Cooking Thread~ Recipes & Things

Wasabi mayo

Ingredients:

Wasabi to taste

Mayo to taste

Salt to taste

MSG to taste

In short everything save wasabi and mayo is optional


This recipe isn't good for measuring, I eyeball it and taste it to get the right flavor and spice. I joke that it has to have the spreadability of mayo with the flavor and bite of wasabi. I think that it is more of a technique than a recipe.

Since I use wasabi powder of the best quality that I can get, and I bought a 1 kilo bag of powder a couple years back and keep it on the freezer well sealed, I make more wasabi than I think that I need. If stored in a small container with an airtight lid the mixed 'paste' will remain good for weeks. The frozen powder doesn't lose potency when stored in a well sealed bag. I learned that from my grandmother, we store wasabi, curry powder and spicy mustard powder like that and they remain good for years.

I make a paste with 3 tablespoons of powder and add a teaspoon of water, then I mix in a bowl and add more water by the teaspoon until I get a slightly damp but dry and homogeneous 'dough'. The consistency is something like playdough or modeling clay.

Now the mayo, I advise using good quality mayo, but I use whatever mayo I have at hand, be it cheap or homemade.

There are two methods for mixing, the first is crumble the wasabi into the mayo and mix. Pass the mix through a sieve to get the lumps out and mix until the lumps are gone unless you want to have small grains of pure wasabi that add extra bite to it.

The second method is to use a food processor, this one more often than not remove every lump easily and mix everything very well. But you have to wash more stuff.

I don't have any real ratio for how much mayo and wasabi to use. I love wasabi and so do the rest of my family so we are okay with really strong wasabi mayo. The mayo is just a better delivery system for the wasabi to things like breads, sandwiches and hotdogs.

So add as much or as little wasabi as you like. Another advise is to never make less than 1 cup worth of mayo, it just isn't worth the effort. My usual batches are at least half kilo of mayo if not a full kilo.

Here we use it more as as condiment for sandwiches and hot dogs.

 

Basic oden, my family style.

Oden is something akin to a stew, since its soup is thin I think that is closer to soup, but is classed as a stew. Here in Brazil some Japanese ingredients are hard to find and very expensive, so my family often doesn't buy it. The times that we do get it we often use in sukiyaki, so oden tends to be more in the basic side. It is still good and a rather easy meal to make in a cold day, or when you are feeling lazy.

Ingredients:

3 to 5 large potatoes cut in roughly two inches cubes

2 to 4 large carrots, cut in two inches cubes

6 hard boiled peeled eggs, I consider 6 as the minimum, after 6 add 1 more egg per person if cooking for more than 3 people

4 large onions cut into large cubes

2 sachets of dashi powder

At least 1 cup of soy sauce, add more if needed

2 liters of water

Salt to taste

Optional stuff

Chikuwa, it is a surumi fish sausage, kamaboko is of the same family and can be used as well any other surumi fish product

Burdock root cut into 2 inches pieces, this is a bit hard to find here so we often don't use it as with the fish stuff above

Konyaku products, another hard to find product in block or in noodles, we just can't find where I live

Meatballs, when I feel like it I make meatballs using whatever meat I have home, you want the meat to become paste like so it won't dissolve when cooking. However you can use just chunks of meat instead

Tofu, another rarely used ingredient, but it is great in this


Directions

Clean and cut the vegetables, boil and peel the eggs. Heat the water in a large pot and add the dashi stock and the soy sauce. Once it simmers add the vegetables and give it 10 minutes, taste for seasoning and adjust the salt or soy sauce. Add the eggs and any meat products that you decided to use. Don't stir carelessly if you add tofu as you don't want to smash it. After 30 minutes the vegetables should be soft, cut with chopsticks soft, therefore ready to eat.

Enjoy with spicy Japanese mustard, here we keep mustard powder to make the mustard to use when eating oden. You dissolve the prepared mustard on a bit of soup on your bowl. Wasabi can be used if you don't have mustard.

Notes:

This oden is obviously a soy sauce based one, the stock is dark brown to black. There are other types, one that is closer to pure bonito dashi stock with nothing else. There are also many other traditional ingredients or foodstuffs that are traditionally used on oden, like stuffed cabbage or fried tofu pouches stuff with stuff.

As I said this oden is a very basic one. It is for me a go to recipe when I am feeling lazy as it doesn't require that much preparation and most of the cooking can be done away from the stove as it is mostly boiling things together. It is also good to make in larger batches as it is one of those dishes that are even better the next day. The leftover stock can be used to cook noodles on to get a tasty extra meal or dish.

Word of warning, the basic dish is rather light even when eaten with a side of rice so you might get hungry after a short while after eating it. In a more daily basis I use just eggs, potatoes, onions and carrots, sometimes just the root vegetables and noodles, since it is a good on a pinch dish for when you have little to use in the fridge and pantry.

 

Stewed tuna or beef tongue with soy sauce and ginger. EDIT: I visited my grandparents and asked my grandfather about this recipe, he said that it called kakuni. I didn't find a video of tuna kakuni or similar recipe so I am unsure about it. But my grandfather is Japanese so he is likely right. So here we go this might be kakuni style.

This recipe is a old family recipe and I have no idea of its Japanese name, now that I mention it I also have no idea of the Brazilian name for it, we just call it cooked with soy and ginger like your grandfather likes, like my mother put it when she told me to make some with some old tuna that my grandmother tossed our way. Fun fact, my grandmother often throw leftover food over to my mother, brother and my way, or some excess stuff as well.

Back to describing the recipe. My earlier/clearer memory of this was my grandfather making it when I was young and that I ate everything and he complained at me. Still no regrets over that. I don't remember if was the tuna or the tongue, just that it was delicious. This dish can be considered a side dish on a more traditional Japanese meal. Done well this recipe lasts for a long time under refrigeration and the stock will gelatinize. It is great to eat with Japanese rice.

Since fish is kind of hard to come by we normally make it with beef tongue, depending on the laziness you can cook it whole and cut it once cooked, or you can cut beforehand. The flavor seeps better when it is cut.


