Smogon Cooking Thread

[Reisen]

Not a dessert this time but we have done Cornish Pasties for homeless people this morning

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The mandatory filling ingredients for Cornish pasties are:

– sliced or diced potato
– swede (often referred to as turnip)
– onion
– diced or minced beef
– seasoning to taste, primarily salt and pepper.

 

[Reisen]

Hello,

Today i've made my really first baked apple rose (don't judge it please) by following this video tutorial it is very simple with an innovative aesthetics and it also tastes very good !

 

[Hogg]

Continuing to play with duck eggs and getting into the spirit of Autumn, I decided to make an avgolemono soup Sunday night. Avgolemono is a Greek sauce or soup base, made by whisking eggs and lemon juice and then tempering the eggs with warm broth (traditionally chicken broth). I made a creamy avgolemono soup with orzo and heirloom carrots, served with roasted acorn squash:

sunday night supper, hidden because the image is massive for some reason

(Sorry about the crappy iPhone photo and bad lighting)

The soup was fairly simple to make - I sauteed onion, carrot, celery and garlic in olive oil until soft (using some nice purple heirloom carrots I'd picked up) with some salt, pepper and crushed red pepper, added a cup of orzo, then a quart plus a cup of good veggie stock. Then I whisked a couple of duck eggs with the juice of a lemon, and once the soup was done and the orzo, whisked in a ladle-full of warm broth from the soup to temper the eggs. Then I took the soup off its heat and whisked that back into the soup, along with a lot of fresh dill. Super simple (and you can easily replace the duck eggs with chicken eggs - I'm just still trying to work through this batch of duck eggs we were given); just make sure the broth is warm but not boiling, and the soup is removed from heat before you mix the egg mixture back in, so the eggs don't cook into curds.

The squash was even easier - I seeded it, cut it into wedges, and tossed it with olive oil, salt, pepper, cumin, coriander seed and a pinch of cayenne, then stuck the whole thing in a 450 degree oven and cooked it until it was brown (flip the pieces halfway through). It took a little over half an hour, which was just enough time to prep and cook the soup.

Last night's dinner was gnocchi in a spicy tomato, carrot and veggie sausage sauce I tossed together. Since this was a weeknight I just used storebought veggie sausage, although I've made it from scratch in the past (this recipe in particular is fantastic) - onion, garlic and carrot was cooked down with red pepper, oregano, cumin, whole fennel seed and hot smoked paprika. Then I added the veggie sausage and cooked it until it was browned, then added a large can of tomatoes and a knob of butter. Crushed the tomatoes with a spoon as they cooked down, and once the sauce was nice and balanced I cooked the gnocchi and tossed it all together with a splash of the cooking water to bind it all together.

last night's supper

I don't really plan meals in advance, so I just try to keep things stocked with whatever is interesting and figure out what I want to make each night. No idea what I'll make tonight, but I have some sweet potatoes that I need to use soon, so there's a good chance it will involve those!

 

[Bughouse]

Great starter baking recipe here: http://www.laurenslatest.com/pumpkin-pecan-cobbler/
So easy. I promise you can do it.

I made it tonight, after earlier making homemade shrimp'n'grits (less easy). Both were delicious. I highly recommend everyone get into the fall spirit with some pumpkin and pecan flavor.

 

[asterat]

http://imgur.com/bINnqYj got high and made eggs. they were good.

 

[Albert.]

Thought I'd share a quick recipe here. I find that fish is normally a lighter and 'healthier' alternative to light and dark meat. One of my favorite kinds of fish to cook is salmon. The fish flavor is not overpowering, and it's generally pretty easy to prepare. There are a billion and one ways to cook salmon, but this one is definitely the easiest one.

(Note: The image is not mine, but it closely resembles what the fish should look like during the cooking process.)

You will need:

• ~1 pound of salmon (any variety)
• 1-2 tbsp black pepper
• 2-3 tbsp of paprika
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
• A baking tray
• Parchment Paper // Aluminum Foil
• Lemon juice

Steps:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit // 204 degrees Celsius
2. Slice your salmon into 2 or 3 pieces, depending on how many people you're serving.
3. In a bowl, combine the pepper, salt, paprika, and optional cayenne pepper. Mix thoroughly until everything is incorporated. You can adjust the amounts of the different spices based on what you like; this is just what I've found to have the best outcome.
4. Sprinkle the mixture evenly across the top of your pieces of fish. Following this, 'massage' the spice mixture onto the top of the fish. Press the mixture into the fish gently so that the flavors will be absorbed during cooking.
5. Line your baking sheet with your parchment paper. If you don't have parchment paper, aluminum foil works as well. Just make sure if you're using aluminum foil to spray some non-stick cooking spray on the top before cooking your fish so that it doesn't stick (just in case).
6. Place your fish on your lined baking tray. Make sure to give the pieces a little bit of space between one another.
7. Once your oven is preheated, place your fish in the oven and bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit // 204 degrees Celsius.
8. Following the 10-12 minutes in the oven, place your salmon under the broiler for 2-4 minutes so that the spice mixture on top gets crispy.
9. Once the fish has finished cooking, top it with lemon juice and serve.

This method is pretty much full-proof. I don't think i've ever had a bad piece of salmon come out of this recipe. It's quick and easy to make. Hope this helps someone!

