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Oct-1-2006 18:58

Hi Everyone,
I have been thinking about this for awhile and would like your input.How about a sleuth cookbook?We submit our favorite recipes and somehow compile them in a cookbook.Maybe in ebook format.Any thoughts?

Oct-20-2006 01:09

BUMP!

I loved this thread when it was conceived, and feel like a tube for not posting on it earlier. Oh, and I made Sunny’s soup (yay sharing!) and it was *does that irritating cliché-chef-kissing-his-fingers thing* delicioso!

This is a recipe for a rustic French vegetable soup, ‘Soupe au Pistou’. Pistou is sort of a French version of pesto – but without nuts. What’s *really* cool about this is it’s nearly impossible to screw it up. I’m terrible at following recipes, and doubt I’ve made this precisely the same way twice…amounts are pretty much approximate. It really doesn’t matter. What you’re shooting for at the end is a fairly plain tomato/vegetable soup that just gets really frickin’ tasty with the addition of a spoonful or so of the pistou, which is prepared separately.

For the soup:

2Tbsp each Olive oil and butter
Bunch of leeks, rinsed (them gets dirty, y’know), the white bit sliced into semi-circles
1 large onion, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 medium zucchini, quartered in its length and chopped
2-3 potatoes, about ¾ inch dice
1 ½ cups green beans cut into 1 inch lengths
1 can each of white and red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
2 bay leaves
water
large can (about a pint and a half/ 800 mL) ground tomatoes
sprig of fresh thyme
salt and freshly ground pepper

For the pistou:

3 cups fresh basil leaves
3-6 cloves of garlic (I probably use more)
½ lb. Shredded swiss gruyere cheese (you could probably swap in asiago here – key thing is to make sure you DON’T use the smoked gruyere)
Tbsp freshly ground pepper
Pinch of salt
¼ - ½ cup of olive oil

Optional:

Separately cooked macaroni, tubetti, orzo or another itty bitty pasta, added to individual bowls when you serve
Make the soup:

Heat olive oil and butter together over medium-low heat. When the butter has melted, throw in leeks, onion, garlic, carrots and celery and cook, stirring occasionally until the onions and leeks have softened and are translucent

Oct-20-2006 01:10

Add your potatoes and bay leaves, cover the whole thing with cold water, raise the heat to high, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer immediately and add crushed tomatoes, thyme and all your beans. Cook for five minutes more, throw in the zucchini and let the whole thing cook very gently for 15 minutes or so…whatever…until everything’s tender.

Season with salt and pepper, but do so remembering that you want it bland-ish at this point. Also, if you feel like you want it more/less tomato-y add tomato paste or water, accordingly.

Make the pistou:

Pulse everything but the oil together in a food processor to chop. Drizzle oil in with the machine running. It’s sort of an ‘eyeball’ thing, so you might need a bit more or less oil. You want to end up with a brilliant green paste with a texture pretty close to that of regular pesto. You can do this by hand as well…just chop everything finely then mash the crap out of it in a bowl with a fork.

To serve put ½ cup of cooked pasta in each bowl, ladle in hot soup, add a spoonful or two of pistou to the top of each bowl and eat it with a few slices of baguette.

---
To make it into a full meal, add grilled sliced sausage, or poach shrimp or a bit of firm, white fleshed fish in some of the soup and add it to the bowl as well.

The soup does NOT freeze very well – potatoes and carrots get really mealy, zucchini falls apart. Bad scene, dude. The pistou freezes nicely though.

Later that night…sneak into the kitchen and eat the pistou by itself off your greedy little knuckles. Be like me.

In lieu of knuckles, it’s also great on crostini or on bread run briefly under the broiler J

Oct-20-2006 01:12

I have no idea why the letter 'J' was the last thing there. Totally not how I copy and pasted it.

Oct-20-2006 09:53

Bok Lahong (Cambodian version of Som Tam – Green Papaya Salad)

½ to 1 red chili (adjust to taste)
½ tsp sugar
½ tsp shrimp paste
1 or 2 cloves of garlic
Pound the above ingredients with a wooden mortar and pestle until well blended.

Add:
1 tsp dried shrimp
1 shallot (small red onion)
2 tbsp chopped peanuts

Pound again until mixed. Peanuts should be in small pieces, but not ground to a paste.

Add:
2 yard-long beans, cut into pieces
about 1/3 of a tomato, cut into thin wedges
lemon juice to taste (about 1 or 2 tsp)

Pound again a little, mixing with the other ingredients. Beans should be kind of bruised, but not flattened.

