Food and Recipes

[Giggles]

Any of ye remember the thread on the old forum where the lad wanted to eat the same thing every day which didn't have to be prepared but would fulfil all his nutritional needs because eating and having to think about what to eat was such a chore?

Lol I fuckin do that whole thread was gas

I've often wondered whether or not he managed to fulfil that dream

[StoutAndAle]

Any of ye remember the thread on the old forum where the lad wanted to eat the same thing every day which didn't have to be prepared but would fulfil all his nutritional needs because eating and having to think about what to eat was such a chore?

Lol I fuckin do that whole thread was gas

I've often wondered whether or not he managed to fulfil that dream

Was he the same lad who started a thread moaning about the "chore" of taking a shite?

[StoutAndAle]

I love cooking. I learned when I was a kid. Eldest in a single parent family, mother out at work all day, had to make sure the other two didn't die, yada yada, yada. Living out of home from 17 onwards has also made me improve my skills. These days I pretty much make everything from scratch. Along with my plugging in my guitar, I find that it's one of the few things that centres me, takes me away of the stress and anxiety, gets me out my head and into some meditative zone.

Having something nice to fill my face with is a bonus too.

I'd love to be able to make Chinese stuff from scratch.

For  traditional Chinese dishes - I highly recommend Ken Hom and Ching-He Huang's "Exploring China" cookbook. It is currently available from Amazon for £1.50... Bargain!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/1849904987/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=used

The accompanying TV show is good too.

There's certain base ingredients that you'll need - fish sauce, shaosing wine, XO/Oyster sauce, etc but most of these are available in a Chinese supermarket now. Tesco even do a version of shaosing wine, I think.

I'd be hesitant about making my own pizza dough in case it ends up too doughy/deep crust. I prefer to taste the toppings than bleedin' bread. So, if anyone has a tried and trusted thin base suggestion, holla.

We've had a pizza oven in our yard for a few years. My missus has a recipe for dough - Neapolitan style. And a sauce. I'll get them later.

The trick to pizza is extreme heat and the ability to resist the urge to overload the toppings. Less is more.

[StoutAndAle]

.

[Emphyrio]

Splendid!

[Caomhaoin]

Put this Stout and Ale lad on the payroll, Hambeast!

[mugz]

I love cooking. I learned when I was a kid. Eldest in a single parent family, mother out at work all day, had to make sure the other two didn't die, yada yada, yada. Living out of home from 17 onwards has also made me improve my skills. These days I pretty much make everything from scratch. Along with my plugging in my guitar, I find that it's one of the few things that centres me, takes me away of the stress and anxiety, gets me out my head and into some meditative zone.

Having something nice to fill my face with is a bonus too.

I'd love to be able to make Chinese stuff from scratch.

For  traditional Chinese dishes - I highly recommend Ken Hom and Ching-He Huang's "Exploring China" cookbook. It is currently available from Amazon for £1.50... Bargain!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/1849904987/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=used

The accompanying TV show is good too.

There's certain base ingredients that you'll need - fish sauce, shaosing wine, XO/Oyster sauce, etc but most of these are available in a Chinese supermarket now. Tesco even do a version of shaosing wine, I think.

I'd be hesitant about making my own pizza dough in case it ends up too doughy/deep crust. I prefer to taste the toppings than bleedin' bread. So, if anyone has a tried and trusted thin base suggestion, holla.

We've had a pizza oven in our yard for a few years. My missus has a recipe for dough - Neapolitan style. And a sauce. I'll get them later.

The trick to pizza is extreme heat and the ability to resist the urge to overload the toppings. Less is more.

that ken hom reference was a real nostalgia hit

the 80s and 90s were all about tv cooks, well we still have all that but it doesn't feel the same

[ochoill]

Wherever that Jamie Oliver pizza dough recipe is, keep in mind that you can also make a grand kebab bread with it if you fancy trying to replicate a home made version of a dirty kebab.  Did a chicken one during the week - not the old filthy chipper favourite, but still decent.

