Help me with making some recipes

We were taught a very basic tomato sauce that can later be added to or reduced for any sort of application.

If starting with fresh, cut in 1/2 and roast with a bit of salt and olive oil to soften, then run through a mouli mill to remove skin (indigestible) and seeds (bitter).

If starting with canned, buy canned that have no preservatives and no calcium carbonate (chalking flavour at the end). Pass through a mouli mill to remove skins and seeds.

Sweat fine diced shallot or onion in olive oil in a pot, add minced garlic to sweat. I don't use much onion or garlic, just for flavour not for texture. This is tomato sauce, not spaghetti sauce. Add tomato and juice of the tomatoes and a bottle of white wine. There are flavour compounds in tomatoes that are only alcohol soluble. I use an inexpensive fairly flavourless pinot grigio. Add basil leaves and stems.

Simmer and reduce to desired consistency. Adjust salt to taste but remember you may reduce the sauce again if you want to make pizza sauce or whatever.

I then freeze it in 1 litre containers.

 

Coffee cake!






Very 70s. Came out good, but needed a glaze or something on top.

Powdered sugar made it look better, but the glaze is needed for dryness

 

Awesome

 

Starting to dive into some and make them. This week we've got a Quiche Lorraine (no onions, but whatever), chicken wings, stuffed mushrooms, and a few others on the docket this week and next.

But I saw this recipe for "potato balls", I thought they were going to be either fried or baked mashed potato balls of some sort - add cheese/cream, maybe. Add some chives, some salt (it's from the 70s New England so expect bland). I didn't really read the recipe until I needed to get the stuff at the store to make them.

I read the recipe......


It's just gnocchi.

 

Finally got that Quiche Lorraine successfully.
It was fine, but had a real 1970s feel. No extra salt (but plenty of bacon), no onions, no spinach, a LOT of cheese. I'd make a variety of it again, but the direct recipe - quite monotone (as @CTSpruceMica will understand )

 

Make homemade mashed buttery garlic potatos, let cool in fridge, by hand mix in shredded cheese, make balls about 2 inches in diameter, coat with bread crumbs(I like panko), lightly sprinkle with chipotle pepper flakes, place balls in buttered baking pan, 1 slice of butter on top of each potato ball, bake around 375-400° for 4-6 minutes till butter melts and bread crumbs are lightly browned, remove and spread shredded cheese on top, broil for about 2 minutes watching carefully that cheese melts and is just lightly toasted/burnt.

Enjoy.

 

Really thought these would be kind of bland and boring, but they were great. Simple, but not lackluster.





Also thought these would be kind of bland. I added a touch of salt, but these were also pretty solid for what they are and what effort they took.



Do recommend both.

With the wings, I'd say maybe try brown sugar instead of white/cane sugar, but otherwise, just send it. Pleasantly surprised by the 70s with these two.

 

Just catching up on this, great work.

gnocchi - we were taught to mix the dough while the potatoes were still warm. Also worth doing a couple of testers as you may need to adjust the consistency (more liquid or flour) before making the batch. They are great to make a large batch and then freeze by laying out individually of wax paper lined sheet pans.

wings - weird that they are brined for an hour and then marinated in soy (a brine) overnight. You could probably skip the salt water.

mushrooms - a chef remarked to me once, "mushrooms are high in potassium and require plenty of salt". No idea where their knowledge came from but I've always heeded the advice

quiche - yeah, needs flavour

Something to decide is do you stick to the bland 60's-70's recipes or do you add some herbs and spices to go with more modern tastes. I remember my mother's cooking from that time and she thought salt and pepper were exotic.

 

I am 50/50 on even putting that one in, will talk to my wife.
It's very basic.

Not going to lie - I skipped that salt water brine. I think that might have come from maybe using frozen or something. Not sure. I skipped that and just did the soy sauce/sugar/garlic marinate. I didn't do overnight but I have a chamber vacuum sealer which gets me there lickity split instead of waiting.

Interesting, I'm going to take that advice now too. I was surprised there was almost NONE in there (not sure what the breadcrumbs hold/held).

That one definitely does. BUT it was also a solid quiche, albeit dated.

I will talk to my wife about it - I think some things we might add notes on how to jazz some things up, but I think first round we have to stick to her recipes as written. Soy Sauce was pretty exotic! For some reason there's a fair amount of (American) Chinese recipes in her recipe cards.