SobaAddict70

today: baby carrots, radishes, young onions, chicken, edible roses, strawberries, heirloom tomatoes

It probably took more than an hour with all of the photography. I always overestimate the amount of time needed because not everyone has the same amount of manual dexterity. Things like chopping/slicing onions, mincing garlic cloves and so forth seem to take up quite a bit of time. I don't want to say "20 minutes"; what if someone decides to make this dish and then it takes them 90? He might think "I'm doing something wrong" or "this recipe is poorly written". Just something I need to be aware of. In particular, I'm thinking about a thread on peeling garlic elsewhere on eG that first made me reflect on my own preconceptions of what people ought to be able to do in the kitchen, vs. what people actually do in real life.

Thanks! It's just another technique that's a different method of sautéing vegetables.

This is a somewhat more complex dish compared to the other demo. I chose this dish because it's a dry-sauté, in which the vegetables are cooked with barely any liquid in the pan, instead relying on the moisture already present in them. Useful with potatoes, root vegetables, peppers, onion, mushrooms, broccoli and brussels sprouts, amongst others. This dish has a lot of prep, but the actual cooking time is quite short. Let's get started, shall we? Clockwise from top left: 1 tablespoon toasted black cumin seeds (the seeds were toasted in a hot, dry pan), 1 tablespoon black mustard seeds, 3 green cardamom pods, about 1 tablespoon grated ginger and garlic cloves. If you'd rather not grate fresh ginger, ground ginger is fine or you can omit it. I'm using it for a touch of "heat" without using actual chiles. Grind the cumin seeds coarsely in a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder. Should look like this. If you don't have cumin seed, ground cumin is okay. Crush the cardamom pods in the mortar. You'll be using the seeds inside the pods. It occurs to me that maybe I wasn't clear enough in yesterday's demo regarding peeling garlic, so here it is again (with more pictures!) Looks a bit like this. The peel will slip right off. Slice thinly. You should end up with about 1 tablespoon. This is about 1/2 large yellow onion, peeled and finely chopped. If you'd rather not hand-chop it, a food processor will work wonders. (I received one for my birthday last year and it's proven invaluable. I don't know how I ever managed without one. We can just let that be our little secret. ) Slice your asparagus on their bias into 1/3" to 1/2" lengths. Why? If you slice them this way, you increase their surface area and it also makes for a more elegant presentation. This is about 2/3 cup asparagus. I might have misjudged the size of the lengths, but no worries. Y'all aren't eating my food. I recognize I can make my own ghee but I'm a lazy hobbit; I'd rather buy it ready-made. Melt your ghee in a skillet over high heat, about 1 tablespoon's worth. Add the ground cumin seed. Stir once or twice. The spice will bloom in the ghee and infuse it with its flavor. Add the onion and a pinch of salt. Sauté the onion, stirring occasionally, or until the onion becomes golden brown, about 5-6 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. Should look like this when done. Melt another tablespoon of ghee over medium-high heat and add the black mustard seeds. After about 1 minute or so, the seeds will begin to "pop". They'll sputter and spit in the pan, like so: You might not be able to see it, but they're starting to change color. The pan is really hot and if you blink, things will burn. Add your garlic and grated ginger. Stir once or twice, then add the cardamom seeds, 1 tablespoon dried coconut, the asparagus slices and a pinch of salt. Stir in the sautéed onion. Sauté the asparagus, stirring every so often, taking care that the asparagus doesn't burn. If the pan seems too dry, add a tablespoon of water. The asparagus is done when it's started to brown. Remove from heat, stir in some chopped cilantro and a squeeze of lemon or lime juice. Serve at once. Dry-sautéed asparagus with coconut and cardamom Time: One hour, including prep.

And cassoulet and duck confit. If the OP won't save duck fat, I propose he send us both some.

You probably won't need to blanch the peppers. I have never done that, but that doesn't mean that someone hasn't. It's just that I've never heard of that before. What I would do is slice them thinly, like the ones in the pic below: I'm still at the office, but I'll make sure to buy a pepper on the way home and demo that as well. Agreed on the snap peas (I'm assuming you mean sugar snap peas), but if you do decide to blanch them, I recommend 2 minutes in lightly salted boiling water. Another tip: make sure you "destring" the peas when you prep them.

