I tend to grate my cuke, & also add olive oil & lemon juice, which pushes it more towards tzatziki than cacik, but whichever way you dice it (see what I did there? ;) I can absolutely eat this stuff forever. For anyone who has never made it before - you'll never buy the stuff supermarkets sell once you've made your own.
My personal 'make too much' is curry - any kind of curry, from BIR to authentic Goan or Bangladeshi. This week I made & froze enough BIR curry base to make about 60 portions, along with a keema base that will make another 20, and just enough 'finished' keema palak, tarka dal & coconut rice to give the chef a day off next week. Took me three days in all, & every pan in the house, but it will be worth it.
Are you working from those books by Dan Toombs? I have both but have never quite worked up the energy to make one of those huge batches of base sauce... I get the sense it's worth it?
This one was Toombs. In the past I've tried Chapman. Honestly, neither are as good as they think. I had to do a lot of remedial work on everything, & I've portioned it in such a way as I have more work to do to make the final meal serveable. (I didn't want to dampen the vibe by mentioning that in my first post;)
If you want a 'one book' solution, then I'd recommend Atul Kochhar's 'Curries of the World'. I can't claim to have tried more than a small percentage of his recipes, but I've had good results from all I have tried. Most times these days I use experience & guesswork, based on what I've learned previously from recipe authors & a lot of trial & error, rather than blindly following recipes. I gave Toombs a shot 'as written' because of reputation. The method made a lot of sense when reading, but the result just wasn't what I expected. It needs a lot of re-balancing. I will be going back to my usual guesswork henceforth ;)
The thing I do with raw garlic (dressings & salsa) is to fine grate it, then mash it into a pulp with a big pinch of Maldon (the salt absorbs the garlic juice). That gets a nice dispersion of garlic flavour without any surprises chunks.
Make too much - salsa! Chopped tomatoes & red (sometimes roasted) red (or green) peppers; then maybe sweetcorn, or avocado, or fine chopped red onion. Fresh coriander. Lime or lemon juice maybe. And sometimes mash a red chilli with the garlic. This also gets better over a day or so in the fridge (though you have to watch the avocado!).
This sounds great. I make a raita that is Greek yogurt, grated cucumber and a teaspoon of Coleman's mint sauce (other mint sauces are available). Goes great with spicy currys or on kebabs and pairs well with sriracha for the cooling and hot things together vibe
My go to dish is in the instapot. Any pressure cooker will do, or a slow cook in a regular pot on the stove.
1. Pound of Italian sausage. Sweet or spicy.
2. A couple handfulls of kale.
3. Diced celery.
4. Diced onion.
5. Diced carrots.
6. Can of white beans.
7. Some chicken stock.
8. Anything else you want to throw in. Any leftover veggies? Or not. Doesn't matter.
9. Cook for 30 under pressure or a few hours on the stove.
You can't mess this up. Any quantity of any ingredient is fine. This is an imprecise situation. No two are ever the same and they're always good on the day and even better the day after. It takes 20 minutes to assemble and a few days to eat. I had it last night. Yum!
That sounds REALLY good — and I love those dishes which are (a) throw in whatever you've got, the fact it varies each time is part of the fun, and (b) it'll be even better next time. I've never really experimented much with the Instapot... I'll give this a try!
Yummy… It's the same as tzatziki… I love it. Here I buy it ready. And it's true that I eat it with everything.
Another dish that lends itself very well to re-proposing it the next day is very banal roast chicken with lots of spices. Staying in the refrigerator it is more flavored with the spices rosemary, garlic, bay leaf, black pepper. It’s superb!!! In summer it is also an excellent cold dish.
Very true! I love roasting a chicken... there's no end to what you can do with the leftovers (they end up in enchiladas here sometimes). And when we can be bothered to make a stock from the carcass, it lasts even longer...
I often make the tzatziki version and I love that you can leave it in the fridge for several days and it just keeps getting better. A couple of warm flatbreads, some nice veggies and I'm in heaven. Perfect summer side.
Ooh, fried zucchini... I LOVE that. Plus this summer I discovered zuch fritters (grated, dry out the zucch, add feta and dill, mix, fry) and they're fabulous with taztziki or cacik too... god, I'm really hungry now and it's only 8am here.
Just looking at the way you do it, have you tried doing it with chopped tarragon? And perhaps try it with shaved cucumber, rather than diced.
