What Have You Cooked Recently?

I made the Ragusea bread again, or something mostly like it. I forgot to do the cuts at the end and think I will omit that step in the future entirely because I got the best oven spring yet and the bread actually just naturally burst open anyway, in an irregular pattern that was a lot better looking.

I also did an egg wash which not only makes the top crust a bit shiny but also makes it more chewy and leathery in contrast to the crunchy slightly carbonized bottom crust.

It's also better the next day.

The one thing I think Ragusea gets right is the way to do it is not to be obsessed with grams of flour and other bullshit but just to do it until it feels right. Even exactly the same flour works differently based on factors like literally the weather that can't be quantized.
 
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MoffAlbert said:
I made a scotch egg with ground chicken and attached it to a drumstick. How did I do this? Simple. You take a chicken drumstick, tulip it with a pair of scissors, turn it inside out, put a hardboiled egg in the middle of the cut up chicken, then wrap that in a mixture of ground chicken, breadcrumbs, a beaten egg, and whatever spices you want. I did a dry buffalo seasoning, pepper, and garlic. Slapped it in the oven, and it came out fantastic. A madman's dinner, perhaps even a caveman's, but it came out very delicious.
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Damn, that sounds right up my alley! Meat with meat, can't go wrong with that.
SenorCurditos said:
Ropa Vieja with maduros and habanero onion curditos.

Flank steak stewed/shredded in onions, peppers, tomato, white wine, pimenton, achiote, oregano, cumin, and olives. Found really ripe plantains at the store which made me consider doing this dish, maduros require the plantain to be very ripe before deep frying. Used tallow to fry them. Pickled habanero peppers and red onions the night before. Total day off meal before the storm hit the farms.
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That sounds really good, too, i'm digging the plantains fried in tallow, sadly the only plantains i can buy around here are absolute shit-tier.
 
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I made beef and vegetable soup(s).
Basically cook hamburger patties and tear them into pieces when done, throw them in a pot with an assortment of vegetables to cook for an age. But, I had to account for my mother who has type 2, so that meant two pots of soup - one for everyone else, that had potatoes, corn and lima beans among other stuff, and her own pot of soup that in place of those vegetables, had carrrots, green beans and shelled edamame.

Both soups had the usual other ingredients of tomatoes and onions, green peas and okra, besides. Anyway.

The soup I made for her actually tasted better.
I took note of that for future reference, lol.
 
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Made pasta after a recipe my father taught me, i don't know if the dish has a proper italian name.

Started with preparing the soffritto, 2: 1: 1 mix of onion, carrot and celery stalk. I chop it finely but not as fine as one would chop vegetables for mirepoix. Minced two cloves of garlic. Took a slab of bacon, removed the rind, cubed it. Original recipe calls for pancetta but i haven't had any at hand. Put sunflower oil in a pan, heat on medium. Contrary to popular belief, EVOO is not used for frying stuff, if you got high-quality EVOO (like i do at all times) and heat it too much it destroys the fine taste nuances and turns bitter, ruining the dish. I'll add copious amounts later.
Put soffritto and bacon in pan, also the rinds. Tossed, so everything was evenly coated in oil, added the garlic after about five minutes, let everything cook for around 7 mins total. Deglazed with a generous amount of Martini Bianco Dry. I switched from white wine to Martini years ago and never looked back, it adds depth and the right amount of sweetness to tomato-based sauces. Let it reduce, poured in a tin of crushed tomatoes, then shortly after, one of these fancy bouillon paste cups, like those Marco Pierre White shilled, they're great.
I let everything cook for about 20 minutes, aiming for a thick, chunky consistence. I set the heat to the lowest once i was happy with its consistency. There was no need for salt as the bacon and bouillon paste already added enough saltiness.

Grated a generous helping of Grana but virtually every common italian hard cheese goes good with this sauce. Cooked my pasta, Penne, and shortly before draining the water i scooped off a ladle of pasta water to use as a binding agent later. Transferred drained pasta and sauce to the empty pasta pot, set heat to highest and under constant stirring and tossing, i added in, bit by bit, lots of olive oil, part of the grated cheese and the scooped-off pasta water. This took about a minute.

