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Help me learn to cook dinner

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Jimmy the Squid:
Pasta![/u]

This is sometimes referred to as Tuna Mornay, Tuna Pasta, Pasta Disaster, or, as the title infers, Pasta! It's relatively cheap, horrendously bad for you and, given that it is total student food, mainly cheese. The upside of the whole thing is that one batch will usually cover you for about 3 days, at least two good sized portions a day. The downside is that if you make this too often you will put on a lot of weight and it will essentially cement your insides together making bowel movements much more harrowing than need be. You've been warned.

- 500g pasta (spagetti is nice but penne works well too).
- 425g tinned tuna (with oil, not brine or springwater).
- 500g cheese (chedder or tasty is good as is mozzarella but I prefer to use a "pizza blend" which is basically tasty and mozzarella mixed together).
- 1 bottle of Pasta Sauce (Dolmio's stuff is really nice, specifically the ones with mushrooms or garlic).
- sweet chilli sauce (Trident is very nice but most generic brands are ok too, it's hard to fuck up sweet chilli sauce. If you're very rich come shopping day try and get Always Fresh. It's really incredible).
- At least 2 heaped tablespoons of Praise mayonnaise (or whole egg mayonnaise is also good but Praise has a nice eggy flavour without losing the tanginess).
- 2 tsp of wholegrain mustard (this is entirely optional, you can also substitue tabasco sauce if you prefer, it's just for taste).

Boil the pasta, remove from heat, drain it and mix in the Pasta Sauce. Open the tuna and dump the whole lot in, oil and all, mixing as you go. Then goes the sweet chilli (as needed, I like a lot) and then the mayonnaise. Stir through the mustard or tabasco sauce and make sure the colour is more or less pinkish in colour. Put the pan back onto the heat and begin adding the cheese, stirring through the entire time. Use as much cheese as you feel you need. The 500g is really just what I like to use. Once the cheese has melted through you can take it off the heat and begin serving.


Honey Soy Pork[/u]

This is really very easy, reasonably cheap and doesn't take too long to make, though cutting up the pork can be a little difficult if, like me, you only have access to rudimentary cooking utensils.

- 500g of pork ribs.
- 1 large onion (per person)
- ABC Sauce (available from any Asian grocer and most supermarkets)
- Soy Sauce
- Honey
- Sweet Chilli sauce
- 2 tsps Brown or Raw sugar
- 1-2 cups of water-
- Chinese Five Spice (Fennel, Aniseed, Ginger, Licorice, Cinnamon and Cloves)
- Oil (olive oil, vegetable oil, I don't care, something to grease the pan with)

Slice the onion and lightly fry it in oil, sprinkling the sugar over the top and mixing it through to caramelise. While this is happening chop up the pork ribs (it's easier to do this if they are slightly frozen but at any rate you'll get there), cutting off any excess fat if you want (not too much, it helps with the flavour). Throw the pork in with the onions and stir. Liberally apply Soy sauce until it is a fairly watery mixture, then add a copious amount of ABC sauce (the bottles are huge and cheap, you won't run out). Keep mixing this together until the pork is cooked to your liking (due to better standards of meat, pork can now be eaten if it's a little undercooked so don't feel you have to burn the shit out of it), adding water if you think the sauce is reducing too much.
Once the pork is cooked, reduce the heat, cover the pan and allow the mixture to simmer for about 10 minutes. Then add some honey and sweet chilli sauce and stir that through. The entire mixture should be now be quite thick. If it isn't, reduce it until it is. Once everything is finished, sprinkle the Chinese Five Spice over the entire mixture and stir it through. Use as much or as little as you think it needs.

If you really want to make the pork taste right then wait for it to cool, and then put it in the fridge. Eat it the next day. Your mind, she will be blown.

Hat:

--- Quote from: DonInKansas on 10 Mar 2009, 17:29 ---If he was wanting to eat like a student, he would have skipped starting the thread and gone back to the ramen noodles and Easy Mac, bucko.

--- End quote ---

Actually I started the thread trying to find a good compromise. The achewood cookbook is a great example of this actually but my copy legged it a while ago. I make enough money as a bartender to have a higher income than the average student, but I still don't make nearly enough money to really go to town on cooking. Of course, this thread is not all about me and sometimes I do have enough time to really prepare a meal, but not always so both options are pretty useful for me, personally.

snalin:
If you can ever get hold of some fresh mackerel, it's the single best fish to fry. Frozen it's still awesome.

To fry white fish, you need to use a lot of margarine, and remember not to shove the fillets around. If you do, it'll just turn into a mush. Fry on both sides, on pretty high temperatures, serve with boiled potatoes and vegetables.


And remember, if you're going to serve peas, tinned peas taste shit and should be avoided at all cost. Frozen are the best.

clockworkjames:
learn to make a good white sauce, I have to cook dinner for 4 people each weekday and it sucks. Few things I have picked up, oven baked potatoes are always better than microwaved or microwaved then ovened. A good white sauce is easy to make and mac n chez needs it. Pizza is good and cheap to make, put oregano, a little oil and basil into the base then punch it lots for like 5 minutes otherwise it will be nasty and biscuity. That's about all I can think of rite now.

David_Dovey:
Honestly as long as you show a bit of care with it then it is not hard to turn a budget bit of steak into some seriously classy nosh. You don't necessarily have to go with T-bone or fillet to get decent quality meat. Steak is also great because it basically takes no time whatsoever to cook.

A few tips on steak:

Take it out of the fridge a bit beforehand and let it come back up to room temperature, this is especially important if you are cooking the steak rare or medium rare (i.e; doing steak right).

Brush that shit with some extra virgin olive oil, do not put the oil in the pan/on the grill. This will stop it from smoking. Then season it to taste with some salt and pepper.

Make sure your cooking surface is very, very, VERY hot. If the steak doesn't sizzle as soon as it hits the hotplate then it is not hot enough.

Turn the steak ONCE. If you're going for rare turn it the moment you see blood start to appear on the surface of the uncooked surface, medium rare turn it when the blood is droplets on the surface, medium or well done, turn it when the blood starts to run together.

A good rule of thumb for cooking the other side is to cook it two minutes less than you cooked the first side

Once you have finished cooking, take the steak off, put it on a plate and let it rest. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! It allows the juices to settle.

Eat that shit and live like a king.

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