Home cooking

[ng_moonmoth]

Happy Thursday! Spouse and I are foodies, which means that whenever it's running, Thursday night belongs to Top Chef: the reality show where professional chefs, all high-level and some of them quite successful, square off in a weeks-long series of culinary challenges that allow them to showcase their skills across the entire range of what one needs to be a big-time, big-name chef -- and rewards the winner with the exposure and stake that they can use to do precisely that, if they wish. Many winners have indeed done so, while others have gone the media route and been successful there.

But today's post isn't about the show, other than using it as inspiration. Each season, the chefs are likely to face a challenge like, "Make the dish that convinced you to take up cooking as a career," or "recreate a treasured family recipe." And with lots more people doing lots more home cooking these days, I'd like to offer up a similar challenge.

What is/are your signature dish/dishes? Have you made any of them recently? Even if someone else in your household is the primary cook, there may be one or two things you make that are special; you are welcome to just share those. If making your best dish amounts to cutting things up, adding some flavors, and putting the result in a bowl, that totally counts, too. And, as an escape clause for those whose culinary skills include the ability to burn water, and the best thing they make in the kitchen is "reservations": pick exactly one dish from a restaurant you often order food from, that you wish you could make yourself.

Comments

My list

[ng_moonmoth]

Four things I make that people really like:

Minestrone. I don't do this often, because it's a multi-day operation for me. I make my own stock from beef back rib bones, and want to have the variety of vegetables that go into it all fresh. That makes it mainly an autumn dish, because that's the best time for that around here. And, like many soups and stews, it only gets better over the next couple of days.

I made some last November.

Not your grandma's oatmeal cookies. I work off a basic oatmeal raisin cookie (which I find boring, and have limited tolerance for dried grapes as well), replace the raisins with bits of crystallized ginger and dried mangos, and pistachio nut meats, and add Indian spices to the cinnamon. This one was inspired by an after-dinner party I attended that had a steampunk theme. Looking into how the steampunk community defined their cuisine, it read like "late Victorian fusion" to me -- and got me envisioning what someone stuck in India without the usual components would do if they were craving oatmeal cookies. Which is why I call them "steampunk oatmeal cookies".

Adventurous eaters can use hot curry powder and chili-lime mangos. The sugar and fat in the cookie moderate the heat nicely. And, for a different Indian taste that is suitable for those with gluten issues who can tolerate oats, replace the all-purpose flour in the base recipe with chickpea flour.

I made some last fall, for a party we were going to, using the chickpea flour.

Latkes. I'd been making them for us, quite successfully. A few years ago, wanting to host something during the busy end-of-year holiday season, and frustrated by our friends' schedules being crowded with too many other events and parties, we decided to try out a latke party on the Sunday afternoon of Hanukkah. We did well enough with the attendance that it has since become an annual affair. We supply the latkes and the usual accompaniments, and ask people to bring something that aligns with Jewish custom (no pork or shellfish, nothing combining meat and dairy, that sort of thing -- doesn't have to actually be kosher or come from a kosher kitchen) to share.

Because latkes are best when prepared à la minute and served up on the spot, I have necessarily worked out how to get them out at a scale suited to the size of our party. Means I wind up doing a lot of prep the night before and the morning of, and spend the first half or so of the party entirely over at the cooktop, but I have a lot of fun with that.

We had our usual latke party last December. On the Sunday that Hanukkah was starting that evening, because we would be visiting family the following weekend.

Chopped liver: Once again, no shortcuts here. We have a jar of schmaltz in the fridge, which I keep as full as the chicken that passes through our house with skin on permits. And then, on a suitable day, chicken livers and onions make a trip through the skillet and the meat grinder.

I made some for Passover this year.

Funny thing about the last two is that I'm the house goy. But these are both things that connect with my family's German culinary roots, which made them familiar enough for me to do well.

Re: My list

[zdenka]

Those oatmeal cookies sound interesting and good! Do you use specific quantities, or just eyeball it?

Re: cookies

[ng_moonmoth]

The mixins are pretty consistent: 1/2 cup pistachios and ginger bits, 1 cup mango bits. Spices can vary, but typically work out to 1/4 tsp cardamom, 1/2 tsp curry powder (hot or mild) and coriander, 1 tsp garam masala and cinnamon. But let the contents of your spice cabinet and your personal preferences be your guide. If you decide to go with the flour substitution, 1:1 replacement works fine. The resulting mix won't hang together quite as well, but will bake into a reasonable cookie.

Re: cookies

[zdenka]

Cool, thanks!