Not going to lie, that looks pretty bad ass. Do they sell them without the emblem and "Shiki limited edition" on the blade? Makes me think it'll look like something I bought drunk while watching an infomercial.
A GF shared this recipe with me yesterday. I haven't made them yet but plan to and take them to my Mom on Sunday. Millionaires Shortbread 1 stick salted butter 2 tablespoons granulated sugar 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1 1/4 cups AP flour, dip-and-sweep method 1 14 oz can Sweetened Condensed Milk 1 stick (1/2 cup) salted butter 3 tablespoons dark brown sugar Pinch of kosher salt 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 6 ounces chocolate, milk or dark 1 tablespoon butter Preheat oven to 350° F. Oil an 8x8 square pan and set aside In a mixing bowl, mix softened butter with flour, salt and granulated sugar until a crumbly dough forms -- flour should be completely mixed in. Press into prepared pan, building up a bit of a wall on each side. Prick three or four times with the tines of a fork, or your fingernails, and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden and set. Remove and cool completely. Over medium heat, medium low if you're really nervous, mix together the sweetened condensed milk, butter, salt and brown sugar until caramel forms. Stir the entire time, and don't walk away from the pot -- it might seem like it's never going to happen, but what you want is a thick, slurpy caramel that looks like caramel. It should not be pasty, it should not be thin, it should be golden and as thick as what you'd expected melted caramel to look like. And I'm for real, here. Stir the entire time, to avoid burning. It may feel like the mixture is sticking to the pan, but as long as no black or dark brown bits come up, you're fine, that's why you're stirring constantly. Once you've reached caramelville, remove from heat, count to ten, add the vanilla extract stirring well (stand back, it might sputter) and pour the finished product over the shortbread crust. It will cool quickly, be fast and confident in spreading. The nice thing is that it will, or should, be thick enough to spread all the way to the edges without pooling over into the space left when the crust pulled away from the sides. Allow to cool and set, about ten minutes. Meanwhile, pour the chocolate into a heatproof bowl. If futuristic, use the microwave to melt your chocolate on half-power (or defrost), stirring every 40 seconds or so. If Old School, use the double boiler method and melt, in a bowl, over a pot of simmering water. Once melted, glossy and no lumps remain, stir in the butter and pour over the caramel layer, smoothing and spreading if needed. Sprinkle bars with a pinch of kosher or sea salt, as much or as little as you like. Chill completely, until set, then score and cut into small squares with a sharp knife. Eat all of them. Also I made Beef Stroganoff last night for dinner. I added some Madeira wine I had in the fridge. It made the dish. Try it.
Does anyone have a go-to bread recipe? I really enjoy baking and I usually just find a random recipe online to go from. I've made honey wheat baguettes, sourdough bread, and regular french bread. The only one that was a keeper was the honey wheat. I'm looking specifically for: a crusty on the outside and soft and dense on the inside french bread recipe and a very heavy sourdough boule recipe. Though I usually knead by hand, I have a bread maker and am not adverse to using it. I found this french baguette recipe http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/french-baguettes/Detail.aspx. Though it has 5 stars, I am a little wary because even though people give it 5 stars, people have things to nit pick about the recipe. Why can't people just give 3 or 4 stars when appropriate?! Thanks in advance.
I'm not much of a break baker myself, but when I do, I use the New York Times No-Knead Bread recipe: <a class="postlink" href="http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/faster-no-knead-bread/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/ ... ead-bread/</a> It's super simple and comes out pretty well. I sprinkle some cornmeal on the bottom of my dutch oven, drizzle the dough with olive oil, and plop it down in there to bake. The bread comes out really crunchy on the outside, and soft on the inside. Very italian-style and goes well with olive oil for dipping.
Simple and delicious dinner last night...grilled Bison Kielbasas from this place. Picked up the package at the Crystal City Farmer's Market...will definitely be doing that again.
I've never tried bison, that would be amazing if I could find a place that carries it locally. I went to their testimonials page and saw that a doctor supported this meat because of its lean nature. Hmm, I thought, and googled his name. Guess who's faced a lawsuit in 2010 because of unnecessary cardiac implants?
