User's cookalong thread shout out to patti-user I love you

hello anons
I haven't posted a pic-by-pic cook-along in...I forgot when

this has obviously already been done but I like these threads so I'm making one; I just can't handle posting and writing and properly cooking at the same time so it has to be done after the fact
...I'll insert some delay to make up for it

today we're making Persian food!

this'll be easy, you start with an empty pot like so

Oh right, so what we're making today is called Ashe Reshteh or Ash Reshteh or Asheh Reshteh

the Ash part apparently means thick soup
the Reshteh part means thin noodles
some yin and yang shit right there

here I'm saute-ing a couple of onions and garlic to your heart's content, in my case 6 cloves, but there's no such thing as too much garlic in that side of the world and I'm not gonna be the one to complain about it

continuing on the same trail of epic surprises, you guessed it, you have to go all out on the turmeric

so after you sweat those onions nice and good you throw about 2 teaspoons of turmeric in there

also, I'm really glad I got a bigger pot before starting this, as you will soon see
the one used is 5.5L

Fucking turmeric, it's good but god damn that eternal yellow stain if you accidentally get it on anything

Continue chef user

What fat? Buttor or oil?

I've yet to manage!
but this will not be the end
there is plenty of turmeric left in my kitchen that I intend to use in future Persian dishes

so I went the lazy route, shoot me if you will, but I used canned stuff because I decided to make this earlier today so there wasn't enough time to properly prepare the beans and such

and thus you throw in equal amounts of
- (red) beans
- lentils
- chickpeas

apparently lentils should've gone in later but you can't properly read a recipe with your hands dirty so that's the best excuse I've got going for me

in my case it was eh I'd say 300g of each

post rare pattis

nigga does that look like butter to you?

oil, I used the standard sunflower-seed but I think olive oil would work just as well
exact amounts unknown, I wing it til I think it's fine whatever that means by case

random fun fact: this is my 4th Persian dish and the first time it has neither eggplant nor rice, not even saffron! they _can_ do it if they try

so you cook the stuff for a few minutes, stirring a bit, especially if you have a sticky pan or you went cheap on the oil
then you cover the whole stuff in water
recipe said 8 cups and I was just too lazy to figure out again wtf 8 cups meant so I covered it up and then a bit extra; I'll add more later anyway so w/e

you end up with this somewhat unpleasant looking thing, and be advised, this won't be getting any prettier as we continue
oh no it won't...

>i never used cleared butter

eat my shorts

the suspense is killing me, how much worse is this gonna look?

now now we can all get along here and anons can ask any questions they want
>I saved it

so while your concoction is bubbling away over a comfy low fire (lid on), it's time to do the easiest prepping you've ever done

it's HERB time
pic related is aleatory amounts of:
- parsley
- mint
- ...green onions? scallions? chives? I call them green onions because that's what they are in my language
apparently chives are (((allegedly))) different but it don't matter
the total amount of green onions was actually double but it didn't fit on one board; about 20 sprigs, green parts only
...you wouldn't use the WHITE part of a GREEN onion now would you

choppity chop

a-are you the real patti-user? are we being watched by the actual patti?
>we'd best behave

I'm side-watching the shining again so I gotta learn how to build up suspense
just hang in there user, release will come :^)

you THROW the greens in the pot, just pile 'em there, it won't matter in the end anyway
nothing will matter...
nothing does...

>GREEND
I kek'd

and now the main star of the show
spinach
you gotta eat your spinach

don't bother cutting it too small, just rough chop it
again, just pile it there on top

now, how much spinach? you might ask...

how much spinach???
TELL US ALREADY!!!!

patti~

The difference is minor.
Still i'd say you can taste the difference, especially in texture.

MORE spinach
as it later turned out, this was still not enough spinach

I ended up with about 600g of spinach in there, or a bit over a pound in freedom units

just stack dat dere spinach up

a fucking pound? sounds like a lot desu

>you can taste the difference
>especially in texture
oh user
how good were the days
you see user
where we're going...
>there won't _be_ any texture

that's why I don't use freedom units, everything sounds like a lot; I guess that's why they'r...no I won't go there
kilograms, meters, they sound so sciency you have no clue wtf you're doing
recipe actually asked for a POUND and a half so I actually whimped out

anyways
you PUSH the greens IN the soup that has formed
add more water as needed, you don't want it to be overly sloppy but don't worry, that can be corrected later
I added a bit extra because all the greens just wouldn't fit anymore

fret not, ye weak of heart
this isn't even its final form

this is where boys become men, and girls become...bois
unless they're Persian, in which case they become top-tier wives but none of us are that lucky

as you watch the insides of your pot start to bubble, you put the lid on
you hear it bubbling inside, still, squirming under the ruthless heat
you lower the flame
lower...
you still hear the bubbling inside it won't stop!!!
...lower
but a faint murmur can be caught by the trained ear
this is enough

now it is time
to wait (and occasionally stir ya dingus)

but don't stray too far now
you hold your spoon close
wouldn't want anything
...unexpected
to take place now
would we?

