blue_dolphin

I tried the microwave pasta gadget in two (admittedly feeble) microwaves and they took way longer than the guidelines suggested so I didn’t keep it. In a mild defense of McFadden's gallon of water for 8 oz pasta, he uses that water in the sauce, not just after the pasta is cooked, but sometimes a good bit earlier. He also recommends @weinoo's method of bringing the water to a boil as his first step in most recipes, then backing off on the heat if more time is needed for the sauce so he’s allowing for a little evaporation. I also agree with @weinoo that shapes like rigatoni can be pan hogs, especially when they’re still quite firm so I don’t think 4 qts is a gross excess. Also, McFadden spends a good bit of time explaining how to taste the pasta for doneness, much easier on the stovetop. That said, reducing the amount of water used to increase its starchiness and save boiling time isn’t a bad thing at all. If I’m cooking 1-2 servings of long pasta, I routinely use a 12-inch skillet with an inch or two of water. Boils fast and the pasta all gets submerged at once. Maybe as fast as the Fasta!

Snap peas with 'nduja and spring onion from Josh McFadden's new book, Six Seasons of Pasta This was very good. I don’t usually put snap peas in a red sauce but their crunch and sweetness are a good counterpoint to the richness of the ‘nduja. I used scallions instead of spring onions, capunti pasta instead of the suggested casarecce (which I like but didn’t have on hand), reduced the amount of pasta and increased the veg.

Sounds like you think people buy cookbooks only for the recipes!

I’d say we’re in a place where people enjoy cookbooks for a variety of different reasons. We're engaged by different styles of writing and presentation and publishers capitalize on that. Learning what we need to know about a topic is one reason but certainly not the only one.

I assume it’s storebought but the recipes don’t precisely use that language. Each recipe’s ingredient list gives only the weight in grams and ounces and three shape options. The words homemade, dried, storebought or pasta do not appear in the recipe ingredient lists. The introduction lists recommended brands of dried pasta, including gluten-free options. There are no recipes in the book for homemade fresh or dried pasta nor recommendations for finding recipes.

Six Seasons of Pasta: A New Way with Everyone's Favorite Food (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg was published last week. I received my copy, have given it a good once over, cooked one of the recipes and have a bunch more marked to try. The book opens with a dried pasta primer and discussion of his decision to use dried pasta exclusively in the book. The recipes offer a range of interesting ingredient combinations but he also devotes space to “how to” pages for dressing pasta with the basic pestos, flavored butters and whipped ricotta that appear in the front of the book. There are similar sections for using ragus, making baked pasta dishes and pasta salads so the reader can build on the basics with their own recipes. After the basic sauces, the recipes are organized by season, similar to Six Seasons. Plenty of meat and seafood are used. It’s not a vegetarian cookbook but I think that cooking with vegetables is really McFadden's strength. In reading through, I thought some of the dishes would be delicious without the pasta, just adding more vegetables. With a few exceptions, the pasta recipes serve 2-4, depending on how hearty or rich they are. The ragu recipes tend to make enough for 8-12 servings, and he recommends freezing them in portions appropriate for one meal. There's one recipe for a Caesar salad and one for garlic bread but other than that, it’s all pasta. I’ve got several pasta cookbooks that focus on making fresh pasta, so I’m fine with the dry pasta focus. I’m also quite capable of concocting my own pasta dishes without relying on a cookbook but I think I’ll enjoy trying quite a few of the offerings here. I started with the eggplant puttanesca with fresh tomatoes on p 301 and thought it was quite good.

The reason for the 10 min boil for kidney beans (a fairly large family that includes cannellini) is to denature lectins like phytohaemagglutinin that can cause unpleasant nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Slow cooker temps aren’t sufficient to denature them. Boiling does. Because I don’t know the lectin profile of every bean I cook nor do I know which lectins I might be sensitive to and I’d prefer to avoid those symptoms, I go ahead and start them all off with a 10 min boil. I feel like it gets them moving about and off to a good start. Or, in the words of Steve Sando, it lets them know who’s the boss 🙃. If you prefer not boiling beans, don’t do it. I’m sure you can boss them about in other ways.

