Hey good lookin', what's cookin'?

My stew consists of organic chicken legs (PA Nature has organic, local and other good food at much better prices than the organic chains) and some very strong concentrated stock, and I have a celeriac, a little white turnip, two Chinese eggplant (the long, skinny ones with pale violet skin), a mild Spanish onion and some other things I forget. I want a small squash and will pick it up at Jean-Talon Market, from a guy who sells mostly eggs. And ginger, which I'll pick up at Marché Oriental (a Sino-Vietnamese small supermarket). I ground some cumin and some caraway in my spice grinder (a coffee grinder: I have two, both picked up at garage sales, one for coffee, one for spices). Have some cardamom as well. Don't want to make anything strong or too spicy; I get sick of particular strong spicing after a few meals. Of course I have garlic; goes without saying. Ideas?

Obviously, where I live has very good bread too, not only the French and Italian kinds but also breads from the Arab world, and I'm not a long walk from sources of Eastern European Jewish breads. Other than Cheskie, there is now Hof Kelsten, as well as they typical light rye, they make an excellent challah and a very heavy dark pure rye pumpernickel. The latter two have to be reserved. http://hofkelsten.com/

I made fried chicken last weekend that was sooooooo good!  Brined overnight in buttermilk, salt, oregano and thyme, drained and then dredged in flour, pepper and paprika and deep fried in my wok, temperature monitored with a candy thermometer.  Garlic mashed spuds on the side, a little green salad.  Heaven.

Yes, woks are great for deep-frying. They use much less oil and there is far less risk of them boiling over. If I deep-fry it is usualy just some smelts or some imperial rolls.

Stew packed away in glaslock containers, cooling out on the back balcony. I'll bring the containers in before I head out for an errand, as I don't want the stew to freeze. Need some ginger and fresh coriander (no coriander-haters around right now).

I keep forgetting to look at Brain Pickings, a fascinating site, but then I read too much online anyway...

I put half a teaspoon of ginger in my banana bread - you don't taste the ginger per se, but it really does something nice to the banana. :)

Clean the FRIDGES soup. Fridges in the plural, as friend has taken off to Cuba for two months (she's retired) and left me some odds and ends, including leftover broccoli, an onion (and some choicer things such as cheeses, but they aren't in the soup). Last night I made a stock with bones and soup (sacrificial) vegetables; very early this morning I cooked the broccoli, added a large soft carrot from the soup that was still flavourful, some frozen green beans that had seen better days - I'd already added some to soup before, so I knew they didn't have any nasty freezer-burn taste once finely chopped, sautéed, stewed in some of the stock and the end of a bag of frozen edamame - not the pods, the seeds inside. I've put the containers away, but I'll add some fresh ginger and either celery or fresh coriander before serving, also to intensify the green.

Yes, that really takes some kind of slow cooker. I first learned how to make that dish from someone from tiny Grenada. That tiny nation, once invaded by the US in a show of force, is smaller than the island of Montreal. We were organising a fundraising supper after Hurricane Ivan; I painted a poster, which we sold.

I should have worded that better: I didn't necessarily mean slow-cooker as in crockpot.

I've most certainly done the hard-cheese rind in stock. PA (local Greek supermarket) often sell a bunch of parmesan rind pieces for a dollar. Umami tablets. Oddly, I've never seen those on sale at my even closer Italian supermarket, Milano. Guess they keep them for themselves. Three hours wouldn't have been enough for some of the goat meat I've bought. But it always came out good at the end.

Goat meat is among those most consumed in the world.

Beware, old goat, beware!  Nah, I like old goat and promise not to stew him.  ;)

lagatta - that is the beauty of the crock pot - you can toss the ingredients in and it simmers away all day, making the meat tender as can be.  I love it for pot roasts, too.  Even the toughest cuts come out nice and moist.

oldgoats are tough and leathery tasting.  Even after a day in a crockpot.  There's a few annoying kids in my family you're welcome to.  Also, if there's any kind of a smart chip in the kitchen near your crockpot I can hack it and delete your account from there.

