Grub

The blonde foot model came across as a no-talent bimbo. The gay guys have their Queer Eye shtick going. And it occurred to me -- why would the food network show a jovial, middle-aged fat guy rapping? Why, because he's black, of course -- black people rap, see? These guys have a show about how to cook really cheap, hosted by a dude named Lieberman. I'm wondering, is the Food Network run by Andrew Dice Clay? I agree with the eliminations so far. Eric and the couple are the most palatable contestants.

I know two vegetarians: one a proselytizing, eating-meat-is-like-eating-excrement because there's a chemical reaction going on in dead meat that's exactly like what happens in poop-kinda guy. The other had no good explanation at all (other than possibly, hippy chicks), and quit after a couple of years. I also know one dude who objects to any meal that does not include meat. I mean, I'm doing Aloo Gobi, but fear not -- I've got a couple of fucking Slim Jims for ya to nibble on, so you don't turn into a hippy or nuthen. I don't think either of 'em makes any sense. What's that saying, you like your friends for their good qualities, but love em for their faults.

Thanks again, Anzu. What I did with the spices, is that I simply roasted them all in a toaster oven -- well, not all of them, just the coriander, fenugreek, cumin, and star aniseed seeds. I'm not entirely convinced that I NEED to roast them at all -- they do have a great taste just as they are, mind you. However, I will experiment with roasting some fenugreek seeds, and see if that produces bitterness -- maybe that is a particular seed that I should avoid roasting. Re. panch poran -- yes I realize it's the same thing, and yes I also realize there is no one correct way to spell these romanized words. Re. sorpotel, it's from the Betty Crocker book I mentioned above -- it seems to have proved to be a less-than-authentic book, heheh. But it still produces some good food. The ingredient list for sorpotel is vinegar, raw cashews, garlic, serrano/cayenne peppers, red onion, cloves, cinnamon, pork, and roasted cumin. Milagai, yes of course coriander leaves/cilantro leaves would be the way to go, you're quite right. I happened to have both, but spaced. An obvious mistake. I've got no idea how the dish tasted the next day -- I didn't make enough for leftover (a mistake I'll make sure to avoid the next time). So I've got these changes lined up for next time: 1) Test roast some fenugreek seeds and see if they turn bitter. If so, don't roast them. Possibly, avoid roasting the other three seeds altogether. 2) Grind the seeds finely. 3) Use more onions. 4) Cook the dish slower, at lower temperatures. 5) Consider adding some panch poran. 6) Add cilantro, not parsley. 7) Make sure to cook enough for leftovers.

Vegetarians eat vegetables and no meats, but Vegans are holier than Vegetarians, because they don't eat anything that comes from animals at all -- such as milk and honey. And of course, level 5 vegans are the holiest of them all, as they eat nothing that casts a shadow.

Anzu, thank you for your response. I agree the dish should have been cooked longer -- the reason why I think the shorter cooking time may have made the dish taste somewhat bitter, is that I cooked it at a higher temperature than I normally would have, in order to compensate for the briefer cooking time. The cooking book I cited may not be very authentic, but yes, it does recommend using cashews. I've got a spice mixture named Panch Poran (from a local market), and I love it... I'm tempted to add the stuff to every Indian dish I make, hehehe.

