The non-grilling food thread

My award winning strawberry white chocolate cheesecakes. Taking it to the inlaws.

Hey! I have that same sponge! Small world.

I rarely grill - largely because it tends to set my smoke alarm off. Slow cooker is my friend - tender meat joints that just pull off the bone... slow casseroles that hug your stomach... mmm. Did venison in red wine and rosemary sauce the other day.

That or wok/saucepan meals. Thai curry is a favourite - I make up lots of the paste ahead of time and freeze it - then just defrost, stir into coconut milk and add meat, veg and rice.

Currently trying to go low-carb again so yesterday went for homemade celeriac soup for lunch, plus homemade chilli for dinner using konjac rice (this stuff: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Miracle-Rice-Shirataki-Konjac-150g/dp/B005CD3YCG). Both the rice and the thread noodles work OK in a strong sauce.

I had a nice breakfast of sopes, this morning. I ate out though and didn't make it myself.

Fuck is this shit?

Soap?

For breakfast? Are you Private Pyle?

Googles.

A sope (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈsope]) is a traditional Mexican dish originating in the central and southern parts of Mexico, where it was sometimes first known as pellizcadas. It is an antojito which at first sight looks like an unusually thick tortilla with vegetables and meat toppings. The base is made from a circle of fried masa (ground maize soaked in lime, also used as the basis for tamales and tortillas) with pinched sides. This is then topped with refried black beans and crumbled cheese, lettuce, onions, red or green sauce (salsa, made with chiles or tomatillos respectively), and acidified cream. Sometimes other ingredients (mostly meat) are also added to create different tastes and styles of sopes. Sopes are roughly the size of a fist.

Hmm. OK. You are forgiven. And given a fairly wide berth for the next few hours.

images upload

That would be a typical breakfast sope with beans, rice, corn, and what wver type of meat you ordered under it. The egg goes on top so the yolk can seep into everything. It is in a little pie crust kind of like a tart and generally people serve it "wet style" which means some sort of sauce poured over it.

image upload no size limit

That one shows a sope with meat and beans covered in salad and Mexican crema (thinned sour cream with lemon juice added). The orange slice gives you an idea of the size. Ypu can also see the edges of the little pie crust it is sitting in.

http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/03/28...ican-cuisine-youll-find-only-along-the-border

The Imperial Valley area really is the ass crack of America but one thing I do miss about the area is the Mexican-Chinese fusion food. It is unlike any other Chinese food you have ever had, it actually tastes great, and it has loads of history behind it explaining why it is found there and no where else. 130 years of history to be exact.

Listen to the NPR report above as it is both educational and entertaining.

@Dinner how far is the Imperial Valley from here, anyhow?

Oh, and a few nights ago, I stopped by that Halal store in City Heights for fresh ground lamb to use in a shepherd's pie. Just the smell alone was amazing! It's still in my house, but that's the fault of shitty building with no ventilation . But the taste! It was wasted in a shepherd's pie. I'll have to go back for a different cut like a shoulder steak. Best place ever!

About 115 miles. It is desert but the drive is nice as you go through the mountains and then decend down to the valley floor. Winter is a good time of year to go as it isn't hot but avoid going there in the summer.

Was it the spiced ground lamb or just ground lamb? At North Park Produce I saw they were selling goat stewing meat (not lamb but lean like lamb) pretty cheap. You just have to catch them when they have a sale.

Don't know why you would eat halal meat, being as it's prepared for savage animals. Don't you stick by your own principles?

Just the regular lamb. Had a bit more grease than I remember from the last time I cooked ground lamb, but so worth it!

There are several great Chaldean/Assyrian markets in El Cajon too. Great exotic flavor combinations but since they are christians they also include things like pork and wine on the menu.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jan/11/whet-noodle-restaurant-opens-in-oceanside/

I have to say I like both Bull Taco (try their lobster, bacon, and charizo taco) and the Wrench & Rodent. The Kentucky Fried Tuna heads are actually tasty, affordable, and makes a cool entry to nose to tail dinning turning a waste product (the heads of the fish caught by the local tuna fishing industry) into a crunchy deliciois snack.

