/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>8956098

Be careful with salmon. The Japanese used to not even eat salmon before a farmed version was introduced to the country, because non-farmed salmon contain parasites.

Other than that, what >>8956098
said mostly. Fish markets are usually a good place to shop, if there are any nearby you, and make sure to ask the fisherman if they're suitable for raw consumption. Fresh fish only. If the eyes look glassy or it has a sickly look/smell, don't eat it.

If you're just starting off on sushi, shrimp is a good place to start. Boiled, tempura, whatever you like.

>>8955778
It's really not hard once you get the hang of it, just very time consuming.

If you want to go full-weeb on the stock, you won't want the nori they sell in store. That's better used as a topping. Kombu kelp is what they use for the stock with bonito flakes and dried baby sardines, and you'll be lucky to find it in a limited supermarket in the US. It's not too expensive to order online (aside from shipping, occasionally).

If you want chicken stock, you probably won't absolutely need seaweed in the broth. There's actually a Japanese restaurant near me that sells a hell of a ramen and they use chicken paste. I don't know the brand, but I see it in stores by the bouillon.

Here's one of the versions I do:

-Chicken broth (in a can or boiling down bones, your choice, just watch your salt)
-Boiled egg (marinated with equal parts soy sauce and water, or just plain)
-Sliced pork tenderloin or chicken breast (chicken stock is basically just a savory salt broth, so any white meat would work well with it)
-Thinly chopped scallions (fried/sauteed onion also works well)
-Spinach (boil it then immediately chill it in ice water for best color results)

Sometimes they add corn to it, but I don't like corn so I keep it out. If it's a pork broth I like to fry up some bean sprouts and cabbage with a little sesame oil and chili flakes. Toss a piece of toasted seaweed on there if you like it, get that iodine going. If you get any of your ingredients from a can, make sure you soak them to remove the brine. It's fucking disgusting otherwise.

In short, do whatever you want with it. Just don't put any dairy in it, dairy doesn't mix well with this kind of food.

>>8955689

I've tried it with baking soda, but it's... Not the same? The instructions said to bake baking soda between 250-255 F for an hour, then mix it with water, then add to flour. I think the ratio is 1 1/2 tsp. to 1/2 cup to 2 cups, respectively. Of course, I could be wrong, and the only things I use are baking soda and all purpose flour. The noodles... Aren't terrible, they are good, but they seem ramen-adjacent. It's apparently astronomically easier to get the proper texture with a pasta machine, but I don't have one of those. I flour up the dough, fold it over on itself, and use a straight edge knife to make noodles.

Ramen is basically an alkaline mixture, and they're relatively inexpensive if you make them by hand (even if you use other flour types).

I might make some later. I've been on a fruitless hunt for plums, so it'd be fun to do something while I search.

>>8955555

Quint 5's confirm.

Tofu used as a regular ingredient on its own is wonderful. I marinate it in a little soy before putting it in soup. But people who use tofu to replicate meat are doing the devil's work. You make the choice not to eat meat, so why are you trying to replicate it?

Okra, even though it's not in season for a lot of places.

Okra, yellow squash, zucchini, and tomatoes make excellent veggie stew. I do garlic, salt, pepper, and a little oregano with it (if I'm not adding meat).

>>8949924

Alright, I will be back with the best Quetschentaart I can make as soon as possible.

To keep this thread alive, I actually used to have a plum tree in my back yard. And now, literally across the street from my house is a pear tree. Nothing fancy, just regular green pears. It's been there for years, and it's kind of become a staple in my summers. Pears are just now coming into fruit. I always had a bad habit of eating them before they were perfectly ripe, though, as would the kid that lived next door to me. She and her friends would ride their bikes, and always stop by to grab like 10 of them... And lose them all down the street, and have to pick them back up. But she's in her later teens, now, and doesn't really care about it. She cares about boys and dying her hair black. Some other kids moved in on the other side, and come around to pick a few and hang out around the tree. It's nice to see that, I live in a small town in USA and it's pretty rural. Instead of being attached to cell phones and consoles, kids here have attachments to nature and the outdoors.

Although, we've had a... Pest problem... Recently. Every time one of us feels like grabbing a pear, for the past two or three years, some old crone takes a basket to the tree and picks them all. You old bitch, those pears are for everyone. Go die in a fire, you contribute nothing.

I'm gonna go check on the status of said pear tree and hunt down some plums. Do you guys have any local fruits? Maybe they're not in your backyard, but where do you go and what do you grab when you're in the mood for fruit?