Use that pizza dough, roll it much thinner, use less of it.  Get the oven to 200, fire it in for about five minutes - you want it cooked through but not crispy.  For the meat, you want to very thinly slice chicken fillets along their width, stick them in a bowl with (dried/spice rack for all where applicable) oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, chili flakes, thyme (not rakes), rosemary (a bit), cumin (twice as much as anything else), paprika (small dash), coriander, minced garlic (or garlic powder), honey, lemon juice, a spoon of tomato paste, salt, black pepper.  Lash in some olive oil, mix it all up, leave it sit.  Depending on how you fancy layering your kebab, I also mix onions and peppers into this too and leave them sit with it, as long as you like.

Fire up a frying pan - if you have one of those grill pans, even better - put it on full heat, once it's hot stick as much of the mix as you can on it without it piling up, you want to keep it flat to the bottom of the pan.  Leave it brown on one side before even moving it, if it's sticking fire in a bit more oil, get it turned over as much as you can.  Keep it going until it's crisped, stick it in your pizza bread kebab wrap with whatever fillings you want.  I don't put too much on after the fact, houmous and hot sauce with a bit of lettuce does the trick.

A similar enough recipe will do the trick if you can get some alright lamb, and you can go one better by marinating it overnight in a fridge in the same mix of seasonings but with added greek yoghurt.  If you keep it skewerable in size, you can go further again and skewer it up.  For full kebab experience, skewer large flat squares of it tightly down on two skewers, press it all as tight as it will go, coat it in some leftover marinade, wrap it in cling film tightly and completely sealed, then freeze it.  This is how you can make your own upright kebab spit.  How you cook it is up to you to figure out, but if you've kept it at a small enough size you could do it on a rack in the oven, sideways, with a drip tray underneath and rotating it every 10 or so minutes.  You can crisp the outside of it under the grill once it starts cooking enough then shave strips off for chipper kebab styled meat.  When I worked for that Pizza place they taught me how to marinate and skewer our own kebab spits and it was basically a large scale method of what I described above (but cooked in a proper upright grill).

[Kurt Cocaine]

Wherever that Jamie Oliver pizza dough recipe is, keep in mind that you can also make a grand kebab bread with it if you fancy trying to replicate a home made version of a dirty kebab.  Did a chicken one during the week - not the old filthy chipper favourite, but still decent.

Use that pizza dough, roll it much thinner, use less of it.  Get the oven to 200, fire it in for about five minutes - you want it cooked through but not crispy.  For the meat, you want to very thinly slice chicken fillets along their width, stick them in a bowl with (dried/spice rack for all where applicable) oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, chili flakes, thyme (not rakes), rosemary (a bit), cumin (twice as much as anything else), paprika (small dash), coriander, minced garlic (or garlic powder), honey, lemon juice, a spoon of tomato paste, salt, black pepper.  Lash in some olive oil, mix it all up, leave it sit.  Depending on how you fancy layering your kebab, I also mix onions and peppers into this too and leave them sit with it, as long as you like.

Fire up a frying pan - if you have one of those grill pans, even better - put it on full heat, once it's hot stick as much of the mix as you can on it without it piling up, you want to keep it flat to the bottom of the pan.  Leave it brown on one side before even moving it, if it's sticking fire in a bit more oil, get it turned over as much as you can.  Keep it going until it's crisped, stick it in your pizza bread kebab wrap with whatever fillings you want.  I don't put too much on after the fact, houmous and hot sauce with a bit of lettuce does the trick.

A similar enough recipe will do the trick if you can get some alright lamb, and you can go one better by marinating it overnight in a fridge in the same mix of seasonings but with added greek yoghurt.  If you keep it skewerable in size, you can go further again and skewer it up.  For full kebab experience, skewer large flat squares of it tightly down on two skewers, press it all as tight as it will go, coat it in some leftover marinade, wrap it in cling film tightly and completely sealed, then freeze it.  This is how you can make your own upright kebab spit.  How you cook it is up to you to figure out, but if you've kept it at a small enough size you could do it on a rack in the oven, sideways, with a drip tray underneath and rotating it every 10 or so minutes.  You can crisp the outside of it under the grill once it starts cooking enough then shave strips off for chipper kebab styled meat.  When I worked for that Pizza place they taught me how to marinate and skewer our own kebab spits and it was basically a large scale method of what I described above (but cooked in a proper upright grill).

