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The Cooking Thread

spurspinter1

spurspinter1

Pat van den Hauwe
Pretty sure we don't have one of these.

What's your signature dish?

What kind of things are you planning on cooking in the future?

Best Dessert you've done?

Biggest fudge up you've had cooking-wise?

A friendly place to discuss ideas and swap recipes and all that.


I had a bash at Beef Bourguignon the other day, I was surprised how easy it was to be fair. Probably could have improved it by just letting it cook for longer but was in a bit of a rush unfortunately. Was good fun to actually try something new cause I often get stuck in a habit of only cooking three different meals. When I do get the time giving something new a go is good fun....

This perhaps is just procrastination as I'm meant to be doing my driving theory revision but it is a ball ache so talk about cooking a bit please \o/
 
Biggest fudge up you've had cooking-wise?



I'll get it started. Why not.



First thing i can recall cooking meal wise was pizza. Was told to just turn the oven on and stick it in.



So i did, plastic wrap and all. :-"
 
I remember my first ever effort at making a cup of tea, trying to make the drink with a mate when I was young, I included milk and hot water but no tea!! I wondered why the drink was so white!

I'm not a great cook but I am good with pasta. I cooked bacon, chicken, pasta, tomato (in the way of some pasta sauce style stuff), mushrooms, onions and peppers and some herbs and it tasted good! I know that I used pasta sauce but I did say that I'm not great at cooking. I want to be better but feel anxious about trying in the kitchen with the prospect of failing and get low when I frustrate myself by not achieving as much as I feel that I should be capable of achieving.
 
spurspinter1 said:
Best Dessert you've done?

Biggest fudge up you've had cooking-wise?
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One and the same.

A swiss meringue "cake" stuffed with fresh fruits and ice cream. This consists of a basket made of swiss meringue (crunchy on outside, gooey on insides): a discoid base and then rings to build up the sides, with piped meringue on the outside (like piped cream). This is baked briefly and then when cool filled with strawberries, raspberries and other fruit, with dollops of ice cream, syrup and fresh cream.

The first time I tried this for a dinner party I had put it in the oven and the doorbell rung. Forty minutes later, when I remembered, I took a beautifully shaped meringue basket from the oven ... unfortunately it was coal black.
 
I bake cheescake - any variety you want. I made a great mars bar one and made a chocolate orange and walnut one. I also made an amazing blueberry and white choco and vanilla cheesecake.


I also make veal in chocolate sauce - yum yum.

I went to cooking classes.
 
spurspinter1 said:
Pretty sure we don't have one of these.

What's your signature dish? Pork Belly, Roast Potatoes

What kind of things are you planning on cooking in the future? Meat

Best Dessert you've done? Never cooked one

Biggest fudge up you've had cooking-wise? Don't make mistakes
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Love meat
 
Loves a bit of cooking.

Signature dish- Make a mean chilli/bolognese but if i had to pick signature.....massive calzone's or morrocan chickpea (or chicken) tagine

Dessert wise- i generally suck at anything to do with baking/pastry. I have pulled off a decent baked alaska before which the missus has strangely requested as dessert on xmas day WTF!!?!? Last one i tried was a mexican dessert apple + cinnamon enchillads covered in a buttery sugary syrup.....bit sickly really

The worst dish i ever made was from a recipe book.....some kinda of roast minted lamb served with rigatoni in a tomatoey sauce.....it was awful, it didnt go together, didnt work at all.....waste of money
 
Spursalot said:
Biggest fudge up you've had cooking-wise?



I'll get it started. Why not.



First thing i can recall cooking meal wise was pizza. Was told to just turn the oven on and stick it in.



So i did, plastic wrap and all. :-"
Click to expand...

I did think that story would probably come up when I typed that question...
 
Not a big chef, but I do enjoy good food and cooking. I'd say my signature dish is 'chicken in beer', it's delicious as fudge. I think I need to try a cajun version of it soon. Had a mean garlic chicken a few weeks ago, and some excellent oven baked halibut and pesto not long after.
 
Fhtagn said:
Not a big chef, but I do enjoy good food and cooking. I'd say my signature dish is 'chicken in beer', it's delicious as fudge. I think I need to try a cajun version of it soon. Had a mean garlic chicken a few weeks ago, and some excellent oven baked halibut and pesto not long after.
Click to expand...

