The Recipe Thread
POSTED BY: JEWELSTAITEFAN
UPDATED: Wednesday, July 15, 2026 13:56
VIEWED: 27093
PAGE 34 of 36
The gluten free flours often use guar gum or xanthan gum
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Apparently biscuits comes in 2 forms - 'flaky' and 'tender'.
Also, I've looked at traditional Indian recipes for flat gram flour curry 'pancakes' that can have veges mixed in (and a TON of ghee btw). And what I'm doing is obviously not that! I intend them to be large and to bake them in 2C Pyrex bowls, and for them to be well-filled enough (veges and chicken or other cooked meat pieces mixed in) with protein and veges to be a substantial meal. I usually try to get at least half a pound of veges in each serving (the only veges I'll eat for the day - have I mentioned that I hate veges?). But in this case I'm counting the gram flour as both vegetable AND protein!
So I'm not entirely wedded to the idea of large, filled, curry-flavored flaky biscuits! Maybe tender biscuits is more like it. And what I'm working on is ... I don't know if there's anything like it in any cuisine I've encountered. (Dim sum are not it - a small, steamed, soft dough pillow with a token of filling.)
I may eventually try the guar or xanthan gum to see if I can get flaky biscuits. Right now I'm just trying for something that's reasonably nutritious and tasty, and to figure out how to adequately bake a baking-powder-risen 'biscuit' that's QUITE large!
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Thanks for putting these all together!
Good thing I posted the spaghetti and meatballs recipe bc I had neglected to write it down. But I have it in my recipe box now!
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:Perhaps I was unclear. I meant that cream might be used in the meatball recipe when used in an Alfredo sauce. Is that correct?
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:Cream? Sounds like that might be also used for Alfredo sauce. Does that seem right?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Meatballs .... or any ground-meat recipe, like burgers
The secret to tender ground-meat recipes is ... starch.
When you cook raw meat, the protein strands shrink, harden, and lock together. (Just like egg whites harden and lock together when you cook them.)
Any ground meat cooked like that will be nothing so much as a Brillo pad.
In order to keep the fibers from locking together, you have to put some starch in-between them. Not a lot, but enough. So a zillion recipes always start with ... one slice of bread, softened with milk.
I've known about the starch trick for ages. When I make pineapple-teriyaki meatballs, I add some cornstarch. When I make almost anything else, I like to use panko, but you can use breadcrumbs or a slice of bread. But I've always ignored the milk part because I thought it was just to make mixing the bread into the meat more convenient, by making it softer. Apparently, there is some magic to the milk because I tried it for the first time after YEARS of making meatballs and burgers without, and they came out GREAT. (oh, and BTW ... for Swedish meatballs, cream is the thing to use).
SO, for my spaghetti and meatballs I used 2 lbs of ground turkey, about 1/3 c of panko, salt and pepper to taste, and about 1 T of very fine diced fresh basil. AND, about 1/3 c of canned milk. (No idea how well fresh milk would work, but canned milk is about twice as concentrated as fresh, plus it has a little phosphate added to it, which prolly helps.)
Formed into small meatballs (about 1 oz cooked), lightly browned in neutral oil (in this case, canola) ... not cooked thru ... and then buried in 2 c tomato sauce plus appx 1 T sugar (my homegrown tomatoes were more acid than sweet this year) and appx 3T grated Parmesan and simmered gently for about 30 minutes to share flavors with the tomato sauce. No oregano, no parsley, no other flavors, not even added salt.
Perfection! Moist, tender, flavorful meatballs in a tasty sauce.
Do you think powdered milk would work?
I've never added anything to hamburger meat except sometimes chopped onion. I use low fat ground beef - 95-97% fat free. I fold the meat in on itself until it is circular and thick, then press a dimple in the center with thumb (may have learned that trick from Jay Leno), and put in my George Foreman grill to drain the grease. Push down on the lid once on each side, flip halfway, total about 8-10 minutes.
Those always come out nice and juicy. Biggest challenge is finding suitable buns, sized right and soft, not too dry. Sometimes just the hamburger and bun, sometimes add (Marzetti's) 1,000 Island dressing, or real ketchup, or a good steak sauce (not A1), and/or a leaf of lettuce. Or peanut butter on the lid.
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Actually for Swedish meatballs, cream is used in the meatballs along with bread crumbs and (typically) ground beef and ground prok, 50/50. It is also used to make the sauce. I guess they had a lot of cream up there in Sweden!
Using ground turkey is just my version of the "official" recipe. Also, they would serve with maybe lingonberries on the side, but since I have no lingonberries I serve it with sweet/sour pickled beets.
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AFA juicy/tender ground meat ... it also depends what cut of meat and how long you cook it. Some ground cuts of meat, like ground chuck, have a lot of gristle in them. And, since cooking sets off the crosslinking, I've found that, for ground meats, the more you cook them the tougher and drier they get. But if you like your burgers rare or medium-rare and start out with a tender cut of beef, you're unlikely to get that cross-linking I was posting about and little gristle, so no special measures needed to prevent toughness.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:I used to like lamb, but it's crazy expensive here. But after I lost my sense of smell/taste, and since the rest of the family doesn't like it, there's no point in buying it.
Originally posted by Brenda:
Just some basic lamb chops for supper tonight.
Still, I can understand it being a real treat. Our mom used to make bbq'd lamb shanks, and as I recall the recipe was:
Braise shanks until meat is fork-tender, remove from bone.
