We should have a "What are you cooking?" thread. Now we do.

[Scruffie]

Strawberries are very hit and miss, the nicest ones I've had in recent memory were actually frozen.

Speaking of rhubarb being a vegetable, I've been meaning to try it in a curry...

[davent]

Now there's an idea i've never come across before, be sure to let us know when it happens!
dave

[rockola]

Had fireweed *) roots and shoots for the first time ever the other day. The season is pretty short, last time I tried to have some they were already too tall and wooden. A lot like asparagus, very tasty. Later in the summer the purple flowers are nice as a salad garnish.

*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamaenerion_angustifolium

[mjg]

Strawberries really depend on the variety,  the ones you get in the supermarket are bred for being transportable and presentable, not necessarily taste. 

We've got a lot of berries in the back yard, youngberries tend to grow like crazy here, so we get a huge glut of them around December.  Very tasty, and a bit different to raspberries or blackberries. 

Dave, I made those superior burgers on the weekend.  Worked really well, thanks for the idea. 

[midwayfair]

Working on some Japanese dishes.



Miso soup made with homemade dashi. Will probably make my own miso in the future (the Korean grocer near me doesn't have rice koji and I never remember to look for it at H Mart -- probably have to get it online), even though I like the brand I usually buy just fine. Had to sub in a different seaweed for kombu but I like how it came out, it was much better than my previous attempts (mostly because I actually looked up how to make it instead of just guessing on the proportions).

Sushi rice with homemade furikake (made with some of the leftover bonito flakes and seaweed from the dashi, dried in the oven with some salt, MSG, sugar, and soy sauce).

Some veggie dumplings mostly for my wife (who doesn't like soup) and some edamame for both of us.

[harryklippton]

I make my own miso and it is dead simple. I bought koji on Amazon the first time, then I found a regional supplier.

[midwayfair]

I got a promotion at work a little before my 1-year mark (sorry for the brag, I know stuff sucks for most people right now) and bought myself a present.



What's in the box?



Yu Kurosaki blue super clad in stainless. Thing's insane.



Also got a nice strop kit to supplement my stones when sharpening it in the future.

Used the knife during my first attempt at -- what else -- sushi.



Barring the times where I messed up the draw slicing (I usually do push slicing, which is a little harder with fish), the cuts were just outrageously good, and there was no catching whatsoever on the fish.

The white fish is cured tilapia, done in a sugar/salt dry brine followed by several hours in rice wine vinegar and plum wine. The fish usually used for that is mackerel but this tastes really really good. The tuna is from Aldi. It had some hot water poured over it (literally just poured over it), then 10 minutes in soy sauce. I thought this was a little safer than just going raw entirely, though we've cooked it rare plenty of times.

All the nigiri were too big and the rice layer on the roll was too thick.

The pickled ginger is still a little too strong, it's only been in the jar for 4 days, so I'll reevaluate that in a couple weeks.

Overall, I'm not super disappointed for my first attempt making it. Learned a lot for next time.

There's tamago, too, but it's cooling in the fridge for desert. It didn't come out particularly well. I don't have the right pan for it, and while I can roll a french omelet like anyone's business, doing several layers is really hard in a circular pan. I might have to come up with some other tactic for that in the future.

[alanp]

When swords were made illegal in the Meiji era in Japan, a lot of swordsmiths went into kitchen knives and also scissors, which explains why they tend to be so good from that country. (Sheffield steel, and the like, isn't as famous as it used to be, afaik.)

[Yahoo67]

Working on some Japanese dishes.



Miso soup made with homemade dashi. Will probably make my own miso in the future (the Korean grocer near me doesn't have rice koji and I never remember to look for it at H Mart -- probably have to get it online), even though I like the brand I usually buy just fine. Had to sub in a different seaweed for kombu but I like how it came out, it was much better than my previous attempts (mostly because I actually looked up how to make it instead of just guessing on the proportions).

Sushi rice with homemade furikake (made with some of the leftover bonito flakes and seaweed from the dashi, dried in the oven with some salt, MSG, sugar, and soy sauce).

Some veggie dumplings mostly for my wife (who doesn't like soup) and some edamame for both of us.

Edamame are the f&#+ing best ! My girlfriend made me buy some for a recipe 2 years ago and what a discovery that was xD !!!. I do most of the cooking and from that day on out  I put them in everything xD rice, pasta, saute them with onions and put that on a burger, in soupe sky is the limit! Never tried it but I am pretty sure they are great even in a bowl of fruit loops :p

[Bret608]

That knife is beautiful! I am sure you will enjoy that for years to come. My family and I were going to go to Japan this summer but had to cancel due to their outright ban on foreign visitors from covid-affected countries. This is one of the things we would have been looking for.

Despite my many adventures into Asian cooking, Japanese seems the most daunting in some ways. We're just much better set up for Lao and/or Thai cooking.

[midwayfair]

Miso-glazed eggplant for lunch.

A+ would make again.

[davent]

Jon how do you like the handle on your new knife or are you already using other's that are octagonal so no issues?
dave

edit; Jon your pictures come and go, some don't appear until i reply, then, they show in your posts below the reply box, weird. The pictures of the knife weren't there initially today but i saw your picture for the first time of the sushi you'd made and posted in the knife post.

[midwayfair]

Jon how do you like the handle on your new knife or are you already using other's that are octagonal so no issues?
dave

This is my only octagonal-handled knife. It was a point of debate for me. Since I decided I wanted a forged, carbon steel knife by a small maker instead of a stamped stainless knife like the Misono (not that there's anything wrong with the Misono -- it's awesome), and a few other features, in the end this was the knife that checked off the most boxes, basically "everything but the handle." Unfortunately, my choices were extremely limited for western handles. There's sort of a cutoff point where Japanese knives typically don't have western handles until they seem overpriced, and the better carbon steel western knives are either a German blade geometry I didn't want (the mass-produced Kramers) or twice the price or more with a waiting list or, worse, custom jobs. It honestly feels like no one is making a good French profile chef's knife outside of Japan, most everything is German-shaped. So I "settled" for the Japanese handle.

However, it turns out it doesn't matter that much. I prefer a pinch grip anyway, and this is blade-heavy (center of mass right where the kanji start) and made for that grip, so I hardly even notice that the handle is different. (The other knife I use most often is a Henkles Santoku I've had for 15 years that is a friggin' champ, part of a fantastic set I got at Costco, and that one is thin enough to use with a pinch grip, but it's handle-heavy.)

[davent]

Thanks Jon! I bought my wife a petty knife in the fall and ended up going with one they had with a Western handle and  being what we're use to. I don't imagine it would take too long to grow accustom to a different style as long as it was size appropriate for your hand.

dave

[davent]

Last couple of weeks...

Leftover chunks of mozzarella and aged gouda used up to make a cheese sauce and bought some seven year old cheddar to top the dish along with crushed Triscuits and Hungarian paprika.




Cross cut short ribs smothered with garlic, oregano, chilflakes and olive oil. Shiitake mushroom, potato gratin and simple steamed asparagus with butter salt and pepper.





Had a half pound, 230g of ground beef in the freezer wanting to use up, been a few years since we've grilled a meat patty so time again, oven onion rings which were really good. Chocolate shake with bourbon.





Yesterday, rotisseried buttermilk chicken, grilled duck fat potatoes and for this time of year, run with asparagus until it's done.



Past Tuesday, first time in months ventured forth to my fisher seller, two buses each way, bypassed twice, covid adventure...

Tonight, fresh pasta with seafood tomato sauce, shrimp, rockfish and frozen squid.








dave