Here lawd.....

https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/bread-recipes/pizza-dough/

[StoutAndAle]

that ken hom reference was a real nostalgia hit

the 80s and 90s were all about tv cooks, well we still have all that but it doesn't feel the same

True - you'd never get a genuine eccentric/lunatic with the culinary talent of Keith Floyd on TV now (except perhaps Marco Pierre-White). That episode of his 80s show where he was cooking in some rural French chateau and fighting with the woman of the house the whole way through it was like Fawlty Towers. He's having a go at her in her language then translating it into English for the viewers.

There's a great story about Floyd from the 90s. Apparently he hated some producer that the BBC insisted replace David Pritchard who had been with him since the early 80s and steered the show to the success it became. They were in Thailand or somewhere and set to cook on a boat in open water. Floyd demanded it. The producer had to source gas bottles and cooking rings. Floyd then told him that it was only a 2 man boat so the producer had to struggle with all the stuff down to the pier. He asked the chef for a hand. Floyd held up a bottle of whiskey and 2 bottles of wine and replied "Dear boy, can't you see that my hands are full?"

They got to the boat. The producer sweating and out of breath. The guy who was taking them out noticed the gas bottles and said to said to Floyd "I told you yesterday that there was a full kitchen onboard."

"Must have slipped my mind...." 



----------------------------------------------------------

The pizza dough recipe is  Frank Pinello's Cold-Proof Pizza from one of his blogs.

Ingredients
Makes 5 x 12in (30cm) pizzas (equivalent to 5 x 160g dough balls), or 3 x 16in (40cm) pizzas (equivalent to 3 x 270g dough balls)

300ml (1¼ cups) cold water
10g (2 tsp) salt
3.5g fresh yeast (or 1.5g active dried yeast, or 1g instant dried yeast)
500g (4 cups) “00” flour, plus extra for dusting

Method

Prepare the pizza dough
Place two-thirds of the water in a large bowl. In a saucepan or microwave, bring the other third of water to boil, then add it to the cold water in the bowl. This creates the correct temperature for activating yeast. Whisk the salt and yeast into the warm water.

Mixing and kneading - by hand
Place the flour in a large bowl and pour the yeast mixture into it. Stir with a wooden spoon until a dough starts to form. Continue mixing by hand until the dough comes together in a ball. Turn it onto a lightly floured surface and knead with both hands for about 10 minutes, until it is firm and stretchy. Return the dough to the bowl. Cover with cling film (plastic wrap).

Mixing and kneading - using a mixer
Fit the mixer with the dough hook and place the flour in the mixer bowl. Turn the machine on at a low speed and gradually add the yeast mixture to the flour. Once combined, leave the dough to keep mixing to at the same speed for 5-10 minutes, or until the dough is firm and stretchy.

Cover the mixing bowl with cling film (plastic wrap).

Cold prove the pizza dough
Place the covered pizza dough in the fridge to cold prove for 24 to 72 hours. When the dough has roughly doubled in size, remove the dough from the fridge.

Second prove
Divide the cold-proved pizza dough into 3 or 5 equal pieces, depending on what size you want your pizzas to be (either 12 inches or 16 inches wide). Shape each piece into a ball, and place each pizza dough ball in a separate bowl or tray. Cover with cling film and leave to rise for 5 hours on your kitchen bench, so that they can come up to room temperature and double in size.

Stretching the pizza dough
Once the second prove is complete, you’re ready to stretch out your pizza bases!

Place the ball on a lightly floured surface, flour your hands and use your fingertips to press the dough into a small, flat disc. Working from the centre, push the dough outwards while spreading  your fingers, making the disc slightly bigger. Pick up the dough and gently pinch it all around the edge, allowing gravity to pull it downwards into a 30cm (12-inch) circle. Neapolitan-style pizza bases are very thin, so you should be able to see through the base when you hold it up to the light. Take care when doing this – you don’t want it to tear.

Once the dough is fully stretched, lightly flour your pizza peel and lay the base on it. If at this point you see any small holes in the dough, gently pinch them back together. Once you’re happy with the base, add your toppings and bake.

