Random cooking stuff - TTLG Forums

heywood on 27/5/2025 at 14:07

I finally bought my first rice cooker. Aroma 6-cup: a simple mechanical one with a magnet, dirt cheap, no electronics, no frills. It makes a perfect pot of rice, all evenly done, nothing stuck on the bottom, and takes 30 seconds to clean. It's the best $20 I've spent in a long time. I feel like an idiot now. I like to make various Asian foods, but I've been cooking rice in sauce pans all my life. How did I not discover this earlier? A fraternity friend of mine from Japan had a rice cooker in college, and some of my other friends have them, but they're all microprocessor controlled techno gadgets with a dozen modes, multi-line displays, and pressure sensitive buttons that scream designed obsolescence. I had no idea how effective a simple one with just a temperature-sensitive magnet could be.

I also recently discovered a new favorite way to make ribs. I was gifted a sous vide cooker a few years ago. I thought it was gimmicky at first, but I quickly warmed up to it. :cheeky: I use it more than I thought I would, especially in the winter. The family had been hounding me to smoke ribs ever since the winter snow melted off our deck. I finally agreed last week and bought a few racks of baby backs, but the rain and wind never let up. So I decided to try sous wide. I sprinkled on a rub and some liquid smoke, and vacuum sealed them in food saver bags. The next evening I took them out of the water bath, cut them up, sprinkled them with some corn starch, and deep fried them for a minute or two in some oil I had left over from making wings. I set a few aside naked and let the kids paint the rest with different sauces: a couple of BBQ sauces, teriyaki, and a few in Buffalo wing sauce. I'm not a big fan of ribs, so I'll usually smoke them for the family, and make something else for myself. But the sous vide + deep fried ribs were really good.

I also have a thing for charcoal grills.

Anybody else have favorite cooking equipment?

Azaran on 27/5/2025 at 14:34

I was gifted an air fryer a year ago, and really took to it. It works so well and fast, I was stunned. I make a mean chicken breast, seasoned in pepper paste. 20 minutes in the air fryer and it's done, juicy, and perfect

Nicker on 27/5/2025 at 17:56

We got an induction cooktop years ago to help keep the heat down in our apartment. So much faster and cooler. They don't give you the responsiveness of gas, especially with a wok, but we adapt.

I have never use the full sized oven, only a small, countertop convection oven. The air fryer is indispensable, fast and efficient. Plus all of these are portable so in the summer we can cook on the balcony and keep the place cooler.

I've heard quite a few people rave about sous vide. Maybe it's time.

Tocky on 28/5/2025 at 02:43

My wife cooks so well and enjoys it so much that I rarely do anything except prepare the meat but one thing I do sometimes is make breakfast. I always eat my eggs over easy and grease the pan with bacon first. Always I've used a cast iron skillet which works well once you get the spatula angle correct but often you wind up folding the edges and with three it's not always easy to turn without breaking the yellow. Then I started using a large square flat iron skillet. I don't know what the hell was wrong with me all those years using a high sided one. It's so easy to turn now I could use a wooden spatula if I want.

demagogue on 28/5/2025 at 03:24

I don't know if I can contribute too much.

I know little tricks, or maybe better considered family knowledge or personal touches, like putting a little vanilla extract into cornbread, putting some chopped onions or chives into mashed potatoes, and for potato salad I put something a little crunchy (tiny apple cubes and/or celery) and wasabi as a kicker. (I call it a green potato salad, since everything going in it is green. Green olives depend on how I'm feeling it.)

I got a way to cook a good filet mignon and pork chop, but I don't know if it's anything special. There's the aforementioned rub, and then I think it's just a matter of searing the outside with high heat to make it a little crispy and baking a short time to cook the inside but keeping it moist, but you can do it all on the stove too & IIRC it's usually fine.

Back in the day we used to bake bread with a machine to do that, and I loved making the different kinds of breads. But now I don't remember where that thing is and just get it fresh from a bakery anyway.

PigLick on 28/5/2025 at 06:20

Another advocate for the air fryer. I was always dubious about them but we got gifted one last year and it's great for quick meals and lunches, such as dumplings or gyozas, and crumbed stuff like fish or chicken strips. I have also been making my own char sui pork, suprisingly easy whereas I used to just buy it from the local Chinese BBQ place.

Nicker on 28/5/2025 at 11:49

Quote:

making my own char sui pork, suprisingly easy

Now you are just teasing us. Recipe or it never happened!! :mad:

heywood on 28/5/2025 at 12:38

I make char siu pork occasionally as well. I like to chop it up and wrap it in small balls of dough, then fry them in some oil. I don't know whether you call that a fried bao bun or char siu donut, but my kids go crazy for it.

I'm at work, so I don't have my recipe handy, but I think it was based on this:
(https://thewoksoflife.com/chinese-bbq-pork-cha-siu/) https://thewoksoflife.com/chinese-bbq-pork-cha-siu/

Sometimes I do the same thing with a filling of minced beef with a little onion and spices, kind of like a peremech but the meat is pre-cooked and sealed inside the dough instead of leaving an open hole for the oil to heat the meat through.

I wonder if an air fryer could produce similar results if I coated the outside of the dough in oil first. Do any of you have a combo air fryer/countertop oven? I have a toaster oven with a broken door hinge that needs replacing at some point. It would be great if I could replace it with something that can air fry, but I'm skeptical it would be as good as a basket style air fryer which has the fan blowing air through the heating element right down on the food. I think I'd need a big air fryer to cook for the four of us.

We had a bread machine too, back when that was a thing, and my wife used to make a lot of breads. I kind of miss it, especially eating bread so fresh it's still warm. My wife only cooks a few basic things now. She could live on microwave meals and pre-made salads from the store. I get bored and always want to try something new, so I do most of the cooking.

Azaran on 28/5/2025 at 14:09

I make my own bread too with a bread machine, but only use it for kneading the dough (machine bread tastes undercooked to me and has a weird texture).

Fairly simple recipe:
-3 cups of flour
(I often mix different ones, usually 2 cups of whole wheat or semolina, and a cup of something else like barley)
- 1 cup of warm water mixed with half a teaspoon of yeast
- 1 tablespoon of salt
- A teaspoon of olive oil

Add the water and olive oil into the machine first, followed by the flour and salt, and let it knead. Then let it proof for a few hours in a covered bowl (I warm up my oven, turn it off and leave the bowl overnight). Finally I put it into a bread form and cook it in the oven for half hour at 450 f. I've taken more of a liking to my own bread than storebought.
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A coffee trick: if you want to reduce the amount of sweetener, just add a tiny bit of salt (like a grain or so) to your coffee: it cuts the natural bitterness of the coffee

PigLick on 28/5/2025 at 15:12

Yeh that woks of life bbq pork recipe is pretty much how I make it, but molasses isnt really available here so I substitute Golden Syrup. I also usually leave out the red food coloring.