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serenissimaBeen meaning to post something cooking-related for quite some time now, hence this very long post.
I came across this suggestion several weeks ago: pureed frozen banana as an ice cream substitute. I figured mashed banana would be lower in carbohydrates than the equivalent amount of ice cream, plus it's definitely fat free. So I tried it. I wouldn't call the texture creamy exactly, but it's pleasantly smooth. It tastes like banana, of course. I think it might be good with a little cinnamon mixed in, or maybe chocolate chips, although then you start to take away from the "healthy" aspect. The downside for me is that a whole banana counts as 2 carbohydrate choices, and half a banana looks even smaller pureed than left intact. It really doesn't go very far. I expect I'll enjoy this more when my dietary restrictions are lifted; meanwhile, I've found that Edy's Slow-Churned and Bryer's Double-Churned are options for me if I have just half a cup.
We received a mini food processor last year as a wedding gift, but I only tried it out recently. I used it to mash the aforementioned banana; otherwise I've used it mainly for mincing garlic and ginger. I was impressed by the speed with which it renders a thumb-length piece of fresh ginger root into tiny bits. What would take me several minutes with a sharp chef's knife and chopping board takes it about ten seconds of "whiz-whiz-whiz." However, when I'm cooking with ginger, I'm nearly always also cooking with garlic, and fresh garlic is sticky, and it's a little more involved to wash off the food processor assembly than to wash off a knife and chopping board. So, whether I choose to use the machine or the knife depends partly on the amounts I'm working with and partly on my mood.
Yesterday I made chicken adobo in the slow cooker. Before starting, I checked this journal for notes on previous attempts and was surprised to see that I apparently never wrote about adobo before. Well, I am doing it now.
There are plenty of recipes floating around on how to cook chicken in a slow cooker, as well as plenty on how to cook Filipino-style adobo, mostly in a pot on the stove. My take is that it's just another way of flavoring the chicken. I don't transfer the chicken to the oven to crisp the skin afterward, that's too much trouble for me.
I used:
I rinsed the chicken and trimmed off some of the skin & fat. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't removed any fat, because there were parts that seemed dry to me despite being submerged in liquid the whole time, but my in-house food critic said it was fine. I had three half-breasts of chicken; I arranged two in the bottom of my 4-quart slow cooker, sprinkled half the pepper, garlic and ginger on top and put in the bay leaves, then set the last piece of chicken on top, put in the rest of the seasonings and poured in the soy-vinegar mix. This filled my cooker barely over halfway. I let it cook on low heat for seven hours and was satisfied with the result.
Not all adobo recipes call for ginger. The essentials seem to be the soy sauce, vinegar, black pepper, and garlic. I love ginger, and I always include onions, but I've found that letting the onions sit in the slow cooker for the whole time results in mushy, tasteless onions. On previous attempts, I've waited until the final hour to add the onions. This time I sauteed the onions separately, with tomato, and used them as a topping when serving. That idea turned out very well. We didn't have quite enough topping, but 3 or 4 roma tomatoes and 2 onions would probably have been the appropriate amount for the 3 big pieces of chicken. I added some chopped fresh cilantro, too.
I made my version of mapo tofu a couple weeks ago. I documented my first attempt at this dish here. It turns out differently every time, because I don't measure the seasonings, but it has become one of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aristeros' favorites. I guess I will eventually develop a more-or-less standardized formula.
For substance, I use:
For seasoning, I use:
I used soy sauce last time but found the dish was saltier than I'd like, so I'm omitting it from the list in favor of the black bean sauce, which I glopped on pretty liberally. The size of the tofu pieces is not very important as long as they are small enough to stir around, because they will break apart anyway. It may intensify the flavor to marinate the meat in the seasonings for an hour or longer, but it turns out all right even when I don't do this. My method is to cook the meat first, together with the seasonings, because that's the only part that will make you sick if it's undercooked. Then I add the mushrooms, tofu, and onion, with the onion last. How quickly the mushrooms cook depends on how small they're chopped, but it's better to overcook them than to overcook the onion. If using scallions, I'd substitute the white parts for the onion. The green parts of the scallion and the cilantro go in only after you turn off the heat. You could even just sprinkle them on top.
I've made this in my wok, and I've made this in my slow cooker (adding the vegetables much later than the meat), and I think I prefer the wok. I like being able to taste and adjust the flavor as I go along, even though the whole process is time-consuming. With the adobo, I was confident enough in the amounts of seasonings I used that I didn't care about adjusting the flavor. Also, there's nothing like slow cooking to make meat fall-off-the-bone tender, definitely a selling point for my in-house food critic, who doesn't like dealing with bones in his chicken.