Pork Vindaloo -- with recipe and much commentary in the Indian Cuisine Forum

Pork Vindaloo In this Murgh Vindaloo thread, I learned a lot (particularly from Waaza) about the vindaloo. One of the things I learned is that it makes a lot more sense to do it with pork (which is how the dish was originally made). So here goes... The recipe: 1 lb pork cut into bite-sized pieces 1 tbsp ground coriander seeds 1 tsp fenugreek seeds ½ tsp cumin seeds 1 segment of star aniseed 5 garlic cloves 2" ginger 4 crushed/chopped dried red chilies ½ tsp ground turmeric Garam masala ¼ cup vinegar 1 tbsp oil 1. Roast coriander- fenugreek- cumin- and star aniseed seeds. I didn't roast them a lot. Also, I kinda screwed up with the star aniseed -- I just cut a segment off and roasted it, rather than removing the seed. I removed the seed later. 2. Grind them along with garlic, ginger and chilies. 3. Add turmeric, garam masala, vinegar and oil, grind some more. One thing I am worried about here, is that there are an awful lot of different spices mixed in here. I would prefer to be able to distinguish the different tastes, not so much because of the culinary experience, as much as I'd like to be able to tell if I've used too much or too little of a certain spice. Was going to use a blender to mix it together, but I opted to just stick with the mortar and pestle, rather than dirtying up another item. 4. Marinade with pork overnight. I used a vacuum marinade container, and marinated it about three hours, rather than overnight. The marinade isn't very liquid (but it was starting to smell really good at this point). After I removed the pork, you can see there is very little marinade left. 5. Finely chop 2 med yellow onions. I only had one onion, but it was a big one so I figured it'd be okay. However, the cooking process renders it down so much, I think I'll definitely use two the next time around. I'm pretty fond of chopping things with a normal chef's knife, but a proper mandolin makes short work of the "finely chopped" part of the recipe. I was originally planning on trying to dry the water from the onion, but part of the advice I got in the aforementioned thread said to just make sure to cook it as soon as I'd chopped it. And I made sure to not cut off too much from the end of the onions, since those bits contain a lot of good stuff that makes the onions sweet. 6. Cook onions over medium heat until golden, 15-20 minutes. Not quite golden after 13 minutes or so -- but I think the photo shows the color a little too pale. I turned the heat up to med-high towards the end, in anticipation of adding the meat. 7. Remove meat from marinade and cook it until browned. With Chinese stir-fry recipes, I'd normally brown the meat first, remove it from the wok, and put it back in after the onions were done -- I'm thinking this might be a good idea with this dish too. Because I think the one thing that marred this dish, was that the onions were slightly burned while the meat was browned. This process took about 15 minutes. 8. Reduce heat to low, add remaining marinade, cook until dry. There was just a tablespoon of marinade left, but I added it, and cooked it until dry. 9. Add ¼ cup water, cook until dry again This method of drying the dish out is apparently know as the bhuna stage -- or a bhuna cooking method, like stir-frying. 10. Add ¾ cup tomato sauce, simmer 10-15 min. Mix the tomato sauce in properly... Looking good -- the color is starting to look about right. Okay, that looks just about done. Just the right color. Serve over rice, and sprinkle with some parsley (I dunno how authentic that is, but the color looks good, hehe). Post-meal analysis: It was quite good, but there were two things I disliked. One, the meal left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth, which I believe is because I cooked the dish slightly too fast (a total of about 45 minutes), over slightly too high heat. Two, the meat wasn't very tender, which I think was caused by the shortened cooking time, or possibly because of a shortened marinade period (does vinegar tenderize meat the way citrus juices do?). I used a pork sirloin -- when braising cubed pork, I normally go for a cheaper cut. The good thing was that the nice vinegar flavor wasn't overpowering, as with the Murgh Vindaloo. But then again, I used a mild rice vinegar this time, rather than the red wine vinegar, that I think I used last time. Some conclusions -- Next time, I'll cook it slower, at lower temperatures. -- The Murgh Vindaloo dish (previously mentioned thread) tasted a bit more like the Vindaloos I tasted in Britain, but I think part of this may be that I overheated this pork dish. -- Cooked at this pace, the chicken would have been more tender, yet the vinegar wouldn't have been as overpowering (as in the last dish). -- When I first started eating curries in Rusholme, there were four "strengths": Mild, Medium, Madras and Vindaloo. I used to wish for a mild Vindaloo -- well, now I know there's such a thing. I'm not there just yet with the recipe, but I figure I can get there from here. Finally, a couple of questions: Ever heard about a dish called Phal? I came across it in Wokingham, and it was labeled as being stronger than a Vindaloo -- and it was. It was also very tasty, but so strong I could only eat about a third of it. This "Betty Crocker Indian Home Cooking: Recipes by Raghavan Iyer" book I've got has some good information on Vindaloo (about the Portuguese in Goa and vinegar), and it also mentions a dish called Sorpotel -- Pork in Cashews. It is also a pork and vinegar dish. Anyone familiar with this dish? Any comments, questions, and criticism welcome.

