Oh man I forgot to add to what Potterywalrus said upthread. the traditional fruit mix was/is: raisins, sultanas, dried currants, mixed candied peel (orange and lemon), and glacé cherries, coated in mixed spice and probably some ground almonds.
Huh, that sounds like it could be pretty damn excellent tbh. I'm not sure what the fruit mix in ours is (I've never bothered to look at the ingredients), but I should note that it doesn't really taste like Normal Fruit imo? Like I said, it seems to be jellied, but it's done in such a way that it's nigh impossible to tell what fruit it may have originally been.
Was watching anime earlier then took a break to devote full attention to a plate of chicken tikka masala, and this got me thinking of the conceptual relation between that dish (a British adaption of Indian food) and Japanese curry (a Japanese adaption of a postwar British adaption of Indian food). And now I'm contemplating, like...the possibility here of, what if you made up the sweet, cream and tomato based tikka masala sauce, but instead of cooking chunks of meat or paneer in it you served it like a Japanese katsu curry, poured over a deepfried breaded chicken or pork cutlet that itself is on top of rice? Maybe with some pickles on the side...
I had fries for dinner tonight, which made me wonder: who else here eats their fries with apple sauce? I don't always do it, but I love it when I do. It's also delicious with both apple sauce and mayonaise and then combined :D
My first reflex is 'none, max one' because ime, soup-making ingredidnts are boiled until all the flavour left them....so the second soup would be worse. Related: i wanna Start saving scraps to make stock with In everyone's experience, which scraps are worth saving and how long does the resulting stock last (or should i just freeze what i don't use?)
I'm doing it because it helps with Food Waste Anxiety more than out of cooking expertise, so take my taste with a grain of salt, but I pretty much just toss anything I cut off meat or vegetables that looks like it has some flavor/nutrition on it into the freezer bucket. Carrot ends, celery leaves, broccoli stems that I'm too lazy to peel, bits of tomatoes that got bruised, chicken bones and fat, green onions that are past the sell-by date and starting to shrivel up, whatever. I usually just freeze it until I need it.
I'm gonna go with TheOwlet on this and say that one large bone should make enough for one huge fuckoff pan of stock which can be portioned as appropriate (freeze it! It freezes really well.) Most of the veggie peelings I have goes for compost, but if I've got any sad, wilted veggies those can go in the stock. Most root vegetables are pretty good for ages, and you can dissect any sprouting onions and discard green bits. Carrot greens make an especially nice soup, very herb-y.
I chuck em cause personally I don't like how they taste (too bitter for my palate and it causes me stomach probs) but sure, if you can happily use them, do! I don't eat spring onions/scallions for similar reasons.
belatedly re: fruitcake but wth is a sultana, and what fruit was it before it got dried, I have wondered this for ages
golden raisins, sometimes treated with a special oil before drying; usually made from the Sultana grape cultivar
oh weird... I have what I'd consider 'typical' small, dark brown raisins that are labelled Thompson (apparently the usual sultana cultivar) in the cupboard; but, also, golden raisins oh no
Oh no if I'm making *stock* the bone gets discarded after, but that cooks for many hours and often my soups cook for like. Ninety minutes or so, sorry for confusion. Any bone and all cartilage from meat, chicken skin, the less strong tasting bits of offal if you get them, onion skins and ends, celery leaves and ends, root veg peelings, any gross looking but still sound bits you cut off from veg, mushroom stems if you cut them off. I'm not a big fan of broccoli in my soups so I just stir fry the stems but I will sometimes rinse and save the outer cabbage leaves depending on my needs. Most of these things do not keep well, so I normally have a freezer safe Tupperware with soup scraps that I pull out, open, and chuck in when I have extra veg bits. Soup bones being the exception; I'll keep a ham bone in the fridge for two or three weeks and not worry about it. Edit: as for the stock I would say honestly it depends on how much it gels up in the fridge. If it turns basically into jello you're Gucci for like three weeks. If it just has some on the top I would say like a week, then freeze it
i was thinking, could i also use the leftovers from my fish? I like to bake mine in foil, and usually it's a whole fish so i end up having the head, tail, fains and all the bones and i was wondering if a decent fish stock would be possible out of that?
Yes! Fish bones and heads will give you a nice stock. I wouldn't use fins, there's not much value to them. Clean out or remove the gills before using a fish head, they make it bitter. Also only use white fish for stock - oily fish (mackerel, tuna, salmon - all the usual pelagic fish) bones will make the stock greasy. Be careful using already roasted fish bones, though - they might be prone to disintegrating if cooked again, which will make your stock gritty. Fennel is very good for fish stock. Fennel + fish is a good match.