Ingredients

500g fresh tuna cut in cubes, I believe that this recipe was meant to use scraps of tuna from sashimi and sushi, back in the day it wasn't uncommon for my grandmother to make sashimi in special occasions

Or

1 or 2 cleaned beef tongues, whole, sliced or cubed

1 cup of soy sauce, 2 if using more than one tongue

1 inch piece of ginger, crushed and chopped finely, or grated, add more if you want a stronger ginger taste, I recommend 1 inch piece for starters

Water as needed

Directions

Place the ingredients on a pot that can fit everything with some slack, add enough water to cover the meat. If using tongue use a pressure cooker and cook under pressure for 40 min. If using tuna use a regular pan and use a drop lid, a piece of parchment paper cut to size will do, or use a regular lid. Cook for 20 minutes, the fishy taste must be gone and the flavor of soy and ginger should have impregnated the cubes. If it the flavor is weak let it cook for 10 more minutes before tasting, cook more if needed.

For the tongue it should melt on your mouth when ready, let it cool before slicing or cubing if you cooked it whole, cook for twenty extra minutes to ensure that the pieces get more flavor. If already cut then it is ready.


Notes

As how to enjoy it, in my family we like it more when in room temperature, well I am very favorable to it being fridge cold but I will eat it hot, warm, room temp or cold. We normally keep it on a mason jar in the fridge, scoop pieces of it with the congealed stock and eat with rice. If you place it on top of the rice the heat will melt the stock that will seep on the rice. If served on the side you can warm it up a bit in the microwave.

The tuna will taste good but will be a bit dry, kind like canned tuna. The tongue will be juicy and tender. The ginger if cut in big sizes will remain crunchy and will be fairly strong tasting. My mother likes when the ginger is cut in big sticks, I like it minced finely or grated. Since this recipe is liked by everyone it rarely lasts long enough to spoil, but I know that it can last at least a month. Because the soy sauce's salt it won't spoil easily and depending on how reduced the stock it the concentration will be fairly high.

Any leftover stock, as if happens..., can be used as a base to eat udon, soba or ramen noodles with. Dilute until it is to your liking and eat away. I normally have some extra stock when I make the tongue version, the extra stock always get eaten with ramen.

As usual I hope that you like this recipe if you try it out.

 

How have I not seen this thread ages ago. I will definitly try some of these.
Anyway, here is my offering to the thread!

Spoiler: pork fillet in yoghurt Sauce

Ingredients:
Pork fillet
Cheese (hard) 300g
1 Cup of yoghurt 125g
half a cup of light cream
some Cups of soup stock
some parsley
half an onion
paprica powder
salt
flour

Take the pork fillet, wash it and cut off any excess fat or sinews.
Take the meat and smother it in paprika powder, flour and some salt.
Cut the cheese into small sticks about 7x50 mm. they should be tapered at the end. Use a knife to poke/cut holes into the meat and shove the cheese in. Tapering one end makes this much easier. Also, I found it better to cut at an angle with the grain of the meat instead of straight down.
Once this is done, take a large pan and rost them in oil/butter with the cut onion (don't use much) until the sides are a little crispy and the cheese that's sticking out has melted.
Pour in a 2 or 3 cups of soup andheat it until it boils. Afterwards add 3 tablespoons of parsley, a cup of natural yoghurt and some (light) cream and let it simmer on medium heat for about 40 minutes.
Stir every now and then and maybe turn the meat around once or twice to make sure it absorbs the sauce equally.
In the end the sauce should have a nice creamy/gooy texture and the meat should be very soft from all the cheese that's melted inside it with a rich flavour.
Serve with potatos, rice or something neutral like that.

You can use different types of cheese (although it should be hard cheese) to give the meat and the sauce different flavours. You can also use different amounts of soup depending on how you want the texture of the sauce to be.

 

Another one of my easy favourites:

Spoiler: fancy mac&cheese

- 30 g pine nuts
- 500 g pasta
- 500 ml milk
- 250 ml light cream
- 150 g Gorgonzola
- 1 clove of garlic
- 3 tablespoons of sage

Take a pan and pour in the pasta, milk, cream and pine nuts. Mix in the garlic (pressed) and the sage.
Put it into the oven and bake it for about 40 min at ~190° C. You'll see it go a little crispy on the top when its done.
Layer the gorgonzola on top and bake it for another 5-10 minutes.

Serve with Salad.

Depending on the type of Gorgonzola you used it either tastes fine like that or it can be a little bland. If it is, season it with salt and pepper.
Easily feeds 2 hungry People.

 

A friend of mine has all sorts of allergies and food intolerances. Everytime I visit him and we eat together he cooks and substitute all the ingredients he can't eat with stuff thats ok for him to eat.
Makes for really interesting meals. They tast really good, but rather unusal at times.

He even produced and sold his own icecream for a while, marketed to people like him that had lots of problems with what they could or couldn't eat.
It was based on coconut milk, sweetend with stevia and similar stuff and was absolutely delicious.

Anyway, I usually cook without a fixed recipy and just use whatever I have at hand, but I do have one more of my favourites to share with you guys.

Spoiler: Browny in a Cup

Ingredients for one portion:
4 tablespoons of Flour
4 tablespoons of instant hot chocolate powder
2-4 tablespoons of sugar (depending on how sweet the instant hot choc. powder is and how sweet you want them to be in the end)
1 egg (optional in my opinion, I have tried it without and it works ok)
4 tablespoons cooking oil (prefearably oilseed rape because its flavour neutral, butter also works really well)
4 tablespoons of milk (you can use water if you don't have milk)

Put everything in a Cup.
Stir until ist properly mixed
Mikrowave for about 2 or 3 minutes
Serve with chocolate sauce and icecream if you have them, dig in without if you don't.

This is the base recipy, but it can be modified to your tastes. For example, I found that adding a little rum to the mix works well.

Its not the most fancy of cakes, but if you have a craving for hot chocolaty goodness this is perfect.
Its really easy, quick and only uses stuff one usually has at home. Also, its nice if you live alone and don't want to bake a whole cake just for youself.
If you do scale it up to more than one portion though, I would suggest either making them in seperate cups or adding some baking powder.

 

Rendering fat. Also know as making cracklings

I know, I know, you are wondering why I am posting this as a recipe/technique. The answer is simple, crackling/chicharon, also known as deep fried pork skin. Or chicken skin, as I am teaching both ways. If you follow my NSFWish story you will know that while not poor my family isn't swimming on dough, therefore I often do things to try and stretch out the budged and what we gain from what we buy.

