What can you cook?

[DavyJones]

Hi all. A big interest of mine over the past couple years has been the art of cooking. Although I am only a college student, I often spend my Sunday afternoons slaving away over the store trying to make some new creation. I enjoy cooking, and indeed find it a relaxing and rewarding experience. It is fun to challenge yourself by attempting new dishes of increasing skill, and to tweak old classics by adding a little bit of this and less of that. Last Sunday I tried my arm at an old French classic, Coq au Vin. It is chicken that is cooked in wine (traditionally Burgundy, but you can also use a dry red, normally Pinot Noir for this dish) along with some other ingredients. In the end you end up with a very rich sauce, which I complimented with a French potato dish called Pommes Anna. I was rather proud of it, so I thought I'd share, and see what other people on the forum enjoy cooking. I can also make some excellent Indian and Thai curry dishes, both of which I have taken from base recipes and then tweaked a bit to where I would consider them my version, I can make a mean baked gourmet macaroni and cheese, and when I'm feeling extra zealous, I will whip up Flan from scratch, which is actually rather difficult. So here are a few pics of the Coq au Vin during cooking and on the plate.

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<a href="http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm317/herrkaleun7/?action=view&current=IMG_3361.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm317/herrkaleun7/IMG_3361.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm317/herrkaleun7/?action=view&current=IMG_3367.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm317/herrkaleun7/IMG_3367.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

 

[Jefforever]

Lookin' good!

The only thing I can cook well is Chinese sweet and sour chicken.

I'm working on Pad Thai Noodles, as that is one of my favorite foods.

 

[Cindy]

Shark's fin soup.

Until I stopped eating it after finding out about the cruelty towards sharks and the high mercury level in the fins.

Living in Singapore, I have learnt to cook at least one dish from every race well.
Curry fishhead (Indian)
Mee rebus (Malay)
Oxtail stew (Caucasian)
etc

But my best dishes are Chinese and fusion food (asian ingredients with western style of cooking or spices, and vice versa) which I serve my family. They are my guinea pigs.

 

[swords]

Hmm, we're NOT counting frozen pizzas, jalapeno poppers and such right? Cos that narrows it down considerably...!

-Oven baked "fried chicken" (I'm too cheap buy the $10 worth of oil it takes to fill my fryer every time)
-Spaghetti
-Corned beef (my fave but probably the worst thing for ya)
-Terriyaki pork steaks
-Curried beef & noodles (not the spicy stuff just the sweet - I'm a wimp)
-Fried potatoes and onions & polish sausage "medalions"
-Rice Krispies squares with the chocolate & butterscotch chips smeared thick on top - oh yeah!
-Enoki mushrooms, onion and smashed garlic clove sauteed in butter and put on a toasted sourdough bun with melted cheese.
-Stuffed portabella mushrooms baked with fresh Parmesan cheese ontop
-Gyros
-MEATLOAF!!!

I made a lasagna once but it cost a lot and took a long time of fooling around in the kitchen.
I like tactical strikes where I can get in and out of the kitchen before I get hit with any flying shrapnel. Hence the Hot Pocket!

 

[jimscott]

Cheesecake
Pancakes
French Toast
Spaghetti
Oatmeal Cookies
Fried Rice
Baked Tuna Noodle Casserole
Omelots

 

[rattler]

i can cook bout anything if i try but the two dishes that i get rave reviews for are my smoked beef prime rib and "Chicken Crap" though a different word is used.........the chicken crap is a chicken and wild rice casserole i came up with trying to make a creamy chicken and wild rice soup.....prolly unhealthy as hell for yah but its a favorite at hunting camp cause its a hearty meal that sticks to your ribs after you spent all day living on jerky and granola bars out walking your arse off looking for deer and elk in the Breaks.......it got its name from the first few experiments making it where i over cooked the rice and it kinda disintegrated leaving me with a dish that looked like something that came out the back end of the bird i was trying to cook but it tasted wonderful......ive now got the cooking time nailed and it looks like a chicken and wild rice casserole but the name stuck....

 

[obregon562]

i enjoy using asian spices with all sorts of styles!

I love using the wok, and a favorite recipe of mine is Curry-Honney Chicken with all the good wok vegetables, shrip battered with a honey and curry batter, and then thrown together with lots of garlic.

I also am rather good at the cooking of muchrooms...

 

[mabudon]

All vegetarian- no end of stir frys, curries (NO pre-made curry-stuff, all dish-specific, hand ground spices), pea soup, stews, pakoras/bhajiis, various marinated and grilled vegetables (best in pita wraps)

Pretty much anything I put my mind to- tho actual baking is a bit of a trick for me if it involves stuff rising etc lol

 

[schloaty]

Breakfast - just about any common dish from omlets to pancakes
jams
hot sauce
soups
I love making dishes with butternut squash
dry rubs for steaks (grill) or roasts (oven) - usually SPICY rubs

I can follow any recipe

 

[rattler]

I love making dishes with butternut squash

change that to buttercup and yah got my vote :grin:

i dont like doing anything terribly complicated...i can do it but dont like to do the work...if its much more than chopping stuff up and adding it to a pot i tend not to do it......only thing i will sit at the stove and actually spend alot of time preparing is gravy.......drives my wife nuts cause after the meat and such is done and her and the girls are eating im still sitting at the stove making my gravy from the drippings getting it just right and i usually start eating about the time they are finished......the wife and girls arent to big on gravy preferring plain butter for their mashed potatoes but if we cook a ham, turkey, big slab of beef in the oven i will spend more time making the gravy to go with my potatoes than i spent getting the hunk of meat ready for the oven

 

[Nepfreak]

Ramen Noodles!

