In memory of my dear mother, Vera. You taught me to be positive and be ready to learn from anyone. And your cooking was the best...
Maybe a bit rare to see cooking advice in a github gist, nevertheless - let's go! (I prefer recipes that do not require a lot of work)
What I like about cooking a thing repeatedly:
- you develop an intuition for time, how long does it take for a pancake to be ready before turning? How long does it take for a soup to be ready for consumption?
- Also: experimentation with the recipes: sometimes an ingredient isn't handy, can you substitute it with something else? Try variations of spices? - there is room for experimentation, to some degree - and you can adopt what works. Cooking is not a totally fixed process, there is some room for variation...
- Time passes quickly, if you do something with your own hands that has a purpose & makes sense. Cooking is an 'easy entry' into this kind of activity.
- wash two big cauliflower heads, remove the blackened spots
- separate the cauliflowers into pieces (medium sized, not not too small pieces) and cut off the big stems. pe
- pot with water: add the cauliflowers and add a teaspoon of salt
- while the water is boiling: keep it cooking for six to eight minutes. (can add some cut and cleaned big paprika pieces while the water is boiling)
- veggies that should not be added: Zucchini (get bitter), Potatoes (take more time to roast)
- stop the heat, wait for several minutes, remove the water
- put the veggies into a bowl
- Add a bit of ground pepper and oil
- mix it up.
- preheat the oven at 200C
- put the veggies in some pan (a disposable aluminium foil pan will do), covered in baking paper (Important detail: order the pieces neatly, so hat they are all on a flat surface - this is general advice with this kind of roasting projects)
- put it all into the preheated oven (at 200C with circulating air)
- after about ten minutes, turn the veggies in the pan upside down, continue for another 7-10 minutes. You need to take out the paprika pieces out at ths stage - they take less time.
Pro tip: the water left from cooking the veggies can be used to stretch soups, etc (lots of stuff can be reused, upon second thought). Also using the stem of the cauliflower for that purpose.
- take a bowl of water and start cooking it.
- Take Pelmeni/Kreplach/meat Ravioli from the freezer, fil a table plate full of frozen stuff (one layer). put the plate in the microwave for 3 minutes.
- when the water starts cooking (first bubbles appear) put the stuff into the water.
- cook for seven minutes in boiling water
Why do I heat them up in a microwave? They cling to the bottom of the pan, if you take them from from the freezer put them into hot water. Also they will cook more evenly and better, if they are no longer frozen . Don't overdo the preheating, otherwise they will fall apart while cooking.
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Cut the onions (lots of them). I cut them into squares (to make it easier to eat the stuff)
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Add two tablespoons of salt + pepper.
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Start frying them in butter, later add a bit of oil
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A bit later add ground garlic (one-two pieces) and ground ginger (i always add ginger to soups)
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Fry them until brown (on medium temperature, this helps to avoid burning the stuff), stir occasionally. The whole point of the soup is to have sweetened onions, they caramelize upon frying.
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Add water and wait till the water boils (boil for a few minutes)
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Most important: after boiling for a couple of minutes, let it simmer for 40 minutes (if you don't cut the heat then most of the water evaporates, so less soup to eat)
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fry some bread, add cheese on top and put it into the hot soup, several minutes before serving.
You can fry some two onions, for five to ten minutes, add small spoonful of salt + pepper - then after that add some cabbage/or ground beetroot, whatever. Cook that for 20 minutes and add it to the soup. The caramelized onions with the other stuff are a good addition to the soup. (same trick used for both shchi soup and borshcht soup )
General trick with soups:
- Wait till the water is boiling, for several minutes. Then turn down the flame to medium / medium-low and keep it that way for an hour and a half. With a high flame you risk burning the ingredients and also water/brine evaporates excessively.
Also known as Jewish Penicillin
common trick: need to cut off excess skin from chicken peaces - otherwise the soup is a lot of fat.
Variant 1:
- put all ingredients into pot, (first the onions, fry them, add the carrots later, fry them, add chicken + potatoes).
- important ingredient: add a piece of celery (clean it well)
- add the water a bit later
- cook, while removing the foam/scale - while cooking (after 15-20 minutes of adding the water)
- add fine cut parsley or coriander near the end.
Variant 2:
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cook the big chicken peaces separately for 30-minutes.
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Add a lightly cut onion with it. A piece of cleaned celery or something similar can help.
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remove foam (after 15-20 minutes of adding the water)
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after 20 minutes: take chicken out of the water, clean meat off the bones and put them back into soup
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separately: cut two-three onions finely, chop them into small pieces.
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fry them on oil: extra trick - can add some fat floating on top of the soup.
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add two-three finely cut carrots - after 10 minutes.
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continue to fry on low-medium temperature for another 15 minutes.
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add it all to the soup.
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add fine cut parsley or coriander near the end.
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put up the heat, wait till it boils, continue cooking for another 10 minutes on low-medium heat.
- need to cut the chicken wings in half (in the middle). Comes out this is quite easy, if he meat is still half frozen
- cut off most of he skin (that's the most work intensive step, however is required: otherwise he result is a bit fatty)
- add ground garlic, ground ginger, spices, oil, a big spoonful of honey (very important ingredient), teriyaki sauce (or oil - if missing).
- mix it all up
- wait for 30 minutes
- put it into disposable aluminium foil pan covered with baking paper (Important detail: order the pieces neatly, so hat they are all on a flat surface - this is general advice with this kind of roasting projects)
- put it into a pre-heated oven a 200C.
- at about 20 minutes: turn the meat pieces over, so tha that both sides get some heat.
Additional trick:
- can add cut potato peaces (need to salt them). It takes about the same time to roast the potatoes!
