I was watching this video. The auto-translated subtitles are not great, but I followed along a bit.

We tried 15 types of Biryani

It made me realise that in the UK I have access to a very limited selection of biryani. From a supermarket it will look like this: https://www.iceland.co.uk/p/iceland-chicken-biryani-375g/87458.html. I'm missing so much knowledge about an enormous region that covers over a billion people.

I'd be really interested to hear about biryani, especially regional variations with different ingredients. What things are essential and often missed? What makes a biryani great?

I'd also love to hear more about delivery - those "handi" ceramic dum cooked to order pots look amazing. There's another video here of an "unboxing" - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Q5OA4XiGl34 , and the makers have a video here too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6nE1Nla3u0

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?

From chicken noodle soup to congee, no matter what cuisine or culture, what do you eat when you're sick? Since everyone around me is getting ill, I'm looking to expand my "sick food" recipes for drop off. Bonus points if it's easy on digestion and will keep in the fridge/freezer for awhile.

Chicken congee is my go to because it's simple and can easily be dressed up or down.

Thanks for all the replies! I love learning about different food (and beverages) so I hope you find something new to try yourselves.

I'm trying to make my own truffle chips for the wife after having it at a nice bar together. Any suggestions as to the types of chips or truffle seasoning? I'm going to try to buy a bag of regular chips, put it into a bowl, and just shake with some truffle salt and truffle oil (real kind not synthetic flavor).

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

*Thanks everyone! Looks like it's time to do it properly instead of the lazy way...

I live in what is basically a studio apartment in someone's basement with a little cobbled-together kitchen in a small room attached to my bed/sitting area. My cooking is done in a largish Cosori convection toaster oven (mine) with a double-hob induction hotplate (kindly provided by landlord) sat on top. The hotplate is from Nutrisystem (not sure of model exactly) and it's definitely a step up from the electric one I brought from my old place (My kitchen was the laundry room there!), but over the last few years there's been a few things about it I don't like so I'm considering buying a new one.

The main problem I have with it is the lack of specificity in the temperature settings: it goes 140°, 210°, 260°, 300°, 350°, 400°, and above that I never really use, but I often have trouble with something cooking too fast at, say, 300° but too slow at 260°. I'd like a device that lets me make smaller, (like maybe 5-10 degree) adjustments at the very least. Also there is the issue that if you go above a certain temp on one hob, it will dial down the other automatically to keep from going over max watts, but it also means I can't boil water on one while searing a steak on the other. Not sure if there's a way around that what with the limitations of current portable cooktop technology and American house wiring codes. As you may have gathered from my living arrangements, I need to keep the cost down to a reasonable <$300, preferably <$200.

Because it needs to sit on top of my toaster oven, I need a side-by-side arrangement. I was gifted Amazon cards for Xmas so I'm hoping to find something on there to defray the cost, but if anyone can point me to the perfect solution somewhere else, I'm interested. Everything I've looked at there so far has preset temp settings and I can't tell if they are fine enough to be any improvement.

Bonus points if anyone knows of an induction-compatible stovetop griddle that heats evenly and isn't heavy-ass cast iron.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Hey everyone, I've recently made a large batch (90ish) of cookies trying to repurpose brownie mix. It's the Ghirardelli kind if you've seen it before.

On the plus side, the texture's great, it looks like a cookie, and it's chewy like the edge pieces of a brownie. It's very chcolatey, and you can see obvious chunks of chocolate. On the minus side, it's extremely sweet.

Does anyone have ideas on how to use this somewhere else less sweet?

Some ideas I've had so far include crushing the cookies into chunks, and using those chunks to make more cookies (all the ingredients except sugar), like how one would reuse old asphalt do when repaving a road. Another idea is making a cake with these scattered throughout, or using it as a cheesecake crust.

I am interested in the amount of variety there is in Christmas dinners. In the UK it tends to be roast meat (and turkey is popular) and a lot of roast veg. The table ends up being quite complicated because Aunt Mabel really wants cauliflower cheese and Cousin Bert needs that braised red cabbage and etc so you end up with a lot of stuff set out.

