Gravy's Cooking Thread

BrutulTM

BrutulTM

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Mrs. Gravy said:
What would you determine is the top two or three things you can cook or bake, where you can just throw it together? Something you've made so many times, no written recipe, you just make it and it turns out defuckinglicious every time.
Me: gravy. 😁
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Chili. Also red sauce/marinara. Real Italians probably wouldn't approve of mine, but I think it's, to use your term, defuckinglicious..
 
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Denamian

Denamian

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Lanx said:
dude i'm so asian i have a rice only strainer
269a17be12e5dc06282cdacb1b3aa30c.png

(b/c you don't want to wash your rice in the bowl to damage it)
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I practically burst into flames if I step outside and even I have one of those.

Instant pot is ok for rice, but a cheapass rice cooker does a far better job.
 
Dr.Retarded

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Sanrith Descartes said:
Tried my first ever cake from scratch. Cooking is fun. Baking is stress-filled work. Made the cake and buttercream icing. Went just vanilla/vanilla for the first attempt.

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edit: Came out pretty damned good. Real moist and nice strong vanilla flavor. I used the vanilla I bought in the DR on vacation (the one that is 1/10th the price of here in the US). I'm genuinely surprised how it came out.
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Looks pretty tasty. You're right, baking is a bitch. Everything has to be so exact and one wrong step can spell disaster. It's still worth the hassle though.
 
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Dr.Retarded

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Fogel said:
Cooking is an art, baking is a science
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Yep. I'm not very good at baking. I mean I can follow the instructions and stuff and it'll typically turn out well, but I don't have the ability to create my own version of a cake or something, I just don't know the ratios between flower, sugar, fats, and stuff. Cooking times and temps are a whole other deal.

At least with cooking, if you gave me a handful of ingredients I could probably whip something up no problem, but you just can't do that with baking.

Was talking with the wife last night during dinner, and ask her what do I normally cook where I just am able to do it without having to follow a recipe. She started rattling off things like when we make gumbo, our seafood dip, baked Mac and cheese, lasagna, Shepard's pie. It was funny because I didn't realize there really are a lot of different things of we make that we never have to pull a book out for. I may pull up a video or two on YouTube just to kind of refresh my memory about certain steps for different dishes, but I guess all these years of spending time in the kitchen have paid off.

The problem with that is you end up making the same things kind of over and over or at least the same flavor profiles. There's nothing wrong with the classics, but I've really been trying to take a bit of time and delve into cookbooks here and there just to try to get inspired to make something new. Normally if I do find a recipe that I want to at least take inspiration from, we just have to make it once or twice and then it becomes part of our normal menu. I think the most recent one is that white bean and fennel salad that really is so easy but it can accompany any type of world meats especially during spring or summer.
 
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Lanx

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Sanrith Descartes said:
Tried my first ever cake from scratch. Cooking is fun. Baking is stress-filled work. Made the cake and buttercream icing. Went just vanilla/vanilla for the first attempt.

View attachment 509436

View attachment 509437

View attachment 509438

edit: Came out pretty damned good. Real moist and nice strong vanilla flavor. I used the vanilla I bought in the DR on vacation (the one that is 1/10th the price of here in the US). I'm g
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Sanrith Descartes said:
Converting everything to grams is such a pain in the balls.
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get a nice bakers scale if ur really getting into baking, get a bakers scale, not just one that is 0.1 gram accurate, but pertains to baking like using bakers percentage. Like my espresso scale is stupid and $50 bucks but it can detect liquid flowing into a cup from the way it hits the scale. ( which is only really useful for fufu espresso shot pulling)
 
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Fogel

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I'd only use baker's percentages for bread, and if you bake a lot of it in different batch sizes. That's really its only advantage is being able to adjust your batch size on the fly
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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Fogel said:
I'd only use baker's percentages for bread, and if you bake a lot of it in different batch sizes. That's really its only advantage is being able to adjust your batch size on the fly
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Don't get me started on bread. No matter how I tweek the recipe it's coming out dense. Not like inedible dense, but not light and airy like it should be. I hate bread almost as much as I hate rice.
 
