The escapist cookbook/recipe thread

[rosac]

The question- what is your go to recipe, how do you make it and where did you learn it?

for myself-

Halloumi pasta salad

serves 6-8

Ingredients-
500g of Orzo (pasta shaped like rice)
Half jar sundried tomatoes (keep the oil!)
12 olives
1 bunch spring onions
2 blocks halloumi

Finely chop the olives, sundried tomatoes and spring onions
Slice the halloumi thinly

Grill the halloumi on a grill preheated to mark 4 until one side is light brown. Do not try and turn it, more hassle than it's worth

Boil water on a hob. When it's boiling, put the orzo in and cook

chop the grilled halloumi up into small chunks

Drain the water off the orzo, mix in the rest of the ingredients

Use some of the oil off the sundried tomatoes to loosen it up.

HACKS- Cook the orzo in a big pan and use this to mix it together at the end to save washing up.
grill the halloumi pre chopping as it's a bugger to do when it;s not cooked


This is a staple at my family Barbeques and I often make batches as it's high carbs and protein.

Garlic and herb pasta

Pasta (I prefer penne for this)
Philadelphia garlic and herb (or other cream cheese with garlic and herbs in)
Bacon
spinach

Slice up the bacon and fry
Boil water, when boiling add the pasta and cook as per instructions
whilst water is boiling/pasta is cooking, wilt the spinach in a small pan.
drain pasta but put it back in the pan you used to cook it
put bacon and spinach into pan
whilst pasta is still hot add the philadelphia, allow to melt slightly then mix it in. If the pasta is too cold put on the edge of a hob on the lowest setting.

finito!




Those are my 2 go to recipes, I'd like to see some sweet recipes/baking if possible as I don;t know many.

P.s. no "call dominoes" etc. You're better than that.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I make a mean spicy Gumbo for game night and holidays and parties and the like.

Hot link and chicken gumbo
2 pounds Hot Links
1 whole chicken(with 4 tablespoons creole seasoning)
1 cup onion, small dice
1 cup celery, small dice
1 cup green bell pepper, small dice
1 Tablespoon garlic, minced
1 cup canola oil, plus 4 tablespoons
1 cup flour
3 tablespoon paprika
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons creole seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch cayenne


1. Cut up the chicken. Season the chicken parts with the 4 tablespoons creole seasoning. In a large pot, heat the 4 tablespoons oil over medium high heat. Sear the chicken parts, skin side down, until browned. Flip the chicken and allow to brown on the other side. Once the chicken is browned, add 3 quarts water. Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer for 45minutes then turn the heat off and let the chicken rest in the pot until you need to make the gumbo or refrigerate the stock for the future.
2. Heat the ? canola oil in a dutch over, or on stove top. Heat the pot over medium heat and add chunks of hot links and sear all the sides. Remove the hot links. Add the flour to make a roux. Reduce the heat to low. Constantly stir the roux until it is a shade of brown darker than peanut butter. Should take between 30-50mins of slow stirring. Add the paprika and stir to incorporate.
3. To the roux add the onion, celery, bell peppers and garlic. Increase the heat on the pot to medium and cook the vegetables for about 5 minutes. Then, add the bay leaf, hot sauce, creole seasonings and 2 quarts of the chicken stock. Slowly bring the mixture to a simmer and stir to make sure there is no burning at the bottom of the pan.
4. Simmer the gumbo for 30minutes and adjust the consistency with more chicken stock if needed. Add hot links to the pot and simmer for another 30minutes. Next add the shredded chicken. Turn the heat off the gumbo and adjust the seasoning to your liking.
5. Serve over rice and have file at the table for anyone who may want to add it to their gumbo.


And I learned this from a gumbo cooking class my dad bought me for Christmas a few years back.

 

[Auron225]

Poptarts:

Open package
Toast the poptart

Yeah I'm useless in the kitchen, but I'm gonna be watching this thread to see what people post. I moved away from home a couple months ago and my cooking has a long way to go... and it needs to get somewhere soon because omelettes are the best I can do right now.

