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[VerdantSF]

Was in the mood for lentils last night.  Made some lentil soup with mushrooms, veggies, and roasted pumpkin seeds.

[Aqizzar]

I tried to invent a dish the other night, after looking at the ingredients on Rice-a-Roni and thinking, "I can do better."

Nothing fancy, just lean beef, lot of rice, diced tomato, peppers, chilies, and onion, dash of flour for thickening, and a whole lot of paprika and pretty much everything else on my spice rack I felt like throwing in.  Cooked the beef, then boiled the rice and tomatoes and stuff in with it, steamed until all the loose moisture was gone.

Tasted like plain wet rice, undressed beef, and raw tomato.  How do you make stuff tasty without just overloading it with salt and pepper?

[Bauglir]

Sauce! In this case, I think you'd probably want to throw in some tomato sauce, to spread a cooked tomato flavor around. Cook up everything that isn't rice in that for a bit to get the flavors all blended, then add the cooked rice. If you want it to seem dry, undercook the rice a little and then let it soak up the sauce by finishing cooking in it.

Also, cumin and cinnamon never hurt anything. Anything.

[Arx]

I tried to invent a dish the other night, after looking at the ingredients on Rice-a-Roni and thinking, "I can do better."

Nothing fancy, just lean beef, lot of rice, diced tomato, peppers, chilies, and onion, dash of flour for thickening, and a whole lot of paprika and pretty much everything else on my spice rack I felt like throwing in.  Cooked the beef, then boiled the rice and tomatoes and stuff in with it, steamed until all the loose moisture was gone.

Tasted like plain wet rice, undressed beef, and raw tomato.  How do you make stuff tasty without just overloading it with salt and pepper?

I'd start by finely chopping the onion and then sautéing until translucent; then throw in the beef mince, after mixing with salt, pepper and perhaps a dash of oregano (or other spices to taste) and brown that. You may need to drain some fat off the mince; or you may like your food greasier than I do, which is probably a good thing anyway. Once the mince is cooked just a to be just a bit more than gray, add peeled and diced tomato. Cook for a few minutes, then add a small handful of flour (40 ml?) and brown some more. Allow to catch a little on the bottom of the pan, and then add boiling water, peppers, chili, etc., and a dash more salt. Cook for 5-10 minutes, add the rice (which should be cooked separately until just shy of soft and then drained) and stir. Cook for another few minutes with lid off to steam off moisture, and consume hot. Make sure rice is adequately salted.

YMMV; tomato sauce would be a good idea somewhere, and you may want to add the diced tomato after water, not before. This also has the potential to not work so good, so if it fails please don't blame me.

[Sappho]

Yeah, basically, the flavors need to be heated in fat somehow, either oil, or butter, or fat from the meat. Sautee onions, garlic, whatever herbs, in oil for a bit and they will release their flavors. Then if you add other things to that and cook for a while on low heat, more flavors will be absorbed. In fact, if you have leftovers and leave them in the fridge overnight, the next day they will often taste better. Longer cooking = more flavor.

Arx's modified recipe looks pretty good to me. It is definitely possible to cook the veggies in the rice and add more flavors, but it's absolutely mandatory that you sautee the veggies in oil or butter first. (Actually, this is how fried ride is made. Sautee veggies, then add uncooked rice and let that get cooked in the oil a bit, then add the water and cook as you would normally cook the rice.)

Some things need to be added later. Mushrooms will burn if you add them too early. Tomatoes will burn too, are usually added after sauteeing is done. Peppers cook quickly and the flavor and texture changes a lot depending on how long they cook, so I usually add them late so they retain a bit of crunch. Onions, carrots, and fresh ginger are the things I cook first - they take the longest and can take the most cooking without burning.

I recommend trying your recipe again, Aqizzar, with Arx's or my modifications, then keep playing with it. I learned everything I know about cooking by trial and error, and some internet research, and I'm a pretty good cook now. I have a few secret recipes that never fail to impress.

As for salt, avoid it as much as possible. Adding salt will give you the illusion of flavor. Most people, especially Americans, are so used to such an enormous amount of salt in their food that they can't taste anything else. It's horribly unhealthy and it stops you from tasting the actual food. When I first stopped cooking with salt, everything tasted like paper for 2 weeks while my tastebuds adjusted, but now I hate the taste of salt and really enjoy my healthy food. If you do choose to use salt, use it sparingly. And never use pre-made spice packets, stock/bullion cubes, or "ready-made" food, because they are absolutely loaded with salt to hide the fact that they don't have any flavor of their own.

Cooking without loads of salt takes more time, but it is WORTH IT.

[Arx]

Sappho is right about everything she says there. I should mention that my salting habits tend to be a bit strange, as left to myself I'll end up underweight with low blood pressure, so I end up salting quite close to randomly over long periods as my salt needs vary. I do agree that too much salt ruins the flavour of anything though.

On consideration, it would definitely be better to add the tomato post-sauté; I almost never cook with it, so I don't have much to go on.

[Osmosis Jones]

Don't cut out salt! It's a useful ingredient, not just for the flavour!

