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Post by Powerthirteen on Apr 6, 2018 12:21:18 GMT -5
LazBro - chicken quarters like that are my preferred buy for pretty much everything I do with chicken, since they're usually cheap and they're a better portion size than just a thigh or a drumstick. I've found that they're usually what the processors/butchers do with chickens that are a little small for splitting the thigh and leg, so you get a piece that's kind of bigger than a thigh but smaller than a normal thigh and a normal leg. Plus they nestle nicely in a braising pan.
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Post by Ron Howard Voice on Apr 6, 2018 13:30:41 GMT -5
Plus they nestle nicely in a braising pan. That feeling of satisfaction when you have four chicken leg quarters and you don't think they'll fit in the braising pan and you wiggle and Tetris them around and finally get them all in snugly, it feels SO GREAT.
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Post by LazBro on Apr 6, 2018 14:06:55 GMT -5
LazBro - chicken quarters like that are my preferred buy for pretty much everything I do with chicken, since they're usually cheap and they're a better portion size than just a thigh or a drumstick. I've found that they're usually what the processors/butchers do with chickens that are a little small for splitting the thigh and leg, so you get a piece that's kind of bigger than a thigh but smaller than a normal thigh and a normal leg. Plus they nestle nicely in a braising pan. Full leg quarters I see all the time, thigh and drumstick. What was weird about these is that they were bifurcated longwise, bone and all. Worked out great though.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Apr 6, 2018 14:47:37 GMT -5
LazBro - chicken quarters like that are my preferred buy for pretty much everything I do with chicken, since they're usually cheap and they're a better portion size than just a thigh or a drumstick. I've found that they're usually what the processors/butchers do with chickens that are a little small for splitting the thigh and leg, so you get a piece that's kind of bigger than a thigh but smaller than a normal thigh and a normal leg. Plus they nestle nicely in a braising pan. Full leg quarters I see all the time, thigh and drumstick. What was weird about these is that they were bifurcated longwise, bone and all. Worked out great though. *looks more closely at picture* Why on earth... Why would a butcher.... WHY?
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Post by LazBro on Apr 25, 2018 9:56:48 GMT -5
#13 - Spiced Carrot and Pepper Soup with a Couscous Swirl
This write up has really stymied me. A couple times before now I've pulled up the ol' post editor, typed in that line above, and then sat there staring at an otherwise blank box. Both times, I lost interest and closed the browser. And I know why. It's because I have to nothing to say. No story, no angle, no personal connection at all with what is actually a good recipe. I want to stress that. This soup is worthy. I like it. I will make it again. I just don't have anything to say about it. So let's get to it then, and I can finally move on with my life. Any red bell pepper soup that doesn't start with the tedious step of roasting and skinning the peppers is automatically going to be in my good graces. Here Deb lets the vegetal sweetness of fresh peppers hang around, and then she brings in that roasty complexity through the spices. First things first, chop a crapload of veg: four (by which I mean 5-8) garlic cloves, a yellow onion, six large red bells and a pound of carrots. You're going to blitz the soup in the end, so chop small enough for everything to cook through, but don't be precious about it. Just get it done. Add olive oil to a large heated pot and then lightly brown the onions and garlic. Yes, specifically brown them, don't sweat. Then peppers, then carrots. Cook everything together until the goods begin to soften, then hit it with the spices: cumin, sweet paprika, ground cinnamon, ground ginger and a few threads of saffron if you have it (which I did!). Cook for a minute or so to wake up the spices, then cover with vegetable or chicken broth and salt. Cook for a good while then blitz with an immersion blender or however you prefer to accomplish the task (I know we have some Vitamix-ers in the house). While all that's going on, you'll also bring some broth or water to a boil in a separate pot to cook your couscous. Standard operating procedure there. Just before service, swirl in some spicy harissa to taste, then ladle the soup into wide bowls. Spoon a couple dollops of couscous into the center, give it a gentle swirl with the spoon, and finally top the soup with some herbage for posterity. Blissfully simply - if a bit heavy on the knife work up front, not that I mind it - nutritious, warming, and darn tasty. The spices keep the palate interested, love the ginger, and to reference Deb's own write up, the couscous succeeds in upgrading the soup from appetizer to meal. You feel good eating. Above is the actual recipe, but I made a couple tweaks based on what I had/could find. So, notes: - The recipe calls for sweet paprika, but I used the smoked paprika I already had on hand. It's not a sweet variety, but it's not especially hot either.