We don't tend to fresh cook any more as we live in a caravan and just don't have the space to keep fresh stuff. My go to, however, is my gravy. Start with a strong stock base of vegetables, simmer over night, cook meat next day and clean roasting pan with red wine and add juices to stock, still low simmering. Leave to cool over night, remove concealed goop away next day and put back to medium simmer then add gravy granules, mixing beef and chicken, no matter what the dish, add tomato puree and Worcester sauce. Leave for a few hours and it should come out like soup! Wonderful as a winter warmer.
I'd never heard of cacik (and, annoyingly, can't stop reading it as cack). I think, perhaps, I've never eaten Turkish food, just Greek and Lebanese, though that doesn't seem right. I shall experiment. But I shan't be spoiling whatever results by putting it in soup!
In answer to your question: aside from the tzatziki, chilli is the main one. Whether I make it with beef, or pork, or minced mushrooms and carrots plus red lentils (once spiced up and cooked for an hour the texture works so well I hardly notice it's not minced meat), I make a vat of it that I assume I will end up freezing most of ... but then it always disappears over the next 2-3 days, being eaten as main or side dish for lunch and dinner, and sometimes even for breakfast.
Your recipes ought to come with a warning label.. after finishing off the Bean Goo I wasn’t just “too full to live” but also too full to die, too full to sit and too full to lie.. as well as too full walk and too full to ride.. so I blame it on Michael the scribe.
I tend to grate my cuke, & also add olive oil & lemon juice, which pushes it more towards tzatziki than cacik, but whichever way you dice it (see what I did there? ;) I can absolutely eat this stuff forever. For anyone who has never made it before - you'll never buy the stuff supermarkets sell once you've made your own.
My personal 'make too much' is curry - any kind of curry, from BIR to authentic Goan or Bangladeshi. This week I made & froze enough BIR curry base to make about 60 portions, along with a keema base that will make another 20, and just enough 'finished' keema palak, tarka dal & coconut rice to give the chef a day off next week. Took me three days in all, & every pan in the house, but it will be worth it.
Are you working from those books by Dan Toombs? I have both but have never quite worked up the energy to make one of those huge batches of base sauce... I get the sense it's worth it?
This one was Toombs. In the past I've tried Chapman. Honestly, neither are as good as they think. I had to do a lot of remedial work on everything, & I've portioned it in such a way as I have more work to do to make the final meal serveable. (I didn't want to dampen the vibe by mentioning that in my first post;)
If you want a 'one book' solution, then I'd recommend Atul Kochhar's 'Curries of the World'. I can't claim to have tried more than a small percentage of his recipes, but I've had good results from all I have tried. Most times these days I use experience & guesswork, based on what I've learned previously from recipe authors & a lot of trial & error, rather than blindly following recipes. I gave Toombs a shot 'as written' because of reputation. The method made a lot of sense when reading, but the result just wasn't what I expected. It needs a lot of re-balancing. I will be going back to my usual guesswork henceforth ;)
You have to be careful with lemon juice coz if you are leaving the dish for any length of time it will split the yog.
Was that patronising enough😀
Always good to be reminded ;-)
The thing I do with raw garlic (dressings & salsa) is to fine grate it, then mash it into a pulp with a big pinch of Maldon (the salt absorbs the garlic juice). That gets a nice dispersion of garlic flavour without any surprises chunks.
Make too much - salsa! Chopped tomatoes & red (sometimes roasted) red (or green) peppers; then maybe sweetcorn, or avocado, or fine chopped red onion. Fresh coriander. Lime or lemon juice maybe. And sometimes mash a red chilli with the garlic. This also gets better over a day or so in the fridge (though you have to watch the avocado!).
Aha, yes — good tip on the garlic/Malden. And I love me some salsa... a lot of that gets made here in the summer, and a ton of guac...
Tahini dressing: 2 tbsp tahini, juice of a lemon, 2 tsp maple syrup, 1 tbsp olive oil. Add a little water if needed. Scale proportionally.
Excellent - thank you!
This sounds great. I make a raita that is Greek yogurt, grated cucumber and a teaspoon of Coleman's mint sauce (other mint sauces are available). Goes great with spicy currys or on kebabs and pairs well with sriracha for the cooling and hot things together vibe
That sounds really nice... will give it a try!
Looks great, I'll make some!
