[caladanbrood]

One of the chinese restaurants where you won't lower yourself to have the buffet?




I made Beef Wellington last night, and it was awesome. I used pre-rolled puff pastry, because that is a nightmare to make from scratch.

You fry (or grill, if you want) a good sized fillet steak for about a minute on each side, and sear the sides too, so that it is sealed, but still very rare. Then put them to the side and fry a chopped glove of garlic along with a whole heap of chopped chestnut mushrooms until they are all darker and much reduced in volume. To make the wellingtons, place a slice of parma ham in the middle of the pastry, and put the steak on top of that. Heap the mushrooms on top of that, and a slice of gorgonzola cheese. Finally, a second slice of ham (you could probably use bacon!). Fold the pastry up to cover the filling, and brush with beaten egg to both seal and colour the wellington. This should cook at 180oC for about 15 minutes, or until the pastry has risen and is nice and brown! While that is cooking, add a chopped shallot and more garlic to the pan used for the steaks and the mushrooms. Fry these for a minute, then add some thyme, preferably fresh rather than dried. When the thyme starts to pop a bit, chuck in a decent amount of red wine and reduce.

[cerveza_fiesta]

Holy shit brood

I blame you for posting the most drool-inducing recipe in here to date.

Making that this weekend. Do you know if the pastry was shortening based or lard based?

====================================

In other news, I made a delicious bacon roast beef a la stonehenge on Friday. Incredibly simple, incredibly delicious.

• Spend some money and get a halfway decent sirloin roast cheapo.
• Put roast in pan, fat side up.
• Season roast with rosemary, pepper, a bit of salt, whatever else you like with roasts.
• Drape no less than 6 slices of bacon *critical* in such a way that the bacon covers the roast on all sides like a little blanket.
• Chop leeks and mushrooms. Place in pan around the base of the roast, forming a small, unbroken ring of vegetabley goodness.
• Surround the leeks and mushrooms with a ring of quartered, peeled potatoes. You should now have a stonehenge-esque monument of potatoes, leeks and mushrooms with the roast as a bacon-draped altar at the center
• cook at whatever temperature you cook roast beef at (can't remember)
• Once bacon fat starts dripping down into the bottom of the pan, baste the potatoes periodically with the bacon fat
• When done, remove the roast and potatoes.
• Make gravy with the combined beef/bacon drippings, leeks and mushrooms.

[Mezla PigDog]

caladanbrood, on 23 November 2009 - 06:09 PM, said:

One of the chinese restaurants where you won't lower yourself to have the buffet?

Correct! You know me so well.

I made fish pie this weekend. It is a recipe I have been working on and I think it is finally perfect

1. Infuse some full fat milk with stuff like onion, bay leaf, cloves and whole black peppercorns for about an hour
2. Poach some fish in the infused milk (I use one fish that is lightly smoked and another fish that isn't (one of them is usually salmon))
3. Drain the fish and flake into big ish chunks
4. Saute some mushrooms in butter and white wine
5. Make white sauce with the milk
6. Add the fish, mushrooms and some prawns or mussels
7. Add some chopped parsley and cheese (preferrably gruyere)
8. Put into an oven proof dish, cover in mashed spuds and put under a high grill until browned on top

Serve with something green and vegetably and a lot of white wine

I also made giant profiteroles. I'm going to have to go on a diet when my house guest leaves.

[caladanbrood]

cerveza_fiesta, on 30 November 2009 - 01:43 PM, said:

Holy shit brood

I blame you for posting the most drool-inducing recipe in here to date.

Making that this weekend. Do you know if the pastry was shortening based or lard based?

It is delicious. It can take a little longer to cook than 15 minutes sometimes, so if it's looking not finished, just leave it in the oven longer

As for the pastry... i just got pre-rolled puff pastry. I have no idea what was in it, I'm afraid. And what is "Shortening based" anyway? 

[cerveza_fiesta]

ah. When you make pastry, its pretty much just flour and a fatty component with a bit of egg.

You can choose shortening (vegetable based) as the fatty component or lard (animal based). Lard tends to make a heavy, flaky pastry while shortening makes a lighter, crumbly one. Both are good as far as I'm concerned, but its a personal preference thing. Probably should go with the lard though cause eating animal bits is way cooler.

[caladanbrood]

Flakey sounds better for that

[Darkwatch]

Just had a nice pork filet pan seared then finished off in the oven with a pepper corn and coarse salt rub with red wine and olive oil.
Then made myself a nice mix of corn, celery and mushrooms that I sautéd in the pan with the pork juice.
Had potatoes, that I roasted with the pork in the oven then turned it up to get them golden with rosemary.

[LadyMTL]

Just had a cooking session with my best friend, we used two Julia Child recipes and stuffed ourselves so full of butter that it's a wonder my heart hasn't stopped. Main course was chicken supreme (chicken in a white wine and cream sauce) with Marquis au chocolat for dessert (chocolate cake with buttercream frosting). The recipes can be found here and here. The first recipe says to use port but the cookbook I have says white wine so we went with that.

In the words of Mrs. Child herself, bon appétit!

[Darkwatch]

Sounds good there MI.

[Jusentantaka]

Stuffed peppers for dinner tonight, because I'm so very lazy. I want some fish though, but my feet hurt too much to go outside and buy any


Ooh. and I believe it shall be that chicken recipe for tomorrow night

This post has been edited by Jusentantaka: 18 December 2009 - 10:14 PM

[Hinter]

I've accidentally become a professional cook(!!) so am I cheating if I say that tonight I have served celeriac veloute, venison served with a red wine jus and chocolate chip bread and butter pudding served with creme anglais?

