Full of hard-won knowledge from the last ~13 years.
Garnishes are optional.
- Zest of one lemon
- Juice of one lemon
- Handful of pinenuts (2 tbsp)
- Handful of non-oiled sun dried tomatoes (10-20)
- Pepper
- Garlic
- Salt
- Cheese (pecarrino romano, or parmesan)
- Package of Basil
Shove all that shit a food processor, and blitz. Add about 5 tbsp of oil.
When serving (and this is important), reserve some of the pasta water, and splash it in to a bowl before mixing in the pesto and serving.
- Cream
- Monzerella (1/2 Pound)
- Parmesan (I dunno, like a quarter cup?)
- Garlic
- White Wine Vinegar (To taste, more than you think. Very important.)
- Pepper
- Salt
- Parsley (Garnish)
Add everything except parsley into a small pot, and cook on low until melted together.
- Olive Oil
- Crushed Tomatoes
- Onions
- Kalamata Olives
- Anchovies
- Capers
- Garlic
- Oregano
Caramelize onions and garlic with olive oil, then pour in crushed tomatoes, and add the rest. Cook for like an hour; less is probably fine.
- Washed yellow split peas, boil in just water, no salt.
- Parmesan/Peccarino Romano/Nutritional Yeast/Both
- Onions
- Yogurt
- Stock
- Butter
- Thyme (Garnish)
Make peas first. When done, optionally drain through a fine sieve. Caramelize onions. Add all ingredients togehter, and blitz. Serve over pasta.
- Toast any of the following spices in a pan (* is recommended): Mustard Seed* (should always be first, until they start dancing), Cumin*, Clove, Allspice, Coriander*, Cardammon. After a minute or two of toasting, grind to powder.
- Fry onions in ghee, some coconut milk, or vegetable oil. Add garlic, and ginger, until soft. Add spices, and salt, and MSG.
- Optionally add tomatoes, and fry for a bit if you do.
- Add protein, of some kind. Eggplant, Chickpeas, Chicken, Beef, etc...
- Add liquid. Can be stock, coconut milk, cream, or just water.
- Taste; optionally add sugar.
Cook until cooked through. Serve with something pickled, or some form of sourness; pickled lime, tamarind, lime, lemon, yogurt. Serve over rice, genreally. Garnish with cilantro, or green onion.
- Boil (specifically red) lentils twice as much water as there are lentils (maybe more; adjust as they boil for soupy consistency), until they fall into mush.
- While they're boiling, do as above, stop on step 2, and then add the contents of the pan to the lentils once they're mush.
Serve with curries/rice. (preferably with a different spice mix)
Fry together lots of, until soft:
- Onions
- Garlic
- Celery
Once soft, add, and fry for a minute to reduce down
- Chipotles in a can/chipotle sauce in a can
- Cocoa powder (like a lot, more than you think; like a half-cup).
- Cumin
- Chilli Powder
- Oregano
- Salt
- Pepper
Add:
- Can of crushed tomatoes
- Two cans of black beans
- Small amount of brown sugar/maple syrup/mollases
Finish with:
- Lots of lime juice
- Cilantro, Yogurt (garnish)
Use a single container for this; prerably a glasslock. Doesn't need all ingredients; only needs the beans, really:
- Diced Bell Pepper
- Diced Onion
- Two Tins of black beans, drained, and rinsed (preferably patted dry, but honestly that sounds like a lot of owrk)
- Oregano
- Thyme
- Frozen Corn Kernels
- Red Wine Vinegar (1/4 Cup)
- Olive Oil (~1/2 Cup)
- Salt
- Pepper
- Sugar to taste
- Cilantro
- Lime Juice
Buy some salsa (or make some, but honestly that sounds like a lot of work; best brand price/variety/quality is Macha; but steer clear of the Taquira sauce. Don't fucking buy La Costena it gross). Serve on pan-toasted corn tortillas (best brand is La Tortilla Veloz).
- Vegetable Oil
- Caramelized Onion
- Garlic
- Chipotles in Adobo Sauce
- Cooked Black Beans (Canned or otherwise)
- Salt
- Pepper
- Red Wine Vinegar
Put that shit in a pan in order, then mash up decently with a fork/pastry cutter. Fry until it's soft.
- Raw basmati/jasmine rice.
- Olive Oil
- Onion
- Paprika
- Salt
- Pepper
- Oregano
- Red Wine Vinegar
- Stock
Toast rice in a dry pot for like 3 mintues, on medium heat. Don't burn it. Add olive oil, and onion. Fry a bit, until onion's soft. Add spices, fry a bit more, then add stock and red wine vinegar. Not enough to actually cook the rice as you would normally, it should be a little hard (not crunchy, but close). Use a a filler for burritos/tacos.
Mask an avocado with a fork, or pastry crimper. Needs to be a ripe avocado. Don't do it with an unripe one, it sucks. Do the avocado first, get it creamy, then add other ingredients.
- Avocado
- Salt
- Lime Juice
- Garlic (Optional)
- Jalapeno (Optional)
- Onion (Optional)
- Pepper (Optional)
- Cilantro (Optional)
- Sliced Red Onion (not diced)
- Sugar
- Salt
- Vinegar (white or otherwise)
Put in fridge for at least an hour, better a day. Garnish shit with this.
