I’ve just made a couple of pizzas for tea, and the thought came to me that I actually prefer the home-made to the take-away (or, take-out for our US comrades) variety. I can pile them up with all sorts of goodies that your average Pizzeria just doesn’t bother with, and they come out tasting pretty bloody good!
Now I also enjoy home-made fish’n’chips, but the rotters reckon the shop-stuff is better.
One thing I’ve never been able to make is a decent hamburger. Danny’s in St. Georges Rd always wins hands-down on that.
So any thoughts on home Vs shop foods, and which one’s can be replicated or bettered, and which one’s you don’t even bother to attempt!
I’m with you on the fish and chips. My girlfriend works at the Sydney Fish Market at Pyrmont, and brings home some bloody good seafood. We make a beer batter (from a kit, the shame!), and homemade chips. Heaven. The best chips are thick, and retain the potato shape. None of this french fry nonsense.
I’m partial to a homemade pizza too, but only because I can add ridiculous amounts of olives and anchovies.
I’ve never had a go at making hamburgers. I might make that my next project. Traditional Aussie Greek milkbar ones with beetroot and egg. mmmmmm.
Home made burgers yummy!!
I always use a packet of the French onion dip mix, with some soy sauce, garlic, salt, pepper and an egg. Usually I’ll throw in some other spices. On the grill these are great.
I also like home made french fries, cut round, soaked in salt water for about an hour before frying. The deep fryer is my friend. My mother showed me how to make doughnuts at home with biscuit mix and confectioners sugar. I tell you they are better then even Krispy Kreme’s.
Pepper fried chicken, home made spaghetti sauce….
I’m getting hungry, I’ll check in later with more if I can think of any.
Home-made icecream must ALWAYS be better than store-bought (assuming it has been made in a real icecream maker of course) because there aint nothing in there but the tasty goodness that you put there. No preservatives or water or freaking seaweed of whatever just cream and a selection of favorites.
I must also say that my mother (who is a professional caterer btw) makes the best lasagne that I have ever eaten.
I would have to say home-made potato and pumpkin gnocchi is my fave… especially with my “special” chicken/cream sauce… Lots of mess to clean up, but the end result is worth it!
I don’t know what she does to them but a friend of mine makes burgers that may as well be laced with crack.
I just went from fine to drooling starving hungry in twenty seconds just thinking about them.
I think she adds some barbecue sauce she gets from her mom and spices, but they end up being lively without being overly hot … the essence of what meat is supposed to be melded into a patty and so, so good.
Deep fried potatos (chips, fries, whatever) are best from home, as are most baked goods (pies, bread…)
Well, you guys must be better cooks than my wife and I are, because very rarely do we like something we make better than the places we would get takeout from. Now granted, it’s not harder to make a burger better than Mickey D’s, but then, that’s why we don’t tend to get food from there! I’ve never been up to making a pizza, for instance, that I like as well as what we go get.
Oddly enough, though, if I expand the thought to eating out at restaraunts, I can come up with a few more examples. Meatloaf springs to mind - I have never found a meatloaf I liked at a restaurant, yet my wife’s is just fine. Lasagna - I have liked out, but our family’s is better. Spaghetti sauce - I won’t say better, but what we make at home is as good as anything out, which leaves me always unwilling to buy something as simple as spaghetti at a restaurant.
Then there are the unique things - like my wife’s Sweet and Sour Meatballs, that are not only great, but I don’t think I could find something like them out anyway.
Coming back around to the original topic, I did just think of a take-out food. My wife likes the fried rice I make better than what we can get from Chinese take-out. (Ironically, I do not - and not just because I’m the one cooking, either.)
And while we’re talking recipes here, maybe MrVisible will hand over the one for crab puffs? I’m drooling just at the name.
I make a pretty mean homemade pizza, but I don’t make it nearly as much as I used to. That’s our “Mom’s too busy to cook anything tonight, so we’ll pick something up” meal, so adding additional homemade pizzas on a regular basis just seems a bit much. Doing it yourself has the advantage of giving you control to select a variety of toppings for a household of varied, picky tastes. (Nothing but cheese, lots of cheese for the picky kids. Adding onions to just a couple of slices for me, since we never order them on bought pizza since my husband considers it the vegetable of the AntiChrist.) I’ve found that frozen bread dough, such as Bridgeford’s makes as good or better crust as any I’ve been able to come up with by scratch, especially when I use my pizza brick. My favorite non-traditional topping is kielbasa. (Try it — much better than pepperoni.)
I also do a heck of a good spaghetti with meat sauce that I’ve never seen equalled in restaurants. I rarely do ice cream, but it is something I think is generally much better than the store/restaurant versions.
Some things, though, you just needn’t waste the time on making homemade. My grandmother once found a recipe for marshmallows and wanted to try it out. It was sort of a pain, and of course, they didn’t come out pretty and uniform like the purchased kind. We all just said “Yup, tastes like marshmallows,” and henceforth bought the commercial whenever we felt the urge.
Alfredo (well maybe not in the clinical sense but close enough for me)
4-5 cloves garlic finely chopped
Red pepper flakes (to taste)
Salt and white pepper (to taste)
2 tbsp butter
2 cups heavy cream
6-8 oz of good quality parmisean grated
Pine nuts (usually 3-4 oz)
I start with about 2 tbsp of butter, melted over low heat. Then I add in pine nuts and red pepper flakes to taste and sautee for about 1-2 minutes. Then I add the garlic and sautee another 2 minutes. Then I add in the cream and increase the heat to medium. Whisk to incorporate the butter into the cream.