That's a great tip, thank you!

Was gonna make trout allemande, but substituted grouper for it, which was okay, but not great -- the grouper was thicker and had a much firmer texture... And salad and taters. Made the salad a bit ahead of time, and drizzled some lime juice over it -- bad mistake. It got the whole thing completely soggy and dishevelled. I learn something every time I try cooking something...

After celebrating the end of the last year's exams, two class mates and I stopped by a Chinese restaurant -- pretty much just because the place still served beer -- the pubs had closed (Manchester, UK). The service was REAL slow, and I guess they just wanted us to leave -- but they never stopped by to pick up the check. So we take the tray with the money on it, up to the cash register and wait, wait, wait... Nothing. Now, we were all real drunk at this point. So when these two idiot classmates of mine yelled "RUN!" and took off, I automatically followed them -- yelling "What the hell are we running for?" They tell me "we're doing a runner." -- "Yeah, we're running, but why...?" Eventually, I grasped what doing a runner amounted to, but insisted that we HAD paid for the meal -- I remember counting out the money myself, which was a pretty laborious process, given our state of intoxication... But this twit had grabbed the money out of the tray after we brought it to the cash register. And so, we're running around in Chinatown, drunk off our asses, no idea where we're going. If I'd been sober, I would have just stayed behind and paid for the meal myself... We were so drunk, we ended up going around in a big goddamn circle, and I swear, we actually ended up back at the restaurant, although behind it. The waitress simply came out and asked if she could please have the money now. She got it. No angry chef with a cleaver, or anything like that. Just a petite Chinese girl quietly asking for the money, please... I tried to apologize, but man -- how do you apologize for something this idiotic?

Glazed Turkey burgers, from a Better Homes and garden cookbook (I'm starting to suspect that I use this book so often, simply because it is conveniently ring-bound... But then again, the recipes in it are tried and tested). BBQ'd btw. Glaze made of orange marmalade and mustard, of all things. And I guess that wasn't weird enough for me, so I used some mayo and wasabe sauce on the bun. The wasabe sauce was a gift and I'd just never gotten around to using the damn thing, so -- oh well...

Some roasted cauliflower, from this clearly obsessively deranged, 14-page thread on the topic... And some pancetta embossed chicken from this excellent eGullet recipe -- only I accidentally ended up with prosciutto instead of pancetta, but it still seemed to work out, even if the prosciutto looks pretty caramelized. Oh, and I used boneless thighs. This plate really needs some color, though... My pictures aren't exactly National Geographic standard on the best of days, but this plate looks particularly decrepit. Good grief -- is dinner ready, or did a freaking yeti just take a dump on my plate? Jezzz.

Mein Gott in himmel, ain't it like, a breach of the patriot act to oppose an organization with "Freedom" in its name?

Whoa! Call me naive and/or paranoid, but that seems kinda messed up seeing that she's passed off as just another random candidate in the competition... Has the food network started hiring creative talent from Monday night wrestling or something now? I'm not sure if the contestants are "non-foodies" -- although I'm not sure what it takes to qualify a person as a "foodie." I don't know if I would, or could, call myself a foodie -- but I'm quite sure these contestants are all far better cooks than me... Having said that, I don't think a great chef necessarily makes a great cooking show personality/teacher? It kinda depends on what your goal is -- if it's just pure entertainment you want, it's cool to watch Martin Yan carve the Taj Mahal out of a turnip in half a second, with a cleaver -- but if you want to inspire people to cook something, having someone who isn't so insanely talented could be less intimidating, you know?

From what I've seen of this restaurant in the threads of this board, I'll humbly admit that Alinea just possibly might be "too much" for me... But it seems absurd to rate a restaurant according to such a criteria. Rating a restaurant according to whether it would be "too much" for someone who prefers McDonald's wouldn't make much sense -- anymore than an art reviewer commenting on Picasso being too much for people who prefer pictures of dogs playing poker.

Duh, so THAT'S what this stuff is supposed to look like... A friend came back from Italy raving about this, and so I tried serving some up myself... However, I used great big slices of cantaloupe, and the prosciutto didn't wrap around it very well -- completely unwieldy. Ah, the things you learn on egullet...

