Cooking Serendipity: “Just threw it together”

Cafe Society
1

Yesterday I decided to make some ribs. I made a barbecue dry rub and coated the meat, wrapped it in foil, and ended up cooking it too long (albeit at low temperature) until it was a carbonaceous lump.

Today I had a spiral sliced ham I bought post-Easter and had to use. It came with a balsamic glaze which did not appeal. So I made a chipotle dry rub and tried the foil and a much shorter cooking time. The rub mixed with the fat and with the spiral cut made every nook and cranny highly spiced. Came out amazing. Did not really sink in how deeply it would penetrate, but happy with the result.

When was the last time you just did something, cooking-wise, that worked without too much thought?

2

Looked in the freezer, found packages of chopped brussels sprouts, chopped broccoli and carrots, sweet potato fries, and sausage patties. Grabbed a handful each of the vegetables, broke the fries into small pieces, finely chopped a couple of patties. Ignored all the package instructions, just sauteed it all in some avocado oil. When it looked soft and done, broke a couple of eggs into a bowl, whisked them well scrambled, poured the eggs into the pan and stirred it all together till the eggs were just done.

It was surprisingly good.

3

I’m great in the kitchen when it comes to following a recipe. I can also improvise when needed. But my gf just starts mucking about in the kitchen, chopping and sautéing, with no endpoint in mind, and eventually we have an amazing meal. We never have that same exact meal again, but hey.

4

The wife and I do that, just name the ingredients and it’s dinner. The other night it was olive oil, onions, garlic, mushrooms, mini-farfale, lots of fresh chopped spinach, fine grated parmigiano-regianno, chopped fresh tomato - Dinner.

5

Some years back my wife and I were at the beach, and we had some odds and ends in the poorly-outfitted kitchen, plus a fresh seafood shop called My Lord and Honey Seafood just a couple blocks away. So we combined some things we had:
-Lemon peel cut with a paring knife into confetti
-Butter
-Parsley
-Linguini
-Minced garlic
-Shrimp
-Scallops
-White wine
-Black pepper
-Lemon juice
-Parmesan

Sauteeing the lemon peel and garlic to make a fragrant butter, we added the scallops and shrimp to cook, splashed in some wine and pepper and lemon juice and parsley, and mixed with linguini and parmesan.

It was divine, and it’s become one of our annual beach-trip traditions (with the addition of asparagus). I’ve seen a few recipes similar to this one, but never this exact combination. So, so good.

6

That’s nearly everything that I make.

I spent a couple years having to come up with a feature every night, usually utilizing leftovers (not cooked and/or served, but just overordered) from banquets.

I’m pretty good at looking at the ingredients on hand, and developing a flavor profile that matches my expectation, even if no one can decide what it should be called.

My Chef at the time would often look at what I had made and shake his head, making comments like, “No one has used a cream sauce like that in 400 years.” To which I replied, “I’m old school.” But the customers seemed to like it, and that’s all that really matters.

My most recent creation was when someone suggested I use the rotisserie function on my toaster oven for a pork-loin. I thought that was a good idea, but hadn’t really done that before.

So, I made an eggwash, mixed in breadcrumbs, a bunch of spices, a bit of brown mustard, and painted that on the loin as it slowly spun around. Was more work than I had anticipated, as it keep sloughing off, and I’d have to reapply to areas, but it turned out pretty good.

The other day, I had some tortellini that I wanted to cook up, but I didn’t have any pasta sauce, and I wanted it to be a bit more hearty with some meatballs. Pretty much just made up the recipe for both on the spot based on what I had on hand.

Then there are other areas, like stir fry, where pretty much anything goes. There’s almost no wrong answer, so that’s where I put all the stuff that I didn’t get around to using in other meals for the week.

I keep myself well fed and entertained, but I almost never have the same meal twice.

7

Add some capers, and that’s pretty close to shrimp piccata, sounds delicious. But you really ought to try adding some capers, if you can find them. :slight_smile:

8

That is pretty similar! I like having the zest in there, and the parmesan/lemon juice probably sub for the umami/tangy capers (my family loathes olives, the philistines, and I don’t think capers would go over any better). But yeah, the parsley/lemon/garlic/butter/pasta/shrimp piccata is really similar.