[mugz]

that ken hom reference was a real nostalgia hit

the 80s and 90s were all about tv cooks, well we still have all that but it doesn't feel the same

True - you'd never get a genuine eccentric/lunatic with the culinary talent of Keith Floyd on TV now (except perhaps Marco Pierre-White). That episode of his 80s show where he was cooking in some rural French chateau and fighting with the woman of the house the whole way through it was like Fawlty Towers. He's having a go at her in her language then translating it into English for the viewers.

There's a great story about Floyd from the 90s. Apparently he hated some producer that the BBC insisted replace David Pritchard who had been with him since the early 80s and steered the show to the success it became. They were in Thailand or somewhere and set to cook on a boat in open water. Floyd demanded it. The producer had to source gas bottles and cooking rings. Floyd then told him that it was only a 2 man boat so the producer had to struggle with all the stuff down to the pier. He asked the chef for a hand. Floyd held up a bottle of whiskey and 2 bottles of wine and replied "Dear boy, can't you see that my hands are full?"

They got to the boat. The producer sweating and out of breath. The guy who was taking them out noticed the gas bottles and said to said to Floyd "I told you yesterday that there was a full kitchen onboard."

"Must have slipped my mind...." 



----------------------------------------------------------

The pizza dough recipe is  Frank Pinello's Cold-Proof Pizza from one of his blogs.

Ingredients
Makes 5 x 12in (30cm) pizzas (equivalent to 5 x 160g dough balls), or 3 x 16in (40cm) pizzas (equivalent to 3 x 270g dough balls)

300ml (1¼ cups) cold water
10g (2 tsp) salt
3.5g fresh yeast (or 1.5g active dried yeast, or 1g instant dried yeast)
500g (4 cups) "00" flour, plus extra for dusting

Method

Prepare the pizza dough
Place two-thirds of the water in a large bowl. In a saucepan or microwave, bring the other third of water to boil, then add it to the cold water in the bowl. This creates the correct temperature for activating yeast. Whisk the salt and yeast into the warm water.

Mixing and kneading - by hand
Place the flour in a large bowl and pour the yeast mixture into it. Stir with a wooden spoon until a dough starts to form. Continue mixing by hand until the dough comes together in a ball. Turn it onto a lightly floured surface and knead with both hands for about 10 minutes, until it is firm and stretchy. Return the dough to the bowl. Cover with cling film (plastic wrap).

Mixing and kneading - using a mixer
Fit the mixer with the dough hook and place the flour in the mixer bowl. Turn the machine on at a low speed and gradually add the yeast mixture to the flour. Once combined, leave the dough to keep mixing to at the same speed for 5-10 minutes, or until the dough is firm and stretchy.

Cover the mixing bowl with cling film (plastic wrap).

Cold prove the pizza dough
Place the covered pizza dough in the fridge to cold prove for 24 to 72 hours. When the dough has roughly doubled in size, remove the dough from the fridge.

Second prove
Divide the cold-proved pizza dough into 3 or 5 equal pieces, depending on what size you want your pizzas to be (either 12 inches or 16 inches wide). Shape each piece into a ball, and place each pizza dough ball in a separate bowl or tray. Cover with cling film and leave to rise for 5 hours on your kitchen bench, so that they can come up to room temperature and double in size.

Stretching the pizza dough
Once the second prove is complete, you're ready to stretch out your pizza bases!

Place the ball on a lightly floured surface, flour your hands and use your fingertips to press the dough into a small, flat disc. Working from the centre, push the dough outwards while spreading  your fingers, making the disc slightly bigger. Pick up the dough and gently pinch it all around the edge, allowing gravity to pull it downwards into a 30cm (12-inch) circle. Neapolitan-style pizza bases are very thin, so you should be able to see through the base when you hold it up to the light. Take care when doing this – you don't want it to tear.

Once the dough is fully stretched, lightly flour your pizza peel and lay the base on it. If at this point you see any small holes in the dough, gently pinch them back together. Once you're happy with the base, add your toppings and bake.

used to love keith floyd's madness- it was engaging without being exploitative.

ready steady cook, antony worrall tompson, he might write his name another way, jilly goolden, oz clarke, endless bbc and itv daytime tv