heliager reblogged
heliager reblogged
but on the real though, here is your guide to assyrian rice preparation from your friendly neighborhood assyrian:
- start wanting rice. (or, if you are traditional, simply recognize your constant desire for rice.)
- measure out two cups of rice. then one more. then two more. then another. this seems fine. you love rice. there is no way that this will backfire on you.
- remember that your great-great-uncle’s recipe says it should be soaked overnight.
- become consumed with despair.
- decide to soak it for half an hour instead, acknowledging that the final product will be inferior and anger your ancestors but will still satisfy your now almost-overwhelming need for rice to be inside your body much faster.
- remember that you should have set the water to boil when you soaked the rice. goddammit.
- once the water boils, put the rice in until it is half-cooked. the eyeballing or intuitive method is less effective than a timer but that’s how your aunt does it so you feel compelled to meet her standards.
- now that the rice has fluffed up, realize how much rice six dry cups really is. holy shit. you’ve fucked up immeasurably.
- take a minute to dwell upon your failings.
- grease a baking dish with butter. this will never be as elegant as you want it to and your fingers will get greasy, but the slightly shameful, self-indulgent joy of licking your fingers afterwards will make up for it.
- pour the rice into the dish. wonder immediately if you actually buttered the dish beforehand and if you’ve just fucked up.
- melt approximately one thousand pounds of butter in the microwave and pour it over the rice, pondering your imminent death from rapid-onset arterial clogging. put a small pat of butter on the top to properly gild the lily.
- put your pan into the oven, which you have absolutely preheated after your previous lack of foresight. shake the rice once or twice while it bakes to make sure the butter is well distributed. resist the impulse to climb into the oven with the rice. for the last ten minutes, sit next to the oven and count the seconds until it’s done.
- remove the dish from the oven. shed a tear or two at the perfection laid before you. if you are dining with others, this is the time to serve the rice while making passive-aggressive statements about how oh no, you don’t need any help, you just made dinner all by yourself, you can serve everyone as well. (this is still fun if done alone, but optional.)
- CONSUME THE RICE.
- realize that you have eaten half of the dish in one sitting. no matter how much rice you made, this will always happen.
- put the leftovers away, if there are any, and enjoy a cup of chai while marveling at the amount of food you have just eaten. if possible, fall asleep in an armchair, sitting up, head tilted slightly back, like a grandpa.
- for the rest of the evening, think fondly of how much rice you have in the fridge now and how many meals it will supplement, refusing to acknowledge that you will almost certainly eat the rest of it in a few hours for a midnight meal.
i really played myself with this post huh. every time it gets a note i start wanting rice.
for anyone who wants it, here is my family’s actual recipe for assyrian baked rice:
- 1lb / approx. 2 ⅓ cups basmati rice (any long-grain rice will do)
- 3 tbsp salt
- 8 tbsp / 1 stick butter (you can reduce this if you don’t want to have a heart attack)
Put the rice in a pot and cover it in cold water and salt. Let it soak overnight. (If you don’t have the time to soak it, rinse the rice with cold water until it runs clear.)
Edit: The reason you want to soak basmati and other aromatic rice before cooking is to preserve more acetylpyrroline, the compound that gives aromatic rice its characteristic scent and flavor. Soaking rice allows the grains to absorb water, which reduces the cooking time, which means less time for the acetylpyrroline to cook off. It’ll still taste pretty good if you can’t do this, but you don’t want “pretty good”, you want mind-blowing, so for that perfect flavor you’ll want to soak your rice overnight. The soaking process also washes away the layer of starch on the outside of the rice, which allows the grains to separate rather than sticking together; this is why you want to rinse your rice thoroughly if you don’t have time to soak it.
Preheat your oven to 325°.
Boil three quarts of water in a separate pot. Once it’s at a fast boil, drain the rice and add it to the water. Boil for 5-7min or until one grain tastes half-cooked, but not soft. Pour the rice into a colander and rinse with cold water.
Edit: This step also helps get rid of any remaining starch on your grains, for perfectly separated rice. If your colander or strainer has large holes, you can put a paper towel/cheesecloth/clean dishcloth on the inside in order to drain your rice. Pour carefully if you’re using a paper towel, though, and put a bowl underneath your colander; I once lost a heartbreaking amount of rice when my paper towel got oversaturated and tore open.
