Cooking tips and wonderful flavour combinations

[baboon2004]

Definitely getting that flavours book - good spot, whoever posted first about it.

Had pan-fried salmon (in butter) with vinegar and capers yesterday - good old Nigel Slater.

 

[gostwan]

This weekend past I was treated to some truly amazing sushi at this restaurant called Ki in Toronto's financial district. Not traditional by any means, but inventive, complex and delicious! Some stand outs:

Spicy Salmon Maki:
Atlantic salmon, asparagus, endive, ao noriko, served on a small trail of raspberry sauce

Kiwi-Tuna Maki:
yellowfin tuna, mango, cucumber, spicy tomato salsa, topped with a thin slice of kiwi and a dab of Kyoto miso
* This one was so good I had to order seconds.

Ki Beef Maki:
scallions, sesame seeds, sweet potato tempura + asparagus, and wrapped (in replacement of seaweed) in a thin strip of teriyaki-glazed AAA Canadian sirloin
* Sushi wrapped in steak! Dun know.

This sound like my idea of heaven, got to get myself to Toronto!

 

[Slothrop]

Definitely getting that flavours book - good spot, whoever posted first about it.

I seriously can't overstate how good it is. I rinsed it for a stir fry tonight - broccoli in a vaguely kung-po style: par-boiled then quickly fried with garlic, chilli and chopped peanuts with a bit of soy and some spring onions sprinkled in at the end. So simple but just improbably tasty, the combination of peanuts and broccoli really adds another dimension to it.

Had pan-fried salmon (in butter) with vinegar and capers yesterday - good old Nigel Slater.

*drools*

Damn you with your not cooking for a vegetarian.

 

[alex]

hi guys, posting alot on here recently..

the salmon recipe mentioned above, can anyone direct me to it?

thanks

 

[Mr. Tea]

Bin baking a lot of my own bread lately. My GF makes this amazing Welsh thing (having grown up there) called bara brith, which is sort of intermediate between cake and bread and involves lost of dried fruit which is soaked overnight in tea; the fruit goes straight into the dough mix and the moisture comes from the remainder of the tea. Fantastic stuff. I've also done white loaves with black pepper and fruit (dates in one loaf, figs in another) and made one with sun-dried tomatoes and black olives last night. Ooohhh, yeah.

Any more interesting bread recipes gladly stol(l)en.

 

[baboon2004]

hi guys, posting alot on here recently..

the salmon recipe mentioned above, can anyone direct me to it?

thanks

sorry, never saw this. no particular recipe as such, I don't think - fry the salmon in butter, then remove when cooked medium, add some vinegar and capers to the pan, scraping out all the bits of fishy goodness. Possibly could add some fumet de poisson if you've got some.

Lemon risotto - fry up chopped shallots and mushrooms until soft, in butter and olive oil. Boil off a splash of vermouth, add arborio, chicken stock, 2 lemons and their zest, etc etc. top with parmesan. Wonderful, and dead cheap aside from the parmesan (don't need much of it anyways)

 

[Slothrop]

Roast cauliflower with smoked paprika. I seriously can't get over what a good combination this is.

Mix it into a salad with red kidney beans, coriander leaves, maybe endive, vinegar and oil or do it with pasta, browned onions, feta and lemon juice. A three-star cast-iron plunger.

 

[nochexxx]

Roast cauliflower with smoked paprika.

smoked paprika? i've not come across this before. is it easily obtained? i've always been envious
about the more superior types of paprika found in Europe. so much more flavourful.

 

[Slothrop]

I got mine in Barcelona, which is probably cheating. Booths stock it, Sainsburys don't. You might need to go somewhere a bit specialized, but once you've got some you're set for a while.

It's really good stuff if you want to give something a nice smoky edge.

 

[simon silverdollar]

you can get smoked paprika in big Tescos. it's also lovely added to scrambled eggs.

 

[routes]

good on a roast chook too

 

[baboon2004]

Sublime Nigel Slater business:

Fry chicken thighs in oil and butter, then add 1 orange juiced, half a sliced orange, halved green olives (I found these worked best), chicken stock, and cook the chicken through. Then, when cooked, finish off the sauce with a bit more butter to make it glossy. I found best served with couscous/bulghur, as it absorbs the flavours well.

