What Have You Cooked Recently?

[Sped Xing]

I work for a company that processes game meat in addition to their regular pork and beef products. They also also sometimes buy venison, but it's weird. It isn't allowed on the USDA inspected side, because it's not USDA inspected, itself, but it's also not just some hunter bringing in his catch (they do that, too.) I have to pick it up from an incredibly sketchy old facility in the Fourth Ward of Houston. It makes me feel like I'm on the Serenity. I don't know why deer meat has to be so weird.

I want to learn to do reductions just because it SOUNDS fancy.

Rabbit is the ultimate keto meat. Man does not live by rabbit alone.

 

[AnOminous]

I want to learn to do reductions just because it SOUNDS fancy.

They're super easy, though. Any time you have a dish that takes a while to cook, there are some parts where you feel you're standing around like a moron doing nothing. If there's any kind of liquid involved that ordinarily gets drained or wasted, reduction time! Pour in saucepan, heat up a bit, put on simmer, stir occasionally. Now you have a sauce to put on a plate below the food and drizzle on top and it looks like some restaurant shit.

 

[XYZpdq]

stretching "cooked" a bit, but I got a box of Aldi frozen fried chicken (bone in kind), six bucks, four pieces, a breast, two thighs, and a leg. Took about an hour to heat. Not _bad_, a little more peppery than I expected. Reminds me of the old Bold Spicy Wings from McDonalds.
Probably sticking with Publix deli fried chicken in the open fridge section for my bone-in premade fried chicken with food stamps. It's only marginally more expensive per pound and heats in under a half an hour in the oven compared to a bit over an hour.

 

[ThinkThankThunk]

I made some gravlax using a few different recipes as templates last week after finding a bunch of salmon for 30% off. I rubbed some gin into one pair of fillets to see how it would turn out, and another I ran out of dill for and filled out with cilantro. It finally finished curing and all of it worked really well so I've been using it in onigiri to wean myself off the junk food I've been hooked on lately. I can't recommend it enough if you're lucky enough to run across cheap fish.

The cost of running a big freezer 24/7 is beginning to outweigh the savings from buying meat on sale and storing it long term so I'll definitely be curing more stuff as time goes on to see if I can downsize, plus it seems really easy to play around with.

 

[AnOminous]

The cost of running a big freezer 24/7 is beginning to outweigh the savings from buying meat on sale and storing it long term so I'll definitely be curing more stuff as time goes on to see if I can downsize, plus it seems really easy to play around with.

I'd like updates on this. I don't even need to cut costs any more but it has turned into a near-fetish for me to make meals better while paying less for them. The meal seems even more delicious the less it costs.

 

[ThinkThankThunk]

I'd like updates on this. I don't even need to cut costs any more but it has turned into a near-fetish for me to make meals better while paying less for them. The meal seems even more delicious the less it costs.

I've gotten a lot of that same feeling as I've cooked more recently. Knowing that as I get better I'm paying less for better food is elating. A good example is frozen milkfish, something I used to scoff at as cheap junk, is $4 for a whole body. That's $2 per fillet, plus a head and bones for broth. I can take that and paint a nice miso glaze on it with pennies worth of paste, brown sugar and rice wine then slap it on a grill. Cut those in half, bake a few homemade pretzel dough buns and get some stuff from the backyard and there's 4 fat fish burgers for barely a buck each all the while I know there's restaurants out there charging $15 a pop for the same thing. It really makes me feel like I'm sticking it to the man one bite at a time.

 

[XYZpdq]

hot dogs and fixings
basic 8 pack ball park angus
plain oreida crinkle cut frys
seasoned the fries with paprika, tumeric, pepper, cyanne
tossed in a quarter of an onion diced in the corner of the dish
hot dogs on top of the fries
fries instructions of 15m ish at 425
not-quite-guacamole of an avacado mashed up, a could of tblspn of salsa, and the other quarter of the onion diced
potato buns
guac on the bun with jarred jalapeno
quite good

 

[Coffee Druid]

A creamy tortellini soup with herbs. The tortellini weren't handmade (bought frozen) but it was really good. Somehow no one else was really into the soup though. More for me? Also made some biscuits on the side to dunk into the soup.

 

[Slonki Wola]

I usually like generic diner food

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

I put cooked chicken in a bowl and smothered it with Chick-Fil-A sauce and red pepper flakes. Good stuff.

