Post: #1

Throughout the years I have grown into a great cook. This was out of nessity and bizarre instances (being the only man working in a setting where cooking was mandatory, and being the only person other than the old school Grannys whom knew how to cook).

I feel now I run into more dudes my age whom know how to lockdown a kitchen more-so then females. A man takes pride in a good meal and if no female can make it for him he will take matters into his own hands and cook up a great feast.

Don't rely on eating out or the store to make you meals. You should be eating out for enjoyment or to eat something you can't make better at home. Example of this is I never order pasta while out because I have never ate a pasta dish in Canada that I have not been able to make better myself. These stores half ass it, even the better spots like Whole Foods or Longos and Loblaws in Canada drop the ball on little details that you can smooth over on your own. And once you eat a proper homemade version of a dish its hard to go to back to the pre-made stuff.

Hoping we can share tips and recipes on navigating the kitchen, grill and bar for drinks that good good with what your throwing down.

Health foods, date meals, or just gluttony type shit too - its all game.

Ill drop a recipe on a Tuna burger I whipped up randomly last night:

Quote:Tuna Burger:

*I got 4 good big patties out of this, they don't shrink so you can easily push it up to 6.

*It took 10 min of prep and 20 mins of cooking time.

-1 6oz Can of your favorite canned Tuna oil or water packed does not matter, I used water packed.

-1 can of Sardines, water packed also

-half a red bell pepper chopped and diced small

-half a onion chopped and diced small

-half a cup of ground flax seed meal

Optional: [Health nuts] Half a cup of some cooked up Quinoa or Steel cuts oats you have left over

Or,

[Full flavour] Half a cup of mashed potatoes

^ These aren't necessary but add more texture and flavour to the patty, I made a batch with and without I was happy with em' all. A spud you can nuke quickly to thrown in so its not a deal breaker.

Seasonings:
* I eye ball this stuff *

-Garlic powder
-Dill
-Splash of Soy sauce
-Cayenne pepper
-Splash of lime juice
-Table spoon of Mayo or your favorite cream-based salad dressing, I used creamy cucumber since I had no mayo (or just use more olive oil if your a health nut)
-Olive oil

* Do a taste test as you go along and add more of whatever you may need to.. then:

- Add one egg

Mix all this shit together it should give a stiff constancy, not as stiff as cookie dough tho. If its way to runny to form a decent patty then add more flax meal or optional stuff.

Pop these bitches in the oven at 350 for like 10-15 min, your just trying to get the center warm and the egg stiffed and cooked.

Get a frying pan and finish these off on some high heat to get a good crust and sear on the sides

Grab a good quality roll, bread, and toast it up then add...

Toppings:

Spinach
Parsley
Rest of the Red Bell pepper


Sauce - Spiked Tzatziki:

Tzatziki
Cayanne Pepper
Dijon Mustard
Splash of lime
Tiny bit of honey

Demolish these up and your good.

They would freeze well I would imagine to so you can nuke them and demolish them after the gym or work. I ate the last two the next day for breakfast with a salad, eggs, tomatoes, and a slice of whole-grain toast.

Post: #2

Awesome idea to have a thread on great recipes. I agree with you that once you've had a great homemade dish, it's hard if not impossible to go to the pre-made one. I'll be following this thread with a lot of interest as learning to cook well is one of the things I want to achieve asap.

Post: #3

*points to the link in the sig*

Chef In Jeans
A culinary website for men

Post: #4

Great thread idea.

And check out the above gentleman's blog. Highly recommended.

Tonight I'm having linguine with herbs, broccoli, crushed red pepper, and roasted garlic in olive oil. It's a staple among the Italians I work with, simple, and fucking delicious.

Post: #5

"I feel now I run into more dudes my age whom know how to lockdown a kitchen more-so then females. A man takes pride in a good meal and if no female can make it for him he will take matters into his own hands and cook up a great feast. "

The corollary to this is that most women in the gaming demographic here in the US couldn't put together a decent meal to save their life without recipes. Most of the women I know whose mothers were raised here in the states don't cook and have no interest in it. With few exceptions, the women I know who can cook had mothers who came from the old country and taught their daughters not only the culinary traditions, but why it's important to continue them.

Post: #6

(05-29-2012 08:17 PM)Capitán Peligroso Wrote:  "I feel now I run into more dudes my age whom know how to lockdown a kitchen more-so then females. A man takes pride in a good meal and if no female can make it for him he will take matters into his own hands and cook up a great feast. "

The corollary to this is that most women in the gaming demographic here in the US couldn't put together a decent meal to save their life without recipes. Most of the women I know whose mothers were raised here in the states don't cook and have no interest in it. With few exceptions, the women I know who can cook had mothers who came from the old country and taught their daughters not only the culinary traditions, but why it's important to continue them.

I think you hit the nail on the head there.

Fuckable.

Can Cook.

Pick one.

Personally I'd rather do the cooking and make her do the dishes

Chef In Jeans
A culinary website for men

Post: #7

Post: #8

(05-29-2012 08:17 PM)Capitán Peligroso Wrote:  "I feel now I run into more dudes my age whom know how to lockdown a kitchen more-so then females. A man takes pride in a good meal and if no female can make it for him he will take matters into his own hands and cook up a great feast. "

The corollary to this is that most women in the gaming demographic here in the US couldn't put together a decent meal to save their life without recipes. Most of the women I know whose mothers were raised here in the states don't cook and have no interest in it. With few exceptions, the women I know who can cook had mothers who came from the old country and taught their daughters not only the culinary traditions, but why it's important to continue them.

Don't you have Home Economics for girls in school in the States? Like Shop for boys?

Having said that I think young, and older, men should learn how to cook and generally fend for themselves domestically. In my opinion if you HAVE to always be living with a woman because you don't even know how to make a sandwich for yourself you end up WAY overpaying for a chick to do it for you.

