I didn't inline pictures to keep the length of this manageable.

Step 1: Make shrimp stock. http://instagram.com/p/Pag3TKM2Vx/
Shells from like 5lb shrimp, 3Q water, some scraps from onion, carrot, celery, mushrooms, garlic, and some spices (I used bay leaves and thyme). We save and freeze scrap veggies often, but you can just use whole ones if you have them around. In fact, shrimp shells and water get the job done well enough for this recipe I'd think. Boil the **** out of this -- like 30-45 minutes at least. If you can go longer, do, but after about 45 minutes, the marginal utility decreases quit a bit it seems. If you're making soup with this, you should find a good recipe. If you're using it to make risotto, rice, or a stew, close enough is certainly fine.

Step 2 (once the stock is on): Make roux. http://instagram.com/p/PahE62s2V6/
It's easy but time consuming. I heated 1.5c oil over medium heat and then whisked in 2.5c of flour. Then stir, stir, stir, and don't stop stirring for like 20-30 minutes (an assistant helps) until the roux has a peanut butter color. You don't want it to burn or stick. Black flecks are bad. When done, it should look like http://instagram.com/p/PalJXks2ZX/

Step 3: Saute veggies in roux. http://instagram.com/p/PanxiDs2bt/
I chopped up 2 cloves of garlic, 2 bell peppers, a big onion, and a couple celery stalks. I used about 1.5c of the roux (~1c is leftover in the fridge -- it's just oil and flour, so it keeps) and sauteed/softened the veggies and garlic in the roux over medium heat.

Step 4: Add stock, beer, and meat. http://instagram.com/p/Par_HRs2fJ/
Once the veggies were soft, I added ~2.5Q of the stock, 2 or 3 bay leaves, some crab boil (I had one of those seasoning bags but obv you can replace with similar spices), a little cayenne, half a beer (I was drinking a 1554 black lager from New Belgium brewery), and about 1.5lb of chorizo and linguica that I sliced and quickly browned in a frying pan (ok, ok, I browned about 2 lb and snacked on the remaining 0.5 lb). In the picture you can see the film on top of the pot. Keep skimming that off. Boil this all for like 30-45 min. 20 if you're real impatient. Or hungry. If you used a bag of crab boil, remove. Also remove the bay leaves.

Step 5: While step 4 is happening you'll have idle time during the boiling, so season the fish and shrimp unless you seasoned them the day before and marinated it overnight. Probably you should peel the shrimp at the very beginning and use these shells for the stock. I used a creole seasoning and cayenne. And I used catfish, because it was super cheap, but any fish that is a little meaty and will stand up to the cooking (grouper?) should be good. Crawfish would be good in here also.

Step 6: Still, while step 4 is happening, saute some okra in vegetable oil. Should take about 10 minutes. http://instagram.com/p/PawHWIs2Sx/
I used a little over a quart before it was chopped.

Step 7: Add the fish, shrimp, and okra to the gumbo. I think it was like 1.5lb shrimp, 1lb fish. I think I put the fish in 2 minutes before I put the shrimp in, and then cooked everything for maybe 4-5 minutes. http://instagram.com/p/Pax1vCM2UD/

Serve over rice, garnish with parsley or green onion. FWIW, this is a good omelette topper too. Maybe a shrimp omelette. Yield was about 3.5Q. We froze about 2 quarts and kept the remainder and made a few meals out of it. The frozen gumbo is gonna be awesome over the winter.

Good old Channel 4. Not available in the US.. Lots of good shows though, if you can find them.

wyman, definitely inline pics. there are very few times where pictures aren't welcome, and they almost always involve a sgt rj tr.

Any tips on making salsa? I usually just through in some tomatoes, onion, cilantro, jalepenos, and garlic. However, it comes out a little watery. Any way to thicken it up?

Seed the tomatoes

Roast the tomatoes. It will get rid of some of the water plus make the skin softer.

Or smoke them along with other salsa veggies, smoked salsa is a tasty variation. Even after observing wateriness you could just boil down the salsa to thicken it up. I guess that would be more of a sauce than a chunky fresh salsa though

Tiger Shrimp Risotto



so proud

You should try carbon steel pans.

Quick positives is that it is in essence a nonstick cast iron pan but negatives is that you cant do acidic over time cooking (=pasta sauces etc)

Something like this

E: Just to clarify if your not familiar: the nonstick attributes starts to show only after cooking with the pan for awhile

Decided to do the Bon Appetit Sunday Supper - slow roasted glazed pork shoulder with lima bean salad. I kinda messed this up all around. Over the 6 hours that it took to roast, I ended up drinking quite a bit, and when it came out, I was like 'I don't care if I should take pics first - this thing smells DELICIOUS and I'm drunk and hunrgy."

I woke up the next day and a large chunk was gone as was my bottle of burbon. I figured what the heck, and snapped some shots anyway, but neglected to glaze it as I wanted to tear it up and deep fry chunks to reheat while crisping the meat.



So there you have it. A pork shoulder minus one drunk guy chunk with no glaze. It tasted delicious though, and as soon as I get the pics from my camera, I'll add some glazed deep fried chunk pics which are more appealing (though a bit more sloppily plated).

For the beans, I asked my gf to make sure the pot remained at a bare simmer, however she did not, and when I came back, they were under cooked and sitting in hot, not simmering water. I then brought them to a simmer to finish the job, but proceeded to over cook them.



