Hey, Look, this site has more recipes for my “rabbit,” which I still haven’t gotten around the thawing.
Also, I think I have everything I need for a barbecue, if anyone is in the mood for charred meat and/or veggies (though I don’t have one of those fine-mesh grill thingies… they’d have to go on the regular grill or in foil.
Do any of you cook Chinese food much? I have a leftover pork roast, and I want to turn it into that brown melty pork that you sometimes get in restaurants… only every store-bought sauce I have ever tried for this has been too salty and/or too sweet and usually not even close. I don’t even know what to call the particular dish to look it up.
So can any of you read my mind? Can you tell me how to make it from scratch?
ETA: The answer is to use authentic oyster sauce instead of a mixed sauce from the supermarket
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Other upcoming meals —
Collard Greens and Lentils cooked down with fried mustard seeds, nigella seeds, coriander, chillies, and garlic added at the last.
Asparagus. Something special with asparagus. It will probably be with peas and tortellini and either a butter & lemon sauce or something creamy.
Chili
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Notable recent meals —
I made a lovely curry (onions, garlic, ginger, coriander stalks, curry powder, and tomatoes) with potatoes and string beans.
And last night there were scrambled eggs with onions, garlic, mushrooms, artichoke hearts (the vegetable truck has had lovely artichokes lately!), smoked oysters, and cheese. Thanks to the lovely Meghan for the idea.
So my mother and I both bought small lamb roasts, and I stole her leftovers. After I made my roast, I cut the leftover meat off both of them to use for curry… but I was fairly careless as I am only one person and there was still plenty meat.
So I had fairly meaty bone pieces, yay.
First into the pot —
*one yellow onion and one purple onion, slightly trimmed and quartered… but with skins intact
*about 10 or so cloves of garlic. I have them pre-peeled and just tipped the jar, but if I were going from a pod, I would not peel the cloves and just cut them in half to expose the goody.
*bunch o black peppercorns (maybe 10-15… maybe more) again, I just tipped the container
*two stalks of celery
Then I put in to bones. YAY!
Then —
*three parsnips cleaned and trimmed, but not peeled
*6-8 baby carrots
*handful of parsley
*handful of thyme (finished off what was left in my herb pot because it froze that night)
*one bay leaf
*some shreds of ginger peel
And enough water to fill the pot.
Boil.
The next day, the meat on the bones had softened enough that it just fell into the water… I boiled the bare bones for just a bit longer before pulling them out and replacing them with two turkey necks.
More boiling.
Maybe by the end of today, or maybe tomorrow, I will strain it — but — damn — it smells lovely.
As of now, I think the addition of turkey was a good idea…
because The Joy of Cooking suggests making beef stock with some chicken parts to make it richer. When I have made beef stock in the past (w/o adding chicken), it was indeed a bit thin. Right now I have lamb stock going from bones pulled out of finished roasts of meat… it should be thin… but it smells amazing already. Do I:
And then when it was originally posted there was a poll here –
Leave it alone. It’s supposed to be lamb. Why would you but chicken in lamb stock?
4 (40.0%)
Add the chicken… It can only make things tastier. Purity is for silly people.
6 (60.0%)
I have lamb. A wee little roast that is perfect for one person.
So tonight I shall:
Then tomorrow, I shall:
ETA: So here is the lamb follow up
I’ve been having a stale kind of smell in my house the past couple days and had been unable to place it… well, it was the lamb. But I had plans for that lamb! So I trimmed off the most questionable bits and covered the meat with salt. About 15 minutes later, when the salt was a bit damp around the edges, I rinsed off the salt and patted the lamb dry… still smelled a little questionable, but much better… so I trimmed a couple more small bits… and prepared as planned. Only… with a slightly longer cooking time, and I did not take it out of the oven until it’s juices ran completely clear. As of now, I am not poisoned at all… and it was very tasty. Leftovers are in the fridge for curry.
ETAA: Here’s an explanation of why I have started posting about food
I grew up in a 50s kind of household — meat and potatoes. Our definition of vegetable was the box from green giant that you pop in the microwave for five minutes and stir halfway through… in fact, these days my father will only eat the sugar snap peas from there because the other vegetables are too… healthy.
So I have moved out on my own. I can now eat anything I want. Some things I can figure out with books, but my cookbook budget it limited. I also use allrecipes.com fairly frequently — they have an advanced search feature where you can search by ingredients. I have found the answers to some questions that have been bothering me for a while: for instance, the difference between a parsnip and a parsley root and what both their relationships are to parsley. But some answers I have not found yet: like what exactly is that vegetable, at my produce truck, that looks like a long seedless cucumber (only with a slightly lighter-colored skin) but has this fuzzy mass inside instead. So this is me exploring.
What don’t I know? I know basic ways to make vegetables, but I am looking for more exciting ones. I don’t know authentic approaches to ethnic cuisines. I don’t know (and am intimidated about learning) how to cook fish, bake, or even make most desserts. I’ll figure it out.