Cooking in the Lounge Q&A

[katyseagull]

Hey let’s start a thread devoted to answering cooking questions. I’ve got a lot of questions! I’ve recently taken an interest in cooking and I could really use some advice. I seem to have basic questions about specific foods, herbs, what dishes go well together and that sort of thing. I’m still a beginner but I’m becoming braver about trying new recipes and lately I’ve really been digging this hobby. It’s definitely had a positive effect on my life as I seem to spend more time thinking about recipes and less time doing stupid stuff.

Mrs. Utah has encouraged me to give this a shot and see if anyone else in the lounge is interested in discussing cooking and offering advice to newbies like me. I know I could learn a lot from the rest of you guys.


I guess what we had in mind is a thread devoted to any kind of culinary-related questions. Posts like:


- Basic Cooking Questions
- Please help me fix my recipe
- Menu planning (Mrs. Utah’s idea)
- Teach me this standard culinary procedure (e.g. what is your idea of the perfect béchamel sauce? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] stuff like that.)


These would be pretty cool. Any of these would be appropriate in my opinion. What do you guys think? Is that too broad an umbrella? Should I narrow the scope? I'm afraid I tend to over think everything.


Feel free to post your thoughts or ask a cooking question and hopefully 2+2’s fine cooks will jump in to help us out.

If you don’t have any questions, I’m always curious what others are cooking for dinner so feel free to tell me what you're making and maybe it will inspire me with my future meal planning.

[FortunaMaximus]

Awesome idea.

Hmm. If I've got time and the inclination, I make fresh pasta. Mind you, crappy fresh pasta is worse than store-bought prepackaged stuff, so you gotta do it right.

This is a basic spinach pasta.

~3.5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, stone-ground's the best, about 10 ounces of fresh spinach, cooked, dried, and minced very, very finely. Mix 'em together until the stuff's uniform and you got a heap of greenish flour.

Just pour the stuff out on a clean surface, make a volcano out of it, have a well that can hold several large eggs, usually 2 should do. A bit of salt, teaspoon's good, also a similar amount of olive oil. All you need, really.

Crack the eggs, dump 'em in the well, beat the eggs lightly, drawing some flour into the mix until the egg mixture is thickened a bit. Then use your fingers, blend the rest of the flour into the mixture until the dough's smooth, not to stiff. If your mixture's a bit off, it's a bit dry, add some water.

And just knead it by hand for about 10 minutes, divide the dough into several pieces, cover it (make sure it's airless) and let it rest for about 20 minutes, half an hour.

Get a rolling pin, lightly flour the surface and take the pasta a piece at a time, roll and turn a quarter of the way, roll and turn until the pasta's about 1/3" thick.

Now you wanna stretch it, wind it around the pin and stretch it from the center until you've got the thickness you want. For ribbon pasta, just roll it up and cut to the lengths you want. If you're using it for lasagna, cut it in rectangles.

Yeah, it's pretty time-consuming. heh. But good cooking starts from scratch, don'cha think?

[katyseagull]

Ok, here’s my first real entry in this thread.

My boyfriend loves fish. I almost never fix it. I’m pretty sure he’s grown bored with my pork chops. I would like to surprise him with something totally new that will wow him, so I’ve been looking at fish recipes online. At first I was all set on making this fancy stuffed flounder thing in a pastry but now I think that’s a little over the top and probably too difficult for a novice.

I need to start sort of simple. These two look relatively easy. What do you guys think of these two recipes? Would they taste good enough to impress?


Fish with rice wine


seafood au gratin



Some basic questions

- I am leaning towards the recipe for seafood au gratin. Do you have an opinion on which fish would be better - cod, roughy, or flounder? Or does it even really matter? I want one that is boneless and real tasty.

- What is imitation crabmeat and is it really okay to use in place of real crabmeat or is it noticeably different?

- If a seafood recipe calls for dry white wine does that mean Vermouth? I can’t remember. I think jjnjustin told me to use vermouth (sorry jjn, I can’t remember!). I usually grab whatever wine is on my counter which is often a Riesling. I assume that’s going to give it a whole different flavor though, right?

- Finally, what should I serve with my fish? I was thinking white rice and salad. Good enough?

[katyseagull]

This sounds awesome Maximus. I've always heard people say how superior homemade pasta is to store bought.

But this part is what worries me

[ QUOTE ]
Mind you, crappy fresh pasta is worse than store-bought prepackaged stuff, so you gotta do it right.


[/ QUOTE ]


I'm really tired right now so maybe didn't read your post thoroughly. Are you saying you just dump the loose flour spinach mixture onto a surface and then make the well? You don't do that in a bowl?

This might be a dumb question but can you use frozen spinach instead of fresh?

[esad]

[ QUOTE ]
- I am leaning towards the recipe for seafood au gratin. Do you have an opinion on which fish would be better - cod, roughy, or flounder? Or does it even really matter? I want one that is boneless and real tasty.

[/ QUOTE ]

Halibut would be great. I would stick with whichever fish you can get that is the freshest, i.e., not fresh forzen.


