What can you expect in the Food Thread on PF?

[Evo]

My wife has never cooked a turkey (she soon wants to give it a go), I can't boil water, and I love turkey. Luckily, we're off to my sister's, who lives an hour upriver from me, for a turkey meal. My sister and I grew up more than 1000 kilometres from where we now live, but, by blind chance, we ended up living fairly close together.

Awww, that's nice George. Merry Christmas to you and your lovely family and hope the turkey is delicious.

 

[George Jones]

Awww, that's nice George. Merry Christmas to you and your lovely family and hope the turkey is delicious.

For the past three days, our daughter has been really keyed up (How many sleeps left?) about going to see her aunt, uncle, and cousin (a senior in university).

Merry Christmas, Evo and everyone.

 

[Astronuc]

We had baked yams (with ham and other sides), or actually baked and fried, so that the surface was firm to crispy and the inside was soft. I've never had them that way before, but it something my mother-in-law likes to do. I've had fried squash before, which is usually pretty good.

 

[dlgoff]

My daughter bought me a Honey Baked ham for a Christmas present. yummy yummy

 

[Borek]

Marzena sometimes prepares chicken legs roasted with honey. Delicious. She found it in some Jewish recipes cookbook.

 

[George Jones]

Luckily, we're off to my sister's,

My sister made turkey, dressing, gravy, broccoli, squash, and apple pie; we also had store-bought ice cream and lava cakes.

When we arrived back in town today, we picked up a couple of pizzas.

Tomorrow, a family of five is coming to visit us, and my wife is going to make tandoori chicken, rice, broccoli, carrots, and carrot cake.

 

[Astronuc]

My sister made turkey, dressing, gravy, broccoli, squash, and apple pie; we also had store-bought ice cream and lava cakes.

Yum

When we arrived back in town today, we picked up a couple of pizzas.

Yum

Tomorrow, a family of five is coming to visit us, and my wife is going to make tandoori chicken, rice, broccoli, carrots, and carrot cake.

YUM!

 

[Evo]

My sister made turkey, dressing, gravy, broccoli, squash, and apple pie; we also had store-bought ice cream and lava cakes.

When we arrived back in town today, we picked up a couple of pizzas.

Tomorrow, a family of five is coming to visit us, and my wife is going to make tandoori chicken, rice, broccoli, carrots, and carrot cake.

Glad you got your turkey George. Are you a white or dark meat man? I love the white meat for sandwiches, but at the table it's the leg for me.

The Evo Child kidnapped me for a pre-Christmas Eve dinner at her place with her and her boyfriend. We had a pot roast and spinach-artichoke dip and made her favorite cherry wink cookies for dessert.

I would give anything to have someone invite me over for a dinner like your wife makes.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I asked earlier in the thread but I do not believe anyone had a response at that time.

Does anyone have any tips for cooking Thai red curry? I have purchased a small jar of curry paste and some cans of coconut milk. I have some japanese style sticky rice, chicken breasts, and some bell peppers. I don't have any bamboo shoots or any other veggies at the moment, bell peppers should be good enough for now but any suggestions on other veggies to use in the future would be great. Oh, I actually also have some celery, I almost forgot, not sure if that would be another good texture to add. Also I bought some vegetable oil, I usually just use olive oil for cooking. Is vegetable oil the best option for this, cooking the chicken and bell peppers before adding the curry, or would peanut oil or something else be better?

 

[George Jones]

Glad you got your turkey George. Are you a white or dark meat man? I love the white meat for sandwiches, but at the table it's the leg for me.

It really doesn't matter to me, but, given a choice, I take things the other way around.

The Evo Child kidnapped me for a pre-Christmas Eve dinner at her place with her and her boyfriend. We had a pot roast and spinach-artichoke dip and made her favorite cherry wink cookies for dessert.

Sounds great!

My sister's daughter got a Wii Fit for Christmas, and we (me, wife, sister, sister's husband, sister's daughter, sister's daughter's boyfriend, and, occasionally, our daughter) spent an outrageously funny Christmas night playing balance and coordination games.

I would give anything to have someone invite me over for a dinner like your wife makes.