And that's just the UK - I'd be really interested to know about what people eat in other places.

For me it's going to be simple and quiet this year. Chemotherapy and immunotherapy mean my immune system is struggling and I feel very gently nauseous. I am going to have roast chicken, glazed roast parsnips, carrots (not sure whether mashed, or roasted, or gently steamed), roast potatoes, and roast sprouts. And then my sister made me a Christmas pudding so I'll have that for after.

Here's a description of and recipe for Christmas Pudding: https://www.nigella.com/recipes/ultimate-christmas-pudding

I just bought a Ninja nutribullet-equivalent blender and will be on a smoothie kick for quite awhile. I bought it because I really need to incorporate more fruits and vegetables in my diet and think it will be a good way to replace breakfast and sometimes dessert.

So far, I have bought two huge bags of frozen fruit, one with strawberries, mango, pineapple, and peaches, and the other is a mixed berry with blueberries, blackberries, raspberries. I also got a bag of frozen kale and frozen spinach. I know there are many, many sites out there filled with smoothie recipes but was curious on your favorite go-to recipe.

I'm open minded so share even your weird ones if you got them!

I've offered to cook Christmas Dinner for my husband's side of the family, but have one problem. While my husband and I aren't the biggest beef eaters nor big fans of steak, my in-laws are. I don't mind cooking for their requests and find it a fun challenge to cook a different type of meat, but here's the concern: due to not regularly cooking it, I'm not as well versed in the methods or approaches.

They would prefer either a prime rib roast or beef tenderloin; both cuts I have never worked with. While there are a number of recipes out there, I would like see if anyone on Tildes has a recommendation on how to cook either cut or another of similar quality. My mother-in-law does not like a lot of pink appearing in her steaks as well, so I'm having to consider how to handle that while also not over cooking the meat. I was already considering dry brining it overnight, but after that I'm unsure what direction i would go.

Any tips and advice would be greatly appreciated!

So usually every couple weeks I make a pot roast on the weekend, however my crock pot broke I discovered, just prior to making it. My girlfriend and I need to eat it prior to leaving town this Thursday after work. As I have work all week, I don't have time to make an 8 hour pot roast, so I need an idea of what I can do with this thing.

Hi everyone! I'm looking for a nice chef knife (or small set of cooking knives) for Christmas.

I'm looking around medium end so I'm wanting to spend 100-200 bucks, I'd prefer a small set of 2-4 knives, no large 12-16 sets as I don't believe those are good value.

I've heard good things about Wusthof and Henckels from my friends but I wanted to get a wider net of recommendations just in case before I made a decision

Personally. meringue kisses using a low slow bake recipe are my favorite for parties and gatherings. They are gluten free, they can be made with and without chocolate chips, they look sophisticated as long as they don't crack in transit and I really like them.

Banana bread and zuchini bread are typical snacks around our house. Nothing unique about the recipes, I just like them.

Hi everyone. I'm interested in trying my hand at integrating spent coffee grounds into recipes for making various foods as an experiment, but I am also in the process of controlling / reducing my weight and log my calorie intake for everything I eat.

My google-fu has failed me and I absolutely cannot find calorie value information on spent coffee grounds. I can find coffee beans (whole / unused) and I repeatedly find that black brewed coffee has negligible calorie content, but nowhere do I find the calorie values for used / spent coffee grounds.

Anyone know where I can source this data?

My husband and I will be alone this Thanksgiving, so we decided to cook a smaller bird than a turkey, specifically a duck. I like duck and frequently order it at restaurants where available, but don't have much experience. I found a low slow roasting recipe that looks promising. I'm already familiar with soup making.

What advice do you have re sauces and meals using leftovers?

I am preparing to make beef bourguignon for my Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow (Kyiv cake for dessert) so I am watching Julia Child's take on it.

