Author Topic: kitchenkonfessions  (Read 5117 times)

ian

kitchenkonfessions
« on: 27 April, 2022, 09:47:51 am »
I'm going to say it: I never remove the skins from tomatoes (or peppers) when I cook them. I don't know why people do. It's a faff and achieves nothing.

Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #1 on: 27 April, 2022, 10:13:17 am »
I add paprika to everything (except my breakfast cereal).

Cook, taste; "Hmm, it is missing something." Throw in dash of paprika. Smoked, hot, mild.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #2 on: 27 April, 2022, 01:04:35 pm »
I'm going to say it: I never remove the skins from tomatoes (or peppers) when I cook them. I don't know why people do. It's a faff and achieves nothing.
Removing tomato skins before cooking certainly achieves something for me; I identified them as a migraine trigger many years ago.
Perfectly OK with raw tomato skins, though. As for peppers, sometimes I use a blowtorch and poly bag to skin them (very satisfying!), sometimes I don't.
Depends on the recipe and whether I judge the skins to be overly tough.

Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #3 on: 27 April, 2022, 05:20:34 pm »
I'm with ian and mrcharly: except that I don't eat breakfast cereal.

Wowbagger

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Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #4 on: 27 April, 2022, 05:37:57 pm »
I have never before heard of people peeling tomatoes or peppers. I didn't know it was A Thing.
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Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #5 on: 27 April, 2022, 05:44:22 pm »
I know people who peel tomatoes because they find tomato skins irritate their stomach but I've never before heard of peeling peppers.
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Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #6 on: 27 April, 2022, 07:30:18 pm »
Tomatoes it's very much a thing if you are making a sauce, very easy, cut a cross in the bottom, pour over boiling water and peel back. I'd only peel peppers when grilling or roasting to buggery and then removing the charred skin is really the only option (before the oil and vinegar)

ian

Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #7 on: 27 April, 2022, 07:51:21 pm »
I've never noticed tomato skins to be honest. I just shovel them in, but then, as my grandma used to say it all goes down the same hole. It's defining tenet of my experiments in cookery. That and organic chemistry isn't just for the laboratory.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #8 on: 27 April, 2022, 08:46:15 pm »
I have never before heard of people peeling tomatoes or peppers. I didn't know it was A Thing.

If you buy tinned tomatoes, you might note they are peeled.

Some of D's home-grown toms have extremely tough skins. We don't peel them but I'd understand those that did.

ian

Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #9 on: 27 April, 2022, 09:18:03 pm »
I don't like tinned tomatoes, too soggy, I always use whole ones. I fear some of you are muddling tomatoes with cows. Cows, yes, should be skinned before cooking.

I am a big fan of paprika, but I don't put it in everything. Sometimes I put random spices in things just to see. Having grown up in a spice-free house has made me more exotic than a Vesta chow mein.

I am mad for MSG though, if I see someone cook anything oriental without MSG I get seriously angry and start to thrash out elaborate kitchen-based murder scenes. If you think about it – and I do – kitchens are the best place to murder anyone, everything you need to hand, the tile floors make for an easy clean up, and you can grab a drink if you get thirsty. Yes, I inadvertently bought 5kg of MSG and I plan to use it all.

Back when I was an evil genetic engineer, we would eat the results (not mice, fortunately, cress) just to see, you know, if we'd get powers.

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #10 on: 27 April, 2022, 10:32:40 pm »
I worked for some time with an Algerian guy, who told of his house back home where they had a slaughtering room for religious festivals.

Somewhat like our utility room, off the main kitchen; but without such dainties as washing machines, shelves of hiking boots and bags of bird food.
No. This room was built for one purpose.
It had a sloping floor, leading to a central drain.
Oh, a wet room shower? Not exactly...
That would be the perfect Murder Room.

But back to the here-and-now, if you need to dispose of some inconvenient kitchen waste, I have a couple of *very large* pigs at my disposal. One of them glories under the name of 'Piggy Wiggy Woo'. I shit you not.  And I'd not get in their way. They are quite blind and deaf. It's like getting mowed down by an SUV at one MPH.


Pigs - Two different ones by Ron Lowe, on Flickr


Pigs - Two different ones by Ron Lowe, on Flickr

Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #11 on: 27 April, 2022, 10:57:34 pm »
 We appear to have an intruder...

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Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #12 on: 28 April, 2022, 01:03:31 am »
Them is an æxcellent Pigs you have there, Feanor.
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rogerzilla

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Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #13 on: 28 April, 2022, 07:53:09 am »
We appear to have an intruder...
We fed him to the pigs, Errol.
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Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #14 on: 28 April, 2022, 08:26:46 am »
I don't like tinned tomatoes, too soggy, I always use whole ones. I fear some of you are muddling tomatoes with cows. Cows, yes, should be skinned before cooking.

I am a big fan of paprika, but I don't put it in everything. Sometimes I put random spices in things just to see. Having grown up in a spice-free house has made me more exotic than a Vesta chow mein.

I am mad for MSG though, if I see someone cook anything oriental without MSG I get seriously angry and start to thrash out elaborate kitchen-based murder scenes. If you think about it – and I do – kitchens are the best place to murder anyone, everything you need to hand, the tile floors make for an easy clean up, and you can grab a drink if you get thirsty. Yes, I inadvertently bought 5kg of MSG and I plan to use it all.

Back when I was an evil genetic engineer, we would eat the results (not mice, fortunately, cress) just to see, you know, if we'd get powers.