 

[Myzozoa]

Massaged kale salad:

Ingredients:

2 bunches of raw kale, shredded, fibrous stems removed
1 large asian pear
3-4 cloves of garlic
olive oil
1 lemon
salt
black pepper
cashews or other nut

Put the shredded kale (just shred mine with my hands) in a bowl and add a few drizzles of olive oil, all the juice from the lemon, and a small amount of salt. Massage the kale with the oil and lemon juice for 2-3 minutes. Chop the garlic (very small) and pear very small and add them in (as u can see in the photo i chopped my pear coarsely and unevenly). Add cashews and black pepper. toss and serve. should keep in the fridge for a week maybe


share your thanksgiving recipes itt also.

 

[Aldaron]

my gf makes a salad super similar to that Myzozoa but she adds walnuts and shredded sharp cheddar as well

 

[Hogg]

I make a massaged kale salad as well. I usually just tear the kale into pieces by hand, rub it with olive oil and kosher salt, and let it sit. Then I do whatever I want with it after it sits for at least an hour. A simple dressing of garlic, mustard and lemon juice is my most common dressing, but it's a fairly robust green that stands up to most dressings. I don't really like sweet things in salad, though, so I usually prefer stuff like lightly pickled onions or a good briny Feta though.

 

[Bughouse]

Bughouse posting from the grave about desserts again. This time: dessert making for the baking-impaired!

Poached pears. Super easy, no baking knowledge required, quite tasty. I made a pear tart last night and had leftover pears, so I poached em. Deeeeee-licious.

They won't look special, but they can pack a punch.


You're going to want a firmer pear that holds together. Bosc pears work well for this if you're an American. Sorry, can't speak to pear varieties common in other parts of the world. The rest of this is in US units anyway, so suck it/sorry.
Get a large pan, big enough to just barely hold all the pears you're going to use. I typically find 4 pears and a 10 inch or so pan works well.

The basics:
Fill the pan about halfway up the side with water. For a 10 inch or so pan, this is a quart of water. (there are also recipes for poaching in wine but I'm not gonna talk about that)
Bring water to a boil at medium heat.
While water heats up, peel and quarter the pears. Trust me peeling is worth the effort (and it's the only particularly annoying step). Be careful to remove the few seeds too. This is easily done once you've quartered the pear and the seeds are exposed.

seed removal img

Dissolve 1 1/3 cups of sugar in the water (you can go more if you prefer sweeter desserts, but this is a good amount imo)
Add the pears to the water.
Try to keep the pears fully submerged (by adding more water if necessary). Pears do sink, but if you're having trouble keeping them under water, there is a solution*
Cook for about 25 minutes, if Bosc pears. Less if using a softer pear.
The pears are done done when a knife goes through with zero resistance, but if you stop a touch early there's no big deal

Keep both the pears and most of the cooking liquid.
For extra effort, you can take out the pears when they're done and further reduce the cooking liquid by about half until it's a more concentrated syrup (and then save all of that of course mmm).
They keep very well and can be reheated easily, or just immediately serve hot. It pairs -haha- amazingly with vanilla ice cream.



The fun part:
Don't use just a boring old sugar solution for cooking. Spice it up!
Good additions include: lemon juice, lemon rind/zest, cinnamon (warning: do not go overboard), cloves, ginger, vanilla, and star anise
For extra extra bonus points, once you're done cooking the pears, you could remove them and add dried fruit to the hot liquid; they will plump up and infuse with the flavors of the spices. Apricots and prunes are the classics here but any dried fruit will do.


*solution: take a piece of parchment paper and fold it into a triangle. Cut at the length of the radius of the pan and also a bit at the point of the triangle, so that when you unfold you get a circle that covers the pan and a whole in the middle for steam to escape.

 

[WhiteDMist]

Happy Thanksgiving

Broccoli Stuffing

Creamed Spinach Cornbread

3 Cheese Mac & Cheese

Green Bean Casserole

Garlic & Herb Mashed Potatoes

Cranberry Relish

Spiral Ham

Poached Turkey

Pumpkin Cheesecakes

Considering I started around 12:30 PM, the fact this was finished by 7:30 was pretty nice. I screwed up with the turkey since I poached it for 2 hours, rather than 1 hour and 15 minutes: this made it almost impossible to get out of the pot intact. The poaching, relish, cheesecake, and cornbread were all things I was testing out, so the unknown factor was also pretty high (especially since I am Chinese, so half the dishes aren't things I commonly make, so I was making this up as I went along). The rest of my family made food as well, there was so much @.@ Leftovers for the next few days!

 

[shaian]

I baked a giant yorkshire pudding like thingy :)

apparently there supposed to be made in cupcake / muffin thingies but i dont own any of those so i used one of those circle cake baking thingies instead

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[Tressed]

Ok so I spent a good portion of yesterday prepping for a cookie exchange today, figured I'd drop the recipe since they're amazing and not very difficult to make.

recipe

Makes 5 dozens

1 cup of butter
2 cups of sugar
3/4 of a cup of brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 cups of flour
1 1/2 cups of rolled oats
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 cups of dried cranberries (could probably work with raisins or chocolate chips as well, but I haven't tested this out myself)
1 cup toffee bits

Mix together butter and sugars until the entire things reaches an even consistency. Beat in the egg and the vanilla. Mix in flour, oats, baking soda, and salt, then add cranberries and toffee bits.
Use a greased cookie sheet for baking. Cookies should be about an inch in diameter and should be placed about two inches apart (they spread a bit).
Bake at 350 F or 180 C for ten minutes, or until golden brown. Recipe suggests cooling them on a wire rack, as seen above.