The 'I Need a Recipe' Thread

[_Axle_]

Not so much "I need a recipe", but more of what type of ingredient to use.

I am going to be making Pork Teriyaki ( maybe beef ), but not sure what would be a good cut to use.

[Ulc]

Soo, it's my turn to bring cake to the office this week. I don't want to be one of those that buys cake, I want to bake it.

I've settled on cheesecake, since it is delicious.

Not having made that very often (I don't bake cake very often) I'm not sure how to make it, and no two recipes agree with each other.

Anyone that can point me in the direction of a good cheesecake recipe?

[Zohar]

There are many different types of cheesecake recipes. The easiest don't require baking and usually have custard powder in them. The more complicated (and, IMO, tastier ones) require baking, and even then there are several types.

Honestly, if you're not used to baking, I wouldn't start with a cheesecake, I'd go for a more basic chocolate cake or brownies (I have an incredibly easy brownie recipe you can try, and they're delicious), or some sort of sponge cake.

In any case, I posted a cheesecake recipe here once but it's fairly complicated. There's a simpler recipe I use sometimes, but I don't have it handy, if you're interested I could post it this evening.

[Ulc]

Honestly, if you're not used to baking, I wouldn't start with a cheesecake, I'd go for a more basic chocolate cake or brownies (I have an incredibly easy brownie recipe you can try, and they're delicious), or some sort of sponge cake.

I'm not that inexperienced when it comes to baking, I probably make cake a couple of times each month. It's just cheesecake that I don't have much experience with

I just looked up the time consuming recipe you posted, and it's honestly a bit more time consuming than I have time for. If you have a simpler once (but still delicious) I would love to see that. it's easy enough to find cheesecake recipes of any kind, but I tend to distrust recipes given by complete strangers over the internet

(Note: for this purpose people here on the forum isn't complete strangers.)

[Zohar]

All right, I'll post the recipe this afternoon. It takes a couple of hours to make and bake, I think, plus at least four hours in the fridge.

[PAstrychef]

A simple cheesecake. You MUST give them enough time to chill or they will ooze when you slice them.

* 2 1/2 (8-oz) packages cream cheese (1 1/4 lb), softened
* 1 1/4 sticks (1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened, plus additional for pan
* 1 1/2 cups sugar
* 8 large eggs, separated
* 2 teaspoons finely grated fresh lemon zest
* 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1/2 teaspoon orange-flower water*
* 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
* 1/4 cup cornstarch


* Special equipment: parchment paper cut into a 10-inch round and a 32- by 5-inch strip; a 10-inch (26-cm) springform pan
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Be sure the butter is very soft-Zohar can tell you the problems of working cold butter into cream cheese. You can use vanilla instead of the orange-flower water. Add some booze if you want, a tablespoon or two will do.

Butter bottom and side of springform pan. Line bottom with round of parchment and butter round. Butter 1 side of parchment strip and fit unbuttered side of strip against buttered side of pan. (Strip will extend 2 inches above rim of pan.)

Beat together cream cheese, butter, 3/4 cup sugar, egg yolks, zest, juice, vanilla, orange-flower water, and almond extract in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes in a standing mixer or 3 minutes with a handheld. Add cornstarch and mix at low speed until just combined.

Beat egg whites in another large bowl with cleaned beaters at medium speed until whites just hold soft peaks. Add remaining 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating, then increase speed to high and continue beating until meringue holds stiff, glossy peaks, about 2 minutes in standing mixer or 3 minutes with handheld.

Fold one fourth of whites into cream cheese mixture to lighten, then fold in remaining whites gently but thoroughly.

Line outside of springform pan with foil (covering bottom and about 1 inch up side) to waterproof. Pour batter into pan and gently smooth top. Bake in a hot water bath in middle of oven until top is golden but cake trembles slightly when pan is shaken gently, 55 to 65 minutes. (Cheesecake will rise in oven, but then will fall slightly and set as it cools.) Transfer springform pan to a rack to cool completely, then chill, loosely covered, at least 8 hours.

