JCC Tomo-spiced karkana ribenes - the foodies' thread

Okie-dokie, I have a ton of new recipes to share, so here's the first one: Moroccan-style chicken tagine with figs and apricots

Ingredients:
6 chicken thighs (the whole thing, not just the drumstick)
one large onion, finely chopped
several cloves garlic, finely chopped
12-15 dried apricots
12-15 dried figs
1 lemon, diced (peel and pulp if fresh, peel only if preserved)
Spices: 1 tsp each ground cinnamon, nutmeg and coriander, 1/2 tsp ground cloves, salt and hot red pepper to taste (I use Espelette pepper which is quite mild, and 1 tsp is good)
Dash of olive oil

Put the chicken thighs in a baking dish and tuck the dried figs and apricots in the gaps.

Brown the onions and garlic in the olive oil. Mix in the spices and lemon cubes when golden and sauté a minute more.

Pour the onion-garlic mix over the chicken and fruit.

Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil (or better, use one of those clay pots with a lid that I'm obsessed with, or even-even better a tagine pot) and bake in the oven at 180°C for approx 45 minutes (or if you're me, at 120°C for several hours). Uncover towards the end to get nice crisp skin. I normally serve it with couscous, but boiled potatoes work well too.

 

A couple of more good things at Pret, a falfel / hummus bowl (with pomagranite seeds - it works) and a blueberry / coconut yogurt that isn't nearly as sweet as I thought it would be. Also the Avocado and roasted corn wrap. Pret takes a bad wrap (sorry, pun) in some circles for some of their rather tasteless food, but these are actually tasty and I like that I can taste each component.

< Sheepishly waiting for my endorsement, Pret A Manger >

 

Healer_Leona I hope you like it! I forgot to mention in my previous post, the original recipe also included ground ginger as a spice. I took it out because I found that it smothered the other flavours, but if you want to re-instate it I'd advise you to go with half a teaspoon, not a whole teaspoon.

 

More new recipes: Salmon mousse

This one takes a bit of experimenting to get the texture right, but it's definitely worth the effort

Ingredients:
5 slices of fresh salmon (with skin and bone in the middle, adds up to approx 1 kg)
1 bunch green onions, roughly chopped (adjust to taste)
several garlic cloves, roughly chopped (adjust to taste)
1 bunch fresh dill (adjust to taste)
1 egg (it will be raw, so it should be VERY fresh)
salt, pepper or chilli pepper to taste -- powdered ginger or powdered coriander are nice additions but not necessary
3-6 sheets of gelatin (here each sheet is 9 g, don't know if it's the standard weight)
juice of one big lemon
dash of oil for greasing (preferably olive oil)

Grease a container of approx 1 litre. This is the mold you'll use for the mousse. (A loaf pan is easiest, but you can do fancy shapes too.)

Place the salmon in a baking dish, cover with aluminum foil and bake at 200°C for approx 30 minutes until done.

Separate the flesh from the skin and bones. Discard the skin and bones but reserve the juices.

Throw the salmon, onion, garlic, dill, egg, salt and spices in the blender and blend until smooth-ish.

Test the texture: if the mix is thick enough for a spoon to stand in it, you'll need closer to 3 sheets of gelatin, if it's so runny that the spoon sinks into it, you'll need closer to six. (This depends mainly on how much onion you choose to put in there.)

Warm whatever liquids you collected from the baking dish together with the lemon juice. Remove from fire, it should be hot but not boiling. Soak the gelatin sheets in there until they dissolve completely.

This is the moment when you have to work very fast, because once the gelatin sets there's no going back -- so if the phone rings don't answer! Mix quickly but thoroughly the gelatin liquid into the salmon paste, pour the whole thing into your greased container and level the top. Cover with cling film and put in the fridge for an absolute minimum of 12 hours or better yet 24 hours.

To unmold, just flip it over on the plate you'll be serving it in. (I tried to transfer it from one plate to another once, and... yeah, just don't do it.)

If you did this right, you'll be able to cut reasonably neat slices while still having the nice mousse texture. If not, it'll still be nice but you might have to use a serving spoon instead of a knife

Extras:

Option 1: Instead of greasing the mold, line it with thin slices of smoked salmon. It makes unmolding much easier, but the smoked salmon tends to smother the taste of everything else and it's much more difficult to cut neat slices.

