Foodie thread

[QUOTE=vidalia]i'm mostly inspired to start this because i'm hungry.

foodie types, post here - favorite recipes, culinary experiences that made you swoon, etc.[/QUOTE]

well, I like to saute' shrimp with cinnamon, curry and a little bit of ginger in white wine or olive oil. this goes well with a sweet and sour recipe, stir fry, or an orange ginger sauce as an apetizer.

the orange ginger sauce is just a 3/2 ratio of orange marmalde to red wine, with salt and ginger, and then any other spice you like added to your personal taste. just heat it to a simmer for about 15 minutes. I usually add a bit of curry and cinnamon to this to tie it together.

I also do the surf and turf thing with plain old brown sugar. Just saute' shrimp and steak strips like stir fry, with brown sugar and a touch of salt, then serve over a rice pilaf, or white rice with some kind of citrus roumelade, and maybe add some pineapple. it's good eats.

[QUOTE=ireLocus]well, I like to saute' shrimp with cinnamon, curry and a little bit of ginger in white wine or olive oil. this goes well with a sweet and sour recipe, stir fry, or an orange ginger sauce as an apetizer.

the orange ginger sauce is just a 3/2 ratio of orange marmalde to red wine, with salt and ginger, and then any other spice you like added to your personal taste. just heat it to a simmer for about 15 minutes. I usually add a bit of curry and cinnamon to this to tie it together.

I also do the surf and turf thing with plain old brown sugar. Just saute' shrimp and steak strips like stir fry, with brown sugar and a touch of salt, then serve over a rice pilaf, or white rice with some kind of citrus roumelade, and maybe add some pineapple. it's good eats.[/QUOTE]

ooh, i like that one. i've been currying scallops like crazy these days... i really like unexpected spices, i.e. cinnamon in your recipe

framstedt - get over here!

moved this thread to the research forum.

a simple but very tasty recipe for Spaetzle:
Serves: 4
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 cup flour, all-purpose
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, large, lightly beaten
1/3 cup water
salt & pepper, to taste
melted butter

boil water - combine flour and salt, in seperate bowl mix egg and water. combine egg/water with flour/salt, mix thoroughly so dough is elastic. spoon off small portions of the dough into the boiling water(around 1 tablespoon each). boil dough until floating and tender, much like noodle dough. drizzle with melted butter, and salt and pepper to taste.

this past weekend i was up in portsmouth, nh visiting foodie friends. we left friday night,arriving at 10:30. wine was proferred, something called vampire from transylvania in roumania. that was ok. the shiraz, bin 555 was delicious. we enjoyed home made calzones with the juice. for dessert - rum balls.

saturday dinner - hurricanes (a fantastic tropical drink), smoked mussels, shrimp and cocktail sauce and smoked salmon on rye toast with red onion, cucumber and capers as appetizers. for dinner, a sausage and chicken jambalaya. we're washing this stuff down with vinho verde from portugal. for dessert, chocolate mousse, pecan wafers and the absolute best bread pudding i have ever have served with bourbon sauce.

sunday brunch - it's fondue at it's finest! first up gruyere and emmenthaler and we've got two kinds of salami, bread and fruit to dip. we're drinking juice, passion fruit, fresh squeezed orange and pineapple juice. second up smoked german mustard. whoa! for dessert, oatmeal cookies.

for snacking, left overs. wow.

wait, i thought that's where i put it?...

i'd be remiss if i didn't bring up the restaurant we found in an alley in rome - wandered for an hour, no one had a table, but the owner here was immediately warm and happy to see us, like he was waiting for us... when i told him it was the last night of my first trip to italy, he started bringing things we hadn't ordered - announced, "an onion, cooked fifteen hours!" and then laid down these perfect little things, the onion slow-cooked until completely liquified. eye-rollingly good. shrimp carpaccio with mint for my companion (he had wanted oysters, but the man refused him: "no - they're french"), and stuffed zucchini flowers for me, and it went on and on. by the time we finished, i was drunk and full and practically tingling from the wonderful things i tasted in the last two hours, a dionysian feast. i still think about that almost every day.

