I've really enjoyed Kenji's channel as I find it informative and not oversensationalised like the vast majority of food YouTube channels.

Are there any others that have got that magic mix of giving the food science and practicality, while avoiding the clickbait and sensationalism stereotype?

Very basic question, what are the herbs/spices/seasonings that are the staples of your cooking?

Are there any that you use that are under-the-radar that you recommend?

I ask because I have gotten into cooking a lot more in the last six months or so and am looking to restock a spice rack I have had for years with things I will use. So nothing is too simple (salt/pepper) I'm just looking for ideas and looking to see what flavors the rest of Tildes enjoys!

I've got a small collection of equipment. I've been really cautious about buying more. There are a few things I regret buying.

1. A series of knives that were good enough, but actually garbage, rather than just spending £30 on a victorinox or similar.

2. A garlic thing which looks cool but is hard to use. Garlic crusher by Royal VKB

And I was wondering, are there any bits of kit that you thought were going to be great but which ended up in the back of a cupboard or drawer?

I specifically say "easiest" not "best", because sometimes we're tired after work and just want a five/ten minute thing.

I'm currently eating a bowl of my easiest salad, consisting of:

Ingredients
Can of chickpeas
Bunch of roquette (aragula for the Americans here)
Couple of handfuls of green beans
Couple of tomatoes
Alfalfa if you have it

Dressing
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Olive oil
Swish of red wine vinegar (white wine vinegar would work as well, as would balsamic probably)
Salt/pepper
Lemon juice
Dried dill (optional)

Looks like a lot, but if you have the ingredients it's super easy.

1. Drain the chickpeas, put in a bowl, add all the dressing stuff.
2. Stir, and also maybe mash some of the chickpeas for texture (I just use a fork and do both at the same time)
3. Roughly chop up the tomatoes and green beans, add them and the roquette/alfalfa to the chickpeas, then eat.
   Takes like five minutes.

What are yours? I am so so often lazy and hungry. I need easy recipes.

So I'm a new grill owner (gas) and don't yet have an actual brush to clean the grates off between use. So far I've just been scraping them clean with whatever I have nearby (foil has worked well enough) but I want to buy an actual brush.

Thing is, I keep hearing all this horror talk about wire brushes getting lodged in your gut due to them shedding. Any recommendations for a good brush? Either a wire one that is known to be high quality, or a nylon one that is built well? Any other tools you use often on your grill that I should invest in?

Are you comfortable following most bread baking recipes? Looking to start making your own recipes, and understand what ingredients do at what levels? If yes, this is what I'm going to try and explain the basics of, and point you in the right direction. If no, still feel free to read and ask me to explain anything I did a poor/insufficient job of.

Baker's Percentages

A baker's percentage is calculated by dividing the weight of the ingredient by the total weight of flour, times 100. You might hear it referred to as baker's math, or as a symbol with b%.

For example, if I had 100 grams of flour and 60 grams of water, that would be:

60/100*100 = 60% water, or in bread recipes that's referred to as the hydration. You might have seen on YouTube things like "90% high hydration sourdough!!".

It's important to note that if I had 90 grams of bread flour and 10 grams of whole wheat, that would be 100 total.

Why is this important? Whilst it's not an exact thing, for most breads you can tell a lot by seeing what the baker's percentage of the recipe is. It's also a great way to share those recipes, it's a ratio, so it's easy to scale up or down a batch. I share recipes like this, and it might look as simple as something like:

Flour - 100%
Hydration - 50%
Salt - 2.50%
Lard - 20%
(The flour tortilla recipe I use)

In my experience, I would say that most breads fall in:

50-70% hydration
1.5-3% salt
~3% oil/fats is the optimum for loaf volume without it being very enriched (added fats and sugars), although it's also common for rustic loaves to be lean (no added fats/sugars)

There's not much I can do in terms of the typical range for other ingredients, apart from recommending resources that help to explain what these ingredients do, and give examples using bakers percentages. Michael Suas' "Advanced bread and pastry" explains what all the commonly used ingredients for each section are used for, and gives lots of recipes for different items in both weights and baker's percentages.