That looks great, @Smithy! I recommend trying some of the compound butters. You don’t need to make a full batch to try them out but they’re great to have on hand to add some interest to plain veg, eggs, etc. Since starting to cook from this book, I’ve kept a rotating stash of them in the freezer. Time to replenish the Cacio e Pepe version! Also, if you like adding nuts for crunch, the brined roasted almonds are really excellent. They’re pretty much a pantry staple for me. I just got his Six Seasons of Pasta (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) and am looking forward to cooking from that.

I, too, would request leftover oxtails for breakfast if only there was the slightest chance!

Looks absolutely beautiful!

BLT

I don’t have lots of knives so I prefer to keep my limited selection at the ready. I don’t run the dishwasher after every meal so washing them by hand suits me.

You may find this article from Emily at Steam and Bake useful as an overview of steam oven brands: The Best Steam Oven Brands in 2025 If you are on Facebook, Emily's group ( https://m.facebook.com/groups/combisteamcooking/?ref=share ) might be a good place to ask questions about models you are considering. The group seems fairly quiet but it’s worth a shot. If you plan to replace your wall oven with a combi steam wall oven, keep in mind that the cavity size of steam ovens tend to be a good bit smaller than conventional ovens, particularly for the non-plumbed models as they need to accommodate a water tank.

Tuna salad on a toasted brioche bun My last few breakfasts have been deficient in vegetables so I added a few.

Everyday Korean has several Dutch baby options so I tried the kimchi and cheddar cheese version today. It still didn’t climb up out of the pan as much as the first time I made it but it was tasty.

@Dr. Teeth, you should expect intact tins. From your photos, I can’t tell for sure whether the tins are wrapped in slightly wrinkled paper or if the metal tins themselves are wrinkled. For a gift subscription, I’d find the first acceptable but not the second.

Even United always offered a mid flight noodle service in economy on flights to/from Asia. I haven’t flown in quite a while so I don’t know if that’s still the case. A number of airlines stopped offering that service but let passengers know they can come to the galley to get them. More recently, some airlines have changed their policies, citing the risk of burn injuries. Air Canada won’t serve them if the seatbelt sign is on. Korean Air has completely stopped serving them in economy.

Here's some advice from Peter Kim's recent book, Instant Ramen Kitchen (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). I posted a review over in the cookbooks topic. His steps are: Prep - gather ingredients, slice, measure Pre-simmer - sear, sauté, bloom spices, depending on your additions Simmer - cook noodles and ingredients Finish - mix, top & serve His recommended cook times are shorter than most package instructions, partly because he likes a bit of chew in the noodles and because the noodles continue to cook while you’re finishing, topping and plating so a shorter time gives you a little buffer before the noodles get mushy. Obviously, your taste may vary. He recommends a cook time of 2 min for thin gauge noodles like Top Ramen, Maruchan and Sapporo Ichiban, 2 min 30 sec for medium gauge noodles like Shin Raymun, Jin Raymun, Chapaghetti, and 3 min for thick gauge noodles like Neoguri and Buldak. My favorite is the Prima Taste brand Singapore Curry La Mein which has a cook time on the packet of 7 min and I aim to finish the simmer step somewhere around 5 min 30 sec. I add my veg according to how long they need to cook. Obviously, with the shorter simmer times for thin noodles, you may need to add some longer cooking veg before the noodles go in. This really depends on the brand as the packets vary in size, how much stuff you add and your appetite. The brand I mentioned says each packet makes 2 servings and that’s what I usually do. The Prima Taste noodles I mentioned come with 2 seasoning packets and I use them. It is huge amount of sodium so I try to add a ton of veg to balance it out and it’s a rare treat. I’m going to try some other brands so I can play around with ideas from the book and will probably start with using ~ 1/4 of the seasoning packet and go from there.

Savory Dutch baby with gochujang salmon from Everyday Korean. One of several variations this book has for a one-egg, single-serving Dutch baby baked in a little 6-inch cast iron skillet. Didn’t puff as much as last time but was still light and fluffy.