We normally buy bone in and skin in chicken and pork, sometimes we get a sale on boneless and skin in thighs and leg 'steaks' of chicken or boneless and skinless chicken breasts. The bone and skin in and the boneless and skinless breasts are the norm as the prices change a bit putting one over the other in terms of price and we get the cheapest one.

When we get bone in and skin in chicken thighs and legs, normally sold as one piece, I normally do the de-boning and skinning myself, I keep the skin and bones to use. The bones get saved until I get a few chickens worth of bone to make stock that I use to make soups, rice, stews and generally everything that I can add it on. The skins I either save until I get half kilo or so, or I use then and there, the result from a pair of thighs and legs worth of skin is a little under half a cup of chicken fat that I use to stretch the vegetable oil.

I also get crispy fried chicken skin, really dry, crunchy and tasty with a pinch of salt, my personal treat for the effort of deboning and rendering the fat.

Now for pork, I understand that butchering is different from country to country, normally we get cuts from the pork leg, they usually cut it with bone and all and sell the two inches thick slices somewhat cheap. I often reduce the slab into smaller cuts or mince, the bone gets saved for stock and the skin gets saved for crackling and rendering.

Or we buy pork belly or another fatty cut with skin to render and make crackling. The norm is saving. Anyway, when I get enough of it I render the fat to cook with, cooking with lard is pretty tasty. The cracklings are also good when rendered well, I am not that good on getting the right crispness it still gets eaten or added to beans for extra flavor.


Ingredients

Skin of 2 chicken thighs and legs cut into two inches ribbons

Or

1 kilo of fatty pork skin, or pork belly, or any other cut of pork where the skin have a lot of fat attached to it, cut into two inches rectangles

Salt, optional for the rendering of the chicken skin


Directions

Chicken

In a large pan place the chicken skin pieces and turn the heat on to medium. Let it begin to sizzle and reduce to low, the fat will render out and begin to deep fry and render more fat from the skin. Flip the skin every now and then to avoid burning, drain the fat whenever it covers the skin. Save the fat in a ceramic or glass bowl and continue the process until the skins release next to no fat. The skins should get golden brown and not black. The fat should be clear but sometimes you might get it a honey like color if you cook it too long, it should be ok as long it doesn't burn.

When done remove the skins, they should be fairly dry, season with a bit of salt and other spices if you like, then enjoy the crispy skin. The fat can be used for stir fries, making rice, I occasionally use it to make my chili oil, it is a nice replacement for vegetable oil in savory recipes. My favored method is to use it to make rice, making it richer and tastier.

Pork

As above place the skin on a large and deep pot, I sprinkle a good couple of pinches of salt and mix on the pork, then turn on the heat and cook it stirring often until the skin begins releasing the fat. This process will take longer than the chicken, you will need to stir often and drain more often as well. The pork will release fat and liquid, drain only after the water juices are fully gone, it will splatter and I advise using long sleeved shirts for this. Once there is only fat you can drain it, use a ladle or just pour through a sieve, returning the skin to the pot if you use a sieve.

The fatty pork will release a lot of fat so the pan won't run dry. Some people render the pork as dry as they can here, cool the pieces and then deep fry them to get the crackling, others just do it in one go either by not draining the fat or by adding it back once the pork isn't rendering more. I try both ways and more often than not my crackling isn't a good as of this one bar from my childhood, then again they had the best crackling that I ever had so my standards are skewed.

As I mentioned before, you can use the pieces of rendered pork to add flavor to beans before you cook the beans, it can be used in similarly long cooking stews. If you get the pieces nice and crunchy breaking them and adding to salads or noodles don't hurt at all. Or you can just eat them by themselves when seasoned with a bit of salt.

The lard can be used for cooking, or as in any other way that you would use lard. I use for cooking, again on rice or stir fries. I haven't used lard for chili oil since I learned that I like chili oil after the last time that I had enough pork to render.

I hope that this little technique helps you and you enjoy the results. Use as much of your purchases as you can, money is hard to come by for us all and there is people who would do nasty things to get the bones and skin that we normally discard. Besides the crackings are great to eat while drinking.

 

Oral Re-hydration Solution, home made.

Last week I had a very, very bad case of diarrhea. I believe that it was these beans that I had that were slightly spoiled even if they didn't taste bad. If they did I wouldn't have eaten it. It was a really bad case beyond even my worse cases of lactose intolerance. After some meds for gas and diarrhea with very little effect I went to the nearby, fortunately very near like 3 blocks away, public clinic, where I asked for some packs of ORS and a measure spoon to make it at home. Sadly they didn't have the spoon, the ORS powder did help me to get rehydrated as the diarrhea was already gone.

Remembering this old, I do mean old, like over 25 years old, campaign that was on the TV when I was a kid, that was teaching how to make the ORS at home. I believe that back then the powder wasn't available easily, especially in more rural locations.

Ingredients

20 grams of sugar, I prefer using weight, but 2 level tablespoons should get the same amount

3,5 grams of salt, or around half teaspoon

1 liter of water


Directions

Mix everything on a bottle or jug until the solids dissolve. Use bottled water or filtered tap water, boiled if you don't trust the tap water. Depending of how dehydrated you are you might need more than one recipe. It should taste like healthy tears. Honestly it doesn't taste that great, but it does work.


Notes


Most sources advise a couple tablespoons per hour for children and no more than half cup for teens and adults. Other sources advise drinking as much of the solution as the volume of liquid that you are losing by vomit or diarrhea. I do advise that if you have no idea why you are vomiting or evacuating you should see a doctor for it. Make and drink the ORS to help you to get hydrated while you go to the nearest hospital, clinic or doctor.

Given my height and weight I did drink more than half a cup per hour. I drank 2 liters of it in six or so hours plus regular water. I did feel much better after I drank the ORS as I did lose a lot of liquid in the morning.

I am posting this recipe here because you might need it, if possible go for the weight measurements for the sugar and salt. Spoon sizes vary based on maker and country, even measuring ones.

I hope that you don't have to use this recipe, if you do I hope that it helps.

 

Egg pasta or Egg noodles

Once again I reference my story thread, in there in February last year I mentioned that I purchased a pasta machine, you know one of those that roll out pasta sheets and cut out the pasta into strands with cutting dies. I love the thing and my only regret is that it is a hand operated one and not an electric one. But that is life.

