Cooking

[Aetherous]

Hey taobums,

 

I was at the bookstore and just found the best cookbook I've ever seen. Cook with Jamie.

 

Had to share the info, and saw there wasn't a topic on the art of cooking. I don't see why this should be something excluded from Taoism...savoring the process of cooking and eating can be a great way of life! Even if you're a raw vegan or something crazy ...loving what you're eating is very important!

 

I used to have another favorite cookbook, How to Cook Everything. It has more recipes than my new favorite one.

 

...anyway, this topic can serve the purpose of sharing favorite cookbooks or recipes or whatever...

[Taomeow]

What did you like about that new cookbook of yours, Scottie?

 

Some of China's greatest writers, philosophers and statesmen wrote cookbooks --

the genre was never considered "beneath" anyone, no matter how high one's social or scholarly status.

 

I could write a cookbook if I could get away with descriptions of amounts of stuff along the lines of "a handful," "a few," "a generous splash," "on the conservative side," "insane quantities" and so on. I do cook taoist style, applying the yin-yang/wuxing principles.

 

Here's the recipe for one of my favorite dishes -- old school pilaf:

 

sautee a lot of finely chopped onions with grated carrots in ample butter;

add lamb, cubed, and cook together on medium high, stirring often, till it looks good and ready, but then keep cooking it on very low under lid till you're ready to add

salt and spices -- there's ways to go and I suggest you go Garam Masala, the Indian mix of a whole bunch of fragrant goodies, bought whole at an Indian store and home-ground in a coffee grinder;

plus some extra black pepper, cracked not ground, and a whole bulb of garlic, unpeeled;

in the meantime, cook a ton of white rice to half ready;

put the meat with all its butter-onion-carrot mess on the bottom of a heavy saucepan, cover with rice, make eight to ten vertical holes in the rice all the way to the bottom of the saucepan and fill each hole with boiling water or broth;

cover, put on the lowest low, and make suffer for 30--40 minutes, checking for water in the holes and adding spoonfuls thereof, hot, a few more times if necessary;

then mix it all together, even out the surface, cover again and let sit and think about it all for a while. This is insanely tasty and not as labor-intensive as it sounds.

[Aetherous]

What did you like about that new cookbook of yours, Scottie?

 

Well I'm a sucker for really nice pictures in cookbooks. It's great for that. But besides that, it describes the ingredients in good detail (like the different cuts of beef, ways to make pasta, etc)...has really simple recipes that are just on the border of being "gourmet"...and he also doesn't use exact measurements a lot of the time.

 

Anyway, there are tons of good cookbooks out there. But I can't think of a better one, at least for me personally.

 

And I can't wait to try your old school pilaf! I think you SHOULD make a cookbook, Taomeow...you could get away with those descriptions!