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two eggs
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liter and something of milk
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a cup and a half of flower (if possible: of two kinds)
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two big spoonfuls of sugar
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half a cup of yoghurt or half a cup of kefir.
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if possible: some vanilla sugar, if handy.
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put ingredients except for flower into a bowl
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add the flower through a sieve, gradually - little by little, at the same time: stir by hand with a the detachable head of a mixer (I do it in order to keep silent...)
Process of frying pancakes:
- wait for a couple of minutes, for the frying pan to heat up
- add a bit of butter
- start with frying a smaller pancake, then make them bigger and bigger. This trick avoids the problem of pancakes sticking to the frying pan (proverbial 'first pancake is lumpy' / Pervyj blin komom) Also it has something from the practice of programming: first do a working prototype - then scale it...
- it is a longer process, but doing it regularly gives some kind of inner peace...
(some people say Heinz canned beans comes from Cholent - others say there is no connection...)
- half a cup of pinto beans, half a cup of white beans
- half a kilo/700 gram of 'meat number five' - cut from the chuck/plate area.
- two big onion, several pieces of garlic,
- two-three carrots
- several potatoes (cut into smaller pieces)
- spices (I take half a small spoon of spicy paprika + half a spoon of regular paprika)
Preparations:
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preparing the meat: add some ground garlic, If handy: add some fine ground ginger. Add the spices, add some oil - mix it up and cover it. Wait for about an hour before using it.
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take half a cup of Pinto beans/brown beans, and half a cup of white beans, soak them together in a bowl - ideally for 24 hours, but over the night will also do.
- such a mixture is tasty, also has health benefit: foodstruct says: 'Pinto beans are high in phosphorus, selenium, folate, and vitamin C. White beans, on the other hand, provide more potassium, calcium, and magnesium. Moreover, white beans are slightly high in protein content. They also contain more net carbs and less saturated fats, whereas pinto beans are high in fiber, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats. Pinto beans provide more calories and lower sodium content.'
Process:
- one bowl is cooking the beans - for about one and a half to two hours, until cooked.
- big gotcha: cook them on medium flame/temperature. On a high flame the beans get burned.
An hour later: start with the second bowl.
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second bowl: start to fry the onions, add a small spoon of salt. five minutes latter add cut carrots. Add meat bit later add potatoes.
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Let it fry for 15-20 minutes on medium heat.
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add two-three smaller packages of canned tomato paste (I am not adding any sugar, but there might be some sugar in the tomato paste)
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add a bit of water from the cooking bens to the bowl.
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continue for an hour on medium heat.
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Once meat + beans are ok (takes two hours for the beans, one hour for the meet). Mix the two bowls. If possible: put the combined bowl into the stove for another hour or so.
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I found the trick of mixing brown pinto beans with white beans by accident. Turns out that the taste is much better this way. Also the different kinds of beans complement each other:
https://foodstruct.com/compare/pinto-beans-vs-white-beans
They are not a good rich on vitamins, but they are a rich source of minerals,
"""Pinto beans are high in phosphorus, selenium, folate, and vitamin C. White beans, on the other hand, provide more potassium, calcium, and magnesium. Moreover, white beans are slightly high in protein content. They also contain more net carbs and less saturated fats, whereas pinto beans are high in fiber, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats. Pinto beans provide more calories and lower sodium content."""
Also there are digestive / cardiovascular / diabetes / and other benefits of combining the two beans sorts!
British sailors were called Limeys - they had to drink a daily ration of lemon juice. Lemon juice has a lot of vitamin C, so it prevents the scurvy disease. German sailors had to eat pickled/fermented cabbage for the same reason, so British sailors called them Krauts (Sauerkraut is fermented cabbage in German)
However I think the dish is more a symbol of (nonexisting) Eurasian unity - you have it from Japan to Spain (come to think of it: few things other than football would unite people across such distances!). And for a reason: it boosts the immune system, balances gut bacteria, has lots of vitamin C and K. That's exactly what you need for long and cold winters, as you can keep it in storage.
Also: "Captain James Cook always took a store of sauerkraut on his sea voyages, since experience had taught him it prevented scurvy" here.
So here are some variations of preparing the dish:
- Take a big cabbage and cut it into small peaces
- put it into a big metal bowl and press the cut leaves with hands - do that for about fifteen minutes. This is an important step - fermentation needs the cabbage juices, also: without this step the leaves will blackened during fermentation.
- add a big spoon and half of salt, mix well with the cabbage leaves.
- cover the leaves with a plate and put something heavy on it, over the night.
The German variant of sauerkraut: the next day you put it into a big glass jar, close the jar and store it the cupboard for three-four days, for fermentation. One variant is to add two-three spoons of sugar, before that - so that the result will be less bitter.
For Russian Kvashennaja Kapusta: Take two-three carrots and cut them into very small peaces, add them to the mixture. (same option with the sugar, but better to add that later on, as it is inhibiting the healthy stuff process)
For Kimchi: take a hand full of radish, clean and cut ito peaces, add several carrots - cut into peaces. Add a lot of spices, two-three spoonfuls of sugar. Add three-four clean garlic peaces (not cut). Wait for an hour and add that to the mixture.
The common part: find a big glass jar. You can either buy a big glass jar with a lid, or buy a big glass jar of pickles and open it, so that the lid is still closing the jar hermetically. Here is the trick: press the glass jar on the fringes of he lid to the desk and roll it around. If the lid will open easily, if is pressed in such a way - and will still close the jar hermetically.
In Russian: how to clean smoked mackerel fish (very useful, especially around new year...) I can do with some salads + some fish and caviar on black bread, with a bit of good butter.
To-be-continued-with-other-recipes