Clan Zorah

TheodoricFriede wrote:I shall open with:
Spiced Honey Cookies

Ingredients
1/2 cup white sugar (OR 1/4 white 1/4 brown)

1/2 cup shortening (I use butter)

1/2 cup honey

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups all-purpose flour (possibly 2 and 1/2 cups, up to 3. This, and thorough mixing, will give a fluffy, cake like texture.)

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (also add cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice to taste)




Directions
1. In a saucepan over low heat, melt together sugar, butter, and
honey. Let cool.
2. Mix together egg, vanilla, baking soda, and ginger (spices). Gradually add to
cooled honey mixture.
3. Slowly add the cups of flour to mixture. Stir until well blended. Drop
by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake at 350
degrees F (180 degrees C) until golden (about 10 minutes).

Notes:
The cookies will appear to be under-cooked after 10 minutes. I assure you, they are done. Take them out and let them cool. They will firm as they cool.

Rather than teaspoonfuls, I usually pluck the dough by hand. Usually a bit smaller than a golf ball, placed on a foiled cooking surface and flattened and rounded for a nice cookie shape.

You'll get about 12 large cookies. To double the recipe... double the recipe.

TheodoricFriede wrote:The batter recipe is hard, because its really a "to taste" kind of thing. I dont really measure, i just do what looks right, and what i feel will properly distribute within the four.

But here are some tips.
Ingredients
Base Batter: (Chicken fried steak, Fried shrimp, most vegetables)
Flour
Parsley
Salt
Black Pepper
Red Pepper
Paprika
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder

If Chicken Batter Add:
Sage
Rosemary
Thyme
Ginger

If Fish, Base Batter Plus: (also works with "southern vegetables" like Okra)
Corn Meal = 1/2 Total Flour Added

Instructions
1.) Take your mix, put all that in a Bag (ideal) or mixing bowl, mix well.
2.) Fill a bowl with Milk.
3.) Dip what you plan on frying in milk.
4.) Put Milked foodstuff in batter mix, making sure everything is evenly coated.
5.) Put battered foodstuff back in milk to re-wet.
6.) Put Milked foodstuff in batter mix, making sure everything is evenly coated.
7.) Repeat as desired. (Ideally 3 or 4 times)
8.) Fry.

Notes.
How long you fry, obviously, depends on the food. I usually do 4 minutes on a side in olive oil heated on a medium temperature. (Other oils are fine, but olive oil, while more expensive, wont burn as easily, and wont give a greasy flavor. Give it a try)

Fry with a cast iron skillet if you can. They're fantastic. Just make sure you "Cure" them properly, or they will make everything stick, and youll burn the hell out of everything. Ive never tried this with a deep fryer. Let me know how it is if you try.

Spartanburger wrote:I've got a nice recipe for "Cajun" Chili that my dad gave me before college.

Feeds: 5-7
Spiciness: 4/10 in my books, adjustable
Gas factor: Medium. Potentially apocalyptic.
Health: Use for special occasions. I have it once a semester at most.
Great for leftovers.
Use a cast iron dutch oven for best results, though a large pot will also work.

Ingredients

• 2 cans Black Beans
• 2 cans Red Kidney Beans
• 1 bottle (22oz) of beer. The darker, the better.
• 1 can Diced Tomatoes
• 1 pound Ground Beef
• 1 Onion, medium sized
• 1 Green Bell Pepper
• 4 Cloves Garlic
• Vegetable Oil
• Cayenne Pepper
• Chili Powder
• Cumin
• Salt
• Pepper
• (optional) Plain Thick Slice Bacon (no more than 16oz). Make sure it's not any of the flavored stuff
• (optional) Whatever your favorite meat rub or spice is. I like McCormick's Smokehouse Maple or Dinosaur BBQ's Cajun Foreplay

What you do

So, I like to prepare a lot of stuff before I start, so the actual order you make this in could be changed to be a bit more time-friendly.

1. Preparing the ingredients

Medium dice the onion and large dice the bell pepper. Chop or crush all four cloves of garlic. Place your ground beef into a bowl and add one shake of cayenne pepper, one tablespoon of chili powder, and one shake of your favorite meat rub/spice (optional). Give your meat a good 'ol rub Mix thoroughly.