Here’s the tricky part, to get the consistancy just right you need to keep heating and cooling the sauce. I will let it come to a frothing simmer, remove from the heat and whisk until the froth is gone and it cools slightly then return to the heat. I usually do this about 4-5 times or so, or until it’s thick enough to coat a spoon.
Then add salt and pepper to taste.
Start adding the cheese slowly (a Tbsp or 2 at a time), whisking in between additions to incorporate. if you add it to fast it will clump or cling to the whisk. Continue until all the cheese is added and the sauce is nice and thick.
By this time I would have cooked and drained the pasta. I add the drained pasta to the sauce and toss in the pot. Then dish up onto the plates.
Typically it takes about 20-30 minutes start to finish.
This thread reminds me of sketches from Goodness Gracious Me on BBC2. “What is this pizza? Pizza, I can make at home! All I need is roti, tamattar, paneer, peeaz and… a small aubergine…”.
I make good burgers - ordinary hamburgers, minty lamb burgers and spicy burgers. I also make nice Greek meatballs. Meatballs in tomato sauce with feta cheese on the side is a favourite meal in our house.
There aren’t many good Indian restaurants near me. The “British Raj” is run by severely culinarily challenged people. The “Mithali” is quite good, but I can make better food at home.
I do fairly good risotto.
I make a decent pizza, but then so does the Italian restaurant.
My cheapo little ice cream maker helps me make lovely ice cream.
Can’t be arsed battering fish. The local fish and chip shop is perfectly good.
Guacamole I can’t stand that pastey green goo most places pass off as guacamole. The stuff we make from from fresh avacados, limes, chiles and fresh tomatoes is excellent.
Spinach quesadillas The spinach is usually bland and they don’t seperate the tough stems out as well I do.
Okay, you asked for it. This makes about 50 crab puffs. Seriously.
Crab Puffs
1 8-oz package cream cheese, room temperature
6 oz frozen crabmeat, thawed and drained
(I’ve found that about the same amount of fake Krab-like substance works better, actually).
1/2 tsp prepared horseradish
1/2 tsp dried parsley, crumbled
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp garlic salt
pepper
1 16-oz package won ton wrappers
Oil for deep frying
Combine first 6 ingredients in bowl. Season with pepper. Cover and refrigerate for 1-8 hours.
Place about 1 tsp of filling in each wrapper. Brush edges with water. Fold neatly into a cute little pouch. When you have a plate ready to go, cover it with a slightly damp paper towel to keep the won tons fresh. Do more than you think you’ll eat, and then put the rest of the filling away, for use later in the evening.
Deep fry these things in batches of four or five at 350[sup]o[/sup] until they’re golden brown, about 1 to 2 minutes. Drain on paper towels. Serve hot, with sweet & sour sauce and hot chinese mustard.
Along the same lines as crab-puffs, I do a pretty decent won ton which includes:
1/2 kg (1lb) pork mince
Bunch of spring onions
Small tin of water chestnuts
" " " bamboo shoots
Few dried shiitake mushrooms
4 cloves of minced garlic
Maybe a couple of teaspoons of chicken powder.
1 large pkt of wonton wrappers or gyoza wraps.
Mix it together, then let it sit for an hour or so to let the flavours blend.
Then about 1 tsp of mix per wrap, wrap-it-up, then bung into hot oil for as long as you reckon (don’t forget that the insides are not pre-cooked, so keep the oil not too hot or they will burn on the outside and be full of salmonella on the inside!!)
Also, you can make a great short soup in the same way, except cook the wonton in a decent chicken broth with some bok choy or whatever green veg and some extra onions for flavour. DO NOT OVERCOOK the dumplings in this way otherwise the textue of the pastry is like, um, really slimy snot.
Just a quick comment on those of you who have said that you prefer home-made pizza to that from the local take out place. I’ve noticed that none are from regions especially known for quality pizza. I’ve not been to most of those places, but living in Chicago I would be shocked if I ever made a pizza worthy of comparison to the pros.
The trick to restaruant pizza isn’t only in the ingredients, but mainly in the method of cooking using a very dry brick oven, hot even temperature and all kinds of traditional tools that the average joe would be insane to have at home.
The other items mentioned can be cooked at home with very similar tools and ingrediants to the pros, so it’s likely that a good cook could make a damn good replacement matching their tastes. Pizza however would be an exception IMHO.
Pizza is the quintisential take-out food.
As for the Pizza, I put stones in my oven (not the thin cheapo pizza stones, I use 1/2 unglazed quarry stones). I also have a peel that i use to deposit the pizza where I’d like it… i have also been known to do it outdoors on the grill using the stones.
I agree many types of take out pizza is supurb, but it also depends on the flavor you’re after. For example, I don’t claim to make a fabulous chicago style pizza, however my pizzas are more like a Bolognese or Napolese sytle, with a thinner crust, sometimes flavored only with fresh herbs, high quality olive oil and roasted garlic.
I agree I don’t have the equipment to make a deep disk or chicago style, but that’s not really my taste in pizzas anyway.
I also make soem great Thai style chicken curry, and it’s better than some takeout places, but i wouldn;t go so far as to say i could outcook a Thai cook.