/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Well, are you using the whole jar?

>>4942759
No, but it's by far the most expensive spice I use.

A trick to dried spices.

Go to the ethnic/Hispanic section. They have all kinds of dried herbs for $.99/bag instead of $5 for a bottle in the spice section.

>>4942762
Fresh or dried...? You can probably grow them if you want. It's not really a hassle but they do give off a really strong smell in the house. For anything, you just need a little bit of bay leaf inside a soup or stew.

>>4942771
Do you have to got a special hispanic store?

>>4942772

Nope regular grocery stores will usually have them. Better chances at more "ghetto" stores like Food4Less since they are more likely to have Hispanic customers.

>>4942752
>not growing you own
>2013

i bet you buy all your veg to op

>$8 per jar
How big is the jar? They're sold fresh in my area, a handful of laurels for like... a dollar.
Dried ones are even cheaper.

>>4942752
indian/pakistani/middle eastern store

half lb 2 dollar

>>4942797

Not everybody lives in the middle of buttfuck nowhere/has a yard to grow shit in, you seemingly-pompous cuntstab

>>4942841
>people with backyards live in the "middle of buttfuck nowhere"
>people with backyards are "seemingly pompous"

Hilarious. I bet you live in apartment squalor surrounded by dirty concrete. Hilarious.

>>4942895

Pretty hard to find a cheap place to live in LA with a backyard, retard. And like I was implying that everybody with a backyard "lives in the middle of buttfuck nowhere" and are "seemingly pompous". Get your head out of your homegrown ass and learn to read, fagbait.

>>4942895

I do, sadly. There's virtually no light coming in here, and honestly given the neighborhood I'd don't think I'd want the blinds anything but closed.

>>4942923
There are lots of single family subdivisions with moderately sized yards in the neighborhoods of Compton and Watts. For the LA area they are reasonably priced as well.

>>4942752
I buy them cheap from the local supermarket. they come in 4g plastic packs.
They are tough leaves. I only use them when making beans or lentils in the pressure cooker

>>4942936

Not everyone wants to get shot.

>yfw Treyvon and Montel piss Colt 45 all over your sprouting vegetation

Bay leaves taste of nothing and are completely worthless IMO. I've used them in recipes and left them out and taste no difference.

>>4942752
Depending on the soup yes. Though you can add them to most recipes they go best in tomato dishes and roux based cooking. They can over power more delicate dishes if you leave them in after cooking so you might want to take them out once done cooking.

You have to use them in dishes that have a long cook time, because it takes a while for the flavor to sink in.

I use them in chili and gumbo, then take them out when it's done cooking, because the texture of bay leaves is fucking awful.

>>4943396
You had old bay leaves. Dried herbs don't go bad they just lose their flavor

>>4943396
do you, by chance, simply toss them in the sauce instead of frying them along with the onions etc?

>>4943414
Considering it is hard and in one piece, I tend to leave them in. I just take them out as I eat.

>>4942752
They are the easiest thing to grow man, Just buy a big pot and get started.

We have one in the pot outside, thing doesn't need any maintenance or anything. I would defiantly say they are worth it, especially in any dish requiring slow cooking

>>4942752

the price per jar is insane because you are paying for 99% distribution, packaging and retail.

You need to find an asian store or a spice store and they will have them by the bucket cheap as dirt

>>4944116
man, if I knew I would have kept the berries I picked not long ago...

Bay leaves carry dense, intense flavor.
They add airs of nobility and power to liquid they touch.

Use them.

>learn2recognize the tree (in order not to die like an italian gangster in I don't remember which movie)
>pick as much leaves as you can when you see one (protip: like rosemary, you can find them in many cities, at least in my temperate country)
>dry leaves
>have bay leaves for months if not years

The only time in my life I bought some it was on holiday, among a hole lot of other local herbs and spices.

I buy them fresh and just let them dry out. The flavour is better when fresh but still good when dry. Bay leaf or laurel is one of the bases of spanish cuisine.

>>4942771
i get cumin and black pepper and chile powders this way too, for half the price or less than the reg. spice aisle. cloves, anise, all kinds of stuff.

>>4944453
>chile powders

pleb

Wait you people don't have them in your gardens?

I use bayleaf as a natural fence, 2-3 meters high almost all around my house and yard.
Feels good in the Mediterranean, to have this for free I guess.

Buy them in bulk. Co-ops and Whole Foods are a good bet. Maybe ethnic grocers. I have to cheat on the tare weight of my containers when I buy bay because if I fill a 1-pint mason jar with bay leaves it doesn't register as having any added weight. Bulk bay leaves are essentially free, in other words.

>>4944464
Ugh. No wonder that area smells like crusty ass.

>>4944590
your moms ass smells like crusty ass

i still hit it tho

>>4944590
Just Greece and parts of Turkey. The rest doesn't. Even Arab countries don't.

>>4942752
thats very expensive, try a non-white grocery store

>>4944648

they just put 4 leaves in a plastic bottle and charge 5bux for it. white people who watched cooking show and saw bay leaves on the recipe just buy it.

tbh bayleaves are worth as much as dirt. same with kaya, the greenish vanillaish thing from malaysia. It's basically weed but if you freeze it and send it overseas its suddenly 2bux a leave.

its one of those things where the difference between knowing whatsup and not is 10000% price difference