Recipe and Cook's Corner

[jack]

look what auntie googled up...

of course we will apparently have to post this again from time to time, unless you brits want to translate for us americans when you post.


American standard cup Metric equivalent - approx.
1 tsp.   =     1/6 fl. oz.    =   0.5 cl.       =        5 ml.
1 Tbsp =    1/2 fl. oz.    =   1.5 cl.        =      15 ml.
1 cup   =       8 fl. oz.    =   2.4 dl.        =     240 ml
1 pint   =     16 fl  oz.    =   4.7 dl.        =     470ml. 
1 qt.     =   32 fl. oz.      =   9.5 dl.        =     950ml.
 
British standard cup
1 tsp     =       1/5 fl.oz.  =    0.6 cl.    =           6 ml.
1 Tbsp  =    0.55 fl.oz   =    1.7 cl.     =        17 ml.
1 cup    =      10 fl.oz.   =    2.8 dl.     =       280 ml.
1 pint    =      20 fl.oz.   =    5.7 dl.     =       570 ml.
1 quart  =     40 fl.oz.    =      1.1 l       =    1,100 ml.
1 liter               =       1.06 U.S. quarts 

1 U.S. quart    =        0.95  l.

1 l                   =       10 dl.    = 100 cl.   = 1000 ml.   
1 dl                 =        10 cl.   = 100 ml.

Volume
1/4 tsp.                =          1.25 ml
1/2 tsp.               =             2.5 ml
1 tsp.                  =                5 ml
4 tsp.                  =              20 ml
2 fl. oz. 1/4 cup   =              60 ml
4 fl oz. 1/2 cup    =            125 ml
5 fl. oz. 2/3 cup   =            170 ml
6 fl oz. 3/4 cup    =            190 ml 
8 fl. oz. 1 cup      =            250 ml
16 fl. oz. 2 cups   =           500 ml
32 fl. oz. 4 cups   =             1 liter
1 liter                  =              10 dl 
1/2 liter               =                5 dl 
1/4 liter               =          2 1/2 dl 
1/10 liter             =                1 dl 
3/4 liter               =           71/2 dl 

[Laurentia]

Jack - thanks so much for that information! I didn't know that British measurements were different from American ones, but I suspected it. Why would anything be simpler than necessary?   
I posted a link, on page four or something, to a site that converted cooking measurements, but only between metric and American units.

laurentia, your creamy cashew pasta recipe sounds very interesting! i love cashews,,, but usually just as a snack food. thank you also for including the conversions for the measurments

Cashews are yummy! I use them a lot in Chinese wok dishes. I generally like food with nuts in it. I used to make my own bread and put hazelnuts in it, and where I lived then there was a bakery that made loaves with walnuts in them. Mmm.

[River girl]

I have really enjoyed reading through this thread and plan to try out Laurentia's creamy pasta dish soon. Sounds yummy.

Here's a nice easy summery meal for a Friday or Saturday night - well, that's when I cook it cause there's garlic on the potatoes and furthermore, red meat calls for red wine and I don't usually drink on work nights.

Here it is:
Steak with potato wedges and tomato, mozzarella and basil salad for two.

Potato wedges
500 g. medium to large potatos
olive oil
1 clove of garlic

Clean the potatoes. You can peel them if you like, or give them a good cleaning under running water with a vegetable brush which is what I usually do. Cut them in half lengthwise and then cut each half in two or three wedges lengthwise, depending on how big the potatoes are. Dry them with a paper towel.
Pour 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a medium sized oven proof dish. Mash the garlic through a garlic thingey straight onto the oil. Put the potatoes in the pan and mix it all up and stick it in the oven at 200 degrees celcius, that's a hot oven. Let them bake for about 20 minutes, check, turn them over (use a spatula as they may stick), put salt on them and give them about 10 minutes more til nice and golden brown.

Tomato, mozzarella and basil salad
400 g tomatoes (looks nice if you have different kinds - yellow and red, small and large)
2x 150 g. balls of buffalo mozzarella
2 spring onions
small pot of fresh basil
olive oil
white wine vinegar

Cut the basil leaves off the stalks, rinse and pat dry on paper towels. Chop them roughly. Put them in a mortar along with a good pinch of salt and pound them up a bit. Add some olive oil so it's nice and slick. (If you don't have a mortar just use a bowl and a wooden spoon to mash it up.)

Tear up the mozzarella balls into bitesized chunks and put them in a salad bowl.
Cut / slice the rinsed tomatoes into bitesized pieces and put them in the salad bowl.
Slice the rinsed spring onions finely - you only need the white part - and put into the salad bowl.
Add a good pinch of salt and some pepper.
Pour 1 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and 1/2 tablespoon of vinegar on the salad and mix it thoroughly. (I like it tart, you can put less vinegar on if you prefer).
Drizzle the basil dressing over the salad and serve. The basil dressing is what makes it special.

