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Finnforest 
Special Collaborator 
Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 03 2007 Location: The Heartland Status: Offline Points: 17298 |
 Posted: October 03 2015 at 17:57 |
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Last week we hit a local orchard and picked up several varieties of great apples. One I bought was a mild chestnut crabapple as I enjoy the extra zip in my apple sauce. Threw it together today and it turned out marvelous.
Was about 12-15 crabapples with 1.25 cups water, .75 cup brown sugar, .25 cup white sugar, a few shakes nutmeg, a few generous shakes cinnamon, and a shot of good bourbon (I've used 2-3 shots before and that can quickly overpower the other flavors so now I just use one). These are all approximates after the fact....i don't follow hard recipes usually. I don't overboil because I like the chunkier texture and I always leave the skin on because I love that feel too. So I wash my apples carefully as I don't skin them. It got a "this is pretty good" from the wife, "pretty good" being her highest rating. She never gets more excited than that with her food adjectives.   Edited by Finnforest - October 03 2015 at 17:58 |
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...that moment you realize you like "Mob Rules" better than "Heaven and Hell"
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Atavachron
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 30 2006 Location: Pearland Status: Offline Points: 65603 |
Posted: August 24 2015 at 16:01 |
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^ Oh I believe it-- there are many wonderful places to eat in Northern Cal but they are fewer than in the past, and many of them off the beaten path. I too have had some great seafood in Monterey, but good for you to send it back. That's not easy to do, but it usually helps the kitchen staff to wake up.
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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: August 24 2015 at 03:21 |
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Thanks David. I was in Milpitas/San Jose the other week on a brief 4-day "flying-visit" to one of our sister-companies. Our hosts entertained my colleague and I for the duration of our stay, providing both lunch and evening meals and I have to say the food was disappointing, even in a pretentiously expensive restaurant in Los Gatos. On our only free-day I suggested to the guy I was travelling with that we head off down to Monterey as many years ago I'd eaten some fine fish dishes there, but sadly the meal I ordered managed to be simultaneously overcooked and cold such that I had to break my normal English reserve and send it back.
It's strange how fortunes have changed - fifteen years ago I had some fantastic food around the SF bay area and wouldn't have eaten in London if you had paid me. Now I think nothing of taking a one hour train journey to London just to eat and heartily look forward to it.
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Atavachron
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 30 2006 Location: Pearland Status: Offline Points: 65603 |
Posted: August 24 2015 at 02:58 |
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^ Great pics
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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: August 24 2015 at 02:53 |
I made this  ... ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh it was good - definitely my favourite cocktail at the moment. Unfortunately I ordered one in London bar at the weekend and they hadn't muddled the lime and sugar together before adding the cachaca. A few months ago we did visit the Brasilian restaurant (Cabana) I mentioned a few pages back.  They managed to make a perfect caipirinha, as is evident from its affect on me and my dear wife...  Alex and I had Malagueta Pulled Pork in a bun, and very tasty it was too...  We also tried their brigadeiros ... but they were all eaten before I had chance to take a picture.  |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: August 24 2015 at 01:39 |
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A couple of weeks ago I cooked a cold platter of fish for 60 people, this was my first (and probably last) foray into mass-catering. By all accounts it was an unqualified success and I received a lot of compliments for "salmon and trout ceviche" part of the dish, so for your amusement and entertainment I present a variation of the recipe for two people...
Sea Bass and Rainbow Trout Ceviche, with Bruchetta.
