The non-grilling food thread

The steak: coated in coffee grounds and brown sugar before frying.

The sauce: Beer, whiskey, a little maple syrup, baby portabellos and scallions.

Not perfect, but a decent meal.

I'll play...

A lamb pizza on store-bought naan bread with onions, spinach, cilantro on top of spicy barbecue and Cracker Barrel's Mediterranean Herb cheese. I'm getting hungry for another one looking at that photo.

Another lamb recipe using ground lamb. I can't get enough of it since the commissary started selling lamb once more.

This is a lamb burger stuffed with green onion (since I had some left over from another recipe) and mild green chilies, spinach, sauteed green onion leaves and red pepper, and topped with a yogurt sauce of mint, lemon juice, mustard powder and a dash of allspice for sweetness. Surprisingly, my favorite part of the dish was the sauce, which I'll toss on the remaining spinach as a standalone salad.

Since there aren't any interesting teams playing football today, I assume most of us will see the Superbowl as a food opportunity. Anybody got big plans? I'm going to give homemade wings a try.

We bought a large fryer last fall, big enough for a small turkey, which was how we cooked one of the birds for Thanksgiving. I've never made wings before, but I'm tired of the substandard effort most places around here put forward. We used to have an amazing wing place, but the owner was a flake and he closed down. Actually, he's done this three times now, that's how much of a flake he is.

Anyway, I'm on my own and I want it done right. I figure the fryer basket can hold about ten pounds of wings, and I plan to do plain salt and pepper, teriyaki, and buffalo. I know the basic process, and have a good idea on how to prepare the sauces. But I'd welcome advice from anybody who has already gone there.

You've fried regular ol' chicken before, no? It's pretty much the same process, but a shorter cooking time. At least, that's my experience.

But for the record, I tried dipping wings into a buttermilk/hot sauce blend and it gave my chicken just enough kick to be spicy without overwhelming the taste buds nor did it need to be drowned with sauce afterwards.

Not a great picture, but here are the wings. They were pretty tasty, especially the first batch which was nice and crispy. I didn't have the oil hot enough on the second round, and the texture wasn't quite right, but still not bad for my first try.

AB has never steered me in the wrong direction.

It may seem hard to believe, but I've been trying to build this sub for about 20 years. There was a place near campus that I patronized heavily in college that had the perfect salami sub (Captain Nemo's in Kenmore Square, lamentably lost to the wrecking ball of gentrification). I've never known quite what they did to make it so good. The ingredients are easy enough to figure out and find, the technique is clear cut, but I've made dozens of subs that just didn't quite make the grade. Behold! I have finally solved the puzzle, and I present the perfect Nemo's style salami sub! The solution was using stale bread. The roll in the picture was bought a week ago, and low and behold, that did the trick.

Every time one of my favorite restaurants gets destroyed, a little part of me dies in side.

And no, that part isn't the fat cells.

Another go at buffalo wings, I think I nailed it, too bad I forgot to buy celery.

My local taco joint has added fish tacos to the menu!

Ooh, those look good!

Fish tacos are great! I had some once made with mahi-mahi.

That looks pretty good but I can't see if they're using proper crema or not plus there should be two tortillas instead of one but at least those are obviously white corn tortillas which is good. Ideally they should have a masa lady who makes the tortillas fresh right in front of you and the recipe for the batter is key. As you can probably tell people in San Diego are very particular about their fish tacos as that is our regional claim to fame food stuff.

Does that place have gobernador tacos on their menu? If so then try one. Another one of my favorites are smoked marlin tacos plus I love to order those pismo clams (as big as your fist) which they chop up and turn into a clam cocktail right in front of you which they serve in the clam shell.

I'm pretty up to date on proper fish tacos. I've lived in both California and Mexico. These did not have the proper white sauce, which I wouldn't describe as crema anyway, although that's not far off. The sauce they had was good, but spicier. The other issue I had was that they uised lettuce instead of cabbage. As for the tortillas, they do use two, maybe the picture doesn't show it. Anyway, the place does, for the most part, a very authentic street cart style of taco. The other options beside fish, which are awesome, are carne, pollo, carnitas, chorizo, cabeza, lengua, and campechinas. I usually go for the carnitas or chorizo. I don't think they make their own tortillas, although they do make their own masa for tamales, so I suppose it's a possibility. They are by far, the best tacos I've had in the East, and they're right around the corner!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/11/15/245442083/coffee-maker-cooking-brew-up-your-next-dinner

For the really cutting edge (or just crazy) folks even their coffee maker is a way to cook dinner.

I didn't know where to post that but cooking with a coffee maker seems to qualify as non-grilling.

Made the following just last week:

Seafood Scampi
1 stick salted butter, melted (= 1/2 C)
juice of 1 lemon (~1/4 C )
1 tsp minced garlic
1/4 C white cooking wine
1 envelope Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix - Buttermilk version
1 tsp parsley
1 lb uncooked seafood of your choice (shrimp scallops, and/or calamari work best IMO).

Mix ingredients together in large Ziploc bag or container.
Add seafood to marinate for 1 hour.
Pour all ingredients into broiler pan or shallow baking dish.
Broil @ 500 degrees for approximately 5-7 minutes.

Serve over angel hair pasta. My preferred side items with this are asparagus and crusty bread.

KJ made stir-fry tonight:

Picked up some potato-based gnocchi on the cheap. KJ put pasta sauce and chickpeas on it and it turned out pretty nice. The gnocchi was soft, but not unpleasantly so by any means.

I just got some pasta making attachments for my Kitchen Aid. I'd heard that the difference between fresh pasta and store bought pasta was the same as fresh asparagus vs canned.


I heard right.

I've got out of town friends coming this weekend, and we're making lasagna.

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-mak...ecipe-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchen-110760

I made this last night and it was almost perfect. First time I ever baked a cake.

Damn, I forgot about that lamb pizza I made earlier in the thread. I miss having money to do shit like that.

Has this ever happened to you?

No, I can honestly say it hasn't.

I'm processing some apple cider I just made with the old apple press my wife's grandmother gave me. I'm trying 1/2 gala, 1/4 macintosh, and 1/4 granny smith.

Hard cider?

Nah, just apple juice filtered with cheese cloth type cider. I want to try making apple wine, and then apple jack at some point. The wife had some warm with a cinnamon stick in it, and it tasted just like an apple pie.

Several generations back, one of my ancestors had an apple mill. Make hard cider for all the surrounding counties. I do like apple jack, tho. Friend of mine keeps trying to get me to try apple moonshine.