Any INTP cooks?

[A22]

I'm reading some recipes and starting to cook for myself - no more pizza for dinner.

Today I'm doing spaghetti with some sauce my aunt used to make and tomorrow I'll be doing lasagna. Yeah I love italian cuisine.

So, do you guys cook? How about some recipes exchange?

 

[xbox]

I cook in life/death situations

 

[Cavallier]

I cook all the time. I love food. I don't really follow recipes though.

I made slow braised BBQ spare ribs the other day in the oven. They were delicious.

allrecipes.com is a good place to go for just about any recipe you could ever want. They've got reviews and star ratings. Often people post changes they've made to recipes. It's a good place to quickly figure out a cooking technique. I generally do my own flavors but follow the techniques I find there.

 

[RoscoeT]

I do a lot of cooking and I'm pretty good at it. I don't always follow recipes, I usually have a general idea of what it should taste like but I adjust things as I go so it's rarely the same twice. I'm good at Italian, Indian, New Mexican, and Soul food. My Thanksgiving turkey dinners get better every year, though I eat more vegetables than meat. What interests me most about cooking is the assembly aspect of it all. Also it's easy to judge the results.

 

[Melllvar]

Without a doubt the coolest thing I've ever made was low country boil. I highly recommend it. It's really pretty easy too, you just have to time it all right so nothing ends up over/undercooked.

Spoiler

Other interesting things included cheesecake (from scratch - it took all fucking day), duck prosciutto, canh chua... and um, other interesting things probably not worth mentioning. My next goal is raw beef in lime juice, but I need a sharper knife to slice the beef as thin as required.

Also, a picture of the duck we cut up :

Spoiler

[bimgx=600]http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8584/014dwt.jpg[/bimgx]

Cooking: It's chemistry for hungry people.

 

[Moocow]

I love cooking as well, and I've been learning from my girlfriend.
We bought a 25 lb bag of pinto beans and every few days I boil a huge pot of them with jalapenos, habaneros, onions, garlic, and paprika. You can fry/mash them and make burritos, eat them alone, add them to brown rice, soup, etc. They're very healthy, yet inexpensive... rid me of digestive problems too!
We eat them with homemade salsa, which usually consists of onions, tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, and several of every pepper the market carries. This last time we used 5 different types of chili pepper and made almost a gallon of very spicy salsa.

Also pretty much any vegetables and meat diced and stir fried with teriyaki sauce is good.

It isn't hard to improvise if you know some basic rules... like lower heat and longer time means more thoroughly / evenly cooked. You just have to experiment and learn from various recipes, as was previously suggested.

If you ever plan to cook squid, we recently figured out the absolute perfect procedure for making it really tender. Usually squid ends up rubbery unless you get your timing just right.
You just have to boil a pot of water, then turn the heat off and drop the squid in, and let it cool down over a very long time. That seems to cook it just enough. Squid is really good in spaghetti, curry, or phở.

 

[Meer]

Yes, but the real food store is too far away.

 

[Cogwulf]

Add an egg to 50g plain flour. Mix together well
Put 50ml water and 100ml of milk in a jug. Then slowly add to the flour & egg whilst stirring.

Get a small rectangular dish, perhaps about 20cm wide. Put a few tablespoons of cooking oil into the dish and make sure the sides are coated. Put this dish into an oven at 220C.

Fry (broil) some sausages. There should be enough to lie side by side in the dish but without being packed together. 4 is a good number for this recipe. The sausages don't need to be fully cooked, just browned on the outside.

Take the dish out of the oven, and carefully add the partly cooked sausages. If it crackles and spits hot oil at you, pour the mixture you made earlier into the dish.
If it doesn't crackle and spit oil, it isn't hot enough, put the dish with the sausages back into the oven for another few minutes, before adding the mixture.

Once you have added the mixture, put this back into the oven and cook for about 30 minutes. It should rise and turn brown.

Serves two. Or one if you're really hungry.
For scaling, it's better to make more of he mixture you need, then just guess how much to add to the dish.

Spoiler

Om nom nom

PROTIP.
Find roasting difficult? Use roasting bags.
These are cellophane type bags which you can put a chicken or some pork or whatever into, you add some fat or oil and some herbs, then tie it up and put into and oven. It roasting brilliantly every time with no need for basting.

Spoiler

 

[Polaris]

^^How very English....it looks like the sausages are sitting inside a giant Yorkshire pudding....

I just cooked and consumed a meal consisting of free-range, non-hormone, non-antibiotic, non-tortured chicken breast stuffed with a mixture of crumbled feta, crushed garlic, chives, basil, thyme and oregano. I dumped said chook into an oven-proof dish and scattered a friend's home-grown cherry tomatoes around it on a base of Australian extra-virgin olive oil and Danish butter.

