Khadija

Reminds me of the time I decided to use my brand new from Paris tin-lined copper 3 qt. saucepan to pop a batch of corn - I have an old favorite revere ware pot that makes beautiful popcorn, but I just couldn't wait to use the copper! Long story short - the next thing I know, I'm melting the tin lining and cursing myself for trying something different in the kitchen when I already had the perfect pot! And while the pot didn't need re-tinning, it has never looked as nice as the day I brought it home! ← I eat popcorn on a very regular basis. I'm very picky about my popping vessel, and I've tried many, many different vessels. The very best, I've found, is a cheap Chinese wok. I put a generous amount of peanut oil in the bottom of the wok, heat until blazing hot, and then toss in some kernels. I then place the lid from a pyrex casserole over the kernels, so the lid just coveres the kernels (the lid gets "nested" in the wok). I then put on oven mitts. When the kernels start to pop, I lift the lid just above the kernels and keep raising the lid, to accomodate the expanding kernels (this prevents the kernels from steaming). At a certain point, I remove the lid altogether. Usually a few kernels will fly out of the wok and onto the floor, but it's not a big deal. I then season immediately (usually with salt, sugar, paprika, cayenne, and sometimes lemongrass powder), tossing the popcorn in the wok to coat with seasoning and to toast the seasoning a bit. I think it's the best popcorn I've ever had. Sometimes, I get caught at someone's house, and they'll ask me to make popcorn (because they've tried mine). If they don't have a cheap Chinese wok, I cringe.

This method sounds somewhat like, but not exactly the same as, a technique used to make "eggplant pasta" demonstrated on one episode of Good Eats. I haven't followed the recipe provided by Alton Brown on the Foodnetwork, but I thought I would try to make eggplant noodles, given my love of eggplant. So, tonight, I took two large Italian eggplants, peeled, and then cut into "linguine" strips, with a mandoline. I salted the strips and "purged" them in a colander for about 45 minutes. Then I made pad thai, using the eggplant pasta instead of rice noodles. The eggplant doesn't taste like rice noodles, but since it absorbs the sauce, the dish did taste like pad thai. I just snuck a bite of the leftovers, which have absorbed the sauce even more, and I really like it.

Let me preface this post by saying that I am not a fan of chicken breast. I prefer dark meat, and I usually find breast meat dry and bland. However, I almost always buy whole chickens, and so regularly have to find ways to use the breast meat. I always debone breasts (I don't see any point breasts bone-in, as the meat furthest from the bone dries out by the time the meat by the bone is cooked). I have a favourite method for boneless, skin-on breasts, but given that you have thirty breasts, I am gathering that you are talking about boneless, skinless. Here is my preferred method for boneless, skinless 1. Mix up large quantity of buttermilk with herbs (I like thyme), honey, mustard, chunks of apples or pear (important), a generous amount of salt, pepper, garlic, onions, etc. 2. Place chicken breasts in large roasting pan and cover with buttermilk mixture. Cover as tightly as possible with foil. 3. "Poach" breasts in very low oven, until breasts are just cooked. I think I might actually cook the chicken to slightly underdone, to compensate for the resting period. The chicken will "marinate" while it's cooking. 4. Remove breasts, let rest. 5. Strain poaching liquid, and reduce to make sauce. Sometimes I add a thickening agent to the sauce, but usually find that this is not necessary. 6. Cut chicken in slices, against the grain, and serve with sauce. I find that although simple, the chicken is very flavourful. More important, the procedure is not labour intensive.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Made falafel this weekend, using FoodMan's recipe from recipegullet. Excellent. This is the second time I've made falafel without using one of those dry mixes. The first time, I used FoodMan's recipe, but tried to bake the falafel. I formed them into little balls, and put them into mini-muffin tins and sprayed with that awful oil-spray in a can (a trick I read about on egullet). They were disgusting -- raw in the middle and dry on the outside. This time, it was a different story. I will never hesitate to fry falafel again.

I love eggplants of different varieties, and in different preparations. I often use cubed, fried eggplant to "season" dishes. I often made a dish as follows: 1. Cube, eggplant and fry in plenty of oil. Drain well. Salt. Set aside. (I like sweeter eggplants for this, so I often use Japanese eggplants.) 2. Cube firm tofu and fry the hell out of it -- until it becomes hard and dry -- in plenty of oil. Drain well. Salt. 3. Fry some garlic and chili in a sauce pan. 4. Add eggplant and tofu, along with some chicken stock. Cook, adding liquid as needed, until tofu is no longer hard and dry and is coated with eggplant sauce. 5. Finish with lime juice and cilantro (optional). Eat with rice or rolled up in lettuce leaves. Recently, I have developed a minor obsession with the "eggplant cutlet" recipe in recipegullet. It is one of the few versions of something baked, rather than fried, that I think is better baked.

