those are some sexy tomatoes syous

tyty. I was expecting to be blasted by you guys for photobombing the forum. Anyhow, all the credit really goes to Mario Batali. Not only are all the recipes based off of his knowledge/method, but I went to Eataly as well, his market, to buy all the product

I really can't get over how amazing the mozzarella is. I didn't know it could have such amazing flavor and texture to it. I plan on making Caprese next sun., as well as carbonara, a different penne pasta w/tomato sauce + capers, and possibly meatballs. I dunno how to cook but Batali makes me seem like a boss. After that, when I move to NYC, I'm going to try for Heston Blumenthaal's stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlYW0...eature=related

pretty amazing series. I've never been so excited to cook eggs before.

really nice job Syous (except for the brown smear :/)

But I don't understand why yours Bucatini all'Amatriciana are so "white". Did u put enough tomato in the sauce?

pasta isn't supposed to be drenched in pasta sauce, unless you're talking about the whites in the pasta, dunno what else u mean :O

Syous, looks delicious. 17 pages later and I am inspired to get in the kitchen.

nomnomnom

Looks very normal to me.

eheh sry, it was a wrong translation attempt by me

Here in Italy we say that pasta is "white" when there isn't enough tomato in the sauce. Usually the "amatriciana" has more tomatoes than what I see in the photo. So this brought me to the question I did

like pieces of tomato? I'm pretty crappy at getting the sauce consistency right. Batali keeps saying it can't be thick so I keep thinning it out with more pasta water, but I remember w/this sauce in particular, it's kinda thick, and I had dumped like 1 or 2 ladles full of pasta water, so...worried about flavor, I stopped thinning it out.

Any tips?

My pleasure

Ok, I'll go deep, so I can help anyone who wanna eat it (in fact, it's probably what I cook better lol)

well, you aren't forced to put pieces of tomato. I usually put the "tomato sauce" without oil (I dunno if u call it tomato juice, here is simply "tomato sauce". It's simply precooked and ground tomatoes.).

This is what I do:
1) put oil on the flame (1-2 spoon per person)
2) cut onion, cut bacon (40-50gg per person) and put them in the hot oil (ofc, u don't have to fried, just make it "golden") with a bit of salt and pepper
3) put tomato sauce (or pieces of tomato, if u like more them) together and cover the casserole. I usually put 200ml per person. Keep the flame from mid-to-low (the sauce should boil really weak). This is when I usually put the water for pasta to boil.

4) put AT LEAST 1L of water x 100gg pasta in another casserole (dunno how much in gallons ). Anyway, more is better. Make it boil with a small spoon of salt per gallons and cover. WHEN IT BOILS, put the pasta in and leave the casserole without the cover, keeping the flame to the maximum. When the water boils again, keep the flame a bit lower - this time, a medium level boiling).
4a) this is a part I write just for completeness. Italians like the pasta just a minute before is cooked - U still can taste it a bit hard. I know that if a stranger eat it, he'll say that is undercooked. Well, just choose the grade of cooking u like. But as a tip, NEVER go over what u can read on box of pasta (better 1 minute less).

5) while pasta is cooking, put one spoon of water (like u did) in the sauce if it seems too thick. Take a bit of time to grate cheese, "parmigiano" is best obv (if u haven't it, choose one with at least 12-18 months)
6) when pasta is cooked, drain it with a colander, then put in the sauce for a minute.
7) put in the plates, cheese and pepper on the top and... BUON APPETITO!

outstanding photobomb

I always do a really simple sauce that I can use for pasta or pizza. I take a bit of olive oil and get it hot in a pan then add fresh garlic and a can of San Marzano tomatoes. Add fresh basil and salt and pepper to taste and is an awesome sauce. For pizza it works as is and my favorite is to get fresh pasta and use the sauce with heirloom cherry tomatoes mixed in at the last second so they are just a bit soft. Also can add onions, meat, etc. if you want a more involved sauce but it is the perfect base and so easy to do.

syous wins. flawless victory.

