A hacker's easy dinner: Vegetarian Tacos | Hacker News Reader

A hacker's easy dinner: Vegetarian Tacos

mronge.com

22 pointsmronge26 comments

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Let's raise the level of abstraction a bit.

1. Heat oil in pan (until oil is hot; should flow like water)

2. Add vegetables (almost always including onion); cook, while stirring, until soft.

3. Add seasonings (salt, pepper, spices, garlic, etc.)

4. Add in a protein; continue stirring, until everything is cooked through.

5. Optionally, add a liquid and simmer.

This process is the basis for cooking a lot of foods, and it pays to get it down really well. Consider:

- Protein is ground meat; liquid is a can of tomatoes. This is pasta bolognese sauce.

- Lots of vegetables; liquid is soy sauce and optionally a slurry of cold water and cornstarch. This is a basic Chinese stir fry.

- Protein is ground meat; liquid is mixture of beef stock, crushed tomatoes, and a can of beans. This is chili.

- Vegetables are bell peppers and onions; meat is andouille sausage; season heavily with Cajun spices; liquid is chicken stock and long-grain rice. This is jambalaya.

Sure, these aren't real recipes, but once you have the above procedure down, it's just a matter of developing an intuition for taste and some knowledge of how ingredients work (e.g., 2.5 cups liquid per cup rice), and most basic cooking is pretty simple.

You stole my 'recipe'. The only difference is that I usually use tofu or similar for protein (vego) and I add it first to get a just little of that tasty-but-probably-carcinogenic browning on it.

Anyway I'd like to see a book of other 'Cooking Patterns' laid out like this.

Tofu is a protein too! The great thing is that all these things are easily interchangeable, so you use whatever you like.

Your post did remind me of an advanced technique. If you are cooking chunks of protein, the best method is to first fry the protein, then take it out, and then follow the original recipe. Why? Because you want to get that browning, and you only get that with direct contact between the protein and the pan. (This is known as the Maillard reaction.) But if you leave the protein in the whole time, it dries up faster than the vegetables (they have cell walls that are hard to soften).

    Anyway I'd like to see a book of other 'Cooking Patterns' laid out like this.

That would truly be a "hacker's" cookbook. I'd like to see that too!

It's not a book (yet) but it's a blog http://www.cookingforengineers.com/ a delicious blog indeed.

Michael Ruhlman - The Elements of Cooking

http://books.google.com/books?id=iX55tiQfXIgC&lpg=PP1...

Michael Ruhlman - Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking

http://books.google.com/books?id=zGaRpi4YdIQC&lpg=PP1...

mmm... I work with 2 cups of liquid per cup of rice!

Needs more cumin. Seriously, it's the taco spice. It aint a taco without cumin. Go to your spice rack, and take a sniff of the cumin jar. Yep, smells like tacos.

To me, the three basic ingredients to taco seasoning are:

1. Cumin

2. Chili powder

3. Tomato sauce

This recipe is missing 2 of the 3.

As long as people are submitting easy hacker recipes, here's one of my staples:

-Fill a saucepan with water and boil

-While you're waiting, chop up one small onion and heat some oil in a pan

-Brown the onion in the pan with some garlic and spices (I prefer red pepper flakes, cayenne, and Chipotle Tobasco)

-Once the water's boiling, toss in a packet of your standard cheap-ass ramen and the spice packet (or just random cheap noodles and some bouillon)

-Crack an egg (or two if you want it thicker) into the mix and stir vigorously (it's easier if you scramble the egg first, but it dirties more dishes)

-Dump the onion pan into the ramen mix and add more spices to taste

Boom, you've got yourself some startup stew. Depending on the ramen seasoning you use, this can be vegetarian and eggs are a good source of protein.

Basically the single most important rule for making cheap food at home is learning to love your spice rack. I have Sam's Club jars of red pepper flakes, onion powder, and garlic powder, plus a big tub of minced garlic and an arsenal of dried peppers and hot sauces. These things can make a $.50 meal taste bearable enough to eat all the time. Plus the different mixes of spices give the illusion of being a different meal... if you use your imagination a little bit.

I see cooking a lot like hacking; once you understand how a dish works, you can take it apart and rebuild it to suit your tastes.

You could also, you know, grab a couple bags of ground beef and keep them in the freezer. Ground beef freezes really well.

And also microwave-thaws quite well, if you get the technique down.

Preferably, use the thawing program of the owen - if there isn't one, use a quite low setting.

Run the thaw-program for about half the amount of meat you have. This should soften the meat enough that you can chop it in 2-3 cm cubes with a big knife. Run the cubes (with plenty of air around) in the owen again, on the same program. You'll probably need to experiment a bit, but the idea is that you'd rather have nice and raw on the outside and semi-frozen in the middle, than cooked on the outside and raw in the middle.

The semi-frozen bits of meat will cook just fine, if the object is to get small chuck of meat, e.g. for a taco (if you need patties, slow-thawing is the only solution). Just remember not to over-fill the pan, if there's too much on the pan, if will boil, not sear, and you'll miss out on the tasty goodness of the malliard process.

Not a strictly "hacker" recipe, but hard to beat for simplicity: Hainan Chicken Rice

Boil a really big pot of water.

Put a chicken in it. Add a few slices of ginger and some scallions.

Keep the heat on low and poach until the chicken is cooked (about 30 mins).

Take the chicken out (if you're ambitious you can douse it in an ice bath), saving the broth.

Measure N cups of broth and N/2 cups of rice (rinse the rice until the water runs clear). Stick it in your rice cooker.

Serve chicken over the rice. The leftover broth goes in the freezer to start the broth next time. Over time it will intensify.

Don't you now have a whole lot of flabby chicken skin?