Anyone mentioned Bend It Like Beckham yet? It's not really about food, but food does figure into it. A quick synopsis: An Indian girl living with her family in England is a talented soccer player, and against her parents' wishes -- and behind their backs -- she starts playing on a formal team. She is found out, and her mother admonishes her by demanding she stop "this silliness" and start dressing like a good, traditional Indian girl and learn to cook a full Indian meal -- vegetarian and meat. The girl replies, "Anyone can cook Aloo Gobi, but who can bend a ball like Beckham?" Now, on the DVD, the special features includes an awesome segment where the director cooks Aloo Gobi (and admitting that she's always dreamt of having a cooking show), with her mother and aunt in the background, instructing her, correcting her, and generally interfering... It's funny, charming, and just plain enjoyable. Makes for a damn good dinner-and-movie night...

Love this log. It's awe inspiring and mouth-watering -- mind, I can't help but feel a tad envious of anyone capable of making food this good looking, heheh. Fantastic. I'll second the suggestion about pasta alla carbonara...

I tried buying beer at a gas station in Utah, but they told me they stop selling alcohol at a certain hour (I forget)... I quipped, "Whatever happened to The Land Of The Free?" and decided to try bribe the lady. "This is Utah" she said, stonefaced, without missing a beat... Aw jezz.

Excellent, and very well written -- this was really enjoyable. The CIA Professional Cook book lists Choron as a Hollandaise derived sauce -- Hollandaise with tomato. Béarnaise is a Hollandaise derived sauce -- Hollandaise with tarragon (and a few other things). I don't want to offend anyone by naysaying Julia here, but I remember watching an Iron Chef episode where Mario Batelli served up an Eggs Benedict variant, and used a red-ish sauce -- I've been trying to dig into sauces lately, and I was kinda proud when I said, "Choron!" to myself when I saw that sauce... It appeared to be smooth, without the easily recognizable terragon/chervil/parsley bits in it, so I'm fairly sure it was Hollandaise, and not Béarnaise.

Didn't see a thread on this (searched the first four pages), so figured I'd create one... Anyone seen this thing? Food Network showed the first two episodes last weekend, and it was quite interesting, and entertaining. The first show was mostly just a selection process. They'd show tapes submitted by three vaguely similar candidates -- perky/happy types, offbeat/unusual/jokesters, couples, etc -- and then pick one of them. The final candidate was picked through an Internet selection process. The show's website on Food Network The more colorful characters were: Dan & Steve the gay couple. Southpark has a black kid named Token -- I guess we've become enlightened enough to have progressed beyond such racial silliness, so now, every reality show has a token gay couple... But aside from that minor irritation, they came across as very likeable, and were entertaining without becoming a minstrel show-type performance. Eric the "self-taught" cook seemed like a weak contestant compared to the rest, seeing that most of them were "properly" educated -- but when he got started in front of the camera, the dude just completely lit up. Unfortunately, in the segment when they threw the contestants some curveballs, he completely froze. Harmony seemed like a stereotypical, silly, beautiful blonde -- especially when she completely screwed up her first contest. But she seemed to get her stuff together later on, and showed off a really wacky, fun personality. Talking about wacky personalities, there's Michael... The definite clown of the group. The last one that I really took notice of, was Susannah. She's like Rachael Ray without the annoying bits. The show also showed a number of tapes that didn't make it for a variety of reasons. Some of these were hilarious. In one of them, two women were merrily cooking away, and happened to be distracted at just the wrong moment: when a brat strolled into the kitchen and walked in front of the camera while making headbanging gestures -- they never noticed the kid. Another showed a "chef" beating a piece of meat with a freakin' baseball bat. I mean, Joe Pesci beating it, putting his entire body into it -- WHAM WHAM WHAM! Man, that'd make a great cooking show. Then there was "Broccoli Man" -- a looney with a giant broccoli floret on his head, screaming that he was Broccoli Man. Good grief.

