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Favorite cooking aromas?


Stephanie Brim

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I'm roasting tomatoes and garlic at the moment, drenched in olive oil and lightly salted and peppered, and my house smells like garlic. This is one of my favorite things. It's one of those scents that permeates everything in the house for a short time and makes waiting for the final preparation of the dish, this one becoming a very, very garlicky pasta sauce, so much harder.

I also love the smell of bell peppers and onions. I put them on sandwiches, in fajitas, in pasta, in eggs. There's a never-ending amount of things that they just taste amazing in.

What are your favorite cooking aromas and why?

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I love the smell of bacon cooking because evrything tastes better with bacon and while coffee brewing isn't "cooking" I love the smell of that as well. It just makes me want to have a cup and I'm not even much of a coffee drinker (DH is the coffee drinker).

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What's been mentioned before and roasting jalapenos. They smell like victory.

This is my skillet. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My skillet is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it, as I must master my life. Without me my skillet is useless. Without my skillet, I am useless. I must season my skillet well. I will. Before God I swear this creed. My skillet and myself are the makers of my meal. We are the masters of our kitchen. So be it, until there are no ingredients, but dinner. Amen.

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I love the smell of bacon cooking because evrything tastes better with bacon and while coffee brewing isn't "cooking" I love the smell of that as well. It just makes me want to have a cup and I'm not even much of a coffee drinker (DH is the coffee drinker).

You had to pick my two favourite smells Elsie! I'm not a huge coffee drinker either, but I just love the smell.

Add to those two the smell of a smoker in action, especially with hickory wood in it, and I'm in heaven. I know the smoke itself isn't actually a cooking aroma, but it usually isn't smelled without some type of cooking going on, so it counts for me :raz:

edited: to fix some sentence structure

Edited by Shamanjoe (log)

"...which usually means underflavored, undersalted modern French cooking hidden under edible flowers and Mexican fruits."

- Jeffrey Steingarten, in reference to "California Cuisine".

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I love the smell of methi (dried fenugeek leaves). Bacon and onions of course, but methi got into my system years ago when I was testing a lot of Indian recipes and now it makes me salivate when I get a whiff of it.

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

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See, I love the smell of good coffee brewing, but I don't get to have it in my house. My husband hates it. He used to work in McDonald's back in high school and the smell of the coffee left in the pots on the warmer to burn got to him. Now he hates the smell of it. He forever associates it with the bitter, burned smell.

But bacon? Mmm. I love me some bacon, too. I got some really nice, extremely thick cut bacon to attempt carbonara sometime this week. You can't get pancetta within 40 miles of here.

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Great question.

Hmmm, rosemary wafting from the oven makes me weak in the knees.

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

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Moe Sizlack

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+zucchini + olive oil +mint + garlic - this will always remind me of southern italy and summer in a tiled kitchen.

Much later I started to build this website (http://cuuks.com) to remember aroma and tag it with memories.

About me: Jonas Frei - Artisan Cuisinier / PolyScience, ETI, Kisag, SLB distributor for Switzerland. 

I started: www.cuuks.com and the Sous Vide °Celsius App

Twitter: @ArtCuisinier

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How I could forget this one is beyond me...

The smell of chocolate baking into cake, brownies, and cookies.

Oh, and baking bread. That's probably why I have a hard time waiting the whole 24 hours or so before cutting into a high rye sourdough. :hmmm:

Edited by Stephanie Brim (log)
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I also forgot (thanks for the reminder Shamanjoe) the smell of pretty much anything grilling or smoking. I have been known to wander over to a fence when walking the dog to tell them it smells great and ask what are they making.

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too many to list... the most gorgeous smell has got to be smoked meat. it's rather good know a butcher who's also a regular at one of my regular pubs. i always get his homemade smoked pork knuckles in the cold months. my house smells absolutely fantastic when the smoked knuckle is being made into something. hmm... already longing for autumn.

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Most any roasting meat. Nana always made a roast on Sunday for 'dinner' (served @ 1 PM, ALWAYS!) and to come home from Sunday School to that smell of meat in the oven, whether it was beef, pork lamb or chicken, was the smell of comfort and family.

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