- Baby Snape no likey the spicy. So instead of swirling harissa through the base, I chopped up some Calabrian chili peppers and used that as garnish for ours. Those are the red chunks in the picture.
- The recipe calls for fine couscous, but looking at the picture the grains seemed thicker to me. Almost like Israeli couscous. I couldn't find Israeli couscous, so instead I used acini di pepe, which lands between the two. It was perfect.
Image:
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Post by LazBro on Apr 26, 2018 14:09:57 GMT -5
#14 - Ricotta Blini with Honey, Orange, and Sea Salt
So the other problem with taking so long before doing the write-up is that you start to forget. Oh sure, you may remember whether or not you liked something, but any particular thoughts you had on the recipe, from ingredients to method to tweaks you'd recommend ... well, that's all a couple hundred beers in the past. Today's mini-pancakes, for example, I made on February 13. Who the hell can remember something that happened two months ago? I can barely remember yesterday! Sorry, off track. One thing I do remember is why I picked this recipe. Hi. My name is The Lascivious Snape. And I suck at breakfast breads. I really do. Pancakes? Dry. Waffles? Boring. Muffins? Not as good as the box. From the mixing to the cooking to the serving, some deficit finds its way into the dish every time. (Here, I remind you again, we exclude biscuits, which are an anytime food). So my go-to solution is to not make this stuff. If myself or the Mrs. gets the rare craving for pancakes, we'll hit up a restaurant that specializes in that kind of thing. Know your limits. But hell, here it is. I'm doing a project, and these pancakes at least look interesting, what with their ricotta and orange and vinegar. So let's give'em a shot. To my surprise, blini, which look like mini-pancakes, are not mini-pancakes. I expected a straightforward mix-and-pour, but that is not at all how this recipe goes. Whisk together whole milk ricotta, eggs, sugar, orange zest and white vinegar (nice touch, that). Separately, mix together flour, baking soda and salt. Combine. Unlike a traditional pancake batter, this will be thick enough to form blobs, kind of like a drop biscuit, which you will indeed drop large spoonfuls of into a bowl of flour, rolling to form loose balls. Once you've made however many balls your batter will bear, heat a good amount of oil into a large skillet and start dropping your blobs, lightly pressing each down into a small disc. Cook slow-ish, about 2 minutes per side. Drain on paper towels. Move to a serving plate, drizzle with honey and flaked sea salt, serve. Everything great about this recipe is in the title. A creamy interior from the ricotta, floral aroma from the orange, satisfying crackle from the salt and the compelling sweetness from the honey - an ingredient that doesn't get its proper due, I don't think. I'm a honey fanatic. Like all breakfast breads, the right time to eat these is immediately, which is actually a bit of a problem, as I felt the quality begin to degrade within literal minutes of taking them off the heat. Just 1 minute on the plate and the texture had gone from creamy to dense and kind of blah. Well, I've got a big ass skillet, and I can cook a bunch at once, but not the 16 or so that this recipe makes. If you're comfortable with your peeps digging in before you, then encourage they do so. It'll be a better recipe that way. Note: recipe calls for the optional inclusion of currants in the batter. I didn't, because I didn't think Baby Snape would go for them. Image: (Damn, came out super blurry. I've mentioned before that I'm bad at this, right?)
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Post by The Sensational She-Hulk on Apr 26, 2018 15:19:25 GMT -5
They look and sound delicious! (I feel you on the blurry photo. There have been so many times I wanted to post a snap of something I made here, only to find out that it was blurry or had a shadow because I forgot to get out of the way.) I do find it interesting that these are more dough-like in texture before they're cooked, as my own experience in making blini is that they very much are mini-pancakes in that they're batter-based, even the buckwheat kind.
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Post by LazBro on Jun 20, 2018 12:55:58 GMT -5
#15 - Polenta-Baked Eggs with Corn, Tomato, and Fontina
And we're back! One-pot meals are a brilliant convenience, but they're also a tricky proposition in my household. My daughter grows more picky about food by the minute, and she rejects most foods with multiple flavors or textures at once. So like, chicken? Yes. Chicken with a dip? Maybe. Chicken in a sauce? Never! And by their very nature, one-pot meals put all your eggs (in today's case literally eggs) in one basket. You can't deconstruct them to their component parts to make them more palatable to a picky eater. That they cook together is what they are. You can remove fraught ingredients wholesale, but then you're just punishing yourself.