Two steaks - prepare them as you like, grilled or whatever. Just remember to use a pepper mill when you season the steaks, it makes a huge difference.

This is very very easy, for summer when you are feeling lazy. Or any other time of year, just look for good tomatoes.

In summer it's nice with a cool beaujolais.

There's more than enough potatoes and salad, but I don't think meals should be skimpy. 

[Nax]

Chocolate Truffle Torte

This is a very impressive desert that looks and tastes like you’ve spent hours on it.  Got to be my favourite.

This desert is best on a base you can use cake or a biscuit base made with a cup of crushed biscuits bound together with 1 oz / 25grams of melted butter or margarine.

You can make up half the amount in three or four goes using dark chocolate then white chocolate to create layers – allow the mix to set before pouring one layer onto another.

This desert freezes well

9 inch (22 cm) loose bottomed pie dish or spring-form tin at least 1 inch (2.5 cm) deep greased with butter or margarine.
1 pint (UK) 5.7 litres of whipping or double cream
1 pound (UK) 540 grams of good dark chocolate at least 70% cocoa solids
5 table spoons Liquid glucose (Corn syrup I think it’s called in Europe and the States – Brits you can get this at Boots the Chemists)
2 table spoons dark rum (optional – you can choose your own liqueur)
Cocoa for dusting

Break the chocolate into a large bowl add the liquid glucose (corn syrup) and melt (in microwave or over hot water when melted mix in the rum)

Whip the cream until it’s stiff

Add one big spoonful of the cream into the chocolate and mix in gently, now spoon the chocolate into the cream and gently fold in until everything is combined.  Pour into tin and leave overnight (four hours minimum) in a refrigerator.

Slip a knife around the edge of the set desert and remove from tin, dust with cocoa.

Warning this is really rich and a little goes a long way!

Enjoy

Nax.

[Castro]

It's not that I don't like to cook (within reason), but I'm not especially keen on a collection of full-fledged recipes, because it's so easy to Google up several variations on anything one might fancy, short of cannibal cuisine (well, actually, I never tried that), and there are so many sites specifically dedicated to the sharing of same. 

OTOH, I love the informal, ingredients-don't-demand-precise-measurement, throwtogethers which I understand to be the other sort Jack was suggesting, including stuff on the order of "Ways to Use Up Gift Bottles of Balsamic Vinegar, Other Than on Strawberries."

[Nax]

It's not that I don't like to cook (within reason), but I'm not especially keen on a collection of full-fledged recipes, because it's so easy to Google up several variations on anything one might fancy, short of cannibal cuisine (well, actually, I never tried that), and there are so many sites specifically dedicated to the sharing of same. 

OTOH, I love the informal, ingredients-don't-demand-precise-measurement, throwtogethers which I understand to be the other sort Jack was suggesting, including stuff on the order of "Ways to Use Up Gift Bottles of Balsamic Vinegar, Other Than on Strawberries."

You can google it - but you can't get personal recommendations! BTW the only thing to do with a half bottle of balsamic vinegar is to add olive oil and herbs and make it into a dressing or boil it with sugar to make a syrup to make another dressing which can be used on a wide range of food.   

[River girl]

You can google it - but you can't get personal recommendations!

That's how I feel - and why I like this thread. So I hope people keep posting. Personal recommendations and impromptu suggestions, all can be inspiring when wondering what to make for dinner. 

(The icon is me licking my lips after reading the recipe for Nax's chocolate torte.)

[gnash]

okay this is easy, and vegetarian too. of course, you can add meat -- chicken is nice, slices of breast meat, or even shrimps.

maybe trouts would work, but only if ennis brought some home

you can vary the vegetables in this to your liking -- i'm listing what we had on hand yesterday. also, i used chicken broth, so it's not officially vegetarian at all, but you could use vegetable broth, seaweed broth (made with kombu, a type of seaweed) or just water.

KICK ASS GREEN COCONUT CURRY

1 can coconut milk
1/2 can chicken broth
that thai green curry paste
fish sauce (comes in a bottle)
several leaves of fresh sweet basil
an assortment of vegetables you like
optional: tumeric, sugar, garam masala

sautee some chopped onions in a large pan (i use a wok) in some oil until browned a bit and transparent. add the coconut milk, and simmer on low while you chop the vegetables. i used green beans, red potato, red bell pepper, carrots, grapes... i guess about 4 or 5 cups worth of veggies.

slide those into the coconut milk and onion mixture, add some fresh basil leaves, add the chicken broth, about a teaspoon or so (careful, it's hot!) of the thai green curry paste, which i get in the "ethnic" section of my grocery store. add two or three tablespoons of the fish sauce, and if you want, a tablespoon or so of brown sugar. i also added tumeric for color (and health) and a dash of garam masala, an indian spice mixture. give it a stir.

cover and simmer on low for 20 mins or so, until the carrots and potatoes are done. if you want a thicker curry, simmer with the lid off for a while to reduce the sauce a bit. i like my thai curries quite thin, like a soup almost, but the coconut milk can't help but add some body to the sauce.

oh yeah: i added the grapes last minute -- about seven seedless green grapes cut in half. i didn't have a tomato, so i thought grapes might be interesting, and it was! a different kind of sweetness.

serve this curry with rice. i used basmati, but brown rice is good too. garnish with fresh cilantro if you wish.