You are Uncle Roger and ICMFP
<i>Marmite slave</i>

ian

Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #15 on: 28 April, 2022, 11:01:58 am »
I'd forgotten about Uncle Roger, his takedowns of Jamie Olive-Oil still make me smile. There's no chilli jam in my house, thankfully.

He's right though, egg fried rice without MSG isn't egg fried rice. I use the stuff in the place of salt, it's awesome. People in the west don't eat it because they're structurally and architecturally racist.

Really kids, it's just an amino acid, one of the more common components of all proteins, and made in your very own body all the time. Basically, marmite is MSG paste, though this might not recommend it.

Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #16 on: 11 November, 2022, 12:09:45 am »
I'd forgotten about Uncle Roger, his takedowns of Jamie Olive-Oil still make me smile. There's no chilli jam in my house, thankfully.

He's right though, egg fried rice without MSG isn't egg fried rice. I use the stuff in the place of salt, it's awesome. People in the west don't eat it because they're structurally and architecturally racist.

Really kids, it's just an amino acid, one of the more common components of all proteins, and made in your very own body all the time. Basically, marmite is MSG paste, though this might not recommend it.

I found my bag of MSG that I've had for about 25 years the other day. First time I've seen it in about 15(?) years. I've managed sufficiently well with soy sauce since then that I can't see me opening it up any time soon.

"But. Actually. Soy sauce naturally contains blah blah blah..."*

Yes. I know. I'm not morally opposed to it, I just haven't been using it in isolated form for a fair old while now.

*Sorry, but there's always a chance somebody will mention it...

hellymedic

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Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #17 on: 11 November, 2022, 12:48:10 am »
I have never before heard of people peeling tomatoes or peppers. I didn't know it was A Thing.

I think you will find your tinned tomatoes are peeled, assuming you partake of this food cupboard staple…

ETA: I couldn't remember my post upthread till I saw it...

T42

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Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #18 on: 11 November, 2022, 08:30:17 am »
Peppers: we never peel them, but zapping leftovers in the microwave* detaches the bits of skin, which come out like plastic.

Tomatoes: don't much like them but use the 3x concentrate for chilli etc., which I make about once every 10 years.  My papa used to pour boiling water over them then pluck off the skin to the tune of my dear mama going "don't burn yourself", to which he'd reply "scald".

MSG: never bothered to look for it, but fish sauce and soy sauce go into just about everything.  You haven't lived until you've eaten a chocolate chip cookie with nuoc mam**.

Root ginger: I used to peel it on principle, then stopped because "it won't hurt you". Now I've started again after watching a vid about growing your own because the chappie said that before planting you need to do X to it to remove the coating that makes it last in supermarkets. Ah so...


* my son used to have some story about a guy who tried microwaving potato crisps. Apparently to get the best result you need to stand them up on edge in bits of Blu Tac.

** don't.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

ian

Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #19 on: 11 November, 2022, 09:22:02 am »
The MSG thing is mostly down to people who cook oriental style food and leave out all the bits that would make it vaguely oriental. Oh, I don't like fish sauce. Etc. Here, I've cooked a curry, but left out all the spices.

The western aversion to MSG has a bizarre, if fascinating, history. But anyway, anything savoury or umami is that, through the most part, because glutamic acid.

I do scrape the skin off ginger though. I don't grate it, it's a faff, I just go a bit mental with a knife.

T42

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Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #20 on: 11 November, 2022, 09:43:27 am »
I just checked the labels on our most-often-used sauces: nary a hint of MSG except on the Maggi, which only exists to add MSG to stuff. Trouble is, it's got lots of other stuff and I don't want my ginger prawns to taste like a Swiss salad.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

ian

Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #21 on: 11 November, 2022, 10:41:24 am »
They don't need to add MSG, most savoury/umami sauces are effectively loaded with it anyway. A 100g tub of Marmite is 1.7g glutamate (MSG is just the sodium salt of glutamic acid) – soy and fish sauce has a similar level. The more mature your cheese, the more glutamate you will have. Seasonings like sazón in Latin America are typically salt, annatto, cumin, coriander and garlic, and MSG (it's also the only way to make a good taco).

The powder tends to be used a bit like salt (and contains less sodium than salt) in Asia, it's often labelled something like 'gourmet powder' in Chinese supermarkets. A small sprinkle in casseroles and pasta sauces etc. really does enhance (similar to a dash of Worcester sauce, also full of glutamate, from the anchovies).

(Of course, it is used a lot in manufactured and processed convenience foods as a cheap flavour enhancer, but it's not the MSG that the problem there.)

Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #22 on: 11 November, 2022, 03:54:23 pm »
(Of course, it is used a lot in manufactured and processed convenience foods as a cheap flavour enhancer, but it's not the MSG that the problem there.)

Youngest used to have a right constant moan about us not buying food with MSG in it "What's wrong with MSG?"

His mum's answer was pretty much what you said above. The MSG is added because the rest of the ingredients are crap.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

ian

Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #23 on: 11 November, 2022, 08:43:52 pm »
We have a vegan friend who is 'sensitive to MSG' (to be fair, she's sensitive to everything) though she tips those vegan yeast flakes (sounds so wrong) over everything.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: kitchenkonfessions
« Reply #24 on: 11 November, 2022, 09:03:45 pm »
'Chinese Restaurant Syndrome' was A Thing in the past. Its existence has been debated by some...