Step one. Using a microplane grater zest citrus fruit into a bowl and add the pulp from the passion fruit:  Step two. Add the juice from the citrus fruit with the vanilla and give it a good stir:  Step three. Slice fish thinly - how thin depends on how long you will marinate the fish in the citrus juice, if leaving it over night make each slice about 5mm, if only a few hours then make them thinner. Arrange the slices of fish neatly in a shallow dish so than none of them overlap.  Step four. Pour citrus marinade mixture over fish, then slice both chillies and scatter over. Season with pepper (no need to add salt just yet).  Step five. Cover in food-wrap and place in refrigerator for at least two hours (or over-night). Step six. Just before serving, prepare bruchetta by mixing diced veg and torn-up herbs together in the serving dish:  Step seven. presentation: Drizzle bruchetta mix with a good measure of extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Toast the bread and rub the toasted surface with the garlic. Remove food-wrap from fish and scatter with fresh herbs and edible flowers, (I used borage flowers because our garden is over-run with them), taste juice and add salt if necessary (unlikely due to the fish).  Step eight. Serve:  Step nine. Assemble and enjoy:  (yes, the knife and fork is laid-out incorrectly, I am right-handed but eat cack-handed)
Edited by Dean - August 24 2015 at 02:11 |
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Atavachron
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 30 2006 Location: Pearland Status: Offline Points: 65603 |
Posted: August 24 2015 at 01:00 |
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^ Yeah I figured it must be not being used to eating fresh eggs-- like "French butter" seeming cheesy when really that's how butter should taste. And you answered my curiosity about whether the eggs I ate had been refrigerated or if that's even necessary, and whether that qualifies them as 'fresh'.
BTW: I think these eggs would've been perfect for baking; very flavorful and rich. Edited by Atavachron - August 24 2015 at 01:01 |
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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: August 24 2015 at 00:52 |
Old eggs are easy to spot because they tend to be less viscous (runnier), for example a fried egg will have a flatter yolk and the white will be clearer and spread further in the pan. Eggs have to be really old to taste off, they have a shelf-life of 3-5 weeks. Free range/organic/farm-fresh eggs will taste stronger than (or at least different to) mass-produced eggs because of what the birds eat before laying, this stronger taste could be mistaken for being a bit off tasting. In mass-production (even free-range mass production) the feed is more controlled so are more uniform (and blander) in taste. This taste difference is even more noticeable in duck eggs. I wasn't aware that you could buy eggs that were pasteurised as this is uncommon in the UK unless the eggs are sold without shells. Looking deeper into it is seems there is a huge difference in opinion between the USA and Europe on egg safety, in the USA it is mandatory that eggs are washed before sale while here it is illegal to do that. Unwashed eggs have a natural protective bloom that prevents infection, washing removes this coating and also makes the shell more porous, increasing the risk of post-wash contamination (which is why you shouldn't store eggs near cheese or raw meat); also because of this difference in processing eggs are refrigerated in the USA and sold unrefrigerated in the UK. Curiously, neither method is proven to be better as the number of salmonella outbreaks per capita are double in the USA compared to the UK but you eat twice as many eggs (that's not a correlation as most salmonella cases are caused by contaminated meat).
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Atavachron
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 30 2006 Location: Pearland Status: Offline Points: 65603 |
Posted: August 03 2015 at 00:34 |
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A friend who raises chickens gave me some fresh eggs today. I'd heard so much about how far better they are than store-bought. Sadly I have to say "Meh". In fact they tasted (and looked) a bit off. Maybe I'm just used to pasteurized food but I think fresh eggs have to be, like, friggin' fresh, straight out of the hen, that day.
Edited by Atavachron - August 03 2015 at 00:35 |
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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: June 23 2015 at 18:47 |
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I made sticky lemon chicken this evening. Served with steamed new potatoes and pak choi.
