weinoo

They did - and it's more the way my wife likes her chicken cooked; that is, a little more than I do, but I acquiesce every now and then .

That was the crispiest skin I've ever gotten out of the CSO.. Did 20 minutes on steam bake at 425F, and then another 15-18 just on convection bake at same temp.

I have a bottle of red boat for you. I bought like 5 bottles, and certainly can't use them all. And while that dish looked good, that does not necessarily mean it would win on the 5-ingredient challenge. I would just prefer egullet not to become the food network.

Blue plate special? Chicken thighs in the steam girl, rice pilaf, sautéed asparagus. (might've cost under $5 pp).

Host's note: this topic was split from the $5 Meal Challenge topic. Some posts here refer to posts remaining in that topic. My meta issue, and I've probably stated this before, is that I don't believe cooking and/or eating well ought be viewed as a challenge. I think part of the demise of a good food culture was predicated by Iron Chef, and all the shows that followed. But yeah, rice & beans to feed 4 for about $3 can be done.

Ayada. Always a good meal.

That's interesting, @Anna N.

right, they are a little different in formula, but you can them all (pizze, focaccia, bianca, et.al.) flatbreads! I'm pretty sure pizza bianca is a Roman thing, whereas focaccia emanated from Liguria/Genoa. And in Tuscany, they call it schiacciata.

Once again, I like soap & hot water. Or vinegar.

Yes, salad greens and fruits like cantaloupe (and others which ripen on the ground) are my biggest worry.

Yes, as high as it goes - 450F.

Chicken isn't necessarily a special case - just that I'd rather not despoil my Boardsmith board with chicken slime. I've been cooking and using my hands and kitchen equipment for a long tine; I don't think I've gotten anyone sick...(famous last words). I do make sure to wash fruit and veg thoroughly, even the phony triple-washed stuff gets 2 more baths.

Exactly. Too many things are "easy," until you try to make them. In my opinion, things with few ingredients (cacio e pepe, bread, et.al.) are the hardiest to replicate perfectly.

I do cook a lot for others, but even when making cacio e pepe for the two of us, I like it pretty darn close to perfect - that is, sauce that hasn't coagulated, high quality peppercorns crushed in a mortar & pestle, excellent pecorino romano, good pasta, etc. Believe me - I find it difficult to get that perfectly creamy sauce.

Many of us like cacio e pepe. Whether it's simple to get it perfect is another story altogether...otherwise recipe after recipe wouldn't have been written for it!

Where is everyone getting all these germs on their cutting boards? Are you doing science experiments on them? And won't a good scrub with some dish soap and hot water, immediately dried off, do just fine? Or the dw if they're poly...I have one especially for chicken/poultry. Certainly seems to have worked for me over the years on my wooden cutting boards.

I can't recall the last time I made my own pasta. Most of the sauces I make are really meant for dried pasta, and even though I have a roller for my KA, I just don't want to deal with the hassle. However, I am heading up to Arthur Avenue and Borgatti's tomorrow, and I may pick up a pound or two of freshly made, by someone else's hands. I've always found the ravioli to be quite good, and inexpensive. I'm looking forward to giving some of their pappardelle a try.

When I have nice cherry tomatoes, and good, fresh herbs, I really like a raw sauce. Let it all steep with a good shot of olive oil, salt and pepper. Or sometimes I'll just heat some olive oil with garlic in it, and pour that over the sauce as it's getting ready for the pasta. To me, it's almost as important as to what shape pasta goes best with that raw sauce.

I have an old Mario story. It was back when the only place he had was Po. We were having dinner there with another couple. Some of the food was not seasoned properly (i.e. over or under-salted, I don't remember). He was sitting outside the restaurant with a bottle of wine, as was his want in those days, so I chatted with him and mentioned that. Let's just say he did not take kindly to my remark, and told me that everything was perfect coming out of his kitchen. Of course, since he was drunk outside, I was wondering how he knew that. Once a douche, always a douche. And trust me, it was well known what was going on at Spotted Pig, amongst other places.

I've been boycotting the B & B restaurants since the revelations came out. I can't wait for him to divest totally from those, as I miss the occasional meal at Otto. At a dinner party here a few weeks ago, someone questioned why I still had a book or two of his on my shelves. Good question.

Pork tenderloin, sautéed asparagus, fresh horseradish. Pork was cooked sous vide, dried and seared in a hot pan. Cook's Illustrated recipe/process.

This topic hasn't been broached in a while, so I figured I'd start a new specific thread, to hear about what you all are doing with pasta these days. Significant Eater and I recently returned from a trip to Florence and Rome, and whenever we travel, I get inspired to cook like we ate "over there." So since traveling to Italy means pasta at practically every meal for me; not for the main course, but as a primi, and I'm making lots of pasta at home these days. Oh, I mean pasta sauces, which I use on high-quality dried pasta. Our first night in Florence, I had what I consider the best sugo di carne I'd ever tasted...in that case, on pappardelle. And I'm trying to replicate it, getting close but not quite as good as that one. It's an involved process, and I'm pretty much following a recipe from what I consider an iconic cookbook I own, Giuliano Bugialli's 1977 work, The Fine Art of Italian Cooking. I saw some beautiful beef at the store yesterday, so I bought a hunk and stuck it in the freezer for a while, to make it easier to hand chop. The prep for this dish took like an hour... The sauce contains said beef, olive oil, onions, carrots, celery, garlic, parsley, red wine, tomato paste, tomatoes, dried porcini and their soaking liquid, stock as necessary, s & p. After a few hours of almost covered simmering, it ends up like so... I like to use it on penne or mezze rigatoni, (Setaro brand, in this case). It's better over the course of the next day or two, so we didn't have it last night, but it sure tastes good. And you?

So, after a trip to Rome in February, I am back working on pizza bianca, and this attempt wasn't bad. It's about a 70% hydration dough, mixed in the food processor, and rested in the fridge for 48 hours. Baked in the CSO, for about 18 minutes.

What I'm really enjoying on our new Wolf range is the low end/simmer capability of the burners. They're sealed, of course, but dual stacked, and when you turn the knob all the way counter-clockwise, only the lower of the two levels lights automatically...it has basically two sets of controls, one for each burner level. I have yet to use the broiler, but I do also enjoy these full-extension ball-bearing racks, which have a capacity of 50+ pounds each.

I have a problem with this, and that's that I really don't like when I invite people for dinner, and they ask what they can bring. That's your problem...mine is figuring out what to make for dinner, and what we should drink with it. However, we do have friends with nice wine cellars, and sometimes we'll discuss a course or two, and if they offer to bring something to go with that course, I'll quite readily agree. We have been known to bring flowers and/or an orchid, however.