Pour the black and kidney beans into a strainer to strain out the liquid "bean juice" that was in the can. Rinse under cool water to clean off any remaining bean juice. You may have to do this step one can at a time due to the amount of beans you will be handling. This helps significantly reduce the gas effect of the meal.

(Optional) Heat the dutch oven/pot on the stove on medium. While the pot is heating up, cut the uncooked bacon into small, bite-sized bits with scissors or a knife. When the pot is hot, add the bacon and cook thoroughly. If you're not a fan of heart attacks, discard the bacon grease, but leave the bacon and any fond in the pot.

2. Preliminary cooking

Heat pot on medium until hot. Add two tablespoons of vegetable oil. If you are cooking with bacon, use your best judgement for the amount of oil to add. The bottom of the pot should be covered in a semi-thin layer of oil, and remaining grease may mean that oil is not necessary.

Add the onions and the garlic to the pot. Cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant.

Add the ground beef to the pot and cook, stirring frequently to prevent the beef from cooking as a single blob, until cooked through.

3. The "fuck it" moment where you throw literally everything in

Once the meat is cooked through, add the following to the pot:

• Diced Bell Pepper
• Strained Beans. All of them.
• Diced Tomatoes, including all liquid from the can
• 2 tablespoons Chili Powder
• 3 shakes Cayenne Pepper
• 1 tablespoon Cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt, harvested from the tears of angry post-nerf Genji mains.
• 20 turns of pepper
• (optional) 4 shakes of your favorite Meat Rub or spice. Add more if you wish, but be warned that too much can ruin it.

Stir thoroughly, and add the beer until the mixture is just barely covered. If you don't have enough beer, use water for the rest. If you have leftover beer, drink it.

4. Cook that shit down

Reduce heat to a medium-low simmer, cover, and cook for 1-2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes. The more you cook, the thicker it gets. I usually go for the full two hours.


Serve with the bread things and eat.

SciFlyBoy wrote:Chipotle Mayo:

1 small can of chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce
Mayonnaise
Salt
Blender
Small mesh sieve

Open can and on a non wooden surface (Unless you want to spend a week washing the stain out) slice open each pepper and remove seeds and rib material. Put pepper into blender and seeds and rib material into mesh sieve. Repeat for all peppers. Add sauce from can and any on cutting board into blender and put sieve with seeds and rib material over blender so sauce can drip in. Use a spoon to move the sees about to get all the sauce (The stuff is good) keep the seeds on the side.

Add about a cup of mayo to start and blend until smooth. Add some salt and taste and if too spicy add mayo until it's just what you desire. If you add too much mayo add some seeds and material until it's what you desire. Then put it in a squirt bottle (Ketchup bottle) and put on anything you desire. Eggs, sandwich, pizza, you name it. (Note: do not touch your eyes at all during the making of this)

Then you can make my favorite burger:
Bun
chipotle mayo
Burger
Cheddar Cheese
Fried onions (or onion rings)
Fried Egg
More chipotle mayo
Bun

Yum

Alienmorph wrote:Okay, time to bring in the big guns. Let's start with a classic...

Lasagne



Probably one of the most famous edible things that came out of my country, and for good reasons, there are a tons of variations of it you can come up with, but I'll focus on the classic one, the Lasagna Bolognese.

A good lasagna is made by primarily 3 parts: the pasta, the ragu and the bechamel, so let's see first how to make each of those properly, and then how to combine them:

Bechamel:
This white sauce is probably the easiest thing to make out of the 3, it's made mostly of a mixture of milk and white flour, these are the quantities to make 1/2liter of it, though you'll likely need at least a liter of it to make a big-sized lasagna:

- 1/2 liter of milk (absolutely do NOT use skimmed milk)
- 50g of white flour
- 50g of butter
- nutmeg or nutmeg powder
- salt and pepper

First of all, melt the butter in a metal pan or casserole, add the flour and mix them 'till you get an homogenous mix (should take a few minutes);
Add the milk and keep mixing: the milk must have been warmed up on its own already, but ONLY warmed-up, don't make it boil!
Now it's only a matter of mixing and mixing until the bechamel becomes a dense creamy compound... if it becomes TOO dense add abit more of milk, if it doesn't seem to condense enough, add abit more of flour. You need to keep mixing until you think it's ready, to avoid the forming of lumps, you want a nice, homogenous white cream. Once you obtain that, add a bit of salt, pepper and nutmeg powder to enhance its taste, quantities of these depends by your taste. Shouldn't take you more than 5-10 minutes to make the bechamel.