Bakerpedia is a great resource for seeing the typical ranges used for various products, as well as offering example recipes in some cases. It's much more geared towards industrial/commercial baking, including the use of functional ingredients (additives), but I find that kind of stuff interesting too.

If you have a lot of money to spend, Modernist Bread by Francisco Migoya and Nathan Myhrvold is definitely interesting, informative, and the photography/graphics are as helpful as they are beautiful.

The main way I learnt is to convert recipes I liked/used into baker's percentages, and start to change them. You can find various ones online, but one thing that really helped me was creating a spreadsheet calculator.

I'm going to walk through how I first made my calculator, and hopefully that will show how all the maths actually works.

Recipe Template

This is the recipe for a lean dough, so I keep the name in the top left. The "weight per" is how much I want each loaf or roll to weigh. I can change the number of them, and it'll change the total weight in the recipe to match that. I input the bakers percentages under "percentage" and the formulae display the total percentage of the recipe, and the weights of each ingredient. I like to centre align calculated cells, and right align cells that I have to change.

Showing the Formulae

So how does this actually calculate the weights? You can see that the "Total" for percentages sum up all the percentages in the recipe, and for weight is multiplies the weight per by the number of. Why? Like I mentioned above, baker's percentages are like a ratio. If I know I want 100 grams of dough, and I want to figure out how much flour I need, I need to figure out how many grams each percentage is worth and multiply it by the percent of that ingredient.

100 / 168.40 = 0.5938 grams
0.5938 * 100 = 59.38 grams

You can see me doing this in one step for each weight, where I divide the total weight by the total percentage and multiply by the column to the left - the percentage for each ingredient.

You can make one of these for all of your recipes, and then you can change the weights or batch size very easily by just changing a number or two. As you start to experiment, you can keep a "main" template with lots of blank spaces to write what ingredients you want.

This is my own personal calculator, where I've added things like pre-ferment calculators, double hydration, offsets for water loss with evaporation, something that calculates the amount of vital wheat gluten depending on what protein I want, and checks/balances for seeing if all my flours add up to 100. I also have a vlookup table underneath that tells me the nutritional information for the ingredients I'm using. I also use cell colouring as a validation tool. You can see a screenshot of it here

I don't want to share this with the idea of you using mine, there are many things I'd change about it if I decided to start over, but hopefully it shows you the flexibility and customisability of making your own calculator.

One thing that this can't do is tell you how long to knead, how long to proof, how long to cook, what temps, et c. The only thing I can recommend for that is continuing to read and do other written recipes, until you get the intuition - although I still look up recipes similar to what I've written to double check things like cooking time!

In terms of how long to bulk/final proof, generally you'll get a feel for things like judging volume (if i'm not doing an open crumb bread, I like to proof in a large 2L jug to measure change in volume). For final proof I like to use the poke test, although you'd expect a poke test on baguette dough to spring back much more than you would on challah. You want more oven spring with baguette than challah, so understanding what the tests mean and reading through resources that explain those things are very useful.

I hope this has made sense, I'm not very experienced with long-form writing and trying to teach a topic like this, but I'm trying to lean into the tildes mindset.

Sweet Smokey Rub

Ingredients

• 1 Cup Brown Sugar
• 1 Package Onion Soup Mix
• 1/3 Cup Smoked Paprika

Method

Place in the blender and blend on high until all of the onion bits are fully powderized.

Using

Dip your meat in oil then in the dry rub.
As it cooks the sugar melts and creates a nice crispy coating.

Hey ~food! I'm relatively new here, but I would love to share my love of cookbooks with you all and discover some new ones to add to my collection.

While Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and The Food Lab are certainly some of my favorites. I have discovered others that I have repeatedly gone back to that aren't as decorated with rewards.