So despite the fact that Polenta-Baked Eggs with Corn, Tomato, and Fontina sounds freaking amazing, and despite having a full three of our loyal readers already weighing in with their own experiences with the dish, I wasn't sure I'd ever get to this one. It'd be a two dinner night for sure. Lo and behold, we do get the occasional night to ourselves while Baby Snape is off with the grandparents. And where before we would take the opportunity to go to a more adult restaurant, the presence of Slayden kind of saps the fun of potential date nights. Circumstances had finally lined up to give this popular dish a try. And? Not impressed, but it's not the recipe's fault. In short, here's the dish: make polenta, fold in fresh corn and fontina cheese, pour into a baking dish, streak with tomato sauce, make individual wells in the polenta for as many eggs as you wish to cook, top with a little extra cheese, bake until the eggs whites are just cooked through but yolks are runny, serve. Simple, right? And it is. But my version had a fatal flaw: my implacable distrust of polenta texture. I don't know how it works for you guys, but whenever I make polenta using stock standard corn grits (Bob's Red Mill this time), my polenta immediately thickens into a rigid brick, necessitating I add more liquid to even stir it. And then more. And then more. And then more... and before long I've topped the recipe's total volume by half over and still have a gruel thick enough to hold a spoon upright. I swear I've never seen a polenta recipe that called for enough water/milk/fat to produce anything thinner than mortar. So I overcompensate. I add more and more liquid, fearing that if I don't, it'll set up so hard and dry in the oven that it will be unpalatable. Inevitably, I overdo it. I didn't make a custardy, voluptuous polenta just firm enough to support those silken eggs. I made polenta soup with egg-y striations.
It tasted good. With the proper texture, this would be a kick-butt dish that's also endlessly variable. I want to try again with some spring/summer veggies. But no doubt this was a failure. My failure.
Image: The look is actually on point. Very similar to the book. But crack that surface and it's soup all the way down.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jun 20, 2018 13:05:25 GMT -5
LazBro I'm beginning to think that my ability to make polenta without trying may be some kind of superpower.
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Post by LazBro on Jun 20, 2018 13:44:43 GMT -5
LazBro I'm beginning to think that my ability to make polenta without trying may be some kind of superpower. It's normally not a big deal, because I'm serving it as a side dish or whatever seafood-less version of "shrimp and grits" I've come up with for the evening. In other words, I'm going straight from pot to plate. But the middle step of baking the polenta threw me off. I knew it shouldn't be too liquidy, but I kept thinking, "It's only going to get tighter, so if I put it in the dish now, I'll have a brick by the time the eggs are done." In the end, I way overshot.
Better luck next time.
Edit: Also, your Don Draper wink is really rubbing this one in.
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Post by Liz n Dick on Jun 30, 2018 10:25:31 GMT -5
A friend of mine is a huge devotee of all things Smitten, and she's been raving since this book came out that the blueberry muffin recipe in it is the best ever. She's a prolific and accomplished baker, so I was surprised to see her say that; it just seemed strange to me that Smitten Kitchen would emerge as her pick for the final word in something as "foundational-element recipe" as blueberry muffins.
We got gorgeous blueberries from our farmshare this week, and I am not normally a huge fan of this particular fruit. But I do love them in muffins. So I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to give SK Every Day another shot, and see what the fuss is all about.
I am pleased to report that my baking friend was not wrong: the blueberry muffin recipe in this book is the last and only one you'll ever need. It is effortlessly simple, just one bowl, minimal ingredients, almost zero process, and the end result is the platonic ideal of blueberry muffin. The batter is rich with butter and yogurt/sour cream (I had the latter on hand, and will probably never waste my time with that yogurt shit), and thick enough that the copious berries are perfectly suspended throughout. Deb credits the variety of sources she drew her inspiration from, including the tip from Stella Parks to top each muffin with a full teaspoon of turbinado sugar. At the last minute I discovered I had a bag of piloncillo from Rancho Gordo and decided to use that instead. So I didn't end with the crunchy rooftop of melted sugar on each of my muffins, but instead a crumbly, brown, pillowy drift of burnt-sugar deliciousness on mine. But yeah, I look forward to making these with turbinado, too.