The whole ramen noodle craze has jumped the shark though, I think. There are like a dozen of them in Clairemont Mesa alone and they are now popping up in just about every suburban shopping mall so they simply must be reaching the saturation point.

"Kentucky Fried Tuna"? Fish sperm chowder? Sounds.... yeah....um.

Ha ha ha ha. I can't believe @Dinner reporting this post as "trolling".

Talk about being so sensitive he'll read trolling into anything. I bet if I posted "the sun came out" he'd get bent out of shape about it. Apparently I'm not not even allowed to read any articles he posts and comment on the contents....

Just to be clear, folks, it's okay to say "I don't like this food." That's neither trolling nor flaming.

I used this one as an example of trolling, @gul.

I did a nice Ethiopian lamb dish last night - had to Google the name (berbere) as some fecker has not returned my cookbook, but the ingredients stay in the noggin.

Dry-fry 500g minced lamb with a chopped onion. Once the lamb has browned, tip off most the liquid.

Finely chop a birdseye chili, a bell pepper (any colour) and a 1x2inch piece of root ginger. Add to the lamb and onions and cook in.

Add at least 1 teaspoon each (to your own taste, I add more cumin) of ground cumin, paprika (not smoked), cinnamon, coriander (seed not leaf), ground cloves and turmeric. Also bash open six to eight cardamom pods and grind up the seeds a bit, then add along with the seed pods.

Season with black pepper and salt.

Add a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes.

Stir through and add a little water so it's not too thick and gloopy.

Get up to a bubble then reduce heat to allow it to simmer down for about 1 hour - add small amounts of water if it's getting too thick, but it shouldn't be runny at the end. The spice aromas should be coming through when ready.

Just before serving, add a sprinkle of pine nuts, then serve with plain rice.

Warning for dieters - it's a calorie-rich dish. The lamb alone is marked as ~1175 kcals for the packet (though not sure how much you remove by tipping off the excess fat) and I'd say this dish serves 2-4 depending on appetite (I got two meals out of it, my mother would probably eat half to 2/3rds that) so if you add rice on top it's an issue (the rest of the veg doesn't add much, maybe 200 kcals?). I used konjac rice with no noticeable effect on taste or texture so was only ~600-700 kcal, but proper rice would likely add a good 200 per serving.

Does anybody have a good and easy tikka-masala recipe? I have some left over tuna steak that I think would be pretty awesome in that sauce. I suppose I can just buy a bottle of the stuff, but maybe there's a better way to do it.

No, you linked to the Kentucky Fried Tuna one as your example of the "third instance" of trolling. Go look in your whine thread.

With spices from scratch?

Otherwise I'd say buy a paste if you can get it and mix it with chopped red pepper, chopped (or tinned) tomatoes and onions, garlic, some lemon juice and a couple tablespoons if yoghurt. It'll be a rough approximation.

This looks pretty good, but maybe not worth the effort with leftovers:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/oven-baked-salmon-recipe.html

That sounds good. I like to go to Ethiopian restaurants but have never tried to cook it myself at home. I will have to try sometime.

I will just need to look up a few more recipes and figure out where they sell tef flour.

That does look good but some of it sounds a bit over complicated. I like to keep it simple with salmon; just butter, salt, pepper, a little dill, and lemon at the end.

I think if I was preparing something from scratch, with fresh fish or other meat, I would likely go with the recipe. But this is a quick leftover job -- I just want to poor some slop on the fish, heat it for a few minutes, then throw it all on some rice. So yeah, too complicated for the current interest, but I've bookmarked the recipe for later. I have all of the ingredients on hand, so next time I swing by the butcher, I'll just pick up some chicken or lamb and go for it.

Swap the regular butter for garlic butter and pan fry in olive oil. Add the dill fresh at the end and lemon half way through cooking. Trust me. Nowt beats a crispy salmon skin.

Also good with Caribbean jerk seasoning.

I found myself in La Mesa today so I stopped by Vine Ripe Market (owned by people from the former Yugoslavia mostly selling stuff from the Balkans, Turkey, or eastern Europe) for some fresh baked burek. I hadn't had any since I left Kosovo but it tasted just as good as I remembered.


photo share

That is a generic picture but the one I got today had minced meat, cheese, chopped spinach for a filling.

More cuisine from Islamic culture.