One of my favorite authors as of late, Olia Hercules, has a couple of cookbooks that I absolutely adore! She specializes in Ukrainian dishes and her recipes have helped dispel the myth of potatoes and cabbage being the only slavic ingredients. Mamushka is her first cook book with several great recipes, including a chicken marinade that is impossible for me to get away from. Summer Kitchens is another lovely cook book by her that reads like a love letter for documenting Ukrainian cuisine and has so many great vegetable recipes.

I'm curious to hear about other people's recommendations! Please give me a another reason for needing a devoted bookshelf for my collection.

Was a fun little project. I worked on the drinks myself first, then gave them to my roommate for a blind taste test, and asked her to describe the kind of character she thought the drink was about. If she wasn't at least mostly right, then I'd have to try again - but they somehow ended up a lot more accurate than I expected to be, despite the fact that she knows nothing about this D&D game, haha. I guess we're just really on the same wavelength?

Anyway, without further ado, here are the recipes! If there are any other mixologists on here, I'd love to hear what you think - and you want to try (something like) any of these drinks but are missing an ingredient or two, let me know and I'm happy to try to suggest a few possible substitutions.

Avery

• 0.75 oz chartreuse
• 0.5 oz montenegro
• 0.5 oz black walnut liqueur
• 0.5 oz distilled water

Liz

• 0.75 oz peated gin
• 0.75 oz crème de violette
• 10 drops lemon juice
• yuzu bitters

Matoya

• 1 oz mezcal
• 1.5 oz lemon tonic
• cardamom bitters

Morgana

• 1 oz plum gin
• 1 oz white rye
• 1 oz distilled water
• lavender lemon bitters

Sylvaire

• 0.75 oz cognac
• 0.25 oz pomegranate liqueur
• 0.25 oz grand marnier
• 0.75 oz peach juice
• peychaud’s bitters

V

• 0.75 oz peated gin
• 0.25 oz galliano vanilla
• 0.25 oz absinthe
• 1 oz peach juice
• hibiscus rosehip bitters
• cucumber twist (i.e. take a thin lengthwise slice of a baby cucumber and curl around the inside of the glass)

The non-stick pans I bought last year are chipping already, so it's time for some new ones. I don't mind Teflon pans, but I hate having to buy them every year. I also dislike they they are aluminum cores - that does weird things in the dish-washing machine. If you have some non-stick pans that you have been using for more than one year, please share!

If you were to set up someone with a brand new kitchen, what are the components that you would suggest to them for getting that 80% of functionality for 20% of the investment (Pareto Principle)? These are especially things that I would consider to be worth a healthy investment as a buy-once-have-it-forever situation. Some things that come to mind:

A cast-iron pan: high skillcap and can cook almost any type of food
Stainless Steel Stock Pot: cooks most things stovetop that the pan can't handle
Chef's Knife: A good quality, sharp knife makes all the difference in the kitchen
Mason Jars: Preserve food, bring them to bulk stores, drink water out of them... top-tier utility

Things that are on the fence in my mind:
desktop blender/immersion blender/food processor: I love all of these appliances, but how important are they? A food processor is maybe the highest utility & makes meal prep way easier. Also unlocks recipes like hummus and salsa.
a large cutting board: small cutting boards suck, but how high of a priority is upgrading it?

Let's have a discussion where you state your case for an individual appliance/tool (or argue one of these suggestions) and see what other people have to say!

Seeing that this is taking off a bit, I'm going to try compiling some of the response data here:

Level 0 - Starter Kit

• Stainless Steel Pan (+3)

• Aluminum Stock Pot (+3)

• Vegetable Peeler (+3)

• Plastic Cutting Board (+3)

• Spoons / Spatulas / Ladles (+3)

• Chef's Knife (+2)

• Paring Knife (+2)

• Serrated Knife (+1)

Level 1 - Booster Pack

• Weighing Scale (+4)
• Baking Trays (+2)

Level 1a - Cooking I

• Immersion Blender (+2)
• Box Grater (+2)
• Dutch Oven (+1)

Level 1b - Baking I

• 2L jug (+1)
• Measuring Cup (+2)
• Pain De Mie Tin (+2)
• Wire Rack (+1)

Level 2 - Intermediate

• Instant Read Thermometer (+1)

Level 2a - Cooking II

• Food Processor (+1)

Level 2b - Baking II

• Immersion Whisk (+2)

Level 3 - Advanced

• Cast Iron Pan
• Mason Jars
• Air Fryer

At the moment some people will say that Shepherd's Pie and Cottage Pie are the same thing (mince meat, sometimes vegetables, covered with potato mash and oven baked), and other people will say that Shepherd's Pie must be minced lamb or minced mutton and Cottage Pie must be minced beef. I don't care, call it what you want. But I was interested about what people said in the past, so here are some old recipes I found in the Internet Archive.

