/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>16024578
>What are some odd combinations that are actually delicious? Pic related, sauerkraut on pizza
well, their menu states ham & sauerkraut as the combination, which makes it more complementary

Weirdest pizza ever was probably a bearnaise sauce drizzled steak and fries topped pizza I had near midnight in a small town in Iceland, a great diner that had great everything.

The mashed potato bacon, and onion topped coal fired pizzas of Bar in New Haven work like magical complementary flavors too.

Some of the best pizza for weird toppings that really work have been on trips to Mexico City, where a few chile rellenos just ooze their cheese in each bite, or a mess of chilaquiles, or elotes with mayo, really does seem to work, or maybe it's the pickled onions or buttery slices of avocado on top to make it all sing. Huatilicoche is like the best earthy mushrooms ever. One chain does a whole black layer of it as sauce.

>>15216179
>What are some good Huy Fong's sriracha substitutes?
I really just don't care for pasteurized garlic in my hot sauces, tastes too much like jarred minced garlic, ick. I also dont' want a bunch of sugar. Sriracha just isn't something I buy in my house for those reasons. If it is served in a restaurant, ehh, I might take it or leave it. I have no need to cook with it at home.

If I need something mild like sriracha to figuratively douse copiously on top of some kind of food? I am looking for something not too heavy on the vinegar, so it doesn't become too tart before I reach maxium flavor of chilies. I like to keep on hand about 3-4 sauces. I like a Valentina, Crystal, Cholula, for latino and creole, or egg, dishes. I might enjoy some actual chili paste to glob into dipping sauces or stir fries. I like for chicken, a nandos peri peri for the nice lemony freshness for like a deli chicken night, or going into dressed salads. I like some hot pepper vinegar in greens, Southern style.
Otherwise? I like to just slice a raw chili, of whatever variety I want, to garnish my meals. I have a bird chili bush with my herbs, and I regularly buy jalapenos, serranos, scotch bonnets, poblanos, and keep most mexican chilies dried, ready to reconstitute into pureed sauces.

>>14327523
I just never order pizza out when I am not in an Italian mood, so, traditional topping combinations, and I usually keep it to 2 toppings, maybe 3.
You see, I don't eat pizza but probably once a month, if not less.

For other people, they can be going through some kind of novelty phase of their life where they try everything, and try everything once, and if they are ordering pizza weekly or more, they might run through an entire menu at a favorite local joint. I've had good pineapple-ham pizza, and bananas are a similar tropical mood, and it's closely related to plantains which indeed go with ham. It's fine, and I'm not sure I care what other people do, whether bbq-chicken-thai flavored at California Pizza Kitchen, or whole stuffed chile rellenos, a bean sauce, or carnitas at a mexican pizza place. I don't crave that over a plate of mexican food, but some people might.

Part of growing up OP, is not acting like you're a child in an elementary cafeteria and pointing out to others that their plate of food is gross.

Some chilies are so hot, the flavor is neglible, but they all certainly have flavor. Have you ever cooked with a fresh or dried chile pepper ever? Or have you only had sauces? One of my favorites is the poblano, a nicely spicy green pepper you can stuff when raw, and allowed to ripen to red and dried, a raisinlike sweet dark red richness, with a toasty flavor, you can rehydrate, puree to make enchilada sauce, or slice and fry to make a topping. None of these will give unbearable pain and numbing, but you'll know it has heat.
I sometimes cook with scotch bonnet pepper, the hottest I would bother to consume, but I might pierce the 1 pepper and drop into a one dish meal to sort of get the fruitiness of the pepper but not release the oil and seeds to burn my house out. So 1 pepper serves 8 or so portions of food. A single pepper can go into a escabeche fish topping, dispersed into several onions, carrots, all pickled in vinegar. It's a required flavor in escabeche, and it goes into the whole pickle and juices, where you don't directly need to bite on a strip of it. It is the defacto hot pepper of Jamaican food, and there is a fruitiness similar to mango you just don't get with any other less hot choice or more hot choice.