[Bakemaster]

The chilling time also varies from refrigerator to refrigerator, since not all are set to the same temperatures, some have cold and warm spots, and rate of cooling has a direct relation to the difference between object and ambient temperature.

So if you can chill it for 12+ hours, do so.

Good cheesecakes are all labor-intensive, and the water bath is generally not optional. I generally would recommend leaving the very first attempt for consumption by friends and family, but if your coworkers are used to store-bought cakes, they are likely to appreciate a homemade cheesecake even if it cracks. You can also always try hiding the crack under a fruit topping, as I did with one of my early attempts at a New York cheesecake.

[PictureSarah]

I've never actually used a water bath, but I've usually turned off the oven, opened the door a crack, and let it cool for a couple hours before I even take it out of the oven. It has *generally* not cracked, but occasionally has. At which point I have just, as Bakemaster said, covered it with a fruit topping! Even cheesecake that is not totally perfect is still highly delicious.

[Zohar]

Here's the simpler recipe I use for a cake which has no danger of "sinking" if you cool it too fast:
Base:
1 and 2/3 cups (170 gr) ground biscuits (English biscuits, a.k.a sweet crackers)
0.25 cup (50 gr) sugar
100 gr melted butter.

Cheese:
750 gr. white 9% fat cheese
0.5+1/3 cup (180 gr) sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 eggs

"Frosting":
400 ml sour cream
2 tbsp sugar
20 gr vanilla sugar (2 small packets in Israel)



Preparing the base:
Mix ingredients well. Oil your 26 cm/10 inch pan. Spread the mixture on the bottom of the pan and pack well. Freeze for at least 20 minutes.

Cheese:
Put all ingredients but eggs in a bowl. Start mixing, add eggs one by one until you have a homogeneous consistency.

Baking:
Preheat oven to 150 degrees C (300 deg F). Pour cheese mixture on the pan. Bake 40-45 minutes until the cake is stable though still soft in the center, rises a bit on the edges and doesn't look completely done (it's best to rotate the cake once while baking it). Take out of the oven and let cool for 15 minutes.

Frosting:
Mix ingredients. Coat the cake gently, with a tablespoons, from the edges towards the center. Be careful, the cake will be very soft so be cautious. Put cake back in the oven for another 8 minutes.

Cool the cake, place in the fridge for at least four hours, good up to three days.

[Ulc]

Thanks a whole bunch to Zohar and Pastrychef (the recipe I used ended up being a slight mix of those two, since I had bought slightly too little cream cheese for Zohar's recipe, and added lemon and corn starch as in pastrychefs)

My department was very impressed, and it did taste really good I even got the guy on a diet to break down and take a slice, first time since new years that his willpower has been broken

I'll have to do it again soon..

[PAstrychef]

Now you see the power of pastry! Next time I'll divulge the secret of the lemon curd topping.

[poxic]

I bought hoisin sauce. I must now make some salad rolls for myself, and mix the hoisin with peanut butter (or something) to make a dipping sauce.

I've used rice wrappers before. They're easier to work with than they look. I'm just trying to find some allergy-friendly ingredients -- I can't do lettuce (citric acid sensitivity), but I can do spinach. Bean and other sprouts are problematic, but maybe I can add some grilled tofu and steamed bok choy. Shrimp is right out.

... This is kind of going to suck, isn't it?

Edit: daikon! I can add some shredded daikon in place of the bean sprouts, maybe. I just tried some of this mild radish today, warmed on an open-faced sammich with miso-nut butter spread, diced green onions, and a not-delicious-dammit sauce of hoisin, dark sesame oil, and a couple of other random ingredients from my fridge that didn't really work together. (Mustard? Well, it *was* an experiment. >.>) I'll have to eat some daikon for a couple more days before I figure out if I'm going to react to it, but I don't think I will. Radishes in general don't seem to bother me. I just hadn't found one before now that I was willing to eat.