 

[seedjar]

I love cooking! Omelettes and frittatas were my first real dishes, back in grade school. The first time I ever tried to cook I went to make eggs in a hole (eggy in a bready as some call it) but at three years old, I couldn't reach the burner control by myself.
Also a few French foods - baked brie and roasted garlic, French onion soup - mostly steakhouse-type fare. I used to bake a lot of things; cookies, cakes, etc. and have a number of different chocolate candy recipes under my belt. Every few years I'll make a huge batch of truffles and use them for Christmas/Hannukah gifts. I used to make ice cream all the time, but then my machine broke and I haven't bothered to get a new one. A full Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans, stuffing, gravy, pastry rolls and all the rest is probably my favorite cooking task. I'll usually make Thanksgiving dinner at least two to three times a year so that I can get together with friends that usually go eat with their families on the actual holiday. It's a great chance to get scraps like turkey carcass and potato skins, which I use to make stock and such.
Enchiladas and other Mexican/Tex-Mex foods are another cuisine I'm good at - my mom grew up in Arizona and did a lot of traveling in Central America and passed on a lot of those recipes to me. I can make some great homestyle foods, like spaghetti, meatloaf, barbeque (steak, burgers, chicken, whatever.) Growing up in the Northwest, I've got some really good tricks for salmon. I've also been learning quite a few Asian cuisines lately. I have a number of Thai dishes under my belt - pud se ew, pud thai, green curry, moo ping. I can also do a lot of Japanese and Korean dishes from the time I spent with Japanese exchange students and my trip to Korea - sushi/kimpap rolls, Japanese curry, pickled veggies (pickling isn't really cooking but it's close) and okonomiyaki to name a few.
Lately I've been trying to teach myself Indian cooking. I can make a pretty good paneer (a young cheese, like ricotta) and I use that to make palak paneer, my favorite spinach dish. I've been trying to make up my own chicken masala recipe for a while, and I've come pretty close on the taste but it never sets up right. I want to learn more about making bread (yeast is intimidating) so that I can make my own naan.
~Joe

 

[DavyJones]

Seedjar: If you want I can share a couple of my Chicken Masala/Curry tricks with you if you want. It sounds like we have similar interests in cooking. Being a college student, I am fairly limited in the number or large undertakings I can make, for example, I would make chicken stock more often, but have nowhere to keep gallons and gallons of the stuff, seeing as I share my fridge with some roomates. Besides, they already think I'm nuts. Anyhow, you mentioned an interest in Japanese cuisine, have you ever tried Don Buri (spelling)? It's a noodle dish with broth, usually a fried cutlet of sorts, and an egg. It is similar to Udon, but not quite the same. I've been trying to find a recipe for it, and everything I find requires ingredients I've never heard of!

I'm glad to see so many people enjoy cooking as well. Although it would be totally off subject, we should all have a recipe exchange of some sort. Maybe we could ever pull together a Terra Forums cookbook.

 

[maneatingmoo]

Uhh... Pumpkin pie from a can, which I make every year around thanksgiving I like cooking but I never have a chance to actually do it myself.

 

[seedjar]

I used to live by the headquarters of Uwajimaya, which I believe is the largest Japanese/Asian grocery chain in the states, and back then I explored Japanese recipes a lot more. Japanese soups are difficult without the right flavoring ingredients, so I haven't been able to do as much since moving to college. The only reason I can still make okonomiyaki is because it's such a leftovers-and-scraps-type dish, and includes a lot of Western ingredients. I can't stand houses full of roommates - I'm a pretty much by-myself/one-roomie type of guy - so I usually have the fridge to myself or can commandeer it (since my roommates are never as interested in cooking as I am, and like having big stockpiles of leftovers around.) The trick to making and saving stock is to make it really rich - never add more water than you need to cover your ingredients - and then condense it before storing it; I can make enough broth for several large batches of stew and condense it down to one 16oz container.
I'd enjoy looking at your masala recipes. My problem is that whenever I add the yogurt, it curds up into little cheesy bits and then the whey makes the sauce way too wet, so I end up with what looks like cottage cheese in watery tomato soup. It tastes delicious, though - almost exactly like the Tasty Bite entrées from the store (except spicier... I love spicier.)
~Joe

PS - Does anyone know how to make phở?

 

[herenorthere]

I can cook anything that cooks slowly. I don't have a feel for fast-cooked things - stirfry and such. I think it's my Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, since they don't believe in eating anything that hasn't cooked for longer than it had been alive.

I'm astounded to find out Rattler & I agree about squash, with buttercup getting the thumbs up and butternut getting a thumbs down. That's maybe only the 2nd or 3rd thing we've ever agreed on.

 

[DroseraBug]

Spicy Thai Basil w/Chicken has lately been one of my favorites to cook.

Other than that Fried Squash.

 

[Finch]

My cooking skills are fairly rudimentary but I do love mixing herbs and spices and adding them even when the recipe does not call for it. When in works, it WORKS and when it doesn’t… well experimenting is still fun, isn’t it?

 

[cool85k5]

I love to cook things on the smoker! Baby back ribs ,whole chicken ,turkey,pork.Grilling burgers steak,hot dogs and chicken! I like to cook bacon(cast iron frying pan),eggs,cinnamon toast,pancakes and waffles with cornmeal(yum!),soup(no not out of a can!) and most other things if I take my time with it.