kleph's kitchen

[kleph]

one little project that has taken up a good bit of my time of late is assembling a spot for my recipes on the web.

this is less for posterity than a way to have them easily available when i head back to south america. the ZGeek cooking show is a great resource but it has gotten a bit unwieldy.

so, if you are interested, you can them over at kleph's kitchen (http://www.kleph.com/cook/). i welcome comments and suggestions on the recipes - either here or on the blog - since i have gotten a lot of inspiration from you guys in the past.

[SOC]

very cool indeed, mate. i shall certainly contribute when i get a spare minute or two.

[oggy]

Barbecued Baby Back Ribs

man `o` man they sound yummy scrumptious eat `em all up...sounds like a process and half but sure the meat would just fall off the bone...

i used to cook 3 x 3kg roasts every sunday in the hooded BBQ, using the indirect heat technic, having outside burners running and placing roasts in roasting dish in centre of BBQ, no added flavours or herbs, 5 1/2 hours at low temp, meat would fall apart, and the juices made the best gravy

i`ll have a look around the site...cheers!

[kleph]

that rib recipe, as well as most of the recipes i have posted so far, are taken from my posts in the ZGeek Cooking Show thread (http://forum.zgeek.com/showthread.php?t=5061). the cookbook reviews are new but clearly inspired by the do you use any cookbooks? (http://forum.zgeek.com/showthread.php?t=44979) thread.

pretty much from here on out it will be stuff that i have yet to post in the food forum. i have about three weeks of stuff ready to post and another three planned after that. but, pretty much at that point i need to find new stuff to include.

[sagit]

It seems to be missing an essential recipe. Gumbo.

[kleph]

no it isn't (http://www.kleph.com/cook/2006/01/grandmother-schexnayders-gumbo.html).

it only has the past week of posts on the front page. you need to look in the archive (http://www.kleph.com/cook/archive/2006_01_01_archive.html). there is a recipe a day for the past month.

[Marshall77]

I started going through the zgeek cooking show and making a data base for it. Its is getting very messy.

the site looks good. I like the little comments that you have with the recipes.

[kleph]

my first attempt at a multi-media entry using a suitably epic subject - how to boil crawfish.

LITTLE CREATURES DIE AT MY WHIM! (http://www.kleph.com/cook/)

[Mr Bigglesworth]

wheres the bowl of pot please? you just came back from South America, dont feign ignorance. just fess up.

I need to sample some :P

[Canalien]

now THAT is a pot. fucking sexy.

i'm getting me one of them.

next time you're in Australia kleph, you'll have to get hooked up with some freshwater Yabbys (australian crayfish - Cherax destructor) and try that recipe

[kleph]

wheres the bowl of pot please? you just came back from South America, dont feign ignorance. just fess up.

I need to sample some :P

pot is common in mexico but it is the fruit of the coca plant that prevades across the continent. but i have been stateside for about three months. as i said above, this is my way of taking this fount of information with me.

that's my brothers turkey-frying pot which doubles as a crawfish boiler. now if you saw my 40-quart pot of justice you would really be impressed.

[Canalien]

interesting... i've heard of deep frying whole-poultry cajun style. never had the opportunity to try it let alone make it. i can imagine you'd spend a fortune on oil.
you have to leave the cavity hollow right? as in, no stuffing?

[kleph]

i plan to have a post on this in the future but yes, you leave the cavity empty.

most folks automatically think KFC when you say "fried" in connection with poultry but that is completely incorrect. it literally seals the skin of the bird keeping all the moisture in. the skin is delectably rich but the meat holds no oil at all.

[Canalien]

yeah, I used to be really skeptical of deep frying food, and had a couple particularly bad experiences trying it without really knowing how to do it properly (i literally set the kitchen on fire and burned the hell out of my hand), that, and the association of deep frying with nasty nasty cheap fast food stuffs kind of put me off it. it was my determination to make home made french fries properly (and not in the oven) that put me back onto it. once I researched it and learned a bit about it, i found that it's actually a really clever way to cook food fast and thoroughly... and if you do it properly, with an absolute MINIMUM of saturated fat retained in the food. as you said, when you do it right, the food seals instantly and steams itself from the inside quite quickly, resulting and very tasty and tender foods... might just haved to start a deep fry thread.