(...or is it carpaccio?)

hmmmmm..........i was inspired strongly to drink some of the blood of the last deer i killed last week. his spirit was so strong. um, is that considered food?

[QUOTE=vidalia]favorite recipes...[/QUOTE]

Papa Legba's Black Bean Soup
Simmer the bone of a ham or a pair of smoked ham hocks in 2 quarts of chicken stock until meat falls off bones (usually 1-2 hours). Remove bones.
Sautee six cloves garlc and two to three medium size onions in 1/4 cup olive oil until the onions are transluscent, add to stock.
Add 6 cups (approx) cooked black beans
Add Two thinly sliced carrots
Add Two thinly sliced stalks of celery
Add one diced tomato
Add 2 lbs andoulle sausage, sliced
Add two to twelve crushed chipotle (smoked jalapenos) to taste
simmer at least one hour

Of course, you can start with dried beans, soak them overnight, add after removing the bones from the stock.

You can do this in a crock pot or on the stovetop. The longer it cooks, the more it thickens and becomes more of a stew, but that's a good thing. If you want a thicker broth without the extra cooking time, you can use a hand blender to break down some of the beans prior to serving, though I think you'll find that if you cook it to thickness, it's a much better dish.

[QUOTE=vidalia]culinary experiences that made you swoon, etc.[/QUOTE]

My favorite culinary experiences have been in the 'you ate what?' category.

Roasted sweatbreads
Alligator tail
Brain sandwiches (at Dave & Jay's Back Door in St. Louis)
Rattlesnake
Prairie oysters (beef, pork, and lamb versions)
steak tartare
Haggis
Beef tongue (sliced thin on rye with onion and tomoto!)
Chitlins
Sushi (especialy uni)

My theory is this: if it's on the menu, and there's no dead people in the restaurant, it's safe. Furthermore, if it sounds disgusting, yet a restauranteur operating on a profit-motive includes it in his menu, it's probably damned good. I have yet to be proven wrong, including the delightful octopus I had at a Dominican restaurant in Inwood Park (NYC), and the ox tails I had at Sylvia's in Harlem.

I also love Lambics, the last primitive beers of Europe. They're made in a tiny district of Belgium using basically the opposite of every modern brewing technique. Spontaneously fermented by whatever yeast and bacteria happen to be unique to the Lambeek district, they are intensely sour, and funky smelling. The best I ever had was an unblended gueze from Cantillon, which I thought would strip the enamel off my teeth. It was great!

BTW, I'm not the first to love Lambics, Napoleon referred to them as the 'champagne of Brussells.'

i think the strangest thing i ever ate was sea urchin (uni) and i love it!

[QUOTE=framstedt]i think the strangest thing i ever ate was sea urchin (uni) and i love it![/QUOTE]

no kidding. is that poisonous? was it sushi?

snuff - didn't you have it at the dinner in may? i'm pretty sure that was one of the stations...

not sea urchin.

i love nigella lawson.

here:

[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/dining/22NIGE.html?oref=login&8hpib[/url]

[QUOTE=vidalia]i love nigella lawson.

here:

[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/dining/22NIGE.html?oref=login&8hpib[/url][/QUOTE]

I saw her cookbook at the Barnes & Noble in town last night. I didn't get Style network at college and I'm cable-deprived at home so I've never seen her do her thing. I'd like to see her stuff sometime, though.

