Oh right, two pieces of bread. That makes sense. :)

Me thinks I got a great one:

1 lb of regular handburger meat w/plenty of fat
two hands to mold hamburger meat into hamburgers (requires a human)
1 charcoal grill
1 spatula

light charcoal
place hamburger on grill
cook until juice oozes up from burger about 10 minutes depending on heat level

Eat it already, pilgrim!

Skeeter out.

Yummers SS! We keep saying we're going to try a leek soup.

My mom used to make "potato soup", and take out some of the potatoes and mash them with butter for me while I waited for supper. My version contains sauteed onions instead of boiled with the potatoes, and I drop a whole can of condensed milk in there. And keep adding butter/margarine until it looks good. Heh.

hee hee drew you out i did

*revives the Pie*

Finally fulfilling one of the promises I made at SAGE - for Sahi and anyone else who can find some elderflowers.

Elderflower Lemonade

20-25 flower umbels (depending on the size, I often use more than that) of European Elder (Sambucus nigra), picked on a dry day in a place not too close to any busy roads (usually blooming, at least here, in May/June)
4 l of water
100 g lemon acid
4 lemons (try to get untreated ones)
3 kg sugar

Put the flower umbels into a pot (don’t wash them if you don’t absolutely have to – you need the pollen for the taste), together with the sliced lemons, lemon acid and water.
After 24 hours, strain through a fine sieve, a clean dishtowel or something similar, stir in the sugar and boil to sterilize, then fill into bottles.
Dilute with water before drinking – about 7-10 parts water to one part syrup. In a cool dark place, it should keep for up to a year, but keep opened bottles in the fridge. Sometimes there’s some floating stuff, but that’s usually just pollen.

This can also be made with lemon balm, Melissa officinalis (Yes, I can’t even post recipes without botanical names!) - simply replace the elderflowers with stalks of lemon balm.

Incoming crispy skin chicken recipie!

Basically this stuff is the chinese version of fried chicken, only its more awesome and probably just as unhealthy. You cover a chicken in a spice mix, roast it, let it sit in the fridge for a couple of days and then deep fry it. It takes a while but it is pretty easy.

Spice Mix - I estimate this will make enough for about 3 chickens thereabouts:
Szechuan Pepper, whole - about 20 grams
Black or black and white pepper, whole - about 5 grams
Cinnamon quills - 1
Star anise - two average size stars
cloves - one big one or two medium ones

Break up the cinnamon with your hands and throw all of those in a dry, clean frypan over a reasonably high heat. Toss the spices continuously to make sure they don't burn. The smell should start to get stronger and stronger. The people in the next street will probably be able to smell this before you are done. You need to get it to the stage where the smell stops getting stronger. If you look closely the szechuan pepper will be slightly darker and most of the spices will have a very slight sheen over them as the oil works its way out due to the heat.

Make sure you don't burn them. It is better to have them undercooked than to burn them as you'll ruin the flavour if they get too hot.

Put the spices onto a flat tray so that they cool quickly. Make sure you put some water in the frypan as by this stage it will be at about 180*c. That's about as hot as caramel and it will cause you a pretty serious burn if you touch it.

Now for the fun part. You need to grind this into a fine powder with a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder. It should be about the consistentcy of the ground pepper you get in the supermarket.

Roasting the chicken:
one, or more, whole chickens obviously with the skin still on.
Spice mix, aforementioned
Lemons

Preheat your oven to about 210*C.

Rub the spice mix generously over the surface of the chicken. Cut a lemon in half and squeeze it inside the cavity. Leave the lemon in there so it'll infuse through the meat as it cooks.

Then roast your chicken. It'll take about 15 minutes per 500 grams plus 15 minutes. As it cooks reduce the heat gradually so that it cooks for the last 20% at 170-180*c. It is better to have it a little undercooked because we are going to cook it again.

After it is cooked let the chicken cool to room temperature on the bench and then put it in the fridge. Make sure you do not cover it. We need the skin to dry out. Leave it there for about two days.

Then you use a cleaver and cut the chicken in half lengthways. If you have a small deep fryer cut it into quarters.

Heat your deep fryer to 180*C (if you don't have a deep fryer and are doing it in a pot drop a piece of bread in. It should float and bubble immediately and start to turn golden within about five seconds) and deep fry your chicken until the skin turns a dark golden colour.

