My favourite is four cheese stuffed tortellini with spicy alfredo sauce, topped with fresh and powdered Parmesan cheese mmmm.

not technically a 'creation' since they're such classic recipes..
bought a whole tenderloin and fabricated it into filets..
used some of it for beef carpaccio and some of it for filet mignon

If i ever had the money i'll go and learn some crazy skills. i'm not a professional chef but i love cooking. here are a fwe pics
http://ecstatickitchen.weebly.com/up...99381_orig.jpg
http://ecstatickitchen.weebly.com/up...24613_orig.jpg
http://ecstatickitchen.weebly.com/up...88417_orig.jpg
http://ecstatickitchen.weebly.com/up...71513_orig.jpg
http://ecstatickitchen.weebly.com/up...74227_orig.jpg

is that a dragonfruit cube?

Ballontine of Chicken,
Serrano, Chicken, Chorizo. Pan glazed King Mushroom.
Chive puree, Madeira glaze.

Attachment 4490

The cooking program at VCC is pretty cheap for the full year course. I believe it was less than 6000 including texts and equipment. However it is full time classes. You seem to be into baking and there is also a course for that at VCC too.

Spam & egg sandwich sprinkled with White Truffle Oil with organic Arugula & baby greens. Omnomnom...

Some stuff we made for the girls in our fellowship

- beet, radish, watercress, goatcheese, vodka pearls.

- smoked salmon rolls

- apple tarte with ice cream

Short ribs, beet root and arugula salad, yellow ginger rice

duck confit, roasted garlic tomatoes, bagged coleslaw, warm fingerling potato salad with grainy mustard and assorted random sauces from the fridge

pan roasted chicken breast and mushrooms with white wine.
pretty simple dinner.

i sliced it up so i wouldn't have to use a knife. :fullofwin:
how lazy is that? :p

Attachment 4891

Garlic Butter roasted lamb rack

mmmm

try searing it next time then roasting it

omg culverin, that looks fucking delicious

Nothing I make is technically difficult. A trained monkey can make what I make. Cause well, all I do is watch a lot of crap on youtube. :fullofwin:

Most of it is sear, build up fond, and deglaze.

6793026's stuff looks really good.
Then there's the obvious professionals in the house. Now they are PRO.

teach me the ways, master

I've always been curious what they teach in the culinary programs. I'm kinda worried I'm trying to run before I can walk, and I'm missing some fundamentals.

Here's what I've learned so far...

Brown = yummy. Pale meat = no flavor.

Browned bits that stick to your pan = fond = yummy
You get it off by adding a bit of water or wine, then it'll dissolve for flavor.

Chewy meats and stuff with connective tissue = cooking it low and slow
The connective tissue breaks down and makes food delicious.

Mostly, I just watch Good Eats and Food Wishes on youtube.



Also, miso tonkotsu ramen. soup was from scratch. took like forever to cook.
Usually with broths, it's usually simmer for hours i think?
But just reading stuff out there, you're supposed to crank the heat on and let the collagen break down and emulsify the soup. Turned out ok. Need more fatty pork next time, less chicken.

i learned a lot from cookbooks and youtube too. if you want to see a good channel on youtube check out "theseasonedcook"

How did you make your broth?? I've been trying to do up a tonkotsu broth forever, and it comes out wrong each time? Do you mind sharing the recipe? :fullofwin:

The final product is actually combined from 2 parts:

Part 1 - Stock
In here went pork bones, chicken carcass, green onions and garlic. Scoop out and discard the scum that floats to the surface. I'm not sure what it is, but people have always taught me to get rid of it.
I boiled the crap out of it for like 3 hours. It just kept reducing and I just added some cold water. Repeat as required.

Part 2 - Braising liquid
I browned off the pork belly, then deglazed with a mixture of cooking wine, mirin, rice vinegar, soy sauce and miso. Tossed in some green onions for good measure as well.
I simmered this for about 2 hours.
At the end of it all, this got very viscous from all the collagen being cooked down.

After the stock was good, I removed and strained out all the bones and bits of meat. I removed the pork from the braising liquid and combined the 2 together. I like miso, so I added about a 2 table spoons and stirred that in.


I learned some lessons this time.

