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My 2024 theme - Expanding recipe repertoire
My theme for 2024 is to work on creative avenues, one of which is cooking. I want to expand my recipe book to include more show-off-y meals from a variety of regions. Are there any recommendations for recipes to try out?
As a starter, here is my barbacoa recipe!
Ingredients
4lbs (pre-clean) Beef Cheeks
~1.5 cup Beef Stock
4 Garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
2 Dried Chiles (usually use Guajillo)
1 tsp Adobo paste (Optional; Better than Bouillon)
2 tsp Ground Cumin
2 tsp Mexican Oregano
2 Bay leaves
1 small Cinnamon stick
Salt and Pepper to taste
¼ cup water
Directions
Pre-heat oven to 300°F.
Clean excess fat and cut meat into 3-inch chunks. Season with salt and pepper.
Heat a heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Add vegetable oil just to coat the bottom.
Add beef in batches. Sear for 2-3 minutes per side. Set to the side and repeat with the remaining pieces.
Add everything to the pot with enough broth to almost cover. Add water as necessary.
Bring up to a boil over medium-high. Once boiling, remove from heat and cover.
Place in oven and lower to 285°F. Cook for ~6 hours, stirring occasionally.
Remove aromatics and shred meat.
Liquid should be nearly gone, otherwise reduce further and add shredded meat back to coat.
You may also like my carnitas recipe (for which I measure everything by eye and don't have numbers, adjust for taste):
Serve in tacos or over rice with whatever condiments you eat Mexican food with (sour cream, salsa, etc.)
Ooh I'll give this a shot one day. Gives me a reason to work on my tortillas again too. I just want a texmex style fluffy tortilla. I'm getting closer though...
I've always used store-bought tortillas. They're one of those ingredients that I just don't think of people making from scratch. But now I'm intrigued.
Flour tortillas are pretty simple to make. Corn tortillas are even easier.
I usually start with this recipe. Your favourite recipe site will probably have something similar. The biggest difference in recipes is the source of fat you use. Purists will say lard is the correct way, but sometimes I make these for vegan/vegetarian friends, and olive oil works just fine. I've also used beef tallow. Whatever you have on hand is fine.
Corn tortillas are just masa harina (nixtamalized corn flour) + salt + water. The hardest part of making these (for me) was finding a store that sold masa harina. You can't just use regular old corn flour as it won't absorb the water properly and it'll just crumble when you try to cook it.
One thing I learned how to make that's actually surprisingly easy (but super time consuming) is Ramen (from scratch!)
This channel is where I learned all the basics: https://www.youtube.com/@WayofRamen/videos
I'm lucky enough to have friends that are super picky and not afraid to tell me what I'm missing, so once I started getting better results I started playing around with my recipes and ratios. It's mostly just time for a simple tonkotsu ramen too.
(most people are impressed the most by ramen eggs which I think is actually the easiest part of the recipe lol)
Ramen is one of those I really haven't much exposure to. But the few times I have had it I enjoyed it. Maybe this is the year to hit up more ramen houses...
you should definitely try it more! a good tonkotsu ramen will warm your bones and keep you full for a day haha.
If you don't have The Wok by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, I highly recommend it. It's an excellent guide for recipes (and, more importantly, techniques and mindset) for the most common aspects of southeast Asian cooking.
Separately - what does show-offy mean to you? Do you mean elaborate préparation, good playing, simply uncommon? I have some other suggestions but it'll change based on that.
I've been contemplating The Wok for a bit, glad to hear it's actually worth it. Actually replaced my wok a few months ago so I guess now would be the time.
Ehh whatever you want it to mean really? I have plenty of stupid easy recipes that my wife and I enjoy, but they are not things I would serve to guests. So more of things that are presentable?
This is another dish that has made a repeat appearance as I made it this weekend. Not a lot of work, but very tasty.
Fassoulia Armenian Braised Green Beans
Ok gotcha. Presentability is really more about artistry and - the key word - plating than it is any specific recipe. The same thing can look good or shitty.
So what I would do here is go to something like reddit.com/r/culinaryplating and look at some of the posts there. You'll learn more from the comments, in particular.
Oooh good idea adding cookbooks! My two favorites are Dishoom, which is from the famous chain in London centered around old Irani cafes in Bombay. It gives a lot of recipes for Indian food in general. The other favorite for me is All Under Heaven, a textbook for Chinese cooking.
There was actually a Tildes thread about cookbooks that would help, OP:
https://tildes.net/~food/15wt/what_are_some_of_your_favorite_cookbooks_that_you_find_yourself_returning_to_time_and_time_again
Every time I have made butter chicken or Tikka masala, it has tasted like Chef Boyardee. So Dishoom may be able to help me there.
I also totally missed the cookbook thread, thank you!
The Dishoom butter chicken is called Ruby Chicken and it's really good, but a little non-standard. Their dal recipe is top notch thought, highly recommended, along with the rest of that cookbook. I can recommend this butter chicken recipe as well: https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/butter-chicken/
I saw another comment from OP mentioning more Middle Eastern recipes and I can't recommend this recipe for Cod Cakes in Tomato Sauce enough! It is from his cookbook Jerusalem who he co-wrote with Palestinian Chef, Sami Tamimi. I made them by chance due to trying to salvage some Cod from another recipe that came out flavorless, and oh my God these blew my mind with how good a fish cake can be. I dreamed of these things after having them! Also I recommend checking out the recipes on Middle Eats YouTube channel as well. His cauliflower and Baba Ganoush recipes are amazingly flavorful!
