But muh BBQ and clam casino
Recipes - Basic and Advanced
- Thread starter winterskeeper
- Start date
Thomas Keller's roasted chicken. Very simple but the best roasted chicken I've ever had.
Bonus is that once you're done, you can use the bones and carcass to make a very wholesome chicken stock.
Edit: Since this preparation is simple, you will get best results with a slightly higher-quality chicken. Avoid the typical "wrapped" Purdue supermarket chicken if possible; they're usually soaked in a water solution to increase the weight, with the result that the meat is less flavorful. Air cooled/organic tastes the most wholesome - you can find them at Whole Foods or Wegman's.
Bonus is that once you're done, you can use the bones and carcass to make a very wholesome chicken stock.
Edit: Since this preparation is simple, you will get best results with a slightly higher-quality chicken. Avoid the typical "wrapped" Purdue supermarket chicken if possible; they're usually soaked in a water solution to increase the weight, with the result that the meat is less flavorful. Air cooled/organic tastes the most wholesome - you can find them at Whole Foods or Wegman's.
Last edited:
This recipe made the rounds on social media this year. It's almost inexplicably tasty - the cream adds richness, chicken stock adds flavor, and the sun-dried tomatoes and parmesan give it this incredible umami depth.
It can easily be served over pasta, though I try to stay low-carb so I prefer eating it by itself or with a small amount of rice.
It's excellent for serving to a guest you're trying to impress.
It can easily be served over pasta, though I try to stay low-carb so I prefer eating it by itself or with a small amount of rice.
It's excellent for serving to a guest you're trying to impress.
Hamburger steak. My favorite cheap meal that tastes good.
Small batch
1 lb 80 20
1 piece of bread
1/2 an onion
1 egg
Salt pepper to taste
Toast or airfry the bread until it is very dry
Crumble it up
Chop up onion very fine
Mix all together in a bowl
Form into patties, makes 4 but you can do it smaller if you want
Use big glob of lard in the pan
Pan fry 6 minutes a side at about 5 out of 10 on the stove
Give the patty a squish when you flip
Eat
Small batch
1 lb 80 20
1 piece of bread
1/2 an onion
1 egg
Salt pepper to taste
Toast or airfry the bread until it is very dry
Crumble it up
Chop up onion very fine
Mix all together in a bowl
Form into patties, makes 4 but you can do it smaller if you want
Use big glob of lard in the pan
Pan fry 6 minutes a side at about 5 out of 10 on the stove
Give the patty a squish when you flip
Eat
Reminds me of when I was little, watching my German grandmother in the kitchen. I also have great memories of the apple cake, which you don't see in the UK.
What a great site! No frills, simple instructions, and best of all... It uses the metric system!!
I like mixing in cooked bacon.
The easiest meal in my repertoire is Mississippi roast. I like to make it on Sunday morning so we can have something ready to eat after church.
4 lb roast (typically chuck roast, but I like lean cuts like sirloin)
1 bottle of Primal Kitchen ranch dressing
A few tablespoons pepperoncini
Cook everything in a crockpot on high for 4 hours. Delicious and very versatile!
In the future, I might try making my own ranch dressing because clean ones like primal kitchen are pricey!
4 lb roast (typically chuck roast, but I like lean cuts like sirloin)
1 bottle of Primal Kitchen ranch dressing
A few tablespoons pepperoncini
Cook everything in a crockpot on high for 4 hours. Delicious and very versatile!
In the future, I might try making my own ranch dressing because clean ones like primal kitchen are pricey!
Life's so nice with chicken and rice!
Literally anything by Ina Garten/Barefoot Contessa. Haven’t had a recipe from her come out bad. Everything from chocolate cake to lentil soup to lamb. She’s precise and I’m the same way so she suits my style.
My favorites of hers so far:
-French Mussel Bisque
-Cape Cod Salad
-French Lemon Mousse
-Herb Roasted Rack of Lamb (but cooked on a charcoal grill, kids love this and it’s almost effortless)
-Really any lamb recipe she has
-Garlic Roasted Cauliflower (she has 2 similar recipes so I combined them, I add Gruyère and Parmesan to this)
-Goat cheese purses
-Garlic Ciabatta Bread (this one is so easy & good)
-Sticky Buns
-1770 House Meatloaf (this one is amazing, had people who hate meatloaf absolutely love this one)
My favorites of hers so far:
-French Mussel Bisque
-Cape Cod Salad
-French Lemon Mousse
-Herb Roasted Rack of Lamb (but cooked on a charcoal grill, kids love this and it’s almost effortless)
-Really any lamb recipe she has
-Garlic Roasted Cauliflower (she has 2 similar recipes so I combined them, I add Gruyère and Parmesan to this)
-Goat cheese purses
-Garlic Ciabatta Bread (this one is so easy & good)
-Sticky Buns
-1770 House Meatloaf (this one is amazing, had people who hate meatloaf absolutely love this one)
I really like Ina Garten's recipes as well. The only one that didn't work out was an oven baked mac'n cheese but I think the recipe must've had a typo. It called for one whole tablespoon of salt... and I was like, "Ok, Ina, if you say so..." It ended up way too salty (and I like salt) so maybe it should've been 1 tsp. which seems about right. I have a few of her cookbooks and my favorite by far is "Barefoot in Paris." I'm still hoping that my husband will pick up on my brainwave transmissions to him and buy me a copper Dehellerin paella pan or something because of this cookbook lol.