The chicken baked at ca. 200 degrees Celsius for approx. 20 minutes. I then finished it under the grill.

Served with a garlic potato mash to which I added a little Murray river salt, seeded French mustard and light sour cream.

Steamed broccoli on the side......yum

I was so hungry I couldn't be bothered with the photo.

 

[EditorOne]

I've found that a slow-cooker works well for meat. Put it in at noon, salt, water, whatever spices depending on what you're cooking, set it for six hours, and at three hours add chopped vegetables. At six hours sit down and eat, with the meat or poultry just about falling off the bone and in its own juices to boot.

Salt is one of the most overlooked ingredients for successful cooking. I cook at Civil War living histories, usually feeding a dozen or so people and sometimes as many as 50; I use salt; everything gets eaten and they're looking for more. Salt has been reduced in so many of our foods that when you put it in people react like you just did something clever to make it taste so good. Anti-salt warnings have really had an effect on food. I believe that unless you have an abnormal condition in regard to salt, your body simply takes what it needs as it passes through and processes the rest out without absorbing it.

 

[Cogwulf]

I've found that a slow-cooker works well for meat. Put it in at noon, salt, water, whatever spices depending on what you're cooking, set it for six hours, and at three hours add chopped vegetables. At six hours sit down and eat, with the meat or poultry just about falling off the bone and in its own juices to boot.

Salt is one of the most overlooked ingredients for successful cooking. I cook at Civil War living histories, usually feeding a dozen or so people and sometimes as many as 50; I use salt; everything gets eaten and they're looking for more. Salt has been reduced in so many of our foods that when you put it in people react like you just did something clever to make it taste so good. Anti-salt warnings have really had an effect on food. I believe that unless you have an abnormal condition in regard to salt, your body simply takes what it needs as it passes through and processes the rest out without absorbing it.

Slow cooked meat is brilliant.

I agree with what you say about salt. There has been a lot of scaremongering recently, and so manufacturers responded by cutting salt out of everything. Now everything that is ready to eat or semi-prepared is bland and tasteless.

^^How very English....it looks like the sausages are sitting inside a giant Yorkshire pudding....

That's basically what it is. But the pudding bit gets flavoured by the sausage fat.


Another food that's great to cook are pies, and stews to. They're a hassle though because for good ones you need small amounts of lots of ingredients, so it's a good idea to make them using leftovers.

 

[cheese]

\
Other interesting things included cheesecake (from scratch - it took all fucking day)

By 'from scratch' do you mean you made your own cream cheese? What exactly did you do that took all day? Did you have to buy a cow first? I'm very puzzled.

 

[Melllvar]

IIRC it was ricotta cheese, and we had to drain it on cheesecloth, which took like six hours. Then bake it. Then let it cool. It was a really big, elaborate cheesecake too. I made another one later that was a lot faster and easier. We kind of realized afterwards that we'd picked the absolute hardest cheesecake recipe for our first try. I remember it being really expensive too.

 

[crippli]

I(well, my mother also) tend to make 'brown cheese' during the summer, when the cows are in the mountain, old fashioned way, but easier to take the milk home and use electricity instead of over the fire, so sometimes I do that. It's a bit of work, a few days. You can't get it anywhere else, almost, what is in the store is different.

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Almost finished

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Finished

 

[Yet]

I love to cook. As we are quite a mixed family it is mainly hungarian, british, irish and dutch home cooking.
Very fond of making sushi as well or tempura hmmmm..

I rarely follow recipes (only when I want to learn something new) ... I usually just know how to make dishes from growing up or make my own food up. Especially soups are dead easy to design your own.

Not very good with cakes though ... bikkies, meringues or a cheese cake I find not too hard & I make my own up ... but other baking or deserts is not really my bestest cooking side (meaning they are sometimes edable).

Italian food I find hard to make ... never been able to create a nice pizza

PS I cook proper food, from scratch/basics... not out of freezer or prefab-taste-stuff, just don't like that.

 

[Lobstrich]

I'm reading some recipes and starting to cook for myself - no more pizza for dinner.

Today I'm doing spaghetti with some sauce my aunt used to make and tomorrow I'll be doing lasagna. Yeah I love italian cuisine.

So, do you guys cook? How about some recipes exchange?

While I'm not a chef I was half way through culinary school when I decided that I wanted an academic education first. It's always a good idea to leave doors open.

I don't like recipe's though. Not unless I'm making a dessert. Cooking without a recipe, or at least without a plan is pretty much going to lead to an unedible dessert. And when baking bread. I think any chef (good) would agree with me. Me and a friend at the culinary school made this dessert after trial and error for 2 days leading up to a competition. And when we got it the way we wanted, we of course had to follow the recipe. Next time, we could experiment, again.

