[Mezla PigDog]

The trick to stop fried rice getting starchy is to rinse the rice after it has cooked and then leave it to cool and dry before frying it.

(edit - boo, Hetan beat me to it!)

I love cooking. This weekend I made a lovely roast pork dinner with honey roasted baby carrots. My signature dishes are posh bangers and mash (mashed potato is difficult to get perfect in my food Nazi opinion), nacho's (my homemade guacamole is the icing on that particular cake) and spaghetti with meatballs. Oh, and I make some mean spiced lamb burgers and a decent curry.

I'm not a very good dessert cook though. I can follow a recipe to produce something edible but there is always something lacking. My only speciality dessert is hazelnut meringue roulade with rasberries and dark chocolate. This would be making me hungry if I hadn't just stuffed myself with my Banana Fudge Pie!

This post has been edited by Mezla PigDog: 15 November 2009 - 05:46 PM

[caladanbrood]

Cheers mezzles




My speciality dish, I suppose it could be called, is duck breast with plum sauce and noodles. At the moment it's just plum sauce from a jar and then adapted slightly, but one day I will get around to learning to make my own. Very tasty just with some spring onions and sauce stir-fryed with the noodles and then the duck breast on top. It is pretty damn tasty, but expensive, so not often made...

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I'll have to try rinsing the rice, as I have noticed a bit of starchiness. So, you rinse it after cooking it?

One of these days I need to learn a good Jambalaya recipe. I make one from a box now that is actually delicious, but I need to stop cheating and do it for real.

This post has been edited by Hetan: 15 November 2009 - 10:05 PM
Reason for edit: because I removed a post of my own

[Cougar]

Mrs Cougar made me chilli roast chicken and then an Icecream cake with Peanut Butter Chocolate sauce, it had bits of crunchy and revels in it.

[HoosierDaddy]

Mrs. HD made me a delicious imaginary breakfast. It's not her fault. She's imaginary as well.

I can't cook well. The only thing I'm half good at is breakfast, and that's simple stuff.

[Slow Ben]

I cook a lot of stuff, nothin too fancy though. Big fan of pastas with lots of meat, green peppers, onions and whatever else. Cooked a big pot of chili this weekend. Damn its good.

And i will attempt fried rice the next time the ole gals here.

[drinksinbars]

i have started making my own pasta from scratch, i cooked a great beef ravioli the other day and on saturday night i made the best lasagna i have ever tasted totally from scratch (which took forever and will never be repeated again). the secret to a great and unhealthy lasange i have discovered is a layer of cheese on the white sauce between the meat layers.

@mez - the secret to great mash, as indeed to any great potato dish is to ensure they are thoroughly dried out after boiling or steaming. once they are dry add bucketloads of butter and milk for creamy mash, or add scallions for champ. Bacon and cabbage will create a culchanon which for some reason you english charge a fortune for in pubs even though its a side dish!

I also made a chicken byrini buryini?? whats the word? its like a tomato and cumin spiced chicken cooked with rice. My only issue with it is an uncertainty in reheating which resulted in me eating a three person portion in one go. I was also told reheating rice the next day was a big nono, any opinions?

[Tiste Simeon]

Cauliflower cheese with chicken and bacon. Add some paprika, tumeric and mixed herbs, and you got yourself a stew baby.

[Tapper]

Made a five dish tapas last friday - very simple cooking (mostly meaty goodness with spicy chorizo-chicken-bread skewers as the highlight of it all) but still great to see it come together, especially the guacamole, that stunned everyone.

My next project is cooking a four course dinner for the ladies next door... and unless they're vegetarian, it will involve wild duck.

[Happy Cat]

Try adding a dollop of mayonnaise to eggs, for fluffer and creamier scrambled eggs and omlets. Also roll your bacon in flour before cooking to cut down on greasiness. Dollop is southern for about a tablespoon, the more mayo the creamier.

Simple appetizer: Sweet Cherry Peppers stuffed with crabmeat. Finely chopped crabmeat and selentro. I use the fake crabmeat because it is sweeter than the real stuff and real backfin crabmeat is better then $10 per pound.

When I bake asparagus or squash I cover them in mushrooms and bacon strips.

Sunshine Fruit Parfaits: manderian orange slices, banana slices, pineapple chunks, frozen orange juice, cool whip dessert topping. Mix fruit and juice and layer with dessert topping in glasses, then cill.

A favorite: Iced Tortone with Macaroons:

In a bowl mix 2 cups crumbled macaroons, 1/4 cup Amaretto, and 2 cups 15% cream ( 75ml cream and 425ml milk), Whip 2 cups vanilla cream until firm. Add to mixture then pour mixture an aluminum loaf pan and freeze for at lest 8 hours. Freezing may take longer depending on how much Amaretto you use.

