Recipe Thread

[SkyGriever]

As suggested by Frosted, let's get a recipe thread going! I'll start with the slow cooker carnitas I made. Hopefully you'll like it as much as I did.

 

Ingredients

5 lb pork shoulder (pork butt), skinless, bone-in (4lb without bone)

1 onion, coarsely chopped

1 jalapeno, seeded and ribs removed, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

3 oranges, juice only

salt and pepper to liking

 

Rub

1 tbsp dried oregano

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tbsp olive oil

 

Instructions

1- Rinse and dry the pork shoulder, rub in salt and pepper.

2- Combine the rub ingredients then rub all over the pork.

3- Place the pork in a slow cooker (fat cap up), top with the onion, jalapeño, minced garlic (don't worry about spreading it) and squeeze over the juice of the orange.

4- Cook on low for 8 to 10 hours or on high for 6 hours. (Personal preference is 10 hours on low)

5- Remove from the slow cooker and let cool slightly, shred it using two forks.

6- Skim off the fat from the juices remaining in the slow cooker and discard the fat. Then if you are left with a lot more than 1½ to 2 cups of juice, reduce it.

 

Now, if you're gonna store it, pour the juices over the pulled pork and store in airtight containers or ziplock bags. If you're gonna serve them at the moment, throw some pork on a pan and press it so you get that bottom nice and crispy and then pour the juices over it and serve.

 

 

Now let's hear it, what other easy, tasty recipes you got?

 

 

 

[FMW]

Bookmarked.  I have Thursday off and will be making this.  Will report upon completion.

 

Edit:  Superbowl is in a week.  Doing this for Superbowl instead.  Will still report upon completion.

[FMW]

I've come back to post my results!  I made this recipe and it is 100% delicious.  Here are the changes I made:

 

1.  My pork shoulder wouldn't fit in my slow cooker, so I just put it in the cast iron dutch oven and put that in the oven on low heat for 8 hours instead.

 

2.  I gave the bottom of the pork shoulder a sear in my biggest frying pan before starting the slow cooking or adding any liquid just to get that nice crispy bit at the bottom and it wouldn't all just be drowned in juices.

 

3.  I used orange juice off the shelf instead of juicing oranges because I'm cheap.

 

4.  I added a step for the sauce.  After pouring out the liquid from around the pork butt I put it in a tupperware and let it sit in the refrigerator for about in hour.  That let the fat separate up top and coagulate.  Then I just spooned it out.  Because that much fat is gross.  That also got me down to the correct liquid amount without having to reduce it much.

 

5.  I used two jalapenos because I like it hot.

 

This made a ton of delicious pulled pork and it made the entire apartment building smell delicious.

[Mal]

Easy recipe eh?

 

Green Onion Pancake

 

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour + some for dusting your work surface/hands/etc

1 cup boiling water

1 bunch of green onions, just the greens

 

Sesame oil (any oil can work) for coating

Salt

Cooking oil

 

Equipment

Wooden spoon to mix (you can replace this with a food processor)

Bowl
Rolling pin

Brush (for the oil coating) A rubber spatula might work?

Bench scraper (it's nice to have to well, scrape a bench)

 

---

1. Little by little (<1/4 cup) mix in the boiling water to the flour until it is kind of holding together. As it get closer to coming together, drop down to 1 table/teaspoon at a time till it's sort of together. It can be still clumpy and uneven, you'll kneed it uniform later. If you try to get it uniform in the bowl, I can almost guarantee you it'll stick to everything as you try to kneed it. The exterior will be dry while the interior will be a sticky mess waiting to be unleashed. Now...
2. BEFORE you handle the dough, dust your hands and work surface with flour lightly. Keep some extra flour on the surface on the side in case things get sticky (AKA too much water).
3. Kneed it for 5-10 minutes till you can't believe it's not Play-Doh. It'll be smooth and shouldn't stick to anything.
4. Place in a bowl (dust the used bowl if you plan to reuse it or better yet, clean and dry) and cover with plastic wrap or damp towel for 30 minutes.
5. Chop your washed and dry (!) green onions, fine but a bit coarse is fine. Have the salt handy.

Now, it is up to you to use a floured surface or an oiled one. I prefer floured since I hate oily hands.

1. Divide your dough into fourths and roll out a fourth into roughly 7-8 inch disk.
2. Coat with oil of your choice, add salt, green onions and roll it up like a bill that you'll use to snort cok- flour.
3. Roll/coil it up in a way that one end can overlap the over, in an @ or puck shape. Flatten with your palm slightly to keep it together then roll it out to 7 inch disk.
4. Set aside and do the same with the other three fourths.
5. Let each pancake rest 10 minutes... your first pancake should be about done by the fourth one completion.

Optional : At step 2b, don't lay down the green onions, do step 3, and repeat 2. Ideally it should come out flakier.

1. Time for cooking, heat some oil (enough to swirl the pancake in) over med-med high heat. Go to hell electric stove! Fire is power!
2. Cook each side until golden brown, about 2 minutes each side.
3. Serve as is if salted enough or have it with some dipping sauce.

I suggest having a look around to double check my recipe. It should be pretty much the same as any one. The optional step came from Serious Eats. Anyhow...

 

I've been making it since last week or so. In my opinion, the boiling water and managing moisture content is a must. What you want is minimum gluten development to the point that it can be flaky but has a nice chew. Boiling water helps with that since it breaks down everything. Managing moisture content is critical so this doesn't become a mess. Once you get the workflow down it can be made with minimum fuss.

The story behind me making this is that I'm very familiar with the frozen ones or the ones from restaurants. The frozen ones are flaky but has a nice chew. Restaurant ones can vary but they can come stuffed with meat (my goal, oddly I cannot find a recipe). So yes, this recipe is very modifiable and I bet freezable (I tried it today, cooking time/heat will need modification). You can forego the onions and make it plain. I tried it with sesame seeds to pretty good success. One thing to note is that the dough recipe is pretty much dumpling dough. It uses the same process of boiling water and flour.
 

Take away: this recipe is easy in the sense it can really just be flour, water and oil. You can modify and iterate on the fly. Hell, this recipe scales well too. Just get some amount of dough and water to the right consistency and you're good. If you want to nail down the recipe quickly, you can do half portions batch a day. Add in some Can-Do spirit and I bet you can put a Chinese grandma to shame.

[FMW]

Does anyone have a decent recipe for fish curry?  I'm having trouble finding one that I trust.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Any of you have a foolproof brownie recipe, or tips for making them fudgy/chewy inside with the crisp shiny top? Mine often seem to turn out cakey and I'm not sure what I do wrong.

 

Edit. Yay, got it to work. Beat the mixture for a good long while before you add the flour to get he good top and just be be brave and take the brownie out of the oven before the skewer comes out clean. Quite simple now I know.