Ok, guess I’ll be making Kenji’s stew this weekend.
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This one.
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Beef Stew-Off!!
NBZ brought this up previously - any interest in a cooking club/cooking challenge?
We select an ingredient, cook a dish/meal based around it, then report back and discuss?
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In.
This is off the top of my head…
Throw up a 24-hr poll to select an ingredient. Poll closes on Friday, so the weekend can be used for creative ideation/research . I feel like most people shop on Sunday? So we could kick off the challenge on Sunday, then have a Weds deadline to post photos and sick brags.
From there we fight over ingredients for the next poll, which goes up on Weds or Thurs and subsequently closes on Friday.
Thoughts?
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I’d at least give an Iron Chef thing a try, can’t promise anything good. If squid ink is the secret ingredient I might be a contender.
Kenji’s got 3 beef stews, the American, the Boeuf Bourguignon, and the Goulash, that are all basically the same techniques, but slightly different vegetables and seasonings with the beef. It’s his central thesis that the technique here matters more than the recipe So, any one of those recipes is pretty great for learning the technique, but once you’ve got the technique, there’s a whole lot of freedom to mess around and still get a good result.
I just read through this recipe and don’t see how this is possible.
This recipe is a household favorite. I like to add some chickpeas as well.
I mean Clovis probably undershot it a little bit but it’s not that far off assuming you don’t include prep.
Yeah, I’m just talking about the prep.
I don’t see how it is possible it do all of it in under an hour. If I start my clock from the moment you enter the kitchen. I’ll exclude any time that you are not physically doing anything (i.e., stew is in oven).
Just getting equipment out, stuff out of the refrigerator, etc. takes time. It’s not like we’re on a cooking show where everything is just laid out for you.
My idea was going to be based around Dave Chang’s recipe club, where they submit recipes and everyone cooks each one and compares. That works with three people, but more can be an issue. I have a few ideas to work around that.
I think a recipe club is more useful than a cooking challenge. Ultimately, if we cook our own thing, we’re just sharing food porn pictures without knowing how it tastes, but committing to cooking someone else’s recipe provides more of an experience. Especially since we have home cooks of varying levels, everyone cooking the same recipes (with their own adjustments) provides more value and learning as we share what worked and what didn’t.
My idea for picking an ingredient or theme was to get user submissions then use the discourse dice roller (which I believe has been installed or is a default part of the software) to pick something from the list.
For the All-American stew, the listed active cooking time is 90 minutes out of a total of 3.5 hours of cooking time.
(Is there an All-Canadian beef stew?)
That seems far more realistic.
i’m hopefully making kenji’s cassoulet today or tomorrow. will report back
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His video is 30 min long and he shows all steps except cooking time. 
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What I don’t like about this is that there are some great home chefs here and I’d be shy showing a pic after someone else absolutely nails the recipe. It’d be more fun imo if we all gave our take on an ingredient of the week.
Anyway, I miss beef stews since I’ve mostly stopped eating red meat, but I did love to make peposo, which is an Italian beef stew with pepper, tomato, and red wine.
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This is where my head was going too. Let’s say we choose squash, you can go with whatever variety you like and you can use whatever technique/recipe you’re comfortable with.
Looks like it was cooked at too high a temperature. It’s an entire steak done-ness chart in one steak. I wouldn’t send it back if I had ordered medium rare, but this is also why I don’t go out for steaks very much.
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