 

[Archeops]

Not so much “cooked” as it is “preparing to cook”, but I’m going to make chicken tenders tonight. I’m already soaking ‘em in buttermilk and some sriracha sauce.

I made a Jack Scalfani level crime against cooking tonight.
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So I saw these at the store and decided to pick up a few boxes. I havnt had cheetos or mac n cheese in a very long time and I love crazy shit like this.

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I assembled the ingredients. Vegan butter and oat milk since we dont normally keep dairy products in the house and I wasnt about to buy a whole thing of both for this experiment. It suggested we crumbled cheetos on top but I decided to spare my arteries that.

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Went with the boil method, it also included microwave instructions if you are so inclined. The unnatural color of the cheese packets reminded me of The Andromeda Strain movie from the 60s.

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Onto the taste test. What immediatly hit me was that terrible fake spiciness all these snack foods use. Its revolting and overpowering. I cant taste any cheese and am barely able to finish a quarter of this bowl.

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So into the disposal it goes. This was one of the worst things I have ever eaten. My teeth are stained red and my stomach is in knots. There are a few other flavors but I dont think I will try this kind of thing again.

Oh good LORD thanks for taste-testing this, I have a box of this sitting in my pasta cupboard and I’ve been doing whatever I can to avoid cooking it. I guess I’ll try to gift it to a friend later.

That said, I’ve had the regular and Jalapeno Cheddar versions and those are decent if a bit salty even when using unsalted butter.

 

[Adamska]

Rib-eye is being cooked in the oven, will reverse sear to finish it in a few minutes. My fries are just starting in the air fryer oven thing I'm experimenting with.

 

[El Gato de la Mayo]

Just made sandwiches, they were good sandwiches.
-Rye bread
-Homemade Mayo
-Cheese
-Vegepate
7.5/10 will probably do it again

 

[MoffAlbert]

Made the pickle-juice brined chicken nuggets again, this time with homemade pickle brine with twice the amount of crushed garlic in the brine. Simply superb. I made knock-off Chick-fil-A sauce for it, but the flavor of the nuggets were too good to be covered in sauce. Luckily, I made some steak fries, so the sauce didn't go to waste.

 

[Adamska]

Steak is delicious, but came out well done (I was shooting for medium/medium well). Potatoes could've probably spent more time in that air fryer, but honestly they came out fine; the flesh was done and they had a nice flavor due to the seasoning I used.

6/10 on what I aimed for, but an 8.5/10 for tasting nice.

 

[Sped Xing]

My experience with reverse sear is it always comes out way more done than I expected it to. Everyone tells me it's good when I do it, but I guess I have too much wendigo in me. I like it crispy on the outside and warm and red on the inside.

 

[AnOminous]

Made the pickle-juice brined chicken nuggets again, this time with homemade pickle brine with twice the amount of crushed garlic in the brine.

It's amazing how little effort it takes to make chicken taste this good. I think the best meat for this is thighs, which makes some funky shaped nuggets, but the flavor is off the charts. And they're about the cheapest part of the chicken unless you buy 10 pound bags of feet or something.

It's an odd thing that the most expensive meat seems to be all texture and zero flavor, while the cheap shit is actually the tastiest. Filet mignon and chicken breast are incredibly overrated for what they are.

 

[Sped Xing]

Chicken breast can actually be pretty OK in competent hands, though I agree that dark meat is tastier.

I always thought chicken breast was dry and unpalatable when I was young. MFW I learn my mom sucked at cooking. Also goes for brussels sprouts, collard greens, even meatloaf is actually good if you give a shit.

 

[AnOminous]

Chicken breast can actually be pretty OK in competent hands, though I agree that dark meat is tastier.

I always thought chicken breast was dry and unpalatable when I was young. MFW I learn my mom sucked at cooking. Also goes for brussels sprouts, collard greens, even meatloaf is actually good if you give a shit.

I love collard greens and greens in general, although I find them best with bacon grease or some other form of animal fat. I appropriate African-American culture with no guilt whatsoever. My ancestors purchased those slaves fair and square, and their cuisine with them.

 

[Dr. Hannibal Buress]

Rib-eye is being cooked in the oven, will reverse sear to finish it in a few minutes. My fries are just starting in the air fryer oven thing I'm experimenting with.

I just got a toaster oven/airfryer combo , and it's definitely the best best for heating up things you want to be crispy, the only problem I have is that the line between "crispy golden brown" and "smoke alarm screeching as the food chars to cinders" seems to be about 3 seconds so I have to watch it like a hawk