This is more almost more fun making than it is eating, for the obvious reason.
Amaretto works well in most cake, brownie, and cheesecake mix.


Looked up jumbolia on google: click on Cooks.com-recipes-Jumbolia, where the subheading is Joe's Jambolaya. The first page has 10 recipes and there are more.

Be sure to use Andouille sausage.

Edit: removed the links because they weren't going to the right places.

This post has been edited by Happy Cat: 17 November 2009 - 01:02 AM

[Salt-Man Z]

Re fried rice: my wife makes it from scratch with diced deli ham, scrambled egg, a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, and rice left over from "porkchops and rice" (porkchops baked over a bed of rice).

My most recent culinary masterpiece is "lamburgers" that I tried on a whim. The recipe I came up with:

Quote

Season ground lamb with:

• salt & pepper
  
• Worcestershire sauce
  
• garlic powder
  
• thyme

Form into patties and fry (or grill) until cooked through.

Serve on a bun and top with:

• a slice of colby-jack cheese, and
  
• a tossed salad of shredded lettuce, finely-diced tomatoes, and buttermilk ranch dressing.

They were fabulous.

[cerveza_fiesta]

eggs. fucking. benedict.

sub barely-cooked bacon in place of ham.

Best thing ever.

EDIT: Recipe

1- Make holandaise sauce according to package directions (comes in a powder).
2- Toast 1 english muffin.
3- Cook 5-6 strips of bacon, just before the point of becoming crispy.
3- Soft-poach 2 eggs.

Assemble bottom to top in the following order:

Muffin - Bacon - Egg - Hollandaise sauce

Sub in a piece of jarlsberg or swiss cheese before the bacon if desired.

This post has been edited by cerveza_fiesta: 19 November 2009 - 04:51 PM

[Mezla PigDog]

cerveza_fiesta, on 19 November 2009 - 04:48 PM, said:

1- Make holandaise sauce according to package directions (comes in a powder).

Now go and make it without using hollandaise from a packet!

[cerveza_fiesta]

Mezla PigDog, on 19 November 2009 - 05:38 PM, said:

cerveza_fiesta, on 19 November 2009 - 04:48 PM, said:

1- Make holandaise sauce according to package directions (comes in a powder).

Now go and make it without using hollandaise from a packet!

My recipe was intended for the unmotivated among us.

Hollandaise aint that bad. Done it a few times, but the ease-of-use with the powdered stuff easily outweighs the slight goodness increase afforded by a scratch recipe.

[caladanbrood]

I found an egg-poacher in the kitchen. Ludicrously decadent, but I might give it a try

[masan's saddle]

Salt-Man Z, on 17 November 2009 - 04:36 PM, said:

Re fried rice: my wife makes it from scratch with diced deli ham, scrambled egg, a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, and rice left over from "porkchops and rice" (porkchops baked over a bed of rice).

My most recent culinary masterpiece is "lamburgers" that I tried on a whim. The recipe I came up with:

Quote

Season ground lamb with:

• salt & pepper
• Worcestershire sauce
• garlic powder
• thyme

Form into patties and fry (or grill) until cooked through.

Serve on a bun and top with:

• a slice of colby-jack cheese, and
• a tossed salad of shredded lettuce, finely-diced tomatoes, and buttermilk ranch dressing.

They were fabulous.

For a slight variation on this that is equally tasty, ditch the Worcester sauce and thyme and chuck in some freshly chopped chilis, fresh coriander, a chopped onion and an egg (to bind the patties).

Perfect for a barbie with a blob of yoghurt and mint.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Oh taco night, how do I love thee. I needed to mix things up, I made a giant pot of chili the other day and ate nothing but chili for every meal for three days. Well, and cornbread of course. I'm not an animal.

[Salt-Man Z]

I like to experiment on taco night. The last time we had tacos, I smeared a soft flour tortilla with beans, wrapped that around a hard shell, and made a standard taco inside of that. Tasty. I also like to crush Tostitos tortilla chips inside of a soft shell taco.

A couple of months ago, I experimented with a "double taco": I filled one hard shell with meat, cheese, and taco sauce; another with lettuce, tomatoes, and sour cream; then wrapped both of them side-by-side in a single soft shell. It was good, but more trouble than it was worth.

[cerveza_fiesta]

anybody eat garlic greens?

I'd never seen them before this summer either in grocery stores or at the farmers market.

As I understand, its the green part of the garlic plant that grows from the bulb when you plant it.

Tastes exactly like garlic, but at only a small fraction of the intensity. For people like me who enjoy the taste but are crippled by the ensuing heartburn, its a good alternative.

[Mezla PigDog]

I love them. I don't cook with them but there is a gorgeous dish of pork and garlic shoots at a Chinese restaurant I like.