[Nath]

Raw (or blanched) cabbage? Shredded carrots? Cucumbers?

Hoisin + peanut butter sounds a lot thicker than the stuff that usually gets served with salad rolls around here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuoc_cham

[poxic]

Blanched cabbage could work. I hadn't even considered that. (Carrots and cucumbers are high on my allergy list. I'm freakishly hard to cook for. ).

I did find a recipe for the dipping sauce, though it would need modification. Some hoisin and peanut butter, yes, but also rice vinegar (allergic >.<) and sesame oil and a few other things. I'll probably have to play with it a bit.

[Nath]

Can you consume white vinegar or any other acidic liquids? The basic template for nuoc cham seems to be:

• something umami (usually fish sauce, though soy or hoisin should work);
• something sour (usually lime juice or vinegar; if these won't work, maybe tamarind?);
• something sweet (usually sugar);
• water;
• optionally, stronger flavorings like garlic and chilis.

But that's only the Vietnamese way of serving salad rolls. I don't know how they are eaten in other cuisines.

[poxic]

Sour will be the biggest challenge. I can do only a small amount of vinegar or citrus juice, like a teaspoon in a whole dish. I could maybe try lemongrass, ground or steeped in water? (I've had a hard time finding the stuff lately.) Or Kaffir lime leaves, or something similarly not-quite-acidic-but-at-least-sour-ish.

Tamarind... there's a thought. It will likely cause a reaction if I eat a lot of it, but maybe a smear's worth mixed in with everything else could work. It's acidic, but botanically distant enough from the main groups of my allergies that it might not be too bad. (Similar to the way I can't have any strawberries at all, but mango and papaya are totally safe.) Hmm.

[Nath]

Oh, if mango is an option, you might want to look into amchur. It's a sour Indian spice made from unripe mangos. Should be able to get it at South Asian groceries, or order it online.

[poxic]

I decided to just go with the rice vinegar, but use it sparingly. My allergies do seem to be easing up a touch lately. (Some with my allergy syndrome do grow out of it when they're ... right around my age. Go go fortunate accidents of genetics and/or environment!)

So, my first home-built salad rolls, which I didn't take pictures of because they were quite ugly: steamed bok choy, some marinated tofu, a sprinkle of diced green onion (a nice touch), and some leftover rice. (Not rice noodles. Rice. I did find out why to not do this.)

I estimated some proportions for the sauce from a recipe found online: four parts macadamia-and-cashew nut butter (didn't have actual peanut butter on hand), two parts hoisin sauce, and one part each sesame oil, rice vinegar, and soy sauce (tamari), plus some water to thin it all out.

The verdict:
1) Use real peanut butter next time. The macashew was too subtle and fatty-tasting.
2) Try spinach. Bok choy, even when steamed, isn't readily bitten into pieces, and is rather more bitter than I wanted.
3) Use rice noodles, not rice. Every dip into sauce after the first one lost many rice grains into the dip.
4) Use two rice sheets, not one. Or else find thicker rice sheets that won't disintegrate during the meal.

>.<

I'll try this again in a few days, I think. The marinated tofu was good, though -- I used many of the same ingredients as the sauce, plus a bit of mirin and garlic. There's more marinating in the fridge right now, ready to be either rolled or just snacked on.

[PAstrychef]

Sushi rice is fairly sticky-you might try a different rice next time.
a drop of chili oil is nice, if you can have it.
chop the bok choy into small bits.
mung bean sprouts are good for crunch.
Asian rice vinegars come in many varieties-can you use the seasoned kind?

[roband]

Halp!

So, I said I'd cook dinner for my girlfriend and her family tonight. And I just realised.. it's tonight.

So, I have a joint of pork. And I need to do something with it. The standard roast dinner is my first thought, but I'd love to do something a little different, but just as easy.

