Le Bon Chef

[Spatula]

Who where can cook decently well?
Rate yourself:

1 - 10

1: Umm...what's that black spot?

10:BON CHEF 5 STAR HOTEL

[Spatula]

No one here cooks?

SACRE BLEU!

[Tash]

i can cook stir fries and pasta and muffin cakes (due to a lack of muffin tins in my kitchen). i think i shall give myself an 8 for those things cos it tastes good! oh and one time at school we made little scones and they were SO good yummo

[bernhard]

Who where can cook decently well?
Rate yourself:

1 - 10

1: Umm...what's that black spot?

10: Martha Stewart God/Goddess

Matha Stewart 10?

 I would put her around 3 – 4. 10 is for people like Raymond Blanc, Gordon Ramsay, Anton Mosiman, Pierre Koffman and Bernhard. 

And why not take this opportunity and make something useful of this thread: share recipes! (Are you listening, Janice? We want the secret chilli recipe  ).

Here is one  :

Bernhard’s Seafood stew

1.    4 fish steaks (salmon, halibut, cod or monkfish are all good)
2.    fish marinade: juice of one lemon, 2 crushed cloves of garlic, salt, black pepper
3.    palm oil (or olive oil)
4.    ½ cup of white wine
5.    500 g. of king prawns, shelled and clean
6.    ½ tin of coconut milk
7.    fresh coriander
8.    500 g. of mussels (optional) in their shells, cleaned.
9.    salt

Marinade the fish steaks, and prawns for 1 – 2 hours. Preheat the oven to the maximum. Clean the mussels from any sand,  hairs, etc.

Start by frying the fish steaks in palm oil until golden on the outside (about two minutes each side). They will finish cooking in the oven, so just brown them.Transfer to an oven proof dish (clay is best).

Fry the prawns until red (1 – 2 minutes) and add to the fish. 

Deglaze the frying pan with white wine, add the coconut milk, season with salt, reduce to half its original volume and add this sauce to the fish.

Add the mussels (in their shells) to the fish and prawns.

Put in the oven (maximum heat) for 10 - 15 minutes (or until the sauce is bubbling). Garnish with chopped fresh coriander. Serve it straight from the oven with rice, sautéed potatoes and a green salad. And an ice-cold Vouvray.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Spatula]

Apple Cider Stew
recipe from friend at work


3 lb Stew Meat (or inside round steak - cubed)
3 Tblsp Cooking oil
3 Tblsp Flour
2 Tsp Salt
½ Tsp Pepper
¼ Tsp Ground Thyme

Place dry ingredients in a plastic bag.  Shake well to coat with stew meat and braze with hot oil in dutch oven until meat is brown.  (The flour will burn to the bottom of the pan but this is to be expected, once the liquid is introduced the burned flour will be diluted and make gravy)

Next add:
2 cups Apple Juice
½ cup water
2 Tblsp white vinegar

Bring meat to a boil, then turn down heat and let simmer for 1 hour.

Next add:
1 Apple, finely chopped
1 large onion chopped
3 ribs chopped celery
5 medium carrots
5 medium potoatoes

Add vegetables to meat and let simmer for another hour or until vegetables are tender.

[Spatula]

Mile High Biscuits
recipe from friend at work

Pre-heat oven to 375 F

3 cups Flour
¾ tsp salt
¾ tsp Cream of Tartar
2 Tblsp Sugar
4 ½  tsp baking powder
¾ cup shortening

Mix dry ingredients together, and knead shortening in.
Next add:
1 cup milk
1 egg slightly beaten

Roll and knead dough to 1 ½  inch to 2 inches.  Cut into biscuits and place on cookie sheets.  Bake at 375 F for 15 to 20 minutes.

[Tash]

Tash's Stir Fry

Ingredients
noodles of any variety
as much bok choy as you want
a heap of bean sprouts
capsicum
grated ginger
cut up chicken breast
an onion
whatever other vegies you want
as much soy sauce as you feel needed
same with sweet chilli sauce

cut everything up (except the noodles haha) and fry it in a wok for some amount of time until you think it's done and then serve it in really cool bowls with chopsticks

there how professional am i

[bernhard]

Here is a great recipe for…

PANCAKES

250 g flour
1 tbsp sugar
pinch of sea salt
3 large eggs and 2 egg yolks
500 ml milk
40 g unsalted butter, melted

Combine the flour, salt and sugar in a bowl and whisk  the eggs, egg yolks and milk in a jug. Gradually whisk the  milk and egg mixture into the flour. Leave the batter to stand for at least one hour and then stir in the melted butter.