Add:
A pinch of salt
A handful of shredded green papaya

Pound and mix ingredients until well blended. Scoop into a small bowl and top with fresh basil.
Makes 1 serving. Serve immediately.
I like to have this with barbequed chicken skewers and sticky rice

Oct-20-2006 11:02

papaya salad is one of my favorite dishes, thanks som tam! And Crunch, I will try that soup next week.

Oct-20-2006 22:37

Okay, here's mine. This goes to any party and is an instant hit, but make extra, especially if you have anything male around the house. They go fast and are an EASY dinner with tomato soup or a salad. Great for "brown bag" lunches as well.

CHILE CHEESE SQUARES

Prep time: 5-10 min.

Bake time: 35-40 minutes at 350

Ingredients:

2 one-pound packages of grated cheese. Choose any two of your faves. I've used everything from sharp cheddar to pepper jack. You can experiment with all kinds until you find what you like best. (Yes, non-fat or lowfat works just fine, too.)

1 6 oz. can of whole green chiles. I use Ortega fire-roasted, but any work.

10 large (or 12 medium) eggs.

Large Dash of Spike. (You can use salt & pepper if you can't locate Spike, but it's worth the effort to get a bottle for all your recipes. Try your Health Food store if your grocery doesn't have it.)

************

Spread one package of the cheese in a rectangular or square glass or ceramic dish lightly sprayed with olive oil (or even PAM).

Pull the chiles apart into halves and spread out over the cheese.

Beat the eggs until frothy, but don't whip too hard, and add the Spike or seasonings. Pour mixture evenly over the cheese and chiles.

Cover these layers with the other pack of cheese.

That's it. Bake and enjoy!

Oct-31-2006 03:55


AGHAN BISCUITS

200 g butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 cup corn flakes, slightly crushed
1/2 cup desiccated coconut

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, sift together flour and cocoa and mix into butter mix, then fold in cornflakes and coconut.
Put teaspoonful balls onto lightly greased or baking paper covered trays.
Bakes at 180 degrees celcius for 15-20 minutes.
Makes about 30 biscuits.

These are supposed to be covered in choclate icing with a walnut place on top or spinkled with coconut. The thicker the icing,the better.

Nov-6-2006 00:38

Chili Chicken with Cashews
---------------------------

When I first started cooking I developed an all-consuming obsession with Thai food. This was the first thing I got right - a pretty easy stir-fry, probably go pretty nicely with Srei's salad above. Getting everything ready in advance is the thing here, because it moves really quickly once you start cooking.

You need:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into thin strips
1 bunch of scallions, cut into roughly 1 inch lengths
a nice handful of snow peas, the ends trimmed
about 2 tbsp each of minced ginger, garlic and cilantro root.

(Yeah, the root - I'm serious. This root is one of the definitive flavours in Thai food. Heads up though; it needs to be washed pretty well. If you can't find the root, use the green stalk of the plant itself, below the leaves.)

3/4 cup unsalted cashews
about 20 whole, dried red chilies (don't be scared - you don't actually eat these; they just kind of flavour the dish and make it prettier than your little sister's lunchbox)

2 tbsp fish sauce (more if you like things really salty - soy sauce is not a great substitute, but do what you gotta do...)
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp sugar
oil for stir frying

Begin by pre-toasting the chilies and cashews. Get a non-stick skillet or wok nice and hot, toss them in and keep them moving around until they pick up some colour. The chilies will also start to give off a bit of their oil, which you will know is happening when you start to feel like you've been very mildly pepper-sprayed. This shouldn't be more than two minutes or so. Remove these from the pan and set aside.

Return the pan to the heat and get it really, really hot again. Now get ready - you're about to move like a TV chef. If it helps you get into the moment, hum the Iron Chef music to yourself.

Add the oil to the pan and immediately add the chicken, garlic, ginger, coriander and pepper.

(stupid limit - more)

Nov-6-2006 00:39

...Stir fry these like a maniac, keeping things constantly moving, until the chicken is just cooked and starts to brown – if your pan is hot enough, this shouldn’t be more than 3 minutes. Add the fish sauce – it should bubble up- keep stir frying until almost all the liquid has evaporated. Add the sugar, snow peas, scallions, cashews and chilies and stir fry for two minutes more to warm everything through.

You’re done! You can throw some wedges of lime on when you serve it, but make sure hungry peeps know not to eat the chilies unless they really like heat. Yum!

Nov-6-2006 08:59

These are all really really good recipies.

Too bad I don't know how to cook, or I'd be making them :)