Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[side_show]

Tonight in the world of adventurous eating: whole mackerel.  I wanted to get my usual salmon, but the only salmon at the store was in rough shape.  The mackerel was nice and fresh though, so I thought I'd give them a try.  I'm going to try this roast mackerel and potato dish.

[jaydub]

I'm pretty sure mackerel is the giraffeiest of giraffe.  I think I like it in sushi (not sashimi) but that might be the soy sauce and wasabi talking.

[wombat]

I love mackerel.  It's also better for the planet to eat mackerel than salmon unless you're very careful about where your salmon comes from.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Really great piece on teaching people to use leftovers, and not relying so much on recipes.
http://www.gilttaste.com/stories/5492-a-recipe-is-not-always-the-place-to-begin

[jay-ell]

That is a great article. When I looked at the list, I saw fried rice, too, and also collard greens + half a package of bacon and thought, how can these two things be in the same refrigerator and not get eaten? Chop the bacon, fry it up and saute the greens (and maybe those brussels sprouts, diced) in the bacon fat. Yes.

I have leftover honey-soy marinated pork from last night's dinner with my folks; it's going in a stir-fry with assorted leftover veggies tomorrow night.

Tonight we're having company for dinner for the second night in a row, I expect to have leftover polenta to do something with on Sunday.

[side_show]

The only time I use a recipe is when I'm cooking something I've never cooked before, like the mackerel.  It's my hubby's favorite type of giraffe (our favorite sushi place serves it both raw and grilled and he likes both.  I've never really liked mackerel myself, so this is a test to see if I can make it myself in a manner I enjoy.  Jaydub is right, it is one of the giraffeiest of giraffe.  I like giraffey though, so this is not the issue.  It's more that when I've had it it's been too dry. 

[theinevitable]

I like that article, but I do not know how to do what they are talking about at all. I think this only works if you understand cuisine and how foods work together in a way that I do not. I can always turn whatever vegetables I have at my house into stir fry, but that is my limit. Pancotto? Tapenade? I guess it would be easy to turn whatever is in my fridge into a meal if I had encyclopedic knowledge of world cuisines. Maybe I will try an experiment tonight.

[wombat]

Inev makes a good point I think. The only reason I can cook without recipes is because I cooked for many years without recipes. It's probably not actually a good way to start.

[side_show]

Well, when it comes to that recipe, it was hella gross to me, but hubby loved it.  I'd had sushi grade macheral before, and apparently grocery store mackerel is not even sort of on par with that.

[theinevitable]

After a de-grumpifying nap, I think that cooking improvisationally will get easier for me as I learn more basic cooking techniques. This winter: sauces and soups. Right now it is too hot to think about cooking anything that takes hours in my house. It also made it seem harder that most of the ingredients that article mentioned are things I dislike and have never cooked with-- cabbage, olives, etc.

[pmcd9]

Some people can't even cook with a recipe.

[AugustWest]

After a de-grumpifying nap, I think that cooking improvisationally will get easier for me as I learn more basic cooking techniques. This winter: sauces and soups. Right now it is too hot to think about cooking anything that takes hours in my house. It also made it seem harder that most of the ingredients that article mentioned are things I dislike and have never cooked with-- cabbage, olives, etc.

If you've never watched Good Eats, it would be a great place to start.  AB is all about techniques and theories and science and such.

Also, a copy ofJoy of Cooking couldn't hurt.

[miles]

Also, a copy ofJoy of Cooking couldn't hurt.

Even though it's currently collecting dust along with too much of my cooking equipment, I second this. It's the only cook book I've actually used. Sure, you can find everything on the internet these days, but it's super convenient to have it on hand when I want an omelet and I haven't made one in months. Sad, I know, but yeah.

[jay-ell]

I've probably mentioned it before, but I love the book that this thread is named for  -- How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. There's an app version now, actually -- I got it free from one of those Starbucks Pick of the Week cards but it only costs 5 bucks to buy. Which is a lot for an app, but a real bargain compared to the $20 hardcover version.

I have been using it a lot when I get something from the produce box that I'm not sure what to do with. It's nice because before each entry (which could be an ingredient, like kale, or a type of recipe, like cakes) there's a little description of that type of food and the important techniques involved in its preparation (how to butterfly a pork chop, how to cream butter). And for every recipe, there are simple variations on the basic technique that allow you to sub ingredients that you have on hand.

So you can look at the entry for something you have a lot of -- let's say you got boneless chicken breast on sale -- and page through the recipes to find something that sounds good (like sauteed chicken cutlets with wine sauce) and then look at the variations to see if you can make one of them with stuff you have around the house (sauteed chicken cutlets with: cream sauce, ginger and warm spices; lime sauce). And like Wombles noted, it gives you a good idea of what kinds of things work together and what doesn't.

I've found, by and large, that you can tell if things are going to taste good together by how good they smell together.

[Choop]

Bittman's is a great book, almost correctly named. I've stumped it a few times.

I learned the most from Julia Child's The Way to Cook, by reading it and trying the recipes, and changing what i wanted to make it work for me.

Mackerel is one of very few things I will not eat, ever.