Fry the pancakes in a hot skillet - no oil/butter needed (it's all in the dough)

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[xvimbi]

Here is a great recipe for…

PANCAKES

The Americans will think "What the ...". For them, pancakes are these rubbery, dry, spongy ... I don't know a good word ... thingies that they drown in Maple Syrup. What you described is known as "Crepes", pronounced "Crapes", and since it's French, it's not liked very much.

On another note: try separating the egg yolks and the whites, add the yolks to the batter, beat the whites until just stiff and gently fold them into the batter before frying the crapes. Deliriously delicious! Yummy!

[Tash]

oh yeah we had a discussion about this in linguistics once cos americans think that biscuits are dinner rolls and we think biscuits are like cookies and then the brits have their crazy muffins and we have normal muffins and then there's pancakes and piklets and crumpets, oh don't get me started it's so bizarre!
maybe i'll try making bernhard's 'pancakes' and see what i end up with!

[brewtality]

oh yeah we had a discussion about this in linguistics once cos americans think that biscuits are dinner rolls and we think biscuits are like cookies and then the brits have their crazy muffins and we have normal muffins and then there's pancakes and piklets and crumpets, oh don't get me started it's so bizarre!
maybe i'll try making bernhard's 'pancakes' and see what i end up with!

im confused. I thought that cookies were biscuits. Aren't crumpets completely different from pancakes?

[Spatula]

What the British call "Crumpets", well call "English Muffins" in North America.

Cookies are usually baked with different ingredients such as chocolate chip; and pancakes are traditionally a bit thicker than crepes.   

[brewtality]

What the British call "Crumpets", well call "English Muffins" in North America.

Cookies are usually baked with different ingredients such as chocolate chip; and pancakes are traditionally a bit thicker than crepes.   

so what do you call english muffins then? this is wierd

[Spatula]

English Muffins of course!

Why? what do you call a piano?

[brewtality]

i jus call it da 88 

and what i meant was what do you call these:
https://robeth.com/WebImage/A_WEB_EnglishMuffins.jpg

we call these english muffins

vs crumpets

https://www.penmachine.com/photoessays/2002_04_artsy/Images/3.jpg

[Tash]

yeah that's right. but then the americans use biscuits for a food that isn't a cookie!

[Spatula]

i jus call it da 88 

and what i meant was what do you call these:
https://robeth.com/WebImage/A_WEB_EnglishMuffins.jpg

we call these english muffins

vs crumpets

https://www.penmachine.com/photoessays/2002_04_artsy/Images/3.jpg

Correct

[squinchy]

I've never had a crumpet before. They were mentioned briefly in Harry Potter III, and I pictured them to be puffier forms of croissants. I've had crepes once in Spanish class because the teacher was cooking them for her French class but made them for the Spanish classese too to ward off revolt. We ate them with cookie dough ice cream. Or biscuit dough, I guess?

My cooking ability: 2? 3, maybe? I don't really get to cook anything except for my own breakfast, since my parents cook dinner and don't think me competent enough to help.

However, I can make oatmeal, bagel pizza, and baked goods a la box. The oatmeal is really good. I even use a pot.

Squinchy's Super Oatmeal:
1 cup of water
1 small octave/ninth sized handful of Quaker oatmeal (the kind that cooks in 3 minutes)
Last night's leftovers (Usually vegetables)
Vinegar, soy sauce, and salt (I use squirt bottles)
1 egg

1. Boil water.
2. Add oatmeal.
3. Stir, cover pot and let cook to half-cooked-ness, hope it doesn't boil over. [I guess you're supposed to reduce the heat when it starts getting all bubbly and such, but it took me a few tries to figure that out.]
4. Add three wrist-flicks of salt, one glurp of soy sauce, and one belchy-glurp of vinegar. Stir.
5. Crack egg; separate.
6. Slide yolk into middle of oatmeal, let cook and flip if necessary.
7. Beat white until the yolk cooks. Pour into oatmeal and stir furiously.
8. Make sure everything's bacterium-free.
9. Remove pot from heat; serve in small bowl.
10. Add cold leftovers so oatmeal cools.
11. Eat.
12. Scamper to bus stop before the bus leaves.

3 wrist-flicks=1 pinch
1 glurp=1/2 teaspoon
1 belchy glurp=1 teaspoon
1 octave/ninth handful=Somewhere around 2/3 to 1/2 cup.

[Tash]

I've never had a crumpet before. They were mentioned briefly in Harry Potter III, and I pictured them to be puffier forms of croissants. I've had crepes once in Spanish class because the teacher was cooking them for her French class but made them for the Spanish classese too to ward off revolt. We ate them with cookie dough ice cream. Or biscuit dough, I guess?

nah it's cookie dough. there is a difference between cookies and biscuits- cookies are round but are essentially the same thing as biscuits in ausie terms. but it's cookie dough all round

[brewtality]

i always thought cookies were just a type of biscuit