1. Pork bone stock needs a more pork to chicken ratio. More fatty pork bits in there for more collagen too.
2. Peaches and Cream corn niblets is too too sweet.
3. I need actual proper menma, the canned bamboo shoots from T&T just isn't an acceptable substitute.
4. Braising liquid needs to be stronger, char siu was flavorful, but not salted enough.
5. Cool your char siu, then slice it. Before reheating it with the hot soup. Crumbles less this way.

Photos here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/1112742...OfA7tLigqClKA#

If anybody else has made something similar, please share. I'd love to learn.

Culverin,

What kind of copper pots are you using? are they Mauviels? Looks pretty quality.

Hey Qmx323,

I don't know if this happened in your case, but purely speaking from experience, I find that if you cut off the layer of fat near the bone on your rack, the final product turns out alot better because you wouldnt have to deal with the chewy fat.

You could roast the rack with bits of fat in the pan and baste it through out the cooking process, that would bring a more intense lamb flavor without the chewy gristles.

great thread guys

Busted. lols. I'm horrible with financial management, and I just blew $1800 on my set. I know it's not going to make me a better cook, but up until now, I've been using pots from Value Village and the plastic handle on my pots over open flame made a burning smell. That's all the excuse I needed.
They aren't Mauviel, the brand I got is Falk.

I did a couple weeks worth of research before I blew my money on it.
Why Falk instead of Mauviel or Borgeat?

1. From what I've been reading, once you're at the high end 2.5mm copper cookware, there is not discernible difference in cooking quality.
2. Bonding Ferrous metals (stainless to copper) isn't a normal process. Apparently, Falk is the company that the stainless-copper bonding for the other guys. I like defaulting my choices to the experts in a given field.
3. The outside isn't polished copper, but rather a brushed finish. Apparently it cleans a little easier, and even when dirty, still looks good.

I've got some gripes with my set.

1. One of my saucepans came with a small ding in it.
2. The copper seems to have quickly turned a yellowish hue, less deep red copper, and closer to a yellowish brass. I'm not sure if that's normal, but I'm not liking it. Where it has contacted the flame, it has turned multi-color as if blowtorched, I think that's normal and I'm cool with it.
3. The stainless inside isn't a super polished mirror finish. It's like this dull gray, almost matte finish. It does not scrub down and come away spotless, the insides seem to have some sort of staining or water mark like residue. It creeps me the heck out. I think it's just very odd.

However, despite those aesthetic issues, these pans are effin amazing. The heat up quickly, don't burn and are perfectly even. Performance-wise, I don't think I could really ask for more.

Before I contact Falk and sound like a total idiot, has anybody ever owned copper cookware? I'd like to hear some expert thoughts on this.

Also, I'm sorry folks for breaking the flow of this thread.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Hamburgers.

i found an amazing piece of chuck for cheap at T&T.
It just whispered... "cook me. cooook meeeee".
Who am I to disobey the whisperings of a piece of dead cow?

- Meat cut.
- Chopped by hand with a chinese cleaver.
- Dried out some bread crumbs. Not as filler, rather as a meat juice sponge.
- 1 egg for 1.5lbs of meat as a binder.
- See the pot in the back? See how it's all yellow? See previous post. As you can see, the one in front is still very deep red. I'd like your help with this quandry.
- Melting some roasted garlic butter on top.
- Finished with Mayo, Romaine, grainy mustard, dijon, grilled peppers, caramelized onions and some crumbled stilton on top.

Felt like dying after that meal.

And as a pre-dinner snack to the burgers.

- Pork belly skinned. Left over from making the char sui for the ramen.

- Salted to draw out moisture and fridged to continue dehydrating.

- Deep fried to crispy perfection.


I've got 2 issues I'm not happy with, would like your help in solving.

1. It came out harder than it wanted. It was crunchy, but if at all possibly, I'd like it more airy and crispy. I'm thinking this might be because I drew out too much moisture? Do I even need to dry it out at all?
2. It kept curling. Any ideas on how I can make it curl up less? Sure small pieces work because it's then bite-sized, but I was hoping I could make it more visually impressive with a big piece. There's a Paula Deen vid where she's given some pork rinds as a gift, and it's like a huge piece, at least 8"x8". I just think it'd be cool to have a piece that big.

cheers guys.

i think if you kept it a bit thicker, and maybe roasted in the oven at 400+ instead of deep frying, it would curl less and not be so hard

i dislike cooking things with the deep fryer unless they're fries, onion rings etc