Another recipe thread full of yummy goodness

[Mike]

Well, I made saoto soup today. Which is some sort of Surinamese/Javanese (they're almost neighbours, right...) recipe. I blame it on my collegue, who is some sort of Surinamese/Indonesian blend. And not particularly him, but his grandmother. Occasionally she makes the soup, and I've forced my collegue into bringing some to work. For me. And he did. It's magic stuff. Unbelievable.

And since I'm a soup person, and having made soup only once (other then mix powder with boiling water), I made it it my quest to make this soup. Problem started with gathering thre ingredients, but I managed to find most. Took me weeks. And today got the last pieces, so tomorrow I'll be making soup. And then figured I might as well start today, in case I mess up.

But I didn't. It turned out surprisingly well. Too bad we'll have to wait until tomorrow now. It's very much like in the video below. Some other ingedients (I've added small fried potatoe umm sticks). I'll be serving it with rice, bean sprouts, other vegetable stuff, egg, and so on. One complete meal

[Anita Blake]

Alright, I just ate this, and since I took the time to drunkenly write it up and post it on facebook, here it is for the Quill.


Happy Place Steak

You need:

• Thick-ass strip loin steak
• Favorite steak seasoning
• wire rack & baking sheet of some description
• dollop of butter
• frying pan

Put the seasoning on the steak. I use Keg Steak seasoning. It makes meat horrifyingly delicious. Rub it into all sides of the steak. Put the steak on a cookie-cooling rack, or some kind of wire rack so that no juices can pool under the steak and get it all waterlogged.

Now, go drink a glass of wine. Slowly. Let the flavours soak into the meat. Give it around a half hour or hour. Read a chapter of your favorite book. Watch a TV show. Let the meat come to room temperature.

So now the meat is closer to room temperature than fridge temperature. This is a good time to turn on your oven. About 400 F is a nice temperature, but you can go to 350 if you'd rather wait a little longer. Now, you're going to put some butter, about a tablespoon or so, into a frying pan, and heat up that pan on med-high. Make sure the butter is melted and also hot.

Put the steak in the hot frying pan. Don't move it. Let it sit there and sizzle (it should be sizzling) for about 45 seconds to a minute. Don't. Touch. It. After you've slowly counted to 45, flip it over. Count slowly to 45.

Hopefully your oven is now preheated.

Put that slab of meat back onto the wire rack (you can rinse it if you're paranoid, or use a totally different wire rack), and the wire rack on top of a baking sheet of some description. If you're poor, use tin foil. I don't know, maybe you like meat drippings and grease on the bottom of your oven. Whatever. For extra goodness, drizzle what's left of the butter in the frying pan on top of your meat. It's imbued with meaty goodness and seasoning. It's a flavour enhancer.

Pop your meat-covered baking tray into the oven. If you are doing multiple steaks, make sure they have lots of space between them. Let them warm up in the oven-sauna for a good 8-10 minutes. If you poke it with a fork and it seems too jiggly for your taste, give it another couple minutes. For the love of all that is holy, don't cut it to see how well done it is. That just drains all the juices and dries it out. If you like your steak over cooked, go find another recipe and buy a crappy cut of meat, you don't deserve to make the good stuff.

Take it out of the oven and let it sit for a couple minutes before gently placing it on a place with some lightly steamed asparagus (you can drizzle your meat drippings on the asparagus, in fact, you should. It's delicious.). If you really think you need other side dishes, I hope you already figured that stuff out, because this steak is now totally ready to be eaten. Your mouth will water, and you will probably want to be alone for a few minutes.

Best enjoyed with a nice glass of red wine.

[Anita Blake]

and... I'm on a roll. A cooking with booze roll.

super-delicious Refried Beans (not vegetarian-friendly)

1 lb of pinto beans (1 bag)
1/2 lb (OK, I had 200g) salt pork
1 tsp epazote
1 dried chipotle pepper
1 tomato

Soak the beans over night. Or, if you didn't realize you were making these untli th emiddle of the afternoon, soak them in boiling water for a few minutes, turn off the heat, put the lid on the pot, and let them soak for an hour or two.

Make sure there's enough water to cover the beans. throw in the tomato (skinned - you can let it simmer for a minute or two and then peel off the skin to make it easier). Also put in the chipotle and the epazote. Simmer them on low heat for a half an hour-hour before your put in the salt pork, cubed. Let it all simmer together for another hour or two until the beans are nice and cooked. Test them by tasting them, If you think they can be mashed up and delicious, then they're probably ready.

Now, at this point I took out some of the salt-pork cubes because I didn't want quite so much fat. But you can leave them if you want, it will probably be OK.

Grab a stick-blender and blend the crap out of those beans, until they look soft and uniform. If they are too lumpy and thick, add more water. If they are too runny, you can simmer them for a but longer until they are the consistency you like.

Use these for tacos, or any other use you have for refried beans. They are f***ing delicious.