[kleph]

choosing the right oil is a critical part of frying. while there is much hullabaloo over saturated and unsaturated fats, the more important factor is how well it holds heat. (put oil in a saute pan over a high heat and it will start to smoke. well, different oils will take different amounts of time to do this)

if a food sits needlessly in oil for too long it absorbs more than necessary - including all the crappy nutrition problems. you want the oil that is right for the dish you are cooking.

olive oil is great for things cooked at high heat very quickly but sucks for any type of deep frying. peanut oil, on the other hand, can be overwhelming as an oil for sauteing up some veggies but is perfect for dropping a turkey in for an hour.

[Canalien]

Yep.

check out the new Deep Frying (http://forum.zgeek.com/showthread.php?t=47194) thread for more useful info.

[kleph]

two new recipes on my cooking blog (http://www.kleph.com/cook/) that folks might find of interest.

the first is homemade strawberry jam (http://www.kleph.com/cook/2006/02/strawberry-jam.html). if you can get some of the older squishy strawberries for cheap at the market - do it. these are perfect for this little enterprise.

i had this recipe up for awhile but i added pictures today to show folks what it should look like when it is cooking. the trick is simply knowing when it is done.

the other is my smoky salsa (http://www.kleph.com/cook/2006/02/smoky-pico-de-gallo.html). or, more correctly, pico de gallo. (which i am posting a day early since i will be travelling tomorrow).

the idea here is simply to grill all the ingredients before making the recipe like normal. if you have the grill out one afternoon, give it a try. it's pretty simple and may open your eyes to the wonderful world of grilled veggies.

[kleph]

well, with about 90 entries on the blog i got tired of searching for the specific recipes when i wanted to find 'em. so i broke down and created a recipe index (http://www.kleph.com/cook/2006/01/recipe-index.html) for the whole blasted thing.

i put the blogger search engine back on the thing but, i have to be honest, i have not been very satisfied with it. i expected more from google than what you get with this thing.

anyhow, for those interested in what i like to cook, it is a bit easier to navagate through the chaos now.

[kleph]

interesting... i've heard of deep frying whole-poultry cajun style. never had the opportunity to try it let alone make it. i can imagine you'd spend a fortune on oil.
you have to leave the cavity hollow right? as in, no stuffing?

you will be happy to know, i have posted my turkey frying recipe (http://www.kleph.com/cook/2006/03/fried-turkey.html) this week. don't forget to check out the entries on marinades (http://www.kleph.com/cook/2006/03/coats-and-marinades.html) and biscuits (http://www.kleph.com/cook/2006/03/deep-fried-biscuits.html).

[kleph]

DON'T GIVE UP ON SUMMER QUITE YET!

there is still a warm weekend or two left to try...

BEER CAN CHICKEN (http://www.kleph.com/cook/2006/03/beer-can-chicken.html)!

[stinky]

I heartily endorse the cooking of the beer can chicken!

[kleph]

alright, i am finally taking the plunge and trying to figure out how to cook peruvian-style. i did a pretty comprehensive outtake on this budding effort over on my main blog (http://www.kleph.com/blog/) but you can now find peruvian cuisine (http://www.kleph.com/cook/2006/01/recipe-index.html) in my recipe index. today's entry is tacu tacu (http://www.kleph.com/cook/) and it is simply awesome when done right (and fun to say when you are drunk).

if you like experimenting in the kitchen, i urge you to take a look. there are a lot of interesting approaches taken in the peruvian kitchen that you can adapt to your own cooking efforts.

i plan to include a bunch of soups and stews in anticipation of winter so keep checking in over the next few weeks.

[kleph]

i have just finished a pretty extensive overhaul of kleph's kitchen (http://www.kleph.com/cook/) that you might want to check out if you are interested in my cooking exploits. (yeah, i posted this yesterday but had to take it down due to additional problems with the update but it should all be sorted now.)

i had to take action because the sheer number of recipes had finally made it way to unwieldy and, honestly, i was sick of the butt-ugly blogger template i had been using. so i changed to a format that is a little easier on the eyes, i have added a decent search engine so it is easier to find specific recipes; moved the index to a separate blog so it is better organized (that's more for me, of course).

and, for those of you interested in following my exploits but don't want to visit me all the time, i have installed an rss feed. i believe it is working now but i have been having problems with it including feeds from my main blog (which i also overhauled)

a tip of the cook's hat to blueboy and spingo for helping my unl-1337 ass set the bastard up. please give a gander and let me know if there are any problems you can find like screwed up links and the usual nonsense.

[sagit]

how'd the pavlova go?

[kleph]

i won't be able to cook it till i go back stateside.