stephen129

Toast your buns and butter. Up to you really. Most restaurants will butter the buns. Overkill for me personally. A lot of restaurants will butter anything they get their hands on.

Can someone photoshop Ole's face onto Dory from Finding Nemo with the caption 'Just keep winning, just keep winning, just keep wiiiinning, wiiining, wiiiining.'

In case anyone wants the recipe: Mayo Ketchup Pickle juice Mustard Optional Paprika Onion salt Celery salt Garlic salt Chopped pickles Chopped white onion Play around with the quantities, but that should give you a decent burger sauce.

Big, over the top food, is a big pet peeve of mine. Once the intial 'ZOMG IT'S SO BIG' is over, you're left with a burger that literally hurts to eat as you dislocate your jaw trying to fit it in your mouth. You can't get a good taste of all the layers, as there's too many of them or they're too thick, and then it all starts falling apart in a disgusting mess. In fact, I pretty much hate all 'Instagram food' and food that is just made to get views or shock people. Freakshakes, digusting. Giant pizzas with tacos on top, digusting. Deep fried oreo cakes with loads of icing sugar and melted chocolate on top, digusting. Chicken wings covered with gold leaf, complete waste of money and pointless. Rainbow coloured things that make no difference to the taste, pointless. Food challenge food, digusting. /Rant over

I like smash burgers personally. Not a huge fan of big medium rare patties, everything else in a burger is soft enough, I like a bit of hard crust on my meat. I save the medium rare treatment for steak. Small patties, smashed on cast iron, salt and pepper (sometimes other stuff like garlic salt, paprika etc etc), American cheese on both. Two per burger. Lots of burger sauce maybe lettuce, pickle, tomato and onion (sometimes raw, sometimes fried, sometimes both). Lettuce etc on the bottom to protect the bottom bun from getting soaked in juice and falling apart. Burger must fit in mouth. I hate gigantic burgers that you have to dislocate your jaw to eat. If you want to eat a lot of burger, just eat lots of smaller ones that actually fit in your mouth. Simple. Plenty of recipes on YouTube, as always, I like J-Kenji's:

This was the batch I made at Christmas. Some a little burnt, but overall, pretty much unimprovable.

This is definitely true of paella. The rice isn't meant to be stirred at all or you get a stodgy mess. Complete opposite to risotto. Also, as someone mentioned before, washing the rice thoroughly to remove starch is very important.

I've wondered before about how jambalaya is supposed to be having never eaten a proper version. I've watched a few 'authentic' recipes and it comes out quite stodgy (a bit like risotto as you say). The ones below both look a bit stodgy. Personally I much prefer really nice fluffy jasmine rice, which makes me consider making the rice separately from the stew and then eating it together. Also I was under the impression that a dark roux is super important in cajun cooking. Toups makes it in the first one, but then Besh doesn't which is also confusing. I made my own a few years back and I remember liking it (don't ask me for a recipe as I have no idea if I followed one or just made it up):

Can you be a bit more specific in terms of what you want to cook? There are loads of recipes you could make that don't have onions or garlic in them, or that you could remove without any issue.

Interesting. What wasn't so good about the Serious Eats recipe? (I've not tried it).

Have you ever tried sea water? It's disgustingly salty. That's far too much salt for pasta imo.

Loads of chefs learn by just watching and blindly following their teacher/master. They're not really encouraged to question things, it's a 'shut up and pay attention to what I do' situation rather than an open discussion. For example, loads of Italian chefs believe you need to have a massive pot of water to cook pasta that is 'as salty as the sea'. The Italian way of doing things is to keep doing them the same way your Nonna did, which is the same way her Nonna did, etc etc. Nothing ever progresses. That's why Italians were so offended by people like Massimo Bottura who actually looked at reinventing traditional recipes and trying new techniques and finding better ways of doing things.

Actually just thought of the perfect thing: Prosciutto, grilled peaches/figs, mozzarella/buffalo mozzarella, reduced balsamic glaze or very high quality balsamic (very hard to find in the UK, you want one with a maximum of two ingredients, cooked grape must and wine vinegar, nothing else), extra virgin olive oil, toasted pine nuts, salad leaves https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/roast-peach-parma-ham-salad/ Halloumi/Burrata, finely chopped chilli, honey https://www.nigella.com/recipes/halloumi-with-chilli Halloumi/Burrata, pistachio, candied orange/lemon zest

Lol. I'm not worried about the calories, it's just personally I don't like feeling painfully full, but each to their own. Soups: Beetroot and feta Carrot and coriander, bit of orange Spiced parsnip

Something light? Or maybe even nothing? Christmas dinner is a huge meal already, personally I don't think you need a starter. Warm winter salad?