Cookin again

[Zardnaar]

Bring a plate lots of roast lamb. Not a fan of roast lamb. Tiny amount bottom of plate.



Raided the salad bar. Ima terrible kiwi traitor even not a fan of roast lamb

Casting summon American expat @pukanui. How do you find NZ roast lamb as an expat USian?

Dessert. Carrot cake, ginger plum cheesecake.



And whatever this is.



Blueberry steamed pudding apparently.

 

[Zardnaar]

Very basic. Crumpets with butter.



You can put jam, butter, cream, maple syrup, golden syrup, etc on them think I like them plain with just butter.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Did some more serious cooking than I have been of late, per my parents’ requests. This is something we call Moussak-Ayee- a fusion of Mediterranean and Creole cuisine.

Moussaka (and its cousin, pastitio) is a Greek/Lebanese casserole similar to lasagna. consisting of alternating layers of eggplant and meat, with potatoes added in some traditions. The eggplant & potato layers replace the pasta found in lasagna. The meat is sautéed with onions, garlic, tomato and seasoned with things like salt, pepper, oregano, chives, parsley and cinnamon.

The whole dish is topped with a béchamel sauce that has been made into a custard by enhancing it with cheese, white pepper, eggs salt and nutmeg.

The Creole fusion part in the dish comes from substituting 2/3 of the traditional ground beef/lamb/beef & lamb mix with authentic Louisiana hot sausage. This provided a modest but noticeable heat kick.

If you wanted to do something similar, but wanted to stick to traditional middle eastern ingredients, replace the Louisiana hot sausage with sujuk. Sujuk is an Eastern European/Middle Eastern fermented, relatively hard sausage that- while not as hot as the Creole stuff I use- still delivers some heat. It’s kind of like a spicy Italian sausage.

 

[Zardnaar]

Would try. Nothing exciting over here we have bought some new sauces I suppose.

Been watching YouTube videos on Las Vegas. Alot of food type reviews in the various casinos.

Around half the food horrifys me the other half is hell yes.

 

[Zardnaar]

Fine dining in NZ tonight.

We had family travel to Invercargill a small city right at the bottom of the country.

Fat Bastards Lucifer Pepper Steak pie.





Pretty darn good. All the best pies seen to be in smaller locations. Various small towns and this joint.


FB on YouTube.

Nice lingering heat in mouth, beautiful pastry and gravy. Steak was so tender kinda like casserole.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

We’re going to be doing something in a similar vein tomorrow. We’re taking some creole oyster dressing and some turkey I froze a while back and topping them with gravy and puff pastry. So it’s kind of like making some kind of pot pie/crusted casserole.

These are flavors we know work well together- essentially, its thanksgiving leftovers, but presented differently.

 

[Zardnaar]

We have something similar here. A few places do pastry topped casserole in a dish.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Here’s a link about the “Thanksgiving Casserole” I made. It was a mixed bag of successes and mistakes. Plenty of Roman for improvement, but I’m planning on doing it again…when I get the proper cooking vessels for it.


A couple of selected pix:


The main issue was what I cooked it in. It was too loose to be served fresh out of the oven from a standard baking pan- it just disintegrated.

Dishes like this are best made & served in an individual cocotte/crock/bowl of some kind, like a chicken pot pie or French Onion Soup…which im ALSO interested in cooking. So now I’m shopping for something in the 16-22oz size that can handle 350-500degF and doesn’t have protruding handles.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I did some omelettes for dinner tonight- no pix.

2 eggs, a splash of milk seasoned with parsley, chive and Tony Chachere’s seasoning mix. Inside, there was some pulled pork from a local bbq chain, plus diced onions, julienned spinach, and sliced tomatoes. I topped them with a mix of Swiss and Caramelized Onion Cheddar, paprika, a drizzle of bbq sauce and a dollop of sour cream.

The only complaint was Mom thought it needed more salt.

 

[prabe]

There seems to be a lot of salty stuff in that omelette. Like, I can see looking at putting all that in and thinking it would be salty enough. Other than the spinach and maybe the tomatoes (depending on how cooked they got) that's an omelette I'd eat.