mom made for me growing up.  Probably my favorite thing to do is called Red Cooked Pork (an almost literal translation of the Chinese name).  You can find several recipes if you search for that.  Despite being an engineer by trade, when it comes to cooking I don't usually do precise measurements and go by feel so I can't provide a reliable recipe myself.  I can tell you what ingredients I use and the steps to cook it but the proportions are largely subjective.  If you're not averse to deep frying, I also like to make Tonkatsu (which is a Japanese dish of deep fried pork cutlets).  There are other things I can think of but they're not quick/simple and often require harder to get ingredients.

[Blambo]

Duuude "hong sao rou" is exactly what I was looking for! I couldn't remember the name and searching "chinese soy sauce pork" didn't help.

[JonCole]

I'm Filipino and most of the foods that I make I learned watching my grandmother cook rather than learning recipes, so it's all pretty fuzzy. In Filipino cuisine we really don't use a wide base of seasonings or spices so I've got it pretty easy. The stuff I do know how to make is pretty simple - most recipes don't get more exotic than soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaf, garlic, shrimp paste, calamansi (small Philippine lime), ginger, tamarind, and fish sauce. Bolded stuff is kinda hard to find without a Filipino grocery store (sometimes Thai or Korean grocery stores have these things, though they're harder to identify there) but I can usually make substitutions based on taste approximation that wouldn't please a Filipino but are close enough for me.

 

As for Chinese/Japanese food, I just try to do my best. Honestly, my impression of these foods is mostly built on Westernized versions of the dishes so I don't let myself be too bothered by my own western preparations. I try to be as faithful as I can to what traditional recipes I can find, but it's honestly hard enough to procure some odd ingredients that I can't come all that close without a lot of effort or money. Lately I've been trying to perfect Katsudon using the Tonkatsu that SAM mentioned - it's just fried pork cutlets over rice with a egg cracked over it and a dashi-soy sauce over top to partly cook the egg. I'm not great with dashi so I'm still trying to figure out how much I should use (it's dried fish flakes used to make fish stock, so it's more about concentration than anything).

[dibs]

Oh wow, this looks gooooood.

 

 

I actually have everything in that recipe at home at the moment  apart from the pork and the bay. Maybe i have some port in the freezer.

Actually, it is a lot like my standard marinade, but i tend to marinade it and then stirfry (here with salad and peanut sauce)

 

 

Also similar to my red stock i made and used for around a year.

[eot]

Yeah, I think it's supposed to go stock/meat/veg -> udon noodles -> bok choy. I might even reserve the mushrooms to be added at the same time as the bok choy, as it really doesn't need to be cooked very much either. Also, you should really get some dashi unless you're opposed to fish stock. It's the best way to go.

 

Don't really know why you're going with a mix batter for tempura, either. I just have the recipe in my head because it's so simple - 1 egg, 1 cup of cold water, 1 cup of flour (I use rice flour if I have it), 1 pinch of baking soda. Whisk them all together and you're good to go.

 

In other news, I have a Chinese restaurant near me called Wok 'n' Roll.

I'll have to try making my own tempura mix, didn't know it was that simple.

[Blambo]

Dibs: Iirc from my mom, you boil raw pork belly until its bled out and cooked, dispose of the water, and then simmer it in a soy sauce, water, and sugar mixture until the water's basically evaporated and you're left with a sticky, oily soy sauce and really soft meat. No need to marinade. It's super good.

I founds some things online that also recommend using coke with soy sauce cause it has the perfect amount of sugar.

Those herb clovers in the picture are also good if you don't bite into em. Forgot what they're called though.