In a separate pot mix 1/2c ketchup, 1/2 tomato sauce, 1/4 c sugar, 2T worcestershire, chopped small onion, chopped green pepper, 1 T lemon juice and 2 t lemon zest, 1 bay leaf. Cook until vegetables are done. Remove bay leaf and add lamb and stir. Simmer until flavors are blended, serve over rice. When I could smell/taste, I thought it was yummy, and I use this bbq sauce variation on pork for the family.
Quote:Combining 2 posts, for reference.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:One of my favorite BBQ sauces for use on beef or chicken is Jack Daniel's No.7 Recipe, which I believe uses Bourbon Whiskey - and I assume it is built on tomato/ketchup base. (most BBQ sauces are either tomato/ketchup based, or vinegar/onion based - and JD's is not the latter.) I feel it enhances the flavor of everything, or maybe just smothers the flavor. Maybe it would conflict with mushroom, but I'll let you tell me how you feel about it. Also, JD's Brown Sugar version is more than adequate.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:Hmmmm.
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
Rum (sometimes sweet) and whiskey (smokey) I don't believe have flavor profiles that would work with the basic recipe flavors - tomato/ beef/ mushroom. But if you're willing to experiment, you might be on to something unexpectedly good!
I could be off-base with rum and whiskey, just poking in the dark. I was wondering if anything in different alcohols react negatively with any of your other ingredients. Degrade them, reduce them, distract.
I thought beef is always enhanced by wine, or Cold Duck. Burgundy has specific dedicated recipes for beef. Vermouth seems to work well for tomato sauces. I have seen vodka pasta sauce.
List of ingredients from the bottle label of Jack Daniel's Original No.7 Recipe Barbecue Sauce (bottled by Heinz):
Tomato concentrate (water, tomato paste)
High fructose corn syrup - a requisite of Heinz
Distilled white vinegar
Molasses
Water
Salt
Modified corn starch
Natural hickory smoke flavoring
Mustard flour
Caramel color
Sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate as preservatives
Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey flavoring (natural and artificial flavors)
Onion powder
Garlic powder
Spice
Xanthan gum
website www.jackdanielssauces.com
The copyright was 2010. Of the various flavors from JD, there were 3 which I favored. None are present on the current version of that website. Another one was Brown Sugar. This Original No.7 was my favorite.
Of course, quantities are not included. But with the above references, some potential flavor profiles could be attempted.
Or at least ideas planted.
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I find that red wine overpowers beef recipes. By experimenting, my preference is dry white wine in beef stew, when I use wine at all. Since I like to put a little dinner into dog's dish, and grapes/ raisins/ wine are wildly toxic to many dogs, I usually no longer cook with wine. Sherry works great with chicken and many Asian recipes, but -again- don't do that very often either.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:Overpowers? In what way? You would consider Cold Duck to be red wine? Vermouth? Only with "recipes" using beef, or with stand-alone steaks, beef tips, burgers?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I find that red wine overpowers beef recipes. By experimenting, my preference is dry white wine in beef stew, when I use wine at all. Since I like to put a little dinner into dog's dish, and grapes/ raisins/ wine are wildly toxic to many dogs, I usually no longer cook with wine. Sherry works great with chicken and many Asian recipes, but -again- don't do that very often either.
Dry white wine. I need better definition. Is Rhubarb wine considered dry? Or Zinfandel? I recently saw that a alcohol store rearranged their shelves, and white Zin is now in "sweet wines" - and I'm assuming sweet and dry are not the same, but I don't really know. Most of my wine experience is from wines my dad made with us as kids, then Thunderbird, coolers, and mostly white Zin for a while now. My favorite was Rhubarb, but I haven't found any in decades.
I think I've already mentioned that my go-to for marinating chicken is orange juice. Overnight in a ziplock bag in the fridge, or over just in a bowl.
I've started using Vermouth in Tomato ground beef sauces.
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An old go-to recipe that my mom made for us as favorites as kids, then I adapted it for mtself. I would go weeks trading off work lunches between spaghetti and this one.
My family called it Goulash, but that may be confusing. Some refer to it as chili-mac, but that is just wrong - and I specifically dislike chili-mac.
The original merely added Campbell's condensed Tomato soup and Golden Mushroom soup, 1 10.5oz can each.
This would go with 1 overflowing cup of elbow macaroni.
For meat included, add 1/2 pound ground beef, browned and drained, into the sauce, and simmered a while.
Then there is my favorite adaptation of adding a can of petite diced tomatoes, bring to boil for 2 minutes, then add to sauce.
However, for quite some time now, Campbell's "tomato" soup is almost all High Fructose Corn Syrup. So I use Progresso Hearty Tomato Soup, 19 oz can.
2 x 10.5oz cans of Campbell's Golden Mushroom condensed soup
1 19 oz can of Progresso Hearty Tomato soup (this is not condensed)
1 can petite diced tomatoes, boiled for 2 minutes
This would be simmered a while to reduce the fluid.
If meat is desired, brown 1 pound of ground beef and add to sauce, let simmer after.
If vegetarian, add cooked drained mixed veggies of choice to sauce.
Cook 2 x overflowing cups elbow macaroni, drain, put in mixing bowl. Add in the sauce and mix.
I also prefer to add a bit of garlic powder, oregano, basil, chopped onion or onion powder.
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I finally ran across some Jack Daniels BBQ sauce, for the first time in years. the new version of flavors, 2 of them. Have not tasted them yet.
Of All places, Walmart - where I never find any name brand I want except Boston Market. We have more than 10 grocery chains present in town, plus independents, and none have been carrying.
There was also a Jim Beam BBQ sauce, so picked that one up as well.
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