I came across this suggestion several weeks ago: pureed frozen banana as an ice cream substitute. I figured mashed banana would be lower in carbohydrates than the equivalent amount of ice cream, plus it's definitely fat free. So I tried it. I wouldn't call the texture creamy exactly, but it's pleasantly smooth. It tastes like banana, of course. I think it might be good with a little cinnamon mixed in, or maybe chocolate chips, although then you start to take away from the "healthy" aspect. The downside for me is that a whole banana counts as 2 carbohydrate choices, and half a banana looks even smaller pureed than left intact. It really doesn't go very far. I expect I'll enjoy this more when my dietary restrictions are lifted; meanwhile, I've found that Edy's Slow-Churned and Bryer's Double-Churned are options for me if I have just half a cup.
We received a mini food processor last year as a wedding gift, but I only tried it out recently. I used it to mash the aforementioned banana; otherwise I've used it mainly for mincing garlic and ginger. I was impressed by the speed with which it renders a thumb-length piece of fresh ginger root into tiny bits. What would take me several minutes with a sharp chef's knife and chopping board takes it about ten seconds of "whiz-whiz-whiz." However, when I'm cooking with ginger, I'm nearly always also cooking with garlic, and fresh garlic is sticky, and it's a little more involved to wash off the food processor assembly than to wash off a knife and chopping board. So, whether I choose to use the machine or the knife depends partly on the amounts I'm working with and partly on my mood.
Yesterday I made chicken adobo in the slow cooker. Before starting, I checked this journal for notes on previous attempts and was surprised to see that I apparently never wrote about adobo before. Well, I am doing it now.
There are plenty of recipes floating around on how to cook chicken in a slow cooker, as well as plenty on how to cook Filipino-style adobo, mostly in a pot on the stove. My take is that it's just another way of flavoring the chicken. I don't transfer the chicken to the oven to crisp the skin afterward, that's too much trouble for me.
I used:
- 2½ pounds split chicken breasts with ribs attached
- 2 bay (laurel) leaves
- ½ cup soy sauce mixed with ½ cup white vinegar (note: most adobo recipes call for less vinegar, but this is how we like it)
- black pepper
- chopped garlic
- chopped ginger
I rinsed the chicken and trimmed off some of the skin & fat. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't removed any fat, because there were parts that seemed dry to me despite being submerged in liquid the whole time, but my in-house food critic said it was fine. I had three half-breasts of chicken; I arranged two in the bottom of my 4-quart slow cooker, sprinkled half the pepper, garlic and ginger on top and put in the bay leaves, then set the last piece of chicken on top, put in the rest of the seasonings and poured in the soy-vinegar mix. This filled my cooker barely over halfway. I let it cook on low heat for seven hours and was satisfied with the result.
Not all adobo recipes call for ginger. The essentials seem to be the soy sauce, vinegar, black pepper, and garlic. I love ginger, and I always include onions, but I've found that letting the onions sit in the slow cooker for the whole time results in mushy, tasteless onions. On previous attempts, I've waited until the final hour to add the onions. This time I sauteed the onions separately, with tomato, and used them as a topping when serving. That idea turned out very well. We didn't have quite enough topping, but 3 or 4 roma tomatoes and 2 onions would probably have been the appropriate amount for the 3 big pieces of chicken. I added some chopped fresh cilantro, too.
I made my version of mapo tofu a couple weeks ago. I documented my first attempt at this dish here. It turns out differently every time, because I don't measure the seasonings, but it has become one of
aristeros' favorites. I guess I will eventually develop a more-or-less standardized formula.For substance, I use:
- 1 lb. to 1½ lb. ground beef
- 1 14-oz. or 16-oz. package of regular or medium-firm tofu, sliced
- 1 8-oz. package of ordinary white button mushrooms, sliced
- an onion, or scallions, and/or fresh cilantro
For seasoning, I use:
- 4 or 5 cloves of garlic, minced
- about a thumb-sized amount of ginger, minced
- black pepper
- red pepper flakes
- mirin
- sesame oil
- black bean sauce
I used soy sauce last time but found the dish was saltier than I'd like, so I'm omitting it from the list in favor of the black bean sauce, which I glopped on pretty liberally. The size of the tofu pieces is not very important as long as they are small enough to stir around, because they will break apart anyway. It may intensify the flavor to marinate the meat in the seasonings for an hour or longer, but it turns out all right even when I don't do this. My method is to cook the meat first, together with the seasonings, because that's the only part that will make you sick if it's undercooked. Then I add the mushrooms, tofu, and onion, with the onion last. How quickly the mushrooms cook depends on how small they're chopped, but it's better to overcook them than to overcook the onion. If using scallions, I'd substitute the white parts for the onion. The green parts of the scallion and the cilantro go in only after you turn off the heat. You could even just sprinkle them on top.
I've made this in my wok, and I've made this in my slow cooker (adding the vegetables much later than the meat), and I think I prefer the wok. I like being able to taste and adjust the flavor as I go along, even though the whole process is time-consuming. With the adobo, I was confident enough in the amounts of seasonings I used that I didn't care about adjusting the flavor. Also, there's nothing like slow cooking to make meat fall-off-the-bone tender, definitely a selling point for my in-house food critic, who doesn't like dealing with bones in his chicken.