 

[infohippie]

Chicken udon soup.
Brown some diced chicken, cut a carrot into thin slices or matchsticks as you prefer, add half a litre of chicken stock and some pak choi or shredded Asian cabbage. If you are using fresh udon noodles, add them straight in. If you are using dried noodles, boil them separately for a few minutes until they are soft, then drain them and add to the main pot. Simmer everything together for about five minutes or until chicken is cooked. On serving, top with chopped green onions and a dash of soy sauce. Add fresh chopped chilli peppers if you like a bit of spiciness.

 

[pookie101]

simple tortilla/pizza base

2 cups of plain flour
1 teaspoon of salt
3 tea spoons of olive oil
1 cup of warm not hot water

add the ingredients in that order, keep adding a little flour at a time until the dough is no longer sticky

for tortillas split the dough into 3-4 piles, roll them as thin as you can and then stick them in a fry pan or skillet until they start to brown, flip and repeat

for a pizza base, preheat the oven to as high as it goes, just roll into a circle large enough to cover your pizza tray, put in the oven. depending on your oven, the tray, etc it can take 12-18 minutes to cook. take out flip the base, and add what ever you want on top. takes about 10 minutes of cooking and your pizza is ready.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Made this twice this week. Love it.

Simple Bell Pepper Stirfry

Ingredients

3 3/4 teaspoon, Cornstarch
2 tablespoon, Soy Sauce, Low Sodium
2 teaspoon, Cooking Sherry (Replace with other cooking alcohol, or 1 teaspoon soy sauce if required)
1 teaspoon, Apple Cider Vinegar (Wine Vinegar substitution)
3/4 teaspoon, Sugar
1/2 teaspoon, Hot Pepper Sauce (Your choice)
Vegetable/Canola Oil
2 cloves, Garlic
1/2 teaspoon, Ginger (Ginger paste works great)
Salt
Black Pepper
Crushed Red Pepper
1 can, Water Chestnuts
4 cups (After cooking), Brown or White rice
2 cups, Bell Peppers, Green, Red, Orange, or Yellow (About 2 medium-to-large bell peppers)
4 tablespoon, Green Onion (Replace with minced onion is required)
0.80-1.00 pound, Lean Chicken, Beef, or Pork.
1/2 cup, Unsalted Cashews (Optional)


Directions

1. Determine preferred way of making rice. Before cooking, drain and rinse water chestnuts. Lightly dice and mix in with rice. Sprinkle in a dash of salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper, and 2 teaspoons of red crushed pepper. Stir. Add more pepper as desired. Cook rice.

2. Julienne bell peppers. Slice or mince onions. Slice meat into thin strips, length wise.

3. In a small bowl, mix 1 teaspoon cornstarch, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 2 teaspoons of cooking sherry, 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar, 3/4 teaspoon sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce. Stir until well mixed (Cornstarch has been absorbed) and set aside.

4. Combine 2 3/4 teaspoons of cornstarch, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, and meat into a bowl and mix. If the cornstarch does not completely get absorbed into liquid, ad a dash of soy sauce and try mixing again. Repeat until all the cornstarch has dissolved and meat has an even coating.

5. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. If using cashews, put them into the pan and toast for 3 minutes, being sure to stir and flip the cashews every couple of seconds. Once done, put aside into a bowl.

6. Put oil into the pan and coat the bottom. Put in meat and saute until all the meat has been browned, approximately 2-3 minutes. Deposit into another bowl.

7. Add bell peppers to pan and saute for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.

8. Add garlic, ginger, and 2 tablespoons of onions and stir for 30 seconds.

9. Add meat and previous cornstarch mixture (Step 3) to pan. Continue to cook and stir the mixture for 1 minute, or until the sauce has been thickened and spread evenly over vegetables and meat. Remove from heat and add remaining onions.

