Recipe Exchanges

General Off-Topic Discussion
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I’ve become pretty hungry going through the Arguing Syntax thread, with its side stepping a little by mentioning a bunch of delicious food. So I thought it would be fun if we talked even more about food, and maybe exchanging some recipes? (I want to try new stuff)

Anyway, I’ll start:

Ratatouille, the OG one, not like the movie

Will make enough for 6-8-ish portions.

Ingredients:

  • Aubergine/Eggplant (1)
  • Courgette/Zucchini (1-2 depending on the size)
  • Bell pepper (2-3 depending on the size)
  • Tomatoes (large crushed can or fresh)
  • Onion (1 large)
  • Garlic (I’d say the whole head… but 3-4 cloves will do)
  • Provencal herb mix (Italian is fine)
  • Olive oil (a lot of it)

Utensils:

  • Big pot (spaghetti size)

Instruction:
Cut all vegetables in chunks.
Cook the veggies on a medium fire : Dump it in this order, giving 5/10-ish min for the previous to soften: onion, garlic, aubergine, courgette, bell pepper, herbs, tomatoes.
Add extra olive oil when necessary.
Stir to mix the veggies/help them cook.
Season with salt/pepper if needed (I usually don’t)
Let it stew for at least 2h on a low fire.
Done.

Best:

  • Reheated
  • In a toastie/grilled cheese → the :bomb:
  • with couscous/bread slice/rice
  • Cold

Make it fancy:
Cook each vegetable one at a time in the same pan (add-cook-remove-more oil-add-etc) until the tomato.
Then dump all the cooked veggies in the pan, add the tomato.
The previous veggie will leave some flavour in the pan for the next one.
Can also add a bit of herbs at each stage too.

Tips:

  • salt the courgette after cutting it to remove some of the moisture
  • don’t pour oil on the aubergine bc it will absorb it (oil first, then aubergine - stir often)

Jump to another recipe:

(;-; had to remove the tagging, since you can’t tag more than 10 peeps at a time…)

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Great idea!

Carrot Orange Soup

4 portions

Ingredients:

700 gramm (g) carrots
30g butter
150ml orange juice (tastes better when freshly pressed from whole oranges)
4 potatoes
1250ml boullion/stock
1 onion
4 teaspoons (ts) fresh thyme or 1 ts dried thyme
salt and pepper

Peel the potatoes.
Hack the onion and the potatoes into small cubes.
Peel the carrots and cut them into slices.
Put the carrots and butter into a pot.
Sweat them 10 minutes under small heat.
Put the potatoes and onion into the pot.
Pour orange juice and boullion into it.
Make it cooking.
Spice it with thyme, salt and pepper.
Make it a smooth mass with a hand blender.

(Can be refined with a splash of creme fraiche, yoghurt or cream.)

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My partner loves the movie, perhaps i will surprise them with the authentic thing!

Here’s my contribution, from my salad days before I became unable to digest dairy, eggs, and gluten.

Blueberry Scones Kit Wishes They Could Still Eat But They’re Not Mad About It Or Anything

Summary
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • ⅓ cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon baking soda
  • 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, frozen but thawed enough that you can chop it into bits
  • ½ cup blueberries, pref. frozen (optional)
  • ½ cup sour cream
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon white sugar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
Mix your powders (flour, 1/3 cup sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda) together. Chop the frozen butter into chunks and knead it into the dry ingredients until it’s kinda crumbly but not so much that the butter totally dissolves. You want lil’ flakes and chunks. This is good practice for pie dough! Then add your berries and mix until they’re distributed.
Whisk sour cream and egg together in a small bowl until combined, then pour it in with everything else and mix until large dough clumps form.
Form the dough into a single ball (if it doesn’t cohere, knead it a little more) and flatten it onto a lightly floured surface.
Press it into a 7-8 inch circle and chop it into eight pieces like a pizza. You can stick some more berries on top and sprinkle a bit of sugar over them if you want them to be extra pretty and tasty.
Bake until golden, about 15 to 17 minutes. You can let them cool for a few minutes and dig in or wait a few hours until they’ve firmed up, they’re great either way.

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I also like to talk about food apart from recipes.

My favorite meal are actually two I love equally: Apple pancake and Spaghetti Bolognese (can be vegan Bolognese, that’s great, too).

I also love apple cake and Schwarzwald Kirsch (cherry) gateux (creampie).

I hate tasteless tomatoes in a salad and really appreciate tasteful tomatoes.

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I grew up with a Transylvanian grandmother who loved baking German and eastern European delicacies and somehow never tried this! I should dig out our family’s dobos torte recipe, successfully putting one of those together is the greatest culinary achievement of my life.

