I'd go with cornstarch. Butter + milk are pretty heavy and not vegetarian enough for some people. Make sure you use cold water to mix the cornstarch.

For a meat substitute, TVP or tempeh. I'd go with TVP.

Don't let that get too hot Roy, it will be freakin nasty. Wrap it in cedar paper for extra goodness.

Thanks Crash. I hadn't thought of soy meat, like the Morningstar stuff but that would work I think. TVP is new to me? Is this the same as soy meat?

for a thickener, if you don't like the texture that cornstarch gives, you can also consider arrowroot.

Most helpful forum ever.

Never heard of arrowroot, does it alter the taste at all?

no most of these won't alter the taste but cornstarch slurry will sometimes give a slightly glossy feel/look that some people don't like. it comes in powder form.

from wikipedia

"Arrowroot thickens at a lower temperature than does flour or cornstarch, is not weakened by acidic ingredients, has a more neutral taste, and is not affected by freezing. It doesn't mix well with dairy, forming a slimy mixture.[3] It is recommended to mix arrowroot with a cool liquid before adding to a hot fluid. The mixture should be heated only until the mixture thickens and removed immediately to prevent the mixture from thinning. Overheating tends to break down arrowroot's thickening property. Substitute two teaspoons of arrowroot for one tablespoon of cornstarch, or one teaspoon of arrowroot for one tablespoon of wheat flour."

Another suggestion for truffle usage :

truffled mac and cheese.

Texturized vegetable protein. It is the same thing as soy meat.

I need to try this.

If you are putting potatoes in your stew, remember that that alone will thicken your stew quite a bit assuming you are using a starchy potato and not a waxy one. You might not even need another thickener at all if you cook the potato long enough.

To everyone who commented on the ink running,

Good point :| I was following the recipe from a BBQing book and was definitely surprised at the suggestion to use newspaper (most other places/recipes call for foil). Perhaps wrapping it in the baking paper protects it. He mentioned wetting the newspaper and wrapping the package in that was used to somewhat steam the fish. Either way it turned out ****ing fantastic and without an inky taste, but next time I'll try it with foil to see if the results are similar.



I'm a huge fan of sweet potato. My mum used to make sweet potato mash once every couple of weeks and I always preferred it to regular mash potato.

The wedges were spiced with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper. They turned out surprisingly good. Will definitely make again.

What's the general consensus on the skin of salmon around here? I've never cooked it before. When I was buying the fillet from my local fish dude he advised to cook it with the skin on and then it would be easily removed afterwards (this is for pan/BBQ cooking). I just left it on and ate it though..

Yeah, I want this. It looks awesome.

Tons of people love it. I'm not overly thrilled by it. It's okay. IT does help keep the meat together while cooking, though, and the layer of fat underneath must help keep the meat more moist.

That layer of fat under the skin is where much of the mercury hides, though.

I'll eat the skin if it is very crispy otherwise I leave it on the plate.

When I've done them I also add some nutmeg and Cinnamon too.

+1

I never eat salmon skin, but I always cook salmon with the skin on. Honestly, I've never seen anyone eat it. When I was growing up, I always saw my parents leave all the skin, and all my relatives too, so it never crossed my mind that it was even edible. I assumed it was unsavory.

After doing some more research it seems that cooking with the skin on is definitely +EV. A lot of the great oil in salmon comes from the skin and there are health + taste/texture benefits from cooking with it on. Also if what my fish-seller-dude-guy said was true about it being much easier to remove once cooked, there is no reason not to leave it on.

It didn't taste bad. It wasn't especially good either. It was basically similar in taste to the rest of the fish (more so the herbs and spices) but with a worse texture. I probably won't eat as a general rule anymore.

I guess we did often give the salmon skin to the dog, who gobbled it right down greedily, but this was a dog that loved to eat rotten grass clippings, so I didn't put much stock in that.

Thats a piece of salmon with skin worth eating I bet

We cook a lot of salmon steaks, and after eating the fish, I eat the skin with a bit of japanese mayonnaise. As long as the skin is crisp, it tastes great.

This.

I think the root of the sweet potato thing is that you don't really see them too much in England. Not hard to find, but not eaten on the reg in most places. As for putting marshmallows on top....

Got a decent job interview on Tuesday, so possibly some sort of celebratory cooking pictures to come. In the meantime....

What is your favourite dish to cook which costs as little as possible?

Rushmore

thanks a lot for the description. I was salivating as I was reading lol.

What do you mean by sweat onions? When you say lightly brown mean, you mean I should just lightly fry it in a pan right? leave a decent amt of pink on and then put it in the pot?

Sweat means lowish heat, do not brown (at all). Usually also adding salt to help bring out moisture.

I like it if crispy, otherwise the dog gets it (he loves it). Same with lots of other fish (snapper, sea bass) as long as it was de-scaled.

Pro tip: If you want to remove the skin on Salmon just slide a metal spatula between the flesh and skin (while still on grill/in pan/etc) and lift the flesh right off. It should come right off, you may have to jiggle the spatula back & forth to get it in there. This doesn't work very well with some other fish but Salmon is easy.

A little oil, and just soften the onions, with a little bit of salt.

I guess it won't matter if you leave a little pink in the meat, but I imagine some food sanitation engineers will come in and say that you shouldn't. Basically, you don't want to be dumping raw meat in with the bulk of your ingredients, so I would say to get it cooked through.

I'm sure there are varying ideas on this, but, again, the point is to wind up with ground meat that is not totally overcooked by the end. But one of the advantages of using ground meat is that slightly overcooking is pretty unlikely to have much negative effect, as opposed to overcooking chunks of meat, which could easily ruin the entire chili.

Seriously, people ITT have never had sweet potato marshmallow casserole?



It is totally standard for a lot of people I know.