Interesting Food Recipes

[Penguinetti]

Okay, so I was away on business and I had a kitchen. So I took my Irish and Polish cooking books and cooked simple meals for myself. This got me to thinking about interesting recipes from cultures around the world. So let's start something here:

Post up any recipes you have you deem interesting or culturally significant or wierd or maybe just one that you love.

Here's an interesting one I found in my Polish cooking book:

Blueberry Soup:
2 pints blueberries
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white wine
3 tablespoons sugar
1 cup sour cream

Boil the water and sugar. Add the blueberries and cook till they pop. Push through a sieve and let cool. Add the sour cream and white wine. Serve cold.

[Altricious]

If I share my super-secret recipes, they won't be special anymore!

Seriously though, 99% of what I cook is entirely off the cuff. I only use recipes when it's necessary for the chemistry (mead, some baking, etc) or if it's truly special, like handed down through the family.

The rest of the time, a recipe is just inspiration.

[akueck]

Originally Posted by Altricious

Seriously though, 99% of what I cook is entirely off the cuff. I only use recipes when it's necessary for the chemistry (mead, some baking, etc) or if it's truly special, like handed down through the family.

The rest of the time, a recipe is just inspiration.

This is entirely our MO as well. It makes "how did you make this?" a really difficult question to answer. "Well, I can tell you what's in it, but not how much...."

[Sadie Lady]

Super Easy Linguini and Clam Sauce:

2 - 10 ounce cans of white clam sauce
2 - 6 ounce cans chopped or minced clams, drained
Heat on the stove till bubbly, turn it down, wait for the pasta to get done.

Boil the linguini, add the sauce, loads of Parmesan cheese. Sun dried tomatoes on the side for topping.

We're making it now and throw in a bottle of Chianti.

If you are are low in iron, 10 small clams = 27 mg of iron compared to 2.8 mg in a cup of boiled spinach.

[Altricious]

Originally Posted by akueck

This is entirely our MO as well. It makes "how did you make this?" a really difficult question to answer. "Well, I can tell you what's in it, but not how much...."

Yeah, I made dip for a family gathering and everyone loved it. Problem was it was a total random creation. I had fresh apples and needed to make an appetizer, so I browsed some recipes for inspiration. Then, I completely changed about half the ingredients so it was a "season to taste" thing. Of course, everyone loved it. I half-assed a recipe to share, but it will never be the same.

[Chevette Girl]

I like polenta. My mom's recipe was from my Romanian great-grandmother, although I've been using a recipe from Gordon Ramsay as a base, but of course I can't ever leave anything alone so I always mess with it... haven't yet made it the same way twice.

1/2 lb corn meal
600 ml each water and milk (about 2.5 cups each)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp spices (recipe calls for thyme but I prefer oregano or tex-mex)
3/4 tsp salt (recipe calls for 1 but I found it too salty)
2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
2 tbsp butter

Recipe says to boil the water, milk, salt, spices and oil in a big pot, then slowly trickle the corn meal in, I've found it works about the same if you mix the corn meal with the cold liquids and then stir constantly until it boils... it also avoids that dangerous splattery stage I hate so much... then cook it, stirring almost constantly for 15-20 minutes, add the butter and parmesan, stir it in well, then pour into greased square 8x8 pan, allow to cool, recipe says cut into wedges but I prefer strips, then fry them to serve. Recipe says to dredge in seasoned flour then fry in butter but I find just frying it in butter or bacon fat is still awesome and as long as I'm careful, it doesn't stick to the cast iron pan if for some reason I don't bother with the teflon.

And it's been a while since I've had it, I think I'm gonna go make me some now! Maybe I'll try it with Herbs de Provence this time...

[Sadie Lady]

Originally Posted by Chevette Girl

I like polenta. My mom's recipe was from my Romanian great-grandmother...

This sounds good, I had no idea how you made it, I've seen it in the store before, pre-made.

[Chevette Girl]

My great grandmother's recipe was a little different. Boil the water, trickle in the corn meal, then pour it in a baking dish, cover with cheese (and diced bell pepper if you can stand them, I can't so I use jalapenos), bake in the oven for half an hour or something till the cheese is melted and the polenta is firm... Mom calls it it mamaliga...

[Penguinetti]

I had a recipe for polenta as well, but it was cornmeal, water, butter, cheddar cheese, and then you take grilled corn on the cob and cut the corn off, and throw it in with the corn meal. I'll have to see if i can find the recipe when i go home.

Originally Posted by akueck

This is entirely our MO as well. It makes "how did you make this?" a really difficult question to answer. "Well, I can tell you what's in it, but not how much...."

Originally Posted by Altricious

Yeah,.. I half-assed a recipe to share, but it will never be the same.

Oh come on, you two... That's the lazy man's way out.

Use your memory makers and try to give us something savory. Or sweet. No preference to either.