Ragu:

The ragu is a very popular sauce in the upper half of my country: to give you 'mmuricans an idea, is very much like a non-spicy version of the chili, and there's a ton of variations of it, as it can be made with any type of meat you want, and with or without the use of tomato sauce or the whine. Here's the classic version tho, quantities for 6 people:

- 300g of minced meat (either minced beef, stuffing for sausage or a mix of the two)
- 50g of carrot
- 50g of leak
- 50g of onion
- 300g of tomato sauce
- olive oil or red whine (about half a glass of it)
- salt and pepper

First of all, take the carrot, leak and onion, clean them up properly with water and chop them to very very tiny pieces, put them in a metal or ceramic pot or pan, with the oil or whine and let them cook for abit, keeping sure they don't burn up. Then add the meat and the tomato sauce, and mix everything up. Keep the mix on cooker, making sure the flames are not super-high, and mix it every one or two minutes to make sure it doesn't attach to the borders of the pot and burn. Usually it takes one or two hours to get a well-balanced ragu, but you can keep on the fire a bit less if you want it to be more fluid, or abit more to have it dried up some more. The ragu on its own goes great with any type of pasta, so if the preparation of the lasagna is too complex, just take the ragu recipe and use it on its own. You can (some versions straight up demands you do) add some bacon bits to the mix to give it an extra bit of taste and fat.

Pasta:

You can find pre-made sheets of pasta in the supermarkets you can use, if you want (at least here, but you can probably do in the US too, if you find a well-stocked supermarket), but here's the recipe to make your own! You'll need:

- White flour (properly sifted)
- eggs
- olive oil
- water

First of all, drop a big quantity of flour on a large wooden chopping board, or a similar flat surface. Lay it down making a small mountain-like shape, then with your fist dig an whole (or a crater ,if you will xD) in the middle of it; crack open one or two eggs and drop their content in the crater, then comes the messy part: with your bare hands start mixing and compressing the flour and the eggs, until you get a mass of a compact yet elastic consistency. If it's too thick, add one extra egg, or abit of oil, if it's too fluid add flour. Once you've got a nice big blob of dough take a rolling pin and flatten it on the board: to make sure the pasta doesn't stick to the board constantly sprinkle a bit of dry flour on it through the whole preparation. Flatten the dough until you obtain a flat layer tall 2 or 3 millimeters, then cut it in rectangular or square shapes, sprinkle abit more of flour on them and put them aside on trays or dishes for a couple hours to dry up. Ideally, you should make the pasta sheets first, and while they rest you can make the two sauces. You can also make the pasta green if you want, by adding finely chopped spinaches or similar erbs to the mixture, but they'll make the pasta abit hard to manage, as the vegetable fibers makes it thicker. Taste will be virtually identical, so if you don't think it's worth the trouble, don't do it.


And now time to combine everything!

Take a big rectangular baking tin, rub some butter all over it to make sure nothing stays attached to the tin, then start assemble your lasagna: put abit of ragu on the base, then add a layer of past then ontop of the pasta layer add more ragu and bechamel in equal quantities, also sprinkling them with grated cheese, possibly parmesan or a similar one. Then put ontop another layer of pasta and so forth: repeat until you have 8-10 layers of pasta and sauce one ontop of the other, making sure the last layer ontop is of sauce: to that one add more cheese, so that during cooking it'll form a nice crispy crust. Then put your lasagna in the oven, at a temperature of 180 degrees Celsius for 30-45 minutes (depending by the size of the lasagna). Once ready take it out, let it rest in the air for 5-10 minutes (otherwise it'll taste more like lava and less like lasagna xD) cut it into squares or rectangles and serve it.

In the end, making the lasagna itself is a rather simple process, you just slap the ingredients one over the other layer after layer and put it in the oven. The tricky part are the 3 main component: however you should be able to find them pre-made in the supermarkets and get a decent lasagna anyway. Although off course making everything yourself is much more satysfing, and if you do everything right, will taste alot better too!

Next time, something more casual-friendly, I promise xD

SciFlyBoy wrote:I'll make bangers and mash tonight.

Already have the bangers and the mash (Just boiled potatoes and added milk, cheese and garlic) so I'll just make the onion gravy. Maz, let me know if I'm doing it wrong.