Liberally grease the bottom of your baking pan with some of your butter. Pour the rice on top. Melt the rest of the butter in the microwave and pour on top of the rice.
Bake for 45min. (If you like, cover the rice for part or all of the baking time, but I find it gets less crispy on top if you do this.) Shake the pan a couple times during baking to ensure that the butter distributes throughout the entire dish.
Eat.
Serves four. Can easily be scaled up if needed (or down, but why would you do that?). Best enjoyed with a nice cup of chai.
(cc @raisedbyhyenas )
reblog for the awesome recipe and to make op want rice (rice is so good. ofc you want rice)
>:(
heliager reblogged
Anonymous asked:
I'm trying to make a good pot roast in my crockpot, but after I take it out it gets dry. It's on "low" (whatever that means) for 8 hours. I've tried searing it before and still dry. It's submerged in plain water with some herbs and spices for that time. Am I over/undercooking it? It's a cut with low fat %, is that why?
I love you. I think you learned how to make pot roast from someone on Opposite Day, or perhaps April 1st. The only thing you got right is 'low heat for 8 hours'.
- Choose a fatty cut of tough meat. Look for lots of fat marbling on a Chuck roast or Shoulder roast. Tough meat has a ton of flavor, and the fat keeps the meat from drying out. The long cook time on low heat, plus acids will make 'tough' meat into a pull-apart, melt-in-your-mouth glory.
- Make sure the meat is completely thawed, NOT frozen.
- Plain water and nothing else except herbs/spices is.... not what I'd do. A lot of flavor can come into the broth when you add whole carrots (minus the carrot top!) and quartered onions in there. I'm a fan of adding some big chunks of pumpkin or butternut squash and chunks of turnip as well.
- I think using red wine for part of the liquid base, and adding a hearty helping of worcestershire sauce will also help the flavor and making the meat 'melty.' The acid and alcohol will draw more, and different flavors from the meat and vegetables that water alone cannot do. Makes it richer.
- For my very best pot roast recipe, which had my wedding guests fuckin' clamoring to get the recipe; I cheat. I'm not ashamed of that fact. For the richest, most face-punchingly meaty tasting broth, go to an asian market (or online) and find a mushroom hot pot soup base. It'll be a thick liquid inside a bag, which you then dilute with water. Use THAT as the liquid base (remember to dilute it!), and add your wine and wocestershire sauce to it, along with those herbs & spices. Your whole face will be blown off with flavor. It's the best.
heliager reblogged
I read a fair number of recipes on the ten thousand interchangeable recipe blogs that exist, and often they say something like "This recipe is a family favourite!" or "This a crowd-pleaser" etc. and I roll my eyes a little bit every time because of course they are, it goes without saying! People like food! Nearly any special-occasion home-cooked meal is going to be popular.
But there is one recipe, one cake, that has recontextualised all those comments for me and now actually I think those bloggers might be wrong about what a family favourite is. It sure as hell isn't Interchangeable Chocolate Cake No. 7.
I'm telling you this because I need you to know the seriousness of the power I am going to bestow on you. And hey, maybe your friends and family have different preferences than mine do. Maybe you need to find another recipe to fill this role. But you must know that there's a recipe out there, and not even a particularly alluring one or a particularly difficult one, which people will bring up in unrelated conversations to you four years later.
If I so much as say the word cake, my family all turn to face me like a pack of hungry wolves. Even the ones that don't like food!! Health nuts and people who simply don't enjoy eating and people with no appetite and people I have no goddamn memory of ever having cooked for, all of them come up and say to me "Hey remember that cake-" I asked my brother and his girlfriend what foods they're looking forward to, when they return home after three years in Japan, and they say "You know that cake?"
It doesn't sound particularly appetizing. I only made it the first time because it was gluten free and I had a bunch of lemons. Please don't let the name inform your opinion here. This is a fairly fast and simple cake that requires no special equipment and people will literally never stop asking you for it.
It's not even my favourite cake! I'd rather have basque burnt cheesecake, which is harder and more expensive to make and consists almost entirely of fat and sugar but still manages to be a little savoury... But people want the weird corn one.
To be fair, this is the only cake that'll make me dip my fingers into boiling sugar without regret.
heliager reblogged
Low-FODMAP Gluten-Free Zucchini Fritters
My cousin gave me this ridiculous three pound zucchini recently, so I've been working to use it up somehow. First, I made a really lovely gluten-free zucchini bread, but I still had some left over. I still have the waffle iron out from various waffle experiments, so it was fritter time! To the recipe!