9. Get a serving of rice mixture (Step 1) on a plate, then top with bell pepper/meat mixture. Sprinkle cashews onto the dish on plate, not in the skillet. Serve.

Shamelessly stolen (As modified slightly) from Cooking Light.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Pancakes! Nice and simple, but it's a recipe my family have used for years.

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups of flour
3 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 a teaspoon of salt
3 teaspoons of magic baking powder (Don't cheap out on this stuff, I did once and I could never figure out why my pancakes were garbage afterwards until it dawned on me an entire year later)

1 1/4 cups of milk (Add slightly more AFTER step 5 if the batter seems too thick))
1 egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla
3 tablespoons of butter

Instructions:

1. Add all of the dry ingredients into one bowl
2. Melt butter and add it to all of the wet ingredients into another bowl and stir it with a whisk
3. Pre-heat pan at about medium heat
4. Slowly pour the mixed wet ingredients into the dry bowl
5. Stir that shit till it's thick while still being smooth and easy to stir (Not tar levels of thick, and not like water either)
6. Cook, obviously!
7. Serve. Delicious
Bonus: It's easy to add your own stuff like chocolate chips after step 6. Or you can add some butter after they're cooked. It's up to you and how you like your pancakes!

 

[Zontar]

I have two go to ones for ground beef.

Meatloaf

1 block of ground beef
1 egg
Bread Crumbs (no ratio, just eyeball it)
spices (nothing specific)

Take it all and mix it by hand until it's consistent, then stick it in the oven at 350F until it reaches an internal temperature of 165F

Grey Beef

1 block of ground beef
1 can of mushroom soup

Take the block of ground beef and fry it in a pan, constantly braking it down with a spatula until it's nothing but tiny pieces.
Mix it around while cutting to make sure all the small pieces turn grey, make sure there is no red left.
When done, add the can of mushroom soup and mix.
Eventually you'll have an even layer of creamy material all intermixed with the beef bits.

Once that reaches consistency apply to either cooked rice or mashed potatoes. Works great on both and both are cheap, though rice is much, much faster.

And that's the bum's guide to ground beef.

 

[omega 616]

Poptarts:

Open package
Toast the poptart

Yeah I'm useless in the kitchen, but I'm gonna be watching this thread to see what people post. I moved away from home a couple months ago and my cooking has a long way to go... and it needs to get somewhere soon because omelettes are the best I can do right now.

Cooking is quite easy.

Just about everything starts off with sweat onions.
Marinading = better taste.
Add salt, be generous with it ... only way you know if you've added too much is if you taste it (if you do go over board, add ingredients that will use up the extra salt).
If you think you've finished, taste it! If you think it needs a little something, think about it or look up what herbs or spices go with your ingredients.

Just experiment.

Like Last night, I wanted to make a stew. (with my own spin on it, which is the tomatoes)

So, I got diced beef put it in a pan (NO OIL!) and leave it, stir every 3 mins or so. You will see loads of juice come out of it, that is the fat rendering (which is why you add no oil) once the juice starts to disappear, stir it more or it will stick.

Then I added can of chopped tomatoes to bulk it out. Mixed a stock jelly in the chopped tomato can (to get the tomato juice left in the can) and put that in with the meat.

While doing all that I was chopping veg up, carrots, swede etc into little cubes. Then put all that in as well.

Added salt, pepper and mixed herbs.

Stuck the lid on and let it all cook. Checking every 10 minutes to see if I needed to add more water to stop it from burning or if it was cooked.

Tasted to see if the seasoning and stuff was right, then tucked in.

I cheated kind of and used powered onion 'cos as a chef, I am sick of dicing onions haha

If you were going to dice an onion, I was taught to brown the diced beef off first, take that out of the pan, put the diced onion in the pan you just used to brown the beef, once the onions are sweated (go limp) add the beef back in and carry on like I said.

