The "Reccomend good ingredients" thread

Cafe Society
21

Offhand, the only canned vegetables that are worth eating are tomatoes (which are often better than fresh varieties you find in the store, unless you are in season.)

Well, for stir fries, I love buying fermented black bean paste. The stuff I buy is simply sold as “Black Bean Garlic Sauce.” A teaspoon or three in your stir fry will liven things up a lot. It’s awesome, awesome stuff.

Now, during the summer my favorite light, Asian-type stir-fry consists of the following: A pound of Meat (usually chicken or pork), shallots or red onions, garlic, a fistful or two of basil, Thai green chiles or serranos, and fish sauce. (Another variation substitutes an inch of chopped ginger for the basil and adds the juice of two limes). Fish sauce is a bit of an acquired taste, I suppose, but it works wonders for that authentic Thai taste. Shrimp paste helps as well.

Continuing on the Thai thing, you can always get yourself a tub of curry paste: green, red, yellow, mussaman, panang, etc. Just follow the directions on the side of the container. All you need is coconut milk, meat, and paste to make yourself a curry. I also add some fresh ingredients (lemongrass, Thai chiles, garlic, extra fish sauce, Kaffir lime leaves, etc.) to “freshen” things up a bit. Another great use for curry paste is soup. Take a pot of chicken broth, add red curry paste to taste, squeeze in some fresh lime, chopped scallions, noodles, etc., and voila.

Also, if you like spicy stuff, look for any of a zillion different chile-garlic pastes in the Asian grocery. I always love to have these on hand. The best one I’ve ever had–and I don’t remember the brand–was a blend of chiles, garlic, and peanuts. Fantastic.

As for recommending individual herbs and spices, it’s a little more difficult. What kind of dishes are you used to making? For example, I love making my own Indian curries, so I’ll stock up on coriander, cumin, cardamom, perhaps some fenugreek, etc. I always like to have some fennel on hand, too, a flavor I find goes exceedingly well with pork, fish, and certain tomato sauces.

But, other than when I make rib rubs, or Indian/Southeast Asian curries, I don’t use a hell of a lot of spices in my cooking. Most of my flavors come from fresh herbs. In that respect, cilantro, basil, thyme, and mint, are what I use most in my cooking.

22

Sorry for the late response here, and thank you for your in depth answer.

I have never tried canned tomatoes as a substitue for fresh ones. But then, I usually use tomatoes for sammiches and salds. I’ve never made my own pasta sauces or even made too many dishes from scratch. You see, I just moved out of my mom’s house and am trying to teach myself how to cook.

Is the black bean garlic sauce spicy? If not I’ll pick up some of it tommorrow assuming the Asian grocery down the street carries it. I’m not a big fan of the spicy stuff.

Fish sauce doesn’t really sound like something I’d enjoy. I’m trying to aquire a taste for seafood, but fish sauce sounds pretty…umm…advanced, for a seafood newbie like me. The rest of the recipe sounds tasty though. I’m getting hungry for stir fry just rereading it.

Again, I’m not really used to making any dishes more complicated than a steak with fried mushrooms and onions and other simple things. I’m trying to teach myself how to prepare a large variety of different meals.

Herbs are another thing me and my roomies need to star collecting. We only have oregeno. I don’t even think I can describe what those other herbs sound like. How sad is that?

23

If you’re going to be cooking with tomatoes you must have basil, take my word for it.

Try making your own chili. That’s a step up from grilled steaks, but not too hard. You’l; need cumin, salt, pepper, garlic, and chili powder. There’s a lot of variation in the latter, though, so you may have to experiment there, until you find one you like.

If you do any dressing or poultry stuffing, you’ll need sage.

24

an easy recipie
1 (or more) loaf of french bread, not that skinny stuff.
fresh Garlic
Sundried tomatoes (the kind in olive oil)
olive oil.
dump everything but the bread in a blender and go to town

(for one loaf of bread, about 1-2 cups oil, 4-6 tomatoe halves and garlic to taste {6-10 cloves?})

slice bread legnthwise and spread the paste on with a brush (like a paint brush, a basteing brush wont work)
pop it in the preheated oven on bake for a couple minutes (3-5 depending)
the switch oven to broil
remove when oil is boiling and steaming.

place halves back together and cut into servable size pieces and enjoy.

I came up with this recipie when my dairy intolerance made Garlic bread a thing of the past.

for extra fun (and expense) try a tomatoe pesto instead of the sundried.
for extra zip add some olive oil infused with crushed red peppers.

goes great with damn near anything…well anything that could use a side of bread anyway

25

I find jars of pre crushed garlic and ginger to be worth keeping in the fridge. And the pre-made Marco Pollo meat lasagnia and pasta dishes are very good value if you buy them on special offer.

26

I found some at World Market the other day, if you have one of those nearby.

27

Look for Mole Sauce paste in the Mexican food section; I like Doña Maria brand, but there are other brands that are just as good. Mole sauce is a fantastic condiment made with mild red chiles, chocolate, nuts and spices ground into a paste. Chicken Mole is very simple, fool proof and tastes delicious, not too spicy but very rich and flavorful. All you do is brown some diced chicken (about two boneless breasts) with some diced onions (hlf a large onion) and add one can of chicken broth. Add four table spoons of mole paste, and stir until it thickens (only a couple of minutes}; add more if you like it thicker. Simmer for 20 minutes on low heat, and serve over spanish rice (I like Near East brand). ¡Muy Sabrosa!

28

Whip-It is pretty freaking cool. I added it to some pudding made with heavy whipping cream and on a bed of crushed ginger cookies, and it was awesome. So thick I could cut it with a knife. Probably the richest, most thickest pudding you could ever dream of making. Me and my roomates loved it.