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I’m not very good at following or writing down recipes, so this is more an idea than an actual set of instructions, but hopefully still of interest:

Watermelon Banh Mi

I’m a vegetarian white guy, which means that a large portion of my diet is culturally-appropriated and arguably-ruined Asian food. Sorry! But banh mi are super delicious, and I don’t think I can be faulted for trying to figure out a version I can actually eat. The idea here is to take the usual vegetarian banh mi approach – marinate some firm tofu in some soy sauce, sesame oil, and maybe some sri racha or something, then throw between mayo’d-up slices of a baguette with jalapeno, cilantro, maybe some shredded carrots or something, etc. – and make it a little more exciting by throwing cubed watermelon into the marinade, too.

The things to watch out for are:

  • You want to start the tofu marinating well before the watermelon, since it’ll suck up the liquid much quicker – if you leave it sitting too long, the watermelon will get super salty and the balance will be ruined.

  • I know it’s overly precious to make your own mayo/aoli – and god knows that I don’t have time for it these days, post-kid – but it’s actually not that hard, and super delicious (hand-whipping whipped cream is the other hill like this I will die on).

  • Figuring out how to cut everything so it can be assembled into a sandwich that won’t be so tall it messes up your mouth, or so overstuffed it falls out when you bite into it, can be tricky. There’s no simple way to convey the right approach, but when I go wrong it’s usually because I cut the watermelon too big.

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bookmarked.

best regards from ITALY,
dott. Piergiorgio.

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I like this thread idea.

So, fun fact: what’s normally called Bolognese sauce by foreigners actually resembles Neapolitan ragù more than anything. So here’s ragù bolognese, as made in Bologna.

All doses are approximate, because I normally eyeball everything.
  • 300g ground beef (traditionally you’re supposed to use a very specific cut, but I’m not sure how to translate that into English)
  • 150g pancetta (ground pork is fine too, or a mixture of both)
  • 2 carrots
  • 2 celery stalks
  • 1 onion
  • Tomato sauce or paste
  • Red wine
  • Milk
  • Broth
  • Salt and pepper
  • Butter (or olive oil if you prefer)

Chop the vegetables and the pancetta, if applicable. Melt the butter in a pot, then add the vegetables and pancetta and cook until soft. Add the ground meat, then cook until browned.

Now add some tomato sauce. Not a lot—this is not a tomato-based sauce so much as a sauce with trace amounts of tomato in it. I usually just add a dash from the bottle. A tablespoon or two of tomato paste works too. Then about half a glass each of milk, red wine, and broth. Add salt and pepper. Reduce heat to low, close the pot, and let it simmer for at least two hours (I like to leave it on a bit more). Check occasionally, and if it’s dry add some more milk or broth.

You can eat it with tagliatelle (not spaghetti, traditionally) and approximately a metric ton of Parmigiano. Alternatively, you can make traditional lasagne with bechamel and more Parmigiano.

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correct recipe; albeit I prefer using the more salty Pecorino… (I like salty things, my relatives always joke that salumi, prosciutto, pancetta, salty cheeses are cookies & sweets for me…)

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

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I… I am both in awe of and revolted about the concept. Like I know it should probably work (because I have done abominations while cooking that turned out amazing) but my brain is like nuh-huh, that’s not how things work.

And I say this was someone who will now keep an eye for watermelons at the store to try out later…

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While the concept of watermelon being slapped into banh mi definitely gave me pause, this made me make a horrified little kitty face because… Mike, you aren’t just putting raw shredded carrots in there, are you?

Quick pickled julienned (if you don’t have a mandolin slicer, which is far easier) carrots and daikon (the white matchsticks you might have seen in some at the shops) are like, what I think of, when I think of some banh mi accoutrement. Generally this pair is referred to as Đồ chua (which er, translates literally to ‘sour stuff’) and if you search up the term you can find a bunch of different ratios of carrot to daikon and different sweetness to sourness brines. They’re supposed to add crunch and variation in texture, while cutting through some of the rich fattiness from the pate and meats- less of an issue for you, but. My goodness.

Normally we’d just sort of eyeball things- (though more on the carrot heavy side, since daikon are kind of seen as the cheaper filler vegetable) salt them so they weep and get kind of pathetic looking, pat dry, flop into a jar, combine and dissolve a tablespoon less white sugar than you add vinegar (depending on your taste preferences, but 6ish of sugar to 5ish of vinegar is probably an okay place to start) into enough boiled water to fill your little container (maybe a cup?), and then you let him sit in the fridge for a bit. Maybe a day or so? Then you can fish them out with chopsticks (or like, a fork, I guess) and put them on stuff.

