Cooking thread all right.. Used to live off ?2 a day so I know about budget cooking, but I have a little more leeway now. I'll post the meal I cooked last night. I'm not really one for weights and measures, how much I use is basically just intuition or experience. Anyway.
Mushroom risotto with balsamic glaze
Ingredients:
Onions (or shallots if you're feeling flush)
Garlic
Mushrooms - the more the better. This works with pretty much anything, and I mostly use a mix, but favourite would be porcini (obviously) and enoki.
Italian rice (carnaroli if you can, arborio and vialone nano are fine though)
Butter
White wine if you're feeling rich
Vegetable stock (chicken stock if you are animal devouring swine)
Balsamic vinegar
Honey
All yr favourite herbs and spices (I don't really use many in this to be honest. Pepper because pepper in everything, a bit of salt because mushrooms need it, that's about it. If I get bored I might throw some northern european herbs in)
Pamigiano Reggiano or other italian hard cheese
Extra virgin olive oil.
If you've made risotto before you know what to do. Chop up the onion/shallots and mushrooms until they are a size that you feel like eating. If you want to add something else to the dish, this is probably the time to do it.
Melt half the buter in a big, wide pan and throw all that stuff in.
Cook it on a medium-high heat for a good while, until the onion has goldened and softened and the ingredients have imparted their flavour to the butter.
Add the rice into the pan now. Add a little butter if it's getting too dry, but you basically want to fry the rice for as long as you have the guts to, almost until it's sticking to the pan. This is a really important step for the final texture of the meal.
During this time, boil up some water, and make up a pot of stock. Leave it simmering.
Start the balsamic glaze now if you are doing it.
When you've chickened out of frying the rice anymore, add the wine if you're using it (about a wine glass or two). If not, add a little of the stock. The procedure is the same.
The method for cooking risotto involves adding the stock (and wine if using) in small amounts over a long time, whilst slowly stirring the entire time. The stock should never be swamping the rice, just add a little bit (about as much wine as you added), cook it until it's absorbed and it looks like it did before you added it, then add some more!
This part of the meal is pretty boring after you've done it 100 times before. It normally takes about 20 minutes from adding the wine or first stock to the time when you can start eating.
Get yr italian hard cheese of choice, and grate a bunch of it really finely. Then if yr feeling fancy, cut unbelievably thin shavings of it for a garnish. Like a quarter of a millimetre or whatever.
Keep tasting the rice. Eventually it will reach a texture that you find pleasant. I like it fairly al dente, but whatever, YOU ARE THE KING AND YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU WANT.
You also want the rissotto to be the correct consistency when you reach this moment. It shouldn't be so dry that it just clumps up, but not so wet that it would need to be served in a bowl. If you drag your spatula through it in the pan, it should slowly fill in the gap your spatula made, taking a few seconds.
When you have reached this glorious moment, throw in the rest of the butter (about as much again as you used at the start) and all the finely shaved cheese. Stir that in. This will make it extra creamy and tasty. Both of these are good things.
Serve it out on plates. Put those little shavings of parmesan on if you made them. Drizzle the balsamic glaze on or around the risotto if you made that too.
Eats.
Balsamic Glaze:
Started doing this recently because I was bored of just cooking the rice. The flavours go together nicely though so hooray. It's also really really simple.
Pour some balsamic vinegar into a pan. Use about 4 times the volume that you want the glaze to eventually be. Add a little e.v. olive oil and a teaspoon of honey. Then just boil it. Just keep it on another ring when you're making the rice. Make sure it's not bubbling wildly. When it's about 25% of the volume it originally was, it should be ready. if you put a spoon in, it should be viscous enough to coat the back of it. It will take about 20-30 minutes. This stuff has a pretty strong taste, so you only want a light drizzle on your food.
Price of the meal: If you use cheap mushrooms, cheap parmesan, no wine, and miss out on the balsamic glaze, this meal is really cheap. A bag of risotto rice such as you can buy from a supermarket will feed 4 people comfortably. Even if you use everything I said, it wont cost ?10, and almost all that cost is the wine and the balsamic vinegar, most of which you will get at the end. Balsamic vinegar is awesome to have around, and you can drink the rest of the wine with the meal. Hooray!
More later maybe. Thanks for everyone who posted recipes.