I got some nice sockeye salmon in my fish share this week. Here's a salmon sando made with the roasted salmon with gochujang mayo from Everyday Korean by Kim Sunee and Seung Hee Lee. The gochujang mayo is equal parts gochujang, mayo and oyster sauce with minced fresh garlic and ginger. After anointing the salmon, I added rice vinegar, a little honey and toasted sesame seeds to remaining gochujang mayo and used it to dress a quick, crunchy slaw of cabbage, sugar snap peas and scallions.

Even stringent, food service guidelines indicate food held in the “danger zone” (generally 40° - 140°F or 5° - 60°C) is still safe to consume after 4 hrs. Six hrs is starting to stretch it a little. I’d feel fine with salty meats and fatty cheeses in that range, those who prefer to go strictly by the book might include a frozen ice pack that would keep the temp down for a few hours.

Rather conventional breakfast items today. French toast sticks, sausage, yogurt and peaches (O’Henry, my fave) with a drizzle of vanilla bean-infused maple syrup. The only twist was using a split-top brioche hot dog bun to make the French toast sticks, a trick I spotted online and a good way to address odd dog/bun ratios. I tend to use sturdy, stale, sometimes VERY stale, bread that needs a good soak. This was rather the opposite and only needs a quick dunk rather than a soak but I’d do it again.

It’s well written so I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading through it, even if you purchased it as a gift!

That’s too bad. I believe the recipes are only available at that Substack link in my post but there are other ways to access the podcast. Where do you usually listen to podcasts? Here's an Apple Podcasts link to the episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/improvising-dinner-with-peter-j-kim/id1769201553?i=1000725500686 And here's a Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3CA4aXZPPq4APuJcBiJkTf?si=xEVOA5KsTQSKBPfV4QZxMA

After listening to a podcast author interview, I've read Peter J Kim's first book, Instant Ramen Kitchen (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) from cover to cover and think it’s quite a clever book. Peter Kim has created something akin to an instant ramen version of Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat with enough info in the first sections of the book to enable anyone to come up with their own instant ramen variations, learning a bunch of cooking fundamentals (the value of mise en place, dealing with differing cooking times and balancing flavors for personal taste) in the process. Armed with a bunch of instant ramen packets and some pantry ingredients, a kitchen novice could learn a ton by making a bunch of these little single-serving, low cost meals, using either the recipes or the general guidelines to come up with their own combos. Up front, he breaks down the steps (prep, pre-simmer, simmer and finishing) with example timelines, reviews types of instant ramen widely available in the US and the importance of choosing the right simmer time, usually shorter than the label specs. Next, he presents a “Ramen Flavor Wheel” which serves as a guide for choosing flavors and also introduces all the ingredients used. Each of the ingredients gets a little blurb outlining how to use it. For example, spices might get bloomed in fat before simmering or be used in finishing. There are chopping and cooking time recommendations for each veg and protein. That’s followed by a section with sub recipes for toppings, a few sauces and dressings and a couple pages of quick ideas for cup noodles.. Anyone who’s taken the time to read through these sections, is set to start creating their own dishes but there are also plenty of recipes for those who’d rather skip reading the manual and get cooking. The first few are intended to make the instant packets more ramen-ish with recipes inspired by classic ramen styles. After that, caution is thrown to the wind and the flavors and ingredients are all over the map with soups, stews and sauced noodles inspired by frijoles de la olla, moqueca, shakshuka, borscht, Thai curry, Xi'an-style cumin lamb, and Mac 'n’ cheese, among others. I think the book would be a fun gift for a beginner cook, maybe with some ramen packets and a few condiments. A more experienced cook who’s frequently pressed for time might also find useful information here, as I did when I doctored up a packet of ramen the other day. I usually think I can chop and add veg while the noodles simmer but I followed his recommendation to prep everything first. I found his veg cooking times spot on and didn’t overcook the noodles while scrambling for toppings at the last minute. He doesn’t specifically address the often alarmingly high sodium levels in ramen packets but does explain the importance of proper seasoning, reducing the amount of the seasoning packet used when salty additions are included vs using more with unsalted additions so one can be judicious there. Here's a link to The Dinner Plan Podcast episode with Peter Kim discussing the book and featuring a couple of recipes from the book. I plan on trying the spinach ramen gratin, at least.