That said, they were creamy and delicious, and I just embraced the overcookedness by stirring vigorously to make a kind of 'lima bean hummus' though the flavor was completely different.

Just a couple pics. Will post the rest on the blog later.

@ Wyman's roux suggestion - if you're patient and willing to use a nice heavy pot and low heat, you only need to stir it once every few minutes. Stirring constantly for 20-30 minutes works fine but it's not necessary.

You know, I saw one of those in Bon Appetit a while back and wondered about it. You may have just cost me $40 - $80 as I was looking at THIS but was trying to be reasonable.

That said I just bought a pot rack to hang (Impulse buy during 20% off sale) so at least I have roooooooooooooooom!!!

Last time I made gumbo, I used the AB method:

"Place the vegetable oil and flour into a 5 to 6-quart cast iron Dutch oven and whisk together to combine. Place on the middle shelf of the oven, uncovered, and bake for 1 1/2 hours, whisking 2 to 3 times throughout the cooking process."

Obviously you need to be careful as brick can turn black pretty quickly, but it worked out well for me.

Full recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/a...ipe/index.html

card,

That is one intense shrimp!

AWESOME. I have the book and even brought it out to Hungary. I plan on doing a lot of pickling.

Re: Hot Dog
Try topping it with kimchi. I had a kimchi dog in nyc and loved it.

Re: Chef Ramsay Ultimate Cookery Course
YOU CAN BUY IT LIKE EVERYONE ELSE

Fajitas-
God I love homemade fajitas. Often I find a restaurant will **** up one part of dish, ****ing up the whole thing, whether it's tortilla, meat, or guac.

my basic yet awesome recipe for guac:

I use an orange when the avocados aren't as sweet. Limes suck with those.


You have to use tomatoes and other stuffs imo. The more colors, the more visually appealing, and all ingreds are just so tasty.


heh, wrong piece of meat but tasted awesome regardless.

Snipe and Syous, your pictures look amazing.

I don't know if you already mentioned it in the thread, because i'm a lazy ****, but can you give me some tips on what camera you use and maybe a link to some food-photography instruction websites?

i use a high end dslr but you can get pretty similar results with a solid dslr camera in the $400 range.

The key thing is to have lots of natural light or if you're a wizard with lighting, you can manipulate some contrast and shadows to make food look really good. I'll never forget the pulled bbq sandwich someone posted on 2p2. It looked incredibly delicious and it was because the guy had a lighting set lol (i'm sure it tasted great, but this thing looked SICK good)

If you (or anyone else) could link to that pic and poster, that'd be awesome as I'm trying to figure out lighting.

As far the photo question goes - I agree with Syous 100%. Many of my pics are taken with a Canon T3 which I got at Fry's for $399. Add a $100 50mm F1.8 lens and you're ready to rock. Other important things to have are an 18% gray card ($10 max) for white balance, and some software like Lightroom which is invaluable for post processing adjustments (I often bring up the exposure a bit, especially in the shadows and add a little clarity and contrast).

I also have a rigged lighting setup as I often get home too late to have good, natural light. It was done on a budget however, and consists of 3 $10 reflector clamp lights, a set of full spectrum bulbs ($25 for 4), an old picture frame that I covered with vellum ($10 for a large roll of vellum), and 2 pieces of large, white foam board that I use for bouncing light ($10). Next purchase will be a real flash, but they're pretty pricy.

yeah using a short depth of field is usually pretty effective on food, though having it all in focus is good too.

Lightroom is a must and is really easy to use. I watched one tutorial and now I just fiddle with just a couple of things and put out photos. I don't have any photoshop knowledge, it's pretty noob friendly.

I just spent about 30-40 minutes looking for that pulled pork sandwich photo. I remember it well enough to know it was an exceptional picture, but not enough to bink a keyword in search. Sorry snipe =[

MomoFuku finally came from Amazon. Really enjoying it. Reading cover to cover so far. I'm going to try the ramen broth next weekend (just had a pig roast, so I have fresh meaty fatty pig bones!)

I was actually a bit disappointed in the pickling chapter, because I've been doing something like his vinegar pickles on my own for years, any time there was extra produce around. Not that they're bad, I was just hoping for some new ideas. The soy shiitakes look good though.

I did make up a batch of the quick salt&sugar pickles with cucumber and one with radish, that was kind of cool - ready in 10 minutes! But that led me to an experiment on my own and

YOU NEED TO TRY THIS RIGHT NOW:

Jalepeno quick pickles. 3 jalepenos, two tablespoons sugar, one tablespoon salt (I used kosher.) Cut jalepenos in half lengthwise, remove seeds and then slice the other way a little larger than 1/8th inch (so you end up with little half circles of jalepeno.) Stir with sugar and salt. Eat in five minutes. YUUUMMMMMMMM. Would make a good garnish too, I bet.

**** yes a guy just gave me a huge bag of jalapenos from his garden

you should send some to me imo

Fitzgerald,27:

I like slicing up some hot peppers and putting them in a mix of vinegar, sugar, and a splash of soy sauce. And leaving for a while. Then munching on them.

El D,

Give me some rough measurements/ratios on the vinegar/sugar if you can.


ohead,

I would, but that $40 to ship tree fitty worth of food is oppressive.