I don't make fresh pasta that often because my kitchen is small and I don't have enough space to hang the cut pasta to dry. However I make it once a month in slow months or more often when I feel like it. It doesn't replace the factory made stuff, it is convenient and my machine doesn't make extruded pasta, but when I feel like having ramen and I don't have any it does the job.

Sometimes I do dry a portion or two of the uncooked noodles for later use, or I freeze the noodles to have them freshish.

My main recipe works well for making Italian style pasta or Japanese style ramen noodles. My first time with the machine was going to be pasta but I felt that the noodles were better as ramen and I was right.

I will list three basic recipes for making the noodles/pasta dough, it will be the classic egg noodle, the alkaline "egg" noodle and a udon style water noodle.


Ingredients

Regular egg recipe, 1 portion

100 grams of flour, I use all purpose since here in Brazil bread flour is hard to find, you can use stronger flours if you like but I never used semolina flour

1 whole egg, I learned that one large egg weights somewhere around 45 to 55 grams, averaging 50 grams this is important for the next recipes

One pinch of salt

Recipe note: As mentioned before, this particular recipe can make Western or Eastern style noodles or pasta. It all depends on the cut, thickness and lastly the method of cooking the pasta. I prefer making my ramen as thin as I feel comfortable with my machine and cutting it on the thin spaghetti cutter, for pasta I leave a bit thicker and cut through wider dies.


Alkaline "egg" noodles

100 grams of flour

50 grams of water, in all eggless recipes I replace the egg with 50 grams of water per egg replaced

1 grams or less of sodium carbonate, this is what makes the water alkaline and naturally dyes the dough yellow.


Recipe note: Some Chinese and Japanese recipes use alkaline water, Kansui, to make the dough and use no eggs, yet call them egg noodles, rumor says that it is to cut costs as the water is cheaper than the needed eggs, so those places might not even use eggs at all. Some use some kansui and eggs. Lastly, I normally add 1 gram or less if using less than 500 grams of flour, it gives the noodles an odd feel. I am the only one who notices, but I rather not exaggerate on it.

To make sodium carbonate, bake baking soda for 1 hour or so. There are youtube videos and other places that teach this in detail. That if you can't get it from a store or another


Udon style noodles

100 grams of flour

50 grams of water

5 grams of salt

Recipe note: This recipe is an adaptation of the udon recipe that my Japanese grandfather taught me. So it is pretty close to the authentic stuff.


Directions:

The basic for all three recipes is to mix everything in a food processor for 1 to 2 minutes, then form the dough it into a ball with your hands. Leave it to rest for 10 minutes and cut the 150 dough ball in half, if you have a machine work it through 10 times on the wider setting, folding the dough three times per pass. After this reduce the distance between the cylinders, giving each setting one pass until you reach your desired thickness.

For lasagna and other wide pasta dishes cut the sheet into smaller sheets of the desired size, cook for a couple of minutes and then assemble the lasagna or cannelloni.

For noodles cut with the right sized die if you have it, or flour and roll the dough lightly and cut to the desired width.

If you don't have a machine, you will have to knead and work the dough by hand and with a rolling pin. I hate doing this hence why I bought the machine.


For the Alkaline recipe heat the water to a boil and add the carbonate to the water, dissolving it well, then add the water to the flour while the food processor is on. More often than not I leave a bit of the water unused as the dough forms before it is all used up, it is normal and is okay. Sometimes you might need to add a bit more water, add it with no carbonate.

It is actually quite interesting to watch the reaction of the alkaline water to the flour, the white flour turns yellow quickly. It reacts to either the gluten or something in the wheat starch, I don't remember which. Might be a fun 'experiment' to perform with kids around, and you can later eat the results.

For working and cutting the dough it is as with the egg dough.


Now the udon dough, it is just dissolving the salt to the water and mix everything, sometimes I heat the water, others I don't. I notice no difference. I do like to give this one a little extra processing time than the others.

Traditionally this noodle would be cut thick, both in die width and in sheet width. I like to make it thinner, normally using as a ramen replacement for when I don't have eggs or as a pasta substitute.

This is my 'last resort' slash 'emergency' noodle recipe, for when I run out of eggs, store bought pasta or ramen and have next to nothing else to use as pasta or noodle. This recipe was also more common used before I learned the baked baking soda thing and made half kilo of carbonate last year. So nowadays I make alkaline noodles instead of plan water noodles unless I want udon.

Since the dough is just salt, water and flour it can be used for anything.

As for cooking time, this recipe is tricky, depending on the thickness of the noodles it will take longer. I normally don't cook mine for more than 1 and a half minute, 2 tops. This is fresh pasta/noodles it doesn't take as long as store bought or dried pasta to cook.


Drying and freezing


To dry the noodles I know of two methods, the first is to make lines somewhere in your kitchen and hang the cut noodles or sheets on it, leave it there for a couple of days and it will get dry. The drawback is that it will take room if you don't have one or more of those fancy ass noodle hangers thingies. I use bamboo skewers and this steel wire multifunction rack over my sink to hang the noodles while I am cutting a batch, I normally make 500 grams batches at time. It isn't something for proper drying.

The second method is making the classing 'nests' of long strands, if the dough is on the dry side and you flour it well after cutting the strands won't clump while drying. It takes less space so it possible to do in smaller kitchens. After drying you can place on another container for storage.

Lastly freezing, when freezing I make nests and use a baking sheet that fits my freezer, after frozen the nests can be moved to containers or bags. The bags have the downside of risking breaking the noodles.

Since normally I make the fresh pasta/noodles and then eat them afterwards I don't normally dry/freeze and store the results, therefore I don't know exactly how long it lasts. But well dried and store in a closed container it should last at least 2 months. Here in my house we hardly leave pasta/noodles even store bought go that long without using so it was never an issue. Italian grandmothers and mothers kept making pasta and drying it at home for ages, so it shouldn't be that hard to figure how long it should be kept.

A final note, the measures here is what I was thought as making 1 portion for 1 person, personally I make 300 grams flour batches and most often than not it doesn't last 2 servings for me.