Butter in the pan, maybe a tablespoon for 2.
I'll add a small or medium onion, sliced and a bay leaf
cook until soft and a little color
add some flour, 1 or 2 tbs
cook til more color
add maybe 1/2 cup of beef stock and 1/2 cup wine
stir until it has thickened
take out bay leaf
pour over cooked bangers sausage and mashed potatoes

That's all I know. Good stuff.

Spartanburger wrote:Okay, so I got another suggestion, but it's not something that is easily made at home. It's more of a fast food thing.

See, where I live, there's this local food.

We here call it a Garbage Plate.

Basically, you need only a few main components:

• A Meaty substance (usually cheeseburger, hamburger, Italian sausages, steak, chicken, fried fish, eggs, grilled cheese sandwhich, white or red hots)
• Fries or home fries
• Beans or mac salad
• Bread, usually a bun
• then drizzled with spicy meat sauce, shaved onion, and mustard

This is how you eat it:

1.Take a moment to consider the horrible thing you are about to do to your body.
2. Take a knife, and chop everything up.
3. Mix it all together.
4. Eat, bite by bite.
5. Wash yourself. Hot shower and bleach.
6. Lay down and repent for your sins.

My campus has two different versions on campus, and it's great. And terrible. There's a reason why they call it the "Freshman Forty" here.

TheodoricFriede wrote:Pumpkin.

Spice.

Cookies.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg ( I also add allspice and ginger)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar (I do 1 1/4 white, 1 1/4 brown)
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened
1 cup Pumpkin Pure'
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions
PREHEAT oven to 350° F. Grease baking sheets.

COMBINE flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in medium bowl. Beat sugar and butter in large mixer bowl until well blended. Beat in pumpkin, egg and vanilla extract until smooth. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets.

BAKE for 15 to 18 minutes (I do 18) or until edges are firm. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Happy Halloween bitches.

TheodoricFriede wrote:Here's one for you all. One of my own recipes, although I am by no means the originator of it. Its a fun little addition to any southern meal. A nice sweet to go with any savory.

Candied Dinner Carrots.

Ingredients:
Handful of baby Carrots
Pecans
Cinnamon
Ginger
Nutmeg
Brown Sugar
Honey
Olive Oil
Butter

Directions
1.) Chop up your carrots into little round carrot bits

2.) Heat some olive oil and butter in a pan over a medium heat.

3.) Dump your carrots into the hot butter/oil mix.

4.) Season with the Brown Sugar, Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and honey. Just do it to taste, use your best judgment based on how sweet you want it, and how many carrots you used.

5.) Cook till carrots start to get tender. Usually only about 5 minutes. A little crunch is good.

6.) Spoon onto a plate with a slotted spoon, or something that will allow you to drain the oil.

Enjoy.

Alienmorph wrote:Yeah... this topic needs some more love. So here comes another recipe from my area... and by that I mean that is a regional recipe that is not that commonly used even in the rest of Italy, despite being easy to do and very tasty. Today I bring you...

Passatelli



The name "passatelli" refers to the fact they're made by passing a bunch of dough through a "mold". It's basically the equivalent of when as kids you'd make play-doh worms by passing them through tiny holes, except... well, you know... edible x D

The traditional recipe has them cooked and served in broth, so I'll write a quick how-to to make that too. Both things are very easy to make, actually.

Broth

Also known as consommè, if you prefer the french term, or ooze if want to talk in slang xD To make a nice broth is actually extremely easy. The way we do it in my house is with this ingredients:

- About 1/2 kg of raw meat: usually a piece of beef, one of the cheaper cuts, usually... you don't need to use a steak or a fillet for this lol. Just make sure is a good chunky piece and has some fat on. And a chicken leg;
- Leak;
- Carrott;
- Half of a potato or a tomato;
- Salt;
- A bit of fresh onion, if you want;

Toss all the ingredients in a big pot with 4-5 liters of water: leave the pot on the stove for at least couple hours (2 and a half are even better), with the fire at medium height/intensity. Now and then check the pot, and remove the "foam" that's gonna form on the surfare of the water with a proper tool. Once the two hours have passed, move the broth on another pot, using a ladle, and make sure to let it pass through a colander or a similar tool to filter it. If you've done it right, you'll end up with a pot filled of golden/amber-colored warm liquid, more or less the same consistency of water. The boiled meat and veggies remaining in the pot you used for cooking can be eaten on their own, or, if you want, you can mince and mash them togheter and used them as a base for some meatballs of meatloaf: just add and egg or two and some bread crumbs to keep them togheter and voilà! You can also make meat-only broth or vegetable-only broth. Of course you need more of the ingredients you keep to compensate the absence of the one you don't use. The meat-only broth tends to be fatter and slightly tougher to digest, so beware. The "mixed" version is probably the most tasty and balanced.