She mentioned that if you want the dish to be really French than you could buy imported bay leaves from France because they have a different flavor than American bay leaves. It made me start thinking about where my spices were grown and if all of them have specific regional variances that can take specific dishes to the next level. I knew honey can taste wildly different based on the region's flora that was available to make the honey, but never thought too much about spices.

Have you found that using spices from their region of origin significantly enhances a dish?

I have a rather impressive collection of thrifted equipment I use for my morning latte. Each piece has required a little bit of investigative repair in order to get it working just right, but I've recently been stumped by my newest addition, a Bodum conical burr grinder.

My current espresso machine is a single boiler Breville with a standard portafilter (no diaphragm or valves in the portafilter, so the resistance needs to come from finely enough ground coffee.)

My question is this; is it possible to calibrate the Bodum grinder at all? It's finest setting is apparently not quite fine enough to provide the right resistance for the espresso maker, so I've needed to regrind my coffee with a blade grinder to get the right consistency.

Cheers in advance!

I know this is a weird thing to ask, but google is failing me and I don't have enough agricultural knowledge to know where to start looking. I'm hoping this isn't another food thing I'm the only one who thinks about.

I love carrots but I'm increasingly irritated by the tiny long carrots that I can find in the markets. I just bought a bag of carrots that had a number of them thinner than my pinky finger. In the meanwhile whenever I look at cooking shows on Youtube that are made in other countries they have thicker, longer, or otherwise more substantial carrots. The ones in Japan seem huge; some of them look like they have a 2" diameter!

Is it just that they are using a different variety? If so, why would they be using those tiny ones here?

Meat and other related animal products are well-known for being efficient at providing the body with all nine essential amino acids. But as someone who is relatively new to eating a completely plant-based diet, I am struggling to find a variety of foods to incorporate into my meals to get an adequate amount of complete protein. I'd love to hear anything and everything from more experienced vegans about getting protein!

Kvass is a traditional Slavic beverage that is made by fermenting rye/wheat bread/flour/malt. The result is low alcohol (usually <0.5%), carbonated, and balances sweet, bready flavor with a refreshing tartness reminiscent of kombucha. It's a great substitute for beer, in my opinion, for people who can't tolerate significant amounts of alcohol.

This is not a common beverage outside of Eastern Europe. I've had freshly made kvass a couple times at Russian restaurants in the US, but it seems like the only other way to buy it is to find an store (brick-and-mortar or online) that imports canned or bottled kvass from the Slavic homeland - it doesn't seem like there are any US-based kvass brewers. On a lark, I bought some Russian kvass online - a brand called 'Букет Чувашии' (Buket Chuvashii - 'Bouquet of Chuvashia') - and it was actually pretty good compared to what I've had in the past. I'm interested in trying other brands as well, but looking through reviews, it seems like a lot of brands are more akin to weakly-flavored bread soda than a real fermented drink. I wanted to see if other people who drink kvass have any recommendations for what brands to try.

Another option is to home-brew kvass. Theoretically, this should be similar to brewing kombucha, or any other lightly fermented food or drink. It looks like there are even a few places where you can buy kvass 'starter kits'. A lot of instructions for homebrewing kvass suggest using brewer's yeast though, and it seems like it would be harder to limit the alcohol content this way. As far as I can tell, traditional kvass cultures are a mix of yeast and lactic-acid producing bacteria (again, similar to kombucha) - would using a kombucha starter culture work to brew kvass? If anyone here has experience brewing kvass, I'd love to hear about your experiences!

I love fried chicken sandwiches. I have loads of fast food options as well as one off restaurants around me that offer fried chicken sandwiches, some that it is their claim to fame. It doesn’t seem to matter where I go in search of the best fried chicken sandwiches, or how much money I spend, Popeyes is always the best.

Two topics to start discussion:

1. What is your favourite fried chicken place where you live? Bonus points if you live around Vancouver, BC, Canada and can introduce me to a new favourite chicken place.

