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What's everyone cooking this week?

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby OneMoreCheekyOne » Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:41 pm

Absolutely gorgeous sounding food from everyone! And I really fancy an empanada or two right now.

We’ve eaten out lots in the last week or so. Plus a fair few picnics and bbqs.

Tonight we had a prawn, pak choi and shiitake mushroom stir fry, it was quite spicy.

We’ve also cooked a beef madras for tomorrow night to have with naan and rice. A few days ago I went through various cook books and made a list of meals for the week and ordered the shopping, went to the butchers and fishmongers etc. I didn’t make a note of the books and now I can’t remember where the recipes are from :lol: Oops! So I had to google a different madras recipe tonight, it smells good though. I’ll no doubt remember which books I looked at when it’s too late, out of the 100s on the shelves :roll:

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby karadekoolaid » Tue Aug 04, 2020 2:09 am

Do you have a pastry recipe preference KDK? And what are the characteristics of harina pan? Is it nixtamalised?

Hi , zerocook. The harina pan is very different from the Mexican masa harina. It`s white corn, but not nixtamalised and has a somewhat grainy texture. You can buy it in the UK - Tesco Metro in the city, Chatica along Westway, or even on Amazon. It`s used to make arepas, but the pastry is slightly different if you`re making empanadas.
I`ll describe the method we used and you can have a good laugh, because the method is curious!
1 kg harina PAN
6 tbsps sugar
6 tbsps salt
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 litres water (approx)
Put the first 4 ingredients in a bowl and add the water bit by bit, mixing the dough with your hands. When the dough pulls away from the edges of the bowl, it should be ready. Leave the dough to rest for about 10 minutes; it will keep absorbing the water. The dough should be soft.
OK - here`s the technical bit. :lol: Take a large plastic bag ( a big ziploc will do) and cut down both sides. Do not cut the bottom. Smear a bit of oil on the plastic. Take a chunk of the dough - somewhere between a golf ball and a tennis ball - and put it on one side of the plastic. Dip your fingertips in water and squash the dough into a rough circle. Cover the dough with the other side o the plastic bag and smooth the dough into a circle of about 15-16 cm in diameter with your hands; try to get the dough a more or less uniform thickness. Remove one side of the plastic and put the filling in the middle. Not too much, otherwise the empanada will split. Now carefully fold the plastic over to form a half-moon.Press down on the edges so the empanada is well sealed. Slide the empanada into hot oil and cook until just browned - about five minutes.
The first few empanadas might not work out; at least that was our experience! Too thin, or not sealed properly, who knows. The dog loved them, however. After that, it was plain sailing and we made over 80 of them. The dough does NOT freeze well and even in the fridge, it seems to absorb extra water. The ones I made on Sunday with the refrigerated dough needed more harina PAN.

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby ZeroCook » Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:10 am

.

1 kg must make a lot of empanadas.


karadekoolaid wrote:Take a large plastic bag ( a big ziploc will do) and cut down both sides. Do not cut the bottom. Smear a bit of oil on the plastic. Take a chunk of the dough - somewhere between a golf ball and a tennis ball - and put it on one side of the plastic. Dip your fingertips in water and squash the dough into a rough circle. Cover the dough with the other side o the plastic bag and smooth the dough into a circle of about 15-16 cm in diameter with your hands; try to get the dough a more or less uniform thickness. Remove one side of the plastic and put the filling in the middle. Not too much, otherwise the empanada will split. Now carefully fold the plastic over to form a half-moon.Press down on the edges so the empanada is well sealed.


Now that's pure genius, KDK. And before plastic bags? :D

This it?

Image


.

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby DEB » Tue Aug 04, 2020 9:06 am

taco press, or possibly some thing like banana leaves

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby Renee » Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:11 am

ZeroCook wrote:.

Thanks Renee. That's a whole cabbage?? Wow. Have you tasted it? Thoughts?


I found liquid on my kitchen work bench this morning, so something must be happening! I have just tried it and the flavours are good. Yes, a whole cabbage!! The jar measures
5 1/2"/14cm up to but not including the neck. I'm not sure if it is ready or not. It has to be stored in the refrigerator, but the jar is too tall to fit on the shelf, so I'm hoping that it will be OK to transfer to two sterilised smaller jars.

