There have been many delicious threads pop up in GBS over the last month or so, and I'm sure I'm not the only one saving threads and printing out the mouth-watering and easy recipes that many different goons from all over the globe have been providing. So, to make it just that tiny bit easier, I thought having a general recipe thread that you can bookmark and scroll through would be a good idea - after all, you never know when you're going to need to feed an army, or just get on your girl/boyfriends good side.

If we get enough recipes in here and enough interest, I'll look into the cost and permission of compiling it all into some sort of "Cooking with GBS" book.

Here is my first contribution:

Gourmet Open Steak Sandwiches

This one is so easy that even the most kitchen-phobic person could do it with their eyes closed, yet it looks so impressive, so it's a good one to make for a first date or if you want to impress the in-laws. Or if you're just really hungry because that works too.

First of all...



WASH YOUR HANDS. This is not the Magical Fingerjam Cuisine thread. Ya dirty.



Lovely lovely ingredients. The best thing about this meal is you can adapt it to your diet or lifestyle (works well with fried tofu for the veges, also with chicken or fish) or whatever is in your fridge. I usually put in diced fried potatoes but because I was busy taking photos and shooing small cat-shaped objects out from under my feet, I forgot to put them in. It doesn't matter whether you use more upmarket or basic foods, it will still look the part. Here is what I have used, and the basics of what you need:

- Pita Bread (or some sort of bread base, NOT your typical packet sliced bread as that is not thick enough to withstand the juice attack of the meat and will go soggy)
- Stirfry steak
- Vegetables (in this case zucchini, red onion, garlic, salad greens and capsicum)
- Sauces or dips (to use as a flavour base and also to garnish the dish with)



If you're planning on using marinated meat, prepare that first. Sandwich steak or precut stirfry meat works well.



Watch out for the cat-shaped meat sharks and their strange meat tax system.



Of course, although it's usually best to leave meat to marinade overnight, some of us always forget to, so I left this soaking for an hour or so and it turned out just fine. My mouth is salivating just looking at the bowl 'o meat.



Prepare any vegetables that you would like cooked for your sandwich. Things like carrots, celery and spring onions are best left fresh, but its up to your taste. Heat up the pan, and put in a good teapspoon full of butter. Add the zucchini, onions and garlic and prepare yourself for the best smell in the entire world.



For this sandwich I've used lightly toasted Pita bread, but usually some sliced toasted sourdough or foccacia bread works really well. Spread the hummus on the base, or any other sauce bases you'd like to flavour your sandwiches with.



Time to get your meat on. It's important to keep an eye on your meat, as stirfry type meat tends to cook very quickly - keep moving it around so it is cooked evenly, and try a small piece to make sure it is to your liking. You don't want it to go tough and leathery to chew.



While the meat is doing its thing, lay a bed of lettuce greens on the bread base. This is the part where you can get creative and no matter what you do it will end up looking great. Put the meat on the greens...



And start to carefully tower your other ingredients on the meat, allowing some to "artfully" tumble down onto the plate. I've used two slices of gherkin as a garnish, and topped it off with a nice dollop of spinach and feta cheese dip. Voila!



There you have it. Again, there is alot of room for flexibility in this recipe, and I wanted to share it not as some culinary masterpiece, but as an impressive dish thats easy on your clock and your wallet.

Red Queen's Baking Tip:
If you're going to whip cream, make sure your whisk/eggbeater and bowl are absolutely dry before doing so, as any hint of water or moisture will result in the cream not whipping at all.

I hope this encourages more people to post their recipes, as I'd imagine we have some pretty exotic ones hiding out there, like the Polish Fat Noodles...

On that note, I'm off to make me some Lemon Chicken with cream sauce

EDIT: The idea in my head was that everyone could post their recipes and photos here and we'd have a gloriously long thread of food and food-related tit bits, so get cooking

Red Queen fucked around with this message at Feb 14, 2005 around 06:37