[QUOTE=snuffy]no kidding. is that poisonous? was it sushi?[/QUOTE]

no, it's not. it's simply delicious. the only problem i think most diners have with sea urchin is the way it looks and smells - the color is a bright ochre and the odor is definitely maritime. the taste on the other hand is nothing short of miraculous.

when i lived in maine, in portland, the other portland you oregonian fucks, i knew an urchin diver. (yes, some of the best urchin comes from the great state of maine). he would sometimes offer me some of his catch - the bulk of whcich went to anxious japanese customers in boston and new york.

i had urchin, vidalia was right. but it was not pure, it was part of a complex dish that also had roe and other things, so it is hard for me to remember what it tasted like.

where can you get it, just sushi places?

nope. if you have japanese food stores; or even a chinatown you should be able to find it. furthermore, if you have a superior fish monger nearby they may stock it or could perhaps order it for you.

otherwise, yes, japanese restaurants are where you would find it most easily.

anybody like dates? i just ate one and thought of that scene with indiana jones: bad dates. mine were good though. anyone?

Dates are good.

Sushi/fresh seafood is a regional thing. Here in the midwest, you pay through the nose no matter what, if you want seafood that's edible. Something like uni is extra expensive. Of course, the Mafia controlling seafood shipping doesn't help, but even allowing for that, it's just ridiculous expensive to get the stuff here that quickly.

If you live in a port city, you've got a much better chance of finding reasonably priced fresh seafood, though obviously what's available is going to vary by which port you're at.

Best place to get good dates and date-based foods is Middle-Eastern based markets. I've had some Saudi export stuff that was absolutely decadent. And some interesting variations on figs.

[QUOTE=framstedt]anybody like dates? i just ate one and thought of that scene with indiana jones: bad dates. mine were good though. anyone?[/QUOTE]

Dates are good. They can be a little sickly sweet sometimes but they are tasty nonetheless.

i was in appleton wisconsin years ago on business. there is a japanese restaurant there that has its fish flown in DAILY! and to think i ate at the mongolian bbq! d'oh!

[QUOTE=framstedt]i was in appleton wisconsin years ago on business. there is a japanese restaurant there that has its fish flown in DAILY! and to think i ate at the mongolian bbq! d'oh![/QUOTE]
when we were in Milwaukee last spring I was like we should eat at a place that they don't have in chicago but then everybody else choose olive garden, it's not even real itilain food

you know, i was in milwaukee, too, staying at the pfister, and i went to this excellent italian restaurant nearby. yummy!

[QUOTE=mr_hash]when we were in Milwaukee last spring I was like we should eat at a place that they don't have in chicago but then everybody else choose olive garden, it's not even real itilain food[/QUOTE]

I don't know if I'd even consider Olive Garden "Italian food" - it's so bad even labeling it with quotation marks seems to overpraise the place. Bleh.

I concur

can you really eat guinea pig?

In the spirit of the season, here's a recipe for some really really sweet ppeanut butter fudge. It practically melts in your mouth.

2 cups of sugar
2/3 cup of milk
boil these together for 3-7 minutes. The way to test if it is ready is to have a clear glass full of cold water. Drop in one drop of the sugar milk and if it forms into a little ball at the bottom of the glass it is ready. If it flattens out it needs to be boiled longer.

When it is ready remove from heat an dstir in two heaping tablespoons of peanut butter. Place the hot pan in cold water and stir the fudge. When it starts to get a little thicker you have to quickly dump it into an 8" square dish. Then refridgerate. It will be very hard to cut and mostly will crack into good size chunks but it is supposed to.

[QUOTE=snuffy]can you really eat guinea pig?[/QUOTE]
not mine!

[QUOTE=mr_hash]when we were in Milwaukee last spring I was like we should eat at a place that they don't have in chicago but then everybody else choose olive garden, it's not even real itilain food[/QUOTE]

This is a battle I fight every time I travel with my family. If I'm alone, it's easy: if I've heard of it, I'm not going in. One exception to that, if I was to stumble on a real, live White Castle, I'd have to go get a sack of sliders. They folded up their tents in this area a few years back, and the frozen pucks in the grocery store just don't do the trick.

When I'm in Chicago, I make at least one mandatory meal at the Exchequer on the loop. It looks like the set for a John Hughes movie, it's got excellent food, reasonable prices, and a good selection of draft beer.

