If you follow my Instagram, you can tell I’ve been cooking at home a lot since I have more time on my hands. Chef Christian and I have really enjoyed trying out new recipes or recreating our favorite takeout spots at home. I’ve found in our trials that some things are worth making yourself and others you should leave to the professionals. Here’s some highlights of our different recipe trials/ fails:
1. Success: Yellow Shrimp Curry Takeout Recreation
One of my favorite takeout dishes is the Yellow Shrimp Curry from Pattaya in Charleston. It has so much flavor and is so comforting, while staying light. I made a recipe that was called Turmeric noodles and they were very reminiscent of the shrimp curry.
To make the thai-style curry, I started with a base of garlic, onions, and jalapenos in coconut oil. When the onions are translucent, I add in turmeric, ginger paste, and red pepper flakes. When that’s all nice and fragrant, I add in a can of coconut milk. When that’s all mixed in, I add in the shrimp and the KEY ingredient: diced up pineapple. I finish it off with a squeeze of lime and serve it over rice. It’s also a great hangover cure!
2. Fail: Homemade Pasta
This was one of the first recipes we tried and it did not go very well… The dough is a simple mixture of flour, olive oil, and eggs, which should be pretty straightforward. Kneading the dough was such a tough process and so messy that it’s really just not worth it. The egg kept escaping the little flour well and I ended up chasing it around the counter.
Once the dough finally came together, we tried to roll it out and definitely didn’t get it thin enough. Granted, we did use a wine bottle instead of a rolling pin… We made ravioli that were the size of Pop Tarts… They were waaay too big. They tasted ok, but the size and thickness of them was just not appealing. I will continue to buy pasta until someone gifts me a machine or something because doing it by hand isn’t worth it.
3. Success: Beer Can Chicken
Getting outside has been a huge help with our cabin fever, so grilling was a great way to pass the time and try out new recipes. I’ll try any recipe that involves putting booze in food. We have a charcoal grill, so it took a few hours for the chicken to cook through. We didn’t mind because more time cooking means more beer we can drink! We didn’t have a reliable thermometer at the time so we had to throw it in the oven for it to cook fully, but it still retained that smoky flavor. The skin was super crispy and the meat itself was so juicy.
4. Fail: Homemade Pickles
I was super excited to make my own pickles because I’m a pickle fiend. I found a recipe for sweet and spicy pickles that sounded perfect. When I started making the pickles, the instructions threw me off. It started off by adding salt to the cucumbers to drain the water, which I understood.
Then I had to let the cucumbers dry even more on a paper towel, which didn’t make sense to me because they were about to be submerged in the brine… They turned out tasting okay and got better with time, but I need to find a better recipe for next time.
5. Success: Homemade Ceviche
Chef Christian has been doing a lot of fishing and it’s given us the opportunity to get creative with fish in the kitchen. Whenever I go to a seafood restaurant, I always order ceviche. I love how acidic and spicy it is, it’s the perfect appetizer. To make our ceviche we marinated the fish in lime and grapefruit juice. Then we added in cucumber for crunch, habanero for spice, and pineapple for sweetness. We served it with chips and it was a refreshing meal that we’ve had several times now.
6. Success: Homemade Poke Bowls
Christian had the brilliant idea to take the ceviche and use it as the fish in a poke bowl. We raided the international aisle for all the sauces we needed. We were even able to find the perfect sushi rice, which is my favorite part of poke. We made the ceviche then loaded our bowls up with the rice, edamame, fresh mango, and sesame seeds. We used poke sauce and ponzu to coat the bowl and it was so flavorful and fresh. It will save me a lot of money with how often I crave poke!
7. Success: Charcuterie Board
Technically there’s no cooking involved in this one, but you do have to make sure you get all the flavor profiles you’re looking for. We wanted to have a wine and charcuterie date night, so we raided Trader Joe’s cheese aisle because it’s one of the widest selections out there. We went with a cheddar gruyere mix and burrata. They had a variety of cured meats to choose from and we went with a Spanish pack featuring with chorizo and jamón (ham).
For the crackers we went with a classic Ritz knock off as well as fig and olive crackers I saw on Tik Tok. To add a touch of sweetness, we picked up apricot jam. Finish it off with some 2 buck chuck and you’re ready to party. It was so nice feeling like we were out at our favorite happy hour spot when we were really sinking further into the couch.
While we never tried some of the trends everyone else was doing (whipped coffee and sourdough), we are having fun with recreating some of our favorite dishes. Follow along with our adventures on Instagram!