In the spirit of Cinco de Driñko, does anyone have a good salsa recipe that they'd care to share? I made a chipotle peach salsa last night for a salsa competition at work (didn't place, but there weren't any leftovers, either), but I think y'all could come up with something better...
First off I love your knife. Best friend in the kitchen is your ability to kick your foods ass and make it respect you. I hate to be a dick to your lovely knife, but RIVETS? No. You want a full formed handle to your blade. One is like a samurai, the other like a ninja. Both are impressive but one is bad ass.
I've handled a couple of Shuns but I really don't like their handles. This one seems to be pretty identical shape of handle to my Hattori, which I really like.
FIESTA SALAD: 3 chicken breasts- GRILL THEM (dash red pepper flakes, black pepper, white pepper, cayenne pepper, caraway seed) 1 bunch green leaf lettuce 5 mushrooms 1/4 can black beans 1/4 can chick peas 1 cup black olives 2 Tbls sour cream * 2 big spoonfulds for you assholes that dont measure. 1 Jalapeno 2 tortillas fried in veggie oil (guac) 1 small white onion 2 Avocados 1 green onion 1 tomato 3 cloves garlic 1 lemon or lime to put on after so it doesnt turn brown in your fridge. You should know this already. season to taste salt or garlic salt and pepper. Guides on this suck if you don't like salty so dash to taste (end) 6 corona 1 bottle tequila Grill your damn chicken with those spices I told you about. Chop up all your chopable veggie shits. Make your guacamole. If you cant, watch a youtube video and live a little. Its easy shit to do. Chop your chicken into cubes in YOUR size, I don't know how you eat so do it how you like it. Heat up your beans. Put up 1/2 your lettuce in a bowl and then put half your chopped veggies on. Put the rest of your lettuce on top and then put your other chopped veggies on. Pour your beans on and put how much liquid from your beans you want. I dont know if you are dry as Steven Wright or wet as Jenna haze. You pick, assholes. Then put your guac and sour cream on top. I sprinkle some green tabasco on for taste too, but you can add some hot sauce to it if you want. Toss your salad... its hard to get into position, but I know you can do it. Just pretend like you're in prison and you need to toss this salad to not get shanked by the Columbian drug lord gang. Drink your corona and shoot your tequila. You have a great sink de mayonnaise and you write STUPID ass recipes on the web.
Not a specialty "mango, guava, and cactus" type salsa, just your everyday type shit you can pick up at the local supermarket. 1 can Mexican style stewed tomatoes drained and spun to a base liquid in a blender or food processor 1 jalapeno pepper with ribs and seeds 1 Serrano pepper with ribs and seeds (blend the peppers in the food processor with the stewed tomatoes and adjust heat to your taste) 2 ripe tomatoes roughly chopped 1/2 bunch cilantro roughly chopped 1/4 diced white onion 1/4 diced red onion juice of 1/2 a rolled lime Salt to taste Mix well and refrigerate overnight. It will never win any awards, but it is an easy, good, everyday salsa with stuff that be found at the local megamart.
For those of you with a Sprouts's Farmers Market near you, they have USDA PRIME sirloins on sale thru Wed for $3.99/lb. Did a couple up on the grill with some Argentine steak rub for Mother's Day dinner, and there was much rejoicing. And, I found Pulaski's Polish mustard at World Market for only $2/jar! I bought 10 jars. Now if only they started selling a decent brand of horesradish
nice edge right out of the box but took a very keen edge quickly and held it well. beautiful fit and finish.
If you're going to attach big, dark, blurry pics, at least spoiler them for size. Add them "inline" to the message, and wrap SPOILER tags around them.