In Colorado Springs, there was a hamburger place called Red Top that served burgers big enough to play LaCrosse on. They even sell them in halves. In Tulsa, there's a joint called Ty's "Over Three Dozen Served," and here in KC there's Max's Auto Diner, maybe the best hamburger stand I've ever found, and in my suburban town of Gardner, there's four locals: Blazer's, The Downtowner, Mom's, and the Gardner Cafe, all of which have better food than Sonic or McDonalds and so on.

I do my best to fight McStarbuckification. I'm not a big coffee drinker, but when I do get an espresso, it's from Sweet Thoughts, a coffee shop owned bya couple of local guys. The coffee is better than Starbucks to boot.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]This is a battle I fight every time I travel with my family. If I'm alone, it's easy: if I've heard of it, I'm not going in. One exception to that, if I was to stumble on a real, live White Castle, I'd have to go get a sack of sliders. They folded up their tents in this area a few years back, and the frozen pucks in the grocery store just don't do the trick.

When I'm in Chicago, I make at least one mandatory meal at the Exchequer on the loop. It looks like the set for a John Hughes movie, it's got excellent food, reasonable prices, and a good selection of draft beer.
[/QUOTE]
I haven't had White Chastle in so long, and I pass one everyday on my way to work. did you know that founder of white castle was a big fan of the water tower, that was the insiration for having a white chastle.
I've never been to Exchequer, I'll have to check it out next time I'm eating downtown.

[QUOTE=mr_hash]I haven't had White Chastle in so long, and I pass one everyday on my way to work. did you know that founder of white castle was a big fan of the water tower, that was the insiration for having a white chastle.
I've never been to Exchequer, I'll have to check it out next time I'm eating downtown.[/QUOTE]

White Castle was founded in Wichita, a couple hours south of me. They fought a hard fight in the 80's with Overland Park's idiot zoning board to get a variance for their building (the city wanted them to settle for a beige castle). When my wife and I were first dating, a late night run to White Castle for a sack was [I]di rigeur[/I]. Have a beer or two, shag, maybe watch part of a movie and shag again, then eat a sack of white castles then more beer and shagging, repeat as necessary.

Just like I'd rather drink a Boylan root beer than whatever Coke or Pepsi is trying to pass off as root beer. If you're just looking at soda as a delivery system for caffeine, Diet Mountan Dew is all good an well, but if you want a soda that is worth drinking...

[QUOTE=snuffy]can you really eat guinea pig?[/QUOTE]

YES, there are people who eat it every day in south america.

[QUOTE=framstedt]YES, there are people who eat it every day in south america.[/QUOTE]

well, there is also people who eat dog everyday in china.

what i want to know is have you actually had it and is it actually good to eat.

*changes subject*

this steak & cheese with mushrooms sure is great.

[QUOTE=snuffy]well, there is also people who eat dog everyday in china.

what i want to know is have you actually had it and is it actually good to eat.[/QUOTE]

yes, ihad it in central america two years ago. delicious with cilantro, oil, garlic and other spices. wash it down with local beer.

wow, that sounds good. was it a pulled pork kind of thing, or was it served braised, or what?

i'm craving steak au poivre like nothing else right now. brasserie jo, anyone?

[QUOTE=vidalia]i'm craving steak au poivre like nothing else right now. brasserie jo, anyone?[/QUOTE]

I've made steak like this before but without putting them in the oven. It's very delicious. I only did it a couple times at my apartment in Kansas because the fire alarm was right above the kitchen and the ventilation sucked in that place, so the second time I did it I actually set off the fire alarm for the whole building. During finals week. In December. A bunch of football players were on my floor. I kept quiet about it, of course. Never made steak in that place again after that. The steak tasted delicious though when I got back in. It was a bittersweet experience, I guess.

i've been doing this crudely with a little butter and crudely ground peppercorns, but it's by no means the real thing. sears a really fantastic steak, though.

just got back from some really fantastic turkish food. we had a "see how far down you can drink your turkish coffee" contest.

I'm glad someone bumped a food thread. I ate pork.

pork is a highly underrated meat.

