Recipes you've made up that are actually objectively good

[Steppenpig]

Just made some crakers out of some not very tasty spring onion cream cheese, which I just mixed up to a dough with various milled or flaked grain products. Roll it out between a couple of sheets of baking paper, and bake hot. You have to watch it because it burns.

 

Home made crackers are a bit like home made bread, or I suppose, home made anything, they have a sort of wholesomeness about them, that industrial products lack, but probably not worth the faff for most sensible people. I've made them before by thickening up some left over soup with flour and oats. I didn't tell that to the consumers though

 

edit to add:it's just occurred to me that my cracker "recipe" falls down on the "objectively good" test. In fact, most guests seem to not be very interested. Some people don't like things that are rusticaly shaped and of unpredictable hardness.

[frozen_out]

Slow cooker tonight. Pork leg, in the slowcooker on a bed of celery, carrot and onion. Pint of chicken stock and a glass of wine poured over, switched it on and went to work. You literally cannot fail with these.

[frozen_out]

Made some ghee the other night too. Going to try it out in my curry tomorrow.

[Sledgehead]

20 hours ago, ccc said:

Chilli garlic ginger for me.

 

Hmmm, I hear what you say, but ice cream is lovely (cream and sugar) as is. Bacon is lovely as is (basically fat and salt). Toffee has it all : cream, sugar, salt. I very much doubt chilli, garlic and ginger in any combination w/o sugar, fat or salt amount to anything more than ghastly. Even garlic bread is fat from the butter and sugars from the bread.

 

[frozen_out]

1 hour ago, Sledgehead said:

Hmmm, I hear what you say, but ice cream is lovely (cream and sugar) as is. Bacon is lovely as is (basically fat and salt). Toffee has it all : cream, sugar, salt. I very much doubt chilli, garlic and ginger in any combination w/o sugar, fat or salt amount to anything more than ghastly. Even garlic bread is fat from the butter and sugars from the bread.

 

Chilli, garlic and ginger are the base of most subcontinent dishes (actually ginger, garlic and onion, with some chilli for good measure), in a similar way to onion, carrot and celery being the base of European dishes.

I eat loads of curry, if onion, ginger, garlic, chilli and tomato are medicinal I'm going to live forever.

[ccc]

1 hour ago, Sledgehead said:

Hmmm, I hear what you say, but ice cream is lovely (cream and sugar) as is. Bacon is lovely as is (basically fat and salt). Toffee has it all : cream, sugar, salt. I very much doubt chilli, garlic and ginger in any combination w/o sugar, fat or salt amount to anything more than ghastly. Even garlic bread is fat from the butter and sugars from the bread.

 

Thinking of Asian recipes, many do have a saltiness from soy or oyster sauce. Also use a little sugar in many things. The fat though mostly comes from the choice of meat. Unless it's coconut milk based of course.

So you may be sort of onto something. 

As above these 3 are the basic base for many Asian dishes. Love it.

[winkie]

On 09/12/2016 at 3:57 AM, ccc said:

Chilli garlic ginger for me.

 

There are certain things should never be without and chilli as dried flakes, preserved in jars whole, frozen, or fresh stringed up and dried, or as a sauce, red and green...garlic fresh, and ginger both dried and whole in freezer that is always ready to cut, peel and use.

Onions,  potatoes, long grain and risotto rice, cheddar cheese, tined tomatoes....and lemons.

[frozen_out]

On 08/12/2016 at 3:23 PM, Sledgehead said:

 

Kinda.

My reality-hits moment was when I first made salted toffee.

Ingredients:

Sugar - heat til it inverts and is therefore 50% fructose, hence MUCH sweeter

Double cream - the all important fat, added to the inverted sugar - now we are looking at caramelised ice cream

Finally, salt, the bit missing from ice cream but present in everybody's second fave food, bacon.

Those are really the God ingredients (butter and cream are more or less gastronomically equivalent).

Everything else is just w***ing around, and everything else is made palatable only in the presence of a varying mix of said God ingredients. Period.

 

Curry day today. My special dopiaza - two types of onions cooked two ways. Plenty of garlic and ginger, green chilli, cumin, coriander and smoked paprika. It's awesome.

 

[Sledgehead]

2 hours ago, frozen_out said:

Curry day today. My special dopiaza - two types of onions cooked two ways. Plenty of garlic and ginger, green chilli, cumin, coriander and smoked paprika. It's awesome.

 

And what's the betting you don't steam / boil those onions. No, you want them tasty: caramelization is the key. Break down those nasty polysaccharides. Release those simple sugars like glucose and fructose. Yeah baby!

Alternatively caramelize some Tate&Lyle and throw that in with a little fat and salt. Yep, either way you basically created a toffee in your supposedly savory dish.

You also upped the meal's glycemic index.

And there's a general lesson. If it tastes good, it is likely to have monosaccharides, and probably glucose, in large quantities. Fructose probably too. The glucose will eventually destroy your insulin response and have you craving more til the surgeon takes your leg, first below the knee. 

If you must break down those tastless starches and polysaccharides into swiftly metabolised, blood-sugar popping monosaccharides, best add a load of fat to slow down their digestion. 'course, then you're playing poker with heart disease.

Meanwhile the fructose will be rotting your teeth.

Just remembered I forgot the 3rd God ingredient : salt. Blood pressure. Once you've hardened those arteries there ain't no softening them.

 

Merry Christmas!

[Sledgehead]

On 12/9/2016 at 0:13 PM, man o' the year said:

Try creme de menthe instead! tastes like mint aero!

Or just brush your teeth before hand.

[frozen_out]

23 minutes ago, Sledgehead said:

And what's the betting you don't steam / boil those onions. No, you want them tasty: caramelization is the key. Break down those nasty polysaccharides. Release those simple sugars like glucose and fructose. Yeah baby!

Alternatively caramelize some Tate&Lyle and throw that in with a little fat and salt. Yep, either way you basically created a toffee in your supposedly savory dish.

You also upped the meal's glycemic index.

And there's a general lesson. If it tastes good, it is likely to have monosaccharides, and probably glucose, in large quantities. Fructose probably too. The glucose will eventually destroy your insulin response and have you craving more til the surgeon takes your leg, first below the knee. 

If you must break down those tastless starches and polysaccharides into swiftly metabolised, blood-sugar popping monosaccharides, best add a load of fat to slow down their digestion. 'course, then you're playing poker with heart disease.

Meanwhile the fructose will be rotting your teeth.

Just remembered I forgot the 3rd God ingredient : salt. Blood pressure. Once you've hardened those arteries there ain't no softening them.

 

Merry Christmas!

Oh yeah, caramelisation is key. Fry half the onions for 45 minutes till they turn into a caremalised sugary mush and half on high heat for 10 minutes till they're crisp and sweet. Delicious.

My onion relish is even better. 1kg of onions fried for at least 45 minutes, 200g of brown sugar, 150ml of balsamic and 150ml of sherry vinegar boiled down to a nice syrupy consistency. Jar it and leave it for at least a month. Black magic I call it. Absolutely delicious on a pork pie. I've got some maturing for Christmas right now. Should have been going about 6 weeks before I open it.

[Sledgehead]

My Father makes us all brandy butter. That's sugar, butter and courvoisier. I swear he believes he's Heston Blumenthal for coming up with something that tastes so amazing.

[mattydread]

22 hours ago, frozen_out said:

Oh yeah, caramelisation is key. Fry half the onions for 45 minutes till they turn into a caremalised sugary mush and half on high heat for 10 minutes till they're crisp and sweet. Delicious.

My onion relish is even better. 1kg of onions fried for at least 45 minutes, 200g of brown sugar, 150ml of balsamic and 150ml of sherry vinegar boiled down to a nice syrupy consistency. Jar it and leave it for at least a month. Black magic I call it. Absolutely delicious on a pork pie. I've got some maturing for Christmas right now. Should have been going about 6 weeks before I open it.

Mmm - I must give this a go. Anything else I need to know?

[frozen_out]

1 hour ago, mattydread said:

Mmm - I must give this a go. Anything else I need to know?

I don't think so, it's pretty difficult to get wrong. If you're not sure look up the onion caramelisation on youtube, there's a few videos on how to do it. Adding the vinegar and sugar (in that order) is easy.

I love this stuff, one word of advice though - don't stick your head over the pan whilst it's still hot, the vinegar fumes will knock your socks off. The other thing is how little you get from it. 1kg of onions will make you about a jam jar and a half. 

[mattydread]

33 minutes ago, frozen_out said:

I don't think so, it's pretty difficult to get wrong. If you're not sure look up the onion caramelisation on youtube, there's a few videos on how to do it. Adding the vinegar and sugar (in that order) is easy.

I love this stuff, one word of advice though - don't stick your head over the pan whilst it's still hot, the vinegar fumes will knock your socks off. The other thing is how little you get from it. 1kg of onions will make you about a jam jar and a half. 

