25 Common Cooking Mistakes / Wintery Spring Rolls / Stifado, Greek Rabbit Stew

Article: The Most Common Cooking Mistakes [via]

The creative cook can often cook her way out of a kitchen error, but the smart cook aims to prevent such creativity from being necessary. Here are 25 ways to be smarter every time.

Blog Post & Recipe: Wintery Spring Rolls Recipe

Here's how this works. Each roll has a slather of ginger onion paste, a couple crunchy lettuce leaves, some mushrooms, tofu, and a bit of cilantro (or other herb of your choice - mint, basil). Roll tight, and you're set.

Blog Post & Recipe: Stifado, Greek Rabbit Stew

Stifado uses a lot of olive oil, so it is smooth going down. This moistens the rabbit as well, which is braised slowly until it is about to fall off the bone. You can pull the meat off the bone before serving, as I do, or just leave the pieces in the stew. The Greeks typically leave the pieces as-is. The spices give the stew zing without heat, and the tomatoes, which are obviously a post-1492 addition, add a bit more sweetness as well as needed acidity. There’s a reason stifado is such a strong part of Greek cooking.

Mrs Beeton’s Spiced Beef / Cook Perfect Yorkshire Puddings / Sweetbreads Sauté

Blog Post & Recipe: Mrs Beeton’s Spiced Beef

The outside cures becoming firm but leaving the inside very soft perfect for cold cuts and canapes.

Blog Post & Recipe: How to cook perfect yorkshire puddings

The single most important thing to remember about yorkshire puddings is that the fat must be smoking hot before you begin cooking – you need a good sizzle as batter hits dripping.

Blog Post & Recipe: The Nasty Bits: Sweetbreads

Sweetbreads, to clarify, are a culinary term that refers to two very different organs—the thymus glands and the pancreas, the latter which is often called the "stomach sweetbread," though of course, the stomach and the pancreas are different. [...] You can sauté or pan-fry the sweetbreads with whatever flavors you like. This time, I used mustard seed and turmeric, sautéed with plenty of onions and chili peppers, for a vaguely Indian preparation that tasted nice with fragrant basmati on the side.

Sweetbreads Sauté

Whole-Wheat Pita Bread / How to Sauté / 11 Lentil Recipes

Blog Post & Recipe: Whole-Wheat Pita Bread

This recipe, adapted from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, yields an easy and pleasing dough to work with. Store leftover balls of dough (individually wrapped) in the freezer, then thaw and cook to order.

Blog Post & Recipes: Sear, Sauce, and Serve: Mastering High-Heat, High-Flavor Cooking

The visual might not be enough to get you in the restaurant (I’ve never been), but it is instructive on the basics of sautéing: start with a sturdy pan and high heat (no worries, you don’t need the dancing flames); add seafood, vegetables, or meat (or all of the above); sear and toss; and then finish with a splash of booze or a sauce. That’s the formula, but there are a couple of smaller but equally important steps.

Sautéed Steaks and Chops ... Brandy and Dried Cherry Pan Sauce

Blog Post & Recipes: 11 Lentil Recipes We Love

Overlooked by many a supermarket shopper, protein-rich lentils are faster than other types of dried legumes to prepare, and they easily absorb your favorite flavors from other foods and seasonings. As a result, you can never really run out of ways to make them.

French Lentils With Roasted Roots, Caramelized Onions And Thyme ... Lentil And Sun-Dried Pesto Salad With Roasted Peppers ... Green-Lentil Curry ... Lentil Soup With Kielbasa And Kale ... Lentil Coconut Soup With Lentil Apple Salad ... Lentils With Red Wine And Herbs ... Lemony Lentil Salad With Salmon ... Lentil And Almond Burgers ... Lentil, Cilantro And Chili Salad With Warm Cauliflower Florets ... Squash, Chickpea And Red Lentil Stew ... Black Lentil And Bell Pepper With Mint Salad

Norwegian Red Fruit Pudding / Labneh Balls / Sausage, Kale, & Bean Soup

Blog Post & Recipe: Rødgrøt med Fløte, Norwegian Red Fruit Pudding

A pudding made of stewed red fruit, thickened with a little cornstarch and crowned with billowy whipped cream.

Blog Post & Recipe: Labneh balls

Besides being used fresh, labneh is also dried then formed into balls, sometimes covered with herbs or spices and stored in olive oil glass jars. The cheese can then be kept for over a year.

Blog Post & Recipe: Sausage, Kale, and Bean Soup (Crock Pot)

Soup like this is the best because you can use whatever you want. Canned beans, leftover rice, frozen peas, wilty vegetables, whatever. It’s up to you. No meat? More meat? It’s all cool with me.

Mapo Tofu / Kurdish Kibbeh / Cashew Nut Curry

Blog Post & Recipe: Mapo Tofu

Fortunately, mapo doufu also very easy to make at home. The recipe I’ve developed after countless times of making mapo tofu has a hearty chili sauce perfumed with sesame.

Blog Post & Recipe & Video: Kurdish (Assyrian) kibbeh (Kuttelk) and Kurdish kibbeh (video)

This kibbeh is absolutely delicious and has two marked advantages: One, it is boiled and not fried. Two, it is easier to shape than our traditional Lebanese kibbeh. The shell is composed of fine bulgur and semolina flour

Blog Post & Recipe: cashew nut curry

These nuts become mealy in the best way possible, retaining some body but mostly adding just-enough-but-not-too-much contrast in texture when scooped up with a spoonful of rice. And a ton of flavour too--this is a distinct but subtle curry, it's rich and perfect with biryani or roti, or bread, actually.