[ QUOTE ]
- What is imitation crabmeat and is it really okay to use in place of real crabmeat or is it noticeably different?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not the same and it has a different texture and taste. Go for the real stuff, but you can use the fake stuff if the real stuff isn't available.


[ QUOTE ]
- If a seafood recipe calls for dry white wine does that mean Vermouth? I can’t remember. I think jjnjustin told me to use vermouth (sorry jjn, I can’t remember!). I usually grab whatever wine is on my counter which is often a Riesling. I assume that’s going to give it a whole different flavor though, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

If a recipe calls for a dry white wine then you should be safe with a Chardonnay or a Sauvignon Blanc. When they specifically call for a "Dry" wine, it's to distinguish from some of the fruity or sweet white wines that are available. Btw, a Riesling is considered a dry wine. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
- Finally, what should I serve with my fish? I was thinking white rice and salad. Good enough?

[/ QUOTE ]

Do something with the rice, instead of serving it just plain. A lemon, butter and parsley risotto would go very well with fish and it's not too heavy.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
This sounds awesome Maximus. I've always heard people say how superior homemade pasta is to store bought.

But this part is what worries me

[ QUOTE ]
Mind you, crappy fresh pasta is worse than store-bought prepackaged stuff, so you gotta do it right.


[/ QUOTE ]


I'm really tired right now so maybe didn't read your post thoroughly. Are you saying you just dump the loose flour spinach mixture onto a surface and then make the well? You don't do that in a bowl?

This might be a dumb question but can you use frozen spinach instead of fresh?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, frozen spinach is fine also. I suppose you could use a bowl, but if you have a non-tiled countertop, marble or wood, that works just as well for a dough surface.

Just make sure it's sifted and very uniform and the egg mixture is thickened gradually before you go on and get the entire mixture mixed and doughlike.

Oh, to add, you should have a wire rack to dry the pasta on, a few hours should do nicely, although it'll do fine for a day or two.

And of course, there are variations, herbs, other vegetables, etc. to make different pastas.

katy, there are no dumb questions when it comes to cooking. If you enjoy it and take the time with it, you'd be surprised how creative you can get without consulting resources. My grandmother had a few jobs through her working life, including a stint as a bakery manager and later on, an obsterics nurse. See them a few times a year, and her cookin' is simple and hearty and elegant and I've more and less gotten more into it as I've gotten a bit older.

[Mrs. Utah]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
- Finally, what should I serve with my fish? I was thinking white rice and salad. Good enough?

[/ QUOTE ]

Do something with the rice, instead of serving it just plain. A lemon, butter and parsley risotto would go very well with fish and it's not too heavy.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree that rice would be very nice with this. It was my first thought. Or you could do something similar with the buter, lemon and parsley(sounds so simple and delicious and won't overshadow your main dish) but instead of rice your could try orzo, which is a rice shaped pasta.

Here is an example I found in 2 minutes of doing a search on FoodNetwork

Orzo with Parsley and Lemon Zest

1/2 pound orzo
Coarse salt
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, eyeball it
2 large lemons, zested
Black pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped flat leaf parsley, a couple of handfuls

Cook orzo in salted water about 12 minutes, to al dente. Drain orzo well. Do not run under cold water. You want the cooked pasta to remain hot. Transfer pasta to a serving bowl. Drizzle orzo with a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Add lemon zest and parsley and toss to combine the flavors with the pasta.

[katyseagull]

Hey thanks esad! This is exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you for taking time to give me comments. I appreciate it. (Who knew Riesling was a "dry" wine [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] ) There is a market close to my work that I believe sells fresh fish. Hm, not sure though...maybe it's actually fresh frozen (I live in the midwest). Anyway, I plan to check it out and see if I can find something appropriate. I'm excited about trying something new.

I really want to try the lemon, butter and parsley risotto. Sounds really delicious and I'm embarassed to say I've never attempted it before.



Mrs. Utah - Thanks for the tip about orzo. Sounds really good. I think my boyfriend might actually like that better than rice to be honest. I tend to be a rice fan and he's more into pasta. Anyway, the recipe seems simple enough. I could probably do something like that without messing up. Thank you!

[SamIAm]

If you're searching for recipes online, I highly suggest www.epicurious.com . They have users rank the recipes, so you can read the ones that that have done well for others. Also, they allow for users to leave comments, so you can get a consensus on whether a dish has too much water, or if you should cut the salt, or whatever.
-Sam

[SamIAm]

Here's my question: How can I use Elephant garlic instead of normal garlic? I bought a bunch to experiment with. It seems milder than garlic, so I could just replace normal garlic with elephant, when serving guests who don't like garlic as much as I do.

One thing I noticed was that it seems to stick together more than normal garlic. I was sauteeing garlic in veggie oil for an indian dish, and tried using my monster garlic. It all stuck together as it cooked, though, and at the end it tended towards one big ball 'o garlic. What gives?
-Sam

P.S. I know elephant garlic isn't actually garlic, and is really a leek. Whatever. It looks (mostly) like garlic. It tastes (mostly) like garlic. It's mostly garlic.