[Chevette Girl]

Ooh, here's one...
My standard chocolate cake recipe for which I no longer need to look at the recipe is called Wowie Cake and it's a kid's recipe that's supposed to be mixed up in the dish in which you bake it, although I prefer to mix it in a bowl and pour into muffin cups or a lined cake pan... I discovered a few months ago that if I have leftover batter (sometimes it's too much for a dozen muffin cups), mix in an egg and it makes awesome chocolate pancakes...

whisk together 1 cup sugar (will work with splenda as long as you don't mess with the flour), 1.5 cups flour (I often use whole wheat or gluten free flours for this), 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/3 to 1/2 cup cocoa powder... take a 2 cup measuring cup, add 1/2 cup oil (or cut the oil with applesauce for the lower fat version, but you do need at least a few tbsp of oil), top it up with cold water to 1.5 cups total, add 1 tbsp vinegar and 1 tsp vanilla, mix the whole works together till it's smooth, makes at least a dozen cupcakes or an 8x8 or 9x9 cake, I do one and a half times the recipe for my 12" round cakepan. Bake at 350F for 20 min cupcakes, 40 min 8x8, start checking at 30 min for 12" round cake pan, bake until toothpick comes out clean. Oh, and don't eat while warm, this recipe's best if made the day before. Except if you make pancakes with the excess

[Guinlilly]

Haluski is one of our favorites. It's a polish cabbage & egg noodle dish.

You need:
1 lb bacon
1 head of cabbage
1 onion
egg noodles

Fry the bacon in a large skillet (we use cast iron), remove, & chop.
Roughly shred the cabbage (about the same size as the noodles) and chop the onion.
Add the cabbage and onion to the bacon grease with some salt and pepper, cook covered so you are simultaneously steaming and frying. (May need to add a bit of water in the middle of cooking through)
Cook egg noodles 'til al dente. Drain.
Toss the egg noodles and cabbage mixture together.
Enjoy!

[TheAlchemist]

Mmmmm...more bacon...

But seriously...
Here's something like the recipe for my
Famous Drunken Pumpkin Bread
(no two batches are exactly alike, this is pumpkin bread impressionism, if you will...)

1C cornmeal
1C whole wheat flour
1 or 1 1/2C All Purpose flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp baking soda
1tsp salt
some cinnamon, cardamom, clove, fresh ground nutmeg (or mace), what-have-you, to taste
some veggie oil, maybe half a cup
3 or 4 eggs
2C pumpkin puree (made from pumpkin used in mead making, of course)
some lees, maybe 1/4 or 1/2C
1C (or more) honey (dark wildflower preferred)
1C (or less) sugar
6oz chocolate chips
1/2C (or more!) sunflower seeds or coarse chopped walnuts or pecans

2 or 3 bread pans, oiled and floured
Bake @ 350F ~1h

Enjoy!

[Altricious]

Originally Posted by Penguinetti

Oh come on, you two... That's the lazy man's way out.

Use your memory makers and try to give us something savory. Or sweet. No preference to either.

Since when should I make more work for myself?

But, to appease you, I shall provide not one, but TWO lovely, but entirely estimated, recipes.

First, the aforementioned apple dip. In addition to being a tasty dip, everyone decided it was yummy on their turkey sandwich. I expect it would be really good on other meats too.

1 1/2 to 2 cups apples (may include up to 1/2 cup other fruit)
1 1/2 tbsp horseradish
1 tbsp dill
1/2 tbsp ginger
1 tbsp black pepper
8 oz cream cheese

Puree all ingredients until uniform. I blend it all together with a hand blender.

Second, we have quince paste. You see, my parents bought a new house last year and it turned out to have a quince bush. I don't know how many of you are familiar with them. There are several species and I don't know if they're all as miserable to work with as mine. They're halfway between apples and pears except they're harder, smaller and have a larger core. Basically, a chore to process. So, after I had struggled to peel and core them for another recipe, I had to find something to do with them that was not so miserable.

My solution was quince paste, but I completely inverted the recipes I had found for it. Quince paste is kind of like jam/jelly, except you cure it in pan instead of putting it in a jar. I'm sorry this recipe will read like it's difficult, but trust me, it's faster and easier than the alternative method and is completely scalable.

Take your pile of quince. Cut in half and fill a pot. Make sure there aren't a lot of gaps, then add just enough water to reach top of fruit. Simmer for 30 to 40 minutes until soft and pink. Next, get out your food mill (You know, that gadget with the auger that separates fruit from the skin and seeds?) You can also use the manual process of mashing and pressing through a sieve. They're soft now, so either way would not be difficult. Use a slotted spoon to remove the fruit from the pot and process them. You will end up with a bowl of what looks like dark pink applesauce. Remove any seeds/garbage from the liquid in the pot. Weigh your mashed quince, then weigh out an equal amount of sugar (or a little less). Dissolve the sugar in the liquid, add the mashed quince and simmer until very thick. May take an hour or two. The longer you cook it in the pan, the faster it will finish the next step. When ready, spread in a pan lined with parchment paper and put oven at the lowest setting. I had to flip mine over once to expose the wet underside. When it's ready, you'll be able to cut it up into strips. Seal up and store in the fridge. Use like jam or eat with mild cheese.