I was going to recommend simply the entire Jerusulum cookbook. I rarely buy physical cookbooks but am glad to have this one.
On a middle-easternish vein, I'd suggest digging into Persian cuisine. A couple showier recipes Id suggest:
-Fesenjoon (walnut pomegranate stew with meat*)
-Gormeh Sabzi (sour herb stew with kidney beans and meat*)
-Kufteh tabrizi (meatballs stuffed with dried fruit and nuts)
-Kuku Sabzi (frittata packed with herbs, walnut, amd dried barberry) isnt showy, but it's delish and quick for days you have less time/energy
*could omit meat, or use mushrooms, to veganize if desired.
Awesome, I'll look into these too. My next planned one is a Cherry Pomegranate Braised Lamb with Persian Rice, so these sound right I line!
I have the Jerusalem book added to a shopping cart based on all the recommendations. And I give high praise to Middle Eats. Haven't done many of his recipes, but the ones I have have been great.
If you're looking for something savory, adobo is probably the ultimate Filipino comfort food. It's a stew made with pork or chicken and oil, vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, black peppercorns, and laurel leaves. It's extremely flavorful, so it's meant to be eaten with rice (plain white rice or garlic fried rice). It keeps well in the fridge too, and still tastes great when reheated, so it's suitable for meal-prepping in advance.
Yes! I have Kenji's video save for this. But I know there are tons of variations that I haven't played with.
One of my go-to recipes for casual dinner with guests is gazpacho, a Spanish cold vegetable soup. Light and refreshing on a warm day, inexpensive, works as a side/soup course but is fairly easy to dress up for a main with additions like a hard boiled egg and garlic bread, and is dead simple and super quick to prepare (seriously, just 5-10 minutes once you’re familiar with it)
I’ve tried a few recipes over the years, but the one we’ve settled on is the NYT “Best Gazpacho”. It doesn’t use any bread as a thickener, just more good olive oil. There’s only a handful of ingredients, mostly just chick in blender. It’s an extremely forgiving recipe and you can play around a lot with it once you have a baseline. Quantities are more suggestions, you can sub in bell pepper if you can’t find a nicer one, rice vinegar works if you don’t have sherry, you can peel the cucumber or not, canned tomatoes work fine, extra garlic/onion for more bite and add more oil if you went too far, strain for super smooth or not if you don’t mind a bit of texture, chill if you have time or not. Seems like no matter what, it turns out great. Garnish with a bit of extra chopped veg and a swirl of oil on top for fancier presentation.
My only suggestions are to use a good quality olive oil - there’s a lot of it in the recipe - and get a strong blender, especially if you’re not planning to strain.
If you'd like a "show-off-y", reliable, attractive, relatively easy cake for beginning bakers, let me recommend Nick Malgieri's Old Fashioned Devil's Food Cake.
The base Devil's Food cake is an American bakery staple - it's rich, intensely chocolatey, and moist. There are no special techniques required, it's dense enough to permit handling the layers easily (you can even sculpt it), it keeps for days without changing flavor or staling. You can easily freeze baked layers and have them available when you want to whip out something impressive. The batter is versatile for cupcakes and loaves as well.
I'm not personally a fan of sweet white icing without any flavorings, but the recipe icing makes a fantastic Christmas party cake with peppermint flavoring and swirls piped with a stripe of red food coloring in the icing bag.
Ganache is a little more technical to work with, but in the bakery café I once worked at, we covered and filled the Devil's Food cake with chocolate ganache, and styled it like this. If you had to call something "Death By Chocolate", it would be that cake.
This recipe for Moroccan Chicken Tagine With Olives and Preserved Lemons is delicious and simple enough that it's in regular rotation in our household for the once-a-week meat meal. It smells and tastes amazing, and makes a good dinner party dish.
I am trying to incorporate more Middle Eastern greater area dishes so I will try and out the tajine chicken! I just got some Aleppo and Sumac for a braised lamb dish, and they have both been used for various other dishes too. Have a really great flavor.
We've been cooking quite often from America's Test Kitchen's The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook. The cookbook incorporates a nice selection of recipes from the Middle East and North Africa, as well as Greece, Italy, Spain, and Southern France. Most recipes are simple enough for weeknight meals, though there are some bigger, showier ones. They tend to avoid inaccessible ingredients or provide sources. The required techniques range from easy to very demanding, but ATK's instructions and photos make the recipes reliably achievable.
3 out of 4 recipes give good results for our tastes. I'd caution against some recipes that depend heavily on in-season vegetables, greens, and herbs if you can't get them at peak flavor. The cookbook is "complete" in the sense that you can build a fully "Mediterranean" healthy diet around the recipes, not that it's comprehensive for any of the individual cuisines referenced.
This blog post really helped up my Japanese curry game. If you are only following instructions on the back of the box you’re missing out on making some really incredible curry. My favorite tips from the article: mixing two different brands of roux for a more complex flavor, and the secret ingredients instant coffee or chocolate
What does show-off-y mean to you? Abundance, aesthetic appearance, elaborateness, etc.?
Not a "add beanie weenies to Kraft" but not full Christmas dinner? Somewhere in between? Like you want to show off when having guests over without breaking the bank. But I'm open to however you want to interpret it.
I've got to admit that the first thing that popped into my mind was the Chef's Choice Platter from Monster Hunter World. 😂 The meal appears to consist of paella, Brazilian BBQ, lobster chowder, rib roast and potatoes, charcuterie sausage and cheeses. You might have fun watching Babish's rendition.
Here are my ideas for some recipes that are probably more in line with what you're looking for.