Passatelli

The passatelli themselves are also rather easy to make. All you do is basically make a dough similar to the one you do for making normal pasta, and then pass them through a potato masher or a similar tool to give them their "wormy" shape. Ingredients for a 4 people quantity:

- 4 chicken eggs;
- about 200 g of grated parmesan or a similar hard cheese;
- about 200 g of bread crumbs, as fine as possible, if you have a grater and some old hardened bread, just grate it youself so that you have a nice pile of "bread powder";
- a bit of nutmeg powder, or half a lemon (nutmeg recommended);

Preparation is extremely easy: you do exactly the same as preparing the dough for pasta or pizza, except your base is not flour, but the parmesan and bread crumbs mixed togheter. You then add the eggs, a bit of nutmed or squeeze the juice out of the the lemon (one or the other... again... nutmeg strongly recommended more than the lemon) and work out the mess until you get a nice big ball of yellow dough: the main difficulty lies in nailing the dough's consistency. You want something that is both relatively though, but also abit elastic. If it's too dry, or too fluid, the passatelli are likely gonna disintegrate while cooking, so be careful! Add an egg if it's too try, or some cheese and bread if it's too fluid, the kind and quality of ingredients you use can make the difference so you're gonna have to not be afraid of experimenting. Once you have the dough you need a potato masher, or a similar tool:



Divide your dough into smaller parts, big enough to fit inside your tool, and then just squeeze hard and cut the passatelli with a knife once thei're of a lenght you'd like. Prepare a tray or a plate to put the passatelly already done on, and keep squeezing and cutting until you're out of dough.



Now back to the broth: put it back on the stove and as soon as is boiling again drop the passatelly inside. They don't take long to cook, a few minutes at max. In general when you have a noticeable amount floating on the surface of the broth, you're done. All you need to do then is to serve and eat them. And if you failed to make your passatelli though enough to survive the cooking process, do not despair! You'll still end up with a tasty and perfectly edible soup that we like to call Stracciatella, yes like the ice cream flavor... don't ask me why though xD

Variants

Like most regional recipes there are alot of possible variants. The one I just described is the "classic" version of the passatelli. Much like with the pasta you can make a green variant, by adding spinaches or similar erbs to the dough, or even make a fish variant, by adding fish pulp to the dough. Also, you can serve them dry too, just cook them in water, and serve them with a nice sauce of your choosing!


(dry passatelli with cheese sauce and nut crumbs)

TheodoricFriede wrote:Good a bit of a strange one for you all. Over the years I had tried sore throat cure after sore throat cure, and none of them ever worked.

Except this.

A herbal tea sore throat remedy of my own creation. Its also kind of nice herbal tea all on its own. Mixtures are approximate.

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon Whole dried cloves
1 teaspoon Crushed mint
1/4 teaspoon Sage
1/2 teaspoon Thyme
1/2 Rosemary
2 cinnamon stick
1/4 teaspoon Ginger
sprinkle of Rice
4 cups boiling water
Lemon slice
Honey

Directions.
1: Assemble your ingredients into something that will hold it. I have a tea filter, but you can also buy tea bags, coffee filters, and other tools to steep your tea. (ignoring the cinnamon sticks, honey, and lemon for now)

2: Heat your teapot or pitcher with warm water as your water boils. This keeps your water at the right temperature when to time comes to steep.

3: When the water boils, dump the warm water out of your tea receptacle, and fill it with the boiling water. Place your tea mixture into the boiling water.

4: Let it steep for 10 minutes.

5: After 10 minutes, remove your tea mixture from the tea, and add a generous helping of honey, the two cinnamon sticks, and the lemon slice. (Squeeze the juice into your tea first) stir.

6: Let cool to a drinkable temperature and enjoy.