Baker sent me some packets, but I think they were lost in the mail, so I decided to check out the alternative source to purchase it. The World Market is about a forty minute drive away from me, so when I was nearby on account of my brother I jumped on the chance to check it out and buy some Whip-It. Amazing place; it’s like a Pier 1 Imports with food. The first time I went I bought about $5 worth of stuff for my self, the second time I was there with my sister for her ($30) birthday shopping spree sponsered by me. We spent an hour just looking around at all the cool stuff. I plan on going back to buy a grill :cool: .

Thanks Baker for the reccomendation. I might not have gotten it from you through the mail, but I wouldn’t have heard of it without you.

29

OMG, I forgot to send it to you, and I promised. I feel like a scumbag. Please accept my apologies, I even had your address and everything. I’m glad you like it but I wish I had mailed it to you myself.

30

Crystal hot sauce. It’s an order of magnitude better than it’s more famous Cajun cousin Tobasco. Seriously. It’s also not one of those ‘hot for the sake of being hot’ hot sauces. Just good Cajun flavored hot sauce that goes well with just about everything.

31

When I found the Whip-It at World Market, I also found a neat little pan there on sale. It’s sort of like a wok, but it has large holes in the bottom. I use it on top of the grills to grill veggies. It’s wonderful.

32

Don’t worry about it. I had fun discovering The World Market.
Since I started this thread Makoto has released a new dressing, the Honey Ginger dressing. It tastes how it sounds, gingery, sweet, and with the flavor of honey. Nothing too new for those who eat out. It goes pretty well on salad, but it’s dynamite on steak. I ran out of my first bottle within a week and then picked up two the next time I went shopping. I have yet to try it on chicken breast, but I’m willing to bet it goes even better on that than it does on steak.

33

Tiger Sauce. This stuff is marvelous. It makes just about anything better. I add it to soups, meats, beans, vegetables…the list is endless.

34

Ease up.

  1. If those are home-grown and home-canned veggies, more power to the poster.

  2. You have to take space-time into consideration. I recall reading years ago about some woman whose recipe contest submission had been marked down because of her use of Kool-Whip. She lived in BugTussle, Wyoming, where the nearest store was 50 miles away, and didn’t have the luxury of using real cream in her recipe.

  3. Some canned/frozen stuff is Good Eats™. Canned green beans beat frozen, IMHO. Canned tomatoes beat store-bought fresh ones hands down. Canned and frozen corn is perfectly fine for the 40+ weeks per year that fresh is not available.

I could go on, but I hope you see that canned stuff can, in fact, be good.

35

It is all your fault, Chefguy, that I went to Penzey’s yesterday and walked out with Baking Spice (which smells heavenly, by the way) and five other items, including ground Ancho Chili Pepper and Ceylon Cinnamon (not the same cinnamon that you get at the grocery; I like it better). :slight_smile:

The only canned vegetables I buy are tomatoes, vacuum packed corn, and all kinds of beans. My secret ingredient is Sazón, a Carribean (I know it from my Puerto Rican friends) spice and herb blend that is used in all kinds of dishes. Warning: if you’re sensitive to MSG, most brands contain it. I have a box of Badia in my cupboard that says it doesn’t. I don’t really notice a difference.

My favorite dish to make with Sazón is Arroz con Gandules, which is basically rice cooked with pigeon peas and a bit of tomato sauce, bacon, green pepper, cilantro and onion. There are lots of variations on this with additional meat and slightly different herb and spice combinations. You can also substitute other types of beans for the pigeon peas. This makes a good, filling, cheap meal.

GT

36

I was with you up to hear. Canned tomatoes, yes, but only when tomatoes are out of season and only greenhouse varieties are available at the store. And canned green beans? Yuck. Yuckyuckyuckyuckyuck.

37

Canned green beans good? Better than frozen? Gah? Home canned veggies excluded, I stand by my original statement. Fresh is best, frozen is better, canned is crap (except tomatoes, which I covered in my first reply to this thread).

I will agree that the canned corn that has less liquid in it (I forget what it’s called) isn’t half bad. I’d still take fresh or frozen over it, though.

38

Fish sauce smells awful, but basically just provides the salty savory note to most South East Asian cooking - like Thai and Vietnamese. It’s kind of used in place of Soy Sauce which is more Chinese in origin. I’m not huge on fish, but love it to cook with. I use Golden Boy brand, which you should be able to find in an Asian supermarket. Also suggestion - if you are new to ‘challenging’ your taste buds, try things you don’t think you’ll like - you may be surprised - may even take a couple of times, but it’s well worth doing.

Here’s my favourite food magazine called Cuisine - it’s a New Zealand one, but look around the site and it should give you some ideas if you are new to cooking but interested in more than just ramen noodles! This link is to a page called “What to do with…Fish Sauce” - and there are similar pages for my other must have store cupboard ingredients like pesto , pomegranate molasses and smoked paprika .

If you can’t afford fresh vegies, go with frozen - freezing soon after picking in many cases makes these better for you and they won’t go off so quickly. Canned beans, tomatoes etc are fine though.

39

There are both Chinese stuff, and I don’t know their English names, but…

Fish-flavored meat shreds. It looks like very finely divided beef jerky, and has a nice aroma and goes well with white rice. Chinese name: rou(4) shi(1) (parentheses=tone)

Xiang(1) cai(4): A plant that looks a bit like scallions, but thinner. When stir-fried, it has a great flavor, but it’s bland if steamed or boiled. Literally means “aromatic vegetable”.

40

Wow, it blows my mind that there are places that don’t have German food sections. I’ve grown up with Oetker, Haribo*, Ritter, etc. Of course, being half German, I guess I have a bit of a bias there, heh.