What's cookin', good lookin'?

[IrisAlthea]

Yesterday we had lentils and tomatoes spiced with fennel seed, garlic, honey and black pepper, served with grilled salsiccia.
It was a new recipe I tried and it turned out so good I want to have it today too.

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

Yesterday we had lentils and tomatoes spiced with fennel seed, garlic, honey and black pepper, served with grilled salsiccia.
It was a new recipe I tried and it turned out so good I want to have it today too.

I had to Google salsiccia. And isn't grilled... well, anything at all, delicious?
Lentils are a newly acquired taste for me, within the past 2 years or so. I tend to cook them the same way all the time, so if you can share a recipe I would love to try it

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

Ok, I think I know how Iris cooks by now, and as I think about it, I can see where this is headed...

Just cook lentils (she'll say) and add tomatoes garlic fennel honey and pepper!
Except I can't cook a recipe I have never tasted like that...
Just heading it off at the pass

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Endless_Night]

Does anyone have a good recipe for maharashtrian style baingan bhartha? One without peppers preferably. None that I've tried from online have been particularly exceptional.

 

[IrisAlthea]

Ok, I think I know how Iris cooks by now, and as I think about it, I can see where this is headed...

Just cook lentils (she'll say) and add tomatoes garlic fennel honey and pepper!
Except I can't cook a recipe I have never tasted like that...
Just heading it off at the pass

Haha, ouch!
Yes, that's usually it, but since I made it for the first time and actually from only one recipe, I can actually be a bit more specific.
I'll be back shortly.

 

[IrisAlthea]

The recipy:
Green lentils with tomato and salsiccia (for 4 hungry wolves)
2 dl ( about a cup) green lentils
1.5 tsp fennel seed
1 can of San Marzano tomatoes or cherry tomatoes
1 dl water
1 tbsp garlic purée
1 tbsp honey
1/2 tbsp balsamico
4 raw salsiccia

How I didn't follow it:
Didn't have any garlic purée and didn't feel like making any.
If you want to, just roast garlic cloves in the oven 175 C (350 F) for about 30 min, squeeze out the garlic from the shell and mix with olive oil and salt.
You can store it for a couple of weeks in the fridge.
I used a bit more honey, salt and some powdered vegetable broth with the regular garlic to get about the same unami effect.

Boil the lentils and drain.
If you tend to forget to soak them like I do, dump them in boiling water and pull from the heat. Let sit for 30 minutes and then simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Grind the fennel seed in a mortar and heat it in some olive oil until heavenly smell of liquorice emerges, add tomatoes, garlic puree ( I did let the garlic get soft in the oil first since I didn't use purée), honey, balsamico and the drained lentils.
Add salt and black pepper to taste and serve with grilled salsiccia.

I think it neded the broth or perhaps a bit less water and it was the combination with the saltiness of the salsiccia that made it pop.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[IrisAlthea]

And for the love of lentils:

Linsen mit speck und knödel

Brown lentils cooked with bay leaf, lemon and onion and served with bacon. The trick is to drip some of the bacon grease into the lentils.
Feel free to cheat with canned lentils. Even my Granny cheated with Inzersdorfer cans.
Serve with knödel if you want to, but not to often unless you are a lumberjack.

Dahl
1 cup of lentils
1 onion
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp chili powder (I use a hot as hell variety, so adjust as you please)
Chopped garlic
A thumb of fresh grated or chopped ginger
1 tsp salt
Lemonjuice about 2 tbsp
Water
Rinse lentils and heat them carefully.
Add the other ingredients and let the aroma from the spices develop.
Cover with water and simmer on as low temp as you can for about an hour.
This one you can play around with as much as you please.
I've gone as far as coconut milk, tomatoes and spinach without getting booed out of the kitchen.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

Thank you, Iris!!
Now I can play with my lentils

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[desertslave]

Master has had a craving for at least two weeks, now, for his mom's-style hash browns and eggs. It's one of our team breakfasts...He makes the hash brown cake and I make eggs over easy and sometimes bacon.

