The Cooking Thread (3 Viewers)

  • Thread starter GO
  • Start date
  • Replies 324
  • Views 27K
  • Watchers 7
It's not something i know a lot about but i had a bit of a dig about reading there and the general consensus i found was that rinsing pasta is for cold salads, and the starch is useful for sticking the sauce to the pasta in a hot dish so you shouldn't rinse so i'll probably stick with it.

Looking at my batching project i'm kinda thinking running two casseroles at once in the oven might be what pushes in into the 21 zone.
I hate throwing anything out

Like even water from the vegetable steamer, I will use for chicken stock
I hate throwing out pasta water, is another reason the one-pot thing works for my mindset
 


here it comes. starts with the sauces, then the grains and then the meats.
we'll be suckin on grass again in no time.

we're buying a big chest freezer for the shed soon. going to fill it with meats and chilli peppers in prep for the imminent global food shortage
 
i was once talking to a chap who bought a whole cow for the beef. i think it cost him about €1600 and it filled three large freezers.
Roughly once a year Dad used to send his least favourite cow to be killed and hung (the one that kicked the most or tried to crush us against walls usually) and then we would spend a day butchering the sides and organs the way we wanted them for the freezer. Mum, Dad, my brothers, my sister and I all round the kitchen table, some of us with knives and chopping boards, the younger ones bagging and weighing, my Mum usually running the mincer. And then we'd fill it into two huge chest freezers. Cutting up the organs, especially taking the suet off the kidneys and peeling and chopping them was usually my job (I was best at getting the white bits out of the kidney cleanly). First time I was maybe 8 or 9. Dad cut all the steaks at least 2 inches thick and all the bits that would usually be minced were saved for slow cooking overnight in the bottom oven of the AGA while the "lean" roasts that are all you can get in most supermarkets were deemed only fit for mincing (with offcut fat and suet added).

I made braised ox tail for dinner tonight. Lots of cooking time but otherwise really simple and very delicious - reminded me how much nicer the less popular parts of animals are. So much more flavour. Both kids enjoyed it too.
 
This chap paid a little extra to have all the meat blast frozen in some place in Blanchardstown, was saying he was warned against loading that much meat at room temperature in a freezer in one go.
 
Roughly once a year Dad used to send his least favourite cow to be killed and hung (the one that kicked the most or tried to crush us against walls usually) and then we would spend a day butchering the sides and organs the way we wanted them for the freezer. Mum, Dad, my brothers, my sister and I all round the kitchen table, some of us with knives and chopping boards, the younger ones bagging and weighing, my Mum usually running the mincer. And then we'd fill it into two huge chest freezers. Cutting up the organs, especially taking the suet off the kidneys and peeling and chopping them was usually my job (I was best at getting the white bits out of the kidney cleanly). First time I was maybe 8 or 9. Dad cut all the steaks at least 2 inches thick and all the bits that would usually be minced were saved for slow cooking overnight in the bottom oven of the AGA while the "lean" roasts that are all you can get in most supermarkets were deemed only fit for mincing (with offcut fat and suet added).

I made braised ox tail for dinner tonight. Lots of cooking time but otherwise really simple and very delicious - reminded me how much nicer the less popular parts of animals are. So much more flavour. Both kids enjoyed it too.
Core my kidneys, please! I'm usually left with kidney ribbons.
 
This chap paid a little extra to have all the meat blast frozen in some place in Blanchardstown, was saying he was warned against loading that much meat at room temperature in a freezer in one go.
We added the bags to the freezers in batches through the day. They weren't blast freezers but usually when we added the next batch everything we'd put in the time before was already frozen. Having them blast frozen was a good idea if he wasn't going to do any butchering himself.
Core my kidneys, please! I'm usually left with kidney ribbons.
The trick is to use a very sharp, narrow, non-serrated, blade that is sharp right to the point, something like a filleting knife is really good, That way you can get the point right to the base of the tendrils and cleanly under the larger part. I've seen people use scissors (my Mum and my sister), but it leaves a pretty raggy looking kidney in the end.
 
a few years before my wife went veggie, we bought a whole lamb from a place called fieldstown farm in north dublin. was interesting, learning how to use the less used cuts; the slow cooker was handy for some of the fattier ones.
 
Still working on the batching game - two improvements in my workflow since the last time i was here

I do things in this order now over the course of 2-3 hrs.
Oven things.
Saucepan things.
Soups.

And the addition of soups is the second improvment - this mops up all the stray veg, leftovers etc etc.
I do two in parallel so the taste spectrum of the week is a bit wider.

Managing to hit around 20 dishes a time.

Starting to look at the shopping now - wondering if i can make it a fornightly/monthly thing instead of weekly.
 
New Jamie Oliver book, One, has been a big winner here. Concept is they're all one pan dinners, and I imagine it was written before he had any notion of an energy crisis, but it's been pretty neat to make big delicious dinners just using one hob, or one tray in the oven.
Big section on batch cooking which I haven't had a go of yet.
 
Also found a Google sheet someone made that lets you put in recipies and then it does the math for batching - like you can change it from 1kg total to 3kg.

I use it for scaling the shopping list.

Very handy but only if you are the kind of person who'll type twenty recipies into a database
 
I only cook beans and pots of veg.
the mixed veg pot would have cabbage, broccoli, celery, spinach, carrots, sprouts and maybe green beans.
my least favourite thing about cooked veg is the amount of water it holds. sometimes I feel like buying a hair dyer to try and evaporate some of the water off the veg.
 
Finally found a "Swiss Roll" baking tray ie one that has square corners, in that expensive cookwear shop in Blackrock. Went to make a meringue roulade today and only realised when it had cooled that I'd used bicarbonate of soda instead of cornflour in the mix. Ruined. Made a blackberry clafoutis instead.
 
Finally found a "Swiss Roll" baking tray ie one that has square corners, in that expensive cookwear shop in Blackrock. Went to make a meringue roulade today and only realised when it had cooled that I'd used bicarbonate of soda instead of cornflour in the mix. Ruined. Made a blackberry clafoutis instead.
“Honor thy error as a hidden intention.”
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Activity
So far there's no one here

21 Day Calendar

Mohammad Syfkhan 'I Am Kurdish' Dublin Album Launch
Bello Bar
1 Portobello Harbour, Saint Kevin's, Dublin, Ireland
Mohammad Syfkhan 'I Am Kurdish' Dublin Album Launch
Bello Bar
1 Portobello Harbour, Saint Kevin's, Dublin, Ireland
Gig For Gaza w/ ØXN, Junior Brother, Pretty Happy & Mohammad Syfkhan
Vicar Street
58-59 Thomas St, The Liberties, Dublin 8, Ireland
Bloody Head, Hubert Selby Jr Infants, Creepy Future - Dublin
Anseo
18 Camden Street Lower, Saint Kevin's, Dublin, Ireland

Support thumped.com

Support thumped.com and upgrade your account

Upgrade your account now to disable all ads... If we had any... Which we don't right now.

Upgrade now

Latest threads

Latest Activity

Loading…
Back
Top