[Jusentantaka]

Depends. Are you willing to move into the room over my garage and cook for me for the whopping good pay of 10$ an hour for the rest of your life?


Please please please say yes

This post has been edited by Jusentantaka: 19 December 2009 - 02:38 AM

[Hinter]

Jusentantaka, on 19 December 2009 - 02:38 AM, said:

Depends. Are you willing to move into the room over my garage and cook for me for the whopping good pay of 10$ an hour for the rest of your life?


Please please please say yes

Yes, that would actually be a pay rise for me, but you have to pay the boat fare to the USA (I don't like aeroplanes!)

[Jusentantaka]

Hinter, on 19 December 2009 - 03:05 AM, said:

Jusentantaka, on 19 December 2009 - 02:38 AM, said:

Depends. Are you willing to move into the room over my garage and cook for me for the whopping good pay of 10$ an hour for the rest of your life?


Please please please say yes

Yes, that would actually be a pay rise for me, but you have to pay the boat fare to the USA (I don't like aeroplanes!)

hmm... boat fare. boat. fare. Does steerage work for you?

[Tapper]

I made a brilliant duck breast today (not that hard) and a godly, godly Toblerone chocolate mousse with marmelade sauce (which may compensate for taping the wrong channel and ending up with Kevin Costner instead of the finals of a dance show).

[LadyMTL]

Tapper, on 19 December 2009 - 10:28 PM, said:

I made a brilliant duck breast today (not that hard) and a godly, godly Toblerone chocolate mousse with marmelade sauce (which may compensate for taping the wrong channel and ending up with Kevin Costner instead of the finals of a dance show).

Mmmmm...Toblerone choclate mousse sounds awesome ! I've used Toblerone in a fondue before but never as a mousse. I am intrigued.

[cerveza_fiesta]

MOST DELICIOUS THING EVER LAST NIGHT

Sirloin roast of beef complete with bacon weave. (will post pics of it when I get home)
Easy recipe - prep time 30min, cook time varies on size of roast.

Recipe for beef.

• Put roast in a generously sized shallow roasting pan.
• Salt and pepper + rosemary on top of the roast.
• Weave bacon to completely cover the roast and first layer of spices.
• Add more pepper + rosemary overtop of bacon
• Add about 10 quartered mushrooms and diced onion to the bottom of the pan, surrounding the bacon-draped roast with a fortress of flavour.
• Throw in no more than 1/4 of a medium sized tomato, chopped small.
• Cook at about 325 deg F for about 35 minutes per pound for medium-cookedness.
• About every 20 minutes, brush drippings from the bottom of the pan over the onions and mushrooms. This is critical to avoid burning the veggies and ruining the gravy
• Check with a thermometer or the "slice it open and look" test. Add cooking time if necessary.

Recipe for gravy.

• Remove the roast from the pan, dump drippings (and there will be a lot) along with all the mushrooms/onions/tomatos into a small pot.
• Add 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup dry red wine.
• Whisk in 2-3 tbsp of flour and cook on low heat until it bubbles and thickens.
• Add small amounts of flour to thicken further if you like.
• Don't strain it. The mushrooms and onions taste awesome in it.

There you have it. Serve it up with your favourite veggies on the side.

I swear nobody talked for the half-hour it took to consume this other than cavemanlike mmm's of approval.

Nor did we talk for the 2 hours after when we were near sleeping.

Pics to follow later.

[Blend]

I made an everything in the fridge Minestrone soup this weekend... I basically started with 8 cups of water and a couple of bouillon cubes, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of red kidney beans, some oregano, a bay leaf, and a few allspice pods and then went through the fridge and grabbed a bit of everything in there - carrots, potatoes, leeks, onions, a pickle, some parmesan cheese, some pasta, roasted red peppers, some bacon (fried and added), some fresh ginger root, some fresh green chili peppers... And some other things which I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Boil then simmer for a good hour or two and you've got yourself a delicious, extremely hearty soup!


My favourite recent creation, though, was a Chana Masala from here that was to die for! I spend the better part of my free time at work surfing foodblogs and recipe sites, so am always looking for something new to try! Tonight, I am attempting a Balsamic Braised Chicken recipe that I found on Allrecipes. That website's a very hit or miss type of place for recipes. I don't usually try anything that hasn't been rated by at least 5 people, and prefer things that have been rated by many, many more and still retain their close to five star rating!

[Darkwatch]

Just had an excellent stir-fry.

Chicken, broccoli, green and red peppers, mushrooms, peas and wun-tun noodles.

I marinated the chicken for one day in a mix of olive oil, teriyaki sauce and lemon juice.
I also gave the chicken a nice rosemary pepper spice rub before marinating.
Then I cut it into strips and poured some on the marinade into the wok and prepared the noodles and peas.
Then when the noodles were ready I began to fry the chicken and added some curry powder.
Then I threw in all the other ingredients.

It was simply delicious.

[Illuyankas]

My insanely complicated dinner earlier today:

1. Take one 700g turkey thigh joint
2. Put on tray
3. Roast in oven at 200 celsius for about an hour
4. Consume
4a. Consider side dishes
4b. Ignore and continue eating
5. Die of gout in five years