i prefer to listen to the x-files on audio only while i cook

loves croques madams, and other fried egg sandwiches
 
put fried egg and jelly/syrup into a pocket bread

The ones I'm  thinking of are like pitas, but without that weird taste & texture I seem to remember from eating them as a kid (there was a Healthy Eating w pitas fad at some point, coming before the panini fad). maybe they're just pitas that aren't bad like the first american iteration & have been rebranded for american consumers as pocket bread
 
they're great for making super quick tuna melts too - put the bread in the toaster (pocket side up) with a slice of provolone inside, then once it pops stuff it with tuna salad and cranberries or tomatoes or figs or whatever

long story short, i did 7 liters of cow tail-nettle borsth - kind of thing with leftover juice from roasting cow's heart, by first preparing a meat stock from tails. i ended up simmering the cow tails (3 or 6 kg?) - stock for almost two days in total hours. i'm bedridden with guilt and just waiting when my landlady just breaks in and beats the shit out of me. i need to try adding french cream and/or cow's liver next.
 
please dont kill me vegetarians. it's a "shitf phase" i swear (like somewhere in future im gonna get nourishin traditions - book and just learn to ferment the duck outta my veggies). im just eating parts others refuse to eat.
 
EDIT like im not a gourmet guy/dunno how to make gourmet food. this is first time im doing something this nutso (it happened by accident).
 
EDIT2 Whoa!! The French Know Their Stuff... it was a good addition but i bet it really gets down to business if i had homemade youghurt instead. also selfnote The Russian Also Know Their Stuff As Well, put in more beetroot...!
im just finkin that maybe tomorrow i could Elevate This Stuff and like put in more beetroot and the liver. 

vegetarian vigilante gangs

long story short, i did 7 liters of cow tail-nettle borsth - kind of thing with leftover juice from roasting cow's heart, by first preparing a meat stock from tails. i ended up simmering the cow tails (3 or 6 kg?) - stock for almost two days in total hours. i'm bedridden with guilt and just waiting when my landlady just breaks in and beats the shit out of me. i need to try adding french cream and/or cow's liver next.

bonzi for life!! top 10 best bonzi paragraphs discovered by a mom.

I've never been a big fan of the offals(?) or obscure animal bits in cooking, granted I've only tried chitterlings (pig intestine). A borscht is a hearty soup right? I'd have to try it before I judged it. I'm going to attempt coq au vin soon (chicken congealed in red wine). A lot of French dishes rely on this congealing process, and it returns some unique effects.

What do you mean by congealed? That's a pretty gross way to describe coq au vin. It's just a simple stew... some braising... I guess adding a roux to sauce is sort of congealing, but it's not solid enough for that to seem applicable. Oh whoa, blood is sometimes used as the thickener? That's kind of cool.
 
Made chicken tagine earlier this week. It was sort of a loose recipe, and stew's not beautiful, but it's good. It's not terribly comforting--it's a little too citrusy/sour? for that--but it's warming and filling.
 
bonzi sheepishly looks up from the large vats of stewing animal meats that fill his living room. "want a borscht??" his landlady is unamused. the smells will never come out.

I was in the mood for some Indian tonight, but I didn't want to do the standard daal or madras or whatever so I decided I'd give a biryani a crack.



It came out pretty much perfectly, which I was happy about as I'd burnt myself a couple of times and I completely underestimated how long it'd take to make (nothing like dinner at 10:30pm ya deeg). Served it with cucumber and mint raita as the whole dish is pretty mint/saffron oriented, worked really nicely on the side.



Tbh you probably don't even need meat (like most Indian dishes really, I used lamb in this one), it has so much flavour regardless.

Crappy phone pic of it on the plate:





Evangel, is there anything special about Stubbs BBQ sauce? I'm in Aus so it'd be annoying to track down that brand, but I'm hankering for some ribs now. Also are those pork or beef?

And don't worry about the liquid smoke haters, I reckon a little of it is fine if you can't do the real thing. It's obviously not as good but I prefer it over nothing. When I'm making chilli I'm not going to go to the effort of actually smoking the meat when it's just a part of a whole dish so I usually chuck a bit in.

Borscht is an Eastern European beet/beetroot soup, there's a million variations on it. The cow tail stock thing sounds like it'd be a pretty authentic way to do it and it'd probably taste amazing after two days of simmering.

Quote from: Evangel on January 25, 2013, 03:35:59 am

I've never been a big fan of the offals(?) or obscure animal bits in cooking, granted I've only tried chitterlings (pig intestine). A borscht is a hearty soup right? I'd have to try it before I judged it. I'm going to attempt coq au vin soon (chicken congealed in red wine). A lot of French dishes rely on this congealing process, and it returns some unique effects.

What do you mean by congealed? That's a pretty gross way to describe coq au vin. It's just a simple stew... some braising... I guess adding a roux to sauce is sort of congealing, but it's not solid enough for that to seem applicable. Oh whoa, blood is sometimes used as the thickener? That's kind of cool.

Made chicken tagine earlier this week. It was sort of a loose recipe, and stew's not beautiful, but it's good. It's not terribly comforting--it's a little too citrusy/sour? for that--but it's warming and filling.

bonzi sheepishly looks up from the large vats of stewing animal meats that fill his living room. "want a borscht??" his landlady is unamused. the smells will never come out.

I think he's got blood on the brain talking about congealing. I'm assuming Evangel means reducing - the red wine reduction sauce for the coq au vin etc

But yeah, blood can be a thickener as it does congeal, but it needs fat to do so (which often isn't too hard when you're cooking).

I'm guessing you haven't had a full English/Scottish/Irish breakfast before? Black pudding/blood sausage/whatever is just blood that congeals when it's cooled after using a thickener (usually fat or oats). It's actually really nice seasoned. I'm not the biggest offal fan bar in pho, but I do like the "don't waste anything" kind of mindset.

'chicken tagine' usually is just a basic Mediterranean stew cooked in a tagine and it usually has lemons/lemon zest/olives in it, so if you're looking for something warming and comfy it's probably not the best thing to go with - although citrusy things, mostly soups, can be incredibly good for that if done correctly.

I've been working on a recipe for a pretty decent (and easy) Moroccan lamb/chickpea tagine which is very hearty and more on the tomato side in terms of acid, I can write it up for you if you're interested. I've heard lamb can be not too easy to get in America but you can easily substitute it with beef (chuck steak would work fine).

I forgot to reply to this

re: blood: that is what I had assumed, too, but in any case, blood is a thickener in some traditional coq au vin recipes. I don't think I've ever had a blood-derived food product, no. There've gotta be some good places around here to get it, but I usually just use offal in stocks, although kidneys are OK and I probably would not dislike liver much outside of pon haus, which I find super bland

What is a citrusy soup other than avgolemono? I've had soups that use lemon/lime/orange as accents, and you could make a great soup based on mojo sauce, but only this tagine & avgolemono were fundamentally citrusy

Sure, a recipe would be good. Lamb's not hard to get, but it is really expensive.

Your biryani looks good. I usually add chopped red onion & tomato and lemon juice to the raita instead of having slices on the side. Did you cook the meat beforehand or along with the rice?

The cow tail stock thing sounds like it'd be a pretty authentic way to do it and it'd probably taste amazing after two days of simmering.

Yeah, it was and best of all, i think checking the soup after day two was really cool: i've never seen a soup with that kind of deep, kaleidoscopic golden tone to it from all fat! gold soup or diamond liquid?? hell yea!!! 
 

 I don't think I've ever had a blood-derived food product, no.

Haha, on that topic, there's two finnish things done with blood - blood pancakes and rössypottu. both are giid but the latter is imo pr delicious (at least potential) but i think most of the restaurants i've been are not doing much with it. 

A week ago I went to a Taiwanese place for dinner & got stinky tofu (the usual way, but without much of a chili sauce). I managed to swallow one piece; my sister nibbled off a corner, although I'm not sure if she spit it out. But I thought there was a little nugget of wonderful savory flavor in there somewhere, so I got it boxed up to revisit when my tastebuds had forgotten & it had, perhaps, mellowed after more thoroughly soaking up the sauce.
 
Today seemed like a good day for that. They smell pretty strong (which, actually, was barely the case before), but I nibbled a bit of one and it does seem to have toned down a lot. Part of the difference may be from eating it cold, which tends to lessen flavor. Before, the longer it spent in my mouth, the more putrid it became, but that's barely an issue now. The taste also doesn't linger nearly as terribly. It's still pretty gross, though. I am afraid that my sisters will come back and be awfully disgusted by the smell. I ran out and threw the takeout box wrapped in a plastic bag in a public trashcan, but there's still like half of it left here (also wrapped in a plastic bag).
 
Obviously the taste & smell vary from fermentation juice to fermentation juice, but my sister thinks it tasted how pot smells, and I just thought it tasted like how a lightly aged hole toilet smells, + sour. Or maybe pig manure, but not as sharp.