My pasta sauce recipe:

heat olive oil, add garlic and onions, lots of salt and pepper (i think most people go way too light on grinded S&P), decent amount of red pepper flakes. cook until onions begin to soften. add chopped tomatoes and a dash of cumin.

re cumin: I don't know anyone or can't find any recipes that call for this, but after lots of experimenting, I think it adds a depth of flavor and goes well with the spice of the red pepper flakes. Too much cumin will overpower things, but a little adds a lot of complexity, imo.

cook at low-medium heat. Can leave the sauce chunky or can blend it. Add a ladle of pasta water and reduce to desired consistency. mix in pasta at medium-high heat and stir. for ~1 min. serve topped with parm and fresh basil.

Kimchi Chigae

White rice
1 package firm tofu
1 jar of kimchi
Sesame oil
Seasoning*

Preferably you will have bought the kimchi from a korean food store, I noticed the local grocery store has started to carry this but it is subpar in comparison.

*You can do this from scratch, hot bean paste ~1 tbsp, 1 tsp hot pepper flakes and 1 tbsp sugar. All these can be varied to taste, i will warn that you can quickly make this insanely spicy if you are not used to heat so start with small amounts in that case. Otoh, most korean food stores will have packets near the tofu for sale that have this premixed with small packets of sesame oil if you want to make it super easy.

First, get your rice started, I prefer the koko rose brand that I grew up with, it is stickier white rice. I also rinse the rice before cooking it in a rice cooker. If everything goes right your rice will have been on the warming setting for a few minutes by the time you are finished cooking which will be perfect timing.

For the Kimchi stew, find a medium pot and dump kimchi in (eyeball this depending on how much you will want to make).



This picture above would be the serving size I use for the ingredients, you can easily make much more but adjust your seasoning to match.

Submerge the kimchi in hot water completely and keep adding until the water line is about an inch above that. This does not have to be exact, add more water if you love the soup to mix with rice.

Heat over high and get a rolling boil and add the seasoning
Cook for 15 minutes stirring occasionally
Chop up the tofu into bite sizes and add to the pot
simmer for about 5 minutes

Right before serving add a small amount of sesami oil (it will emulsify) for flavor i think about a tsp if you need measurements

Feel free to add chopped green onion on top. Serve with a side car of white rice and enjoy. If you like this korean comfort food you'll find that it is really easy to whip up while juggling other responsibilities.

Last note, this is commonly served with chopped pork and if you dig that add about 1/2 lb for this recipe.

hah! awesome ^

I can make a pretty decent daengjang jigae

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really recommend to people to try using the basic tomato sauce recipe I put up there. It tastes AWESOME and is meant to be used as a base for any other sauce. It's got loads of flavor and really would be more than good enough to eat w/noodles or whatnot.

Chop red onions and garlic. Put in a pot w/olive oil. Brown, dump in 2 minced carrots (use cheese grater) plus a couple sprigs of chopped up thyme. Once the carrots are starting to sweat, dump in the tomato sauce. Batali prefers to use san marzano tomatoes that are still whole. He claims there's something you get from hand squeezing them. Bring to a boil, then quickly to a simmer for 30-40 mins. Sit back and enjoy the smells.

The carrots and thyme part are especially awesome. Gives the house a delicious aroma. The carrots apparently help sweeten the flavor.

Have a ~3.5lb leg of lamb, brined it overnight, anything wrong with shoving it in the oven at 170f and working out what to do with it later? (it's about midday here).

Been making pasta a lot lately. I do homemade noodles, so anything works wonderfully with that. I am wanting to try new sauces though, or just find ways to make mine even better. The bell pepper and mushroom mixes are based on what I have around at the time. I've done it with all of them, or just one or two types.

My sauce:

Olive oil/Butter in heated pot
Onion and Garlic for about 90sec
Bell Peppers (I've done every combo of green/red/yellow/orange and they're all good) another 90sec.
Italian Sausage - 2min
Mushrooms (portobello, white, ****take and oyster from an Asian market) - little OO on these as well before I put them in - 2 min
Tomato sauce - however much it takes to be enough. That all depends on how much of the above is used.
Red Wine - 1 or 2 cups should do it.
Herbs and spices, usually just S&P, corriander and parsley/basil

I let it get to where it's combined and bubbling a little, then I simmer it for a really long time, stirring it fairly often.

Almost every combo I've tried has been great. I've actually been using less of multiple ingredients, and just using more of a few. I'm not sure which is better cause they're all good.