[Nax]

You can google it - but you can't get personal recommendations!

That's how I feel - and why I like this thread. So I hope people keep posting. Personal recommendations and impromptu suggestions, all can be inspiring when wondering what to make for dinner. 

(The icon is me licking my lips after reading the recipe for Nax's chocolate torte.)

Well if you do get around to trying it post up your verdict here 

[Laurentia]

Green coconut curry - yummy! It's my boyfriend's favourite vegetarian food (he eats meat, I don't), but I use a very different recipe to make it. It sounds really interesting with the spices and grapes!
I once put diced salmon in a coconut curry and let it cook in the sauce, it turned out very tasty (I think I put some lime in it too) and it looked nice as well! Nowadays I use slightly browned dices of tofu.

Thai food in general rules.  <-- that's supposed to be drool, not frustration

[River girl]

Laurentia, I made your creamy cashew pasta yesterday, and YUM. 

I didn't use garlic but put in a pulverised dried chili, as I didn't have the chili sauce. And I made just half the portion, but I gotta say, I am one weedy office worker cause there was enough left over for tonight as well, which is fine, since I will be watching Sweden hopefully beat ing England in the World Cup and don't want to cook.

Gnash, I will definitely be trying your curry. I am looking for good vegetarian dishes as I am cutting down a bit on meat.

[Castro]

You can google it - but you can't get personal recommendations!

Actually, several of the sites I'm thinking of are made up of people's personal recco's - they include the names of the submitters. But I guess one can just skim the cookbook-style recipes here while looking more for general ideas!

Such as  gnash's use for those green grapes.  I've some bland and not-very-sweet seedless green ones on hand, but it didn't occurr to me to try throwing some into the microwave steamer with some zucchini for adding to salads, rice etc. (Probably a good idea to pierce them first.)  Sure, they're fine raw - but I wonder if, like bananas, they taste different when cooked for a bit?

BTW, even when you're pan-cooking mixed veggies to absorb flavors from fats or a sauce, or plan to throw them into soup, it speeds things along to give the slowest ones -  usually the carrots - a head-start with a brief stint in the microwave.  Speaking as one who regularly gets side-tracked and lets things burn on the stove-top, I like to shorten the time I spend superintending progress there.

[Laurentia]

River girl, I'm glad you liked the pasta! I quit meat almost ten years ago, so if you'd like advice on vegetarian food that works, I'm at your service 

(I'm normally mostly bored by football, I started watching the game against Paraguay, but was bored and went to bed. I got to know the result anyway because of the neighbours cheering when Sweden scored 
I bought some popcorn for tonight's game anyway - it sounds like it could be entertaining, much pride involved on both sides.)

[River girl]

Laurentia, advice would be great. I have always been a meat lover, and I don't plan to shun it completely, but for different reasons I would like to eat more vegetarian food. Some reasons for me are the quality of produce and ethics. I would rather eat a really good piece of meat, organic, from a good butcher, once or twice a week than too much cheap chicken filet from animals that have been treated inhumanely.

I do know a bit about nutrition, and what attracted me to your recipe was that there was protein due to the chickpeas and cashew nuts. So any advice you have along those lines would be much appreciated. 

[Laurentia]

That's brilliant, River girl, and it seems you know all the nutrition you need to know. In my experience, people who get sickly and skinny from a vegetarian diet and have to back to meat for health reasons, are those who don't eat enough protein. The key combination is beans/peas/lentils with rice/pasta/bread - you might know that protein consists of amino acids, "complete" protein has the right makeup of those, and combining pulses with grains gives that magical blend. If you'll also be eating dairy products and eggs, those are sources of good protein on their own.

Aside from the theory, I find that low-protein meals aren't very satisfactory, I'll still be hungry afterwards. Apparently, not everyone feels like that, because vegetarian cookbooks often contain lots of recipes without a protein source, but I think that's the background for the prejudice that veggie food isn't filling. In most cases, you can add beans, tofu or cheese to recipes, but sometimes it doesn't work. Then you can make a side dish, for example if I was serving pasta with a tomato sauce, I'd make something on the lines of the mozzarella salad you posted to go with it.

And on the whole, I don't find it a good idea to adapt meat or fish recipes to vegetarian, it's better to find recipes that are vegetarian to start with. If you're in Denmark, maybe you can find cookbooks by Kirsten Skaarup? I have one titled Vegetarisk Wok, which is falling apart from being used so much. Very, very tasty food, authentic East Asian stuff, and I think the woman seems to have the right attitude to food in general.