Misadventures in Cooking

Chili

Jim — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:35:00 +0000

In November 2010 I made chili for the first time. I’m not sure why I didn’t post about it here, but I made notes on my computer. I adapted the recipe from what I saw my brother-in-law do, what I found on the internet and what I had available. Much of the following is from my notes, although I think I had about 1.5 lbs of beef and didn’t add all the dry spice mixture.

4 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp cumin
2 tsp oregano

~2 lbs ground beef (15% fat I think)
~~6 slices bacon~~
1 can Ranch Style beans (because it’s what I have)
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes
diced onion
5 cloves minced garlic
salt and pepper
~ 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
~ 12 drops Frank’s Red Hot

I started this last week, but after putting the bacon in I found my beef had gone bad, so I had bacon squares for dinner. My BiL didn’t use bacon, and it took a while to cook so I skipped it this time.

I put some oil in a hot pot and got it smoking a bit, added the onion and got it slightly browned. I almost forgot the garlic, so I left the onion sauteing a bit longer than I intended while I got the garlic ready and tossed it in. Then I tossed in the beef. I probably should have browned the beef in batches, but I was in a hurry and just tossed it in.

After the beef was browned I added the other ingredients. I wanted to simmer it for a couple of hours, so I added a can of water, too. After it was simmering I skimmed a bunch of fat off the top and stirred occasionally.

It’s still simmering, but it tastes really good. It’s a bit hot, and oddly it’s sweet. I checked the canned goods, and they don’t have sugar in them, so I guess I had a fairly sweet onion. But it’s quite yummy.

(Back to the present.) I know I finished it all, so it must have been pretty tasty.

Last week I made chili again, but I had 1 pound of beef, so I cut the dry spices in half. I didn’t add beans this time, I used garlic powder, and I only added a little cayenne powder and no Frank’s Red Hot. I’ve been eating it over white rice with shredded cheddar. I’m not as fond of this batch of chili…there is a taste I don’t quite like, like maybe too much cumin or paprika, or maybe I don’t like the chili powder I have. Or perhaps the whole can of tomatoes is too much for one pound of beef. Oh, I also used Shiner Bock beer instead of water, and the beer might be the problem, too. I like the beer, but the taste I didn’t like might be described as bitter, so it could be the beer.

I used ground beef both times because it’s what I had, but I’d like to get a chili grind or perhaps cube my own cuts. But that’s if I plan ahead enough.

Cream of Potato Soup

Jim — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:26:00 +0000

I finally got around to making soup, if you don’t count my two tries at chili as soup. I stopped at Half Price Books and bought the Better Homes and Garden cookbook, a pink 2007 edition in plastic wrap. I had the ingredients on hand for cream of potato soup, so I made it per the directions, although I used Basil for the herb and 2% milk because they were what I had.

It turned out quite well and was pretty easy. I served it (to myself) with grated cheddar on top.

I recently found myself turning around in a parking lot to a restaurant supply company, so I stopped, went in and bought some items including knives. The new Forschner Victorinox stamped 8″ chef’s knife made quick work of the onion and potatoes. I was concerned that it would not be hefty enough, but it was certainly sharp enough and easier to manage than my 10″ forged Sabattier chef’s knife. I also grabbed a 5″ chef’s knife and 2 cheap paring knives of the same brand.

If I keep making soup and start making bread again, I can see this being some quick, easy, good, cheap cooking and eating.

Breakfast Potatoes and Bacon

Jim — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:30:00 +0000

I’ve been meaning to try making breakfast potatoes and other breakfast items, but I’ve been reluctant to try in the morning because I’m not an early riser or fast starter, so it occurred to me that I would have to learn breakfast in the evenings or non-work days and then start making it in the morning.

Cooking took roughly 30 minutes including cutting the potatoes but not including clean-up. The kitchen was relatively clean, and the pans were hanging and ready. Including eating it was about an hour for “breakfast” but leaving dirty pans on the stove.

I put my cast iron skillet on a small burner with my “bacon press” (another skillet with foil on the bottom that fits into the iron skillet) and my big nonstick skillet on the big burner. I only have one big burner and thought the cast iron skillet would deliver heat more evenly over a small burner. Either I didn’t preheat long enough or I was wrong.

I cut the potatoes into 1/2″ pieces or maybe a bit smaller. This is probably too small. I put more oil than usual into the nonstick skillet wanting to be sure all the potatoes were in oil. This was also a mistake as I splattered oil and had some burner flare-ups while tossing the potatoes, and I was in danger of burning myself with flying oil. I tried turning the potatoes with a wooden spatula, but pan-tossing is so much more efficient.

The bacon went in the cast iron skillet with the makeshift press on top. Only a couple of minutes later did I think to look at the clock. I think I flipped the bacon at about 6-8 minutes and then kept flipping it more frequently and moving it around because it was cooking unevenly. It was getting too brown over the middle portion over the burner but not cooking enough in the parts off the burner. I think next time I’ll make the bacon on the big burner and cook the potatoes in one of my stainless skillets with the layered bottoms…they distribute heat very well. Or pehraps I’ll rig up another pan-press combo for my bacon with a stainless clad-bottom pan underneath.

I poked a couple of potato bits with a fork when they were browned a bit, and the fork went through easily. I should have taken them off then but wanted a little more brown. I paid for it with mostly overcooked potatoes. Next time go for doneness, not color. I gather bigger pieces would have browned more before cooking all the way through.

I salted and peppered the potatoes in the pan while cooking. I wasn’t going to at first, but then I realized with pan frying there’s no reason not to, and in fact the oil might meld the flavors a bit while frying. Or maybe not. Anyway, the seasoning was fine.

Straight Dough Baguette

Jim — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:41:00 +0000

I Googled straight dough baguettes and found a recipe with only flour, yeast, salt and water. I’m giving it a try on a longer-than-normal evening. I’ll start some poolish tonight for a possible poolish baguette tomorrow evening.

I also measured out a farmhouse loaf for the machine while measuring this out. I also realized I dumped all the flour in the baguette mix at once, and it seems quite dry at first mixing. Hopefully the autolyse rest period will sort that out, and hopefully I measured correctly.

Poolish Baguettes

Jim — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 15:46:00 +0000

I’m trying this recipe for poolish baguettes today, although I’m being impatient and cutting the back-end rises short. We’ll see what happens.

When mixing the poolish with the new ingredients at first I thought the dough was too dry, then after a few minutes it seemed too wet. Funny how that goes. I machine-kneaded it for 10 minutes, then let it rise for a couple of hours, hand-kneading it a time or two at the one-hour mark. I divided the dough in 3, shaped into rounds, let sit 10 minutes then shaped them into baguettes and let them proof an hour.

I could tell they had bigger air pockets than I usually see, but they seemed a bit flat going into the oven. I didn’t peek for about 20 minutes, and when I did I got excited. They looked fantastic. When I took them out to cool they felt light for their size. I couldn’t wait to taste them, but they had to cool, and I was going to my sister’s house. I finally tasted one over there, but it didn’t really taste good. Oops, I forgot to add the salt! I was so distracted with having poolish and how dry the dough seemed after mixing that I just forgot to add the salt. Doggoneit, otherwise it appeared fabulous.

Bread Bread

Jim — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:31:00 +0000

Working an odd schedule this week, I suddenly found myself with the afternoon free. Let’s see, I could catch up on all that paperwork and all those chores that have been put off and are at critical priority now…nah, I’ll make bread instead!

I tossed another set of farmhouse loaf ingredients in the bread machine and decided to simultaneously take another shot at the cottage loaf.

660g bread flour
2 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
400g (400 ml) water

I used kosher salt for the cottage loaf this time, I don’t recall what I used last time, but I think it was probably table salt. I don’t have the instructions anymore, so I’m kneading in the Kitchenaid for 15 minutes, then I’ll let it rise, shape it, proof it and bake it. In the early-to-mid kneading the dough is not sticking to the sides at all, making me think it might be dry, but I haven’t made this recipe or used the Kitchenaid in months if not over a year, and I didn’t have the hang of it then, anyway. I’m going to reread old bread posts because I recall in the machine I thought the dough looked wet or dry at different times during the kneading.

I’m toying with the idea of making biscuits…it’s a serious flour day here at the apartment.

Chicken, Bread and Noodles

Jim — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 22:46:00 +0000

A local grocery store had a fabulous deal on chicken breasts and ground beef today. I have several pounds of each.

I butterflied horribly tonight. One side was much thicker than the other, and the thin side was split in two pieces. I stupidly tried to re-butterfly the thick part for a tri-fold chicken breast half, but aborted the idea mid-cut. I tried even higher heat and started okay, but my pans retain heat too long, and after turning the chicken the pan was smoking enough that I pulled the pan off the burner and had a lid ready. I had turned the heat down, but my pans have those multi-layer bottoms and apparently retain heat very very well for a while. The final result was the thin part was overdone, and the thick part didn’t cook all the way through. I got great golden color and flavor, though. The overdone part was good, and the thickest part will reheat well.

I got some “No Yolk” egg noodles from the store, too. My brother-in-law has used these several times recently, and I liked them. But I didn’t make or use a sauce, I just used salt, pepper and butter. When I ate the noodles I kept smelling egg, and it was distracting. I didn’t finish them; I guess I’ll use them when I have a sauce.

The last several loaves of bread machine bread have been from the same recipe and same measurements, but I swear the last three loaves are just better and better. Tonight’s just finished cooking, and it’s beautiful. I can’t think of anything I did differently. Hmm, the weather has been cooler, and perhaps the inside temp and humidity is different. I wonder if that makes a difference? Wouldn’t think so.

Butterflied Sautéed Chicken Breasts

Jim — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 14:52:00 +0000

After seeing some cooking videos, thinking about how to better cook my chicken and a suggestion from my brother-in-law, I finally tried butterflying the chicken breasts before sautéing them.

On my first try last night I was a bit messy at it, and I think I cut from the “wrong” side and had a W-shaped dinner. But I got the oil smoking hot and got some good color and flavor while still having juicy chicken inside.

Today I did a much better job of splitting the chicken, and the cut side was overall smoother than the other side, and the shape was more like a patty fit for a sandwich. I got some really nice golden brown parts and even some crunch in places while still having a moist inside.

So I’m sold on butterfly-and-sautée now.

Farmhouse Loaf 6

Jim — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 15:01:00 +0000

250ml water
350g bread flour
25g whole wheat flour
15ml (1 tbsp) milk powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1½ tsp sugar
1 tbsp butter
¾ tsp active dry yeast

It has been a few months since I’ve made bread. And with a bread machine, how hard is that?

I just loaded the machine with the same ingredients from last time, but I did not sift the flour. The yeast has been in the freezer for months, so I hope it’s still okay.

I wasn’t watching it closely, but it didn’t seem to be rising much when I peeked. However it’s now in the baking cycle and has sprung even with the top of the (vertical) pan. I guess that yeast is fine after all.

Yum! I’m pretty happy with the finished product.

I suppose I could try to back off on the liquid to see about making it a little tougher for sandwich making, but I like it the way it is. I’d also like to increase the recipe to make a 2-pound loaf in a pan, but I’m afraid the dough will rise out of the tin on dough cycle, so I’ll have to use the Kitchenaid mixer for that.

Starting to Cook Again

Jim — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:43:00 +0000

I went for a while without doing so much as boiling water to brew tea, but I had a failure and couple of successes recently.

I made chicken schnitzel again, but I didn’t pound it as thin this time, so part of it was still undercooked. I put the undercooked part and the spare breast in the freezer, but haven’t attempted to reheat them yet. I don’t want soft breading, so if I try I’ll probably re-fry it, but I don’t know if I should just toss it in from the freezer or thaw it first.

I then tried sautéing again, this time letting the oil get so hot it started to smoke. I got some better browning, flipped the chicken and then turned the heat down after getting the browning started. Pretty good. Then I made a pan sauce with real diced onion, bottled chicken stock, red vinegar, thyme and finished with butter. It tasted a bit too sweet or salty—I forget now—so I added some white vinegar. I served the chicken and sauce over ramen noodles (slightly salted, peppered and buttered). That was surprisingly good.

Tonight I made some ramen for a snack and decided to try and flavor it up a little more. I boiled it for a couple of minutes intending to rinse it, add fresh water and the flavor packet and reduce (to wash away any of the remaining flash fry oil), but then I recalled my failed cheese sauce experiment of a couple of blogs ago. Here I had some noodles, presumably with some starch in the water that might emulsify cheese. So I shredded some sharp cheddar, stirred it in, and it blended perfectly! Well, first I added the chicken flavor packet to the water, reduced it a bit then added the cheese. I added some butter after taking it off the heat. It turned out surprisingly good for ramen, although it was a bit intense with the salt of the whole packet and the cheese, and the fat of the cheese and butter.

Hmm, I vaguely remember trying to add peanut butter to ramen once, and it was fairly disastrous. But I’m guessing it might emulsify and make a well-textured sauce if I used it in place of the cheese. (Well, no chicken packet in that case!) I’ll have to look up peanut sauce recipes again and try it.