I used breast meat simply because it was on offer in out local supermarket but normally I would have used thigh (its cheaper than breast, more moist and far tastier). Start by boiling some water in a kettle and while that is happening slice a lemon very thinly using a mandolin. Remove the skin from the chicken, discard any fat and cut meat into bite size pieces, season them well with salt and pepper. Then take three or four cloves of garlic and cut them in half (no need to peel) and fetch a sprig of fresh thyme from the garden. To cook heat a little oil in a wok or frying pan then toss in the chicken with the garlic and thyme. Fry on high heat until the chicken is browned all over. Now add a good splash of sherry vinegar (or red wine vinegar) and shake the wok around to coat each piece in the vinegar, allow to cook out for a minute before adding two tablespoonfuls of light soy sauce and three tablespoons of runny honey. Stir the sauce and honey together and boil away for a few second before adding the lemon slices, then pour over some of the hot water and bring back to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes until the sauce is reduced to a sticky syrup and the chicken is fully cooked. If you were over generous when adding the water and the sauce is a little thin you can thicken it up by mixing a heaped teaspoon of corn flour (corn starch) with a little cold water to form a milky emulsion and adding that to the sauce. While that was all cooking the potatoes were steamed for 20 minutes and the pak choi was halved lengthways and placed in the steamer after 10 minutes. Once cooked the spuds were treated to a knob of butter and a light splash of lemon juice while the pak choi was sprinkled with some toasted pine nuts, sesame seeds and dried chilli flakes (To toast these three I just throw then into a small frying pan and cook them on a high heat for a minute or two.)
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Atavachron
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 30 2006 Location: Pearland Status: Offline Points: 65603 |
Posted: June 22 2015 at 20:39 |
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^ Oh yeah, gotta burn the weenie.
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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
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*frinspar*
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: May 27 2008 Location: Arizona Status: Offline Points: 463 |
Posted: June 22 2015 at 12:56 |
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Speaking of beans and wieners, last night was chili dog night.
Used some leftover chili I'd made with ground beef, shredded pork I smoked myself, white beans and the most delicious chili blend you can find: Stubb's Chili Sauce. Charred up some dogs on the grill to a crispy shade of coal, doused them with chili and onion, paired them with Trader Joe's South African spiced potato chips and tried to forget for a few minutes that I'm on a diet.  |
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KenFrankenstein
Forum Groupie 
Joined: June 14 2015 Location: Niagara Falls, Status: Offline Points: 86 |
Posted: June 19 2015 at 19:23 |
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This is the next official installment of Cooking With Ken Frankenstein (copyright 2015 )
Now the bad news is that is you are going to have to go out and kill one of Gd's creatures. Or if you don't have the time for that you can go out to the local fish market and pick up a couple of halibut fillets. Get a bowl and put some lemon in it. Not a whole lemon without the skin but squeeze the juice out of it. The next thing you need is some flour and baking soda. I don't really know how much but mix it in with water and a lot of flat Guinness beer.Still with me? I'm trying to make this easy. Mix it up so it is not chunky. I hope you have a stove. Boil some oil and make sure you don't light the house on fire like I almost did a few times. Dip the halibut into the mixture of flour lemon and baking soda and then put it into the boiling oil. When it seems like it is considerably crispy remove it from the boiling oil with tongs. DO NOT USE YOUR BARE HANDS because you might find yourself with first degree burns. Serve with mayo mixed with diced pickles in a rolled up newspaper with McCain oven baked French fries. I call this dish Fish "n" Chips a la Ken. Next installment of Cooking with Ken Frankenstein : Beans & Weiners Wild Surprise.
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Atavachron
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 30 2006 Location: Pearland Status: Offline Points: 65603 |
Posted: June 18 2015 at 22:07 |
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^ Sounds great except for the ketchup, and no butter on the griddle?
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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
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KenFrankenstein
Forum Groupie
Joined: June 14 2015 Location: Niagara Falls, Status: Offline Points: 86 |
Posted: June 18 2015 at 21:16 |
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Because it's 10:00 PM and I'm all f**ked up on drugs and alcohol here is what I am going to eat before going to my bed. Actually I feel like French toast. Hope you guys have a flat top. Put milk and eggs in a bowl and mix them up real good. Then put some brown spices in it ( cinnamon ). Throw a couple of slices of white bead into it and saturate the f**k out of them an then throw them on the flat top. blast Rammstein Aschen Zu Aschen at ELEVEN volume while you are preparing this fine dish. Don't burn them flip them over before they burn. Remove them from the flat top and serve on a 12 inch plate to your loved one after squeezing half a bottle of Heinz ketchup all over it. She will love you. My wife always says to me, " at least he is making an effort" and pretends to enjoy my creation no matter how sh*t it is. Berlin Culinary Olympics here I come.
