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. :-)

[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.

[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.

[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!

[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.

[mergatrude]

Yum!

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

[isis]

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

[garonne]

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

[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!

[trobadora]

That all sounds delicious!

[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.

[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?