Sludig

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So I'm not quite like health freak anything, but i do see a lot of random stuff demonizing a lot of "seed" oils etc. I'm not sure I buy into it, but at the same time, I do doubt the cheapest shit from walmart is as good for me long term. I only used to use a jug in the course of a year or more, but we are making a lot more fried meats to go in chinese, nuggets/fries etc in the deep fryer.

Suggestions on what's not $500 a gallon but also is better than mystery vegetable oil? Ideally 2-3 choices to look at that would be better. (I imagine there's a good choice for skillet frying where I usually will do my fried egg in bacon grease, but not hold up well for 365/375 deep fryer)
 
Lanx

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Sludig said:
So I'm not quite like health freak anything, but i do see a lot of random stuff demonizing a lot of "seed" oils etc. I'm not sure I buy into it, but at the same time, I do doubt the cheapest shit from walmart is as good for me long term. I only used to use a jug in the course of a year or more, but we are making a lot more fried meats to go in chinese, nuggets/fries etc in the deep fryer.

Suggestions on what's not $500 a gallon but also is better than mystery vegetable oil? Ideally 2-3 choices to look at that would be better. (I imagine there's a good choice for skillet frying where I usually will do my fried egg in bacon grease, but not hold up well for 365/375 deep fryer)
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canola oil gets sodium hydroxide and bleaching

atm i'm just doing peanut and tallow
 
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BrutulTM

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Avocado oil or olive oil are about the best you can do for not breaking the bank in the "not a seed" oils. There's also lard and beef tallow but they're not pour-able oil so it takes a little adjustment. I believe they do work great for deep frying though.
 
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Fogel

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Basically you'll only want to use oils that are extracted from simple pressing, not processing, Olive oil and Avocado oil was already mentioned. Peanut and sesame oils are other good and popular pressed oils.
 
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popsicledeath

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I'm also not sure I buy into all the hate for seed oils. I think the more important thing is a trusted company and finding ones that don't use chemicals to extract the oil.

That said, I avoid canola or soy oils and generic vegetable oils 99% of the time. And I don't like the taste of most oils like olive or sesame, even for lower temp applications, so feel pretty limited myself.

Chosen brand always seems to pass consumer report style testing. I almost exclusively use avocado oil, but it's on the expensive side. I trust their blend that includes safflower and coconut when I avoid most other brands that are safflower. Their coconut oil is good, too, and I'll use it for prawns/shrimp (and rubbing on my dog for less itching and it's funny because it makes him smell delicious).

I have few qualms with peanut oil for frying and have been looking for a quality brand.

I think with frying you can get away with more delicate oils and fats if you don't overheat/burn it (for both quality and overheating oil seems like a source of health concerns). I have a convection burner just for frying so I can better control temps and feel more comfortable using lard and bacon grease in various combos.

For stir frying and seering though avocado oil is almost all I use because I prefer to get pans very hot. It's nice that I find the taste neutral and preferred making mayo or adding it to baking too.
 
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Sludig

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Fogel said:
Basically you'll only want to use oils that are extracted from simple pressing, not processing, Olive oil and Avocado oil was already mentioned. Peanut and sesame oils are other good and popular pressed oils.
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I did think though there was like a big difference in olive oil quality, like not brand to brand but like 2 tiers, one is pressed vs one that was more bullshit processed?
 
Lanx

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Sludig said:
I did think though there was like a big difference in olive oil quality, like not brand to brand but like 2 tiers, one is pressed vs one that was more bullshit processed?
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are you talking traditional olive oil? cuz most olive oil isn't pressed no more, it's extracted in a centrifuge, b/c it extracts more oils, it's still "cold" and extra virgin, as long as it doesn't go above 80f, it's just called cold extracted
 
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