Some might have had sore udders from mine. Hope not.

I was gifted the two volume "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child for my birthday. I've already spent hours drooling over the recipes.

So far, I've done a roast duck with sausage and apple stuffing and a leg of lamb with mustard, thyme, rosemary and garlic.  Both were awesome!

Good score!

I managed to find a copy of Jacques Pépin's Complete Techniques (recommendation from Child on the cover) for 25 cents at the library. I believe I used it to do gnocchi one time, but otherwise have been too busy with regular cooking to seriously study it. I had done croissants from scratch one time, but I used another recipe.  It is an amazing textbook - all point form and pictures.

I don't use cookbooks much, but in a practical sense Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food has been my go-to for most stuff I need help with. It really covers everything from Spain to Russia to India.

The meals sound fabulous.

I know. I wish I got to use it more. Sadly, Escoffier school isn't what winds up on our table most of the time. Hippie style Indian, Vietnamese and Cantonese is more in line with what we usually do. If we didn't have small kids that last would probably be Szechuan.

And those old cookbooks are great, especially when you start getting into the suet and treacle.

On another note, I got inspired by a local friend and made my first batch of cured and smoked bacon last week. I had done corned beef already. It is amazing technology. I threw in some raw salmon too, and in just a few hours it was basically preserved. All of it in a cardboard box smoker.

Good luck with the book. I know it is hard to find the time to pore over and learn that stuff, but it is worth it.

Yes, it is very important for kids, especially when they are teenagers, to learn to cook. I've had roommates who would bring back crap from McDo despite living a few minutes from Jean-Talon market and many cheap, good "ethnic" shops.

As for cookbook finds, some years ago I found Claudia Roden's first Book of Middle Eastern Food, published the year it first came out, 1968, for $1. I don't know whether or not it is actually a "first edition". She describes the difficulties finding olive oil or spices - in London!

lagatta wrote:

As for cookbook finds, some years ago I found Claudia Roden's first Book of Middle Eastern Food, published the year it first came out, 1968, for $1.

If it is anything like this amazing book I will have to look for it.

And I remember trying to find the materials for making sushi (like the basics - nori) and having to to all the way out to the airport in Basel to some tiny, expensive specialty shop. Not as jaw-dropping as complaining about olive oil in London, though.

And @ TB

I remember when I was a kid and got the proportions mixed up on icing. It turned into some kind of slurry which I poured onto the cake, and was horrified when it just disappeared into it. Turned out not too bad though, kind of like a cake version of Jello 1-2-3 for anyone who remembers that.

My favourite cookbook is still Cathy Smith's FOOD 101: A Student Guide To Quick & Easy Cooking ISBN 0-07-548512-5

Something about its focus on low cost ingredients. the minimal requirements for kitchen "stuff" (everything in the cookbook can be made employing the list of 22 must have kitchen items - and the most "out there" of the items listed is a colander) the plain language... can't praise this book enough. Of course I did a little exploring to see if it is still available online... not sure it is worth the approximately $50.00 that it is advertised for (used no less) -- I was much happier paying $5.00 for it when it came out.

That meat looks beautiful.

And the cardboard smoker wasn't my idea, but that of a friend back in Manitoba, who is a chef, and uses one regularly.

Two cardboard boxes stuck together, slot cut in the bottom for feeding chips, and rods punched through partway up to hold a rack. cooker set in such a way that it doesn't burn the whole thing down. If you want to get fancy stick a thermometer in the top.

Since this experiment worked I plan to make a more permanent one out of metal, But this one worked fine.

Magoo would know. I just did it in the back yard.

We have a fireplace at the palatial Chez Bandit, so there's a nice woodpile out back.  I'm just thinking of where I'd put a smoker when not in use.  I might try the propane box thingy to see if I like it, since we already have the bbq grill.