Geekfood Mk2.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Depends on the recipe really, I generally have all the herbs/spices and general pantry stuff needed.

But, meat and more specific veg I have to pick up, along with less common ingredients.

That and I tend to wing it a bit if it's a difficult to get/expensive ingredient.

[ProfHawking]

Cookbook ordered! Time to begin a culinary adventure!
Better get down the shops for general stuff. Need to make a list i guess, we dont have anything that we should like flour, herbs, chillis, sugar etc. What would you say are the very basics we should have in the cupboard?

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I tend to have a silly array of dried herbs/spices, buy em as you need them.

Otherwise my essentials are something like:
Salt (maldon)
Oil (Veg and XV Olive oil)
Peppercorns (Black)
Sugar (Light brown and caster)
Soy sauce (Kikkoman)
Mayo (nice stuff)
Worcestershire sauce
Stock cubes (kallo organic, I keep beef, chicken and veg)
Honey (I get local stuff, on the basis of hippiness) ]
Vinegars (Malt, Balsamic and White wine or Cider)
Tinned tomatoes/passata are always handy
Parmesan cheese (massive fucking block of the stuff)
Wine (bottle of each)
Brandy (cheap, but real)
Plain flour
Cornflour (or potato starch)
Sriracha (Thai garlic hot sauce, if I have a god, this is it)
Pasta (whatever takes your fancy)
Rice (Basmati (for indian/chinese etc) and Arborio(Risotto rice))

From there I find I can just about manage most kinds of random food without too much excess outlay.

Oh yeah...

I tend to keep a fair supply of meat in the freezer, stuff that freezes with little/no ill effect
Currently I have:
Pork Belly, Ribs and Tenderloin (I suspect I have trotters and pigface in there too, but it needs defrosting)
Chicken Breasts
Duck Breasts
Oxtail

[TheJockGit]

Mrs Jock and I are looking to get a good set of Kitchen Knifes, I think there was a thread on the old site but it seems to have gone.. anyone got any suggestions?

Gah what a spaz... just found it again...

http://www.5punk.co.uk/forum/viewtopic. ... fe#p236729

Any updates on this then?

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I still love the globals, I've no reason to consider anything else for general use as they fit me well and do all I need.

This thread happened last time I thought too hard about knives.

[FatherJack]

I use a Global G4 for meat and a Santoku knife with grooves in for veg.

[Sol]

We get a lot of butt tools trying to return global knives at work because they've snapped the blades/dropped them. I'm surprised they haven't managed to cut their fingers off...

[Roman Totale]

Chilli for one

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFjstQ30RI8[/media]

[Sheriff Fatman]

That had me in fucking tears.

[Wifeyberk]

It would appear I have an amazing new recipe :-

Stay out of kitchen when Berk moves in.

It's an amazing recipe, and conjures up all kinds of lovely dishes. Some are fancy, some are downright greasy and dirty, but no complaints yet.

[Joose]

I've just made typed up version of the recipe that Mrs Joose uses to make the best brownies ever. I'm not normally a brownie fan, but I could eat these until I was sick. I would then probably take the sick taste away with more brownies. I'm not kidding. They are awesome. I thought I would share the recipe with you lot, so you can get fat as hell with me.

185g/6 ½ oz unsalted butter
185g/6 ½ oz dark chocolate
3 eggs
275g/9 oz golden caster sugar
40g/1 ½ oz cocoa powder
85g/2 ½ oz plain flour
50g/2 oz white chocolate, chopped into pieces
50g/2 oz milk chocolate, chopped into pieces


1) Heat oven to 180C/160C for fan assisted and line a 20cm square cake tin. Cut the butter into small cubes and tip into a bowl. Break the dark chocolate into squares and drop into the bowl with the butter. Cover loosely with cling film and melt in the microwave for 2 mins on High. Stir gently and leave to cool a little.
2) Break the eggs into a large bowl and tip in the sugar. Whisk with an electric hand whisk on maximum speed until the mixture is pale and about double its original volume. (This can take anything from 3-8 mins.) Turn the mixer off and lift the beaters — the mixture that runs back into the bowl should leave a trail for a second or two.
3) Pour the cooled chocolate mixture into, the egg then very gently fold together with a rubber spatula until the mixture becomes a mottled dark brown colour. The idea is to marry them without knocking the air out. Now sift the cocoa and flour over so they cover the mixture evenly, then gently fold them in. It will look dry and dusty at first, but keep going until the mixture looks nice and fudgy. Stir in the chopped white and milk chocolate chunks. Pour the mixture into the lined cake tin, gently easing it into the corners, and then lightly spread with the spatula to level it.
4) Bake for 25 mins until the top has a shiny, papery crust all over the top, and the sides of the cake are just beginning to come away from the tin. WILL STILL FEEL VERY SOFT! THIS IS RIGHT! Leave it to go completely cold before taking out of the tin. Cut into quarters, then cut each quarter into four squares then across again into small triangles.