My ol' man does a mean Beer Chicken on the BBQ. It stays moist for days!!

Not a cook at all really but I do make a good batch of brownies
 
philspursuk said:
Has anyone got a kick ass Gammon recipe for Xmas ?
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Not sure its a kick ass recipe for Christmas, but its a very good traditional winter food.

1. Par boil the gammon. Cover with water, bring to boil, add bay leaf, and simmering for about an hour. This keeps it tender and warms the meat through so it browns in the oven nicely.

2. Remove from water and leave to dry a few minutes (the hot water evaporates as steam). Score and salt the skin. I usually just rub olive oil on the exposed meat, although you could make a glaze of oil, lemon juice and honey.

3. Roast it. I roast small pieces for about an hour or until browned nicely. I'm not sure for larger pieces but probably 20 minutes per pound plus 30 minutes. One nice thing with gammon is that when cooked more it flakes up but stays tender because of the parboiling and doesn't dry out like turkey. If you don't parboil the joint you need to roast it for longer and it goes tough in my experience

3. Sauce. I like a white onion sauce. Saute finely sliced slowly until translucent. Add fresh bay leaf to the onions and then add some flour to thicken and cook a while, making sure it doesn't brown. Add some white wine or a little water which should boil immediately, stir to remove stuck bits from pan and make a paste and then add milk and some Dijon mustard and simmer until it thickens. After removing the roasted meat, add some white wine (or water) to the roasting pan to dissolve the meat residue, stir and add to the sauce. Add some freshly chopped parsley to the sauce (I usually add half and cook it for 5 minutes to flavour the sauce and then the other half stirred in at the end to keep the freshness).

4. The usual Christmas stuff: roast veg (potatoes, parsnips), carrots, swede and sprouts etc. Cauliflower goes nicely with the white onion sauce (you could even bake some like a cheeseless cauliflower cheese).
 
I'd do a parsnip puree instead of roast parsnip to give it a different texture if you don't like onion sauce. That said Roast Parsnips are nice... I cheat on them and use Aunt Bessies.
 
Olive oil,salt,pepper,paprika,tablespoon of curry powder,dried mixed herbs and a dollop of west indian hot pepper sauce makes the tastiest marinade for chicken known to man
 
Just poped some homemade sasauge rolls in the oven...... GHod I love them... Just come back with a Christmas tree waiting for the boy to get back from school before eating said rolls and decorating the tree.
 
Some great ingredients around at the minute to make Sausage Rolls, not least Sausage meat stuffing that's available. Do you use ready made sausages and unskin them. Ready made pastry is a GHod send. Talking of cheats. Got some Tesco Finest Brandy Custard coming, if it is too thick I will add some single cream, then place into the ice cream churner. My eyes are too big for my belly this week :eek:
 
Ah, the biggest fudge-up. Back in my poverty-stricken student days, a good friend of mine announced her intention to pop over to my rented residence in Toronto for dinner on her way to a conference nearby. Not wanting to let her down, I decided to try to cook bolognese, even though the most I'd cooked before was pot noodles and re-heated pizza. I bought smoked bacon, butter, plum tomatoes, onions, carrots, chicken liver and coarsely minced beef, just like the manual said. I heated the oven, made the casserole, stirred the pot, put the thing in the oven, poured in a jug of water to make sure it didn't go dry, and did everything a decent chef would do.

Then I went outside for a smoke break while the thing was heating in the oven. I also absent mindedly left the oven door open, and some highly flammable cigarette paper lying on the kitchen platform (I was an 'artsy' smoker). I came back six minutes later to find the wooden platform on fire, the house venting smoke and the fire alarm going off like mad in the freezer (where me and my room-mates had stashed it to prevent it going off when we were smoking indoors). I grabbed a pot, filled it with water from the kitchen sink and tossed it on the burning platform, which seemed to do the job. I sank back onto the sink, relieved, when I noticed some gelatinous, lava-like brown goo bubbling rapidly towards my reclining foot from the still-open oven. And before I could withdraw it, a pot full of steaming-hot brown bolognese glop had landed on my naked lower leg.



Spent four days in hospital, had to pay for the massive damages(so did my room-mates, actually, which I still chuckle at), and to cap it all off, was triumphantly told by my sneering mate that he had tried my bolognese while I lay in pain on an ambulance bed and that 'he would not be recommending it'.

Have never cooked since. :)
 
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