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What's For Dinner, Take 7


Xray the Enforcer

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On 11/24/2017 at 3:29 PM, Inigima said:

A bunch of my friends, much like your friends, have gone gaga for the Instant Pot, a multifunction electric cooker whose primary appeal is pressure cooking. I decided to take the plunge and ordered one, and I now have two questions.

1. I made a recipe in it today. It came out pretty good. But the thing people supposedly like about pressure cooking is reduced cooking time, and I'm not sure I see it. Electric pressure cookers take time to come to pressure and the cooking time doesn't start til that happens. I don't know If this was really any faster than a regular pot would have been. Maybe other recipes are different but it seems to be a common theme. Is this whole Instant Pot thing a pointless fad? I've been looking forward to trying it but I'm a little worried that I might ultimately decide it was a waste of money and shelf space.

2. Please give me your best IP/pressure cooker recipes. The ones that taste great and for which the IP imparts some advantage to doing it on a stove or in the oven. My brother's wife mostly recommended things that I might as well do on the stove. I don't need an Instant Pot to make mac and cheese.

Red beans normally require 2 days.  Pressure cooker can do them in a few hours.  

That is all.

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5 hours ago, MercurialCannibal said:

 despite my job where I butcher whole hogs and my cuisine being very meat based I have been doing my next l best to go vegetarian most of the time. 

this evening's meal is a kale salad with tahini dressing,  beets,  fennel,  cucumber and stilton blue cheese. 

No meat, on a saturday?  booo!

1 hour ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

Conversely, tonight we had a dry-aged NY strip steak and a green salad. Dinners for the week will be a lot less fancy -- probably tostadas or something like that. 

No carbs, on a saturday?  Double booo!

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Turning to the board hivemind for some inspiration over the festive season for recipe ideas. I haven’t even had a Christmas dinner yet but work in a pub/hotel that has been catering them all month and I feel a bit sick at the thought of actually eating one at this point. So, does anyone have any favourite non-traditional (I.e. turkey and all the trimmings) recipes for the festive season? I realise this is a rather vague request for recommendations, but I don’t even know what I am looking for myself. Just something ‘different’

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2 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Turning to the board hivemind for some inspiration over the festive season for recipe ideas. I haven’t even had a Christmas dinner yet but work in a pub/hotel that has been catering them all month and I feel a bit sick at the thought of actually eating one at this point. So, does anyone have any favourite non-traditional (I.e. turkey and all the trimmings) recipes for the festive season? I realise this is a rather vague request for recommendations, but I don’t even know what I am looking for myself. Just something ‘different’

So you just want to get away from a roast turkey? I may be able to help. I find turkey and stuffing and whatnot aggressively boring -- not gross, not terrible, just boring -- so I have some options ready to go for large meals. How many people do you need to feed?

There are a bunch of roast dinner options, and most of them take less time than a turkey to cook. Here are some ideas, with recipes:

Pot Roast - Feeds a bunch of people, takes less time than a turkey, I find it much more enjoyable to eat. The beef is so soft by the end it's falling apart. Some veggies built in but you could also make a green vegetable, or some mashed potatoes, or whatever.

Roast chicken - this may be too close to a turkey for you, but it is quite easy and you can put root veggies underneath and not have to make anything else, and you can do the whole thing in a cast iron skillet if you want. Obviously it will feed fewer people than a turkey, but hey, it's done in an hour, and I don't know how many people you need to feed.

Meat loaf - This is a kosher recipe because I wanted something that was all beef and didn't use a panade, but you can use whatever meat loaf recipe you want. Use all beef or a mix of beef and pork, glaze or don't, you can do the bacon thing if you want. Meat loaf is dead easy and very satisfying.

I'm sure I and others can come up with some more recipes if none of these strike your fancy. Some kind of pork is a good fit too, I almost always do pork shoulder for pulled pork but you could do pork loin or whatever, or pork chops if you only need food for a few people. If you want to go very nontraditional, no one ever expects tacos at a holiday meal since they're street food but they are delicious. I don't really follow a recipe, I always just improvise, but IIRC you are from the UK and tacos are Not A Thing there, so: chop meat and brown in a large skillet, slice and sauté an onion and 1 or more chile peppers of your preferred type to your desired heat level (I use jalapeños or serranos), add anything else you want like bell peppers; I often add 1 can of black beans and/or corn at this point; season to taste with salt, pepper, ground cumin, paprika, ground coriander seed, anything else you want like ground chiles. If you want it a little saucier you can add a cup of stock and let it reduce a little. Corn tortillas are traditional but I am a gringo and I like my flour tortillas, especially when grilled a little (if you've got a gas stove, you can do it directly on the burner, just flip it a couple times so it doesn't burn too much). Tacos are easy to scale and you can do a separate skillet of onions, chiles, bell peppers, black beans, corn, etc. if you need to accommodate a vegetarian. Serve with your preferred salsa (easy to make if it's not readily available there), your choice of cheese -- I like monterey jack in mine, cotija and/or queso fresco are more traditional but harder to find -- and if you can get it, some avocado.

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@Inigima thanks! You have helped greatly despite my decidedly unhelpful/vague request. I will, regrettably, be having a turkey dinner with my family on the day itself but there’s a get together with 5 friends that I will being cooking for on Boxing Day. I’m definitely liking the idea of tacos and might look into making some kind of filling from the leftover turkey. Two guests are vegetarians too and tacos sounds easy on that front because I can just make an extra filling and allow people to assemble themselves...

thanks!

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10 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

@Inigima thanks! You have helped greatly despite my decidedly unhelpful/vague request. I will, regrettably, be having a turkey dinner with my family on the day itself but there’s a get together with 5 friends that I will being cooking for on Boxing Day. I’m definitely liking the idea of tacos and might look into making some kind of filling from the leftover turkey. Two guests are vegetarians too and tacos sounds easy on that front because I can just make an extra filling and allow people to assemble themselves...

thanks!

Sounds like a plan, hope it goes well! One piece of advice: Make plenty of the vegetarian filling. When I did this, lots of meat eaters put both meat and the veg filling on the taco. (Luckily, I had made, like, 3x as much as we needed. I ate a lot of tacos that week.)

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On 12/19/2017 at 8:35 AM, Deedles said:

So, in a fit of madness I proposed goose for Xmas Eve dinner, and in a fit of alcohol inspired euphoria, himself ordered one.

 

Does anyone have any good recipes, or tips for cooking a whole goose?

I would butcher it.  roast the breasts like one would a duck,  rosy pink, crispy skin and sliced thin. confit the legs and thighs,  pick the meat. use the carcass to make a stock. reduce the stock until almost saucy, monte au buerre and toss the shredded confit in the sauce. serve alongside the sliced breasts. 

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I made a curry with home-made flatbread yesterday. It was a success. Even though I think the pan was a bit to hot, resulting in too much smoke.

3 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Back me up board, when eating a roast dinner (Xmas dinner in particular), peas are unecessary and not remotely festive.

You are completely right.

With the caveat that the British are strangely besotted with peas, and seem to use them at many occasions the rest of the world never would.

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3 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Back me up board, when eating a roast dinner (Xmas dinner in particular), peas are unecessary and not remotely festive.

 yeah.  layoff the peas, Englanders. certainly they are lovely mashed with some marrow, but it is winter. eat them when in season. 

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Christmas ( and as you say, any roast )dinner should be a pea free zone. Sprouts, carrots and parsnips all the way.

I love peas but their fresh sweet flavour doesn’t work with a savory roast at all, even less when there is delicious gravy. 

 

thanks for the goose tips Merc Chef.

 

Tonight, Thai red curry with coconut rice.

 

 

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