Once you have a basic idea of some simple rules you can go nuts haha I mean, if you start to go into high end shit like lobster thermador with a raspberry jus, it gets really hard, really quickly but should just add what you like.

Oh and don't try to always cook at max heat on a stove, it has temperature controls so use them (took me awhile to learn that to be honest) and 180c seems to be the perfect cooking temp for just about everything.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

My go to recipe would probably be my take on a chicken curry. The below recipe will serve 4 people:

Spoiler: Homemade chicken curry

For the rice:
1 mug (around 250g) mixed basmati and wild rice
half a lemon
6 cardamom pods

For the curry:
2 teaspoons homemade curry powder (below)
1 teaspoon tumeric
roughly 1 inch grated ginger
2 cloves grated garlic
5 diced chicken thighs
2 kaffir lime leaves
4 spring onions, each cut into thirds, or 2 inch lengths
1 tin reduced fat coconut milk
1 bunch (around 200g) green beans
soy sauce + fish sauce to season, roughly twice as much soy to fish

For the garnish:
a couple of limes
a bunch of coriander, finely chopped
a couple of fresh chillis, finely sliced
a couple of spring onions, finely sliced
one packet of cashews, broken up a bit and toasted just before serving

Cooking Instructions:
For the rice: Add the rice to salted boiling water. Place the half lemon and cardamom pods on top, cover with a lid and leave until cooked (~25 mins). Once the water has boiled away drain your rice and leave to steam for a minute or two.
For the curry: In a wok gently heat some oil (I prefer rapeseed oil for the slight nutty flavour) and add the curry powder, tumeric, grated ginger and garlic. Bring up to a fairly high heat, and when the resulting paste is hot add the diced chicken. Once the chicken is sealed all over add the lime leaves and spring onions, and fry for another minute or so. Bring the heat down to a steady medium, add the coconut milk, green beans and the soy and fish sauces and simmer for ~10 mins. If you've timed everything right this should be just when the rice is finished cooking.
For the garnish: Lightly toast the crushed cashews in a dry pan and serve with the rest of the garnishes. This is best done right at the end, as your rice is steaming.

As for the curry powder, mix 2 tbsp each of garam masala, dried chilli flakes and ground ginger with 1 tbsp each of peppercorns, onion seeds, star anise, coriander seeds, cardamom seeds, yellow mustard seeds and cumin seeds together with half a cinnamon stick in a dry baking tray. Roast in an oven at 180c for 15 mins, stirring every 5 before passing everything through a coffee grinder until fine. The resulting mix will keep in an airtight container for up to eight months.

As for where I learned it, I was just in the kitchen fiddling about one day. I love cooking, I find it very relaxing after a long, stressful day at work.

 

[Zhukov]

I got a couple of go-to recipes.

Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Sauce

Dead simple, very fast and tasty as hell.

Ingredients
- Dried Gnocchi (Unless you want to make your own. It's mashed potato, flour and egg. One egg to 400g of potato then add flour till you get a doughy consistency. Hard to get right. If you're cooking for someone else just bloody buy the dried stuff. Make sure you get a good brand, I've had some that tasted like shit.)
- Butter (about 40-50g per person)
- Mascepone cheese or thickened cream. (About a tablespoon per person.)
- Gorgonzola cheese (about 80g per person. Depends how much you like it. The more you put in the stronger the taste.)
- Grated Parmesan cheese
- Parsley (optional)
- Pepper (optional)

Method:
Melt the butter on a moderate heat. Add the gorgonzola until it melts too. Then add the cream/mascepone to thicken it up. Give it a stir. Do not overheat the sauce, that'll make the butter and cheese separate. That's about the only way you can fuck this up.

Boil the gnocchi. When it starts floating to the top of the water it's almost ready.

Chuck the cooked gnocchi on a plate, sprinkle with parmesan, pour on the sauce, garnish with chopped parsley. Sprinkle with pepper to taste.

The sauce also goes well with pasta. Chuck it into some penne with some chopped pecans or walnuts and parsley or chives.