I buy those tubes of double-concentrate tomato paste. An interesting use I've found for the paste is making ketchup very, very quickly. I never buy ketchup, and when I make burgers, etc., I usually make tomato confit. However, once in a while, if I need ketchup in a hurry, I mix a squirt of tomato paste with a bit of vinegar (I usually use balsamic, for sweetness and richness), garlic, and salt.

I don't eat cold cereal for breakfast, and I don't see the appeal at breakfast. However, I sometimes eat dry cereal (no milk) as a snack in the evening. I usually have some kind of multi-grain, low sugar, high fiber flakes around. Most days, I don't eat a proper breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I find small amounts of dry cereal works for me in the evenings. I guess I don't really think of cereal as a "bedtime snack," though, but I don't tend to eat directly before going to bed.

I want to make sweet potato chips with some yams I have on hand. A few months ago, I made chips with purple sweet potatoes. They were good, but not great, and I had some problems. They took a very long time to cook to the point of crispness, and by that time, many (most) burned. I don't have a deep fryer. I usually fry in a wok on my crappy electric stove. I do have a mandoline (Benriner). I am tempted to try baking the chips (I'm not really in the mood to deep fry), but I am worried that they won't crisp up or will wind up too dry. Thoughts?

I began looking for fresh turmeric when I was on a Burmese cooking kick, which consisted mostly of cooking out of Under the Golden Pagoda: The Best of Burmese Cooking by Aung Aung Taik. I think Burmese food is interesting because it is in many ways similar to Thai food, but less heavily seasoned (at least I think it is, based on my limited research). Many recipes call for turmeric as the main seasoning, and I think there is a discernable difference between fresh and dried in such cases. However, I also can't tell the difference in highly seasoned dishes.

I use fresh turmeric (whenever I can get my hands on it) to make curry paste for certain SE Asian curries.

I have loved plantain chips for years. This past summer, I started making them myself. Now, my partner refuses to eat the packaged kind.

I live in Kingston four days per week, and when I am there, my partner would die of malnutrition if not for roti shops. He claims that Ghandi (Queen and Bathhurst) is hands down the best. In Parkdale, the best deal is, in his view, Chicken Roti. Bacchus is better, but a couple of bucks more.

Butter or olive oil. Sometimes rub lightly with raw clove of garlic. Grey salt.

I tried this recipe. Don't get me wrong, I liked it. However, it was WAY more sugary than I expected. Popcorn is my go-to snackfood. I usually just toss a teaspoon of sugar (or less), so the popcorn comes out slightly sweet and balances out the saltiness. I will make the recipe again, but not regularly.

I'm on a bit of a banana bread kick these days, so I was hoping to make it tonight. Luckily, my room-mate just called from the grocery store and asked if I needed anything. So, I will not have to try eggless banana bread this time!

I want to make banana bread. I am out of eggs. I have found some recipes for eggless banana bread. Will the eggless version be significantly different? I have been "blackening" my bananas for awhile, and don't want to waste them because I am too lazy to go to the store.

I posted the complaint about a year ago about an organic version of "panko," which had the texture of grapenuts. I'm not sure of the brand, but it sounds like the same stuff -- it was made in the US. I asked what "panko" is, exactly. The only necessary conditions for breadcrumbs being panko I could think of were: being somehow Japanese, and being light and flaky. Those breadcrumbs did not meet either condition. I think the response to my post indicated that "panko" is the term for breadcrumbs in Japan, and is used to describe any breadcrumbs. The grapenuts stuff is still not Japanese, and is not relevantly similar to the stuff typically identified as "panko" by Western consumers (light, flaky stuff). So, until Westerners start to call breadcrumbs "panko," I think using the label for the grapenuts stuff is false advertising.

I go to Roti Lady sometimes, but it's not my favourite in Parkdale. I go to Bacchus sometimes, but I can't remember the name of the place I really like, despite the fact that I go there frequently . I think it's the next street parallel to the Roti Lady street.

