Cooking tips and wonderful flavour combinations

[Numbers]

I was at some Italians this weekend and we had like a hour long, very heated ragu discussion, with much secrecy and NONONO you DONT do it that way lol.

Italian kitchen was never codified as the French. That's why every village (and every family within it) has its own version of most recipes. Best way to discriminate between differing opinions is your own taste and some geographical knowledge: you just don't ask a sicilian how to make polenta, for example.

@viktorvaughn

If the taste is good, don't worry about the colour. Just mince your carrots smaller

@mr tea

You could use butter too, it often works even better. It helps to keep the meat from drying out during the long cooking.

 

[mistersloane]

My girlfriend turned her career on its head and now works in a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Yesterday she grilled up a couple of burgers for us, served with home-made slaw and roast potatoes done in goose fat and olive oil. The house was full of black smoke but my tastebuds saw God.

Congratulations to Ms Tulip! You lucky lucky tulip you.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I often fry the onions and garlic in a mix of butter and oil but I usually brown the mince separately, with just a little oil and salt, so I can drain off the excess moisture and fat. But maybe next time I'll add some butter to re-fatify it...mmm...

 

[mistersloane]

"Perfect Carbonara" in the Guardian today :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandst...ay/10/how-to-cook-perfect-spaghetti-carbonara

We shall see this weekend. I like that column in the Guardian, it's handy.

 

[viktorvaughn]

Yeah it's quite good having people do a bit of research for you.

I'm getting some pork belly asap and going to make panchetta so I'll post some pics when it's done, needs a week dry cure in the fridge then two weeks drying in the air.

 

[DannyL]

I've tried a couple of times. I don't think I've quite got the technique down and I don't really understand the variables involved well enough to know what I'm doing wrong.

I'd like to be able to make stuffed pasta, but it doesn't really seem worth the investment of time and effort that it's going to take to learn to do it consistantly well by trial and error.

it's relatively easy to make the normal stuff, but it's just a space constraint as much as anything else. I only have a tiny worksurface and rolling out these big long sheets is not especially easy, and like you say the results have never seemed worth the investment - I blame Jamie Oliver. Getting a copy of The Naked Chef was the only reason I bought the bloody machine in the first place.

I'd made ravoli a few times but it's never been that amazing, and it's very easy to get wrong also. I would like to have the ability as part of my general cheffing skill base but will I ever consistently try? Maybe not.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Picked some very early field mushrooms that I spotted cycling back from work today and just fried them up in lots of butter with red onions and garlic. Added cream, chicken stock, white wine, pepper and some mixed herbs then poured over tagliatelle once it had reduced to a nice savoury beige sauce. Finished with rocket, parmesan, lemon juice and more pepper.

Not going to win any prizes for originality but the tastiness/effort ratio was pretty high, as well as costing virtually nothing beyond about 50p's worth of wine.

 

[Ann.J]

light diet and tasty snack

try cottage cheese with parsely and black pepper mixed together and filled into a roll. simply delicious. cottage cheese like never before! will change your conception that cottage cheese is bland! a perfect snack option for the diet concious as well as diebetic people out there. no more cheese-less days for you

 

[luka]

thats good. my cheeseless days have been getting me down a bit. do you remember cottage cheese with pineapple? that was good.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I'm quite prejudiced against cottage cheese, to the extent that I think it would have to be laced with LSD or similar in order to make it 'interesting'. If we're talking creamy white cheeses I'd much rather eat goat's cheese or Caerphilly. Or feta.

 

[mistersloane]

The actuality of a cottage cheese spambot has really upset me.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The actuality of a cottage cheese spambot has really upset me.

Get outta town! Really? Can you post some cottage-cheese-related spam here?

Maybe the next step is Spam spam. Oh dear, this is getting a bit Monty Python...

 

[baboon2004]

goat's cheese is lush. Just discovered Kidderton Ash - amazing stuff, markedly better than the French goat's cheese I used to buy by default.

 

[mistersloane]

Get outta town! Really? Can you post some cottage-cheese-related spam here?

Maybe the next step is Spam spam. Oh dear, this is getting a bit Monty Python...

Maybe I'm wrong but I thought A** J's post was spam. Cottage cheese spam. Does that even exist? It does now. It scares me. It's a portent. There's an ill wind spreading.

Prove me wrong, A** J. Please.

 

[Mr. Tea]

OIC. I didn't think it was spam because it wasn't promoting any particular brand of cottage cheese. Maybe it's from the British Cottage Cheese Promotion Board?

 

[viktorvaughn]

I'm quite prejudiced against cottage cheese, to the extent that I think it would have to be laced with LSD or similar in order to make it 'interesting'. If we're talking creamy white cheeses I'd much rather eat goat's cheese or Caerphilly. Or feta.

you can make quite nice fresh cheese by straining milk in muslin with lemon to curdle it if i remember correctly. breaks down into a lovely pasta sauce with olive oil, chilli, garlic etc.

 

[viktorvaughn]

i'm on a bit of a meat curing tip at the mo and got some duck prosciutto hanging in my loo. Seems pretty piss easy - a day of salt cure in the fridge then hang for a week in muslin...will post a pic when done.

 

[luka]

doesnt sound very hygenic

 

[Mr. Tea]

The phrase "piss easy" made me feel a bit queasy, I have to say.

 

[mistersloane]

OIC. I didn't think it was spam because it wasn't promoting any particular brand of cottage cheese. Maybe it's from the British Cottage Cheese Promotion Board?

Yeah they do random posts on message boards occasionally, just in case we'd forgotten about cottage cheese.

Cottage cheese is from the devil. I can't think of many things that look more gross. Clotted spunk.