I baked the muffins last night and am eating them this morning, they are moist and rich, with a crumb that expertly toes the line between delicate and dense, and I'm really wondering why I don't have blueberry muffins to eat every day.
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Post by LazBro on Jun 30, 2018 10:48:15 GMT -5
The blueberry muffins are actually the next on my list to write up, so look forward to my final verdict in Fall 2021.
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Post by The Sensational She-Hulk on Jul 1, 2018 9:36:39 GMT -5
A friend of mine is a huge devotee of all things Smitten, and she's been raving since this book came out that the blueberry muffin recipe in it is the best ever. She's a prolific and accomplished baker, so I was surprised to see her say that; it just seemed strange to me that Smitten Kitchen would emerge as her pick for the final word in something as "foundational-element recipe" as blueberry muffins. Muffins are one of those foods that seem easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy to make, and they are - but how often are they truly great? Most muffins are okay-to-mediocre at best, in my experience. They're so hard to perfect that in my Intro to Baking class, the chef instructor announced that for the first time ever, he was awarding a score of 100 to a classmate's muffins (it was final project time). Everyone else's were technically okay, but hers? It's been a decade and I still have no idea how the fuck she made them so beautifully. They were apple cinnamon muffins and everything you would want a muffin to be. Light as air, moist, flavorful, sweet but not too sweet, and completely satisfying. Didn't even stick to the wrapper too much.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jul 2, 2018 15:45:44 GMT -5
Made the jam-bellied bran scones. Great breakfast. I rolled the dough out thinner than she said - almost down to a quarter-inch - and I think that might be an improvement? Also you have to put in an amount of jam that seems like Too Much because some of it sort of soaks into the scone and disappears. Also I didn't have heavy cream so I used half and half and they worked just fine, although I had to add a lil more flour and I suspect that that's why.
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Jul 13, 2018 7:42:12 GMT -5
A friend of mine is a huge devotee of all things Smitten, and she's been raving since this book came out that the blueberry muffin recipe in it is the best ever. She's a prolific and accomplished baker, so I was surprised to see her say that; it just seemed strange to me that Smitten Kitchen would emerge as her pick for the final word in something as "foundational-element recipe" as blueberry muffins. We got gorgeous blueberries from our farmshare this week, and I am not normally a huge fan of this particular fruit. But I do love them in muffins. So I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to give SK Every Day another shot, and see what the fuss is all about. I am pleased to report that my baking friend was not wrong: the blueberry muffin recipe in this book is the last and only one you'll ever need. It is effortlessly simple, just one bowl, minimal ingredients, almost zero process, and the end result is the platonic ideal of blueberry muffin. The batter is rich with butter and yogurt/sour cream (I had the latter on hand, and will probably never waste my time with that yogurt shit), and thick enough that the copious berries are perfectly suspended throughout. Deb credits the variety of sources she drew her inspiration from, including the tip from Stella Parks to top each muffin with a full teaspoon of turbinado sugar. At the last minute I discovered I had a bag of piloncillo from Rancho Gordo and decided to use that instead. So I didn't end with the crunchy rooftop of melted sugar on each of my muffins, but instead a crumbly, brown, pillowy drift of burnt-sugar deliciousness on mine. But yeah, I look forward to making these with turbinado, too. I baked the muffins last night and am eating them this morning, they are moist and rich, with a crumb that expertly toes the line between delicate and dense, and I'm really wondering why I don't have blueberry muffins to eat every day. So after multiple rave reviews I made these muffins last night - the only teeny tiny changes I made were to add a smidge of vanilla and one single drop of Meyer Lemon flavoring (I did zest a lemon but I'm not very good at it, so I wanted just a teeny bit more lemon flavor). I also didn't quite manage 1 tsp of sugar per muffin, they weren't huge and even the half teaspoon or so they each got was a lot. Anyway - they are, I will say, very good muffins. And I definitely like just one bowl. I will almost certainly make them again. I pulled them right at 25 minutes and I almost wonder if that was a minute too long, even though it says 25-30? They seemed...not dry, but I wouldn't call them "moist" either. Maybe I needed a smidge more butter. I really liked them. But they didn't blow me away. Did I do something wrong, or was I expecting too much from a muffin? But thank you for recommending them because they were very easy to make and very worth the minimal effort.
