Recent cooking!

[luzula]

- I made palak paneer, with homemade paneer. Which was quite simple to make, and turned out well! I used yoghurt as the curdling agent. I also made chutney a while ago from the apples before they ran out, which went well with the meal.
- I bought an ice-cream machine and made gelato. I had not realized before that gelato is basically frozen custard? Like, you make it the same way you make custard sauce, heating up milk and cream with egg yolks until it grows thick. My first try was to flavor it with red currants, but they're quite tart, and I think I used too much berries. Next try will be something chocolatey.
- My kimchi experiment turned out all right, or at least the fermentation bacteria did their thing and I liked the taste. I am somewhat hampered by one of my housemates being allergic to red chile fruits (and indeed raw tomatoes, strawberries, etc, so I guess it's some coloring molecule?), but she can eat yellow and green chile, so we manage.
- I tried putting some licorice powder into my homemade ginger beer, which was interesting, and I think I'll do it again. But not all the time.
- I saved some acorns this fall, and ground them up and soaked out the tannins, but have not yet made something from them. It is not my impression that they have much of a taste of their own once the tannins are gone, but maybe they're a good base for other flavors?
- I made sticky toffee pudding, which I have been low-key wanting to do since having it in Britain. It turned out well, but as the name implies, it's a rich indulgence and not something to make often!
- A while ago I made a post asking for recipes trying to replicate something I had at a Chinese restaurant. I don't know that I exactly managed that, but I went to an East Asian food store and bought the numerous ingredients from this recipe that I didn't have at home, and tried it. Delicious! And it felt like a whole palate of tastes that I have not tried cooking with before.

Yep, I suppose cooking is sort of a new fandom for me! : D

Comments

[china_shop]

That all sounds so fun and delicious! I didn't know that about gelato.

I've been having adventures in cooking lately too -- last night I made enchiladas for the first time. :-)

[luzula]

Enchiladas! Something else I have not made. Although I did recently make a broadly similar thing, but European: crepes stuffed with a stew of tube chanterelle mushrooms, baked in the oven with cheese on top.

[jesse_the_k]

Mmmmm, that sounds delicious! Do you use a yeasted crepe batter?

[luzula]

Nope! I call these "pannkakor", which is just "pancakes", but if I say that, Americans will picture something thick. These are thin crepes, made from 1 dl flour, 2 dl milk, 1 egg, and a little salt.

[sanguinity]

Doubanjiang! And szechuan peppercorns! We have a ma po tofu recipe that we love that uses both, and a cabbage-and-noodle recipe in regular rotation that uses doubanjiang. Sometimes I eat doubanjiang straight out of the jar, I like it so much.

[luzula]

Because of the above-mentioned allergy, I got a fermented bean paste that did not include chiles, and instead added some green chile sauce. British housemate thought the bean paste was not entirely unlike Marmite.

[rachelmanija]

Acorn flour does have a taste, or at least as much of a taste as other strong-tasting flours, like barley or millet. It's kind of warm/nutty/autumnal.

[luzula]

I guess my instinctive comparison was more to other nuts, rather than to flours made from grain? Also, perhaps American oak species taste different from European ones. But yeah, we'll see what it tastes like when I actually cook with it!

[chestnut_pod]

In re: acorns: do you know The Sioux Chef? I think his cookbook (as far as I can remember from several years ago) had several acorn recipes!

[luzula]

I have not heard of him, no! Thanks for the tip. Very few people in Sweden now eat acorns, but I have read that they were an important food here before agriculture arrived. Certainly we have a lot of oaks in Sweden, so they could potentially make a large contribution to food security. Though the leaching is a bit of a pain, it's true.

[the_siobhan]

That all sounds amazing.

I got persimmons once from a veg box that I didn't know what to do with, so I ended up making chutney. It was a lot easier than I expected and delicious. I should try that again.

[luzula]

I don't think I've ever had American persimmons! I've had kaki/sharon fruit, though, which I assume is similar.

[mergatrude]

Yum!

It's so satisfying to cook with something you've grown and/or picked yourself, isn't it!

[luzula]

It is very satisfying! I am looking forward to hopefully doing more of that in the coming years.

[isis]

I used to have an apple chutney recipe that was amazing but I lost it. Share yours?

[luzula]

Well...I think I looked at several recipes but then made my own version anyway. Here's the ingredients I remember:

- chopped apple
- raisins
- onions
- apple cider vinegar
- sugar
- salt
- fresh ginger
- cinnamon
- chile
- cardamom
- cloves
- turmeric
- cumin
- coriander

[garonne]

Ooh, that all sounds delicious! I will be really curious to hear how you end up using the acorns.

[luzula]

I am thinking of using them for...well, I don't know the English name for this, but it's sort of like when you make hamburger patties, but you don't have to make them with meat. You can make them from mashed beans, or various vegetables, and bind the batter with eggs.

"Veggie Burgers"

[jesse_the_k]

is the generic name for this common vegetarian substitute. The first version I tasted were Lentil-Walnut Burgers from the Moosewood Cookbook, which was a keystone document -- every crunchy-granola-hippie-adjacent vegetarian household I lived in 1975– 1990 had one of the Moosewood series, named after a vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca NY.

I've never tasted acorns, but I imagine they share the slight bitterness that makes walnuts distinctive.

Re: "Veggie Burgers"

[luzula]

Oh, of course. I actually own a copy of the Moosewood Cookbook, given to me by my mom who probably bought it when we lived in Seattle 1988-1989.

[regshoe]

Aww, I'm glad the sticky toffee pudding worked well :D And that's a cool variety of things to be making. The acorns especially sound like an interesting experiment, I'd like to hear how that turns out when you try making something from them!

[luzula]

The sticky toffee pudding felt suitably indulgent. I had not realized until reading a recipe that there were actually dates in it! And I'll be sure to include the acorns in future cooking posts.

[trobadora]

That all sounds delicious!

[luzula]

Yes! I've always liked cooking, but my new circumstances (having other people to cook for, rather than just cooking for myself, and also taking turns with it) has inspired me. Plus, it meshes well with now having a garden.

[seascribble]

What a strange allergy! Even weirder than my spouse’s allergy to all fresh fruit (besides berries). Cooked and pickled fruits are fine. I guess cooking it doesn’t change your housemates reaction though.

[luzula]

Oh no, being allergic to all fresh fruit would suck! My housemate can eat cooked tomatoes, which is a relief, because it would be a pain not to be able to cook with tomatoes.

[brigantine]

Hurrah for your cooking adventures! I am particularly interested in the acorns, when you get around to using those. The indigenous people here used them, but aside from grinding and soaking out the bitter tannins, I don't know how. Hmm. Now I'm wondering if there's a Chumash cookbook?

[luzula]

From what I've read, one can use them for example as flour in bread, cakes and pancakes (though of course there's no gluten in them), and as a main component in fried vegetable patties. Sure, I'll report back!