9

When I was 20-ish, I had a boyfriend coming over. I had cup of leftover cooked vegetables, one cooked chicken thigh. Made a packet of Lipton Noodle-O dry soup mix, added cut up chicken and veg, some seasonings, and with some crackers and cheese, it made a pretty good lunch for two of us. He thought I was a great cook, lol…Otherwise, it would have been off to McDonalds or somewhere.

10

That’s funny- one year one of us forgot about the glaze packet entirely, and just cooked the ham as-is. Turned out to be the best way to do it- none of that weird sweetness, just straight up ham. So that counts as serendipity!

Otherwise, my wife is a pretty good improvisational cook, while I’m more of a recipe follower, or at least prefer dishes I’ve got a handle on. So we often end up with one-off meals that are really good without really knowing how to reproduce them. Both of us can improvise a lot of things though. We can both improvise pasta sauces without much trouble, we can pan-fry stuff, we can grill stuff, etc… without a recipe.

She has made one thing enough times that it’s gone from an improvisation to a recipe; basically she’ll saute mushrooms, onions and garlic in a pan, and then make a cream sauce from there, and serve with chicken or pork over rice. It works, and it’s pretty easy.

We’ve both made a sort of Thai-esque curry enough times that we have branched out a bit. At its core, it’s a small can of curry paste and 2 cans of coconut milk, along with roughly equal proportions of fish sauce and sugar to start (I usually start with 1/3 cup of each), and adjust from there. The rest tends to be a mishmash of vegetables- onions, bell peppers and carrots are always in there, sometimes sweet potatoes, greens of some kind (kale, etc…), sugar snap peas, bok choy, potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, etc… Celery is weird though. Usually there’s chicken in there, but not always. If we don’t do chicken, we do chickpeas. (like I was saying, Thai-esque!).

That’s a lot like shrimp scampi as well. Sounds great!

11

I almost always throw stuff together rather than follow recipes, my wife says that this marks me as true chef, but in reality its more that I’m too lazy to bother to read a recipe while I’m cooking, and I like the creativity and uncertainty involved in experimentation.

My most recent concoction is something I’ve made variations of before but this time used left over ham rather than the smoked sausage I usually use.

Stir fry together
10z left over Ham chopped
1 1/2 medium onions
1 bag frozen pepper strips
2 14oz cans hominy, drained.

once its cooked drain off any excess liquid and stir in a sauce consisting of
3 parts store brand stone ground mustard
1 part cider vingar
dash of honey
dash of horse radish.

and heat a bit further and serve

12

Speaking of ribs, as the OP mentioned, just last week I posted this:

13

Maybe a decade ago I decided to make home-made vegetarian poutine (inspired by my then girlfriend’s purchasing of a bag of cheese curds).

I’d never made a gravy of any sort, or a roux, or “steak fries” baked in the oven.

It was an amazing dish. The potatoes came out perfect, and the mushroom gravy was the perfect consistency and full of flavor.

I’ve never been able to make that dish again . . . should have written down what I did.

14

That’s one of the things I hate about throwing stuff together - never being able to reproduce it if it comes out fantastic!

Last night I made “taco soup”. I made it a while ago, but this time I used poblano peppers and jalapenos, onions, frozen corn, mild green chilies, Ro-tel, and whole tomatoes I crushed by hand. First I browned the ground beef with chili powder, cumin, coriander, garlic powder, and salt and pepper. Last time I used a packet of taco seasoning, but I didn’t have any. (I should have drained the grease at this point, but I didn’t.) Throw all those ingredients in with the meat, and add beef stock and water. Awesome! Oh - I threw a few crushed tortilla chips in too - like you do for chicken tortilla soup. Served with shredded cheese and more tortilla chips. Yum!

15

Once I had some BBQed / smoked chicken from the day before and decided to make soup out of the leftovers. I cut up the chicken and added it to a soup I made of chicken stock, bell peppers, onion, celery, a can of diced tomatoes, various herbs and spices, and lime juice added at the end. Served over rice. The combo of smokiness, spiciness and acid from the lime and tomatoes was fantastic. It’s on my regular rotation of stuff to make now.

When I used to go camping in Michigan’s U.P. regularly, there was a place I’d stop at called Gustafson’s in Brevort that made the best smoked fish and jerky. I’d buy their smoked trout that came out of Lake Michigan and add it to a chowder I’d make. It was a big hit with my camp mates.