Seems ok but you still don't want to cook it past ~135 internal temp. Granted that will take a while in such a low oven.

Since all the supermarkets have corned beef on sale this week I decided to cook some in my crock pot sous-vide. The results were pretty awesome; the meat was tender and soft and flaked apart easily despite it being extremely lean. I will definitely be making more in the future, and hopefully perfecting my reuben technique.

I started with the leanest, lowest sodium piece of $2/lb corned beef I could find. I think a fattier piece would've yielded similar results as a lot of the fat renders during cooking, but you absolutely have to find low sodium corned beef. Since the beef is cooking in its own juices exclusively, the saltiness gets multiplied compared with a more traditional preparation. I love salty foods, but someone with a lower tolerance would probably do well to soak the low sodium beef in water for a couple of hours to remove as much salt as possible.

I thoroughly rinsed the beef when I got home and dried completely. Then I shaved off a bit of the external fat as it doesn't really contribute much for flavor or texture. I contemplated adding some additional flavoring like black pepper or coriander to make it more reminiscent of pastrami, but decided against it as I wasn't really sure how much to add or if it would have the desired effect.

Once the meat was shaved down I vacuum sealed it and dropped it in my crock pot that I had set to 174f. When researching this project I found a wide range of temperature recommendations, from 135f up to 190f. 135 yields a softer, juicier result while 190 is flaky and a more traditional texture of what you get from boiling. I selected 175 hoping for a result that would be similar to traditional corned beef in texture, but slightly more moist and less flaky. I cooked it for 24 hours.

As is always the case with sous-vide cooking, the beef shrunk significantly (maybe 30%?) and the bag was filled with rendered fat and juices when I took it out. I blowtorched the outside just to give it some texture. I doubt this did much and it probably wasn't worth the effort. Once torched I wrapped it whole in aluminum foil and put in the fridge until cool. When hot, the beef was so tender that it would've fallen apart if I had tried to slice it.

When I sliced it this morning I was a bit surprised to see that basically all the internal fat had rendered. I did start with a pretty lean piece, but there was essentially no fat left on the inside.

I'll probably reserve at least 1-2 servings for a nice reuben.

could definitely go for some pics of this beef, sounds very delicious

Brined ~3lb butterflied leg of lamb for a day, marinated it for two days in red wine/olive oil/veggie oil/mint/onions/garlic, coated it with melted butter & curry powder, cooked it wrapped in wax paper at 170f for a bunch until it was 131 in the middle, rested a bunch, basted, 550f convection roast uncovered for 10 minutes:



Served with yoghurt/mint sauce and a pea/aubergine/mint side (excuse my presentation).



Was nice, but felt it was a little dry. Is that due to the cut of meat or should I try different cooking method? Was it just slightly overcooked?

I had a really weird dream a couple nights ago.

I dreamt that Jose Andreas was teaching me to cook something called bagel pasta. I dont remember much of the technique, all i remember was that it involved boiling pasta in bakingsoda + water + salt.

Is bagel pasta a real thing or am i just a weirdo?

I'm making some pasta now. I found my guitar teacher's recipe which takes advantage of store bought sauce so you can make a nice sauce on the fly. I copy/paste below:

"finely dice 1/2 or 1 whole (onion), finely dice 3 cloves of garlic(or just split a few cloves to be removed later). sautee in olive oil w/ salt & coarsely ground blk pepper (amount to your taste).
add 1 or 2 pats of butter after the onions become transparent.
if you like, you can dice 1 or 2 fresh tomatoes and sautee them along w/the onions/garlic, or add some diced canned plum tomatoes-adding either of these will make more of a 'pomodoro sauce'.
add in your good quality 'jar' sauce & simmer for 15-30minutes over a low heat-don't burn it!
you can add pepperincino at any point if you desire, also chopped fresh basil, but only at the very end.
sauce your pasta (but not drow it like the 'americano brutas!), & drizzle a bit of room temp oloive oil over the pasta.

buon apetito!"

Why don't you try it and tell us how it turns out.

Heston is ****ing brilliant. His roast chicken method from that series was a revelation for me (cliffs: brine overnight, very low temp, trussing is stupid).