Cooking In General

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That does sound good, Maurolava. I especially want to try the Plantains if I can find them at a local suppermarket.

 

Mmmm...I just made the best beef stew in the world last night.

Ingredients:
2 lbs of beef cut in to 1 inch cubes
1 lb bag of "baby carrots"
2-3 lb of peeled/cubed potatoes
2 cans of Cream of Mushroom soup
1/4 cup of cooking wine
1 beef of bouillon cube

Instructions:

Mix the cooking wine and the beef of bouillon cube together and set aside to get soft. Use a fork if needed to break the cube apart.

Mix all other ingredients together in a crock pot pour the cooking wine/bouillon mix over the top, cover and cook on low overnight, or on high for 5-6 hours.

Enjoy!

 

@Nakia-

where in NJ are you, i could tell you where to found them!!

 

@ Colthrun, your recipe sounds a lot like the recipe that I use for french toast which is also a tasty dish, especially for breakfast.

@Nakia - I love trout, especially fresh caught by myself. I don't mind the heads on either and actually the cheeks are very tender with little flavour of fish. I will definatly have to try your recipe.

@Maurolava - Your recipies look delicious as well. What country do you originate from? My husband is Mexican so I have learned a number of dishes from him and I incorperate a lot of chillies, onions, and cilantro into most of my dishes.

By the way, what do plantains taste like? Do they taste like bananas?

 

lay's potato chips in bag + garlic powder
shake well.

or

lay's potato chips in bag + garlic powder
don't shake, sprinkle more after you finished top layer.

 

@Dragonfly: they both probably have the same origins. A friend from Alsace told me once they use to call them the "soldier's bread" over there.

[ January 30, 2006, 17:36: Message edited by: Colthrun ]

 

Empanadas criollas (no possible translation)

Well, this one IS very work/time demanding: first you have knead (to mix flour with water to make pasta?) then you have to cook the mixture and then you have to fill the pasta (I don't know if is expressed right). So this work might take you about 1 1/2 hour.

Ingredients:

For the pasta:
Wheat flour, about 700 gr
Water, about 200 ml
Salt, about 2 filled spoons (the big ones)

For the mixture:
Minced meat, 500gr
Onions, 300gr
Boiled eggs, 2
Green and or Red pepper, 1, small.
Oil, whenever you can, use olive oil, is healthier about 500ml
Salt, pepper, at your own taste and a little bit of cumin/cummin.
Olive, about 15

Ok, let's get started.

Chop the onion, light up the cooker, put in a sort of big frying pan a little bit of oil, when is hot enough, start to fry the chopped onion and add the salt to avoid onions to dry/stick, meanwhile, chop the green and red peppers, add to the onion after you see the onions a bit fried; add the meat, the pepper and the cumin. Mix from time to time, put the fire at minimum and let it cook for about 15/20 minutes, don't forget to mix from time to time, the mixture will be ready when you see almost no onions; it have to be a little bit juicy, you achieve this by adding some oil, but not too much, and if you don't use olive oil, avoid this, instead, use one small tomatoe, very well chopped.
So, instead of watching tv or doing cleaning, start to do the pasta.
You need a table where you can knead without problems.
So, put about 500grs of wheat flour in the table, do a kind of volcano form so you can put the water in the middle, but, BEFORE that, put the salt in the water, mix that; now we have two choices to make: if you are going to bake or fry the empanadas; is no difference in the taste of the mixture but in the pasta, so if you are going to bake them, just put the water,if you are going to fry them, put the water and 3 filled spoons of oil, so now is your choice, put that in the middle of the volcano (the water and oil or just water); time to check about the mixture in the fire, mix a bit more, taste it if you like it, add salt if you want, add cumin, this is at your own taste/risk, is what defines the taste of the empanada.
Time to go to the pasta, mix the flour with the water, the pasta must be soft, whenever you see that the pasta won't stick to your hands, is ready;
Knead it, extend it in parts so you have some space on the table, the pasta has to be thin, just a little bit less than a normal CD, when you get that, cut it in circles, as before, the size of a CD.
Re-kead the little pieces left, you should have about 12 discs.
The mixture should be ready about 10 minutes before you finished the pasta thing, so let that mixture get cold (don't put it in the refrigerator )
Add to the mixture the boiled eggs (chop them up) and the olives (chop them at your taste)
Once is cold (enough not to 'burn' the pasta) is time to make the empanadas.
Grab one disk of pasta and put some mixture, don't cover all the disk but the half of it, if sized everything right, use a big spoon, so with one well filled (like a little mountain) you have enough for each disk; bend the disk in its half so you have a half disk, for the borders there are different techniques, the easiest way is to use a fork, so with the points, press on the border around. At the end, the empanada should look like this.
Remember, you won't have the borders like the pictures if you don't know how to do it, so use the fork technique.
Time to cook them; to fry them, put oil in a frying pan, to calculate the oil, you have to fill the frying pan the high of the empanada, even is not really necesary, but, you have to cover at least half of the empanada. So heat it up the oil, put the empanadas, not too many so you can handle them quickly (4 will do), now is a matter of taste, if you like the pasta well cooked or not, usually it takes about 30 to 50 seconds to be well cooked, so turn them, (I mean, fry the other side), and that's all, enjoy your hard work.