You may be missing some instructions here. =)

Save the bones and skin for making stock.

That's what the ice bath shock is for-- it firms the skin back up again. The skin and fat is the good stuff :)

This is one of the national dishes of Singapore, btw. There are hawker stands that have been recycling the broth for decades into a super-intense brew.

Here's one of my carefully developed hacker easy dinners, refined over a number of years, optimized for minimal prep and cleanup time, cost, and healthiness:

  * Family-size package of bone-in chicken thighs with skin
  * 4 cups white rice
  * Bag of frozen vegetables
  
  1. Preheat oven to 400°.
  2. Salt and pepper chicken.
  3. Place chicken on half sheet pan.
  4. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, until the juices run completely clear, with
     no trace of pink, when a fork is inserted.
  
  While the chicken's cooking:
  
  1. Place rice in saucepan.
  2. Add 2 cups water (or as much as the package instructions say).
  3. Bring to boil.
  4. Turn heat down as low as it goes, stir, and cover pot.
  5. Cook for approximately 15 minutes, or until all the water has been absorbed. Do
     not lift the lid until the end, to check whether the water's been absorbed.
  
  5 minutes before the chicken and rice are done:
  
  1. Place frozen vegetables in a microwave-safe container.
  2. Add a few tablespoons of water.
  3. Microwave for 5 minutes.
  4. Salt and pepper.

Upsides: It takes 20 minutes, it will all be ready at the same time, there are only two pieces of cookware to clean, it makes enough for dinner for a week, and it costs about $10 total.

Downsides: It doesn't taste very phenomenal. But, hey — cooking food that tastes good is what makes cooking time-consuming.

The chicken will taste better if you brown both sides in some butter and vegetable oil in a frying pan first, but that takes more time. If you don't want the carbs in the rice, you can switch in some black beans.

Some suggestions: cut a lemon in half, squeeze juice over bird, shove what's left inside the bird. Also put some fresh thyme/rosemary in there.

Put those frozen veg in the bottom of the chicken pan (helps to use a 13x9x2 here). They will poach in the chicken fat and taste glorious. (salt and pepper those too)

Advanced: shove some butter under the skin of the bird, and smear some on top too.

What exactly are 'crumbles'. Googled it and no easy joy there. Are they the same as what goes in apple crumble?

Actually it seems to be a feature of american recipes to list branded ingredients, they don't translate easily (and its kinda wrong anyway).

Sorry, english (and a bit anti-capitilist).

They're a ground beef substitute that manages to be even more inedible than even the shittiest ground beef. It's mostly chewy filler, not even soy -- the offal of agri-business faux-meat.

Instead throw thinly sliced onion and firm tofu into a hot dry skillet and toss regularly. After it starts to brown, add butter and sliced fresh hot peppers. After that's integrated add ground spices: cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, coriander, black pepper. While this is happening you can be frying eggs in the pan at the same time. When it's getting ready to leave the pan, you can add things like fresh garlic (it's better lightly cooked) and cheese (if it browns well). You can clear the flavor residue out of the hot pan by adding a splash of sherry, vinegar, or tamari.

Try to avoid the tofu that comes waterlogged in a little failure tub. Most large grocery stores have a brand that comes in a vacuum-sealed bag, usually costing 3x as much, and it's worth it (like 'Wildwood' at Safeway). You can usually also get decent fresh tofu at local coops and asian immigrant groceries. You can also make it yourself, which usually results in a nice crumbly texture: make extra-strength soy milk, add dash of vinegar to coagulate, squeeze through cheesecloth.

> Try to avoid the tofu that comes waterlogged in a little failure tub.

Why? Is there some problem with storing it this way or do those brands just tend to be the crappy ones? After you used some storing in water is the only way to keep it fresh that I'm aware of.

> Is there some problem with storing it this way or do those brands just tend to be the crappy ones?

Both. The non-tub kind is a lot firmer and tastier, mostly due to the manufacturers giving a shit, which leads to the better packaging.

You don't have to store it immersed in water, just in a plastic bag. I usually use leftover grocery produce bags. It doesn't actually spoil any faster, any spoilage is much more obvious (sliminess / breakdown into chalky goop), and it doesn't get all loose and waterlogged.

on this side of pond, Morning Star Farms makes frozen "fake-meat" - found in frozen ("breakfast food") foods. Pretty darn good "sausage" patties - and "crumbles" (substitute for ground beef), precooked, but can be browned up a little more in fry pan (olive oil) with spices (e.g., taco seasoning packet).

I agree with the cumin sentiment. I'm also a big fan of cutting up any leftover meats: sausage, bacon, cooked ham/steak; and throwing it in a pan with some onions and leftover veggies. Then, after they're all heated up and the onions are soft, I throw in a bunch of scrambled eggs and cheese and serve it on a tortilla with salsa. It's not necessarily the healthiest meal ever but you can do the same with tofu instead of meat to make it a little less caloric. In that case you'll probably need a little oil or butter though.

1. Go to chinatown

2. Find the busiest dumpling shop (chowhound will help)

3. Buy a bag of frozen dumplings. Buy two.

4. Buy some "chunkiang" vinegar while you're in the neighborhood.

5. Boil water.

6. Put frozen dumplings in water. Stir for a minute so they don't stick to the pot.

7. When the water boils again, set a timer for 8 mins (depends on the size of the dumpling)

9. Drain and serve with a little bowl of the vinegar.

This is where a slow cooker is HUGE. Every Sunday I throw a bag of lentils, some veggies, and spices into a crock pot for 9 hours. Total prep is 20 minutes and I have a week's worth of lunches. The most expensive ingredient is the olive oil, which I buy in jugs from the warehouse store.

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