For my own part, I was thinking how great the pan seared ostrich fillets (medium rare) were last time I ate at Fedora's...

Anyone else here dig ostrich, the other red meat?

Brownies!!!!!!
1/2 cup butter
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup ground walnuts (chopped works to but I like ground)
1/4 cup cut up chocolate squares (chocolate chips work to)
some carmel desert topping

Melt butter and chocolate together in a large saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in everything but the carmel

Pour into a greased 8 inch square pan, drizzle carmel on top. Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes.

[URL=http://img59.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img59&image=cookies0bi.jpg]COOKIES!!!!!!!![/URL]

[QUOTE=vidalia]pork is a highly underrated meat.[/QUOTE]

Totally.

I would also like to argue that The Cheesecake Factory's cheesecake is absolutely fabulous, and that Velveeta's Shells & Cheese beats any Kraft macaroni product hands down.

velveeta beats kraft, but annies may beat velveeta, because it lacks the nasty after-feeling. i get velveeta hangovers, i swear.

[QUOTE=mr_hash]Brownies!!!!!!
1/2 cup butter
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup ground walnuts (chopped works to but I like ground)
1/4 cup cut up chocolate squares (chocolate chips work to)
some carmel desert topping

Melt butter and chocolate together in a large saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in everything but the carmel

Pour into a greased 8 inch square pan, drizzle carmel on top. Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes.

[URL=http://img59.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img59&image=cookies0bi.jpg]COOKIES!!!!!!!![/URL][/QUOTE]

Heed my warning: these things are addicting. Hash should try my brownies too.

[QUOTE=Undertow]Heed my warning: these things are addicting. Hash should try my brownies too.[/QUOTE]
I would love to try your brownies!

Also I'm so making this this weekend
Peanut Butter Pie
2 oz. cream cheese
1 C. confectionary sugar
1/3 C. half and half
1 t. vanilla
1 C. peanut butter
1 1/2 C. heavy cream whipped

Using an electric mixer, combine cream cheese, confectionary sugar, cream, vanilla and peanut butter together.

Whip the cream until very stiff in a small bowl. Add 1/3 of the whip cream to the peanut butter mixture. Fold in the rest of the whipped cream. Spoon into prepared crust. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Note: If you wish to decorate it a little, melt some chocolate and drizzle over the top of the pie.

I make the perfect cheese omelette. Three eggs beaten, approximately the same volume of strong cheese, shit loads of black pepper. Fry in a non-stick frying pan until the bottom is done all over then put under the grill. Fold in half and serve.

When baking, using sugar that has been infused with subtle flavors can truly enhance the taste. All you do is seal up some sugar in a jar with some fresh something or other and wait a week.

Possble flavors to season sugar with include;
One Vanilla bean
Some stalks of fresh lavender
A cinnamon Stick
Dried rose buds
Some whole cloves
Any kind of nut you like (good ones incude hazel nuts, almonds, or walnuts)
Orange peel
Coconut
Grapefruit peel

This does tend to make the sugar clump a bit because of the oils and moisture, but as long as you keep the jar in a cool place and poke at it a little before measuring, it should be fine.

This article is making me think about woks more and more. I made stir fry a lot when I had my apartment in Kansas, and I wanted to buy a wok so bad. I'm going to Chinatown this Sunday, hopefully, to celebrate the Chinese new year with some friends, maybe I'll buy one then. If you want the actual article, go [URL=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/09/dining/09wok.html?8hpib]here[/URL].

[QUOTE]The Well-Tempered Wok
By JULIA MOSKIN

Published: February 9, 2005

HEN Grace Young's family went to restaurants, her father always insisted that they sit right next to the swinging door to the kitchen. A liquor salesman who felt at home in every restaurant in San Francisco's Chinatown, her father said food had to be eaten just moments out of the wok, while it is still fresh, hot and exuding wok hay, a Cantonese term, unknown in other parts of China, that translates loosely as "wok energy" or "wok breath."