Eat. Gorge. Make some more.

Oh, and she is really not kidding about them feeling soft when they come out. The crunchy surface will wobble a bit. It looks like its undercooked. Don't worry though, it hardens a little as it cools down. Cooking them till they look done will leave them dry and crunchy, and not half as nice.

[The Shutting Downs]

I very much like this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mosh-Potatoes-S ... 891&sr=8-1

It's hilarious and quite good food. For the most part.

[friznit]

WILL STILL FEEL VERY SOFT! THIS IS RIGHT!

Must .... resist....

[Roman Totale]

Chilli for one

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFjstQ30RI8[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-uwiOxK3Qs[/media]

[Roman Totale]

Seasonal and delicious side dish:

Creamy parsnip and mustard gratin

Ingredients

- 800g parsnips, peeled
- 400ml milk
- 200ml double cream
- 200ml vegetable stock
- 4 tsp wholegrain mustard
- 4 tbsp grated hard vegetarian cheese (or Parmesan)
- whole nutmeg , for grating

Directions

1) Slice enough parsnips thinly lengthways to cover the surface of a small ovenproof dish, then slice the rest thinly into rounds.

2) Combine the milk, cream, stock, mustard and half the cheese in a large, lidded saucepan and bring to the boil. Add a good grating of nutmeg and some seasoning then tip in the parsnips. When the cream is simmering again, cover and cook for 6 mins.

3) Using tongs, fish out the long slices of parsnip and set aside. Tip the rest into your dish, then arrange the long slices over the top. Scatter with the rest of the cheese and another grating of nutmeg.

4) Heat oven to 180C for 1 hr, then turn up to 200C and brown for 15 mins more

Incredibly simple, incredibly delicious

[Mr. Johnson]

Donuts.

I am a massive donut fan, so Mrs. Johnson suggested we made some ourselves. It was ...interesting.

Here's what you need;

500 g flour
100 g soft butter (not melted)
10 g salt
25 g sugar
250 ml of lukewarm water
25 g fresh yeast
25 ml condensed milk
3 eggs

-Put the flour, butter, the salt and the sugar in a bowl.
-Put the water and the condensed milk in a separate bowl and dissolve the yeast in it.
-Separate the yolks from the egg whites and add the yolks to your bowl with the flour, start mixing.
-Whilst mixing add your water-yeast mixture and mix for about 10 minutes.
-cup the dough in your hand and divide them up into bits of about 75 to 80 g. (it doesn't really matter as long as they're equally shaped)
-Make them donut shaped, the recipe suggests rolling them around your finger like a condom.
-Let your babby donuts rise for about 10 minutes underneath a towel.

Here's where we deviated from the recipe because our resulted dough was really sticky and pretty damn hard to make into donut shapes, so we had to use a lot of flour to make sure it didn't just stick to our working surface (and everything else). It's very important to make the hole in the middle because when you fry them the oil boils through the hole and makes sure your donut is properly fried. We also had to flatten them before frying since ours weren't fully done on the inside when we didn't.

-Use a deep fryer of frying pan (if you do, make sure it's deep enough, the donuts can't reach the bottom of the pan and are supposed to float. If you don't have a frying pan, a normal cooking pot or even a wok should suffice) with vegetable oil, we used a pot with about 1l of sunflower oil, but any neutral oil should do.
-Make sure the oil is hot enough, we didn't use a food thermometer since we don't have one, but make a few test donuts till you get it right. Ours had to turn quite brown before they were done properly, but this doesn't affect the flavour much. It really depends on what you're using but it's not hard to do once you figure it out.
-put the donuts into your pan or fryer and bake them on both sides. It's important to use some kind of wooden utensil to flip them since metal ones get heated by the oil. Kebab skewers are ideal for this, but we used chopsticks since we only had metal skewers. They're done quite fast so don't wait too long.
-Let them leak out for a bit on a paper towel before applying the toppings of your choice.

If you want you can use your egg whites to make a topping, you only need about 30 g (roughly 1 egg) but you can make as much as you want. Mix your egg whites with a dash of vinegar or lemon juice and a couple of spoons of powder sugar and food dyes should you want to give it a flashy colour. We didn't do this since Mrs. Johnson had some frosting left so we used that and some melted dark chocolate with coconut flakes. You can put whatever the hell you want on there though, they're your donuts.

Enjoy!

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Donut dough now rising.

Using a different recipe as I have the stuff for it.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Things I learned, dip them in sugar straight out of the fryer, it makes it stick nicely.

[Mr. Johnson]

[Dog Pants]

I love the irregularity of all these home made donuts. Makes me think of Psychonaughts for some reason.