Anyone got any ideas? Thanks

edit: it's a 600g joint, so nothing massive.

[Nath]

Braise it in stock, fruit juice, or milk.

[roband]

Braise it in stock, fruit juice, or milk.

How long does that take? Realistically, I have a couple of hours to prepare and cook the thing.

[Thesh]

Braising usually take a matter of hours. What cut is this exactly? A google search shows that pork joint = pork shoulder, but my experience with pork shoulder is that it usually weighs several times what you posted. My only experience, however, with pork shoulder is barbecue, which takes more like 6-12 hours depending on the size of the pork shoulder.

[Nath]

At least a couple of hours, depending on how hot you go. Higher temperatures will break the gelatin down faster, but make the meat drier (even in a braise). But yeah, at a gently simmer, two or three hours probably, plus however long it takes you to brown the meat and chop and fry the aromatics.

[roband]

I don't have the joint with me right now, so couldn't say what it was exactly.

Looks like I'm roasting it then...
I'll try something a bit different like roasting some apple slices in the pork fat once the meat is done and serving them with it


Edit: I roasted it. It was awesome. My first roast dinner from scratch by myself. Roast pork, roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding, carrots, peas and apples roasted in pork fat (not that great).
I tried to be modest, but failed.

[AntonGarou]

My girlfriend really loves pilaf, unfortunately she's on a diet, which means I can't use anything which isn't very lean(chicken/turkey breast mostly). Problem is the only good recipes for pilaf that I know use fatter meats: does anyone have a good recipe for pilaf using chicken/turkey breast, or something similar?

[Bakemaster]

You're talking about the rice dish, right? I don't know of any other sort of pilaf, but I don't think I've ever had a pilaf that used any sort of fatty meat, so I wonder if I am misunderstanding you.

This recipe is very good, and though it has no meat, the cashews provide some protein.

There really is no end of possibilities for pilaf. It's basically just rice with other things in it.

OOPS: Fixed tags.

[AntonGarou]

Thanks.I have several recipes on hand: all of them use either pepperoni-style sausages or chicken liver, both of which are rather high in fat content.

[Sprocket]

This is good. I ate it today and I'm going to buy the ingredients. I'm going to add dried cranberries and orange zest.


Dona Souza is a 60 year old Cambridge Public School District Employee who likes to cook and bake!

Here is the Irish Soda Bread Receipe:


3 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup of salt
1/4 stick of butter, soften
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 cup raisins
caraway seeds if desired


Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, soda and salt in a bowl. Add 1/4 cup soften butter and cut into flour. In seperate bowl whisk egg and add buttermilk to egg, mix and then add to flour mix. At this point you can add the raisins and caraway seeds if
desired. Stir with until flour comes together with the wet ingredients forming a ball of dough.

- Hide quoted text -
On floured surface kneed the bread about 7 turns then place onto a piece of foil or parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Cut a cross on the top of the bread. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes, then lower oven temp to 350 and bake an additional 25 minutes.

Enjoy,

Donna Sousa

[Telchar]

I was reading through the differences between skirt and flank steak and stumbled upon a Canadian dish in which a London Broil is prepared with sausage in the middle.

Most of the recipes for London Broil are grilled but that seems implausible here as the flank steak would burn before the sausage gets cooked.

Is there anyone with knowledge of this? Apparently it's particularly popular in Ontario.

[PAstrychef]

When I think of a london broil I think of a fairly thick cut of muscle, usually part of the Round. (the big chunk of the upper rear leg) It's nowhere near either the skirt of the flank steak in location or texture. To stuff one with sausage you would make a sausage stuffing with cooked sausage, cut a pocket in the meat and, well, stuff it.
The ones I found via Google from Ontario look to be a large amount of sausage with a meat wrapper, which a butterflied and pounded thin flank steak would do well. you would grill them on their flat sides, so that everything cooked at pretty much the same rate. Bu the uncased sausage would cause major flare ups as it dripped grease.
here a link that explains a fair bit.

