Official Recipe Thread

[movie zombie]

recipes [w/o bat, thank you] sound really good!

[Blackhorse2010]

Not a lady, but have to share my wife and daughter's favorite:

2 lbs Flank Steak (run through the tenderizer once)
12 oz WishBone Italian Dressing
6 oz Soy Sauce

1. Pour dressing and soy sauce into baking dish, add meat and allow to marinate for a few hours.
2. Grill until done.
3. Serve with rice.

Enjoy!
Steve

[postal]

Thanks for the poached chicken recipe Stilly. I'll try that tomorrow.

Just like you, I want beef on my plate. Bloodier the better... and I dont care for chicken. Been trying to eat more chicken for a healthier diet, and cant get the chicken to get any flavor no matter what I do......

So this sounds like something to try.

Any benefit of trying to flavor the chicken in a rub or marinade beforehand?

Like I said- not big on chicken, and hate tasteless chicken....

[postal]

Easy Tzaziki sauce (cucumber sauce for gyros)

My favorite lately.....

I use tri tip for most of my beef/steak. Get them on sale at Stator Bros cheap and slice them thin for steak tacos or gyros- pack into dinner for 2 servings with marinade and freeze- same with thick slabs for grilled steaks..

Find a local middle eastern market for pitas or flatbread. It's way cheaper and better than the regular grocery stores. I think I pay about $0.80 for a pack of 6 compared to $3.00+ for stale ones at the regular stores.....

Most Tzaziki sauce calls for greek yogurt which I think is bitter.

I prefer using regular sour cream. I think it tastes a lot better. You can use either.... but as I said, greek yogurt is bitter in comparison, and the sour cream version rocks!

Simple to make but you need to let it sit for an hour or two to drain water so it's nice and thick.

1-2 cups sour cream (however much sauce you want to make)
1 large peeled/seeded cucumber
2+tea garlic powder
1+ teaspoon dill weed
1+ tea sugar
squirt of lemon
pinch of salt/pepper (mineral salt is perfect for this)

( the 1+ teaspoon... for 1 ish cup sour cream, 1 tea- if 2 cups, use 2 tea)

Peel the cucumber, split in half length wise- use a spoon to scrape out the seeds. Finely shred the cucumber over a paper towel. when finished, fold up the towel, and squeeze all the water out of it you can. You'll be surprised how much water comes out.

Mix the shredded cucumber, dill/sugar/salt/pepper/garlic into the sour cream.

Put a coffee filter in a strainer, put the strainer into a large bowl. Put the sour cream in the coffee filter. place in the fridge for minimum 1 hour. 2 is better.

After 1-2 hours, a lot of water will have drained out of the sour cream. As strange as it looks, the sour cream is now so thick, it wont stick to the coffee filter. Just get a new bowl, or pour the water out of the existing bowl, and dump the sour cream mix from the coffee filter into the bowl and stir it up again.

Add the lemon juice and stir, and serve. Or put in the fridge for later use. It is usually served cold.

It's not quite a traditional recipe... but tastes really good, and accomplishes several longer steps all at once.

(some recipes call for salting the cucumber to release water, some call for straining the sour cream/yogurt before mixing THEN say mix the dill and cucumber and sit for 2+ hours to let the flavors 'blend'.... etc)

This is the shortcut that does all the necessary things without adding too much salt (which I hate) and do it in the shortest time.

Grill up some thin sliced tri tip or beef of your choice (or lamb- or chicken if you're a freak), and serve on warmed pitas or flatbread with lettuce, onion, tomato and a thick spooning of the tzasiki cucumber sauce.

This is also a decent healthy veggie dip, but you might want to add more salt for that...

[postal]

Not a lady, but have to share my wife and daughter's favorite:

2 lbs Flank Steak (run through the tenderizer once)
12 oz WishBone Italian Dressing
6 oz Soy Sauce

1. Pour dressing and soy sauce into baking dish, add meat and allow to marinate for a few hours.
2. Grill until done.
3. Serve with rice.

Enjoy!
Steve

Sounds interesting and easy..... but I really dont like the taste of vinegar. If cooking rare/medium rare, does the vinegar from the dressing burn off?

[mikenewgun87]

How about yellowtail?
Water.


To the.


Plate.

Get in my belllly!!!

[stilly]

Thanks for the poached chicken recipe Stilly. I'll try that tomorrow.

Just like you, I want beef on my plate. Bloodier the better... and I dont care for chicken. Been trying to eat more chicken for a healthier diet, and cant get the chicken to get any flavor no matter what I do......

So this sounds like something to try.

Any benefit of trying to flavor the chicken in a rub or marinade beforehand?

