Yep.
I also used their recipe for "jammy" eggs (between soft and hard boiled yolks) in the back of the issue that came out swimmingly.
Cookin again
Yep.
I also used their recipe for "jammy" eggs (between soft and hard boiled yolks) in the back of the issue that came out swimmingly.
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
I love congee. My wife makes it whenever I have a cold...it's a comfort food in her family, sort of like how chicken noodle soup is in mine. She makes it with chicken stock, and tops it with a soft poached egg, some green onions, a little chili oil, grated ginger, and soy sauce.
I got a subscription to their website a few years ago. It gives you access to all the recipes, videos, gear reviews, etc. from the magazines AND the TV shows.*
* Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country, America’s Test Kitchen and...one whose name escapes me,
I have a similar Subscription to Everything at their site. I find their recipes work well, and make excellent starting places if I want to explore something more deeply.
With my wife not feeling well, back on Friday I went out and got a rotisserie chicken - ripped all the meat off and set it aside, and made broth out of the bones (and the usual carrots, onion, celery, and herbs). I am not above using mass-produced broth when I am cooking, but when the goal is to get nutrition and hydration into someone, home made is a ton better. I used some of my broth to make the congee last night.
Back many years ago, as a wedding present someone got us a physical, bound collection of Cook's Illustrated back issues, like a decade's worth. I had not really looked at the magazine before, in large part because the person who gave it to us... was a real snob. So I had assumed that, if he liked the magazine, it was targeting food snobs - the high end French and Italian restaurant kind of people. But, since we had a decade of the things, we started reading...
I was incredibly wrong. Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country are solid staples for anyone who likes to cook. The key, of course, is in the name of the organization. America's TEST Kitchen. A great many cookbooks and magazines don't actually test out the recipes - they just assume the writer knows what they are doing. ATK tests up, down, sideways, and with variations to find the best, and usually most practical, way to get cooking done.
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
Thai-spiced peanut butter sandwich update:
I mixed about 2 tablespoons of peanut butter with a hefty squirt of sriracha, a drop of fish sauce (seriously, just a single drop), a few drops of sesame oil, a squeeze of lime, and a bit of soy sauce. It seized up a bit, as predicted, so I added a little coconut oil. I kept tasting and stirring and adjusting everything until I liked the look and taste of it.
Then I fried up 4 strips of bacon until they were done but not crisp. I made a sandwich out of the peanut butter, the bacon, and a slice of red onion. It was incredible. I wanted to eat fifteen more.
Next time: lose the onion and add a few sprigs of fresh cilantro instead. Consider replacing the bacon with leftover pulled pork.
I mixed about 2 tablespoons of peanut butter with a hefty squirt of sriracha, a drop of fish sauce (seriously, just a single drop), a few drops of sesame oil, a squeeze of lime, and a bit of soy sauce. It seized up a bit, as predicted, so I added a little coconut oil. I kept tasting and stirring and adjusting everything until I liked the look and taste of it.
Then I fried up 4 strips of bacon until they were done but not crisp. I made a sandwich out of the peanut butter, the bacon, and a slice of red onion. It was incredible. I wanted to eat fifteen more.
Next time: lose the onion and add a few sprigs of fresh cilantro instead. Consider replacing the bacon with leftover pulled pork.
You need to post that in the Unusual Sandwiches thread (link is in my sig)!
I have at times in the past (not here) gronked to various degrees about one recipe or another in Cook's Illustrated or Cook's Country (for example, I am surprised they didn't mention the texture/boilover thing you experienced), but they pretty emphatically are not snobs. For my food snob needs, the current iteration of Bon Appetit suffices me amply. ;-)
I use both store bought and homemade stocks. Ain‘t no shame in my game!
The stock that changed my kitchen was turkey/poultry stock. Because we’re usually the hosts for the big holidays, I usually had 1-4 bird carcasses* to work with. I’d put them in my 20qt stock pot, covered with water, and bring to a simmer while I’m cleaning up. Between the cooking of the stock, reducing it, and cooling, though, that added several hours to the end of my long day in the kitchen.
Then, in a fit of Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS), I bought a 30qt stock pot, and it revolutionized my holidays. As is probably evident to you as a physicist, water takes a lot of energy- and time- to heat. When I was making stock in the 20qt pot with all those carcasses, I needed a lot of water to cover them, because they went all the way to the top. But in the 30qt pot, they don’t even go halfway up, so I need less water to properly cover the bones. Less water = less heat = less time. That one change shaved HOURS off my holiday stock making.
As for ATK and the rest, I started off watching a couple of episodes on PBS, and my Mom coincidentally got a subscription to CI for my Dad’s medical practice waiting room. I was hooked: I asked for- and got- the website subscription for a Christmas gift.
So far, one of the best recipes I’ve gotten from them was their duck-fat oven roasted potatoes. I had been trying for YEARS to perfect a roasted potato recip, and theirs showed me where my efforts were going wrong. I even made a discovery of my own: while the recipe called for duck fat, they also point out bacon fat worked almost as well. Great for me, because I can’t find duck fat, but bacon fat is easy to come by. But I have tried other fats besides.
I often have rendered beef fat from cooking ground meat for my dogs (longish story) and I tried THAT one day. It, too, worked quite well. Vegetable oils. OTOH, just...didn’t. I have no idea why, but the potatoes never came out anywhere near as good as when I used animal fats. I mean, they were still decent enough to serve, so you COULD do a vegetarian/vegan version of the recipe, but it just wouldn’t be the same.
I also used the fats left over from cooking the potatoes to do a quick oven roast- or pan fry- of San Marzano tomatoes, and it was so good that my tomato-hating cousin was asking me what I did to the tomatoes while he was popping them in his mouth like grapes.
* the big one is always from my steamed turkey but we also usually have a fried one as well. And occasionally we get chicken, duck or goose to work with from the other attendees.
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The more I think about this, the more I think it could be a commercially viable recipe. A Thai-themed sandwich screams American fusion ethnic street food. A cosmopolitan city with a taste for the exotic would chow the hell down on those.