I hope is explained well, because I had to use a lot of dictionary, and it tooks me almost the same time that I use to do empanadas to write it

More to come: Locro, Sopa Paraguaya, Paeya...

 

Last night's recipe (will serve 3-4 I freeze the extra portions for lunches at work)

2 onions
Pak choi
Pack of baby leeks
Pack of baby sweetcorn
2 Romiro Peppers (the long ones)
Tin Straw Mushrooms
Birds Eye Chillis - to taste I would use a minimum of 2, I use 6 with seeds
Garlic - 2 cloves
Monkfish Tail
1Tbsp Walnut Oil
2tsp Sesame Oil
2tsp Light Soy Sauce
2tbsps Crunchy peanut butter
2tsps rice wine vinegar

1. Finely chop the garlic and chillis (leave the seeds out if you don't like it too hot). Chop the onion and leeks leave in a bowl.
2. Chop and deseed the peppers, chop the sweetcorn and leave in a bowl
3. Chop the Pak choi and leave in a bowl
4. Chop the monkfish
5. Strain the mushrooms
6. Heat a wok with the oil, once hot add the onion bowl stir-fry for 30 secs. Add the Monkfish and pepper bowl, fry for 30 seconds. Add the pak choi and soy sauce fry for 30 seconds.
7. Add the peanut butter and vinegar cook until butter has melted and coated all ingredients. Ensure fish is cooked, and then serve with noodles or rice to taste.

I call this quick satay, instead of Monkfish you could use prawns, langoustines or something else that is a solid flesh and doesn't flake.

 

LAll of these recipes sound wonderful

I just realized that I have severe trouble trying to share any of my recipes because I have no idea whatsoever about he measurements - I never bother with 'em...

oh wait, did find something I typed up ages ago:

Ara’s Foolproof Apple Pie

2 eggs
1.5 dl sugar
2 dl flour
1 tsp baking powder
100g melted butter/margarine

Filling
2-3 apples, slice and peeled
½ tsp cinnamon
½ sp cardamom
½ dl sugar


1. beat the eggs and the sugar
2. add flour and baking powder
3. add the melted butter

Pour half of the batter into a greased 10-inch pan; layer the apple slices, cinnamon, sugar and cardamom on top. Cover with the remaining batter, and stick into an oven for 25 min in 200 C/400 F

 

Ara, wth is dl in your sugar and flour measurements?

Since people are throwing them out here's a family favorite from an uncle of mine:

Toast (toost, pain grille, φρυγανιά, tostada and 多士)

1. Get a slice of bread
2. Slide bread slice into toaster
3. Push down the black tab
4. Wait until it pops up
5. Check for browness - if not brown enough, repeat steps 3-5
6. Eat

 

"dl" means deciliter, a tenth of a liter. A liter is about 0.264 gallons. Get metric already!

 

Here is a v. good converter for various cooking measures - 1 DL is approximately 0.42 cups

 

@ Syndax - Actually I have a part translation for the name of your recipe, empanadas means breaded.

I love to make time consuming recipes but it is a little difficult these days with a much more vocal time-consumer in the house.

Any good babyfood recipies guys?

 

@Dragonfly: I got that too in the dictionary but is not the same, that should be something like this.
If you want, I'll give you the recipe of that, is called 'milanesa' and is one of the most typical food in Argentina (but the best kind of milanesa is not like the one in the photo, that is the most close expresion of 'breaded'.

 

This is Arabwel we're talking about, not my personal unuse of the metric system. It could've been a tpyo or something. How was I to know, considering the recipe also mentions tsp which is an Imperial measurement? So there, smarty bacon pants.

 

I DO NOT have bacon in my - What's this?
Nevermind.

 

Does anyone else here use molasses in their chilli? I never used to until a good friend of mine told me that she swears by it. Today I added some molasses and my chilli did taste great but I'm not sure if it was because of the molasses or not. (My chilli usually is pretty tasty)

 

I don't put *beans* in my chili, let alone molasass.

 

Not heard of molasses but I do put some chocolate in mine

 

D.S., I bet you would love mole sauce. You pronounce the E in mole so it doesn't sound like the animal. It is a savory sauce with LOTS of ingredients but one of the main ingredients is chocolate. You serve it with meat, chicken or vegetables and it is really tasty.

There are recipies to make it but there is a lot of work to it so it is easier to buy it premade.

@Kuemp - No beans in chilli? Now that is crazy. What is chilli without beans?