Like I said- not big on chicken, and hate tasteless chicken....

STINK that liquid up! Instead of using water grab a couple quarts of that chicken stock. Make certain to toss in some peppers- LOTS of pepper, Cayenne, black, white, the more the merrier. Also make certain to use salt, salt gets in the muscle fibers and opens them to absorb liquid and they will plump up.

I do not know of any rubs that are good for chicken except maybe pollo asada that I see in the supermarket shelves- from Chef Merrito of whatever his name it, it will have a yellow cap and be sold near the meet counters usually.

But yeah, the more aromatic the poaching liquid is the tastier it will be.

I just did 8.x lbs of chicken on the stove and I used 6 14oz cans or so of hy-top and swanson brand chicken broth as the base. I added about 1/3C of lime juice, 1/2C orange juice, about 3 tablespoons of the yellow chicken bullion dry paste, smoked spanish paprika, cayenne pepper, black pepper, onion powder, 5 bay leaves, garlic powder, thyme, parsley, corriander seeds, ancho chili powder and let it come to a boil, then I turned it off, dropped in the chicken and turned on the heat again since the chicken came from the fridge and cooled down the liquid so much. Now it was brought back up to ALMOST boiling then shut off. I will post later on how it looks, but I am surprised that you REALLY do not need that much liquid as long as it covers your meat and it will lay flat and stay under the surface. - GOOD stuff... I can smell it all the way across the house. After sitting for about 45 minutes (original recipe only needed about 15-20 minutes). I just had a piece and DAMN. Not a lot of up front flavor, (I am always afraid of making it too salty or peppery) but there is a little bite on the end and it DOES taste good, just not as flavorful as I was hoping, so maybe double down on the ingredients OR perforate the chicken with one of those tenderizers. It IS juicy though...

OMFG! I just tried a piece of the boneless thigh/leg meat and all I gotta say is (as I roll my eyes up into my head) DAMN... I think my knees about buckled. Glad I was leaning on the counter. The thigh/leg boneless/skinless pieces that I got on sale REALLY suck up the flavor. I can feel a bit more heat too but this chicken is so damn good now that when the piece I was biting on fell into the sink, I picked it up and continued to eat it. It is THAT good. I just wish I knew how to bring more front end flavor to it. Maybe adding some ginger or cloves might help. - OH, so will more cumin. Too much cumin (1 CUP?) though and it will start to get a more Indian flavor (Dot Indian; not Feather Indian). OMFG I am gonna go get more. Now I have eaten three pieces. I might very well prove that you can get fat eating only chicken alone. No seriously, I might not go back to beef for another few months now... And I am glad that I documented this here. If I die from too much chicken there will be a well documented note of details on calguns... When I get my recipe down I will make note of the ingredients and make a PDF and clean this all up. Nobody wants to read the notes of a madman...

OH and if you want BULK ingredients? Then stop in at WINCO and in the corner of the store they have a BULK ingredients/Spices section. It is VERY good for some cheap spices like cumin and pepper and stuff that you might burn through. OMG I gotta go eat some more...
Enjoy.

[postal]

HAHAHHAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the great write up Stilly! You rock!

I do the bulk of my shopping at winco and stators. Cant beat the bulk spice section!!!!!!

Gonna try it tonight with some frozen (now thawed) chicken breast I had- I think I'll slice them in half so not too big, and stab them with a fork to let more flavor in.

==========

Got the mix together....

a little montreal seasoning,

Premixed by me spices-
Asada mix
schawarma mix
pizza topping green herbs

Lots of black pepper, some "rainbow" fresh ground pepper
cayenne
crushed red pepper
one new mexico dried chili
celery
coriander
onion
spicy brown mustard
dash of soy
mineral salt
4 bay leaves
lemon, lime and orange

.....and.... since I want it to taste like something....

BEEF BROTH for the win!!!!!!

Gonna let that boil and simmer a while since the NM chili was dry. I eat late too since the GF has an odd schedule.

--edit-- it's starting to heat up... you're right! SPICY POTPOURI!!!

[stilly]

Good. I am about ready to puke from all the chicken I had earlier on today.

I always forget to stab the chicken multiple times. I got the really cool stabber too, it has like blades that come out, like some type of hand weapon you would see in Phantasm where when you hit the meet the guard retracts and the two rows of blades pop out and pierce it about 24 times...

Well, Phantasm or Hellraiser.