Spoiler

You shouldn't rely to much on them. It takes the fun, the excitement, the experience and the surprise out of cooking. You will know how it tastes every time, and the taste isn't going to change when you follow a recipe.
So just adding what you "feel" should be added, leads to many great dishes. And each time you make Spaghetti, like you mentioned, It's going to taste different. Of course your food will not taste wonderful every time. I can't even remember how many times I've failed, hehe.

 

[thoumyvision]

Read this article recently, my steaks are even better then they were before!

Cook the Perfect Steak: Salting, Searing and Poking Myths Debunked

 

[Lobstrich]

Read this article recently, my steaks are even better then they were before!

Cook the Perfect Steak: Salting, Searing and Poking Myths Debunked

I must admit, I didn't read the whole post but only the intro text. "And well poking doesn't do anything" Uhh, really? Who came up with poking a steak? I have never heard of that, lol.

Other than the.. Poking. All you need to do to get a good steak is to not salt it before it's on the pan it drains the juices from the meat and look for the steaks with lots of fat in the steak. I didn't know the English word for it, and tried to look it up and all I got was "marbling"? Seems logical. Anyway, 'marbling' is what gives the steak the taste not the big fat lumps on the side that your uncle always tells you to eat accompanied with his great knowledge of meat "It's what gives the steak taste! Eat it boy! It's great for you!" Well my uncle never really said that. But alot of people have that attitude towards you when you cut of the fat. You could however keep it on the steak when preparing it, as it can help keep the meat moist. When you've gotten the steak the way you want it, let it rest for some minutes. Wrap it in tin foil and put it on a plate. That way it will have time to gather it's juices again and it will become very tender.

Another thing. When buying the actual meat don't buy the usual stuff. Again I don't know the English word for the two differen't 'kinds' of meat. And I can't look it up because I can't even remember the Danish word
But get the meat where the animal has lots of muscles. Like the legs, the meat has a lot more taste when it's from a 'muscled area'

And never kill for taste of the meat with over seasoning. There's nothing better than the taste of meat.

 

[EditorOne]

IIRC it was ricotta cheese, and we had to drain it on cheesecloth, which took like six hours. Then bake it. Then let it cool. It was a really big, elaborate cheesecake too. I made another one later that was a lot faster and easier. We kind of realized afterwards that we'd picked the absolute hardest cheesecake recipe for our first try. I remember it being really expensive too.

I wonder if you could have kind of rolled it up in the cheesecloth and squeezed rather than letting gravity do the job? Hey, INTP: Examine the processes.

 

[Taniwha]

I like cooking, espeically baking. Its the ultimate and tastiest form of chemistry. I'm considering getting my papers so I can work part time as a pastry chef.

 

[Lobstrich]

I like cooking, espeically baking. Its the ultimate and tastiest form of chemistry. I'm considering getting my papers so I can work part time as a pastry chef.

If you 'really' want to become a baker/pastry chef. You should come to Denmark. Our baking is one of the only positive things I have to say about my country.

I know it's a longshot though, seeing that you're from New Zealand, right? Hehe.

 

[A22]

Alright I didn't follow the recipe.

I've made a cauliflower and bologna lasagna lol
Seems weird but turned out really good

 

[Lobstrich]

Alright I didn't follow the recipe.

I've made a cauliflower and bologna lasagna lol
Seems weird but turned out really good

There you go. It turned out really good. That's all you need! =) And then comes the looks of the dish. They way you arrange your food is also a vital part of the dish. When people see the dish they form ideas of how the texture and tastes are. Which is where you can easily fail. If the salad isn't crunchy like people expect it to be, they are most probably going to dislike the entire dish.

 

[cheese]

You shouldn't rely to much on them. It takes the fun, the excitement, the experience and the surprise out of cooking. You will know how it tastes every time, and the taste isn't going to change when you follow a recipe.
So just adding what you "feel" should be added, leads to many great dishes.

I agree. (Not that I can really cook.)

IIRC it was ricotta cheese, and we had to drain it on cheesecloth, which took like six hours. Then bake it. Then let it cool. It was a really big, elaborate cheesecake too. I made another one later that was a lot faster and easier. We kind of realized afterwards that we'd picked the absolute hardest cheesecake recipe for our first try. I remember it being really expensive too.

Oh, ok. Never tried ricotta cheesecake before. I realised after making a couple of cream cheesecakes that it's probably one of the easiest cakes to get right, even though it tastes so darn good. Just put a bunch of stuff in the blender and blend, and you're right. I guess if you want to make a world-class one you might have to use a bit more skill to get the texture you want though. Do you like cakey, dense, creamy, no-bake (slightly gelatinous) - what?

 

[P.H.]

I make the best white rice with unseasoned chicken.

 

[Lobstrich]

I make the best white rice with unseasoned chicken.

That's quite a feat! (Even though it's a joke. You can fail at making those things. Burned or dry rice and dry chicken = Meh.)