I literally lol’d because I say this all the time following her recipes. Like that French Mussel Bisque above takes almost an entire bottle of white wine. It cooks out, but you can definitely tell it’s in there.
I like that one too! Have you tried any of the desserts yet? Fancy French desserts are my true love and they look so good
. The other ones I use a lot are How Easy Is That and Back to Basics. The reason I like her so much is because I learned to cook after having kids (well I’m still learning) and failure is not an option haha. I liked Alton Brown’s Good Eats (before he got kind of weird) back when I had more free time.
I've only made one of her desserts from a different cookbook (the 4th of July Flag Cake) and that turned out well but we just don't eat a lot of dessert or sweets. What I like best about her recipes is that the ingredient list isn't a mile long and rarely call for special, unusual, or impossible to find items and the cooking techniques/methods are straight forward. I do chuckle every time she says to use "good" wine or "good" olive oil because (if you've ever watched her cooking show) you know she means expensive lol.I literally lol’d because I say this all the time following her recipes. Like that French Mussel Bisque above takes almost an entire bottle of white wine. It cooks out, but you can definitely tell it’s in there.
I like that one too! Have you tried any of the desserts yet? Fancy French desserts are my true love and they look so good
The other cookbooks I like are from Ree Drummond aka "The Pioneer Woman."
Last edited:
This is my childhood favorite for dinner. I'm not sure what it's called, probably "pennies in bbq over potatoes" or something (probably why kids used to try to eat coins all the time...) This is a true retro 80's/90's recipe that I would never feed to my own kids but loved as a child.
Ingredients:
-One package of hotdogs (any brand, the cheaper the better) sliced thin like pennies
-bbq sauce (preferably Tony Roma's)
-Dehydrated potatoes
-Country Crock Margarine
Recipe:
-Make the dehydrated potatoes according to directions on the box. Make sure to use extra Country Crock.
-Slightly toast hotdog slices on lightly greased skillet, then add a bunch of bbq sauce. This is your gravy for the potatoes so make sure you use enough. Heat through.
-To serve: ladle hotdog bbq gravy over potatoes. Serve with a side of microwaved frozen lima beans. Bon Appetite!
Ingredients:
-One package of hotdogs (any brand, the cheaper the better) sliced thin like pennies
-bbq sauce (preferably Tony Roma's)
-Dehydrated potatoes
-Country Crock Margarine
Recipe:
-Make the dehydrated potatoes according to directions on the box. Make sure to use extra Country Crock.
-Slightly toast hotdog slices on lightly greased skillet, then add a bunch of bbq sauce. This is your gravy for the potatoes so make sure you use enough. Heat through.
-To serve: ladle hotdog bbq gravy over potatoes. Serve with a side of microwaved frozen lima beans. Bon Appetite!
Do any of you know the tricks for cooking a thicker cut of steak right?
A few weeks ago I had one at a restaurant, had creamy green peppercorn sauce, was truly fantastic.
Then about one week ago, I cooked a similar cut myself and ate it with mustard and salt and pepper, was mediocre.
Fried it in butter in a cast iron pan. Actually, ended up black on the outer surfaces of the steak which was probably already wrong but I think it was more than that.
So I know that olive oil to fry it gets a very different result.
I try to get the cast iron pan as hot as possible so the butter melts but does not change colour to brown but stays a yellow coloured liquid. I think the steak should start to sizzle upon adding to the butter. Maybe the butter frying is just not optimal.
What I did during the course of frying was drain the juices in the pan and resume with fresh butter. Don't think it was just the creamy green peppercorn sauce that made the restaurant one so fantastic.
It would be handy to be able to get a better result with this at home. There are other variations such as adding cognac while frying but it wasn't that either, you can taste that, it's okay but I don't really need it.
Maybe the meat I bought was a different cut or quality. What I suspect the trick is is that for a thicker cut you are supposed to use the oven rather than just the pan, but there are probably a number of details to actually make it turn out well. Do they treat the raw meat somehow in advance.. I have heard that it should be left to warm to room temperature before cooking.
