sweet brew of the bovine
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that good gulp of the goat
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Yeah, that’s great if you’re making tomato brownies.
I forget where I read this, but a good bonus tip for that style of hold is to lightly sandpaper the spine of the knife where your fingers pinch it. A lot of knives come with a hard, ninety degree edge on both sides of the spine: just a minute of sanding on the spine right past the bolster can make that pinch technique much more comfortable forever after on your knife. Of course, some knives don’t have that hard corner just past the bolster, but it’s something I’ve encountered a lot.
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would actually really appreciate a list of, if not necessarily recipes, food things that are easy to make but less known to my suburban ass, e.g. shakshuka
i live mostly on pastas and chilis when cooking for myself but i need more variety
Funny you mention shakshuka, was just talking to my friend about it/showed them a video on how to make it. It’s super fucking easy, and even in this guy’s video, he makes it fancier than it has to be.
I love Shakshuka. It’s so hearty and filling, but also healthy! Literally just cut up tomatoes, peppers, onions, and whatever other vegetables you like. Throw in some tomato paste to thicken things up. Let it cook for a bit, then throw some eggs on top. Bam, done, shakshukah. The guy in this video adds in sausage, but you absolutely do not need to do that to make it a proper shakshukah. That spicy thing he adds is also unnecessary. This is one of those foods where you can just wing it and throw in whatever you want. The only required/base ingredients are the tomato stuffs and eggs, and arguably the onions.
When you do make it, try putting it on top of some good bread. And then you can also use that bread to mop up all the juices and oils leftover in your plate.
The guy in the video I linked is another great cooking channel, he breaks everything down in super simple terms, and is coming from the angle of someone who isn’t some amazing cook, so you don’t have to worry about him expecting you to pull off some masterful technique.
He also sells a cookbook based around those same concepts.
I have not vetted this for quality or ease, but if you’re cooking on a tight budget here is a free cookbook designed for a budget of $4 per day:
Once you get the hang of it, crepes are super fun and easy to make and work for savory or sweet. My biggest tip is to use a non-stick pan, lots of butter, and one of those fish-flipping spatulas to flip it:
someone gifted me this book and its the most useless cookbook i have ever read (for a budget. it has really basic recipes made incredibly complicated if that’s your thing though. heres how to make popcorn. or a hamburger. throw some spices on your canned green beans.) the author definitely does not understand what four dollars a day actually means… like a recipe will call for a pound of beef (over four dollars) and then ten other ingredients. because it does the math PER SERVING
its incredibly out of touch its for rich people to feel better about themselves
the thread so far is infintely more useful than this book already
i guess you can thumb through it for ideas like any other cookbook it just does not understand budget
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Sorry!! I haven’t read it at all but I thought it looked useful
you didnt write it! id probably hate it less if it didnt take up physical space in my apartment
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you can burn it and make popcorn over the flame
the prices are probably outdated and wrong, but i think it is made with the assumption that you will like do some kind of planning to reuse ingredients. i mean idk that ‘$4 budget’ needs to mean you go to the supermarket with 4 dollars in your pocket and expect to buy everything you need each day
except that part of it is actually the hardest part, esp if you’re starting from nothing. there’s a short section on this at the beginning of that book but it’s pretty useless.
i do remember seeing something somewhere that had a weekly plan that began with nothing but beans and rice and gradually added more things for variety and flavor. i forgot where i saw it though! it definitely began from the principle that all other ‘living on a budget’ cooking guides are by rich people trying to feel good about themselves but hey. that’s just good marketing
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If anyone ever wants to make vegan/non-dairy mashed potatoes, then coconut milk is a pretty decent substitute for butter/milk.
It definitely affects the flavor, but I don’t think it’s a bad one. Just be prepared for a tinge of coconut flavor, it’s weird the first couple times.
When you salt a steak, the osmotic pressure will start drawing the juices out of it. Given enough time it will eventually reach equilibrium and stop. If you start cooking it while this is ongoing, then the juice that draws out immediately evaporate, and more and more is drawn out to try and reach that equilibrium, and you end up with a dry steak.
So whenever you salt your meat, either let it sit for a while before you throw it in a pan and sear it, or start right away, before the process can begin in earnest.
Also, when cooking rice, do it with a lid and don’t lift it up during cooking!
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Also, also, if something is too hot for you, water isn’t going to do much good. Milk or cream however, will soothe your tongue.
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yeah I used to dry-brine steaks by just salting them and letting them rest in the fridge till I was ready to cook but I’ve switched to salting and immediately throwing them in a pan.
It’s that mid point where one salts and waits like 10 minutes where it ruins steaks.
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dry-brining is good for really cheap cuts of steak, because all that extra time denatures the proteins, making the meat much more tender.
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Oh, speaking of rice
stirfried rice is one of the easiest things to make but you HAVE to use day old rice for good results. Make some rice and eat it as a part of a regular dinner, but save the leftovers in some tupperware in your fridge.
Grate some ginger and garlic, I typically use an inch of ginger and two cloves garlic. I use a ceramic grating plate I paid too much for at a farmer’s market, but if you don’t have one of those, just finely chop ginger and garlic together, don’t use a microplane unless you LOVE the taste of garlic because it makes for the most intense flavor. heat up a tbsp of vegetable oil in your wok, medium high heat. crack open and beat an egg in a separate bowl until it is mostly uniform. Toss the grated mixture into the wok and stir it around until it is fragrant and add the day old rice. Stir until the garlic-ginger is incorporated into the rice and you have broken up any large lumps of rice. Add the egg, and stir until it coats all the rice, you want to avoid scrambling the egg but some egg chunks mixed in with the egg coated rice is still delicious. Throw in whatever else you want. I typically put in some frozen vegetables and dash in some sesame oil, plus any leftovers i think would suit the dish. If you want something more trad, some diced chinese sausage, sauteed in advance, contributes so much flavor, but if you don’t have that it’s fine too. Add a little bit of soy sauce, rice wine, and whatever else you want to flavor the dish. Be sparing here! Usukuchi soy sauce is great for this.
Some notes on proper wok technique:
- Carbon steel woks are great because they can be seasoned, and because of how they heat up. The sides of the wok are colder than the part of the wok touching your heating element. Use this to your advantage!
- whenever an ingredient is cooked through and you don’t want to burn it, just shove it up the wok wall away from the center. Add ingredients by putting them on the side of the wok first and pushing them towards the center, this keeps the heat levels more consistent over time.
- clean your wok like you would a cast iron pan. After I go over the wok with salt, oil and a paper towel to pick up any food scraps, and the wok is smooth, I add a thin layer of oil (thin enough that it can’t even pool) and leave the wok on low heat until it’s dry.
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this is some magical stuff in fried rice, like candied pork
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