His version of hash browns is rather like a Spanish torta....shredded potatoes well drained, seasoned with salt & pepper and arranged in a very hot, greased skillet. One side gets cooked til crispy, then it gets flipped onto a plate and flipped over, repeat for the other side. It makes for a crispy outside and tender center. He is the Master of it. (I tried to flip the cast iron pan one time, and the result wasn't pretty. LOL)

I'll make eggs and some applewood-smoked bacon. I doubt we'll be eating lunch!

 

[Cumference]

I have ten young rooks* filled with parsley, onion and bacon simmering in a cream sauce.


*Corvus Frugilegus, not chess pieces.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Cumference]

Rooks, the corvid? What does it taste like please?

Like pigeons, maybe a bit more "wild".

And the sauce is a mouthful of heaven!

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Cumference]

...... And should you happen to shoot one of the old ones (you are not likely to, they are smart!) then the meat will be darker, tough and the taste very wild. They can be eaten, but they are far from being as tasty as the young.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

collar

G just saw the picture of your loaf and thinks it looks delicious. He thinks your crust looks a lovely colour and the crumb looks light. He finds it a thing of beauty .

( I feel like the man in Psycho talking for his dead mother. At exists...! It is His hand in the Bread picture before!)

Hey there, psycho
Please tell G I said... he has good taste
And thank you kindly
The bread is really delicious. I like the combination of habanero and bacon. Because the bread sits all night before I bake it, the habanero flavour really develops, and not the heat. I love this aspect of the bread, as I love the fruity, citrus taste of the habanero and not the heat. Perfect! And the bacon just adds a nice bit of crumbly crunch, and smokiness. Yep! I'll make this one again

Like pigeons, maybe a bit more "wild".

And the sauce is a mouthful of heaven!

Ok! Disregard question in my thread, as I have my answer already

 

[seela]

Here's some Belarusian food. Not cooked by me, obviously. J has some more pics of food, so there might be more to come later on. Most, if not all, restaurants allow smoking. That definitely felt odd and dampened some of our dining experiences somewhat.

Rows from top to bottom, left to right:

-Breakfast omelet with salad, ie. sliced cabbage and half a tomato. Epic joke. It was the first morning, after that I remembered that side salads in this corner of the world only exist on the menu.
-Pelmeni filled with pork and tarragon. Excellent food at an excellent location.
-Machanka. Pancake topped with 2 pork ribs and a piece of pork sausage, lathered very generously with cheese sauce, as you can see. I don't recommend this one, the locals seemed to love it and couldn't get enough of the sauce. I scraped it off.

-Vereshchaka. Pork sausage, bacon, beans and potato dumplings in a pot. This was pretty good, but the serving size is insane.
-Strawberry soup and a scoop of ice cream. Not much can go wrong with that combo, right?
-Can't remember what this one was called. It was basically another pork stew with sauerkraut.

-Kalduny (potato balls) with pork filling and smetana. I finished one ball and that was more than enough, extremely heavy. The flavor was ok, but bland.
-Dessert called "Japanese banana". I thought it would be something with banana, but it was chcolate mousse covered with chocolate glaze sprinkled with chocolate shavings and garnished with a sheat of white chocolate. Oh, right. The mousse sat on a banana slice.
-Chaładnik. Cold beet and cucumber soup, one of my favorite dishes in that region. I love it!

They love stamps in Belarus. All menus were stamped and signed by a "direktor". All advertisements in the metro wore a stamp of approval of the "advertising office of Minsk metro" as well.

Going to supermarkets is my favorite thing abroad. You can always find many weird and interesting things there. In Minsk we tried mushroom flavored chips, I've never seen them before but then again I'm not a chip afficionado. They were pretty good and definitely tasted like mushroom. We also bought tarragon soda. I thought it was just a green bottle, but nope, the stuff itself has a very bright green color. It tasted very herby and kind of mediciney, but it wasn't bad at all. I brought a bottle home, I'm gonna try it with gin.

And to finish, a pic from the market place. It was very vibrant and busy. Lots of butchering happening right there and then, the pic is from the meat section. We bought khachapuri, strawberries and some smoked fish for breakfast there and ate them outside. Got many weird looks for that.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

Thank you Seela! The food looks like it was (for the most part) a fun adventure in its own right A few of those plates do look like they were meant for a giant's table but must just look yummy! I am blown away by the market. It looks like no market I have ever been to!! Was that a busy shopping day, out a normal day, do you know?