Careful application of salt (which is a dessicant) can help with the browning of meat and vegetables; sprinkle a little salt on the surface of a steak etc., then pat it off with a paper towel before cooking. It will draw out some of the moisture on the surface; since Malliard reactions occur in the absence of moisture, the dryer the surface of the meat is, the faster it browns and you get the lovely brown flavoursome bits without overcooking your meat. Similarly, when cooking soup etc. add a little salt when you saute the veges.

The key thing here is you're not adding it for flavour, but for the actual mechanical effects.

Salt early, but salt lightly. Then, if needed, adjust at the end. Also, using salt-free butter gives you much more control of the final product.


Also, Aq; it's often not just the salt. A big issue lots of beginner cooks have (I know I did) is acidity, or the lack thereof. Adding a little vinegar, lemon juice, verjuice, etc. can liven up the flavour, and give it a little sparkle on the tongue. For a tomato-based dish, try taking a couple of tbsps of balsamic vinegar, and reducing its volume by half or more. The flavour boost a balsamic reduction can give is incredible.

[penguinofhonor]

A little salt is great in anything! It definitely shouldn't be the main flavor of anything, though. I hate when I'm eating something like bacon or popcorn that's so salty I can hardly taste anything else.

When I make popcorn now I use a little salt and a lot of butter. Buttery popcorn is wonderful when the butter flavor isn't getting crowded out by saltiness.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

* LeoLeonardoIII stops chewing his mouthful of salt, puts the spoon back in the bag of salt, begins chewing again slowly.

[Avis-Mergulus]

I just tried an awesome thing.

There's this place I know that serves food on skewers - all kinds of food. If you can skewer it, it's probably on sale. A single skewer doesn't cost much, so I and another person had loads of stuff like chicken, shrimp, and mushroom. I wanted more after we were done, so I was like "Slave, fetch me grub". And they went and fetched me goddamn grilled pineapple in a crust of bread.

And it was delicious. I shit you not, it was the tastiest thing I've had in a long time. Grilled, breaded pineapple on a stick - delicious. WTH, B12?

[Frumple]

So. I come seeking advice! This being the second time it's happened, pattern recognition says it will likely happen a third time, and a forth, and so on. So I ask: Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do after accidentally* pouring something like a full ounce to ounce and a half of ground black pepper onto a roughly packed-ramen sized meal? Is there any way to, like, save that? Any good options? These two times it's happened I've just been kinda' scraping as much off as I can, but it... it feels wasteful. Food goes away with that massive overkill of pepper.

And yeah, investing in a nice pepper shaker would probably be a good idea. Next time I go shopping, methinks.

*Opened wrong side of the pepper holding thingy and upended it over the food before noticing. Again

And it was delicious. I shit you not, it was the tastiest thing I've had in a long time. Grilled, breaded pineapple on a stick - delicious. WTH, B12?

Breaded fruit in general is pretty good, from what I understand. S'basically what cobbler is, last I checked, just with added sweet stuff.

[Bauglir]

Hmmm... Well, if you leave the pepper in, you're pretty much going to be stuck with the flavor no matter what you do. Your only option is dilution, really. Milk works well for this if you want it to be less hot. Unfortunately, my experience has been that there is no antispice, so you can't do a titration kind of thing like you can with (say) sweet and bitter.

[Osmosis Jones]

Lots of pepper? Add lots of honey and lemon.

Probably not great for ramen though.

It does, however, make an amazing chicken dish; take 1 large lemon's worth of juice and zest, same amount of soy sauce, a cubic cm or two worth of ginger (grate finely), at least 1 heaped tablespoon of cracked black pepper, and enough honey to make it sort of sticky even once it's all stirred together. Marinate chicken in it for half an hour, then transfer to a shallow tray (pyrex for pref., should be large enough that the majority of the chicken sticks out above the marinade), then take the whole lot and stick it in the oven. Can't recall the temp off the top of the head, so I'll say maybe 220 C but be prepared to experiment. Turn the chicken after 10-15 mins, then cook through until done. You should end up with a lovely sort of glaze on the chicken where the sugars in the honey have started to caramelise. Depending on the geometry of the pan, the remaining marinade shouldn't be too singed, and can be used to make a nice sauce to go with the chicken.

Serve on white rice, with maybe some string beans; it's quite flavourful, so it works best paired with simple flavours.


Also, if any of you guys are ever in Hong Kong, go to Soho, to this place, and order the Szechuan style fried chicken. I say with zero hyperbole that it was the single best chicken dish I have ever had.

Looks like this;

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yes, those are real chillies. No the chicken itself will not set your mouth on fire (it's relatively mild by Szechuan standards).

[VerdantSF]

Szechuan is my favorite type of Chinese food.  Yum, yum, yum!  I especially like it when the mala peppercorns.  Those make water almost taste like lemonade!

Re: the earlier discussion of salt, I made a batch of mujadara (Middle Eastern lentils and rice with caramelized onions) last night.  I tried my best to use salt sparingly, but once I sat down, I may have been a bit overzealous with the salt shaker.  I need to wean myself off of it a bit.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Owlbread]

Is it possible to milk bears? Whether or not it is practical is another matter, I understand, but are they like pigs where their nipples are too small and they don't produce enough milk to allow humans to milk them properly?