Russian-style Potato Salad

Actually comes from France apparently.

Ingredients:
- Boiled potatoes, chopped up however you like
- Eggs, hard boiled and sliced
- Gerkins, finely chopped
- Red onion, finely chopped
- Chives, finely chopped
- Mayonnaise, lots
- Horseradish cream (optional but worth it)
- Worcestershire sauce (optional)

Method:
It's a fucking salad. Throw it all in a bowl and mix it up a bunch.

 

[Zhadramekel]

Bacon and Onion Potatoes

Heat jacket potatoes in the microwave (about one and a half potatoes per person works well) for about 20 minutes until soft.
Scoop out the inner potato with a regular spoon but keep the skins as in tact as possible. Scoop the potato into a large bowl.
Set the skins on a baking tray.
Mash the potato with a little milk and butter.
Finely chop a white onion and add to the bowl.
Cook bacon in a frying pan (about 2 rashers per person) until just cooked through and allow to cool slightly.
Cut the bacon into small pieces (about the size of your thumb nail) and add to the bowl.
Grate a small amount of cheddar cheese and add to the bowl.
Stir the bacon, onion and cheese into the potato until everything is combined together well.
Scoop the mixture back into the potato skins, don't be afraid to overfill them.
Grill in the oven for about five minutes or until brown and crispy on the top.
Serve with baked beans or a side salad (or both).

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

Simple enough stir-fry, and I'm gonna try it. What meats would you recommend? At first glance I'd go cubed pork with a little more teriyaki or Sweet/Sour sauce.
But beef with a Thai peanut sauce would be yum too.

 

[DefunctTheory]

SNIP

Simple enough stir-fry, and I'm gonna try it. What meats would you recommend? At first glance I'd go cubed pork with a little more teriyaki or Sweet/Sour sauce.
But beef with a Thai peanut sauce would be yum too.

Any lean meat will do. I've done that particular mix with thinly sliced chicken tenders, and thinly sliced pork tenderloin. The chicken kind of merged a bit better with the stir fry, as it has a milder flavor, which allowed the peppers to pop a bit more. The pork stood out a bit more and added it's own kick, which I liked.

For beef, flank steak would probably be best - That stuff just takes really well to being thing. The leaner bit of a sirloin would probably work as well, thought you're have to probably do a bit of trimming.

 

[Superlative]

I'm surprised I haven't seen a chilli recipe here so I'll add mine. I dang near lived off this stuff in college.

Spoiler: Superlative Chilli

Superlative Chilli (feeds 4-6, or one college guy for a weekend)

Ingredients

~1.5 lbs ground beef
1 can tomato sauce
1 can tomato paste
1 can Kidney or Black beans

Spices
1/2 cup Chilli powder
2 Tb Salt
2 Tb Black Pepper
1 Tb Onion Powder (can be subbed out for a raw onion)
1 Tb Garlic Powder (can be subbed out for fresh)
1 Tb Italian Seasoning
1 dash of Cinnamon (yes cinnamon, just trust me here)

Optional ingredients
Ketchup
Sriracha
Hot Sauce


Cooking instructions

Cook Ground beef with all spices but cinnamon in the pan. If you have fresh onion or garlic, chop and cook them with the beef.

Drain fat once browned and add beans, tomato products, and dashes of everything on the spice mix, then fill tomato products cans with water and add to chilli.

Bring mixture to a raging boil and then add one dash of cinnamon (the cinnamon lowers acidity).

Reduce to a simmer and add optional ingredients to taste.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

I use a very quick, very easy soup recipe every few weeks.

2 quarts chicken broth
3 skinless/boneless chicken breasts, cubed
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
1 white onion, chopped
1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, minced
2/3 cup of barley
1/3 cup of rice
salt and pepper to taste

Put all ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a boil. Put cover on the pot, reduce to medium heat and allow to cook for 20 minutes.
Serve with some nice garlic bread (or a good crusty bread).