Post: #9

(05-29-2012 09:18 PM)the chef Wrote:  

Not to hate or swing my own dick here, but that looks horrible. Way too much oil, garlic, and chili flake. I'm sure it's better than what 99% of women could cook up but this isn't the best example.

It's all about product.

Taking what this guy is trying to make, try this instead:

90-120 grams (depending on how hungry you are) dried spaghetti, look for rustichella d'abruzzo. Probably the best dried pasta you'll find unless you want to fork over some cash for Latini, which is the Lexus of dried pasta. If you can't find either, DeCecco is the best standard.

-6 head on shrimp per person (hit up an asian market), heads pulled off and reserved, tails peeled and deveined
-1 garlic clove per person plus 1 extra for the broth (read recipe)
-5 mint leaves per person
-1/4 tsp diced serrano or fresno chile per person
-2 T white wine
-1 branch celery, chopped
-1/2 an onion, chopped
1 bay leaf
Grated pecorino romano

Head up a small pot with a couple tablespoons olive oil. Throw the shrimp heads in and brown well until they're brick red. Add the chopped onion, celery, whole garlic clove, and bay leaf and sweat gently until the vegetables soften. Hit it with the wine and reduce until dry. Add 2 cups of water and simmer for 30 minutes, then strain and reserve this shrimp broth.

Drop your pasta in boiling, salted water. The water should just be salty enough to make you pucker slightly, but not as salty as you'd use for blanching vegetables. Set a 10 minute timer.

Heat up a sautee pan with 2 T olive oil, not the 1/2 cup this guy used in the video. Add a whole smashed garlic clove and the serrano chiles, and sautee lightly, not too much heat. The more you cook olive oil the more you kill the flavor. When the whole garlic clove gets nice and toasty, remove it and discard, the oil now has the flavor. Add your shrimp and sautee over medium heat until the shrimp are halfway cooked through. Add 1/4 cup of shrimp broth and simmer quickly so the broth reduces. Reduce all the liquid down to a few tablespoons in the pan, and set aside. When the pasta has cooked for 10 minutes, pull it out with tongs directly into the pan with the sauce and continue cooking for another minute, adding more shrimp broth if it gets too dry. You want to cook the sauce INTO the pasta. Toss the pasta while reducing the liquid and add the mint leaves and 2 T of pecorino romano. If you can find pecorino toscano or pecorino calabrese use that. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper and Bob's yer uncle.

Anyone thinking that cheese and seafood is verboten should go to Italy. I don't know who started propagating that but they do it all the time in various regions. Burrata cheese, fava beans and lobster is fucking delicious.

Post: #10

A quick primer on cooking meat. I see a lot of home cooks with issues on properly cooking a steak.

Some guidelines:

Keep the meat at room temperature for one hour before you cook it. It's impossible to make a properly cooked steak going from a cold fridge into a hot pan.

Season the meat an hour before.

If pan roasting, use a good amount of fat. Using less fat is not healthier. Fat doesn't get 'absorbed' into the meat. I recommend peanut oil. Try not to smoke the oil, it imparts bitterness and it's not good for you.

If pan roasting, your burner output is far more important than what pan you use, contrary to popular belief. That said, a Lodge cast iron camping skillet is often best. There's absolutely no need for high end All-Clad. If you must have a stainless steel pan, I recommend Vollrath.

Keep some butter, a smashed clove of garlic, and a few sprigs of thyme on hand.

Heat up your pan or grill until almost smoking hot. Lay the steak in and let it sit there. It should sizzle very loudly, but not pop. After 30 seconds, flip it. Even if it's a thick filet. The whole "only flip once" thing is a myth, and a bad one. Cook your steak on the second side, and flip it again. Keep doing this every 30 seconds. If you're cooking a filet mignon, brown it well on all sides, turning every 30 seconds. The idea is you're recreating a rotisserie effect, so that you brown the outside just long enough so that the heat reaches the center of the steak in a very gradual process, instead of just letting the meat cook on one side until the center is done. If you do that, you have a very thick layer of well done meat around the cooking surface. Some people think agitating the meat loses juiciness, and this is wrong. The reason meat loses moisture is from the contraction of the fibers. Muscle reacts to heat by contracting, thus "squeezing" out moisture. Agitating the meat has nothing to do with it, though you should avoid further squeezing with tongs. Be gentle.

Keep a meat thermometer handy, an instant read digital.

Your heat should be medium high, but adjust it if it seems too hot or scorches the meat. Keep turning the meat around, getting good caramelization all over, and check the temp of the meat. When it gets to 95 in the center, add a small knob of butter, a smashed garlic clove, and a few sprigs of thyme and/or rosemary to the pan, and spoon the butter over the meat, basting it as it browns. Do this for a minute or two until the internal temp hits 105. Pull the meat off and let it rest. If the outside of the meat was sufficiently hot, the meat should continue cooking as it rests to 120, a perfect medium rare. If your pan was just sizzling and the surface of the meat is only 150 or 160, you'd want to pull it at 110 to hit that medium rare. It takes practice. Let the meat rest in a warm area for 6-7 minutes, and then serve.

One of these days I'll make some youtube videos.

IMO, the best accompaniment to meat is an arugula salad, some shaved parmesan, and aged balsamic. Toss the arugula in some lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, plate it, shave some parmigiano on top (the best you can afford, like vaca rossa from Whole Foods) and drip a few drops of good balsamic on. When I say balsamic, I'm not talking about shit from a jug or straight vinegar. Aged balsamic has the consistency of cold maple syrup and can cost up to $150 for a 100 ml bottle, but you should be able to find a 250 ml bottle for 40 bucks or so if you're interested in the product.