- Take a chicken. Clean out the inner cavity with a paper towel; we if you need it to be.
- Pat the rest of it dry with paper towels. Rub it with a lot of salt, pepepr and rosemary or thyme. More than you think you'll need, especially salt.
- Shove it the oven, on a rack suspended above a baking tray at 450. Bake until 165 fahrenheit.
Serve with potatoes, and some sort of green, like broccoli or green beans.
- Take a tough cut of meat, like pork shoulder, or brisket, or flank steak. Cover it with salt, pepper, olive oil. MOre than you think you'll need, especially salt.
- Fry it in your dutch oven 'till it's brown all over. Remove it from the pot.
Add:
- Onions
- Garlic
- Celery
- Carrot
Fry on medium heat until brown/soft.
- Pour anywhere from 1/2 - 1 bottle of red wine over the thing if beef; if pork, cider works best, but white/red also work.
- Thyme/Rosemary
Put lid on the pot, put it into the oven at 250 fahrenheit for like 6 hours. When it's coming apart if you stick a fork in, it's done.
Saute until brown:
- Butter/Olive Oil
- Carrot
- Celery
- Onions
Forms the base of most soups.
- Soup Base
- Washed yellow split peas.
- Stock
- Thyme
- Parsley (Garnish)
Boil until peas are mush. Add:
- Salt
- Pepper
- MSG
- Soup Base
- Tomato Paste. Fry it off.
- Stock
- Potato
- Can of drained/washed Kidney Beans
- Parsley (Garnish)
- Salt
- Pepper
Boil until potatoes are done. While they're boiling cook some pasta. Don't pour it direclty into the boling pot of soup; if you put it in the fridge, the pasta will swell up. Store pasta and soup separately, and combine for serving.
- Lime Juice
- Tanqueray (Rangpur Lime/Flora de Sevilla)
- Fever Tree Mediterrean/Elderflower Tonic
- Washed Jasmine or Basamati Rice
- Add enough water to cover up to the knuckle of your thumb above the rice.
- Place it covered on the stove, bring to a boil (if on indunction, use medium heat).
- Once boiling, let it boil for ~30 seconds, then turn down to low, so it doesn't boil over for 30 mins.
- Buy tortillas, don't bother making them from masa. It's not worth it.
- Patak's hot lime pickle is delicious.
- MSG is a key kitchen ingredient, and should be always around. Use it to add "salty-meatiness". Taste some raw to get a feel for what it tastes like.
- Patak's curry pastes can be used succesfully in place of the curry spice mix; they're pretty damn good.
- Get kosher salt. It's the best salt. Use it from an Emile Henry salt pig.
- Get a pepper mill, don't fucking bother with pre-ground pepper.
- An enamlled french/dutch oven is a really nice cooking pot. Just make sure you get it big enough. Regular cast iron works too, but isn't as good.
- Never use lime or lemon juice from a bottle.
- Buy an instant read digital thermometer. Use this for all meat dishes.
- Sriracha is really good as a commonplace all-purpose hot sauce. Fuck the haters.
- Both canned and dry beans are both good; use whatever you want more.
- Always boil hard pulses (except red lentils) without salt, usually just water until soft. Otherwise they'll be crunchy. Adding small amounts of baking soda can also make things much softer, but you can easily overdo it and get a weird taste.
- Never use parboiled "plastic bag" rice. Use either Jasmine or Basmati.
- Don't buy prepackaged guacamole.
- Impossible Burgers are the best veggie burgers on the market, bar none. They served me one at Uniburger, and I literally thought they fucked up and served me a beef burger. That's how good it was. (specifically impossible. Don't confuse this beyond, or other brands. They are very diffferent.)
- Used canned tomatoes over "fresh", unless you're buying grape/cherry tomatoes.
- Instant noodles are fucking delicious.
- Squeeze the following fruit to tell if they're ripe (it matters): Mango, Avocado.
- If you're getting tired of a dish, change the condiments (salsas, garnishes, sides) before throwing it out and moving on.
- Buy "Luminarc Working Glass" as your glassawre, both tall and short version. Get the specific plastic lids which fit over them, and you'll have an infinite amount of glass containers for sauces/half-limes, and other things in your fridge.
- Get an induction stove, if you can afford it. It's really worth it. It's better than gas, I'd say.
- Make all your pans cast iron pans. You don't need non-stick. I have 2 10" ones, and they're workhorses. You don't really need much else.
- Buy this spatula. "Teppanyaki". Basically just get a really thin spatula that's metal. Only one of that set is good, but doesn't seem like you can buy it seaprate. You'll thank me.
- Get rid of all your plastic shit, you don't need any of it.
- Get a nice big wooden cutting board. Toss all plastic cutting boards.
- Toss most of your knives. You need a 10" chef's knife, a small utility knife, and a bread knife. Get good ones. Spend like 50+$ each.
- Get the heaviest duty garlic press you can find. Don't get a thin aluminum one. It's worth it.
- Get the heaveist duty citrus juicer you can find. Don't get a thin aluminum one. It's worth it.
- Get 2 wooden spoons and 2 wooden spatulas.
- Food Processors are worth it.
- Most of the shit in your kitchen you probably don't need. If you don't use it in like 2-3 months, you should move it to storage/throw it out.
- Metal and Ceramic mixing bowls are best.