One of the problems I'm having is that some books use "shepherd's pie" and some use "shepherd pie" and the OCR of older books is not great so searching for the correct terms doesn't always return the books, because the OCR is saying something like "Shepherd He" instead. I'll be poking around a it more on Sunday and adding a bit more as I find them.

Lots of these recipes are submitted to news papers and magazines by readers.

1850 - 1899

Rural New Yorker 1850 Edit: sorry, it's 1916

https://archive.org/details/ruralnewyorker75/page/986/mode/2up?q=%22shepherd+pie%22

"Shepherd Pie. — The left-over meat should be sliced instead of chopped for this recipe. Butter a baking dish and cover the bottom with hot mashed potatoes. Pour on the gravy and sliced meat, cover with more mashed potatoes. Pile the potatoes on lightly and leave the top uneven. Dot with butter and place in hot oven for 10 minutes."

Nor'west Farmer 1882 EDIT, sorry, this is 1915 (I was looking at the IA date, not the date printed on the page)

https://archive.org/details/norwestfarmer3419unse/page/28/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

mentions that scraps of left over meat can be made into shepherd pie

La cuisine anglaise et la pâtisserie : traité de l'alimentation en Angleterre au point de vue pratique, théorique, anecdotique et descriptif 1894

https://archive.org/details/lacuisineanglai00suzagoog/page/n108/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

I don't speak French but I'm pretty sure they're asking for beef cuts here.

Cookery by Amy G Richards. 1895

https://archive.org/details/cihm_12438/page/n127/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

The recipe says "1 lb cold meat - 1/2 gill gravy - 6 large potatoes boiled and mashed - pepper and salt - 1 tablespoon milk - 1 oz butter. Cut the meat into small pieces, sprinkle it with pepper and salt, put it into a pudding dish, pour the gravy over. Add milk, butter, pepper and salt to potatoes, cover the meat with them, smooth with a knife and mark over with a fork, or the potatoes may be put through a forcing tube. Bake three quarters of an hour. Serve hot."

1900 - 1920

The complete Indian housekeeper & cook : giving the duties of mistress and servants, the general management of the house, and practical recipes for cooking in all its branches (Caution, lots of colonialism) 1909

https://archive.org/details/b21528640/page/278/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

The book mentions Shepherd's Pie: "This is a form of potato pie made with mince, or it may be made with raw collops, or raw meat minced fine and seasoned with pepper and salt." (A collop is a slice of meat.)

The recipe for potato pie appears a page or so earlier: The recipe says "Potato Pie is seldom seen in India. Mash a sufficiency of potatoes thoroughly with milk, pepper, and salt. Make a good thin gravy, and use this to cover thin slices of mutton sufficient to half fill a pie-dish. Pile your mashed potatoes over, trim neatly, and score with a fork. Push into the oven, and serve very hot." (interesting to me that the scoring the potato with a fork appears so early)

Magnet cream separator cook book 1910

https://archive.org/details/cihm_78529/page/n17/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

The recipe says "Shepherd Pie - put cooked meat through chopper, season with salt, pepper, and onion juice, moisten with gravy, mash potatoes, add a beaten egg, melted butter (size of an egg), place this on meat, dot with pieces of butter and bake until thoroughly hot and nicely brown on top. A good dish for leftovers".

Onion juice, or thinly sliced onion, become more common in the early 2th century.