100 grams and 1 egg per person is the 'rule of thumb', so you can scale up this recipe easily, so six people would be 600 grams and 6 eggs, or 600 grams and 300 grams of water. If you and whoever you are feeding are big eaters then it could be 600 grams and 6 eggs for 3 or 4 people.


On colored pasta.

These pasta are dyed with vegetables, beets, carrots, spinach and so on. I was taught and saw more than a few methods of making it, I favor two.

First, blend the vegetable that you will use, strain through a paper filter or cheesecloth, use the solids on the already finished dough. This method is said to be better because it doesn't alter the water ratio of the recipe as much as mixing the unfiltered juice in.

The second method is to blend the vegetables with the egg or liquid of the recipe and then make the dough using the amount required for the recipe, it should have some leftover thanks to the extra fluid from the vegetables.

The one that I use the most the few times that I made colored pasta is the blending with the liquids of the recipe one, depending on the total liquid at the end I might make 1 or 2 extra portions of pasta at the end. Still I hardly make these colored pasta in the first place, so you might as well experiment and find your favored method.

I hope that you like this recipe.

EDIT:

I just remembered, actually I thought when writing the post but forgot to add it. The egg dough and the water dough, not the alkaline one, can be tweaked with to produce a nice and tasty fried snack. If you add some seasoning, spices or herbs to the dough before processing it, then work the dough and cut it in a spaghetti or tagliatelle width, then cut the strands every two or so inches, then fry the dough in hot oil you can make a very tasty snack.

I used to make it a lot, when fried add some salt and toss it on a bowl, serve it hot or room temperature. It is a nice drinking snack, nice and salty. I used to make in many flavors, sometimes using those seasoning packs from ramen, sometimes using powdered seasonings. They become very crunchy and a bit puffy. The cross cut is two pockets around a thin core in the center.

It is a cheap and easy snack, you can control how much salt and spice goes in it making it less unhealthy. This kind of snack isn't meant to be eaten with dips but it doesn't stop me when I have some around. Use softer creamy dips as the snacks are thin ribbons therefore rather fragile.

I recommend enjoying it with a cold drink, soda in my case, while watching something in the computer or TV.

 

Eggplant antipasto

Or at least it is what I was told that it is called. I was rummaging the fridge and saw some eggplants that my mother bought last week, since there isn't any margarine left we don't have anything to eat with bread. So I decided to make something to eat with it because we have a fair amount of bread left.

This recipe is quite heavy on oil, so be warned.


Ingredients

4 large eggplants, I cube mine but the original call for sliced

2 medium onions, I like mine sliced and I don't recall if this is the wrong cut

3 cloves of garlic, chopped and crushed

1 cup of flavorless vegetable oil

1 cup of olive oil, you can change the ratios of the oils if you like, normally I don't use olive oil, lastly add more oil if you need

Salt to taste

Oregano to taste

Italian style herbs to taste

Sugar to taste

3 tablespoons of vinegar


Optional stuff

Coarsely grated carrots

Cubed tomatoes, fresh, not canned

Red, green or yellow bell pepper

Red pepper flakes


Directions

Soak the cut eggplant in salt water for 30 min, drain and squeeze out the water. Add the oil to a large pot and add the onions to it, you want to cook the vegetables and not fry them. When the onions are soft add the eggplant and any other vegetables, cook the vegetables down stirring every now and then. Once everything wilted if the oil cover the vegetables season them, if not add more oil until they are covered and then season them.

It should take anywhere between 20 to 40 minutes to cook it. The result should be soft and kind of mushy. It should spread easily on a slice of bread or toast. The eggplants should be nice and soft, the flavor profile of this should be savory with a bit of sweetness and a moderate kick of the vinegar. Adjust to your preferences, if you want more acidic add more vinegar or remove some vinegar if you want it less acid. Same with the sugar. Be careful with the seasonings as this should rest a bit before being eaten so the flavors will mix and develop with time.

This can be stored for a few weeks, not that lasts that long here, it can be kept in the fridge in a jar with a tight lid. The oil will likely congeal a bit but is no issue, you can reheat this. Leave to reach room temp or serve cold. Your choice.

I hope that you like this recipe if you give it a shot.

 

Hibiscus tea

This recipe is a bit hard to teach, not everyone likes the taste of hibiscus tea. It is quite sour and quite often my mother takes a 2 liters bottle of it to work and some of her coworker try my tea and like it, then they say that they had hibiscus tea in the past and didn't like it. Yet they liked my tea.

I once heard that it is also called sour tea. Some compare the flavor to cranberry juice, I don't really know as I never had cranberry juice. My tea creed is this, cold, strong and sweet. It is a side effect from my childhood days where we made roasted mate tea, the most common type of tea here in Brazil, and I liked it cold so I had to add ice cubes to it. So I always made my tea strong, sweetened and cooled it before drinking.

My love affair with hibiscus tea began a while after my affair with homemade gatorade was going on. I found some bags of green tea and decided to have some, I then kind of lowered my gatorate consumption and began drinking green tea. The problem that I couldn't get good quality tea here without paying 30 bucks for 1 pound. The cheap stuff was full of branches and tasted like heated tree juice. It really tasted like chewing on a branch.

My favorite all natural food and spice bulk shop either began or I just noticed them selling hibiscus a while after my grandmother gave me a tub of hibiscus pickles that was originally created by the Japanese immigrants as a replacement for umeboshi. Getting the name of the plant that back then I didn't know I saw that you could make tea out of it. I purchased 200 grams of dried hibiscus and added some to my green tea.

After a while I stopped making green tea and adding hibiscus to it to just making hibiscus tea. Nowadays if I don't have at least 100 grams of hibiscus on the pantry it means that I need to buy another kilo of the stuff. It costs around 30 bucks the kilo and it lasts anywhere between 1 and a half month to 2 and a half months. I make 6 liters batches of tea at one time and it gets consumed in 2 days tops.

I also used to save the hibiscus used to make the tea to make the pickles that I mentioned before. Sadly the hibiscus that I buy is chockfull of dirt, it is likely air dried so very small dirt particles cling to it and I can't remove it easily, even washing it after the tea is made. Now I make the tea using a bag just for it so the dirt won't get in the tea.