Drain well and cut into pieces, bones and all, with a cleaver. Squeeze a generous amount of lemon juice over it and serve.

This stuff is truly awesome!

-X

Last edited by Genisis X (2009-09-28 03:52:55)

Since Nefermiw asked for more meat-less dishes:

Winter veggies stew (serves 4)

ingredients:
1 spoon of olive oil
1 clove of garlic, pressed/squeezed (OWTC)
8 small onions, halved
2 celery stalks, diced
225 grams kohlrabi, diced (if that is truly what it's called as Google says)
2 carrots, sliced
1/2 of a small caulifof lower, partioned into rosettes
225 grams of mushrooms, sliced
400 grams of tomato cubes from a tin/can
55 grams of red lentils
2 spoons of corn starch
3-4 spoons of water
3 dl of vegetable stock
2 tea spoons of tobasco
2 tea spoons of chopped fresh oregano

for the cheese cookies:
225 grams of self-rising flour
pinch of salt
4 spoons of butter
115 grams of old cheddar, grated
2 tea spoons of fresh oregano
1 egg, beaten
1,5 dl milk

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius
Heat the oil in a frying pan and bake the onions and garlic for 5 mins on low heat
Add the celery, kohlrabi, carrot and cauliflower and bak for another 2-3 mins
Add the mushrooms, tomatoes and lentils
Add the water to the corn starch and stir it well
Add the corn starch, stock, tabasco and oregano to the veggies
Put everything in an oven dish and put it, covered, into the oven for 20 mins

Sieve the flour in a bowl
Rub the butter in
And add the cheese and oregano
Beat the egg with the milk
Add as much of the egg-milk combo as is necessary to make a soft dough (something you can knead anyway)
Roll the dough into a slab of 1 cm thickness
Cut out circles with a diameter of 5 cm

Take the dish out of the oven and raise the temperature to 200 degrees Celcius
Arrange the dough rounds in an overlapping circle around the edge of the oven dish
Smear some the remaining egg/milk combo on top of the cookies
Bake the dish for another 10-12 minutes

Enjoy!

When I tried this, the cookies were not completely done yet, so the next time I'm going to try pre-baking the cookies for a few minutes.

Those recipes sound wonderful! I really should find me some time to write all of the good ones from this place down, otherwise I'll just forget all about their existence again...

Anybody have a recipe for crackers? All I can find online are recipes _with_ crackers. Not how to bake them. The supermarket has these yummie thin crackers with rosemary and seasalt, and I'd love to try to make them myself. *has lots of rosemary* But I don't know how to bake them!

Time for a bit of housekeeping...

*dusts off the Rhubarb Pie*

*sneezes*

No, don't worry, I didn't sneeze on any of the food.


Anyway, here is Auros' frittata recipe that he posted in the Church of Erotic Pantheism (having all the recipes in one place makes them so much easier to find :) )

Auros wrote:

A recipe for the frittata, as requested.  I'm trying to write this to be accessible to anyone at even the most basic level of cooking skill.  Unfortunately, I don't really tend to measure or time things.  I cook often enough that a lot of this stuff I just kind of have a feel for, at this point.  I'm putting in my best guesses.  Also, I'm describing the large version of this, which makes something like 6-8 servings.  Normally I make something about a third this size, as dinner for just the two of us.


-=( Frittata Spagnola )=-


EQUIPMENT

* You'll need a large (12") skillet.  I confess I mostly use non-stick, because eggs stick to things like anodized aluminum and stainless steel.  Cast iron would probably work well, but properly seasoning, cleaning, and maintaining cast iron is kind of a pain.  (Also, I'm not sure how cast iron would like the stage of this where you pour in vinegar and then steam the contents of the pan; iron is not friends with either moisture or acid.)  Probably the non-stick stuff will give me cancer someday, but it gets the job done.

* Potholders / heat-safe gloves, because when the pan comes out of the oven the handle is going to be blazing hot.  I have made the mistake of leaving the pan sitting on the stovetop, coming back a minute later to cut a slice out of it, and forgetting to put on a glove to hold the handle.  I don't recommend the experience.