The Cook County cook book 1912

https://archive.org/details/cookcountycookbo00asso/page/372/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

"SHEPHERD PIE.— Spread over a small platter, thoroughly buttered, warm mashed potatoes, mixed with enough milk to make it a little soft, and set in the oven to brown. When stiffened enough, and as brown as pie crust, pour over it minced cold mutton, warmed in a little thickened gravy. Is a nice breakfast dish. —-Mrs. J. R. Bogen, 2722 S. Dearborn St., Chicago, 111."

I find it interesting that people's names and addresses are published. This recipe specifies mutton (probably cold leftover mutton). I find it interesting that she suggests it's a nice breakfast dish, and deconstructs the formula by putting the browned mash under the meat.

And here's a picture of South Dearborn Street in 1905. https://www.bridgemanimages.com/en/barnes-crosby-fl-1900/south-dearborn-street-chicago-illinois-usa-c-1905-b-w-photo/black-and-white-photograph/asset/6354687

The same book has a recipe for Cottage Pie on the same page. Here's a cut 'n' paste. "COTTAGE PIE. — Chop cold roast 'beef or veal fine. To each 2 cups of meat add 1 teaspoon onion juice, 1 teaspoon fine-cut parsley or 1 tablespoon chopped celery, 1 tablespoon chopped green peppers, if liked, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 cup gravy stock or boiling water. Mix all together, pack in a buttered dish, cover with a layer of hot, very soft mashed potatoes, about 1 inch thick. Brush the top with milk or wthite of t^^. Bake in a hot oven until the potato is well browned. — Mrs. M. Evans, 2019 S. Clark St., Chicago, 111."

To me this reinforces the point that shepherd's pie and cottage pie were both ways to use up meat leftovers, and while some people were making a distinction between lamb and other meats lots of people weren't.

Recipes: Proved and Approved 1913

https://archive.org/details/recipesprovedapp00unse/page/30/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

"Mince fine, cold meat of any kind and two small onions, season with pepper and salt. Place in an ordinary pudding dish, pour over all some gravy. Boil six large potatoes, mash, and add one beaten egg, a little salt and a tablespoon of butter, beat well, then spread over top of meat and place in hot oven to brown."

This adds an egg to the mash, and uses more onion than we've seen so far.

Low cost recipes by Harbison, Edith Gwendolyn, comp 1914

https://archive.org/details/cu31924003573932/page/n49/mode/2up?q=shep

"Chop some cold cooked mutton quite fine. Measure and for each pint add salt and pepper to taste, 1/2 teaspoonful of onion juice, a dash of curry powder and 1/2 pint of brown sauce. Mix and spread in a greased dish. Cover with a thick layer of hot mashed potato, dabbling the top with a little beaten egg yolk. Brown in a quick oven."

The meat is quite specific: cold, cooked, mutton. I'm not quite sure what 1/2 teaspoon of onion juice is going to achieve here, it doesn't sound like enough to do anything.

* Cook book 365, no. 2* by Pechin, Mary Shelley 1915

https://archive.org/details/cookbook365no200pech/page/62/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

"Cover the bottom of a well greased baking dish, with mashed potatoes, if the potatoes seem too stiff, add a little milk, then fill in the dish with beef cut into small pieces, add a little onion juice and the gravy left from roast, or some hot water seasoned with salt and pepper, and a little melted butter, cover the dish with a layer of mashed potato sprinkled over with bits of butter, place in hot oven and just reheat the meat and potatoes. Serve hot with some pickles."

More onion juice, and also this covers the bottom and top of the dish with mash.

The Kitchen Encyclopaedia 1916

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.148252/page/n345/mode/2up?q=shepherd

"This is made in the same way as Mutton and Potato Pie (p. 333), but with less onions — about 1 tablespoon chopped onion. The surface is either roughened with a fork or smoothed down with the blade of a knife, brushed over with yolk of egg and the whole baked in a moderate oven till browned"

Here's the recipe for Mutton and Potato Pie

"Line a pie-dish with alternate layers of sliced parboiled potatoes, sliced blanched onions, and small thin slices of cooked mutton. Season with salt and pepper, moisten with stock, cover with a greased paper and bake for 1 hour in a moderate oven. Remove the paper 15 minutes before serving, to brown the potatoes."