Wok hay is what happens when excellent ingredients - like ginger, noodles, shrimp, walnuts or Chinese chives - meet a wok crackling with heat. It is both a taste and aroma and something else, too, a lively freshness that prickles your nose and makes you impatient for that first taste, like the smell of steak just off the grill or a tomato right off the vine in August. Food with wok hay tastes intensely of itself.

"Wok hay makes the difference between a good stir-fry and a great one," said Ms. Young, who traveled to China in 2000 and 2002 to study and document wok cooking and traditions. Her book, "The Breath of a Wok" (Simon & Schuster, 2004), is both an attempt to define wok hay and a guide to achieving it in an American kitchen. "It's something that you create with a hot wok," Ms. Young said, "but it's also something you release that is already in the food."

Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year, a 15-day celebration of renewal, which is the most important holiday of the Chinese year: Christmas, New Year's Day, Easter and Yom Kippur all bundled together. It is considered the most auspicious time to buy a new wok or other cooking tools. "The weeks leading up to New Year are our busiest time of the year," said Tanya Leung, an owner of Hung Chong Cookware in Chinatown in Manhattan. This year, she said, many of her customers are buying a new product, an iron adapter for American stovetops that makes it possible to use an authentic Chinese wok without raising it too high above the flames, as wok rings do.

Lang Ching, a New Yorker born in Fujian Province, who was browsing the aisles there last week, said she buys a new wok every year. "Some cooks in China keep their woks for 30 years," she said. "But I like to try the new ones." Cookware centers like Hung Chong and Sunrise, on Main Street in Flushing, Queens, carry both the ancient forms of the wok - southern Chinese cast iron ones with two handles, northern Chinese carbon steel ones with one hollow handle - and popular, more expensive innovations like nonstick and anodized aluminum woks.

But Ms. Young said that just as Western skillets with those surfaces will never produce the kind of browning that cooks dream of, the newfangled woks will never produce wok hay, especially on an American stove. On a typical Chinese stove the wok rests inside the heat source, so that its entire base is bathed in flames. Recreating that embrace of heat through a series of subtle changes to traditional Chinese methods is, she said, the key to stir-fry success.

Missteps that prevent us from achieving wok hay, Ms. Young said, include crowding too much food into the wok, using ingredients that are damp instead of dry, and adding the oil before the wok is heated through. But, she said, "the single most common mistake made in cooking Chinese food on a Western stove is using a wok that is not hot enough."

Residential stoves here produce about 10,000 B.T.U.'s, but restaurant stoves in Hong Kong, where the chefs use compressed gas to create a more intense heat, can produce as much as 200,000. At that level of heat, and with the intense activity of a restaurant kitchen, even top-quality woks warp instantly and have to be hammered back into shape after each night's cooking. While a home wok can last a lifetime, the legendary wok warriors of top Hong Kong restaurants must buy new woks every 7 to 10 days. The best chefs buy their woks from artisans who hammer each one from a single piece of carbon steel, positioning each strike of the hammer to create a perfectly smooth cooking surface.

Those chefs, Ms. Young said, would be mystified by some of the advice she gives to home cooks in the United States. "The flat-bottom wok is totally unknown in China" she said. "But it's absolutely the right choice here." She said that even her grandmother, who immigrated to San Francisco from Hong Kong in 1979, never attempted wok cooking on an American stove. All of the family's recipes were adapted to skillets, Ms. Young said, but the results were never quite satisfactory. "You end up chasing the ingredients around," she explained. "Only the wok shape lets you cook on the bottom and the sides of the pan."

Last week at Hung Chong, Ms. Leung's assistant Meng Chaeng helped a customer choose a new cast-iron wok - thinner than American cast iron and not at all heavy - by gently thumping the sides of several contenders with a gloved finger and listening to the bell-like tones that echoed in the shop. Mr. Chaeng is the shop's resident expert at listening to woks.

"This is the most beautiful one," he said, pointing to a wok with a chipped edge. "It will give you the most wok hay." [/QUOTE]