Hahaha, I've only made "proper" hamburgers with beef once -- last weekend. And I didn't take no pictures either There's a local burger joint that makes the absolute, utterly most fantastic burgers in the world -- properly aged, good quality beef, on good bun, nothing fancy, but insanely good. I've tasted burgers throughout the world, always comparing them to this golden standard, and have found lots of great burgers, but nothing that could compare to this. Hence, I've just never felt a desire to create a "normal" beef burger, and have always gone for the turkey or chicken burger -- besides, there are plenty of other great ground meat to cook other than hamburgers... I've never desired to cook a vegetarian burger (I'm sure creating a good one would require some considerable skill -- far beyond my abilities), but I've eaten quite a few, and some of them are pretty damn good... I never could get behind the vegetarian/vegan/whatnot notion of adjusting your eating habits for any reason other than taste and health -- but then again, I never grasped the "anti-vegetarian backlash" insistance of eating meat with every meal either... Vegetarian meals can be every bit as great as meals with meat. My homemade beef burgers weren't any better than the turkey burgers I made previously... And I reckon, unless you can get your hands on some properly aged beef, I can't see how you could create a truly magnificent burger, you know? I reckon I'll make some turkey burgers for this one -- but maybe make some homemade buns... The bun is a completely overlooked element in a good burger -- people focus on condiments, meat and fat content, but the bun is the biggest contributor to the dish, other than the meat itself... Oh dear, I'm rambling again...

Grilled pork chops, sauce Diane, beans & taters. If anyone has any advice or comments, I'd really like to hear it, by the way. I'm trying real hard to learn... If nothing else, if you gagged, pointed at your computer screen and started laughing, lemme know that too, just so I know I'm entertaining someone here, at the very least The sauce was the big deal for me on this one... I like sauces. I had made (or attempted) some demiglace -- brown mirepoix (chopped, 2 parts onions, 1 carrots, 1 celery) in butter, add flour to create brown roux, add tomato paste, beef broth (does it make a big difference, if I use canned beef broth, rather than creating my own veal stock? I mean, this thing is time-consuming as it is, you know?), let simmer for 2 hours -- this is supposed to create sauce Espagnole... Then, add more beef broth and let simmer until reduced to half, which results in demiglace -- except it was supposed to be equal amounts of demiglace and broth/stock, and I didn't have enough stock... Besides, the thing had gotten REAL thick at this point -- I think I added too much flour to the roux, and it thickened up a lot more because of that... Worst of all, I'm definitely sure I added too much tomato paste, because I could really taste that. AND the beef broth was mostly ordinary, rather than low-sodium, so that affected the taste too. Well, I set some aside, and froze the rest -- but I'm thinking I'll make another go at demiglace before I use that stuff This is mostly from the CIA's Professional Chef book, btw. It lists a bunch of demiglace-derived sauces, and sauce Diane seemed good: a Poivrade sauce with cream. And Poivrade sauce was listed as a reduction of white wine, peppercorns and butter. So I reduced some white wine with butter and peppercorns, reduced it, mixed it with the demiglace, and added some cream. It didn't taste right -- the tomatoish demiglace completely dominated things, so I added a lot more cream, which made it look pretty icky (is that a proper culinary term?), so I lost my mind and added some soy sauce to darken it. Since I still didn't like the taste much, and this sauce project just seemed completely out of control, I added some cayenne pepper. That created a fairly nice taste, that I figured would go well with grilled pork chops -- and it did. I added some butter at the end, since I heard that was a good thing for a sauce... The taters were just plain boiled with some salt. Had some flat-leaf/Italian parsley, so I chopped that up and dropped it on. The beans look the worst (maybe that's just cause I know there were canned, and microwaved, I dunno). The pork chop is bone-in (and just covered with salt and pepper, and olive oil -- done simply, since I had this sauce to provide extra flavor), which works best on a bbq, I think. Had decent grill marks and all. Tasted great, even if it doesn't look too impressive.

Very odd, this show is no longer being listed on my local PBS schedule. And there's no fundraising going on either. Oh well, maybe they had to interrupt the series for that latest John Tess extravaganza or something. :sigh:

Early childhood memory: Getting up at sunrise at my grandmother's farm, hitting the strawberry patches, filling up a little bowl... Putting strawberries on slices of french bread, squashing them with a fork, showering them with sugar... Oh man...