Make a little meat, go a long way: Use savoury stews and meat pies (with Italian translation (US Department of Agriculture) 1917

https://archive.org/details/CAT31328029005/page/n3/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

"This is the name of a meat pie with a mashed potato crust browned in the oven".

Here's the recipe for Meat Pie.

"MEAT PIES Another good way to use a little meat. Have you ever used rice, cornmeal mush, or hominy for a crust? This is less work than a pastry crust and saves wheat.

4 cups cooked corn meal, rice or hominy
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 onion
1 teaspoon of fat
2 cups tomato
1 pound raw meat or left-over meat cut up small
1/2 teaspoon of salt

Melt the fat, add the sliced onion, and, if raw meat is used, add it and stir until the red color disappears. Add the tomato and seasoning. If cooked meat is used, add it with the tomato and seasoning, after the onion is browned, and heat through. Grease a baking dish, put in a layer of cereal, add the meat and gravy, and cover with the cereal dotted with fat. Bake half an hour."

And then just because, here's a recipe that I'm not going to comment on just to show how far some recipes deviate from the lamb / mutton mince plus mash formula:

Northfield Press 1930

Mackeral Shepherd Pie

https://archive.org/details/1930-05-30_Northfield-Press/page/n5/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

"Shepherd Pie with its fluffy topping of mashed potatoes is well-known everywhere, and when fish takes the place of meat in the pie its popularity grows apace. To make Mackerel Shepherd Pie drain an 8 ounce can of diced carrots and add to half a cup of canned peas. Stir gently into two cups of thick white sauce. Flake the fish from a one-pound can of mackerel and fork very carefully into the sauce so that it remains in fairly large pieces. Pour into a buttered baking dish and pile fluffy, well-seasoned mashed potatoes on top. Brush with melted butter and bake in moderate oven until very hot and the potatoes are a golden brown."

In the spirit of the whiskey thread I wanted to do the same for beer. What’s the style of the evening or week?
I just returned from Indianapolis and IPAs definitely dominate the taps. I’ll drink most anything but I’m much more of a wheat guy, myself. Hoegaarden and Weihenstephaner are my go-to’s!

Hello!

I was just wondering if anyone has any tried and true vegetarian/vegan cabbage recipes? I got a local farmer's produce box and have been receiving a whole head of cabbage each time. I'm running out of ideas on what to make. So far I have made:

• Korean Vegetable Pan Cakes
• Veggie Stir Fry
• Ginger Cabbage Gyoza
• Cabbage Stew
• Sour Kraut
• Veggie Lasagna
• Atkilt

It's to the point where I'm tossing cabbage into whatever (shredded cabbage ontop of tacos or on
veggie burgers, mixing it into spaghetti sauce, etc.). So any recommendations on additional things that can be made with cabbage would be most appreciated!

Always a tricky question, and always an interesting answer - personally my favourite cheese right now is Blacksticks Blue, a creamy blue that goes excellent melted on a pizza (subject to change at a moment's notice, mind you).

After seeing the recent espresso post, I figured I'd start a thread for cocktails. I've been recently getting into decent rums (Smith & Cross is a favorite) and have been playing around with different recipes and uses.

So far, I've found a good spring/summer spritzer of cachaça (raw sugarcane distillate from Brazil, with a grassy, vegetal flavor), elderflower liqueur, and tonic water. I need to refine it, but I think I'm at a 2/0.5/4 ratio of spirit/liqueur/tonic. I love the way the herbal-sweet elderflower mixes with the cachaça, balanced by the bitterness of the tonic.

Hi all. I cook as often as I can and thought it might be fun to chat about any recipes you’ve tried or would like to try! I’m vegan so anything I post in this thread will be too. Maybe even share snacks or restaurants that are you’ve tried that you’ve liked!

To start is a simple sauce/stir fry recipe I make when I’m pretty tired after a long day:

Spicy salty sweet sauce:

1-2 tbsp gochugaru
1 tbsp white or black rice vinegar
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp agave or maple syrup
1 tsp corn starch

I usually put all of the ingredients together except for the corn starch and then set aside as I do the rest of the prep.

The rest of the recipe is a bit more variable as I have certain ingredients but looks like this:

1 cup cooked white rice OR hand pulled noodles

Noodle recipe:
250g all purpose flour
125 ml water
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
Canola oil

I add the flour, water, and salt to a bowl, mixing with my fingers. It starts to form pretty quickly into a mass. I knead the mass of dough into a ball until uniform. With the large, smooth dough ball I cut it into 8 pieces with a knife, roll them into a sort of prolate spheroid shape, and coat with canola oil. Put the oiled dough shapes into a bowl and cover with a damp towel. Let them rest for about an hour or so.

Heat a pot of water. Flatten the dough pieces into rectangles with a rolling pin. Use the rolling pin (if it’s a thin one, otherwise I use large chopsticks), to press the dough lengthways to create a sort of seam. Hold each end of the dough and slowly pull to stretch. Slap on counter as you pull a few times. Stretch it as long or short as you’d like. On the seam you made with the rolling pin, split the noodle apart so that the noodle is now a large loop. Put into the boiling water and wait roughly a minute /or until it’s floating. Can cook a few noodles at a time, though I usually do one or two and roll/pull while they boil.

With the noodles or rice done or going and the sauce almost ready, start to chop vegetables, maybe a cup or so of 2-3 types. I like Napa cabbage, squash, green onions, bell pepper, and carrots but really get whatever you’d like or have on hand at the time. Sauté the vegetables in a tbsp or so of oil (I use canola or olive), starting with onions/garlic and then adding others as you see fit. Once the vegetables are done to your liking, add the noodles or rice, then the sauce (adding in the corn starch to the sauce at this point) and stir.

Often I’ll actually fry a half block or block of tofu I’ve cubed before adding vegetables into the oil. I usually do this as the noodles (or if I’m doing a pot of rice, as it begins to cook) are about done resting, maybe with 15-20 mins to go, since frying tofu can take awhile.

I like to serve in bowls, topping with a dash of sesame oil, black sesame seeds, and fresh green onion.

I’ll post more recipes in the thread as I make them but this is probably the most frequent thing I make in a given week. Feel free to share your own!

I'm looking for the simplest possible marinade recipe. Something with very few ingredients that will work on any cut of meat.

My plan is to use that as a base and learn to modify it based on the meat, dish, and flavor profile I'm going for.

What kind of setup/equipment do you have? Preferred roasts? Maybe you don't have equipment, but a favorite drink or place?

My setup isn't anything special, but it works for me. I have an Expobar Office Lever that I bought in 2017. Daily use and a bit of minor maintenance along the way, and it's been a solid machine. Paired with a Quamar M80E grinder.

Also have a second, more entry-level machine at our cabin - Gaggia Classic Pro (which is having some issues right now) and a DF64P grinder.

For beans, I've been using a subscription from Bottomless for the last 1.5 years and have been super happy with it. I enjoy trying different roasters from all over the country and the service has been super reliable and not all that expensive for the fact that you get just-in-time freshly roasted beans at your doorstep.

Anyway, what are you guys drinking?

Was looking for the best club house sandwich in Vancouver, BC. Found “Green’s and Beans Deli” across from Royal Colombian Hospital in New West.

Not only were their sandwiches priced as if it was still 20 years ago, but the owner new everyone’s preferences and their urgency to go back to work (“Sorry, let me take her order first - she’s only got 15 minutes.”). When it came time to pay (credit card tap), there was NOT TIP SCREEN. If you’re from the area you’ll know what I mean and probably fall out of your chair.

Oh, and the sandwiches were obviously amazing. Highly recommend.

Any places you recently found worth raving about?

What have you been drinking, sipping and enjoying, in the world of whisky/whiskey spirits lately? Discussion about Scotch whisky, Irish whiskey, international whiskey, bourbon, etc. are all welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts, reviews, and tales about the spirits if you like!