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Post by Liz n Dick on Jul 13, 2018 7:50:24 GMT -5
So after multiple rave reviews I made these muffins last night - the only teeny tiny changes I made were to add a smidge of vanilla and one single drop of Meyer Lemon flavoring (I did zest a lemon but I'm not very good at it, so I wanted just a teeny bit more lemon flavor). I also didn't quite manage 1 tsp of sugar per muffin, they weren't huge and even the half teaspoon or so they each got was a lot. Anyway - they are, I will say, very good muffins. And I definitely like just one bowl. I will almost certainly make them again. I pulled them right at 25 minutes and I almost wonder if that was a minute too long, even though it says 25-30? They seemed...not dry, but I wouldn't call them "moist" either. Maybe I needed a smidge more butter. I really liked them. But they didn't blow me away. Did I do something wrong, or was I expecting too much from a muffin? But thank you for recommending them because they were very easy to make and very worth the minimal effort. That's interesting that yours felt overcooked, because mine actually could have stood a bit more time in the oven after 25 minutes (both times; I did a second batch a few days after the first). I guess we're looking at differences of oven/baking pan/local humidity or whatever? For the record, I would not be at all surprised to find out my oven's running cold; I should invest in a thermometer for it... Also, for the sugar on top, the point is that it's an enormous amount of sugar for each muffin. It's worth going that far, though! It's the absurd amounts of sugar baked on top that make these muffins so special.
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Jul 13, 2018 7:56:18 GMT -5
So after multiple rave reviews I made these muffins last night - the only teeny tiny changes I made were to add a smidge of vanilla and one single drop of Meyer Lemon flavoring (I did zest a lemon but I'm not very good at it, so I wanted just a teeny bit more lemon flavor). I also didn't quite manage 1 tsp of sugar per muffin, they weren't huge and even the half teaspoon or so they each got was a lot. Anyway - they are, I will say, very good muffins. And I definitely like just one bowl. I will almost certainly make them again. I pulled them right at 25 minutes and I almost wonder if that was a minute too long, even though it says 25-30? They seemed...not dry, but I wouldn't call them "moist" either. Maybe I needed a smidge more butter. I really liked them. But they didn't blow me away. Did I do something wrong, or was I expecting too much from a muffin? But thank you for recommending them because they were very easy to make and very worth the minimal effort. That's interesting that yours felt overcooked, because mine actually could have stood a bit more time in the oven after 25 minutes (both times; I did a second batch a few days after the first). I guess we're looking at differences of oven/baking pan/local humidity or whatever? For the record, I would not be at all surprised to find out my oven's running cold; I should invest in a thermometer for it... Also, for the sugar on top, the point is that it's an enormous amount of sugar for each muffin. It's worth going that far, though! It's the absurd amounts of sugar baked on top that make these muffins so special. I mean, strictly speaking they were perfectly cooked, a lovely golden brown on top - I just was expecting a little more moistness given your description and the butter and sour cream. It's the tiniest little nitpick. I also may have made mine a smidge smaller than hers/yours - I got 11 muffins out of my batch instead of 9. So I guess next time I can pile a bit more batter (and sugar!) in each cup.
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Post by Liz n Dick on Jul 13, 2018 9:16:29 GMT -5
I mean, strictly speaking they were perfectly cooked, a lovely golden brown on top - I just was expecting a little more moistness given your description and the butter and sour cream. It's the tiniest little nitpick. I also may have made mine a smidge smaller than hers/yours - I got 11 muffins out of my batch instead of 9. So I guess next time I can pile a bit more batter (and sugar!) in each cup. That's probably the difference there -- stretching the batch to 11 instead of 9. I stuck to 9 making mine, and put more batter into each cup than I initially felt I should. But it seems 9's the way to go here!
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Jul 13, 2018 9:22:45 GMT -5
I mean, strictly speaking they were perfectly cooked, a lovely golden brown on top - I just was expecting a little more moistness given your description and the butter and sour cream. It's the tiniest little nitpick. I also may have made mine a smidge smaller than hers/yours - I got 11 muffins out of my batch instead of 9. So I guess next time I can pile a bit more batter (and sugar!) in each cup. That's probably the difference there -- stretching the batch to 11 instead of 9. I stuck to 9 making mine, and put more batter into each cup than I initially felt I should. But it seems 9's the way to go here! Yeah, probably - I thought maybe she had slightly larger muffin tins to work with; I am usually hesitant to fill my liners too full because I know what can happen with cake batter! But now that I know how this batter behaves, I won't be quite as wary next time
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