Plated the pasta, added more grated cheese and olive oil, done. Was pretty good, as always, one of the recipes i can do in my sleep. Instead of bacon or pancetta i also did it with lean beef cuts or lamb before, pretty much any meat works in this sauce.
 
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Wife is vegan, so had a go at making a homemade vegan burger. Used chickpeas, walnuts and a little tomato paste blended up as the canvas, added a bunch of spices and hoisin sauce for both colour and flavour as well as the standard umami-bomb procedure (dried kombu, dried shiitake mushrooms etc. blended and added). Added couscous and wheat gluten, kneaded into a ball until activated; proceeded to make it into burger shapes and fried. Ended up pretty good, had a pretty good sear too.
 
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I had to finish the job gutting one of the roasting chickens I got on Friday for Saturday night's dinner. When I was reaching in to pull out the giblets, I kept finding tan shards of what I thought were thin plates of bone from somewhere. It turns out that there was a partially-formed brown-shelled egg inside of the abdominal cavity of one of the chickens, that had broken up inside with the membranes inside still attached.

There was also what I think was the remains of the ovaries attached to the abdominal wall, as it was full of small, yellow spheres the size of a pea, about the consistency of hard fat when I cut it off. I think they were "proto-yolks" that had not matured enough yet to be coated in a shell by the cloaca.

The remainder of the colon was also still present, so I cut that off as well. Who ever was in charge of cleaning the bird inside did a piss-poor job, but I got it sorted out within five minutes.

It is a huge chicken too, just over eight pounds. It is obviously a meat breed looking at the body shape, but I wonder if it was an old hen used for breeding more meat birds until her time had finally come.

I should have taken pictures, as it was quite fascinating...although many people would be in hysterics I think at finding such surprises inside their nicely-packaged birds from the grocery store.
 
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Well, there ain't much you can't do with a Pit Boss so I guess here's some babyback ribs.

reeeeeeeeeeeeebs.jpeg
 
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Hepativore said:
I had to finish the job gutting one of the roasting chickens I got on Friday for Saturday night's dinner. When I was reaching in to pull out the giblets, I kept finding tan shards of what I thought were thin plates of bone from somewhere. It turns out that there was a partially-formed brown-shelled egg inside of the abdominal cavity of one of the chickens, that had broken up inside with the membranes inside still attached.

There was also what I think was the remains of the ovaries attached to the abdominal wall, as it was full of small, yellow spheres the size of a pea, about the consistency of hard fat when I cut it off. I think they were "proto-yolks" that had not matured enough yet to be coated in a shell by the cloaca.

The remainder of the colon was also still present, so I cut that off as well. Who ever was in charge of cleaning the bird inside did a piss-poor job, but I got it sorted out within five minutes.

It is a huge chicken too, just over eight pounds. It is obviously a meat breed looking at the body shape, but I wonder if it was an old hen used for breeding more meat birds until her time had finally come.

I should have taken pictures, as it was quite fascinating...although many people would be in hysterics I think at finding such surprises inside their nicely-packaged birds from the grocery store.
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I once found two fish in a squid I was cooking. Didn’t eat them, though.
8167DC7A-E02F-45FC-BFB1-AB7EF8B6059E.jpeg
 
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can of aldi spam, cut into... I guest 16ths, half then half etc until about half inch cubes-ish
can of tomato and chili
glob of aldi velveeta
glob of shredded cheddar
(all about the same size amount)
some dried minced onions, red pepper flakes, maybe salt or something else?
low on the spam first with the seasonings, after the grease starts dripping out crank it up a little to get a bit of a sear
add the everything else

also elbow macaroni
really dank, even my buddy who's paranoid of spicy stuff dug it
 
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Fried chicken drumsticks, mashed potatoes, corn and gravy. Salt and pepper on the drumsticks, egg wash, dredged in a mix of panko, garlic, chili powder, and rosemary. I'm very pleased that it's finally cold and dry enough that I can boil potatoes without feeling like I'm in a greenhouse. The gravy is the instant variety, so I'm not sure how good it's gonna be. I've had good experiences with the particular brand I'm using (Pioneer), so I hope it's good.
 
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