My go to dish is in the instapot. Any pressure cooker will do, or a slow cook in a regular pot on the stove.
1. Pound of Italian sausage. Sweet or spicy.
2. A couple handfulls of kale.
3. Diced celery.
4. Diced onion.
5. Diced carrots.
6. Can of white beans.
7. Some chicken stock.
8. Anything else you want to throw in. Any leftover veggies? Or not. Doesn't matter.
9. Cook for 30 under pressure or a few hours on the stove.
You can't mess this up. Any quantity of any ingredient is fine. This is an imprecise situation. No two are ever the same and they're always good on the day and even better the day after. It takes 20 minutes to assemble and a few days to eat. I had it last night. Yum!
That sounds REALLY good — and I love those dishes which are (a) throw in whatever you've got, the fact it varies each time is part of the fun, and (b) it'll be even better next time. I've never really experimented much with the Instapot... I'll give this a try!
Yummy… It's the same as tzatziki… I love it. Here I buy it ready. And it's true that I eat it with everything.
Another dish that lends itself very well to re-proposing it the next day is very banal roast chicken with lots of spices. Staying in the refrigerator it is more flavored with the spices rosemary, garlic, bay leaf, black pepper. It’s superb!!! In summer it is also an excellent cold dish.
Very true! I love roasting a chicken... there's no end to what you can do with the leftovers (they end up in enchiladas here sometimes). And when we can be bothered to make a stock from the carcass, it lasts even longer...
Mmm… Buono… And irreplaceable in summer…
I often make the tzatziki version and I love that you can leave it in the fridge for several days and it just keeps getting better. A couple of warm flatbreads, some nice veggies and I'm in heaven. Perfect summer side.
It truly is :-)
When it comes to its Greek cousin, tzatziki - you serve with fried zucchini or just fries and it’s the place where I want to die
I see the philhellenes in the comments 📈
Ooh, fried zucchini... I LOVE that. Plus this summer I discovered zuch fritters (grated, dry out the zucch, add feta and dill, mix, fry) and they're fabulous with taztziki or cacik too... god, I'm really hungry now and it's only 8am here.
Yeah, give me another excuse to make that 30 minute drive to Trader Joe’s! (Damnit, where’d I put my pants?)
Ha :-) It'll be worth it...
Yum 😋
It is!
Just looking at the way you do it, have you tried doing it with chopped tarragon? And perhaps try it with shaved cucumber, rather than diced.
We don't tend to fresh cook any more as we live in a caravan and just don't have the space to keep fresh stuff. My go to, however, is my gravy. Start with a strong stock base of vegetables, simmer over night, cook meat next day and clean roasting pan with red wine and add juices to stock, still low simmering. Leave to cool over night, remove concealed goop away next day and put back to medium simmer then add gravy granules, mixing beef and chicken, no matter what the dish, add tomato puree and Worcester sauce. Leave for a few hours and it should come out like soup! Wonderful as a winter warmer.
Yes, I have left some details out...
As someone who LOVES gravy, that's made me very peckish...
I'd never heard of cacik (and, annoyingly, can't stop reading it as cack). I think, perhaps, I've never eaten Turkish food, just Greek and Lebanese, though that doesn't seem right. I shall experiment. But I shan't be spoiling whatever results by putting it in soup!
In answer to your question: aside from the tzatziki, chilli is the main one. Whether I make it with beef, or pork, or minced mushrooms and carrots plus red lentils (once spiced up and cooked for an hour the texture works so well I hardly notice it's not minced meat), I make a vat of it that I assume I will end up freezing most of ... but then it always disappears over the next 2-3 days, being eaten as main or side dish for lunch and dinner, and sometimes even for breakfast.
Chili for breakfast — I like your style ;-) And you've reminded me, it's time I made a vat of it myself...
Your recipes ought to come with a warning label.. after finishing off the Bean Goo I wasn’t just “too full to live” but also too full to die, too full to sit and too full to lie.. as well as too full walk and too full to ride.. so I blame it on Michael the scribe.
My “go to” snack is chocolate. 😉
Ha :-) But the bean goo is worth it, huh ;-)
Yes, my dude, it is 😘
Finally made this tonight. I used it as a salad dressing with diced chicken breast. Delicious. Tomorrow I’ll smear it on baked salmon.
Excellent! Really glad you like it... it'll become a mainstay, trust me!