Well, the movers had to reschedule, so it looks like I'll be making dessert!

It was my initial plan to do a soup, a main course, and a dessert, and I didn't think I'd get around to the sweets because I was planned to move soon. That's been set back, so hopefully this thread will be alive a few more days for me to post the results.

I'm having trouble deciding between plum and apple cake... What do you guys think/want to see from someone with semi-intermediate skill? Leaning towards apple, myself, but plums are easy to get where I am.

>>8948305
...and Thing two.

>>8948297
>>8944658

Thing one...

>>8945976
It was very good. If you don't like chicken, you can sub it out for pork, but I had chicken breasts in the house so that's what I used.

>>8948087
Good luck! Watch those potatoes :>

>>8948226
Good idea, will do.

>>8948260
Thank you, I knew nothing about this cuisine going into it and I'm happy someone who knows the food likes what I've done.

I'm gonna bump this up because the competition is still ongoing.

>>8945550

Here we are!

Place your chicken cutlet on the plate, then spoon over the tomato stew and top with your fried onions. Scoop out what are hopefully better potatoes than mine, along with half of one carrot and your asparagus. As you can see, the asparagus here... Didn't make it. The flavor was pretty damn good but the texture was not there at all. I should have just sauteed it on its own and added it to the final product. But the carrots were very nice, and the potatoes that were cooked a bit more thoroughly had a very good flavor.

And that concludes The Amazing Race: Luxembourg /ck/ edition Cook Along! What a ride. I hope I entertained at least a couple of people, because this really was fun. Some things I knew and improved upon, some things I tried for the first time, and others I screwed up completely. But it was fun, and I'm looking forward to participating in the next session.

This was a LOT of food. I did plate it up to look pretty, but in truth I only ate about a quarter of this. Had it for the next two days, as well.

>>8945547

Remember the other half of our onion? The one we cut into semi-thin strips? Go ahead and toss those into the pan the chicken was frying in. If you have to add some more oil, be careful while doing so, but I didn't need to.

Once those are soft, we can assemble.

>>8945530

After this is taken care of, it's time to check our veggies in the oven. Now, following my recommendations above, everything in that pan should be ready to plate up. However, as we've already established, I'm a doofus. So, to further my fuckery, I took off the foil and broiled the potatoes and veggies for just a couple of minutes. It did... Less than I had hoped.

There's one more step before we get to plate.

>>8945520

Turn it to the other side, but be cautious. Remember, we added paprika to our flour, so the color of the batter is probably going to be a little more golden than what it would usually be. Watch your actual meat, and judge by the color of your chicken on whether it needs more time. I think I cooked mine between 11-13 minutes, but a smaller breast would probably need 10. Remember, it has been butterflied and flattened.

When you're confident your chicken is done, relocate it to another plate.

>>8945507

Toss that sucker into a pan with a thin layer of oil. You are frying it, but you're not drenching it. If you do overdo it a little bit and it comes out greasy, however, lay it down on a plate that's covered with a paper towel and pat it a few times. After about 3 minutes all the excess grease should be removed, but you do need that barrier to absorb it.

Get a pan appropriate for the job. Do not fry a big piece of meat in a small pan. This was actually the biggest pan I own, though... And I would have liked it to have been a little bigger.

I kept my burner on medium to medium-high heat throughout the duration of this process, just so you know. Don't blast it with max heat, otherwise you're going to end up with raw chicken and black crumbs.

>>8945496

...Checking on our tomato stew. A good way to tell if it's done is if the tomato skins are falling off the flesh.

Can you remove the skins beforehand? Well... I suppose so, but I didn't even think to do that. I like the skins. I love everything about tomatoes. But if it's that big of a deal for you, then yeah, take them off.... you tomato philistine...

Joking, it's your food you bought with your money, do whatever the hell you want with it. When this mix is just a bit above soupy, pour it into a bowl and set it on the side. You're done with this save for plating, so all it's gotta do from this point onward is look pretty.

Once those 15 minutes are up, it's chicken time.

>>8945480

Make sure you've coated every nook and cranny of this chicken breast. I also forgot to mention that your flour and breadcrumb amounts are going to differ based on the size of your chicken breast. You can figure it out on your own, trust me, I believe in you. And if you're not confident about getting the right amount, add a little at a time until you're satisfied with what you've produced.

Once you've got something you're happy with, cover it with some plastic wrap and pop it in the fridge. Let this set for a minimum of 15 minutes. I let it rest for about 20, but I was doing other things at the time like...