1 lb zucchini (about 2 medium), trimmed
8 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (about 2 cups)
2 scallions, the green parts minced and white discarded
2 tbsp minced fresh dill, or 1 tbsp dried
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 c gluten-free flour
cooking spray
Shred the zucchini on the large holes of a box grater. If it's a really big zucchini, core it before shredding; the center is where a lot of the water is. Let the zucchini drain in a fine-mesh strainer set over a bowl for 10 minutes, pushing out the excess with the flat of a spatula. Roll up the zucchini in a clean cotton towel and squeeze out any excess liquid.
Turn the waffle iron on medium and spray with cooking spray. Combine the dried zucchini, feta, scallions, dill, eggs, and pepper together in a medium bowl. Fold in the gluten-free flour until well mixed.
Divide half of the batter into the four squares of the waffle iron, lock the lid, and cook until the fritters are a nice deep brown. The batter is really wet, so you want a nice crisp on it so the center isn't soggy. Remove from the waffle iron, spray the iron again, and divide the remaining batter into the four squares.
So, first off, zucchini is one of those things, like tomatoes, that is only low-FODMAP under a certain serving size. That's about 1/3 c. When I made this, there were less than 2 cups in the whole recipe, which means you could eat about 1 1/2 fritters and stay below the threshold. I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour, but you could probably use anything from almond flour to rice flour. There's so little flour, it's mostly filler.
These ended up being really good. They're nice and salty due to the feta, though the dill flavor wasn't very pronounced. I used dry dill, so maybe that was the issue. You could probably faff around with other herbs and spices too. Per usual, I would put maybe a 1/8 tsp of cayenne into the batter just to add a little heat. These were super handy when I was late for work and needed something that wouldn't drip down my shirt while I ate it in the car.
Obligatory disclaimer: I am no dietician. I'm doing my best to minimize FODMAPs in my diet, but it's possible for me to be misinformed or mistaken about various ingredients.
heliager reblogged
Fresh Tomato and Caramelized Onion Jam (via Serious Eats)
heliager reblogged
Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bars (via Pinch of Yum)
heliager reblogged
•Gluten Free Beef Pot Pie Pasta•
I always loved pot pie filing, and was curious about how it'd taste as pasta.
So, here's my beef pot pie gluten free pasta recipe!
Recipe + steps:
Ingredients
Half the box of Diamond Gluten free penne noodles(or whatever you prefer)
1 packet of Mrs. Roger's gluten free brown onion gravy mix
150 mL of water
100 mL of milk
1 tablespoon of butter
200g Pulled/shredded beef(cooked)
Your desired seasonings
1 cup of mixed vegetables, chopped
Instructions
- I ended up cooking everything in the same skillet to save clean dishes, if you want to prep all the ingredients separately you can do so by cooking the noodles first, then steam the frozen vegetables, and toss both in a large skillet along with the pre-cooked shredded beef.
- Next, make the Mrs. Rogers brown onion gravy mix, with 150ml of water, and 100 ml of milk, and a table spoon of butter.
- frequently stir around the mixture until thickened.
- Combine all for a delicious meal.
- If you'd like you can also add sour cream or Parmesan.
heliager reblogged
Matzo Ball Soup
This is the only soup everyone in my family will eat (several of my family members are soup haters, unfortunately). It is nice and easy to make, and since the recipe is so basic, you can easily add more ingredients to your tastes.
Ingredients
Dumplings
♡ 2 cups gluten free matzo meal (my recipe for that can be found here)
♡ 1 tsp baking powder
♡ 1/2 tsp salt
♡ 2 tsp dill
♡ 4 eggs
♡ 4 Tblsp olive oil
♡ 1/4 cup + 2 Tblsp water
Soup
♡ 1 Tblsp olive oil
♡ 2 cloves minced garlic
♡ 10 oz can of chicken
♡ 3/4 cup sliced carrots. You can also use baby carrots if you don't feel like cutting anything
♡ 6 cups chicken or vegetable broth
♡ 1 bay leaf
♡ 1/2 tsp onion powder
♡ Salt and pepper to taste
♡ Dill to taste
Instructions
Matzo Balls
☆ In large bowl, mix all ingredients
☆ Cover the bowl and leave in the fridge for at least 30 minutes
Soup
☆ Heat oil in a large pot
☆ Cook the garlic, chicken, and carrots until carrots have softened. If you are using raw chicken instead of canned chicken, cook it separately to avoid risk of food poisoning. I like to shred the chicken
☆ Add broth, bay leaf, onion powder, salt, pepper, and dill
☆ Bring soup to a boil, then cover and let simmer at low heat for at least 20 minutes.