Here's a recipe that I love because it is quick, easy and cheap:
Prep time: ~30 min
Serves: ~3
Ingredients:
canned salmon (I use Deming's)
canned peas
(of course you can always substitute fresh, just have to cook it first)
flour
milk
butter
salt &pepper
Salted crackers (I use Saltine)
put salmon in bowl (be sure to save the liquid), remove skin from salmon, feed skin to cats
White sauce:
melt 3/4 of a stick of butter.
remove from heat.
add 1/3 cup flour, slowly at first, whisking with fork or whisk until no more lumps.
return to heat until bubbly.
remove from heat.
add 1 and 1/4 cups milk, slowly at first, whisking with fork constantly.
return to heat and stir continuously until it reaches the consistency of a medium paste
at this point it will start to pull away from the walls of the saucepan.
(normally you probably wouldn't want a whit sauce this thick)
remove from heat.
add salmon, salmon liquid, drained peas.
Heat through
add salt an pepper to taste (I add a good amount)
serve over buttered crackers or plain crackers or any other carb (but crackers work best because they are crunchy, toast would probably work).
This afternoon I was introduced to a simple potato dish that was divine!
I shall recall its ingrediants and methods as best I can.
Ingredients:
Potato's (obviously) - in as large an amount as you feel necesary (around 1 and 1/2 per person)
Onion - Possibly one of the best vegetables around, one large one should suffice.
Garlic - Your girlfriend is gonna love you for this, 1 or 2 cloves depending if you want to be kissed later on.
Butter - Margarine will do the job just aswell if not better, and it will probably be cheaper too. 1 nob (of marge!)
Some pasta sauce? - Not to sure about this but Ian kindof found some in a pan and used a little bit in it. =P
Method:
Cut potato's into quaters (scrub them and leave their skins on) and put them in a pan to boil.
When they have been cooked to a nice standard (semi firm but we are going to mash them so it doesn't really matter) remove them from the pan (Sensibly! I'm not responsible for you picking them out with your hand).
Cut the onion roughly and crush the garlic (no one really likes a large chunk of garlic in there meal).
While you are doing this, puut the big nob of butter in a large frying pan and let it heat on a low to medium heat.
When it reaches the desired frying temperature, put the garlic and onion in the pan stirring often.
When the onion has been sucessfully sauteed put the potato's in the pan and turn it down to low.
MILDLY mash the potato's in the pan so that they are semi squashed, enough to be recognized as mash but not bashed the hell out of.
Add dried herbs and spices if you are thatway inclined and add a little bit of pasta sauce (good quality stuff that isnt completely a liquid) but remember only use a tad of pasta sauce!
Stirr it all in and when it's all at a good temperature (more or less instantly) it can be served!
Voila! My late night gourmet post has reached it's end. When I'm not so shattered I might post some more.
And nice to know that there are other passionate culinares out there Reverend Del!
Roabot Signing off to rub aloe vera on his extreme sunburn.
Happy cheffing!
My Character stories: Dr Nathan Heart umm thats all so far...
You may not believe it but Coke can be used for other things but drinking. Try throwing Mentos in it for example... no, better don't. This one is for the more experimental ones among you.
Ingredients
Roast
1,5kg Roast Pork (Neck or shoulder should be ok)
200g Mango Chutney
1 Cup Ketchup
1,5 Cups Water
2 Bags instant onion soup
0,5l Coke
Salt
Pepper
Thyme
Method
1. Heat up your oven to 200C (that'd be 392F if I calculated correctly...)
2. Wash the meat, dab it dry and put it into a roasting tray. Mix all the other ingredients and pour the resulting sauce over the meat. Leave some thyme leaves and put them over the meat now.
3. Now put the roasting tray into the pre-heated oven and let it cook for 2 hours. Don't forget to pour the sauce over it from time to time!
4. During the two hours, you have now time to prepare your side dish. I'd recommend fried potatoes, boiled potatoes or chips.
5. Enjoy your meal!
This recipe actually is quite easy to prepare and a funny experience. The most important part is to look after the roast every now and then (I'd recommend every 10-15 minutes) and pour the sauce over it.
Note: please point me towards any translation/grammar/etc mistakes... I'm not sure if I got everything right.
I may have to rename this to the Discovery Good Food Guide, keep the recipes coming folks. I'll post a recipe for Korma after I've made one and eaten some of it.