Using the rehydrated stuff to make jam and pickles tend to kind of highlight the dirt particles there. Washing the stuff after you make the tea removes even more dirt from it, just making the tea removes a couple of sizeable pinches of dirt from the 'leaves' I used to be amused when seeing the dirt on the bottom of the pot that I used. Now I am just pissed at the sand as it bothers me a lot when I eat the product and feel it on my teeth.

I plan on teaching how to make the pickle and the jam, as the hibiscus is still good to eat after the tea is made. Because my small fridge I had to stop saving the hibiscus as I had containers upon containers of hibiscus taking space there waiting for processing.

BTW, this is my personal recipe and it is set to make 6 liters of tea. You will need to experiment with the ratios to find if you want it stronger, weaker, sweeter or unsweetened.

Ingredients

2 and a 1/4 cups of sugar

6 liters of water

Roughly one baseball sized clump of dried hibiscus, my hibiscus isn't chopped, it is halved or quartered. By using my thumb, index finger and middle finger in a baseball grip I get that much of it and add to the bag, often adding another pinch of hibiscus just in case. I don't weight this or measure it beyond this grip, feel and eyeballing


Directions

In a large pot, here we have this pot called leiteira, a type of pan originally made for boiling milk. That I purchased a 6 liters sized one for making my tea almost 10 years ago that I use for making the tea. I fill it two thirds of the way, boil the water on it, add the sugar when the water boiled, turn off the heat and then add in the tea.

Initially I tossed the hibiscus directly in the water and strained it to a jug, washed the pot and poured the tea back into the pot before filling the pot up to nearly overflowing. Now I use a cotton bag to hold the hibiscus to steep. The bag stop the dirt from getting into the tea. I keep the bag submerged with a heavy spoon and let the tea steep for 4 hours or more. I want to get as much of the essence out of it. Then I remove the bag, squeeze it to get more tea from the hibiscus, cut the concentrate tea with water until I get my 6 liters and then move the tea into bottles for chilling.

Another way of 'brewing' is the cold brew method. Put the pot in the fridge with the tea bag inside with the water and leave it there for 12 hours.

My initial way of making the tea was to throw the hibiscus on the pot with the room temperature water, turn the heat on and leave it boiling for 1 hours, adding more water as needed.

I admit that the different methods give the tea a different taste. The cold method gives the tea a sharper tang than the long boil method. However I think that the cold brew doesn't get as much of the compounds from the hibiscus, as I noticed that I needed far more hibiscus to get the same strength of flavor as the long boil method.

The steeping method of boiling hot water that I listed in more detail, gives for me the best of both the cold brew and the long boil methods. The taste of the cold brew with the intensity of the long boil.

I am also giving my once steeped hibiscus a second steeping with 1 and a half liters of boiling water and getting more tea from it. It is fairly surprising how much you can extract from the hibiscus. I guess that this is why the pickle and jam still taste of hibiscus even after used for tea.


Pickle

Ingredients

1 kilo of hibiscus, saved from making tea, it can be frozen as long it is still rehydrated

80 to 100 grams of salt

40 to 60 grams of sugar

1 cup of rice vinegar

Recipe note: The original recipe uses fresh hibiscus so it doesn't require the vinegar to get the tang, moisture and acidity. This recipe was altered to use dried hibiscus after used for tea making. Using "fresh" dried hibiscus you can reduce the vinegar to 1 quarter cup or less and rehydrate the hibiscus in a brine using the salt, sugar and water. Adding the vinegar if needed for extra acidity.


Directions

Wash the hibiscus well, I don't know if you will get hibiscus with dirt glued to it. Try eating one and if you feel the dirt on it wash it. On my case you can easily wash away a total of a small coffee spoon of dirt from the hibiscus and still have some attached to it. Once you are through washing the hibiscus, squeeze out the excess water from it and place inside a non-reactive jar.

Heat the vinegar with a bit of water and dissolve the salt and sugar on it. Once dissolved add it to the jar with the hibiscus. If needed add some extra vinegar or boiled water. Give it some time and taste and adjust the mix.

You can also boil the hibiscus with the vinegar mix to speed up the process.

It lasts indefinitely on the fridge, I have some jars of it from sometime a nearly two years ago in the fridge and is still good.

This recipe tastes similarly to umeboshi and was used by the Japanese that migrated to Brazil as a replacement for the pickled plum, so use it as you would use umeboshi. Eat it alongside rice, as a filling for riceballs or a side dish on a traditional Japanese meal.


Jam

1 kilo of hibiscus, again saved from brewing tea

1 kilo of sugar

Pectin if you want to


Directions

Again wash the hibiscus to remove the dirt. Once washed you have to decide if you want a chunky jam or a smoother one. For the smoother blend the hibiscus with some water to make the pieces smaller or paste like. If you want the chunky don't blend it. Place the hibiscus in a large pot, add the sugar and mix well. Now turn the heat on and stir the mix until the sugar dissolves and the mix thickens up.

The consistency of the jam is up to you, thin, thick, jelly like, you decide what you want. It will take a long time to get even to the thin point, at the very least 30 minutes after it begins to boil. Jam making is time consuming.

The flavor should remind a bit of sour cherry or strawberry jam. Sweet and tangy. Sadly this one recipe can be particularly bad on the dirt as the liquids are boiled away and concentrated, if not washed well you can get a lot of dirt in even a small sample of it.

Still it is a very tasty jam, I have no idea of how long it lasts. Every time that I make it or my grandmother makes it I hardly taste it because my brother, the ass, eats everything.


Bonus recipe, yes many recipes with hibiscus, the stuff is very versatile.

Furikake, AKA that savory powder stuff that the Japanese sprinkle on rice

500 grams of after tea making re-dried hibiscus

50 grams of toasted sesame seeds, black or white, or both

At least 1 teaspoon of salt


Directions

Wash the hibiscus after you made the tea with it, squeeze out the water. Spread it on a baking sheet, place it in the oven and turn the oven on, this is better with a gas oven, once the fire is burning move the dial as if you are turning off the gas, but don't turn it off. The goal is to try to get the smallest flame possible to use the oven as a dehydrator, once you get that leave the oven door slightly open and let the low heat work its way into drying the hibiscus.

Every now and then stir the hibiscus and put it back, after hours of this process the hibiscus should look and feel as if the dried stuff that you began making tea with. Let it cool off and grind it in a blender or food processor. The store bought hibiscus furikake have small rice sized pieces of hibiscus, but you can make it larger or try to make it a powder.