I think it is good to be heavy on the Cumin above the rest of the dry ingredients and right now Trader Joes has 32oz chicken broth for 1.99 as well as Target, well, I dunno if Target is 32oz, I THINK they are, but I think it might be swanson or pantry shelf. Broth is broth for things like this. Maybe it might be good to let the water sit with the ingredients a bit longer. Initially the recipe started with just letting the ingredients simmer for 10 minutes, then let it boil for a minute, then shut off and drop in 2 chicken breasts (bahahahahahahaha- yeah right) and let it sit with the flame off for 15 minutes. - Oh and that WAS a very moist and good bird. Anyways K, I am done for now. Enjoy the chicken.
OH, here is a photo of what that small amount of broth did, it turned out being like 8.4 lbs of chicken I believe...



Keep in mind I have eaten about 8 pieces and my g/f 3 pieces with warnings that I better leave her some...

[postal]

Easy home made french onion soup for 2 (double for 4) That doesnt taste like it was made with sea water like restaurant french onion soup!!!

Start out by saying I dont like salt.

I buy low sodium/no salt products anytime I can.

I love french onion soup, but most restaurants, it tastes like they made it with sea water..... There's THAT much salt in it.

French onion soup is easy...

For 2-
Ingredients.
1 small can **Swansons LOW SODIUM beef broth**
1 large onion (I prefer white)
1/4-1/3 stick of butter
2 slices swiss cheese
2 slices of french bread (or any white bread really)
1 teaspoon sugar
1+ teaspoon garlic (I use more like a table spoon)
1+ teaspoon pepper (same- a table spoon)
2 teaspoon worshtershire
salt or soy sauce to taste.

onion.
Slice it in half, and slice as thin as you can.

1/4-1/3 stick UNSALTED (yeah I dont like salt!) butter.
Melt butter with onions in pot
Cook them down stirring occasionally. You want them to get some browning on them- takes near 20 minutes.

If using fresh or minced garlic, you can add it and brown slightly before adding broth.

Add 1 can Swansons *low sodium* beef broth. (it's the only way I can have french onion soup is the low sodium, or I'd have to make my own broth.)

Add half-2/3 can water.
Add:
sugar
Garlic
pepper
2 teaspoons worshtercher. (important!)

Bring to boil and let simmer 15 minutes. It can simmer for a long time if the rest of your dinner isnt ready yet.

The soup is done except the bread/cheese done just prior to serving.


You can toast the bread, drop in bowl with soup, add cheese then broil. (traditional)

Or, toast bread lightly, add cheese toast again to melt cheese and drop it in bowl.

Or, I'm not big on the bread.... I just drop swiss cheese in the bowl with the soup and it melts nicely in a couple minutes.

This version actually needs a little salt. I either use about a teaspoon of soy sauce for the salt, or add a little mineral salt.

[postal]

LOL Stilly!!!!!

You crack me up man...... The asada and I forgot, the schawarma might have cumin in it...

I have straight cumen sitting on the shelf.... Guess I'll add more.

[stilly]

:O

I am thinking that MAYBE it would be better to grind up EVERYTHING including bay leaves (hey more fiber...) and dump it in the put next time. As well as stab the heck outa of the chicken, but my feedback was that I did not need to make it any more flavorable since it had plenty of flavor in it already. :\ Yeah whatever amateur...

[postal]

Mine didnt turn out well for a first try. I think I over cooked the chicken, or it was probably salt injected chicken which makes it tough, and blocks flavor.

Also, I had an 'accident' with the pizza herb blend and dumped about 3 tablespoons in....

I'll have to try again with fresh thighs or leg quarters.

[stilly]

Mine didnt turn out well for a first try. I think I over cooked the chicken, or it was probably salt injected chicken which makes it tough, and blocks flavor.

Also, I had an 'accident' with the pizza herb blend and dumped about 3 tablespoons in....

I'll have to try again with fresh thighs or leg quarters.

IIRC, you only need enough heat to keep the water simmering, but the orignal story was that you drop in TWO breasts and allow the hot water to cook them while being removed from the heat, so like, let the water boil, then take the pot off the stove, drop in the chicken and let it sit for abotu 15-25 minutes.

As for me, I turned off the heat, dropped in 8.4lbs of chicken and then turned the heat back on to bring the water temp back up to a cooking temp. After about 5-8 minutes I saw it was getting warm enough to churn the water under the seasonings so I turned it off and just let it sit. That should have been all that was needed. I always use either randal farms or foster farms or whatever the store has, but I use boness/skinless thigh portions for a VERY good end flavor, and the breasts I will fillet in 3-4 pieces.

[postal]

It cooled when the chicken went in, and turned the heat up til the spices started churning like you're talking about, stopping before it starts to simmer, and kept doing that for 40 minutes.... OOOOPS!