My wife made the tandoori chicken stuff from scratch (marinating as I type), but she says that tandoori masala mix is available in boxes. She also says that many South-Asia people , particulary in the West, now use the pre-mixed masalas, as she does for some dishes.

 

[Monique]

I don't there is a wrong way to make a curry, they come in thousands of varieties, based on who makes them. I can suggest baby green aubergines (the size of berries: http://www.fotobank.ru/img/FC00-7865.jpg?size=l), they are slightly bitter so add a new flavor to the mix. You should also add some basil leaves, delicious!

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I don't there is a wrong way to make a curry, they come in thousands of varieties, based on who makes them. I can suggest baby green aubergines (the size of berries: http://www.fotobank.ru/img/FC00-7865.jpg?size=l), they are slightly bitter so add a new flavor to the mix. You should also add some basil leaves, delicious!

Thank you Monique.
Ah, those seem to be used in green curry. I'm making red curry so not sure if they will go right with it. I wouldn't mind trying some other styles. Is Thai green curry much the same as Japanese style green curry do you know? My step father(Japanese) likes to make green curry though he usually uses a powder I think. Its pretty good, usually made with potatoes and carrots. It's like a thick spicy stew.

 

[Monique]

The main difference between red and green Thai curry is that the green one is made from green peppers and the red one from red peppers. The green chillies that are used are hotter than the red ones, so the green curry will be spicier. I think for that reason the green curry is often made a little sweeter, to offset the spiciness. I don't think there are any rules for the vegetables that go into both dices, when I've ordered the dishes in restaurants they pretty much looked the same.

If I were to cook it I'd probably first stir-fry the vegetables (onion, bell pepper, baby aubergine, bamboo shoots), then add the spices (garlic, curry paste) and stir-fry for another minute to release the flavors, add the coconut milk and bring to a slow boil and then add the chicken to that so that it can braise until done, as a last step you add the fresh basil and sprinkle it with some lemon juice (as a vegetarian I would actually add fried tofu at the end of the cooking process and skip the chicken ).

I don't think the type of oil really matters, the flavors in the curry will overpower it. So the best thing to do then is to take a neutral cooking oil, I guess.

I definitely would not add carrot, celery or potatoes to the curry. You can try zucchinis.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Is Thai green curry much the same as Japanese style green curry do you know? My step father(Japanese) likes to make green curry though he usually uses a powder I think.

There is no Japanese style green curry, it's just that your step father likes to make it. There is a popular dish in Japan called rice curry (kare raisu), but the curry sauce is brown and gloopy, quite different from Indian or Thai curry. I learned to like it when I lived there, but that was before I had eaten Indian curries. My wife still makes it for me and I eat it, but I don't consider it Indian cuisine even though the Japanese do.

 

[turbo]

I have mentioned flat-iron steaks in chat a couple of times. It's not *quite* as tender as tenderloin, but it is far more flavorful, making it my favorite cut for grilling, plus it is a lot cheaper than loin cuts. A few times there have been specials on this cut in a local market, and my wife buys all she can get. The supply is drying up because restaurants are catching on, and because the yield per steer is very low. Try it out, but only tell people who don't frequent your meat-market, so you'll get a chance to get what is proving to be a very limited resource.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_iron_steak

 

[sandwhale]

I love sushi buffets, especially if they offer sashimi!

 

[turbo]

I love sushi buffets, especially if they offer sashimi!

I only eat vegan sushi.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

The main difference between red and green Thai curry is that the green one is made from green peppers and the red one from red peppers. The green chillies that are used are hotter than the red ones, so the green curry will be spicier. I think for that reason the green curry is often made a little sweeter, to offset the spiciness. I don't think there are any rules for the vegetables that go into both dices, when I've ordered the dishes in restaurants they pretty much looked the same.

If I were to cook it I'd probably first stir-fry the vegetables (onion, bell pepper, baby aubergine, bamboo shoots), then add the spices (garlic, curry paste) and stir-fry for another minute to release the flavors, add the coconut milk and bring to a slow boil and then add the chicken to that so that it can braise until done, as a last step you add the fresh basil and sprinkle it with some lemon juice (as a vegetarian I would actually add fried tofu at the end of the cooking process and skip the chicken ).

