project forty: cooking (8/100)

[topaz]

I have seriously not been keeping up with Project Forty.  Gotta get back in the game.

#19: Cook at least 100 recipes from The New Best Recipe.  Recent additions include:

6/100: Pancakes.  Nothing special.  They're fine, but no particular improvement on Joy that I can tell.  It was nice to see them explicitly recommend the lemon-and-whole-milk substitute for buttermilk that I've been improvising for the last couple of years.

7/100: Lemon-parmesan brown rice pilaf.  I love brown rice.  My family does not.  So I try to sneak it into our meals at every possible opportunity. keyne is very polite and patient but consistently avoids it.

This, she told me, was probably the best brown rice dish I'd ever made.  Brown rice cooked slowly in broth in the oven, then tossed with lemon juice, lemon zest, and parmesan.  She went back for seconds.  It was a home run.

8/100: Butternut squash soup.  I made this tonight for T-day tomorrow, so the jury is not entirely in, but I'm not sure I did right by it.  I ended up with a lot more liquid than they said I would (about 4 cups rather than 2½-3) and it didn't blend very smoothly.  I'll try it another time when I have a proper vegetable steamer and see if it works out better.

Tomorrow: brined turkey, at last!

Comments

[pulito.livejournal.com]

Yay home run!

[jacflash.livejournal.com]

My experience with the older edition of that book, and for that matter with everything from the Christopher Kimball/Cook's Illustrated empire, is that their great strengths are in basic techniques and recipes that work, and in their methods for making classic European specialties with widely-avaialable ingredients in reasonable amounts of time, not so much in their fancy foofy flavor combinations.

Their instructions for roasting vegetables? Dead-on, and better than anyone else's for most home cooks. The mango-artichoke-cilantro sauce (I'm making this up, but I'm really not) they suggest drizzling on top of the vegetables before serving? Not so much. And when they get really ethnic, with curries or Kung Pao or whatnot, it's usually Epic Fail time.

But if you want clear instructions for eight excellent failproof ways to roast a chicken, or a Coq au Vin recipe that tastes right but can be made with things from the supermarket and doesn't take nine hours to produce, they're absolutely the go-to folks.

[fengshui.livejournal.com]

The ethnic recipes in The Best International Recipe are pretty good, as they don't shy away from exotic ingredients as much there. (I guess they figure you're already buying an international cookbook, so you expect harder to find ingredients).

What recipes have you had trouble with?

Adding my two cents

[harimad.livejournal.com]

I find that CI does a stunningly miserable job with Chinese. Who in their right mind thinks that a NONSTICK, FLAT skillet is better suited to Chinese than a wok, or at least a saucier (http://www.surlatable.com/product/cookware/sauce+pans+%26+sauciers/mauviel+copper+saucier.do)?!? It just gets worse from there. I've cherry-picked one or two sauces but other than that, their Chinese recipes are only worth ignoring.

Re: Adding my two cents

[fengshui.livejournal.com]

Interesting. We've had good luck with their stir-fries, although those aren't strictly Chinese. We usually make them in a wok (with a small flat area on the bottom); however, some of the stir-frys work well in a large cast-iron skillet, as it can get hot enough to have a stir-fry effect.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I suppose so? There isn't actually very much in the book that strikes me as adventurous or imaginative. I put this project on my list because my cooking education has been sort of sporadic, and just working through a few of their recipes taught me a great deal about technique that I hadn't known before.

So, yeah, like you said, learning recipes that just work, and above all learning why they work, is hugely valuable for me. I'll worry about making ostrich in lavender reduction another time. :-)

[fengshui.livejournal.com]

I've made that Butternut Squash soup recipe a bunch of times, and the trick is to boil at a much higher heat than they recommend. You want to reduce the liquid by 2/3rds during the steam, and that means a good boil. Alternately, you could just use less water.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. Between you and me, I think I also didn't cook the squash quite enough (also a result of not cooking covered well enough or at high enough heat), so it didn't puree as smoothly as it should have.

From the First Edition

[harimad.livejournal.com]

Both types of braised green beans (Asian & Classic) are Stupidly Simple[1] and hits in my generally non-green bean liking house. I find myself making their waffle and northern cornbread recipes repeatedly.


[1] Recipes so simple you can't believe they're recipes, and that they're really good is even more incredible.

Accumulated CI recipe for Apple Pie

[harimad.livejournal.com]

Does this count? Over the years CI has offered many apple pie recipes, from which I've cobbled together my best version.

1. For the crust:
- use half vodka, half water for the liquid: vodka provides liquidity without allowing gluten to form and therefore no tough crust
- use 10 T fat per cup flour (the usual is 5-6 T.); this makes for a crust that cooks down over the apples and thus prevents that annoying gap between filling and top crust
- grate frozen butter into the flour, rather than manipulating pats of butter; this takes a while but then all you need do is stir; and is another trick for avoiding a tough crust.

2. For the apples:
- use a variety including a couple Granny Smiths
- don't let the apples macerate, instead toss them with the sugar and spices at the last minute; doing so stops the excessive goop ones often finds in apple pies;
- use twice as many apples as you think you should;
- repeated experiment shows the fastest method is to quarter your apples *then* peel them.