Cooking With Ken Frankenstein.
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*frinspar*
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 27 2008 Location: Arizona Status: Offline Points: 463 |
Posted: June 18 2015 at 13:23 |
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LOL Sometimes the bill can take the breath out of you.
When my sister turned 17 she asked to go to a fancy Chinese restaurant she was curious about that was near the movie theater where she worked. My parents had some old friends with their kids in town visiting that night and so a total of 9 of us went to eat a multi-course meal at Beijing. There was no real menu, just a choice of which of 2 meals the table would have, orange sherbet served between courses for palate cleansing. It was a nice time, food was great, and when Dad received the bill his face never changed expression. He quietly called over the head waiter and asked him to clarify something, none of us able to hear. He nodded, handed over his credit card and signed. After we left he joked, but not really, about putting off going car shopping for her, since dinner was over $500 after gratuity. In our efforts to eat a little better, we recently tried shirataki noodles. They're made from yams, are about 97% water and have 0 calories. High in fiber. Made a teriyaki pork and vegetable stir fry with them the other night, and they were really good. They come in a bag of water, and smell like a fish market when you open them. After rinsing, the smell somewhat goes away, but they don't taste at all fishy, and are just a great noodle base for a dish. We tried the tofu kind the first time, angel hair, and they were awful. Very off-putting texture and have a rubbery snap to them. But the real thing was surprisingly good.  |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: April 25 2015 at 05:35 |
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I love sushi, sashimi and onigri. What time is dinner?
 Just before christmas Alex and I had a dad'n'daughter day in London, around lunchtime we were walking around Soho looking for somewhere to eat and saw an long plate-glass window set into a plain black highly-polished marble fronted restaurant. Through the window we could see precision rows of delicate French-style patisserie that were all too tempting and inviting, and quite expensive so we continued on looking at other places but I could tell that both of us were still thinking about the exquisite sweets. Eventually I gave in to temptation and suggested we go back to the patisserie and have a drink and one of the desserts, so we did. It transpired that this wasn't a French-style patisserie at all, but a Chinese restaurant that specialised in dim-sum... as we both adore dim-sum, we just had to have some of that first. Alex ordered a fancy cocktail while I had a pot of silver needle white tea (at £7 a pot I might add) and we carefully chose a small selection of dim-sum, including some made with Wagu beef, leaving enough room for one of the desserts each. The bill came to about £70 - which was a tad more than I normally would have paid for a lunchtime snack, but it was worth every penny.  If I had realised that this was a Michelin-starred restaurant called Yauatcha I probably would have thought twice, but I'm glad I didn't.
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Angelo
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: May 07 2006 Location: Italy Status: Offline Points: 13244 |
Posted: April 25 2015 at 04:57 |
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Looks like something to try some time, Dean.
 Coming week I'll be alone with my son, so one evening will be dedicated to making his favourite food together: sushi in all shapes and forms. More on that when the day has come ;-)
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ISKC Rock Radio
I stopped blogging and reviewing - so won't be handling requests. Promo's for ariplay can be sent to [email protected] |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: April 25 2015 at 04:36 |
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This is a cooking method for fish I've never tried before and just *have* to share it...