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I’m more of a baker than I am someone inclined to cookery, but I also am bizarrely intuitive about how I bake, so riffing off the cuff with recipes is more my style, plus the massive variation in baking when it comes into taking into account the size of your non-standard ingredients, ambient air humidity and temperature, and whether or not the chocolate tempering Gods have decided to smile upon you or not. Usually the answer is not. I am consistently baffled by our oven, (learning it’s hot spots is a whole ordeal), and the end results of baking, but they’re usually at least edible.

So there’s your fair warning. Still, here’s more or less the recipe I use for banana bread:

  • 2 cups of unpacked down flour (all purpose is fine)
  • 1 levelled, unpacked teaspoon of baking soda
  • 1 big pinch (thumb to four fingers) of normal salt (ie, not finishing salt or flaky crystals)
  • 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 of white sugar, or 1 cup of white sugar with a glug of molasses
  • 2 eggs you’ve whisked until they’re homogenous and there’s no gloopy whites
  • 1/2 a stick of butter, softened, easier if you can smush it up with a fork. NOT melted.
  • At LEAST 6 bananas, but it comes out good with up to 9ish normal size bananas. (The more bananas you add, the squishier the end loaf turns out. You may want to divide them into their natural threes, peel off the strings, and then squish them into goop with a fork. Ideally the bananas are really brown and speckly on the outside and sort of horrifically bruised.)
  • Chocolate, whatever you like. Either a chopped up (or smashed in a ziplock) full bar, or about half a cup of chocolate chips, preferably the bar. You can add like, a handful of chopped nuts, but the babymeow isn’t crazy about nuts in his so we don’t. Cutting up squares of those caramel candies is also a possibility, (about a cupped handful) or a handful of dried coconut. You can go crazy and all of them, so long as the batter looks like it’s holding, but I normally just add the chocolate.
  • 2 glugs of vanilla extract. I don’t measure this out usually, just until it smells nice.

Preheat your oven to 350, and grab a handful of butter to smash all over the inside of a baking tin. (This also does work with a muffin tin, and honestly, this is probably the better option if you don’t feel like eating an entire loaf of banana bread at once or fussing with cutting.) You can be dainty and just rub the sticky wrapper on the insides, but if you do add ‘too much butter’ it just kind of makes a lovely crunchy golden crust on the perimeter, so a win either way.

Slap together all of the dry ingredients. Then, beat the softened butter with your sugar, until it goes all grainy and gloopy. It should look like you’ve made a terrible mistake. Mix in the other wet ingredients. Then, slop it into the flour. Resist the urge to stir like a mad man- just fold it into itself until everything’s nice and wet. If you have an icecream scoop, that’s great for portioning out the batter if you’re using a tin, though a spoon and a pair of chopsticks works fine. You can also just go ahead and dump it all into the larger baking tin if you’re going that route.

Bake for about a hour, or until the toothpick test (jamming one into the deepest bit and making sure it doesn’t come out all goopy) comes out clean. Let it cool thoroughly.

If you take some powdered icing sugar, and a dab of milk (literally go in a few drops at a time, or you will make it too runny) you can glaze it afterwards. Substituting some of the milk with a single drop of food colouring can make it fun for little ones to decorate by spooning some overtop, but don’t add too much or it’ll be bitter (it’s easier if you have gel food colouring stuck on a toothpick and whisked in, but most people don’t unless they bake frequently, and the watery stuff works fine.)

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Yeah I sometimes do them pickled, but have to confess more usually we have the carrots raw - in this case I’m going to throw my wife under the bus, though, because she absolutely loves crunchy foods, the crunchier the better, so since I don’t have super strong feelings I usually defer to her.

(After dragging you the other day for your approach to “Mexican” “food”, I hope I am righting the karmic balance somewhat :slight_smile: )

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Silly little mouse doodle of utter and abject food dismay.

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I’ve had this topic open quite literally all day, ooh-ing and aah-ing over what scrumptious things to pick and make first from this thread (Mike, I see your handmade mayo/aioli, salute you with a horrifyingly hypermobile wrist, and respectfully raise you a bottle of Kewpie).
Here’s my contribution, a creamy cold noodle dish that sparks lots of joy, especially in summer (apologies to Intfic foodies with peanut/sesame allergies). I learned this from my mother in the Traditional Way, which essentially translates to “measure with your eyes and your SOUL”, so: artistic license encouraged in preparation. Taste often :stuck_out_tongue:

Peanut Butter Sesame Noodles
  • 8 oz dry flat noodles (or 1 pack instant noodles)
  • 2-3 tbsp peanut butter
  • Splash soy sauce
  • Slightly-more-than-a-splash black vinegar
  • 1 pinch sugar
  • Sesame seed oil

Mix together peanut butter (when I’m feeling particularly princeling-like, I’ll swap out about half of it for sesame butter), soy sauce, black vinegar, and sugar in a large mixing bowl; you’re aiming for a smooth, easily-stirrable consistency, slightly thinner than pancake batter, and a slightly overwhelming flavour (it’ll be diluted by mixing with the noodles/toppings). If you get the desired consistency but the sauce is Extremely salty, add a very stingy bit of hot water and mix like you’re cranking one of those souvenir penny machines.