Frog Porridge / Collard Greens / Hot and Sour Thai Soup

Blog Post & Recipe: Frog Porridge 田鸡粥

We usually call this 'tin gai'(田鸡) in Cantonese, which simply translates into paddy field chicken.

Blog Post & Recipe: Collard Greens

I had just about given up and resigned to the fact that I was going to be one of those people who hated collards. But then my mom intervened. She swore that my cousin's husband, Chad had the best recipe ever. She said it was fabulous...made with wine, etc!

Blog Post & Recipe: Hot and Sour Thai Soup Recipe

Tom Yum Thai soup has a unique taste. It's both spicy and sour and loaded with amazing flavors such as lemongrass, galangal, fresh kaffir limes leaves and coconut milk. For this version, I combined fresh water chestnuts, sugar snap peas, tamarind, red chili powder, baby squid and mackerel. You could also add shrimp or chicken. And of course, the soup is easy to make vegetarian as well.

Bok Choy with Garlic & Ginger / Savoury Bread Pudding with Morels & Beetroot Greens / Beef, Butternut Pumpkin, Barley, Beer & Olive Stew

Blog Post & Recipe: all good

They require almost no cooking (indeed, demand it), and take to all sorts of flavor arrangements. They're lovely with mushrooms, and unctuous with oyster sauce, and downright addictive with garlic and ginger.

Bok Choy with Garlic + Ginger

Blog Post & Recipe: Savory Bread Pudding with Morels and Beet Greens – Recipe

Really there isn’t much difference between a savory bread pudding and stuffing, except that bread pudding is bound with eggs. The tricky bit is to add the richness of the custard without crushing the lightness of bread. A few simple moves help: tear the bread instead of cutting it in too uniform cubes to create more airspace.

Blog Post & Recipe: Beef, Butternut Squash, Barley, Beer and Olive Stew

Somewhere between a stew and a risotto this was going to be your standard beef stew til I realised we didn’t have many vegetables , you could use less pearl barley for a sloppier stew. The beer gives a lovely malty taste to the chewy barley, salty olives, tender meat and sweet butternut squash [...] Alternatively is you are using a slow cooker 6 hours on low with the barley added for the last hour.

Philadelphia Pepper Pot Soup / Lemongrass Chai Tea / 3 Surf-Club Meals

Blog Post & Recipe: Philadelphia pepper pot: the soup that won the American Revolution?

But true, tripey pepper pot has dwindled in popularity, and is now merely a curio in a few Philadelphia restaurants. The famous City Tavern sells a West Indian version on its lunch menu which reportedly does neglects tripe altogether.

Blog Post & Recipe: Lemongrass Chai Tea

If you had asked me about 6 months back if I would use lemongrass in tea I would have probably thought it was some strange Thai fusion version of tea. I didn't know then, that I had been having lemon grass tea for years only I knew it as "Chai Patta"

Article & Recipes: Surf-club cuisine

An ''oarsome'' (thanks for the title, Noosa Surf Club) prawn salad makes an easy-breezy lunch, with its freshly cooked prawns, avocado, radish and leaves drizzled with creamy green goddess dressing. Then there's a towering surf-and-turf burger that tops juicy chorizo and beef burger meat with crumbed calamari rings, beetroot, lettuce and tomato that's just plain surftastic.

Surf and turf beach burger ... Oarsome prawn salad with green goddess dressing ... Breakfast bruschetta

Raw Kale Salad with Walnuts, Pecorino & Lemon / Pane co' Santi (Saint's Bread) / Roasted Figs

Blog Post & Recipe: Raw Kale Salad with Walnuts, Pecorino and Lemon

Kale is such a resilient leaf it can hold up to the onslaught of olive oil, lemon juice and cheese. In other words: it’s easily corruptible. And that’s what makes a raw kale salad great.

Blog Post & Recipe: Pane co' Santi {Saint's Bread}

The dough itself is a cinch to work with...it's totally the fruit and nuts that make it. Bright bursts of sweetness from the yellow raisins and a triple-nutty punch that comes not just from the pecans and walnuts, but also seems to emanate from the olive oil that they were sautéed in.

Blog Post & Recipe: roasted figs

The heat of roasting brings the dried figs back to life. Some of them will puff up to form almost perfect globes. The honey and oil mixture gives them a thick, shiny gloss that hardens slightly as the figs cool. They come out of the oven looking like something you want to put on a Christmas tree.

Seared Carpaccio of Beef with Remoulade & Pickled Cherries / 4 Vegetable Chips + 3 Condiments / Roasted Chickpea Fajitas

Article & Recipe: Succulent beef with a cherry twist

The beef is served delicately raw on the inside, with a seared crust.

SEARED CARPACCIO OF BEEF WITH REMOULADE AND PICKLED CHERRIES

Recipes: Make Your Own Veggie Chips

Veggie chips are very easily made in your very own oven. Peel, slice, and bake. Dip and eat. Done.

Carrot Chips ... Taro Chips ... Sweet Potato Crisps ... Kale Chips ... Basic Ranch Dressing ... White Bean and Edamame Hummus ... Jalapeño-Cilantro Yogurt Spread

Blog Post & Recipe: Roasted Chickpea Fajitas

Onion, peppers, and mushrooms are sautéed and served with spicy roasted chickpeas to create these healthy and delicious vegetarian fajitas. Garnish with diced tomatoes, avocado slices, and a dollop of Greek yogurt, if desired.