2. What does Popeyes do to get such consistency across all locations, and why the heck is it so good?

I’m not a child, but I very often eat peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. They’re quick and easy to make, and I can leave them in my bag until lunch and then just eat them as-is. With banana slices inside, it’s a decent meal. I also prefer not eating meat, so it gets points for that too. But it’s not particularly exciting, not particularly well-balanced, and I frankly feel a little childish eating it.

The problem is that I very often have no refrigeration and no means of re-heating. I used to just have leftovers for lunch, but room temperature leftovers usually aren’t the most appealing.

For those of you who don’t buy lunch out, what do you do? Any recommendations for something that’s still tasty after sitting in a bag the whole morning?

I've been really bad at coming up with things to cook lately, resulting in me eating the same unhealthy food all the time. I'd like to change this and to get familiar with new recipes, so I was wondering if the users of Tildes have any good recipes to share. Vegetarian and vegan are preferred, but non-vegetarian recipes are also very welcome!

What are your go-to cheap, easy and healthy recipes?

Edit: I'm too overwhelmed by all your comments to respond to everybody individually, but I thank you all for the great suggestions, these are of great help!

I just made this coronation chickpea sandwich filler and I feel compelled to shout from the rooftops how good it is! I love a good meaty dish but I genuinely feel like this is better than the traditional coronation chicken version - to the point that I don't see a reason to bother with coronation chicken again. I will always have this instead now. There is a caveat; I did make a few tweaks to this:

• I replaced the tinned chickpeas with 200g of dried chickpeas, soaked overnight and cooked with a few bay leaves and plenty of salt
• I replaced half of the mayonnaise with greek yoghurt (I do this for coleslaw and potato salad too and it's great)
• I toasted whole spices and made my own curry powder

Even without these changes I'm sure it's still a very tasty end result. Has anyone else had a similar experience? What vegetarian or vegan dishes have you found that are superior to their meat counterparts?

It doesn't need to be from countries known for "bad" cuisine. Just try to avoid obvious countries like Italy, France, Japan or China (as a handful of examples).

Having said the above, that is also coming from a western (European) perspective. If those countries are not well known for their cuisine in your area, then feel free to choose them!

Hello!

As I've been diagnosed with IBS, I've been looking at ways to reduce my symptoms and one of the options I've been told about is a low FODMAP diet.

I am still looking into this, and so far I've only read a bunch of confusing or incomplete/surface level information.

This made me curious about the experience that other people have had any recommendations or stories someone might have.

Also if you know of any good apps for tracking what you ate and how you've felt throughout the day, please let me know.

Thanks!

I've recently made my own Chai Spice blend courtesy of Meera Sodha's cookbook, Made in India: Recipes from an Indian Family Kitchen. Instead of just turning on the kettle and throwing in a teabag, this requires a little bit more effort and setting a pot on the stove in addition to making the spice blend itself. Sure it's not instantaneous gratification, but it's a lovely slow-down in comparison to my busy days and deliciously more flavorful than a typical teabag. It allows me to be present with what I am doing and enjoy it.

The smell of the spice as it starts to simmer into the milk and tea. The need to watch my pot of chai for the right moment to turn down the heat so it doesn't scald. The delicate balancing act of straining floating spices out to make a smoother cup. The gentle clings of a spoon to sweeten it all with a touch of sugar.

I'm curious about what other folks do as mindful acts of food and drink. It can be a comfort meal, a tasty snack, a special drink, or anything in between! Maybe we could all inspire each other to incorporate a new way to find moments of peace through a hobby we mutually love in the joy of cooking.

I'm constantly using the Better Than Bouillon vegetable base when I need vegetable broth, because it's so convenient, space efficient, and it keeps longer than those cartons of vegetable broth.

But, I recently looked at the ingredients and was a bit put off, as I've been trying to eat healthier (less salt, sugar, and processed ingredients.)

Does anyone have any recommendations for something with a similar level of convenience and shelf life?