I don't think the type of oil really matters, the flavors in the curry will overpower it. So the best thing to do then is to take a neutral cooking oil, I guess.

I definitely would not add carrot, celery or potatoes to the curry. You can try zucchinis.

I thought again about the celery as I was cutting it up and only put in a tiny bit. I realized that the taste would not be that great if I put much in. I was thinking zucchini too, or maybe some summer squash. I don't usually keep much other than bellpeppers on hand though.

So I did make the curry and it turned out incredibly mild. I used the instructions on the jar and even added a bit extra paste. I'll have to use less coconut milk next time. It pretty much tasted like coconut milk with just a bit of spice in it. The chicken came out good if bland.

I am not sure how accurate it is since it came from just one guy on a forum somewhere who claimed to know a great curry chef but I have heard you are not supposed to boil the coconut milk or you may "burn" it like regular milk or butter. The milk certainly seemed resistant to boiling so I did not bring it to a boil at all when I made mine.

There is no Japanese style green curry, it's just that your step father likes to make it. There is a popular dish in Japan called rice curry (kare raisu), but the curry sauce is brown and gloopy, quite different from Indian or Thai curry. I learned to like it when I lived there, but that was before I had eaten Indian curries. My wife still makes it for me and I eat it, but I don't consider it Indian cuisine even though the Japanese do.

I looked it up and this is more or less what my father makes. The particular curry that he makes is just green in colour I guess so I just always thought of it as a type of green curry.

 

[Monique]

So I did make the curry and it turned out incredibly mild. I used the instructions on the jar and even added a bit extra paste. I'll have to use less coconut milk next time. It pretty much tasted like coconut milk with just a bit of spice in it. The chicken came out good if bland.

That's too bad, but you made one critical mistake: you should always taste your food along the cooking process! Any professional chef will tell you that you cannot cook anything, without tasting it. Coconut milk can be very overpowering and it neutralizes the heat of the peppers, so you should indeed not put too much of it in there.

You shouldn't vigorously boil the coconut milk either, but bring it to a state that it is just about to boil: you do need some heat to cook the chicken. I think you just need a little practice to get it just the way you like. Cashew nuts are another great addition to the dish. If you like more taste to the chicken, you can try marinating it first and frying it in the curry paste, before adding the coconut oil and braising it.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

That's too bad, but you made one critical mistake: you should always taste your food along the cooking process! Any professional chef will tell you that you cannot cook anything, without tasting it. Coconut milk can be very overpowering and it neutralizes the heat of the peppers, so you should indeed not put too much of it in there.

I taste along the way, I just figured that since I have never cooked this before if I followed directions I could adjust from there. I did add more paste after the milk when I realized it seemed too weak. Then I considered that maybe after it cooks a bit longer and some water evaporates off that it might get stronger so I didn't want to mess with it too much. In this case it just seems that the directions are flat out wrong. I even double and triple checked them to see if I had missed something. Really I think I should have used half the milk in the directions and possibly less.

Oh well. Now I know. Next time I will add the milk slowly until it tastes about right.
And cashews sound great, I love cashews.

 

[Evo]

A guy I used to date had a friend from India and he would take a nice cut of beef, put it in a tupperware container and leave it out on the kitchen counter for several days until it started to rot, then make curry out of it. My friend swears that although the smell of the meat before it was cooked made him sick, that it was the best curry he'd ever had, and has had it several times now.

Anyone heard of this practice? His friend said it was close to the meat he got in his village back in India, which must be a remote village.

I know aged beef is the most prized here in the US, so maybe there is something to it.

 

[Borek]

Hm, this is English that I have never used, so I will just list from my dictionary (about meat):

- to age
- to become gamey
- to hang meat
- to leave meat until it's high

Basically I have seen it done to small animals - you hang a hare or wild fowl for a few days on the outside before cooking. Could be a similar approach.