Sleipnir, that recipe sounds very interesting. Very experimental to boot. I may try that out as well as that lovely sounding mushroom risotto.
Om, nom, nom, nom.
Kedgeree
This one is stolen from a damn good cookbook, but it tastes great and can be dirt cheap to boot. The Scots amongst us may recognize it, as it's a fairly traditional Scottish recipe.
Ingredients
* 300g basmati rice
* 100g unsalted butter
* 2 tbsp olive oil
* 1 tbsp hot curry paste (Madras)
* 1 small red onion , finely chopped
* 225g hot smoked salmon , cut into chunks or flaked
* 4 hard-boiled eggs , shelled then roughly chopped
* 4 spring onions , cut into 3cm lengths and finely shredded
* juice of 1 lime
* 2 tbsp each chopped fresh coriander and flatleaf parsley
Method
1. Throw the rice into a large heavy-based saucepan, pour over 700ml/11⁄4 pints water and sprinkle in a good shake of salt. Cover and bring to the boil, then remove the lid and allow all the water to be absorbed - this should take about 15 minutes. Turn off the heat, cover again and allow to steam dry.
2. Melt half the butter with the oil in a large frying pan. Stir in the curry paste and cook until you start to smell the wonderful aromas.Now add the onion and cook until softened and beginning to brown.
3. Next throw in your rice and quickly stir to make sure all the buttery juices are absorbed and the rice is heated through. Now mix in the salmon, eggs, spring onions and lime juice. Stir gently, chuck in the herbs along with cubes of the remaining butter and serve in warm bowls.
Getting ahead
Prepare up to a day ahead, keep back the herbs. Tip mixture into an ovenproof dish, dot with knobs of butter. Cool, then cover with foil and keep in the fridge until needed. Half an hour before serving, heat through in the oven, stir in the herbs.
Saint Del is considered a holy healer of diseases of children, but also as a protector of cattle.
And now for the first in my curry recipes. Korma. You can use either curry powder, mild ideally for this one, or you can build the spices from scratch. I'll update the recipe accordingly when I re-discover what spices go best in this dish (which means I need to utterly rebuild my collection of spices)
Korma
Ingredients
Chicken,
Beef (Or good steak)
Red Pepper
Green Pepper
Tomato Puree (Roughly a tablespoon)
Mild curry powder ( 2 teaspoons)
Double Cream
Hard boiled eggs (1 or 2 per person)
Coconut milk
Diced Potatoes (boiled until tender)
Veg ( I use spinach, broccoli and asparagus in the main.)
Chopped Tomatoes.
Salt
Method:
This one can be long and involved.
1. Boil the potatoes and eggs together for about 15 minutes. The potatoes will be soft and eggs hard boiled which is perfect.
2. Shell the eggs.
3. Slice up you peppers and onions, and if you're using fresh veg, your veg, put all this to one side.
4. Add a tablespoon of oil to a hot pan, add in the spices, puree and a good pinch of salt. fry for about 3 minutes being very careful not to burn the spices.
5. Fry your meat in the resultant spice paste to give them a real nice dose.
6. Add chopped tomatoes and cream and coconut milk. Mix until it starts to bubble. Throw in all the stuff you put aside earlier. (Cover and leave to cook.) At this point turn your hob down to about mark 2. We don't want it to burn.
7. It'll take about half an hour, don't forget to check back often to stir and add in a bit of water to keep the sauce a sauce.
8. To truly infuse everything, cook it for about 3 hours. It's not necessary but really does make everything taste even better.
Rice.
1. Boil up some water.
2. Add a pinch of saffron, yes saffron. Yep it's hellishly expensive. But it's worth it.
3. Add the rice and cook for as long as needed to get it to the way you like it.
Serve.
It's a damn tasty and aromatic curry. Don't ruin it by putting too much spice into it, this one is designed to be mild. Serve it with some Naan breads and chapattis, the way it's intended to be eaten.
A word to the wise, this dish, as I've written it here is not cheap if you use steak, saffron and fresh veg. The steak and saffron alone will eat a student's budget to the point they have to run back to the parents to pay for any additional food. You can avoid that by substituting turkey for both meats, not using saffron and using frozen veg. Or missing out the veg altogether.
Saint Del is considered a holy healer of diseases of children, but also as a protector of cattle.
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