What's cooking?

Happy Saint Patricks day people!


Simple family gathering..hash in the morning!

 

Nice James! Post St. Pat's Day sale on cabbage; 15-pounds of kraut, caraway/juniper berry and caraway/apple.



Tom

 

I was lucky enough to get the ham bone from Easter dinner... Ham stock most likely for pea soup.

 

Nice!

 

That's almost enough to make me eat corned beef!

 

It's that time of year when the weeds are overtaking the yard, so today before going out to fight the good fight, got a chicken ready to go in the oven, made some aioli, and got salad fixings ready. Came back in ready to drop, stuck the chicken in the oven while washing away the funk, and then fell on the bird like ravenous beasts. The mass quantities of wine were for medicinal purposes.

 

Lucretia, Skin looks nice and crisp (as I like it). And I'll bet the meat was juicy, not dried out. Certainly from appearances I much prefer yours to the one I made two days ago. If you don't mind me asking: What temperature(s) (and time(s)) did you roast at? Thanks.

 

Larry, I was really happy with how this one came out. I haven't had great success with roast chicken. Did some research before cooking and ended up with 400 degrees in the convection oven for 50 minutes, then basting with pan juices (i.e. chicken fat!) and cook until desired temperature. I admit, I like my chicken more done than many. The breast was in the mid-160's when I pulled it out. But it was still juicy--and no bloody joints (I don't care if the chicken is done at a lower temperature--I don't want to see blood.) Just salt and pepper (applied a couple hours before cooking. Next time I want to try putting it on the night before.) It's loosely based on Thomas Keller's roast chicken recipe, but he cooks his at 450 and also trusses the bird. A lot of people said this smoked up their houses, so I tried the lower temp with convection and it worked well. The house smelled like chicken but no smoke alarms went off.

I also used an air-chilled chicken. The skin on them seems a lot thinner and less watery than the water-chilled type and might cook better.

 

Lucretia, thanks much. I too loosely follow Keller's recipe, but after about 20 minutes at 450 I reduce the temperature to 400. And sometimes I truss (though Kenji says not to bother), but sometimes I'm too lazy. I'm a bit jealous that you have a convection oven. A few years ago I cooked a large thanksgiving turkey in my ex-sister-in-law's convection oven and it came out perfectly. When I redo my kitchen in a couple of years I intend to get a convection oven. I'm confident that if I did the research I'd find how to adapt convection oven recipes to conventional oven cooking, but suspect the only major difference may be the cooking times (rather than needing to change the temperatures). In any case, maybe next time I'll try roasting my chicken at 400. I use 150 (at breast) as a target internal limit, though 145 for about 10 minutes is apparently acceptable.

 

I may not have any new knives, but I did pick up a few new skills
Dinner was delicious

 

Handmade pasta, nice! Something I've wanted to try for a while

 

Glad I did, it's a bit tough figuring out how dry or wet they need to be from dough stage... But by the third or fourth time I had it down. I have a kitchaide mixer but find it way easier to do just do it by hand (less to clean up) a cup of flower, a few eggs and some salt and oil and I have three or four meals for myself. Plus the dough is good for a lot of things. Ravioli, tortellini, heck with a minor twist or two also does perogi. I never run out of sauces or fillers to make with that stuff all from learning on little noodle in the kitchen

 

For breakfast, some potatoes scones, sausage and pancakes


And dinner last night was some jerk chicken over rice.

 

What a jerk!

Looks awsome James.

 

It's become a regular weekday dinner now.

Had some leftover potatoes tonight so I made some gnocchi

 

Some nice looking food you're making there, James!

 

I bought a Gordon ramsey book that went along with one of his shows, so there is video to go with each recipe lol, helped me learn a bunch of new stuff, was a great pick up

 

Well the book and video approach is definitely working!

 

$3.86 dollars of happiness right here