[Telchar]

Hrm. All the London Broils I've had have been flank, and flank is the cut most often used according to the wiki. I've never had it with round. I live in the mountain west, maybe it's a regional thing? /shrug

Makes sense that they would pound it flat and stuff it with cooked sausage though. I guess I was trying to imagine using butcher's twine to tie a flank steak and some sausage in a roll and grill it and it wasn't making sense.

Thanks!

[PAstrychef]

If you look at the pics from the link, they show a roll of sausage wrapped in flank steak.

[ArgonV]

I'd really like a recipe for scones. I know it's a relatively simple recipe, but I've found several floating around the internet, all using differing amounts of ingredients. Does someone have a good, tried and tested recipe for me?

[Axman]

The bakery that I worked at had a great recipe for scones. I have no recollection of what it was. It doesn't matter because it was for 200lbs of scones. I have since made excellent scones using the following two principles: use buttermilk, or freshly soured milk, or milk and sour cream. And use shitfucks of butter. More butter than liquid, more butter than sugar, less butter than flour. Scones recipes that don't use baking soda and baking powder will taste funny.

Here's a guide: 3c flour, 1-1/2c butter, 1c buttermilk, 1c sugar, 1c shit you want to see inside your scones, 1/2 heaping tsp ea. baking soda and baking powder.

The recipe isn't all that important, the prep is. They're fucking biscuits, be kind to the batter. Cut it with a fork, don't over-mix it, and if you see dots of dry flour and shit don't sweat it. Bake them in an oven at 350-400 until you can't fucking stand it, then go ahead and burn the piss out of your face, it's totally worth it for oven-fresh scones, your tongue will be a throbbing reminder of how awesome your day started.

[PAstrychef]

My favorite recipe for granola starts with "One 50# bag of oats" and make 27 full sized sheet trays full. Very tasty, but you can't make just a little.
these, on the other hand, are miniature scones that are very tasty. You can make them any size you like, but they will need a longer baking time.
1/2 cup heavy cream plus additional for brushing the scones
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons sugar plus additional for sprinkling the scones
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
1/2 cup dried currants
In a bowl whisk together 1/2 cup of the cream, the egg, the vanilla, and 3 tablespoons of the sugar until the mixture is combined well. In another bowl stir together the flour, the salt, the baking powder, and the baking soda and blend in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in the currants and the cream mixture with a fork until the mixture just forms a sticky but manageable dough. Knead the dough gently on a lightly floured surface for 30 seconds, pat it into a 1/2-inch-thick round, and with a 1 1/2-inch fluted cutter cut it into rounds. Gather the scraps, repat the dough, and cut out more rounds. On an ungreased baking sheet brush the scones with the additional cream and sprinkle them with the additional sugar. Bake the scones in the middle of a preheated 400°F. oven for 15 to 18 minutes, or until they are golden.

[ArgonV]

Thanks guys, I'll try it out in an hour or so!

[Thesh]

I want something sweet to go with tea (I have Earl Grey, English Breakfast Tea, and Green Chai Tea).

These are some of the ingredients I have (the ones I think might possibly be relevant):

All Purpose Flour
Butter
2 Eggs
White Sugar (granulated and powdered)
Dark Brown Sugar
Nutmeg
Allspice
Cloves
Star Anise
Cinnamon
Cocoa Powder
Vanilla Extract
Evaporated Milk

[PAstrychef]

You can make scones! Linking stuff is weird with the iPad, so I'll just tell you to check out epicurious.com for scone recipes.

[Bakemaster]

First I thought you were asking for recommendations on what sort of sweetener to add to your tea, and I was all ready to jump in with my standard recommendation of a scant teaspoon of orange marmalade in your Earl Grey.

But then I realized you were asking a different question and I decided to post what I was going to post anyway only in a slightly different format.