Do You Cook?

[Arrian]

I know that, hence "what we call." What is real gulash? Educate me. And yes, I know I could google it, but I prefer not to.

-Arrian

[Imran Siddiqui]

Wiki is your friend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulash

Goulash is a hot dish, originally from Hungary, made of beef, onions, red peppers and paprika powder. Its name comes from Hungarian gulyás, from gulya "cowherd". If you want to try it in Hungary, keep in mind, that gulyás is actually a soup! The Hungarian name for Goulash is Pörkölt, which causes sometimes great confusion for tourists. There is another theory that the name originates from Turkish Kul aþý or Kul ashi meaning the "Servant Food" which the Ottoman army was serving to its soldiers during journeys in Europe.

[chequita guevara]

I cook frequently.

[Cyclotron]

I tried to make Goulash when I was in Vienna. I failed miserably to make anything like Goulash, but it was still edible with added salt, so I called it a success.

[loinburger]

I eat out about once every two or three weeks, and otherwise I cook my meals. Homemade deep dish pizza is my specialty.

[ixnay]

I love to cook. Last night I made some great orange-glazed antelope steaks with sauteed green beans.

[Zkribbler]

Re: Do You Cook?

Originally posted by Sprayber
... Since getting married ...

Hmmm, this means cooking for a woman. That means green stuff. I mean like salads and vegetables, not spoiled meat.

Easy salads: Buy a bag of the pre-packaged stuff from the supermarket and toss in a few chopped uo or cherry tomatoes. It's a lot easier than chopping up lettuce (Romaine is classier than iceberg lettuce), and other stuff.

Vegies: Learn how to use a steamer, which is a little metal thingie you put down in a pot of gently boilding water. It takes IIRC about 15 minute to steam vegies.

If you want to do mashed potatoes, etc.: but the boxed stuf and follow the directions.

There should also be a main course, but women don't really care about chunks of meat.

[loinburger]

Copy-pasted from my mom's directions:

4- 4 ½ Cups all-purpose flour

1 package yeast (rapid rising. Usually in baking section and comes in a 3 part envelope. Use one “envelope”)

½ Cup Parmesan cheese

1 ½ Cups warm water (not hot)

1 egg

2 Tablespoons cooking oil (not olive oil)

1 can pizza sauce. I have had good luck with the Contadina brand. Found by Boboli area usually.

2 large packages shredded Mozarella cheese

½ Cup Parmesan cheese

Pepperoni- prepackaged/ sliced

Fresh mushrooms, if desired

Corn meal, if desired

( For this recipe, I use 1- 13 x 9 pan, 1- 9x9 pan and 1 5x2 pan (all well greased with Crisco and then coated with cornmeal). My recipe says you can use 2 greased 12” pizza pans.) Make sure your pans fit in your oven. I have to put mine in a certain way or they won’t all fit.

**Need to prepare the pizza dough about 3 hrs ahead of time. ***

Heat your oven on warm only for about 6-7 mins and turn the oven off.

In mixer, Combine 2 cups flour, yeast and ½ cup Parmesan cheese. Stir in 1 ½ cups warm water, the egg and oil. Beat at low speed on electric mixer for ½ minute, scraping bowl. Beat 3 minutes on med high to high. Then stir in, by hand, as much remaining flour as you can mix with a spoon. On floured wax paper surface, knead in enough remaining flour to make moderately stiff dough (about 5 mins). Place in greased, oven proof bowl, turn once, cover with wax paper and a kitchen towel, folded in half. Place in the pre-warmed oven (now turned off) to let the dough rise. Make sure your towel doesn’t touch any of the heating elements….

When you are ready to bake—take dough out of the oven, then preheat oven to 400 degs.

When ready to make the crusts, make sure your pans are greased and cornmealed (if you desire—it helps the pizza to come out better when using cornmeal.) Then grease your hands and work the crust into the pans. Bake the crusts only in oven 10 minutes at 400. Take out the crusts, turn the oven down to 375, and then prepare the rest of the pizza.

Spread the pizza sauce on the crusts, followed by pepperoni, mushrooms (if desired), Parmesan cheese and mozzarella. Bake about 30 minutes but need to watch carefully as sometimes they do get done sooner. I just start checking at about 25 minutes or so.


loinburger's addendums:

If you're using cornmeal to help coat the pans, then dump some cornmeal in the greased pan, swish it around, and dump out the excess.

MAKE SURE TO GREASE YOUR HANDS when working with the crust. I ignored this part the first time I made pizza, and regretted it -- the crust is sticky as hell, and is nearly impossible to work with unless you've greased your hands.

I also use sausage as a topping. Take a pound of Bob Evans (or whatever) spicy (or whatever) sausage, wad it into little balls, cook it over the stove until brown, and drain.

I use a lot of pepperoni, which produces a lot of grease. So I toss the pepperoni in with the sausage for a couple of minutes to help de-grease the pepperoni. My friend Ginormous says that pepperoni grease makes the pizza taste better, so I mix in the cooked off grease to the pizza sauce on her pan (I always make two pans of pizza, one for me and one for Ginormous and her husband Gizmocat).

I typically use three cans of pizza sauce, and mix in a few drops of Dave's Insanity Sauce for a good time.

I also mix in a few tablespoons of garlic powder and ground ceyenne pepper when kneading the dough.

I don't know why Mom put "½ Cup Parmesan cheese" twice rather than "1 Cup Parmesan cheese" once. She's goofy about math when it comes to cooking.

The part about "make sure the towel doesn't touch the heating elements" is in there because one time Dad turned on the oven while the dough was rising, which ruined the dough and set the towel on fire.

[Zkribbler]

And for dessert: Women love loinburger.

[alva]

Originally posted by Arrian
I know that, hence "what we call." What is real gulash? Educate me. And yes, I know I could google it, but I prefer not to.

-Arrian

The more international, "loose" version of Gulash, is basically stew with some veggies ( paprika, pees, carrot, tomato).

With chips and mayo.

[Thorn]

How dare you suggest that Ming cooks babies, I'm going to report that post!!!

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Thorn
How dare you suggest that Ming cooks babies...

That doesn't sound right eating them raw, maybe, but cooking them??

[Seeker]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=146631&highlight=recipe

Linky to the old thread with my recipes...

[Sprayber]

Re: Re: Do You Cook?

Originally posted by Zkribbler


Hmmm, this means cooking for a woman.

And two kids. She does most of the cooking but I'd like to take some of the burden off.

Originally posted by Zkribbler
There should also be a main course, but women don't really care about chunks of meat.

Oh yes they do

[Fake Boris]

I do... an excellent thing to do is to make an homemade chicken stock and refrigerate a gallon or two of fresh soup... then keep the boiled chicken for sandwiches.