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Has anyone had any new cooking adventures during the quarantine?
I know it sounds like a weird question to ask, but I feel like everyone is much more likely to be cooking at home at the moment.
I know that Bon Appetit gets a lot of love around here and there’s been a few times where I’ve just watched one of their videos and said, “That looks good...I should just make that for dinner tonight. I’ve got the time!” I did that a few days ago with their Lamb Dumpling recipe and it came out amazing.
I’m currently using my leftover lamb and pork mixture to make a rice dish.
I’ve also been working on perfecting my cast iron pizza cooking skills.
I've discovered the magic of fermented black bean sauce--that stuff is absolute witchcraft when you add it to some red onions during a sauté. Great for stir-fry, rice bowls, egg scrambles, whatever.
You mean the Chinese style one, right?
Do yourself a favor and get some fine minced pork and noodles and make Zhajiangmian. It's simple, fast, filling, and delicious.
I think so, yes. And will do! I'm about to venture out to the local Asian supermarket tomorrow, so I'll give it a shot! Thank for the tip.
I've not done anything major but did learn that air-popping popcorn, coating it lightly in vegetable oil, and pouring spices on makes a good cheap snack. There was a period of a week or two where I was eating thyme popcorn almost every day.
My wife and I have been making pepcorn for the past few weeks instead of regular popcorn and it’s delicious.
Do you coat before or after they are popped? Whichever way I do it, they tend to get soaked or at best, very unevenly oily for me.
I coat them after popping. I pour the oil over a ladle and then mix it up and it seems to do a pretty good job at keeping the popcorn from getting gummy. For a large batch, it might take 3-4 pours to get everything coated well.
I only do a teeny bit of oil at the start, but I've experimented with spray-on olive oil and it's been okay.
The key is to drizzle in small amounts and constantly agitate. And by agitate, I mean beat that popcorn container like it owes you money.
Alternatively, use Alton Brown's popcorn method to ensure the oil spreads evenly as it pops. You can also get a whirly-pop if you are ok with unitaskers; I find them to be much easier to use.
Most importantly, experiment with flavors. You have a spice cabinet; make use of it! Though I will admit that my favorite is still salt and pepper.
Any spices you've had success with? Thyme sounds great. I'm also tempted to experiment with some sweet stuff, maybe cocoa could be good.
You really should experiment because you will find that your palate is completely different from mine. But some of the better options IMHO are chili powder, cinnamon and sugar, and curry powder. If you make your popcorn oily enough, it may be able to hold on to Parmesan cheese, but you really shouldn't eat too much of that.
Oh cinnamon is a great idea. But ew on the rest, different palate indeed! ;)
A few!
First, eggs. I've been watching a bunch of J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's videos lately, and he's been super active filming form home during the quarantine. For whatever reason, I've taken to his egg videos most.
First, the one-pan egg sandwich. I think it became a small-scale trend, but unlike a lot of food fads or hacks, it's just a convenient way of making an egg sandwich. I usually keep it simple with just eggs and cheese (and salt & pepper), and I tend to use bigger slices of bread that only require a single fold (and trimming a tiny bit on the sides to put back in the center).
Second, the Spanish tortilla. Very similar to a frittata, which more people will be familiar with, but made entirely on the stove. I made this one simply because I had some leftover chips. :p
And finally, extra-creamy scrambled eggs. I think this is just generally the French style of scrambled eggs. Anyway, I love serving the eggs in a small bowl with a side of toast to dip into it. Super fancy-feeling and tasty in like 5-10 minutes. My new favorite breakfast/light meal.
I also made some pulled pork! We got a few pieces thanks to a sale at the supermarket, so we took the chance to do an experiment: cooking two in a kamado/big green egg/akorn-style smoker vs. our verticle smoker. The kamado was super sensitive to tweaking of the vents, but incredibly stable and efficient. The vertical smoker was a lot more finicky, but forgiving if you got it too hot (and ESPECIALLY if the fire goes out, which is unlikely with the kamado but an absolute nightmare if it happens, since the fire is in a closed system underneath the food). Most importantly, the kamado just plain had better results, being done faster and with better results. Granted, that might be down to technique, or even something like the accuracy of the built-in thermometer on our vertical smoker. It could also be because the vertical smoker had a much less stable temperature. Regardless, we're going to favor our kamado next time we make the recipe. (The vertical smoker is fantastic for pork loin and fish, though!).
And a while back I made a cottage pie thanks to a Binging with Babish video. Technically that was before the quarantine, but early in the quarantine I made something similar with boneless skinless chicken thighs, and the results were fantastic.
Since you are doing egg stuff, I would recommend trying to make Tamagoyaki (Japanese rolled omlette) next. It takes a bit of practice to get it right, but it's got a different texture. Plus they add a bit of sweetness so it's a different kind of flavor than you might be used to eating eggs with.
Ooh, good call. I tried that a while back but couldn't get it right, so now's a good time to practice.
I think I blamed it on the fact that I didn't have a rectangular pan, but some video recipes seem to indicate I was just making excuses. :p
You can absolutely make it with a round pan, it just won't be as 'pretty'. Though to be fair, it's ever so slightly easier with a rectangular pan. In any case I wouldn't make the purchase without practice.
Also, don't worry about not making it perfect. It's still a rolled omelette even if the inside is messed up, and if you mess up the outside it's just scrambled eggs.
Yes! I've been learning how to properly cook and season a beef steak at first :) Then I've taught myself how to do cook a delicious mushroom cream sauce because that's one of those things that always taste really good to me and the recipe was fairly easy. Now I'm in the process of learning how to do proper pizza dough and how to freeze it properly, so that in the future I can just make enough dough for like 4-6 pizzas and freeze it. This way I can make a fresh and delicious pizza in about 10 minutes. At some point all this frozen food got too boring so I picked up some stuff to cook :)
My wife does most of the cooking and baking and has made all sorts of things. But here's something fairly simple: homemade bread, beyond sausage, and bread-and-butter pickles make for a tasty alternative to a hot dog.