A few weeks ago I had one at a restaurant, had creamy green peppercorn sauce, was truly fantastic.
Then about one week ago, I cooked a similar cut myself and ate it with mustard and salt and pepper, was mediocre.
Fried it in butter in a cast iron pan. Actually, ended up black on the outer surfaces of the steak which was probably already wrong but I think it was more than that.
So I know that olive oil to fry it gets a very different result.
I try to get the cast iron pan as hot as possible so the butter melts but does not change colour to brown but stays a yellow coloured liquid. I think the steak should start to sizzle upon adding to the butter. Maybe the butter frying is just not optimal.
What I did during the course of frying was drain the juices in the pan and resume with fresh butter. Don't think it was just the creamy green peppercorn sauce that made the restaurant one so fantastic.
It would be handy to be able to get a better result with this at home. There are other variations such as adding cognac while frying but it wasn't that either, you can taste that, it's okay but I don't really need it.
Maybe the meat I bought was a different cut or quality. What I suspect the trick is is that for a thicker cut you are supposed to use the oven rather than just the pan, but there are probably a number of details to actually make it turn out well. Do they treat the raw meat somehow in advance.. I have heard that it should be left to warm to room temperature before cooking.
Yes I think diced bacon works better in egg recipes than ground beef.
You mentioned the oven. One classical technique I've found to work well for thicker steaks is to preheat the oven, sear both sides on very high heat for about 1-2 minutes, and then put the pan in the oven to finish.
What was the issue with the steak you cooked compared to the restaurant steak?
Was the flavor lacking, or was it not cooked evenly enough (ie grey on the edges, rather than pink all the way through)?
I think impatience may be the issue partly. Will try that next time, but what temperature for the oven and for how long? Fan-forced or with elements top and bottom. I can experiment. Just not in the mood for all the youtube videos and clickbait on this topic and there may be a simple answer here which someone knows. But that is probably it, 2 minutes either side then cast iron pan uncovered (?) into an oven.
The restaurant steak was just juicy all the way through whereas mine was dried out most of the way through and burned on the outside surfaces.
For oven temp: something in the range of 425ºF, it's not critical.
The idea is to sear just long enough to get the browning which gives it flavor, but not so long that the high heat starts to cook the steak unevenly from the outside in. The ideal is to have a seared outside with a nicely even red/pink cross-section.
The steak will cook more evenly in the oven than in the pan, so that's where you want to do the majority of your actual cooking. Note that this technique is actually easier with thicker steaks, since they will not overcook in the pan.
The sear should look something like this:
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/__opt__aboutcom__coeus__resources__content_migration__serious_eats__seriouseats.com__images__2017__02__20170217-reverse-sear-steak-09-40c78a6b18d047d09824a252e6e3dbca.jpg)
When it comes to the inside, you want this:
Not this:
There's another technique you can try, which is called the reverse sear. A lot of restaurants and professional chefs use this technique. It's the exact reverse - you first cook the steak to a perfect juicy red/pink inside in the oven, and then finish by searing quickly on the stove.
This is a foolproof way to get a perfect inside. The downside of the reverse sear technique is you don't get as many nice browned bits left behind in the pan (called "fond"), which are the starting point for a delicious deglaze or pan sauce like the peppercorn sauce you had.
Either cooking order will give you a delicious result with a bit of practice.
As far as how long: the answer is, until it's done. If you want it to look like the second picture above, which is roughly medium rare, the perfect internal temperature is 125ºF. The easiest and most aesthetic way to gauge this is with an instant read digital thermometer, which are like $10 on Amazon. But in a pinch, you can also cut into the meat and see what the inside looks like. Keep in mind meat keeps cooking after you take it off the heat - its internal temperature may rise as much as 5º after taking it off the heat - so you should take it off just a smidge before it hits the temp or color you want. (If you reverse sear, you should take it out of the oven even sooner - about 15º before the target temp, because it will cook more while you're searing it.)
A note on steak quality: it's important. Nice restaurants generally have access to a higher grade of steak than what you'll find packaged in your local supermarket, which is part of why they're more flavorful. If you want a restaurant-quality steak, it may be worth going to Whole Foods, which tends to have good meat, or, even better, a local butcher.
One last note. Whether you do it before or after the oven, the absolute most important part of searing a steak is to pat it completely dry with paper towels. If there's any moisture on the outside of the steak, it will not sear properly because the water will steam when it touches the hot oil, creating a barrier that prevents heat transfer from the oil to the meat.
For the same reason, if you salt before cooking, it should be immediately before you put the steak in the pan. If you wait 5 minutes, the salt will draw water out to the surface of the steak and you will have to pat it dry again.
Here are a few links that have very good information: