Feral Cooks

Good food shouldn't be tame

Secret Cookies that Aren’t So Secret

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This recipe from Serious Eats makes for some good cookies. Why are they secret? No idea. No explanation was given.

For just a basic cookie, they sure are good!

What you’ll need:

  • 0.75 pounds salted butter, softened
  • 1.75 cups sugar
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 2t vanilla extract
  • 3.5 cups flour
  • Colored sugar (just use regular sugar if you don’t have any colored)

What to do:

Begin heating your oven to 350°F. 

In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or use a large bowl and hand-mixer), cream the butter and sugar. Next, add the yolks and vanilla, mixing well. Add the flour and thoroughly combine.

Use mounded teaspoonfuls to make balls of dough with your hands. Put them on an ungreased cookie sheet, then schmoosh each ball with the bottom of a glass dipped in colored sugar.

Bake for about 10 minutes (watch carefully—they burn easily) until the cookies are lightly golden just around the edges. When cooked, let them rest on the baking sheets for a few minutes so they can cool a bit. They’re really fragile when hot. 

Carefully transfer to cooling racks after they’re not so hot.

Try not to eat them all at once. 

Japanese Potato Salad

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For Thanksgiving 2020 we wanted to make a Japanese meal, so we did. It included this potato salad, a regular salad and tori-no-kara-age chicken, which is always good.

There are many recipes for Japanese potato salad, but this one is base on one from Serious Eats. This is vegan if you make or use vegan mayo.

What’s different about Japanese potato salad is that the potatoes are very coarsely mashed, which makes for a great consistency. Add the Japanese mayo and a little bit of hot mustard, and you’ve got a great side dish.

What you’ll need:

  • 1.5 lbs russet potatoes (about 3 large), peeled and quartered
  • Kosher salt
  • 2 Persian cucumbers, thinly sliced crosswise
  • 2t rice wine vinegar 
  • 6T homemade or store-bought Japanese mayonnaise, such as Kewpie
  • 0.5t Japanese hot mustard (twice that much won’t hurt)
  • 1 small carrot, quartered and thinly sliced crosswise
  • 0.25 red onion, thinly sliced
  • 2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
  • 1 scallion, white and light green parts only, chopped

What to do:

Put the potatoes in a large pot and add enough cold water to cover by 1 inch. Season generously with salt, set over high heat, and bring to a boil. After it boils reduce it to a simmer until the potatoes are easily pierced with a fork 15-20 minutes, although that never seems to be enough time. Drain the potatoes and put them in a large bowl to cool.

This next step is really cool: Place the sliced cucumbers in a bowl and sprinkle 0.5t salt over them. Mix well, then let stand for about 10 minutes. Drain any accumulated water, then gently squeeze cucumbers with paper towels to blot up any excess liquid. If you do this early and it takes awhile for the potatoes to cool, you’ll have to drain the cucumbers again—no big deal.

In a small bowl, stir together rice vinegar, mayonnaise and hot mustard until thoroughly combined.

Mash the potatoes with a masher or a large fork, allowing some small lumps to remain. Then, add the cucumbers, carrots, onions, eggs, scallions, and mayonnaise mixture. Mix well and season with salt. 

Serve right away. The salad can be refrigerated up to one day.

Chrissy Tracey’s Fried Oyster Mushrooms

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These are great! This recipe comes from Bon Appetit vegan test-kitchen chef, Chrissy Tracey. You may have seen her video about these in the news or on Instagram or something. 

This is an outstanding recipe! Part of her back-story on making this is that it’s kind of a substitute for fried chicken. While I partially agree with that, but the ‘shrooms are not nearly as filling as chicken would be, and as such, this would be more of a side dish or an appetizer.

However you eat these, Chrissy Tracey developed a winner recipe!

What you’ll need:

  • 8 oz. oyster mushrooms (or more)
  • 1 cup buttermilk or buttermilk substitute*
  • 1T apple cider vinegar (you could also use lemon juice)
  • 1t paprika (not smoked, it will add a different flavor profile)
  • 1t garlic powder
  • 1t onion powder
  • 1t cajun seasoning
  • 1t salt
  • 1 cup flour
  • Enough oil for deep-frying.

*Obviously, buttermilk is not vegan, but unsweetened almond milk and oat milk are. Because I was sharing these with vegan friends and had no fake milk in the house, I used coconut milk with 1T of lemon juice, to very good effect.

What to do:

Cut your mushrooms into fried-chicken-size pieces. When you cut, be sure to leave the lower sections intact so they don’t split apart into small pieces. Set aside.

Next, add the buttermilk or its substitute to a deep, narrow bowl, large enough to hold a chunk of mushroom. If using a buttermilk substitute, add apple cider vinegar or something similar to “curdle” the milk. Don’t use if using real buttermilk.

Now it’s time to make the coating. Add the flour to a shallow bowl and add all of the spices. Mix well so the spices are well incorporated.

To begin cooking, start heating the oil (NOT olive oil) to 350 degrees in whatever vessel you’re going to cook in. A medium saucepan works as well as a deep-fryer in my opinion.

While the oil is heating, coat a piece of mushroom with the buttermilk or fake milk, ensuring you get it into all the cracks and crevices. Shake off the extra milk and dredge it in the flour mixture, again ensuring to get the mixture in the cracks and crevices. Set aside on a plate and repeat for each piece.

When the oil is heated to temperature, add three or four pieces to the oil. It will make a wonderful cooking-in-oil sound. Poke them a couple of times with long, wooden chopsticks or metal tongs to ensure they’re fully submerged. Allow them to cook for a few minutes, until the flour coating becomes golden-brown. Be careful not to overcook. When the pieces are done, remove from the oil and let them cool on a rack or plate lined with paper towels. Repeat in batches until they’re all cooked.

Serve with your favorite sauce, or whip up a quick batch of honey mustard sauce. Straight mayo or Japanese mayo works well, too.