While you boil the noodles, you can prep toppings! My tradition is plain omelette cut into strips, shredded cucumber, and shredded ham. You can add anything your heart desires: pickled + julienned carrots, sliced strawberries, and quail eggs are some past successes of mine.

Mix the noodles with the sauce and a drizzle of sesame seed oil, then add your toppings and enjoy. :smiley:

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Ooooh I love thosee. I do it with cucumber, green onion, bell pepper (red), and corn :stuck_out_tongue: (sometimes with a side of sea weed salad or sea weed sheets).

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Shallot Spaghetti

Boil 1 lb of thick spaghetti in salted water until a little harder than al dente. (I subtract one or two minutes from the package directions.)

While that’s cooking, put 1/4 cup olive oil in a skillet with a generous helping of minced garlic, a pinch of paprika, and a pinch of coarse salt.

Heat medium-low until the garlic is golden, then add a ladle-full of pasta water and a bit less than a quarter cup of fried shallots. (You’ll find them in clear jars in Asian grocery stores, they’re delicious.) It should stop sizzling when you add the water. Turn off the heat and wait for the pasta to cook.

Once the pasta is ready, transfer it into the skillet, add a splash more olive oil and another handful of fried shallots, and cook on high heat, tossing the pasta constantly (tongs are helpful) until the sauce is emulsified and covers the pasta completely.

Add in two pinches of chopped parsley (and a couple more shallots if you want some crunch), toss one more time to mix it in, and serve. Top it with a pinch of salt and a little bit of chili crisp (you’ll also find this at the Asian grocery stores) to taste.

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I am a baker of cakes, mostly, and I’ve spent so many years perfecting my recipes that I won’t give them away. But I will share my easy strawberry/raspberry tart recipe. Making a good pastry cream is an essential skill.

CRUST

You can make a pastry crust, but I find that all that work makes a crust that’s only marginally better than a good frozen one. So I generally do that. You can drizzle a little melted chocolate in the bottom of the pastry shell after baking it if that’s your jam.

Bake your pastry shell first and cool it.

PASTRY CREAM

2 tbsp flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
4 egg yolks
2 cups milk (whole milk, y’all)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp butter (chopped in little pieces)

Put the dry ingredients in a nonstick pan (I use a frying pan, not a saucepan) and whisk them together.

In a bowl, whisk the yolks into the milk VERY WELL. Then pour that into the pan and make sure all the dry ingredients are well integrated into the milk/yolk mixture.

Put the pan on the stove at medium heat and stir occasionally (I use a wooden spoon) for about 5 minutes, then stir constantly, scraping the bottom of the pan as you stir. It will start to thicken, and it will look like curds are forming, but keep stirring and scraping and it will all thicken up and become smooth. Do NOT leave it alone at all after the first 5 minutes of cook time. If you still see lumps after it has thickened, break them up with a whisk.

Once the cream has thickened and starts bubbling, boil for 1 minute, stirring and scraping all the while. Then take it off the stove. You’ll know it’s done if you drag the edge of the spoon through it and the line stays.

Now add the vanilla and the butter and stir until the butter is all melted and the vanilla is all integrated. You can add a little strawberry liqueur or some rum here if you want zip, but I generally don’t. You can also add some melted semisweet chocolate to it if you want it chocolatey.

Pour the cream into your pre-baked and cooled pastry shell and put it in the fridge to set.

**Edit: note, if you like a really thick amount of cream, you can use most of it in one pie shell, but I like a thinner layer and usually make 2 tarts from one batch of cream. Which is good, because you’ll need 2.

TOPPING

Put fresh strawberries or raspberries (or both, or some other berry if you like) on the cooled cream.

I think red currant jelly is the best thing to pour over either berry. Melt about 1/2 cup of jelly, add 1 and 1/2 tsp gelatin, stir over medium heat until the gelatin is dissolved. Spoon it over the berries.

Let the tart set in the fridge for at least an hour or two, then snarf it down.