I can successfully make a white sauce just by cooking a roux and adding milk. However, in my early days of cooking I had the problems you mention, and I learned I fail-proof trick for making white sauce. I now continue to use this method, for the sake of convenience. I make roux in large batches and freeze in ice cube trays (once hardened, I take the cubes out of the tray and put in ziplock bag). Heat milk. Drop in roux cube (or two depending on quantity of milk). Stir. The milk will absorb the roux as it melts, which will be slow enough that you will never get lumps. Another tip is that you should make your white sauce pretty thin, make sure that there is a generous sauce to pasta ratio, and undercook your pasta. The pasta will absorb some of the moisture during the baking process, and the sauce will thicken. If you make the sauce too thick to begin with, the sauce will be more likely to get grainy when it bakes. I don't mix much, if any cheese into the white sauce. I just mix the pasta and white sauce together, and then put the grated cheese in "raw." I mix the mixture very thoroughly, and let it sit for a couple of minutes before distributing it into baking dishes. This process ensures that grated cheese is distributed into the crevices of the pasta. I've found that not melting the cheese directly into the sauce deals with the problem of the cheese causing the sauce to split, and also makes the final dish simultaneously gooey and creamy. I love mac and cheese too! Good luck.

I didn't know about the concept of kettle corn until a couple of years ago, when I read about it on egullet (I'm Canadian, so maybe kettle corn is an American thing?) I liked the idea. I like salty/sweet combinations, and I love popcorn. I am sure that I would love kettle corn. So, I googled some recipes and started trying to make kettle corn. The problem I've encountered is that I've never managed to keep the sugar from burning before the popcorn is popped. One method that worked a bit better was to open the lid a crack towards the end of the popping and toss in some sugar. I still got some burning. Now, I just grind salt and sugar together in a mortar and pestle or coffee grinder (sometimes I add other stuff like paprika and lemongrass powder, but I guess that's not a different story), and toss the powder with the popcorn AS SOON as the popcorn stops popping. The sugar tends to dissolve and forms a light coating on the popcorn. Sometimes there is slight caramelisation (depending on how much contact I let the sugar/salt get with the hot pan). However I have no idea if I'm making kettle corn.

As a kid, I always hated cream cheese (along with other white, creamy substances, such as sour cream and mayonaisse), and so I wouldn't eat cheesecake. At one point, I tried a chocolate cheesecake, and decided I liked chocolate cheesecake. Then I began to tolerate other cheesecakes. Somewhere along the line, I started liking cream cheese. Go figure.

There is an extensive mac n' cheese thread on here, although I don't know how to post the link. I am a pretty dedicated mac n' cheese fan, and I am always in search of a new or better way to make it. I think I have tried every method under the sun -- evaporated milk, custard based, etc. My favourite way is as follows: 1. Grate a lot of cheese. Use whatever you want. I always use some aged white cheddar and some parmesan. I like gruyere. I like blues, but in small quantities. I recently used an organic-milk aged cheddar that has a mild blue flavour (I have no idea why, and the cheese-monger couldn't explain it), which was excellent. 2. Undercook some pasta. I like penne. 3. Make generous quantity of very thin bechamel, using whole milk (at least). Sometimes, I infuse the milk with things like onion, roasted garlic, thyme, etc. I have tried mirepoix, but find the vegetable flavour too strong. In my opinion, the very best way to flavour the milk is with apple or pear (I like pear better). 4. Mix a small quantity of the cheese into the bechamel, so that the sauce becomes flavoured, but the consistency does not change dramatically. 5. Mix sauce with pasta, very thoroughly. The pasta should be really "swimming" in the sauce. 6. Mix the remaining cheese into the pasta/sauce mixture. 7. VERY IMPORTANT: divide the pasta/sauce/cheese mixture into individual gratin dishes and top with buttered breadcrumbs (I always mix parmesan into the breadcrumbs, sometimes a bit of another cheese as well), or if you don't like breadcrumb topping, just use cheese. Using the individual gratin dishes ensures that individual diners will get a full "crust experience." 8. Bake in medium-hot oven for about half an hour.

I have made pork tenderloin glazed with a reduction of pomegranate molasses, sugar, and a few cloves, which I garnished with pomegranate seeds and pistachios. I served this on a bed of pureed parsnips. (I was doing a letter "p" themed dinner for a friend.) The contrast between the somewhat sour pomegranate and sweet parsnip was very nice. I've also made Khoresht-E-Fesenjan, which is very good. I made the above mentioned pork dish twice in a week (trial run and then for the dinner). I then made Khoresht-E-Fesenjan with leftover pomegranate. It could be that we're just particularly susceptible to flavour overdoses, but nobody in my house wanted to touch pomegranates for several months after the third pomegranate meal.

I regularly make fried shallots to top SE Asian dishes. I deep fry them naked (no coating or seasoning whatsoever). They always come out golden brown and crispy, and I have no problems with burning. One thing I've found is imperative is not to overload the frying vessle. Another thing is not to drop in all the shallots at once, because doing so causes a lot of steam, which both prevents the shallots from crisping up, and risks causing the oil to boil over.