I'm a fan of Heston Blumenthal as a TV entertainer - I love watching his shows but his recipes are just too involved to attempt at home - as much as I would love to try his braised belly pork cooked at 70ºC (158ºF) for 18 hours is just not something I can do in a domestic oven - not withstanding that the oven is incapable of setting such a low temperature accurately enough to prevent food poisoning it would mean starting the cooking at 1 o'clock in the morning to be able to put food on the table in time for the evening meal. No, I'm quite content with a 3 hour roast at 150ºC à la Tom Kerridge (though today I am trying it with Blumenthal's brine solution instead of Kerridge's). I do use some of Blumenthal's simpler methods and techniques - trice-cooked chips for example and his cheese-sauce/fondue/welsh rarebit recipe really is the best ever. Last night Debs bought two nice fillets of Lemon Sole - which is a great flatfish that requires delicate cooking as it can quickly overcook and dry-out that I normally gently fry in butter then finish off with a squeeze of lemon to make a buttery lemon sauce or occasionally I'll roll them up and gently bake them in the oven with a splash of white wine and once in a blue moon I'll do the classic Sole Véronique that never fails to please. However, yesterday I wanted to try something different so spent a lazy half-hour going through the recipe books looking for inspiration and everything seemed to be variations on a theme until I opened the pages of "Heston Blumenthal At Home" - and spied: 'Crispy Lemon Sole with Potted Shrimps and Cucumber' ... curious I thought to myself, sounds interesting and, after carefully reading through the recipe, quite achievable ... I didn't have any potted shrimps but was pretty confident I could improvise an alternative from the contents of the store-cupboard. It went something like this... 2 slices of white bread 2 fillets of Lemon Sole, skin removed. (skin was later cooked and fed to the cats) Ground nut oil for frying 2 anchovy fillets, finely chopped ¼ cucumber, peeled, de-seeded, sliced and quartered 8 brined caper berries A tablespoon of fresh dill, finely chopped (I used the feathery top leaves of a fennel bulb because the dill in my herb garden hasn't recovered from winter yet) Grated zest and juice of ½ fresh lemon Some butter, about 25gm Preheat oven to 120ºC. Place cucumber pieces in a small bowl and sprinkle with salt and put to one side - this will draw out some of the water. Take two pieces of white sandwich bread (the nasty pre-sliced factory-processed stuff that tastes like cotton wool - this is the one time when artisan home-baked wholemeal seeded granary spelt sour-dough will not do), remove the crusts, place between two sheets of cling-film and using a rolling pin flatten to around 2mm thick, remove from film. Season both sides with salt and pepper and sprinkle with half the lemon zest, place the fish fillets on top of each slice - as the fillet will be longer than a slice of bread, fold the tail over so that it all fits neatly¹ - trim off excess bread and throw out the window for the birds. [/edit: the bread trimmings, not the fish ]Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat, add the capers, anchovies and remaining lemon zest once the butter has melted. Meanwhile heat the groundnut oil in a frying pan over a medium heat - carefully place the fish in the pan bread-side down and cook for 3 minutes until the bread is nice and golden, then transfer it baking tray and place it in the oven for a further 5 minutes. While this is baking add the chopped dill to the butter sauce then add the lemon juice, give it a brisk stir/whisk to emulsify the butter and lemon juice. Just as you are ready to remove the fish from the oven, add the cucumber (draining off any excess liquid first) and give it all one last stir to coat all the 'cumber in the lemon-butter and then season with a quick grind of black-pepper (no need to add salt - there's enough in the anchovies and capers). Spoon the anchovied cucumbers and capers onto the plate then carefully place the fish on top (bread-side up), pour over whatever sauce remains. Serve with fresh peas and whatever starchy-staple suits your fancy - we had chips because I am a philistine. It would also go nicely with a peppery salad, I guess, if you must. The effect was quite remarkable - the hot cucumber was a surprising revelation that worked perfectly with the fish, the saltiness of the anchovies and capers contrasted against the lemon and butter sauce and the bread gave it a crispy bite that simply melted away in the mouth as you ate it. It was a piece of culinary genius that will go on my "will do this again" list. ¹In Heston's world where waste is not an issue and presentation is everything he would trim the fish and bread into a nice neat rectangle - in the real world where I'm paying £18/kg for lemon sole I am prepared to forego neatness so will cook and eat it untrimmed, hence the folded tail-end.
Edited by Dean - April 25 2015 at 05:04 |
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Atavachron
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 30 2006 Location: Pearland Status: Offline Points: 65603 |
Posted: April 03 2015 at 00:46 |
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rubbed a NY strip with olive oil & garlic and fried in a hot skillet, steamed broccoli smothered in parmesan, butter & black pepper on the side
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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
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Atkingani wrote: