Recipies thread

[joesixpack]

This is about as Off Topic as can be, but I thought it'd be a fun thread. My cooking skills are limited, but I do make a few things well, and I always like to try new things. Ill start off with this one;

I bought a twelve-pack of a very cheap beer thinking that I'd save some money. Well it was so bad that I couldn't drink it. I hate to throw out beer, so I came up with this recipie.

Two pounds of mussles or clams (i used little neck, but I think mussles would have been better)
Two chicken thighs (they're so damned cheap)
Two or three celery ribs
Large yellow onion
Garlic (a good ammount, about 10 cloves)
One 4oz can of tomato paste
One can of beer (keep in mind that hoppy beers like IPAs don't cook well, best to stick with a malty lager)
Two slices of bacon
Two tablespoons of Old Bay brand seafood seasoning

In a saucepan full of water, boil the two chicken thighs while you render the fat out of the bacon in a good sized stock pot. Chop up the onion and celery and throw them in with the rendered bacon and enough olive oil to sautee all that together. Chop up the garlic finely and throw that in the stock pot, stir that in and turn off the heat.

When the chicken is pretty well cooked, take it out of the boiling water and remove the skin and bone, put those back in the boiling water while you cut up the thigh meat into little peices and throw that into the stock pot. Take the bones and skin out of the boiling water and throw them away and pour the chicken stock into the pot (you should have about 4 cups). Add the tomato paste, the beer, and the Old Bay seasoning, and bring the mixture to a boil.

Let this simmer while you make a pot of rice. When the rice is done, take it off the heat, dump the shellfish into the pot of soup and bring it up to a boil untill the poor bastards open up.

Put some rice in a bowl and ladle the liquid and shellfish on top.

Eat.

Next time, I'm gonna' add some peeled shrimp to the mix. I think that's all it was missing.

[sensei_kyle]

Instead of throwing the bones and skin away, save them to make homemade chicken broth. Just put them in a big pot (5 qt or larger) with water, maybe throw in some celery & carrots, and simmer until the bones are falling apart -- usually the better part of an entire day. Strain and you have broth. You can freeze this for long term storage.

A handy trick I learned from a chef friend of mine: making a roux (that's pronounced roo). The base of every good gumbo is the roux. Typically, equal parts of flour and vegetable oil, cooked over medium heat, and stirred constantly until it turns the shade you want. First comes blond, then brick, then chocolate. There's a reason this stuff is called cajun napalm -- if burns the hell out of you. What you can do is mix the oil & flour together, place in say a 9x9 casserole dish, and into the oven at 350. Stir every 10-15 minutes until you achieve the desired color. Instead of stirring, you can be working on the cutting the onions, bell peppers & celery for the gumbo.

[xman]

Instead of throwing the bones and skin away, save them to make homemade chicken broth. Just put them in a big pot (5 qt or larger) with water, maybe throw in some celery & carrots, and simmer until the bones are falling apart -- usually the better part of an entire day. Strain and you have broth. You can freeze this for long term storage.

As a vegetarian, the celery, onions, carrots, broccoli stalks and such are all that are really necessary for a great soup stock, less fatty too. We've always got some in the freezer around here.

X

[joesixpack]

A handy trick I learned from a chef friend of mine: making a roux (that's pronounced roo). The base of every good gumbo is the roux. Typically, equal parts of flour and vegetable oil, cooked over medium heat, and stirred constantly until it turns the shade you want. First comes blond, then brick, then chocolate. There's a reason this stuff is called cajun napalm -- if burns the hell out of you. What you can do is mix the oil & flour together, place in say a 9x9 casserole dish, and into the oven at 350. Stir every 10-15 minutes until you achieve the desired color. Instead of stirring, you can be working on the cutting the onions, bell peppers & celery for the gumbo.

My mom never made roux with vegatable oil. She always used butter, and her gumbo is the best.

[rtaylor61]

I generally make my roux with grease drippings from bacon, sausage or roast.

RT

[sensei_kyle]

OK. Not trying to start a roux holy war. I prefer to use bacon and/or sausage grease and butter myself. Many of the recipes in cookbooks call for vegetable oil. The chef I learned the trick from was working in a commercial kitchen, which translates into huge quantities. Using bacon/sausage grease wasn't really an option due to the quantity required. I'm not sure if the butter would burn at 350 in the oven for 30-60 minutes.

[rtaylor61]

The true secret to any roux is the browning process. If you don't brown it, you're gonna taste the flour. I prefer to make mine dark, but it depends on what it will be served with.

RT

[Lynn]

I like to get those little bags of Rock Claims and grill them with some Mesquite Wood Chips. When they pop open and get some smoke for a couple of minutes, we take them out of the shells and dip in some melted butter with garlic in it. Awesome. Lynn

[ForestryProf]

Here I am reading this just before leaving work and Lynn has me drooling all over my keyboard (and not due to his latest razor for sale). Oh well, my turn...last evening I had a hankering for some Greek food, but didn't have the time to cook spanikopita (spinich pie) or hummus (I won't use canned chick peas). So, I decided to roast a Greek style chicken. Rubbed a chicken (inside and out) with olive oil, about 5 cloves of crushed garlic, kosher salt, and 3T of chopped fresh oregano. Then I put together some stuffing--3 pounds new red potatoes quartered (boiled and removed from heat while still quite firm). These were tossed in a large bowl with 1/4C extra virgin olive oil, 3 cloves of minced garlic, 4 anchovie fillets (mashed), 1/2C diced green olives, 1T chopped fresh rosmary, and 2T capers. Stuffed the potatoes into the chicken and roast at 400 F for 30 minutes, reduce heat to 350 F and roast another 75 minutes. Served with a bottle of retsina and a large green salad. The house smelled wonderful and the wife was thrilled that she didn't have to cook. Even my 7-year-old loves this dish .
Ed

[Flanny]

The base of every good gumbo is the roux.

I have to disagree with ya lad. While roux is vital to good gumbo, it just isn't gumbo with out the file ('feelaee', like a fish filet). I've seen virtually as many variations of roux as there are colors in the gimp, but the file is always the constant.

I'm getting away from cooked foods in favor of raw veganism but I'll share my old recipe

roux ingredients - oil/shortening
seasoned flour - (I put salt, black pepper, mustard powder, red pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, to taste)
I go 2 for one. 2 parts flour, 1 part oil/shortening. (heaping cups for those who use measures)

heat oil on high til it just starts wisping. shake in seasoned flour while stirring into oil. stir til slightly browned. set aside.

You can start the meat/protein before this if you like, depending on what your protein is.

for this recipe chicken - 3 friers or 2 broilers in a large pot barely covered in water, cook till meat falling off bones. you can season this if you want or wait til combining into gumbo (I wait)

while chicken is cooking, chop 3 large (huge) onions, put in blender, liquify, add 4 to 5 nice stalks celery, leaves and all, liquify. cut and add 2 huge bell peppers, liquify. you'll need to add a little water to help liquify, but don't add too much, you want it as thick as possible.

when chicken is cooked, remove from pot (keep water), pull meat from bones and replace meat into pot. set pot to simmer, add liquid vegatables. stir in. add roux, mix very well till roux is blended in. Add your choice of additional vegatables (generally diced carrots, diced potatoes, broccoli, sometimes corn). I usually don't add any other vegatables or just add carrots and potatoes.

Now it's time to season. for hobbyists just cheat and go get "cajun spice" from your store. for the really good cooks, powdered cayenne, onion powder, salt, garlic powder, cumin, mustard powder, sage.

mix in a healty portion of cajun spice to taste (I use about 1/4 cup, others use 2 to 6 tablespoons depending on their love of zestiness)

take your file and cover the top of the mixture with a thin layer of it (some will only use a ring around the edge), can't begin to tell you how much this is, probably a few tablespoons). mix this in. Let simmer slowly for a few hours, stirring periodically to even out the thickening.

While simmering, boil about 14 to 20 eggs, peel, and set aside. Near the end of the simmer, cook enough rice to go with the gumbo, when you start the rice, add the now cold eggs to the gumbo pot.

When rice is cooked, put in bowl, ladle the gumbo over the rice, be sure to add an egg, garnish with bread&butter chips and serve.

Vegetarian alternative - leave out the eggs (though I never understood why most vegetarians would eat a chicken and not an egg). garnish with bread&butter chips

vegan alternative - quick soak beans prior to start (blank, pinto, or navy), use slightly more water than you would with chicken bring water to boil, add liquid vegatables, add diced vegatables, add soaked beans, let simmer like normal while preparing rice like normal. leave out eggs. garnish with bread&butter chips