I know there aren't too many Asian recipes floating around this thread, but does anyone have a good Pho recipe? I fell in love with this stuff in Vietnam, but my attempts to recreate it have failed miserably. And so I can contribute in addition to leeching, this is one of my all-time favourite recipes. I usually cook this when I have company, as it's: a) simple enough that I can't fuck it up, b) exotic enough that it impresses people, and c) mild enough that even people who don't like spicy food (ie, girls) enjoy it. It is supposedly Thai in origin, but I've never seen anything like this in Thailand, so I have my doubts. Mango Chicken Ingredients: 2-3 chicken breasts, diced or cut into strips. 1 red capsicum, finely diced. (I think these are bell peppers in the US?) Rice to serve. Mango Sauce: 2 fresh ripe mangoes. (If you aren't familiar with cutting mangoes, easiest way I've found is to slice mangoes in half, score a deep cross hatch all the way to the skin, then flip the skin inside-out and scrape the fruit directly into your blender. This tends to be messy, so I usually put a cloth down to avoid coating my kitchen counter in mango.) 1 red chili, diced. (Original recipe calls for the chili to be de-seeded but personally I find that makes the chili undetectable. You can soak the chili in water to remove some of the harshness if you are really concerned. Then pour the chili water into a glass and offer it to your hungover housemate.) 1 Tbsp. rice vinegar 1+1/2 Tbsp. soy sauce 3 Tbsp. fish sauce juice of 1/2 lime 1 Tbsp. brown sugar 1 thumb-size piece galangal OR ginger, sliced. (Galangal is much nicer, but very hard to come by here). 3 cloves garlic 1/4 tsp. turmeric 2 kaffir lime leaves, torn and bruised. Garnish: plenty of fresh coriander, and occasionally I like to roast either peanuts or cashews and place in a side bowl so that people can add their own depending on how much texture they want. In addition to making the dish taste better and improving its appearance with more colour, for some reason my dinner guests just seem to enjoy having bowls of garnishes on the table. Preparation: Step 1: Blend all Mango Sauce ingredients. It should end up as fairly thick sauce. It can smell slightly unpleasant at this stage, due to the pungent nature of fish sauce. Ignore it, it goes away when you cook. Step 1.5: Now, the key part:taste-test the sauce. The goal is to reach a balance of sweet, sour, spicy, and salty. Add more sugar if you find the sauce too sour (depend on the sweetness of your mangoes). If not spicy enough, add more chili (duh). If not salty enough, add more fish sauce. If too salty or too sweet, add more lime juice. Set aside. Step 2. Stir-fry chicken. If you enjoy washing dishes or have a dishwasher, remove chicken from pan and cook capsicum. Otherwise, I wait till the chicken has just turned white and add my capsicum then - as long as it's diced finely enough, it cooks quick. Step 3. Add sauce. Bring to a boil, and then simmer for 5/10 minutes. Serve over Jasmine rice. (Poor college kids: I know generic long grain and even Basmati rice are less than a quarter of the price of Jasmine, but I promise you there is a noticeable difference. Splurge.) Bask in compliments and the illusion of domestic competence.
While this isn't the most complicated recipe - it's simple and delicious and one of my favorites when we want to cook something quickly. But, I am even more excited about it tonight because we are having it with the broccoli that we grew in our garden - it's the first time we were able to successfully grow/harvest it without any wild animal/insects eating it before we got to it. Orecchiette With Roasted Broccoli and Walnuts 12 ounces orecchiette or some other short pasta (3 cups) 1 bunch broccoli (1 1/2 pounds), cut into small florets 1/2 cup walnuts, roughly chopped 1/4 cup olive oil 2 cloves garlic, chopped kosher salt and black pepper 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 1/4 cup grated Parmesan (1 ounce) Directions Heat oven to 400° F. Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Reserve ¾ cup of the cooking water, drain the pasta, and return it to the pot. Meanwhile, on a rimmed baking sheet, toss the broccoli, walnuts, oil, garlic, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Roast, tossing once, until the broccoli is tender, 18 to 20 minutes. Toss the pasta with the broccoli mixture, butter, and ½ cup of the reserved pasta water. (Add more water if the pasta seems dry.) Sprinkle with the Parmesan before serving.
Smoked a bird over hickory for 4 hours last night. To quote my neighbor, "it's like chicken bacon". Used the leftover carcass on a cold day in Atlanta to make the best tortilla soup I've ever had, and it was from a dry mix nonetheless. I love cooking soup and stew. Besides being able to make such complex flavors, the long simmer time is relaxing and reminds me of home. What's your favorite soup/stew to make?