Option 2: Chop some smoked salmon or smoked trout into small bits. Pour half the mix in the container, add a thin layer of smoked fish and pour the rest of the mix on top.

Option 3: Same as option 2, with roe instead of smoked fish. You can also use roe for decoration on top; just, again, don't put too much because it will smother everything else.

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xblackout Advice needed from a pro, please I made this walnut and coffee cake, and it was quite nice but a little bit too compact. What should I do to make it fluffier? Add an egg? Put less flour? Add baking soda? (I didn't have self-raising flour, so I used normal flour with 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of salt per cup of flour, and I thought that would be plenty.)

 

Hmmm...I'd maybe try separating the eggs, adding the yolks as normal and then beating the whites until light and fluffy and folding them in at the end? That could give it some lightness. Or maybe just add the eggs per usual and then whip an additional two egg whites? I would also try adding 1/2 t to 1 t of baking soda to the recipe. Most of my cake recipes use both baking powder and soda, so that could come into play as well. Hope something helps!

 

Thanks! I'll try the extra whites + baking soda next time I make it and I'll report back.

 

when bae spends the night and in the morning you're makin waffles

 

Do so with pics. We need more food porn in here.

 

Waffle irons are great!

 

Frieda i have two. The one i like best (not the one i used today tho) is my papaws. Its a cast iron...uh...iron... that he picked up from the Air Force base exchange when he was in Alaska in the 60's (it still has the invoice on the box). It's what he'd make me every time I visited. I didn't take much of their stuff, cause material goods are whatever, but i took that.

 

Make me waffles plz

 

I would wolf down those waffles... as per usual lately with me, when I make something. After eating it, I wish I made more.

Case in point: stir fried string beans and onions, mixed with scrambled eggs and broccoli. Lately, the broc and eggs fills me up, but not today. And the subsequent store bought mini chocolate tart did zip for my hunger. Debating if I should make the rest of the broccoli (dry stir fry and just put some almonds in that).

 

Tried my hand at rack of lamb the other day. Had it soaking in seasonings and Chianti wine for a couple hours in the fridge before cooking in the oven.


Ran into some difficulty when the center wasn't hitting temperature. I actually finished it on the Foreman grill until it hit medium rare-medium. Topped off with a balsamic glaze. Wow, it was delicious. I was trying to recreate a dish I had a restaurant a few years back, and I feel like I came pretty darn close. It was great!


Tonight I'm going to try pan-searing pork loin chops. I was considering baking them instead, but nah. And I previously used the Foreman grill (I think as discussed at some point in this thread).

 

For pork chops, go look up Food Lab's method. I think they also use a reverse sear, but after a specific drain overnight, maybe with brown sugar and salt?

Extremely good and easy to do.

 

The pork chops came out really well! My other half loved them!

I had them soaking in the fridge in a coat of spices and a bath of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. When it was time to cook them, I got a pan hot and went about blanching the green beans for a side (which I later dipped in an ice-water bath then sauteed in olive oil and garlic with sliced portobello mushrooms). While the mushrooms and beans sauteed together, I put the chops on the now-hot pan.

I got a really nice sear on both sides of each chop and it didn't take long for them to reach a temperature of 150 degrees F, at which point I plated and finished them with, you guessed it, another balsamic reduction.

Everything was rather tasty and surprisingly easy, though things got a bit hectic when I had the beans, mushrooms, and pork all going at once at one point.

 

That's making me hungry.

 

It's World Refugee Day and one of the last days of Ramadan, and I'm invited for iftar in a refugee camp. There's going to be Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan food and it's going to be terrific. I'll report back tomorrow.

 

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...lunch-or-dinner.449178/page-136#post-24735659 < My just consumed brunch round 1 (sunny side up eggs over sautéed broccoli & onions (Because I cannot link directly to the image on a Mac forum)

 

Well that made me hungrier now.

 

Same here. I had eggs earlier though - bacon and scrambled eggs for brunch.

 

Eggs scrambled with some leftover kale and squash today. Eggs are the best.

 

Apparently there's a self-proclaimed gourmet restaurant in Santorini where this is called a "destructured spinach pie"

 

It....could be good?