I myself was thoroughly surprised at a whisky bar today with the Hatozaki 12. I went to the bar to try out my first Japanese whiskey's and found Hatozaki 12. It was absolutely lovely, bottled with integrity and at a fair price ($8/oz). I was not expecting such fruity and floral notes. I tried out a few from Nikka and Suntory and was not impressed. The Nikka Yoichi tasted off and a wee bit musty. The Suntory felt too light and like it belongs in a highball. I am looking forward to continuing the journey of exploration with Japanese whisky in the future. It is a stark change from the Islay Scotch whisky I drink regularly.

• Hatozaki 12 - Small Batch - Umeshu Cask: 87/100
  Owner: Akashi Sake Brewery LTD
  Region: Kaikyo Distillery, Akashi City, Hyogo, Japan
  Nose: Vanilla, honey, floral, cream, red apple, fresh fruit
  Palate: Vanilla, toffee, cherry blossom, peaches in cream, lavender
  Finish: Vanilla, floral, lavender, cream linger for several minutes after
  Note: Non-chill filtered, Natural Color, 46% ABV, speyside feel with some added bonus

My grading chart:

• 98 – 100 (A+) = Booze Nirvana.
  This is the promised land where every sense is satisfied and, unless it’s a perfect 100, you have to search and nit-pick for what’s wrong instead of what’s right about this whiskey because it’s so on point.
• 93 – 97 (A) = Exceptional – Superior in every way
  These are the best of the best and within spitting distance of Nirvana. They embody everything that category is about and then elevate it to another level. These are ones I HIGHLY recommend.
• 90 – 92 (A-) = Excellent – want to buy a case
  Whiskeys that hit this rating are extra awesome. They’re delicious and complex Daily Drinkers and even though they are not quite best-in-class, they’re among my favorite whiskeys and I would wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone at any time.
• 87 – 89 (B+) = Great – always want to have a bottle
  These are whiskeys that as soon as you taste them you say, “I want to own a bottle” and if you already own the bottle, you just smile because it’s yours. It’s not a record breaker by any means, just a good solid delicious whiskey.
• 83 – 86 (B) = Good – not a “must”, but a nice-to-have
  The majority of my baselines are found here. This range is where the “daily drinker” status starts to emerge and where I find whiskies that’re good to drink but may rotate in and out of my collection. They’re not something you’d miss when it’s out, but good enough to give a moment’s consideration when at the liquor store.
• 80 – 82 (B-) = Not-too-bad – no major flaws, worth tasting
  This is the stuff I’d recommend you try at the bar or at a friend’s house before buying a bottle. There’s nothing really wrong with it, it’s just not… quite… there.
• 77 – 79 (C+) = Average – not good, not bad, just is
  There might be some minor flaws, all-in-all it’s not offensive, but it might be boring. There’s just nothing at all noteworthy about this whiskey. Would recommend to starters.
• 73 – 76 (C) = Below average – drinkable, but better as a mixer / party booze
  It’s not like you or I actually WANT to drink this stuff, but sometimes you’re at a wedding or a shitty bar and it just happens to be there, and a beer just doesn’t sound great, so you grin and bear a glass or, when possible, ask for it in a cocktail. If the bartender sucks, you might even take a bit of solace in the knowledge that they didn’t ruin a good whiskey with their terrible cocktail.
• 70 – 72 (C-) = Not good – nearly undrinkable, wonder why the hell they made it
  When I drink this stuff, I wonder if the Master Distiller is actually proud of what they’ve put out or if it’s something they just shove out to make a quick buck. I then wonder about the person who habitually buy it and wonder what admirable qualities they find in it that I can’t.
• 60 – 69 (D) = The only thing this should be used for is making Jungle Juice, and even then, Seriously, I start to wonder if it’s even safe for human consumption at this point. - It’s just plain vile.
• 59 – 0 (F) = Horrifically flawed – the worst
  This is when I call the FDA because I’m pretty damn sure it’s not safe to drink this swill.