What's cooking?

I don't know if I mention it in the recipe but feel free to adjust the spices and such to your taste. I always throw more of whatever's needed in it until my taste buds are happy.

The pizza dough, soon to be bread for the muffalata, is still working itself off in the refrigerator set near 32°F. It's been 7 days now and I need to warm rise it and bake it. Hopefully this weekend or it'll be ruined IMO. I'll still bake it off and see what happens no matter when I get to it.

The next food experiment in my sights are smashed burgers. http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/03/the-f...ashin.html

I got the suggested spatula/scraper in today. Now it's just a matter of either finding burger meat in the freezer or buying some. But I like the idea of really developing the flavor of meat through the Maillard reaction, and I already use it as often as I can. This should be interesting... juicy burger and taste from burger juices and Maillard , or flavor from Maillard and juiciness from cheese? I already know that I'll prefer the burger cooked indoors instead of outdoors at -30 for the sheer convenience of it. :-)

I made the ultra smashed burger tonight (3). Two for myself as I wanted to try different toppings and such, and one for the wife.

I have to experiment more with this. I think I need a hotter pan. My IR thermometer was clearly having problems reading the temp of the shiny pan. So I waited and put on the first burgers when I thought it was hot enough. Those were the best of my 2. They stuck and were clearly the tastiest. Then I did my other burger which wasn't as tasty. Note to self... use the big burner and give the pan time to recover. I allowed the pan time to recover when I did the wifes and it was more like the first burger.

These burgers are fast to make! As the recipe states, about 1 minute. The flavor is promising, but I need a hotter pan which will develop the flavor even more. Yeah, I'm going to make them again. Next time though one burger is plenty for me.

I don't know if I mentioned it, but I made some slow fermentation pizza dough to bake into loaves for NOLA muffeletta (sp?) sandwiches. OK, not precisely muffelettas, but my bastardized version of the sandwich. It was delicious and I'm salivating just thinking about it again.

We make sub sandwiches and I was expecting much the same but in a different form. No, that wasn't at all what resulted. I didn't use the traditional meats, instead I sub'ed Polish ham, hard salami, and sandwich pepperoni. I also didn't open the jar of roasted red peppers and instead used some Harrissa. So instead of an Italian sandwich from New Orleans I had an international sandwich. I have 3 more 1/4s of the sandwich yet to eat. Yes, I would make it again in a heartbeat; it's a keeper.

I have a few changes to make to the bread, but that's minor. One of the changes might be the shape.

What to cook? Pork fried rice or LoMein? LoMein won out since it's been awhile. I make fried rice at the drop of a hat and it's no big deal.

The other night I made spaghetti. Yeah I know pretty mundane. But I wanted the leftover noodles for pork LoMein which I made last night. I had a teriyaki marinated pork tenderloin to cook (sliced into medallions then fried and thin sliced after cooking). Then It's mostly readying the veggies; green onions, green pepper, broccoli, snow peas, julianned carrot. Some canned bamboo shoots were added. I thought I had water chestnuts in the larder, but I never found any; bummer! After that it's just assembly over the fire and that happens rapidly. The addition of some oyster sauce and soy sauce with some water and corn starch slurry makes the sauce that coats everything. Sometimes I add homemade ginger extract, but not this time. I like Chinese spaghetti! Not more than Italian spaghetti, but I like it a lot since it has everything in one pan. Tonight I'll finish up the rest of the noodles with tomato sauce and meatballs. There is one more meal of leftover LoMein for the 2 of us, but not for tonight.

BTW, I got a Chefs Choice TrizorXV for Christmas. The wife wanted to get me something and it's been on my want list for quite some time and always gets shoved to the back of the list. Anyway, after testing it I changed all of my knives to the 15° grind angle from the European 20° angle. What an incredible difference! I highly recommend the sharpener. Just be aware that it's no longer the knife you once knew. It'll be MUCH sharper! Yes, it takes awhile to change the grind angle on a knife; many passes. Now I'd like to get a Japanese knife that's got only a 15° grind on one side. I can't even imagine it!

Today I am cooking flat iron steak, potatoes, green peppers, topped with cream of mushroom sauce. Taste better than it looks.

ShadowsDad I do use a Japanese chef knife - a gyuto - and it's great. A bit of an upgrade from my old heavy calphalon knives.

[Image: xiPhdwo.jpg]

Greg, I was letting the palate in my mind look at that dish and it decided it would be delicious. It just looks like a stew to me.

I've been looking at the Dalstrong, S series, Shogun, but I just don't need more knives. Too, I don't need the maintenance of whetstone sharpening. I'm trying to simplify things. Oh well, I can at least look.

http://www.dalstrong.com/shogun-series

Today I am cooking flat iron steak, potatoes, green peppers, topped with cream of mushroom sauce. Taste better than it looks.

ShadowsDad I do use a Japanese chef knife - a gyuto - and it's great. A bit of an upgrade from my old heavy calphalon knives.

[Image: xiPhdwo.jpg]

Greg, what's the matter with you?!  It LOOKS delicious!  In fact, I can almost smell and taste it.

Greg, I was letting the palate in my mind look at that dish and it decided it would be delicious. It just looks like a stew to me.

I've been looking at the Dalstrong, S series, Shogun, but I just don't need more knives. Too, I don't need the maintenance of whetstone sharpening. I'm trying to simplify things. Oh well, I can at least look.

http://www.dalstrong.com/shogun-series

Haha. Yeah I was thinking it's more like a stew even though the 'soup' and 'meat & potatoes' were combined at plating.

The knives are nice looking. I am no expert but they may be questionable. Fakespot.com gave the review quality a C. Just trying to look out and help that is all. Plus it doesn't appear to be single bevel and I think that is what you are looking for(?). Are you specifically looking for damascus steel? Have you checked out www.kitchenknifeforums.com ?

Today I am cooking flat iron steak, potatoes, green peppers, topped with cream of mushroom sauce. Taste better than it looks.

ShadowsDad I do use a Japanese chef knife - a gyuto - and it's great. A bit of an upgrade from my old heavy calphalon knives.

[Image: xiPhdwo.jpg]

Greg, what's the matter with you?!  It LOOKS delicious!  In fact, I can almost smell and taste it.

Thanks, Freddy. You're right, it doesn't look to shabby.