Thanks - I do a quiche that involves lot of caramelising of onions. Quite time consuming as you have to do them in small batches. Maybe I need a bigger pan..

Aah yes they go to nowt but taste fantastic. Best on low in butter

 

[richc]

Chocolate chip cookies.  Standard Tollhouse recipe, but pre-roast some walnuts before adding them to the batter and use a couple of really good bars of dark chocolate (Valrhona or Green & Black) instead of semi-sweet morsels.  After they've been out of the oven for about 20 minutes, they're the most amazing thing one could possibly eat -- tender but also crispy with the chocolate just at the melting point.

[The XYY Man]

North-Eastern/Yorkshire style pork pie (not Melton Mowbray) in a bowl of Heinz tomato soup.

Divine...

 

XYY

                                                                                                                

The dog's kennel is not the place to keep a sausage - Danish proverb

 

[One-percent]

1 minute ago, The XYY Man said:

North-Eastern/Yorkshire style pork pie (not Melton Mowbray) in a bowl of Heinz tomato soup.

Divine...

 

XYY

 

                                                                                                                

 

The dog's kennel is not the place to keep a sausage - Danish proverb

 

 

So as per title, are you claiming to have invented the north east/Yorkshire pork pie, or just the practise of dunking it in soup? 

 

Im home for the weekend in North Yorkshire and my two to do meals are a flat pie from the local butchers and once from the chippy, fried in beef dripping with a side of mushy peas.  Not to be confused with guacamole.  Not at the same sitting 

[The XYY Man]

1 minute ago, One-percent said:

So as per title, are you claiming to have invented the north east/Yorkshire pork pie, or just the practise of dunking it in soup? 

The dunking in the soup of course - It's the perfect accompaniment to the king of pies.

1 minute ago, One-percent said:

I'm home for the weekend in North Yorkshire and my two to do meals are a flat pie from the local butchers and once from the chippy, fried in beef dripping with a side of mushy peas.  Not to be confused with guacamole.  Not at the same sitting 

You are not Peter Mandelson - and I give back my five pounds...

 

XYY

                                                                                                               

The dog's kennel is not the place to keep a sausage - Danish proverb

[One-percent]

2 minutes ago, The XYY Man said:

The dunking in the soup of course - It's the perfect accompaniment to the king of pies.

You are not Peter Mandelson - and I give back my five pounds...

 

XYY

 

                                                                                                               

 

The dog's kennel is not the place to keep a sausage - Danish proverb

 

Gladly not 

[frozen_out]

1 hour ago, The XYY Man said:

North-Eastern/Yorkshire style pork pie (not Melton Mowbray) in a bowl of Heinz tomato soup.

Divine...

 

XYY

 

                                                                                                                

 

The dog's kennel is not the place to keep a sausage - Danish proverb

 

 

I had a go at some pork pie last Christmas, going to have another go when I'm on holiday. They're tricky little bastards, especially getting the jelly in. 

My perfect Christmas holidag morning is getting up about 8am, making myself a snowball and a plate of pork pie, with onion relish and a few nibbles of cheese. Then sit watching something suitably christmassy whilst getting fat.

[The XYY Man]

19 minutes ago, frozen_out said:

I had a go at some pork pie last Christmas, going to have another go when I'm on holiday. They're tricky little bastards, especially getting the jelly in. 

My perfect Christmas holidag morning is getting up about 8am, making myself a snowball and a plate of pork pie, with onion relish and a few nibbles of cheese. Then sit watching something suitably christmassy whilst getting fat.

In the Northern pork pie fraternity, the art of of getting the jelly in properly is passed down from father to son.

It's filled-to-the-brim up North...

 

XYY

                                                                                                               

The dog's kennel is not the place to keep a sausage - Danish proverb

[SNACR]

3 hours ago, The XYY Man said:

In the Northern pork pie fraternity, the art of of getting the jelly in properly is passed down from father to son.

It's filled-to-the-brim up North...

 

XYY

 

                                                                                                               

 

The dog's kennel is not the place to keep a sausage - Danish proverb

 

Use a turkey baster?

[Sledgehead]

Whilst looking for a fancy olive oil dispenser, came across a guy saying same thing as me. You don't have to go beyond one min:

 

[SNACR]

Not sure I'd go as far as to agree olive oil is unhealthy. If you're active and need the calories you'll struggle to get them from fruit, veg and nuts and if you're going to need oil/fat it's a better choice than red meat animal fats or cheap calories from carbohydrates.