Definitely into cooking with oranges now - more recipes welcome. Orange and soy is a good combiantion, I recall.

 

[Dr Awesome]

Made a tasty dry-ish carrot curry for dinner. Cubed carrots, brown sugar, gram masala, tumeric, green chillies (all I had), finished it off with some shredded coconut when it was cooked.
Could have just-have-easily been a vegetarian dinner but I marinaded chicken bits with tandoori paste, lime and unsweetened yoghurt the night before - which went excellently on the BBQ.
Served it with some lightly steamed spinach and lots of rice.

The Carrots were very easy to do, only real time consuming part was peeling and cubing a whole load of em.

 

[baboon2004]

That sounds...awesome, gonna try it. Probably a bit of cumin might work too, given how weel carrots and cumin tend to go together.

Does anyone have a really good method for cooking Tunisian-style carrots (so spices would prob be cumin-coriander-caraway) - they're the best thing I've ever tasted, but can't find any decent way to do them on the internet. Afai remember, you kind of broil/steam them in mixture of oila nd water, but it didn't work well when I tried it.

This looks lush, and healthy, and cheap:

Cook the onion and garlic in the butter until softened. Add the potato and chicken/veg stock and simmer for 15 minutes. Drop in the watercress and wilt for a minute or 2 (you want the soup to be bright green) then transfer to a blender and blend until smooth.
Make the croûtes. Toast the slices of baguette, top them with the slices of goat's cheese, then toast again.
Pour the soup back in the pan and stir in the cream. Season well then pour into bowls and top with a couple of goat's cheese croûtes.

 

[Dr Awesome]

Gram Masala typically has Cumin and Coriander in it. Forgot to add that I chopped fresh coriander over the lot, but that just kinda goes without saying.

I did strongly consider throwing in extra Cinnamon sticks in. My other suggestion would be to add either butternut/pumpkin or perhaps an eggplant instead of just carrorts if you didn't want to have it as a side: bit more variation in colour, texture and taste.
Anyway just brown off your spices in some oil and chuck in the veges. I found the consistency to be a little too dry so soaked the shredded coconut in boiling water for a bit and added that too, later cooked down alot of the moisture but I think it helped. You could try adding a can of coconut milk too for a richer taste.

Oh, if I was going to cook carrots with a Tunisian bent I'd look towards Bay leaves and Saffron.
Fuck I'd love to have a Tajine.

 

[baboon2004]

That is true - didn't realise that til I checked the garam masala ingredient list.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/dining/roshrexonline.html Found this kind of thing on the net, but boiling the carrots doesn't seem to work so well.

Ah, have lots of tagines at my house - never yet tried cooking with them, so maybe that's the secret I'm missing!

Gram Masala typically has Cumin and Coriander in it. Forgot to add that I chopped fresh coriander over the lot, but that just kinda goes without saying.

Oh, if I was going to cook carrots with a Tunisian bent I'd look towards Bay leaves and Saffron.
Fuck I'd love to have a Tajine.

 

[Mr. Tea]

On my birthday last week I celebrated turning 30 by having a bowl of cereals with chooped-up foam banana sweets thrown in. Oh yeah. I am a PROPER GROWN-UP now and everything.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Sublime Nigel Slater business:

Fry chicken thighs in oil and butter, then add 1 orange juiced, half a sliced orange, halved green olives (I found these worked best), chicken stock, and cook the chicken through. Then, when cooked, finish off the sauce with a bit more butter to make it glossy. I found best served with couscous/bulghur, as it absorbs the flavours well.

Definitely into cooking with oranges now - more recipes welcome. Orange and soy is a good combiantion, I recall.

Just tried this out. It was lovely and so easy to make too, I just followed the instructions you wrote in your post and chucked in a bit of basil. Cheers for that one.

Carrots boiled in orange juice is a good combo btw, especially for xmas dinner.

 

[routes]

pasta with marmite?

 

[Slothrop]

Lunch today was a reasonably simple and shockingly tasty salad of roast butternut squash (with cumin and smoked paprika), green lentils, feta and mint.

From Smitten Kitchen, which is a consistent source of great recipes, if you can handle the fact that it's written by a muffin baking Manhattan yummy mummy who makes Nigella Lawson look gutter-punk.