[Matrix4b]

Prior to coming into the fold of brewing I came up with a spiced apple cider that I do for parties in the winter. Partly inspired by my uncle. Turns out slightly different each time but always complements.

Take a cookpot, about 1 1/2 gal size, not a brew pot, too big.

Take whole, perferablly organic, apple juice and pore 1 galon or so in to the pot.
Slice into wedges 1/2 an apple, dice the rest.
Fill up the apple with whole cloves about 1/2 centemeter apart at most, should be about 20 cloves or so.
Put all of the apples in the mix.
Put in 1 tablespoon vanilla extract.
Put in 1 whole nutmeg, freshly crushed.
Put in 3-4 cinnimon sticks. When the sticks all fall apart and begin to disintegreat you know it's done. Also the apple being nice and cooked and mushy is a good indicator, I like removing cubes as test subjects to see if it is done. Yum.
Put in about 1/2 to 1 pound of honey.
Sometimes I like to mix some cherry juice or some blueberry juice or even some raspberry juice. Not neccessary but it makes it a bit more complex of a flavor. Sometimes I add the juice of 1/2 an orange and put the wedge into the mix as well.

Put it on simmer or very low, stirring occasionally and simmer for at least 8 hours, adding fresh whole apple juice as it boils down. The origional volume should go down by about 1/3, but reduced slowly.

As the party goes on add fresh apple juice to refill, keeping it on simmer. Makes the whole house smell great and tastes good. I used go to a caroling party and it was the perfect thing to warm people up. Also, many said it was an excelent mixer for rum or jack or burbon. Captian Morgan was the favorite rum to mix with it.

The mix can be kept going for several days with no ill effects but I did put it in the fridge once and it went black colored and also fermented after a week from wild yeast in the apple. I did purposely ferment some once as I had about 1 1/2 gal left over and it ended up ok but very spicy and I primarily use that as a base for a pork marinade, with a little thyme and sugar.

Matrix

[Wijnand]

Have a look at a show called "Heston's feast". It's a show where Heston Blumental tries to recreate some very interesting medieval recipes, my favourite was the Ejeculating Cake recipe, I'll have to try and make that one day!

[fatbloke]

Originally Posted by Wijnand

Have a look at a show called "Heston's feast". It's a show where Heston Blumental tries to recreate some very interesting medieval recipes, my favourite was the Ejeculating Cake recipe, I'll have to try and make that one day!

Heston Blumenthal does indeed, produce some amazing recipes, concoctions etc, but, most of us don't have the kind of finances provided by a couple of 3 star Michelin restraunts and successful TV programmes do we.

dunno about you, but I'd have no idea where to get the liquid nitrogen to try the 30 second ice cream recipe/method..........

Oh, and I understand that the waiting list for a table at one of his restraunts is hideous. And you'd need to take out a mortgage just for the "tasting menu" range of stuff at the Fat Duck.

[Penguinetti]

I'll have to check out his recipes then.

I still love Welsh Rarebit, but I have no idea if I have a traditional recipe or not...

Just looked at Fatbloke's link to the 'tasting menu'.

I would have to regretfully decline that price... I'm not really sure how this restaurant stays in business with that kind of price...

[TheAlchemist]

Originally Posted by Wijnand

Heston Blumental tries to recreate some very interesting medieval recipes, my favourite was the Ejeculating Cake recipe, I'll have to try and make that one day!

Recipe, please!
If it's medieval, how can it require liquid nitrogen?

[jens183]

Where is the food recipes containing mead ?

Anyway I got one for a mead soup:

1) Cook turkey bones with light mead(generous amounts) and water for as long as you like to make a real stock(6-48 h).
2) strain stock.
3) Add what vegetables you have. For example potatoes, rice, onions, carrots, mushrooms ...
4) Add a "good generous" amount of butter
5) Taste with salt, pepper
6) Add cream on serving

mmm

[Chevette Girl]

Something involving mead? Sure. Here's what I did last night

A couple pounds of pork "brisket bones" (kind of like ribs but usually with more meat, more fat, less bone) (they were on for a buck a pound so I filled the freezer)
2 onions, roughly chopped
maybe a cup of favourite cooking wine or mead (I used the wild grape stuff that refused to go all the way to vinegar)
spices, to taste (my wine's slightly salty, I used savoury, oregano and a sprinkle of cajun spice)
6 hours in the slow cooker on low

Yummmmmm...

It's really a finger food though, so serving it with mashed potatoes was an excercise in creativity if you have a thing about not getting gook on your cutlery.