Mix with the salt and sesame seeds, taste for seasoning and add more salt if needed. It should taste sour and of hibiscus. Sprinkle over rice or rice balls.

An alternative method, as the salt often don't stick to the hibiscus pieces, is to boil the hibiscus with salt water, then squeeze the excess water out to then bake dry them. Adding more salt while they are still moist is an option as well. Process with drying, grinding and mixing as mentioned above.


Notes:

Dirt can be a issue if you don't wast the hibiscus well, I made some of this a while back and didn't get all out. I gave it away because if bothered me so much. The dirt is flavorless and after being cooked at least twice not harmful, unless it has something poisonous in it that I don't know about, it just bothers me something fierce. It is part of why I stopped making everything save hibiscus tea.

I honestly don't know if internet bough or ones from special retailers have the same issue with fine dirt so you will have to find out by yourself.

As usual I hope that you like any of these recipes if you do give it a try.


EDIT: I forgot to mention, but this hibiscus tea is pretty good for a lot of things, a warning is that is also pretty diuretic. Drinking it every day will cause you to use the toilet more often, it is annoying but it also helps to reduce bloating.

As mentioned on the gatorade recipe I drink a lot of this tea and I am losing weight regularly even with the amount of sugar on it. I also find that it helps me to eat less, maybe is the amount that I drink, or it can be the sugar or just the nutrients and stuff from the tea itself. Google for more details on what hibiscus tea is good for, as it is good for a lot of stuff.

You can also mix the tea with juices or add some lemon, lime or orange juice to it if you want to change the flavor a bit.

 

So, well, while we're discussing recipes...

Pickled strawberries are reasonably tasty, but have a very, very strong flavor. Be careful with them. That said, one of the byproducts of making them is arguably better than the product itself.

What you'll need:

A 1 quart Ball jar or similar.
1 pound of ripe but firm strawberries, hulled, halved if large
1 1/2 cups white Balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp kosher salt

Put the (washed) strawberries in the jar. Put all the other ingredients together in a saucepan, maybe with a bit of water. Heat and stir until everything's dissolved and the liquid starts to boil. Pour the fluid into the jar and over the strawberries. Let it cool a bit, then seal the jar and put it in the fridge.

Wait 3-4 days.

Fish the berries out of the fluid. Eat (carefully and with other things; they're quite sour).

Keep the fluid -- which is now basically Strawberry-infused Balsamic vinegar. Whisking one part of that together with two parts of olive oil makes an excellent salad dressing.

 

So, as an experiment, I used some of the vinegar I mentioned above as the basis for a glaze for some beets. It turned out really well, so I might as well share.

Ingredients:

3 beets (you can use more), peeled and cut into eighths (once along all three axes).
1/4 cup of the vinegar mentioned above (or just white/white balsamic).
1 tbsp flour
1 pinch salt (optional)
2 tbsp butter
1/3 cup water (optional)

Combine all the ingredients save the beets in a saucepan or pot. Stir together and heat until everything melts/dissolves and bring to a simmer. Let it cook down a bit, then add the beets. Cook, stirring periodically and making sure to coat all portions of the beats with the mixture until the bubbling starts to slow. Serve (and maybe garnish somehow).

 

Sal de frutas, well I don't know the right name in English, but is similar to Alka Seltzer. Effervescent anti-acid. In short it is a home made cure for heartburn, mild sickness as in almost vomiting. So general stomach issues.

A couple months ago I ate something that didn't agree with me and I was feeling horrible. I didn't have any medicine for it so I looked on the interwebs and found a recipe. Look and behold I had everything needed to make the anti-acid on my kitchen. I mixed on the proportions and it worked. I wasn't feeling sick anymore. My mother before I made this found an old, I do mean old, sachet of stomach medicine that didn't work.

Sadly this recipe doesn't hold well. Just a couple of hours is enough to make the mix lose the effervescent power, it still works as an anti-acid but doesn't dilute as well. So I normally make when I need to drink some.

This recipe have two variations as far I am concerned, one the more down to earth emergency homebrew recipe where you are very, very likely to have everything you need at home. This one for making just what you need and no more as it involves one liquid ingredient.

The second recipe can be made in larger amounts and holds better as all the ingredients are dry powders, this one is my favorite recipe.


Ingredients

Single dose homebrew

1 tablespoon of baking soda

1/2 or less teaspoon of baking powder, yes, this is a vital part of the recipe even though it can be removed. 1 or so gram will work for this recipe

Juice of one lemon or lime, if you don't have either I would say that two tablespoons of any vinegar will work, this acid component is important and can't be removed.

1 and a half cup of water, or less this is for a single dose so use as much or as little water under this limit as you like

Directions

In a empty glass mix the dry ingredients well, add the water to your preferred level, it can be cold water. The add the citrus juice or vinegar, it will then react and make the mix fizz, drink once the raging beginning fizz is over.

Notes: This one is the basic single dose version to be made when you need to drink it, it can't be stored.


Dry version, can be stored for short periods of time

45 grams of baking soda

40 grams citric acid

5 grams baking powder

Optional

Powdered juice mix, sweetened or not

Sugar


Directions

In a mason or similar jar add all the ingredients and mix well.

To use add 1 to 1 and a half tablespoon of the mix in a glass of water, drink once the raging fizz is over.


Version notes: The sugar and powdered juice mix is to improve or add flavor to the final product.


Observations:

Sal de Frutas here comes in a few versions, the classic plain and unflavored version, and a few flavored versions, the most common of such Orange flavored. It isn't sweetened in the story bought versions in either flavored and unflavored version.

Even in a small airtight jar it will clump up, it doesn't have any of the stuff that makes the industrial stuff remain a powder even after unsealing the jar. Even clumped it will react once added to water but not as strongly as if it was freshly made. When I make this recipe I tend to drink one or two cups of it a day until it runs out.

At this amount if has no harmful side effects and it is actually good for your body as it helps to regulate your blood PH. Taste wise it is not the best thing to drink, but the salts and minerals of the ingredients help to replenish any loss because of sweating on a hot day. The flavored version has a nicer taste but I don't have access to unsweetened powdered juice mix.

I am believe that this is fairly low on the medicine scale, drinking baking soda to help with digestive issues is an age old folk knowledge and medicine. This recipe borrows from that.