I've thought about that, but unfortunately I wasn't born with an extra set of hands. More on topic: The demo I did is just a template. The technique of blanching, then sautéing is quite a common method in Italian and other types of cuisine. One of my favorite Italian foodblogs, Memorie di Angelina, describes the ripassare technique in this recipe for sautéed spinach. Throughout, there are many points in which you can branch off. For instance, you can skip the blanching step; you can leave the vegetables whole instead of rough-chopping them after having shocked them; you can add other aromatic ingredients in addition to the garlic and anchovy or omit them entirely, or sub something else like onion or shallot instead of the garlic. The recipe that I depicted is one of my own devising, but it's adaptable to many other veg. Besides the veg I listed, it occurs to me you can also use carrots like this Ina Garten recipe, or string beans or green beans. Now there are other ways to sauté veg as a few folks have replied. The demo for tonight will involve a variation on the ripassare technique mentioned above in which the asparagus will be sautéed in spice-infused ghee (clarified butter), then combined with slow-cooked onion seasoned with ground cumin seed.

Sardine rillettes.

They probably pre-cook them as other folks have noted. Thanks everyone. I can demo another dish later -- sautéed asparagus with coconut and cardamom. This is a somewhat more complex prep, but don't worry, I'll be holding your hands every step of the way.

This isn't the only way to make sautéed greens, but it's the method I rely on most often. Besides arugula and chard, you can use the technique with spinach, broccoli rabe, escarole, chicory and cauliflower, for example. Have a bowl of ice water (not shown) at the ready. That should be your first step, so once the veg is done, you can shock it without too much of a delay. This is a Dutch oven with a little over a quart of lightly salted water that's being brought to a boil. By "lightly salted", I mean just enough sea salt so that when you taste the water, it's slightly salty. I'm omitting exact measurements here because everyone's taste is different. The best way for you to determine what's right is to taste as you go. I probably used about 1 tablespoon sea salt. Once the water has started to boil, add your greens. This is about half a head of green chard and half a large bunch of rocket arugula that have been trimmed. Simmer for 3-4 minutes... ...until the greens have softened considerably. I could have cooked them longer than this, but I like my greens to have a bit of color. Transfer the greens with a slotted spoon to your bowl of ice water. Soak the greens for about a minute, then drain the bowl and squeeze out as much water as you can from the cooked greens. Chop the greens coarsely. By "coarsely", I mean that "roughly" (the opposite of "finely chopped"). It should look something like this: Next, take a garlic clove and lay it underneath your knife or cleaver... ...place your hand flat against the blade (or you can do like I did); the point is you're going to use the pressure provided by the heel of your palm to crush the garlic clove so that the peel becomes loose. At top right, you can see a clove I've already peeled using this method. Takes less than 10 seconds to do. Once the peel comes off, chop the garlic coarsely. Depending on the size of the garlic cloves, you should end up with anywhere from 1-2 tablespoons of rough-chopped garlic. Add about 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil to a cold pan. Add the garlic. Warm the oil in the pan over medium heat. If you do it this way instead of adding the garlic to already heated oil, the garlic will infuse the oil with its flavor. Note the size of the pieces. That's what I mean by "rough" or "coarsely" chopped. You'll be frying the garlic until it begins to turn a pale gold. This is about right. If you go past this point, you run the risk of burning the garlic which will make it bitter. You can totally skip this step and it will be okay. I added 1 anchovy fillet to the pan. The anchovy will disintegrate after about a minute and become part of the sauce. When you're acting as a chef and a food photographer without help, some things will slip by the wayside. I probably overcooked the garlic a tad, but that's okay, y'all aren't eating my cooking. ] If you want to omit the anchovy, add the greens immediately once the garlic has turned color. On the other hand, if you decide to add the anchovy, mash the anchovy fillet with the back of a wooden spoon or spatula, then add the greens once the anchovy has disintegrated, about 30 to 40 seconds. Season to taste with a little salt and pepper. Sauté the greens until they're cooked through, about 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat, then serve at once. Drizzle each serving with a little extra-virgin olive oil if you like. Sautéed arugula and chard, with garlic and anchovy Time: About 35-40 minutes, including prep. I typically overestimate the time needed in the event someone is less dexterous in the kitchen. Also, if you have help, it doesn't take as long.

It depends on whatever it is I'm making. Sometimes I'll dry-sauté, a technique common to Indian vegetable cooking where you cook the veg with very little liquid in the pan. In order to carry that off successfully, I usually prep the veg (like say for instance carrots), so that they're sliced as thinly as possible. Other times, I'll simmer first, then sauté. When I do that, I'll prep each veg separately. For the purposes of this demo tonight, I'm keeping things simple so the OP and anyone else who's following along whose skills aren't "advanced" can relate. I don't have a microwave (and even if I had access to one, I wouldn't use it). Very occasionally, I will steam something like potatoes whole, then peel them and dice or slice them before sautéing.