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I have a few signature recipes. One I would like to share is Special Riivinkropsu. It’s a type of potato casserole. A penpal taught me the traditional Finnish recipe and I made some modifications:

Ingredients to serve 4, recipe within

a heaped tablespoonful of butter (anything else you use to grease cooking containers for oven baking will work, or you can substitute greaseproof paper if you prefer)
2 eggs
250 ml milk (full-fat or semi-skimmed both work, and you can use cream or similar ingredients to replace some of this if you prefer)
30 ml flour
1 teaspoon vegetable salt (60% salt and 40% dried vegetables)
2 large potatoes (preferably main crop rather than early)
1 tablespoons each of parsley, dill and herbes de provence (any mixture of herbs that totals 3 teaspoons is likely to work; tradition calls for parsley but use whatever’s to hand that you like eating)
160-250 grams of frozen vegetables, depending on how generous a portion you want to serve (if you need the vegetables to be hidden, go for the smaller amount and put the vegetables in as a layer instead of stirring them into the potatoes as recommended). These must be in small pieces of about the same size as each other, but can be any vegetable you like. I recommend a mixture of whichever ones you like best. Fresh, dried and/or tinned vegetables may work if you are willing to experiment.
Small amounts of cheese, fish or meat can be added but are not strictly necessary. Potentially a good use for some small bits of leftover that you don’t want to put in a soup.

  1. Preheat the oven to 175 C/Gas Mark 4.

  2. Prepare a two-pound/1 kg loaf tin, by lining it with butter or using your preferred substitute.

  3. Beat the eggs together in a bowl.

  4. Add the milk.

  5. Mix the liquids together.

  6. Add the flour, vegetable salt and herbs.

  7. Mix the mixture together- you are aiming for a loose batter. If it’s too solid (now or in a later mix), add more milk. If it seems too loose, let it be loose for now.

  8. Peel the potatoes.

  9. Cut the skin into small pieces - a vegetable knife is best for this task, despite the temptation of kitchen scissors. If you don’t like potato skin, you can leave it out and skip to step 10.

  10. Add the sliced potato skin to the mixture.

  11. Give the mixture another mix, and this time, you can see if you can fold a little air into it. This reduces the likelihood of the batter going hard and overworked, but if you cannot get air into the batter, it’s still OK.

  12. Grate the remaining potatoes. Or slice into the smallest pieces you safely can.

  13. Add the potatoes and half of the herbs into the mixture.

  14. Give the mixture another mix, and this time, you can see if you can fold a little air into it.

  15. Pour enough mixture into the loaf tin to cover the base.

  16. Cook this for 5 minutes in the oven. You’re aiming to have a semi-solid base, but not 100% cooked through.

  17. While waiting for the bottom layer to cook, make a decision. Are you aiming to have hidden vegetables? Or obvious vegetables speckling the whole (my preference)? If you want to hide the vegetables, you’ll need to use layering on them all; if you want to make them obvious, go ahead and mix the vegetables into the batter.

  18. In any case, check the state of your batter. If it looks like it would hurt if you dropped it on your toe, add milk. If it looks like it would run away at the first opportunity, add flour (if it’s really runny, extra vegetables or even some extra grated potato might help).

  19. Remove the container.

  20. Pour a layer of vegetables carefully onto the mixture.

  21. Pour the mixture on top. If you’re going for layers, you may add the second layer when the first layer is no longer visible - but this may not work for a third layer unless you cook each layer (experimentation definitely needed for a third layer). If you’re wanting obvious vegetables, just put the whole thing on top.

  22. Smoothen out any lumps on top. If you want this to be a decorative riivinkropsu, this is the point to quickly use your fork to make shapes, little peaks and troughs in the mixture (much like a pie).

  23. Cook for 50 minutes-1 hour, until the top is golden. This is not an exact science and nothing bad will happen if you open the door early, so best to err on the side of checking early.

  24. Remove from the oven.

  25. Put the rest of the herbs on top of the riivinkropsu.

  26. Serve.

Since you already have lots of vegetables, you might not need a side, but you could serve more vegetables or a very small piece of fish/meat with it. It also works as a hearty side to any dish for which you would normally serve potatoes (in which case, reduce portion size accordingly). This can be kept in the refrigerator for a few days.

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This sounds delicious! I especially like that you use the potato skins. My immediate thought is to add shreds of smoked/dried fish (trout, halibut, even herring), but for the first time I’ll follow your vegetarian recipe. (Carrots, peas, celeriac, parsnip all seem right for this kind of dish.)

Thanks!

EDIT: Or beetroot! What marvelous colour that would give!

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