[the night stands still]
[a dim light reflects off the stainless steel]
[in the distance, the cry of a lonely bird]
[the moon shines on the blade of your knife, dulling it slowly]
[pockets of air collapsing under pressure echo from the stove]
[what can but a man do]
[than wait]

Is there going to be meat in it or not? Looks like rabbit food so far and my rabbit died 2years ago

>this thread

hello america

as a half-hour passes, you come back to your senses
what doth unfold before you?

you take precaution and find the nearest rag
as you carefully pinch the handle of the lid, you slowly lift

rolling, steaming gust of air escape!

you look with a careful eye and see pic related

...no
this is not enough
more
MORE cooking time

[as you retreat to your guard-post you reflect]
[what is time]
[how must one measure it truly]
[is there a time that is lost?]
[nay, there is but forward]
[forward we must go]
[like time]

no I'm just a normal dude who saves pictures of a cat whose owner cooks and posts pictures of food on a web forum started about japanese cartoons

I'm totally normal is what I am saying

wtf, why are you raping spinach like this?!

spinach wilts pretty hard m8 a lb is like 6 quarts

He's probably indian or pakistani

images of the past flash before your eyes
how far can I go?
how darker will it get?
is it time?
will I be ready?
when will she be back?

enough
questions are for people too afraid of answers

and the answer is:
yes

now is the time

the spinach is weak
we are strong
cooking is about dominance
like the dog whisperer

you and me both user, not many normal people left 'round these here parts...

so this is the part where if you'd be a proper chef user, you'd pull out your d..ough for making noodles, like proper noodles as the recipe requires

needless to say I wimped out once more and settled for some slightly flatter pasta that I broke in half

note that what you see in pic related is waaaay more than what was needed, and had to be fished out near the end of result
so now I have an entire pot of left over pasta that I'll have to go through as well, but hey, who'da thunk that pasta sweels and absorbs liquid

now in my defense, the recipe didn't mention how much should be used, but by now my guess is that ~200g would be good for this amount of...stuff
>I used double
worry not, user is a master of improvisation and quick decision making, and as god is my witness and poseidon my watcher, this WILL have a happy ending

Won't that be extremely starchy?

so by this point I dismounted the camera setup etc so there's no final shot of the pot

and thus I must jump-cut to the end product
the coup de grĂ¢ce
the magnum opus
the pinnacle of perfection
the finish
the final frontier
the event horizon
our goal

so serve it up with sour cream (unless you for some odd reason have access to kashk)
and if you're not wimping out like I did once more, fry up some thinly sliced red onions that you mix with dry mint and you'd lay that in the middle or on top of the sour cream lumps

this is supposed to be very thick, after you add the noodles/pasta the fire should be set to super low because the stuff will stick
the recipe even advised adding flour to the thing
which I didn't because of all the other different choices I made

I think originally it should be even thicker than mine (hue)
so tl;dr no, unless you just don't like this kind of "soup", which is fine, but I wouldn't recommend this then

actually looks kinda nice
would eat
won't forgive you for what you did to that spinach tho

it has a fairly strong spinach taste, with bits to bit into (beans and chickpeas) and slurping noodles is always good; the thing with the noodles and overcooking them is that they get very nice and soft and absorb a lot of flavor

for seasoning I just added salt, ground pepper, and some cayenne powder but without making it actually hot of course, it's not that kind of dish

very comfy and warm, great for cold weather, and it's apparently served during various celebrations in Iran

on a /p/ side note, I should figure out how to take food pictures without getting all those little reflections
>inb4 I need to setup an entire studio at my place

but anyway, close-up

sacrifices needed to be made
desu in my (east european) country of origin, this is how we cook spinach, so this was fairly normal for me
>but I'm not normal
we always apologize to the spinach beforehand so it's k

thus ends our cook-along anons
hope you enjoyed
questions are welcome
or just post whatever you cooked last time

A+ thread OP.
final product looks good.
If you had kept the initial amount of noodles in, how bad would it have been? Because this sounds like it might not be too bad as a bastardized pasta dish too, not just a soup with noodles.

A decent professional cleaner should be able to get it out, so long as it hasn't been there for months, already been through multiple washings, or on some very delicate or delicately dyed (a lot of bright reds and some other colors tend not to be very color fast) fabric.

What do you do with spinach? This shit is tame compared to how cooked spinach is usually treated in the US. Provided you're not a lazy fuck like most people and didn't just buy it in a frozen block, you would steep it, strain it, squeeze it dry, chop it, then season or saute with some other stuff.

thank you kind user

>If you had kept the initial amount of noodles in, how bad would it have been
pretty bad, I was actually quite surprised at my fuckup
I literally have another pot that serves two full of pasta
they taste very nice but the dish is supposed to only have some noodles in it, and I had basically reversed the ratios
also, I think they soaked up a bit too much liquid

but I'll just eat 'em with some chicken I think so it's not the end of the world (I hate wasting food)

I hope nobody was expecting a world of flavor and extravaganza, it's not that kind of dish
there is a lot to improve in my case though and this can be made in all kinds of different ways so I'll definitely give it a try later in winter, hopefully I can still find spinach; last winter Italy dun goof'd and fucked up the supply, there were pictures of fields covered in snow at the store, apologizing that they didn't have spinach, was ridiculous

bamp

looks like shit

Gotta admit it's not the prettiest thing I made, but after boiling spinach and red beans for an hour I didn't expect it either

Next time I'll make some tendies for you user