The Hezzlington Cooking Blog - A student that eats like a King

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Reply 80

user73867

Looks delicious!

I tried out that high protein Icelandic yoghurt for breakfast this morning. It was excellent!

Reply 81

hezzlington

Original post by Supersaps

Looks delicious!

I tried out that high protein Icelandic yoghurt for breakfast this morning. It was excellent!

Wait for the duck tonight mate, everything so far has been studenty and exceptionally easy!

Yeah? I'm having mine for desert this evening, going to mix in some honey, blueberries and strawberries.

Did you have it raw? I just imagine it to taste like paint

Reply 82

user73867

Original post by hezzlington

Ahaha, no it doesn't taste like paint. It's lovely.

Reply 83

IFoundWonderland

Original post by hezzlington

This with either walnuts or almonds too :coma:

Reply 84

hezzlington

Sorry guys, the duck won't be made tonight. I went shopping for all the ingredients and visited 4 different shops and still couldn't find one of the most essential ingredients which I'm guessing I'll only find at an Asian supermarket (I'm making a 5-spice marinade, can you guess what the ingredient is?) luckily there are tons where I live so it won't be a problem, but will have to wait till tomorrow!

Reply 85

user73867

Original post by hezzlington

I'll be looking forward to it, sir!

Reply 86

SmashConcept

Dope sandwich, have you ever reverse seared steak?

Reply 87

hezzlington

Original post by SmashConcept

Dope sandwich, have you ever reverse seared steak?

The steak in the picture looks really weird for some reason and it doesn't look evenly cooked :frown:

But no, I don't see the need. (It's putting it in the oven first, right?)

Reply 88

SmashConcept

Original post by jenigma

I have an idea. Do you have a recipe to make instant noodles better?

Hijacking OP's thread but this is more my domain since I eat instant noodles most days and have a life philosophy of never cooking for more than 45 minutes a week unless it's a special occasion or I'm guaranteed to get laid (aka a really special occasion).

All things I have done to make instant noodles better

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2 packets of noodles and two tins of tuna make a great meal. More protein = more better

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Add an egg to your noodles. this even works with pot noodles. Just kinda mash it up a bit and let it cook in the hot water while the noodles break up. This is perfectly safe probably.

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Tabasco sauce. The bottle prevents you from pouring too much so so basically just turn that **** upside down and let it drip onto your noodles until you're bored. This can be combined with either of the above

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Chopped mushrooms. Chop them fine enough so that they cook just by pouring hot water on them. Instant mushrooms! You don't want to waste valuable TSR time in the kitchen so a little time investment goes a long way. don't chop your finger!

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Any kind of cold meat. I like to make a load of chicken or pork or whatever at the beginning of the week and just mix it with my noodles as the week goes on. These kinds of meats keep for ages so no worries on that front. Put salt on them if you're scared of a little bacteria.

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Soy sauce. Same technique as tabasco but you'll seem more cultured. Get the dark one to take advantage of the placebo effect by making your noodles look less like instant noodles.

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Invest in the Golden Wonder brand noodles. They're more expensive than the basics ones but they're also better and the pouches are tastier too. On the downside you need to microwave them after pouring in the hot water so they're not as convenient.

Bonus round: something I haven't done yet but plan on trying:

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Buy MSG powder. People will tell you this isn't healthy or that you're not running a Chinese restaurant or whatever. They are stupid pussies IMO and that's a fact. MSG is literally just flavour powder with some bonus sodium so go nuts with this.

Reply 89

SmashConcept

Original post by hezzlington

The steak in the picture looks really weird for some reason and it doesn't look evenly cooked :frown:

But no, I don't see the need. (It's putting it in the oven first, right?)

Yeah, I found it makes it way more tender and evenly heated. I struggle to cook steak rare enough that I like it without that method.

Reply 90

SophieSmall

Original post by hezzlington

5 spice by any chance :tongue:

Got some in my cupboard (and by my cupboard I mean by housemates cupboard because I'm a spice thieving fiend). It's from asda.

Reply 91

hezzlington

Just got this absolute beauty. 30 day dry-aged sirloin, although I should of got the rib-eye, it looked amazing and I've already had sirloin this week.

If you compare this image to the sirloin from the first post, you'll notice more marbling (veins of intramuscular fat throughout the steak). I think this is Angus.