 

[Monique]

A guy I used to date had a friend from India and he would take a nice cut of beef, put it in a tupperware container and leave it out on the kitchen counter for several days until it started to rot, then make curry out of it. My friend swears that although the smell of the meat before it was cooked made him sick, that it was the best curry he'd ever had, and has had it several times now.

If you want to age meat, you must strictly control the conditions and be sure that it is all sanitary. What the guy did sounds like a sure way to get sick.

In Iceland the people have a delicacy named Hakarl, which is rotten shark blubber.

Hákarl is traditionally prepared by gutting and beheading a Greenland or basking shark and placing it in a shallow hole dug in gravelly-sand, with the now-cleaned cavity resting on a slight hill. The shark is then covered with sand and gravel, and stones are then placed on top of the sand in order to press the shark. The fluids from the shark are in this way pressed out of the body. The shark ferments for 6-12 weeks depending on the season in this fashion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hákarl

Apparently some TV chefs tried it (Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsay) and thought it was the most disgusting thing ever.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

you hang a hare or wild fowl for a few days on the outside before cooking.

In the movie Shogun (I didn't read the book), there was a chilling scene involving such a practice. The master of the house (an Englishman) was aging a fowl in this manner. The Japanese servants, unfamiliar with the practice, and offended by the smell, voted one amongst themselves to discard the carcass and then be beheaded for the offense to the master. When the master found out about it he grew furious at the loss of human life over such a trifle. Then the originator of the plan offered to be beheaded herself.

 

[Evo]

I saw this come up on another food forum and thought it would be interesting to see what PF'ers consider staples.

What ten items do you consider "must haves" in your spice cabinet? I think for most people it will be more than 10.

For me it's hot paprika, regular paprika, tarragon, cumin, bay leaves, mustard powder, coriander seeds, chili powder, vanilla extract, oregano, sage, rosemary, basil, thyme, cinnamon, lemon pepper, got to have my lemon pepper, assorted vinegars, Morton's Nature's Seasons (I'd give up two of my other items if I had to choose), cold pressed olive oil for flavoring, canned green chiles

What items do you consider "must haves" in your fridge?

I don't need fresh lemons or limes often enough to buy them unless it's for a specific recipe, but I always keep bottled lemon & lime juice in the fridge, horseradish, ginger root, garlic, onions, pickled ginger for sushi, hot sauce, ketchup (only for recipes like cocktail sauce, never as a condiment alone), various pickles, including my favorite mild jalapenos, olives, capers, dijon mustard, parsley, HELLMAN'S REAL MAYONAISE, soy sauce, sesame oil

I grow fresh herbs in the summer and keep some in the freezer. I also slice up ginger and keep it in a small jar filled with sherry in the fridge, a great way to always have some fresh ginger on hand.

I also try to keep a variety of cheeses on hand, always parmesan, often blue cheese, asiago, and cream cheese (actually nuefchatel) and I love that grated Mexican 4 cheese blend to throw on impromptu nachos, tacos, quesadillas, etc...

I guess a more difficult question for foodies would be, if you could only have 10 spices, what would they be?

 

[turbo]

Only 10 spices? That would be tough.

basil
sage
ground mustard
allspice berries
ginger
curry powder
cayenne powder
cumin
oregano
paprika

There are lots more that I would like to have, but these are the essentials.

 

[Evo]

I watch too much Food Network.

Just now:

Food Network Bimbo: "Of course winter squash are freshest in the winter."

<snort> Yeah, I know I always harvest my winter squash in January. Oy vey.

 

[rewebster]

spices!

I have to go through my spices and dump some of the ones that are in the 'old' category--1 1/2 to 2 years old. I think I'll put a date on the ones I get from now on.


I didn't see black pepper (corns) on the lists...

 

[Evo]

spices!

I have to go through my spices and dump some of the ones that are in the 'old' category--1 1/2 to 2 years old. I think I'll put a date on the ones I get from now on.


I didn't see black pepper (corns) on the lists...

Salt and black pepper are a given (usually).

I've started buying spices in very small quantities since I'm only cooking for myself.

 

[rewebster]

that's another thing that will happen this year--

my garden is a raised bed and I'm going to add an herb area this year---fresh frozen spices for the next fall and winter...