I should have been more specific. When I wrote that, I assumed it was just one type of veg; that obvi doesn't hold true if it's a bunch of different veg. If it were a bunch of different veg, I'd probably start with the denser veg first, then add the rest at different times, ending with the least dense a few minutes prior to service. I should also mention that when I prepare sautéed veg, I typically simmer them in lightly salted water for a few minutes, before sautéing. You'll see that later tonight. ETA some recipes skip the simmer step and that's okay. You might need to adjust the total cooking time; the recipe (if you're following one) will mention for how long and when it's done.

I'm making sautéed greens tonight (rocket arugula and chard, to be specific); I can do a demo in baby steps if you like. Just kidding; there will be pix to accompany the post and I'll try to be detailed in the descriptions. The recipe is infinitely adaptable to most vegetables.

In addition to what Anna said above, you'll need to make sure that the vegetables are all cut the same size. If they're cut (or chopped or diced) the same size, they'll all cook at the same rate.

Eat Drink Man Woman Like Water for Chocolate

Thanks folks. Lots of great meals above. Tonight: Garlic soup, with chard and chorizo Dal and rice, with tomato-mint raita and lime pickle

My dad died when I was 3 years old from a brain embolism caused in part by his diabetes. He liked to drink soda throughout the day, as many as seven cans of soda. By the way, he was 35 when he dropped dead. As a result, Mom forbade sweets of all kinds while I was growing up. No cake, no candy, no ice cream. Definitely no soda. Fast forward some years later, in my mid-40s, I'm not a big fan of desserts (although I will eat them if they're in front of me); it's just not something I'm keen on. It's not my favorite part of a meal. I'm not one to buy sweet stuff. Ice cream is something I will treat myself to occasionally, but junk food isn't a known quantity at Casa SobaAddict70 the vast majority of the time. Is this a scenario that you could see yourself in? I only mention this because how a parent raises a child has repercussions later in that child's life. While I'm grateful that I developed a sense of healthy eating early on, I would have liked a little bit of moderation, including moderation.

"fried crap" What is that, exactly?

I've never really measured the amount of salt per lemon. I use about 1/2 cup kosher salt and 4-5 lemons per sterilized jar. You'll be putting maybe 1-2 tablespoons salt on the bottom, then add lemons that have been partially slitted (I like to do a cross-hatch at one end and sprinkle salt inside. Add lemons and salt. If you're going to use aromatics like bay leaf and peppercorn, add those too. Repeat until the jar is filled nearly to the brim. Top up with freshly squeezed lemon juice. Seal. Store in cool, dark place for 1 week. Shake the jar every day. Transfer the jar to the fridge after a week, and store for 3 more weeks. Shake the jar each day. Lemons are ready to use after approx. 30 total days.

thanks. it's a Sicilian treatment. the currants (mixed with golden raisins) were soaked in boiling water to which was added some saffron threads. the sauce consists of olive oil, onion, fennel (simmered in lightly salted water, then drained), canned Portuguese sardines packed in olive oil, the currants and raisins, a little currant/raisin soaking liquid, sea salt and black pepper. finely chopped fennel greens for garnish. no garlic, surprise! not every Italian pasta sauce features garlic. I wish more people knew that. =================== vegan night tonight: Hiyayakko tofu, with wasabi furikake, soy sauce and scallion Sometimes I'll use chopped heirloom tomatoes mixed with a little slivered umeboshi, but I opted for a more traditional version instead. Spaghetti con salsa di pomodoro ("spaghetti with uncooked heirloom tomato sauce") Contains: diced heirloom tomatoes, scallion, Italian parsley, sea salt, black pepper and extra-virgin olive oil. Lately I've been using scallions instead of shallots and onion, for when I want a hint of allium.

He's on Twitter and Facebook, if that helps. I find that he tends to respond more directly via the former.

Hamaguri ushio-jiru ("clear clam soup") The garnish is non-traditional -- a cube of firm tofu, some blanched asparagus spears, clams and slivered scallion I had originally said I wanted to learn Chinese cooking as part of my 2014 food resolutions but I will probably switch to Japanese, because my partner is a Japan-o-phile. (I rarely cook Asian food or Asian-inspired dishes, as many of you have noticed -- so you know it's a big deal when I do it.) Spaghetti with fennel, sardines and currants

besides the stuff I got at USGM (check the USGM thread), I bought from Fairway: sardines, pasta, Castelvetrano olives, oil-cured olives and crushed San Marzano tomatoes.

I bought a pint for $4. Depends on the vendor. Good for 2 desserts. Next weekend I'll be buying more; am thinking of strawberry gazpacho and quick strawberry jam.

today: heirloom tomatoes, tatsoi, strawberries, arugula, Nicola potatoes, squid