Ageing meat changes the flavour as well as the structure of the meat. The meat is more tender due to breakdown of proteins/fat.sugars. Dry ageing however, is much harder to find. Your 'aged' meats in supermarket will typically be wet aged.

Dry ageing is when the meat is stored in a sealed room where parameters such as humidity, air movement and temperature are constantly monitored and adjusted to provide the optimum environment for the enzymes that break down the flavourless proteins/fats etc to do their magic. It also helps prevent spoilage/bacteria growth. Obviously this requires pretty sophisticated technology, and the dry age process causes water loss and therefore makes the meat shrink, so it's not cost effective for producers as meat is priced by weight.

However, dry-ageing is still the superior method of ageing, the flavour profile is vastly different to normal/even wet-aged meats. It's concentrated, and I suppose more nutty??

Another sandwich it is!

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 92

hezzlington

Original post by SophieSmall

5 spice by any chance :tongue:

Got some in my cupboard (and by my cupboard I mean by housemates cupboard because I'm a spice thieving fiend). It's from asda.

I'm making my own 5 spice. I could just buy the Asda one but I'll do it from scratch. I have 4 of the spices. Asda used to stock this ingredient, but for some ****ing reason they don't have it anymore!

Reply 93

hezzlington

Original post by SmashConcept

Yeah, I found it makes it way more tender and evenly heated. I struggle to cook steak rare enough that I like it without that method.

Best way of cooking steak I find is a really, really hot pan. Leave the steak out for 20 mins to get to room temp, then season and quickly put it in the pan with oil. Only season just before it goes in otherwise it draws out the moisture again and makes it wet.

I'd say flip as often as 15 seconds for 1.5 minutes. The constant flipping provides pulses of heat and you should end up with a nice seared outside and rare inside.

Reply 94

SophieSmall

Original post by hezzlington

What's the last spice they don't stock?

Reply 95

undercxver

Original post by Zuki

I don't make tea :cry2:

I've seen your rotis :colone:

They're definitely round

:colone:

Dbi and stop derailing the thread. :mob:

Reply 96

hezzlington

Original post by SophieSmall

What's the last spice they don't stock?

Schezwan peppercorn

Reply 97

SophieSmall

Original post by hezzlington

Schezwan peppercorn

ahh, I don't have that one.
Yeah asian supermarket is probably your best bet. My favourite one is Sida by the hospital.

Reply 98

hezzlington

Update

First, the bad news. I'm in Birmingham saturday so I don't have time this weekend to do the Nasi Goreng and sausage rolls. It will have to wait till next weekend. However, I will be doing the alcoholic wine gums which require some ingredients I've never worked with before (I haven't made them, so who knows how they'll turn out!) I'm quite excited as it's a pretty unique task.

I cook a lot of pork belly. It's fatty, it's (well it used to be) cheap, and pretty tasty. I've messed it up so many times and now I'm getting pretty good at it. But all I do is roast it at two different temperatures for the crackling and then to finish off the pork, and then make a honey glaze or something. That's pretty easy. I want to up my game and demonstrate what I can really do. I'll do something special with it for you guys, because everything I've done so far has been pretty ordinary. It takes about 2 days to make (brined overnight then cooked for 18 hours). Top notch crackling and bucket loads of flavour. I'll show off some of the equipment I use too. It's an expensive one to do, so hopefully it's an interesting addition to the blog. I'll make a trip to the butchers and source out some high quality belly.

The duck is coming tomorrow, but instead of dinner it's going to be up for lunch. My housemates got hold of a roasting joint (beef) so we're going to experiment with this and see what we can do with it. I'm pretty busy tomorrow, so I'll just post the duck but that will be a good one.

I'm also getting hold of some Oxtail at the weekend. It's quite hard to find nice quality oxtail. My local halal butcher sells it, but it's not the cleanest place so I don't really want to get my meat from there. The only place I've found that does it is tesco. If you know anywhere else that sells it, lemme know. So this means I'll do the oxtail dish on Monday. It's a fun one and easy, amazing flavours, although I'm warning you now it does look like I've just taken a dump on some rice.

I want to include some more macro friendly dishes so this blog is a bit more useful to other people, so to carry on with the Caribbean theme I'll do a jerk chicken which is even easier and cheaper.

I did say I eat like a king.....

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 99