* If you're using a nonstick skillet, you'll need a spatula or spoon that's not going to scar it.  I recommend heat-resistant silicone.  Wood is OK too, but given the intense red from the paprika in this, you're going to stain it.

* A whisk for beating the eggs.  I personally prefer a flat whisk, though a lot of people seem to like the basket style.

* Bowls of various sizes, so you can stage all the ingredients as a mise en place.  You'll need to prep all the ingredients before you start cooking, unless you have a partner-in-crime who can prep things fast enough to keep up with the cooking process; usually when Christa and I cook, we cut up all the veggies before I start cooking, but then she'll do the eggs and cheese after I've started, and then mix a drink while I'm finishing up, and we can have our pre-dinner drink while the pan is in the oven.  All very civilized.  If it weren't for the fact that we tend to change out of our nice work clothes as soon as we get home (and into ratty t-shirts), and the fact that our sense of humor tends more towards bad puns and double entendres than witty repartée, we could pull off some kind of Nick-and-Nora thing.

* Plates for serving. :-)


INGREDIENTS

* One and a half large (or two medium) onions, chopped.  (Red or yellow are preferred, but white is OK in a pinch.  If you stick a folded paper towel against the cut side of a half-onion and stash it in a sealed ziploc, and then slice off the thin dried-out layer before chopping it later, you can leave it in the fridge for several days and it'll be perfectly fine.)

* One large-ish sweet pepper, chopped.

* One chili pepper, chopped finely.  (I used a jalapeño for the moot, but really just about any type of chili will do, and you can pick something with more or less heat as suits your taste)

* One large (or two small) yellow summer squash, or one medium zucchini, chopped.

* Roughly four small potatoes,  chopped. (I love Purple Peruvians, but regardless of exactly what you use, make sure it's a low-to-medium starch / waxy variety. You want the pieces to hold their shape after cooking, rather than dissolving into mush.)

* 1-3 cloves of garlic (depending on how big they are, and how much you like garlic), minced finely.

* ~6 ounces of cured Spanish chorizo, preferably cut into chunks rather than thin disks.  (Usually I start with a whole sausage, quarter it lengthwise, and then chop those up into pieces that would be cubic if the sausage was square rather than round.)

* Sherry vinegar, maybe a tablespoon, or even a bit more if you really like vinegar (which personally I do).  You could also mix up to a teaspoon of sugar or brown sugar in with the vinegar, if you like a really caramelized flavor and/or a kind of agrodolce / gastrique effect.  (I also do a cider vinegar / brown sugar thing with a Jamaican jerk spice mix on a fairly regular basis.

* Smoked paprika, ~2 tablespoons

* Ground dried fennel fronds and/or bulb, about a tablespoon (note that if you're using ground fennel seed you can probably cut this down to half, or even a third, because the seeds are much more intensely flavored; if you don't have fennel, anise works too, but again, you'll want to use only a teaspoon of that rather than a tablespoon)

* Cayenne pepper to taste -- I did just a tiny bit, maybe a quarter teaspoon, when I was making this for a big group, but if you enjoy some serious heat, feel free to go with a whole teaspoon.  (Alternately, you could add hot sauce at the table.)

* 2-3 cups of grated Iberico, Manchego, or other good Spanish semi-hard cheese (for a harder, more strongly-flavored cheese, use a bit less)

* 8 eggs, plus a splash of milk (maybe half a cup?), whisked until thoroughly mixed, and showing a few bubbles on top[/list]

"Chopped" means chopped into pieces that are maybe a centimeter or a little more on a side.  "Chopped finely" means, you know, a lot smaller than that.  For a chili pepper, I typically cut it into lengthwise quarters or sixths, and then mince those pieces down with cuts that are maybe a couple millimeters apart, so I end up with thin strips.  For the squash and potatoes, I like pieces that are maybe 1 to 1.5 centimeters in two dimensions, but less than half a centimeter in the last dimension, so they cook through.


PROCEDURE

* Kind of an optional step: If you're working with a sausage that is particularly fatty, it may be good to render some of that fat out, to use as part of your cooking oil.  With a classic Spanish chorizo, which is a fully cured, fairly lean sausage, this won't really work -- you won't get much fat, and you may end up burning the meat.  But if you're working with something like pepperoni (which can be up to 40% fat by weight, which is why it gets all that lovely grease on top of your pizza) you almost certainly do want to do this.  Bacon, also, will render some great cooking fat.  You don't want to fully cook it at this stage -- don't make it crispy -- because it's going to go back into the heat later.  But getting some fat out at the beginning means it doesn't render it when you already have put in enough oil for all the veggies, thus turning the dish into a giant greaseball.

* Put the pan over high heat (if you have an electric with a 10-point scale, around 8 is probably good).  Put enough oil into the pan to fully coat the bottom.  Dump in the onions, and sprinkle a little salt over them to help draw out moisture.  Sauté for 5-10 minutes, stirring every minute or so, until they start to look a bit translucent.

* Stir in the peppers and potatoes, continue sautéing for another 5 minutes or so.

* Around this time, you probably want to turn on the oven to start it pre-heating to 375˚F (190˚C).

* If it ever looks like there's not enough oil to keep everything nicely coated, add some, a little at a time (you don't want to be deep frying).  If things look like they're getting burned, you may want to turn the heat down a little (though you do want to hear things sizzling) and stir more often.

* Once the peppers and potatoes have started looking a little softened, stir in the squash, garlic, and sausage, then sprinkle over the spices, pour in the vinegar, and slap on the lid to trap the resulting steam.  Let everything steam for 5 minutes or so, kind of shaking/swirling the pan occasionally to encourage water on the lid to drip back down into it, and to keep things moving / stirred / unburned in the bottom of the pan.

* Remove the lid, and stir for a minute or two to allow the excess water to steam off.

* When it seems like there's not a lot of moisture in the bottom of the pan any more, sprinkle over the cheese.

* Immediately after getting the cheese on, pour over the eggs.  You may want to shake/swirl the pan a little bit to encourage the eggs to seep down into all the crevices, but you don't want to agitate things too much; you're not making a scramble.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, if you want to. :-)

* Bake at 375F (190C) for about ten minutes, until it starts to look set and slightly browned on top.

* Crank the oven up to broil (preferably "low broil", if that's a setting you have), and watch it like a hawk; you want to brown the top, but not burn it, and on broil it can go from "beautifully browned" to "hideously blackened" in a matter of about 60 seconds.  (Also, this level of heat is not great for your non-stick pan -- in fact, the user guide that came with it will almost certainly tell you not to do this.  As long as you get it out within a couple minutes, before the temperature in there rises past 475 or so, it's probably fine.)

* PUT ON HEAT-RESISTANT GLOVES!

* Remove the pan from the oven, and set it either back on the stovetop (if there's a cool/safe spot for that) or on potholders on the counter.  Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes.

* Serve using an appropriate spatula.  (Or, if you have a big cutting board / plate / tray, and want to get fancy, you can place that over the pan, and flip it over, to turn out the frittata, and then cut it into slices with a knife.  If you're not careful/quick, or if it didn't solidify well, you may end up with food all over the floor.  We did this at Tad's place, but it was a two-person job; I had to have Xta help me with the flip.)


You can swap out almost any of the ingredients here for other things -- try cauliflower florets, or eggplant, or sweet potatoes, or greens.  Try different meats or cheeses, different spice mixes.  Skip the potatoes (so you have less starch in the dish) and serve with some nice crusty bread or some kind of rice.  Maybe do some culturally themed stuff.  We did a Greek version of this a month or so back, with feta cheese, a bit of lemon juice in place of the vinegar, chopped Castelvetrano olives, and oregano, mint, and coriander.

You kinda have to learn from experience how long different things take to cook, and toss them in at the appropriate time so that everything is done all at once.  A lot of this is pretty intuitive.  Some things (e.g. avocado) don't really need to be "cooked" at all, just tossed in right before the last few steps; others (like eggplant, or root veggies like carrots) are obviously hard / tough, and need quite a bit of cooking time; some stuff may even go in right at the beginning along with the onions.

If you add ~3 cups of half and half to the eggs (instead of the smaller amount of milk), dump the veggies into pie crust (you'd probably need two 9" crusts) rather than leaving them in the pan, and then put the cheese and eggs over that and bake at 350 for ~50 minutes, you will get quiche instead of frittata.