☆ When matzo dough is done chilling in fridge, take it out.
☆ Using a small icecream scoop, scoop out balls and put into soup.
☆ Once again bring soup to a simmer and cover the pot. Let cook for 5-10 minutes
heliager reblogged
Garlic Butter Chicken is a family-friendly, easy recipe that combines chicken breasts and baby potatoes with fresh garlic, butter, and mozzarella flavor. It pulls together quickly, making it an ideal protein-packed weeknight meal. This delicious easy chicken recipe is one of my son’s favorites. The chicken is so moist, tender, and flavorful.
i had to make a solution for this for myself, mostly because of depression, but it makes a nice How To for folks who are low on spoons or could use some help in the kitchen.
Fortunately i was a professional cook for over a decade. UNfortunately the first post i made explaining it was suuuuper long. Let's see if i can do better
So you select any protein that you can cook in a frying pan -- chicken breasts, ground beef, pork chops, sausages, steak, chicken thighs, whatever. You also select one or two types of veggie (mushrooms or tubers also work, i just did this with potatoes and carrots for dinner tonight).
[i like cooking for vegetarians, but this is how i cook for myself when i'm low on spoons - perhaps i'll do another post for meatless meals]
You'll also need some kind of oil, and a sauce or two of your choice in a bottle. All cooking gear is a large frying pan with lid (i prefer non-stick) a spatula, a cutting board, and a knife.
You cut the veggies into bite size pieces, cut up enough for two meals. One kind of veggie is fine, or you can do mix two or three
Put frying pan on medium heat with a little oil. Tubers or mushrooms or go in the pan a few minutes before the protein. 2 portions of the protein goes in the pan, about 5 minutes with lid (don't worry you can still get a good sear on both sides)
Now flip your protein if it's flip-able and add normal veggies, put the lid back on another five-ish minutes.
Take your protein out and put it with one portion of the veggies in a microwave safe container. That's going to be your lunch tomorrow. Put the other portion of protein on a plate to rest (you have to let a cooked protein sit a couple minutes before you serve it or when you cut into it all the juices run out and it goes dry - the liquids thicken as it cools, preventing this drying out if you let it rest, the goal is to serve it very warm but not hot hot)
While it's resting, pour some sauce from your bottle in the pan with the rest of the veggies and turn up the heat. A single sauce/bottle is fine, i like to get fancy and mix a couple. Two examples of personal favorite mixes are 1: bbq sauce and a hot sauce like sriracha 2: roughly equal parts low sodium soy sauce and worcestershire (makes something similar to a teriyaki sauce) A swallow of wine is almost always a great option if you want to add that to your sauce too, just add it to the pan before the other sauces so the alcohol has time to burn off.
...
Here is the important bit. While your veggies are finishing, wash your cutting board and chef knife. Then when you dump your veggies and sauce over your protein on the plate, while it is still too hot to eat, you wash your frying pan and spatula before you eat. Now the only dishes you have left to do are your plate and fork. Maybe a steak knife.
...
The whole thing takes about 35 minutes even with washing the dishes, and that includes your lunch for the next day- just pour a different sauce on and stick it in the microwave for a couple minutes (or five minutes back in the frying pan) and you have a full healthy lunch with a different flavor
You can use this technique every single meal and it yields hundreds of combinations, from pork and potatoes bbq, to salmon and broccoli teriyaki, to chicken and zucchini in a soy glaze.
It will keep you down to less than an hour of kitchen time per day total for both lunch and dinner including all dish clean up, uses the least dishes, the least effort, requires the least technique, and is, depending on what you pick out, very affordable
here are a couple more examples from this month; i didn’t take pictures of the salmon i did recently, but you get the idea
it's not super fancy, but it is easy, affordable, quick, and any flavors you want. Hope this helps some folks
Happy Cooking!
heliager reblogged
Chicken and Stuffing Casserole Dish Indulge in a hearty chicken and stuffing casserole dish. It’s the perfect combination of savory poultry, vegetables, and Stove Top stuffing.