This recipe isn't meant to replace stronger stomach medicines, this one is to help when you overheat and have heartburn or feel nauseous.

Lastly my preferred version is the dry powder version, it tastes better than the lemon juice one, at least for me. After making it a few times I got a good eye for making single dose mixes when eyeballing it.

So if you overindulge on something and feel bloated or with heartburn I hope that this recipe helps you to get some relief. God knows that it helps here at home, I might drink the stuff in leisure more often than not, but my mother and brother needed it for stomach issues more than I did.

EDIT:

Another note, I don't know why or if it is just me, but when I drink this effervescent anti-acid for some reason or another it peps me up. Not in an energy drink kind of way, it just gives me a boost of some king. Might be the 'burn' of the carbonation as it goes down my throat as I chug the stuff in one go rather than sipping or taking small swallows. One way or another it tends to get me a bit more attentive and less tired.

 

Make rice with it. You won't regret it. It's amazing with curry.
Just replace half/all of the water with coconut milk and boil for 15~18 minutes. If you want, throw in some herbs (pandan leaf, bay leaf, etc) or spices (tumeric?).

 

Coconut flan, we call it Manjar it is of the pudding family for us Brazilians.

My grandmother makes this recipe every time that we have a special meal, it isn't my favorite dessert but it is good.


INGREDIENTS:

Pudding:
1 liter of milk

1 200 ml of coconut milk

2 cups of sugar

6 tablespoons of corn starch

50 to 100 grams of finely grated coconut


Sauce
300 g of dried plums or prunes

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of water


Directions:

Add the liquids, sugar and coconut to a large pan, sieve the cornstarch and mix to the liquid ingredients for the pudding until it is dissolved. Turn to the heat and keep mixing the ingredients non-stop, after it thickens keep stirring for two more minutes. The mix should be thick enough that when you stir you can see the bottom of the pan. Pour the mix on a Bundt pan, smooth the surface and tap the pan to the counter a few times to remove air bubbles and firm up the pudding, and once cool place on the fridge for at least 3 hours.

For the sauce throw everything into a pot and cook it until it becomes a thickish syrup, somewhat thinner than the syrup that people put on ice cream or in those fancy coffees. Stir every now and then so it doesn't burn. Once done leave it to cool and add to the pudding before serving, the pudding should be eaten cold.


Note:

This recipe is traditionally made with plums here, however it can be used with other fruits. Red berries should be okay. Orange might be good as well. I suppose that you can experiment with other fruit infused syrups, maybe if goes well with coconut it might work with this.

 

I feel you pain on trying to get food on a budget, I suffer the same here with a drain of a brother that doesn't care about budgeting and controlling his urges at all.

Being completely honest we haven't been able to purchase as much food for the money that we expend on it, so we end getting less while paying more for it. Potatoes, onions, carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, Chinese cabbage and the occasional daikon radish or eggplant comprises of the brunt of the vegetables that we purchase.

As for meats, we normally get discount or sale chicken pieces, more often legs and sometimes breasts. Then sausages and very few times pork and ground beef. Eggs are relatively cheap here in Brazil so we try to always have some around, we pay 10 bucks for a pack of 30 chicken eggs, it doesn't last long because we eat it a lot.

Then we get bread, rolls that last a couple of days, 2 packs of sliced white bread, some cookies and pre-made toasts. I always ask for 2 kilos of flour so I can bake more bread, make pasta or when I feel like a pie or a cake. I consider that we crossed a emergency threshold when I begin to dip deeply into my flour supplies to cook. Like making something like chicken and dumplings with more dumplings than protein.

Another staple is bulgur wheat for kibbeh making. It is very filling and nutritious. It is another of the borderline items that I use when there is nothing else to use or I want to stretch the pricier proteins. I have two main recipes with this that I use that fills you up good. It is a cheap food that we can buy in a wholesale food store nearby, I always ask for 1 to 2 kilos of it and it is fairly cheap for the amount. Since you need to soak it to use it, a little bit goes a long way.

Pasta and rice are staples here, it stretches proteins and is pretty good. Here in Brazil the standard plate has rice, beans, salad and meat. Rice and beans are a perfect pair according to the medical professionals, they complement each other nutrition. Bean also stretch well and can be purchased in bulk cheaply.

Now alternative stuff, I advise that you buy nutritional yeast. Powder and flakes if you can, the powder is good to make spreads or to add to breads before you make the dough to add extra nutrition to it. The flakes can be used to sprinkle on foods as if it was parmesan cheese. It is hard to believe but it does help to fill you up, or just give you the sensation of being full earlier and for longer. TVP if you can ger cheaply is also a good way to get protein on your diet if meats are too pricy. My issue with it is that is pricy here and I can't get a good flavoring on it when I cook it. But it isn't bad and if you make heavy sauces as curry or tomato sauces the TVP will get its flavor.

I don't know what kind of diet plan you are following, but as long you aren't eating a lot of fat and oils, eating the regular staples should help you lose weight. Hibiscus tea, green tea and the home made gatorade helped me to lose weight while I ate what I mentioned here and some occasional fried food.

Don't be afraid of canned stuff, canned corn is a common thing here, we use it for many dishes and it is cheap. Fritters, adding to sauces, making cakes, mixing with rice and other vegetables for a fried rice dish, and more uses. Canned sardines have a fairly strong flavor that you can use considerably little to make a lot of food. Flaking the sardines on some tomato sauce makes for a nice pasta sauce, and this is just one option.

If they are cheap canned tuna or other fishes can help to get more protein on the cheap, check the net for recipes and you can use the same canned stuff in different ways.

My final advice is that you purchase the ingredients rather than purchase pre-made meals, the initial cost might be a bit higher, but with a bag of rice, a bag of beans, some vegetables and a meat, you can get more meals that when you tally the total cost each meal costs far less than the factory stuff. It just takes time and effort.

Cooked beans freeze well, so when we have leftovers we freeze them to use another day. Rice can be repurposed into fried rice if you add vegetables and a bit of protein, meat or eggs to it. Leftover vegetables could be turned into soup, pie filling or used in stir fries with the rice. Same with meats, mix with the vegetables to make fillings or soups.

I don't know if this will help, I hope that it does even if just giving you a basic idea on how to start a new way to help stretching your budget.