>>8945476

Lay out your breading station, with one beaten egg, your bread crumbs, and your flour. Add all of your paprika to your flour and give it a stir. I also added a few shakes of salt to the flour, and as far as measurements go I would say you shouldn't have any more than 1/2 tbsp. of salt for each breast you're battering. If you do need more, then definitely no more than 1 tbsp. More than 1 tbsp. and it's just going to be a salt brick.

>>8945454

So... As far as the chicken breast goes, this thing was butchered to hell to begin with. I'm not the best at butterflying meat, but this thing did not make it easy whatsoever. It was already a big, big, BIG breast to begin with, and whoever butchered it... Didn't do a great job.

But you know what? It's schnitzel. These things don't matter, because we're going to bread it and fry it in our pan. It can look as funky as it wants to, as long as it's still edible.

Butterfly your chicken breast and tenderize it. If you're like me and don't have a meat tenderizer, take a knife and make very light, criss-cross cuts into the top and bottom of your meat. Even if it looks hacked up, as long as there are no holes or significant tears in your chicken there should be no problem.

>>8945426

In a very lightly oiled pan or pyrex dish that can go into the oven, add your vegetables... And you'll instantly notice the first mistake I made. I put in the asparagus with the roots. What was I thinking, right? Well, the asparagus I had available was actually really, really tough. I thought it would be able to hold its weight.

Spoiler alert: I was wrong. It did come out edible, though, and no food was wasted.

I also added the carrots to the sides, and I quartered each potato and threw it into the dish. Mistake number two, the potatoes should have been in smaller cubes. What's more, they probably should have been tossed around in a pan with some oil and vinegar before they were added to the pan.

But you know what, mistakes are how you learn. I consider myself an intermediate cook, someone who knows the general feel of food and cooking but still fucks up. As long as you take something away from those fuck ups, though, there's nothing to be ashamed about. And, again, no food went to waste. It just wasn't as good as it could have been.

Pushing that aside, I topped it all off with the remaining, lightly fried onions, some salt and pepper, and about two tablespoons of vinegar. For some people, that's an insane amount of vinegar. For others, it's not nearly enough. If you do it the way I did it, your veggies are going to be far more permeated than your potatoes. I recommend you do the thing I mentioned with tossing your spuds around with some oil and vinegar before adding them to the pan.

Sprinkle on your rosemary, then cover with foil and pop it in the oven. I baked this at about 350 F for an hour.

Mistake number three, right?

We'll come back to that. In light of my screw ups, we're going to move on to the most successful part of our dish and the star of the plate, our chicken.

>>8945413

Once you've got that taken care of, you're going to lightly sprinkle in some salt and let it simmer on the lowest heat your stove can produce. Cover it with a size-appropriate lid and just leave it alone to do its thing.

Let's move on to the potatoes and vegetables.

We're going to tend to our onions first. I used oil for this, and it was a tiny, tiny amount. I dripped a tiny bit into the pan and wiped it around with a paper towel. You only need enough so that your onions will be able to lightly fry.

Add your diced onions to the pot, and once they've started to brown remove half of them. Place that half to the side, we will be using them with our potatoes and veggies.

After you remove one half of the onions, toss in all of your tomatoes into the pot and stir them around a couple of times.

Sorry for the lighting here, I made this pretty early in the morning and it was bright as fuck.

Alright, part two: Chicken Schnitzel Boogaloo

I had a few problems with this dish, which will come to light more towards the end of this cook along, so we'll get to them when we get to them.

Here's what you're going to need:

1 whole, de-boned chicken breast
1 white, medium onion (dice one half and cut the other into medium-sized strips)
2 whole tomatoes, chopped
2 whole carrots, peeled and halved
7-9 stalks of asparagus
5 red potatoes of medium to small size
1/4-1/2 tbsp. rosemary (dried or fresh, preferrably the latter but I only had dry)
1/2 tbsp. paprika

Your vinegar, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper will vary according to the size of your chicken breast and how much you like vinegar. Truthfully, you don't have to add any at all, but I love the stuff. But we'll get to that.

Prep all your veggies as shown, lay out all your ingredients to where they're neat and ready for use, and then we can get started on our main course.

We're going to start off with our tomato stew, which we will use as a topping for our chicken schnitzel. Luxembourg's cuisine is described as 'international', taking inspiration from Germany, France, and Belgium. I tried to do the same here. While I'm well aware that this dish is far less healthy than the one we previously made, I packed it with the best ingredients I could.

Let us begin.