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby KeenCook2 » Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:08 pm

Lunch was what OH called "caff cuisine" :lol:

Baked beans and a fried egg on white toast - it was delicious!! And very filling ... !!

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby Amyw » Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:14 pm

Love a bit of caff cuisine sometimes . Homemade egg and chips is one of my favourites , one of the rare times I have ketchup and loads of salt and vinegar

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby Earthmaiden » Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:54 pm

There used to be a lot of quite respectable cafes, the sort with lace curtains and plastic flowers which did substantial lunches and things like egg, beans, or tinned spaghetti on toast later which were ideal as a high tea if you were going on to a meeting or something. I loved it if we went somewhere like that as a child. Nowadays it seems to be all day breakfasts without that air of respectability and a danger of having your clothes smelling of fried food afterwards. I think places like Macdonalds and other cheap chains probably took their place.

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby KeenCook2 » Tue Aug 04, 2020 9:01 pm

Hasselback courgettes tonight!

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/j ... e_btn_link

It was delicious! We had it with some polenta.
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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby Renee » Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:09 pm

What a great recipe KeenCook2 and I have all of the ingredients except for the polenta. I did try to find fine cornmeal in Waitrose yesterday, but I was told that they don't stock it.

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby Earthmaiden » Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:22 pm

Ooooh, I've got lots of courgettes! I might have a bash. I hope that a small amount of blue cheese will work. Maybe a little rice with it.

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby KeenCook2 » Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:24 pm

Yes, it's really a find - one of those you'll just keep coming back to. Our courgettes were not brilliant supermarket ones, with fresh, home-grown courgettes it would be stunning!

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby Amber » Wed Aug 05, 2020 1:58 am

Ooh, I love hasslebacks, and I love courgettes- definitely one to try. :)

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby Suffs » Wed Aug 05, 2020 1:00 pm

Renee wrote:What a great recipe KeenCook2 and I have all of the ingredients except for the polenta. I did try to find fine cornmeal in Waitrose yesterday, but I was told that they don't stock it.


Ours does ... it's a regular item on our shopping list. https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/ ... -8340-8341

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby herbidacious » Wed Aug 05, 2020 2:24 pm

I made some pesto with a pestle and mortar from basil pinching outs of varous types (= 5-basil pesto ;) ). I think it did taste nicer, but there were some stringy bits of basil I just couldn't seem to pummel out so ended up taking the barmix to it :?

I am eating some now with buffalo mozzarella and two types of toms from the garden, with a drizzle of fig balsamic and some smoked olive oil.

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby karadekoolaid » Wed Aug 05, 2020 4:14 pm

1 kg must make a lot of empanadas.

Yes it does. A cupful of the flour makes about 6, so that`s what I´d use for a "normal" serving.

Now that's pure genius, KDK. And before plastic bags?

Haven`t got a clue, to be honest. A banana or plantain leaf might well work. You can also pat the dough into a round with wet fingers, so maybe that was also an option.

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby Renee » Wed Aug 05, 2020 7:01 pm

Thanks Suffs! maybe I should have asked for Polenta rather than fine cornmeal!

I envy you that meal Herbi! What a shame about the stringy bits of basil. Would it help to chop the leaves a bit first do you think? I sent up for smoked rapeseed oil which is very nice. Where do you get your fig balsamic from?

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby Renee » Wed Aug 05, 2020 7:03 pm

Help! The kimchi that I made burns my tongue and I didn't put the full amount of Sriracha sauce in. Can anyone suggest anything please?

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby jeral » Wed Aug 05, 2020 8:05 pm

I bought some szechuan peppers recently and wonder if an expert might know if they'd numb tongue etc for things like hot chilli ?
Anyone ? ta.

The only other way I know of is to dilute a jarful in a gallon of new stuff minus chilli. Or use it up by adding a spot to soups and stews.

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Re: What's everyone cooking this week?

Postby herbidacious » Wed Aug 05, 2020 8:25 pm

wiki says: It has a unique aroma and flavor that is neither hot like chili peppers nor pungent like black pepper. Instead, it has slight lemony overtones and creates a tingly numbness in the mouth due to hydroxy-α-sanshool.

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