# What is your specialty?



## abefroman (Mar 12, 2005)

What is your specialty?


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## suzanne (May 26, 2001)

Transforming leftovers into completely new dishes.


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## rpmcmurphy (Jan 8, 2008)

I haven't been cooking long enough to have a "real" specialty, but I've got a pretty good handle on Braised short ribs

turkey chili too.


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## deltadoc (Aug 15, 2004)

My widely known specialty is that I'm a "not-so-lean, mean, eating machine"! But usually, egocetnrically, only my own cooking! (just joking )

doc


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## mezzaluna (Aug 29, 2000)

Suzanne, we used to kid that our mom could make fruit salad out of leftover chicken! She really was an inventive cook- still is when she gets a yen to cook again.

I'd have to say chicken: roast, sauteed, braised, rendered fat (schmaltz), soup.


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## ed buchanan (May 29, 2006)

Keeping customers, staff and employer happy, at same time good food cost.


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

Artisan chocolates, pastries, and confections....


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## maryb (Mar 21, 2008)

BBQ but thats kind of obvious :lol:


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## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

Saw the light. New answer below. 

BDL


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## teamfat (Nov 5, 2007)

My best work is basically cooking a decent dinner for my wife and I. Nothing that I cook I can really claim as a signature dish, my wife's favorites are chicken parm, enchiladas of various types and soups based on homemade stock [ Roast Garlic Tomato Soup ] A number of folks are impressed with my chicken habanero chili and my seafood quiche.

I don't mean to sound like an arrogant bragger, but I did get a nice little ego boost at a party a few months ago. I sauntered in with a warm, fragrant seafood quiche in a 9 x 13 pan, made room for it on the main table. The host and I went into the kitchen to get a serving utensil ( which I usually bring myself, but forgot) and the first glass of wine for myself. We were in the kitchen maybe 4 - 5 minutes yakking about stuff, pouring wine, came out with suitable utensils, the quiche was already 80% gone. The only thing that disappeared faster was this one fellow's flan - incredibly rich, creamy, sweet - good stuff!

mjb.


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## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

teamfat showed me the Tao of cooking. I'm changing my answer and going along with his. "[C]ooking a decent dinner 
for my ... incredibly rich, creamy, sweet" wife.

BDL


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## mikelm (Dec 23, 2000)

I became well-known (well, a few houses up and down our street) for my Greek rolled pork loin roast. We were given the recipe by the lady in a mom-and-pop _taverna_ on the island of Corfu quite a few years aqgo. 

You pierce the roast and insert spears of garlic all over (as many as you have the patience for - it can't be overdone.) Then rub all over with a thick slurry of garlic, EVOO and Kefalotiri (or Kasseri) cheese. I grind these together in a Mini-Prep.
Wrap in plastic, overnight in fridge, then cook on rotisserie until up to temp and nice golden crust. Rest and slice, not too thin.

f you happen to have dried grapevine for smoke, it's authentic. Otherwise, I like mesquite.

Greek sides and Rodytis (if you have the stomach for it.) 

Mike


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Eating

(Software says that answer is too short....)

Phil


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## bughut (Aug 18, 2007)

Work-wise there is our whole Indian range. At famiy do's it's the same. ( I had a good teacher, and total kudos to her) 

I also make genuine hangover soup Doesnt matter what kind. Maybe I'm just magic???

Seriously, it's Thai green curry. Apart from Pakoras and Samosas it's my most requested


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## laurieh (Aug 3, 2008)

Cookies. 

I'm a baker and pretty good all-around cook, but cookies are the first thing I learned to cook when I was a kid, they're still what I love to make, and definitely what I do best.


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## mikelm (Dec 23, 2000)

Bughut said

*"I also make genuine hangover soup Doesnt matter what kind. Maybe I'm just magic???"*

Interesting... what do you define as "hangover soup?"

As a teenager I spent a year in Liberia, West Africe with my family; father was in the State Department running the first economic development mission after WW II.

I was too young to develop hangovers but my parents - in the giddy diplomatic whirl - needed assistance ocassionally, and they relied on "Billy Goat Pepper soup." It was a broth concocted around the yclept billy goat peppers. I took a taste of it once and thought my tonsils, esophagus, and sinuses had been incinerated.

Some casual research has suggested that the West African billy goat pepper is closely related or an antecedent to the Habanero and Scotch Bonnet pepper.

Do most "hangover cure" soups rely on creating more pain in the mouth and throat than what's happening in the head?

Inquiring minds want to know...

Mike


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## oregonyeti (Jun 16, 2007)

Fresh pasta is something I'm good at. I'm also pretty good at NE Indian food.

Food preparation was my work for only a few years, but it's always been something I love to do.

Chai is a way of life for me, too.


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## oregonyeti (Jun 16, 2007)

Probably like hammer your toe and forget your headache.


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## bughut (Aug 18, 2007)

when I say hangover soup, I'm talking about a mugful of quite ordinary soup. - Lentil, Tomato,oxtail, - whatever.

Waiters and waitresses, bar staff, chefs and all others have, on so many occasions come in search of my soup of the day and been brought back into the land of the living. They have been the ones to label it "magic" just 'cos it actually works. I've no idea why???


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## cheftorrie (Jun 23, 2006)

I'm always so caught up with work, the wife and baby, and now my oldest starting his first year of college, I can not remember the last time I enjoyed a good Tomato soup. 

...Man bughut, reading your post really gave me a craving...


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## abefroman (Mar 12, 2005)

I'd say creme brulee is my specialty. A lot of restaurants arent very creative in there flavors for the dish, plus a lot of them actually melt the sugar on a head of time and its soggy by the time they server it to you.


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## just jim (Oct 18, 2007)

People seem to love my Mulligatawny, especially when I can do lamb instead of chicken.
Even those who say they don't like lamb.....or curry......or eggplant.....
It's the soup that eats like a meal.

Back when everyone was doing honey-mustard this, honey-mustard that, I went against the grain and offered a maple-dijon pork chop, a nice thick center cut, usually with roasted walnuts.
I like the bitterness of the walnut against the maple.
I've seen one of my Chef's take this to another restaurant, which always strokes my ego.

I make a vegan lasagna, with pressed, crumbled tofu in place of ricotta, with Italian seasoning, marinara, and although I could use an eggless pasta, I made vegan polenta strips.
I walked through the dining room and the guests were literally shoveling it into their mouths.


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## bughut (Aug 18, 2007)

Hey Jim,
I just love maple,Dijon and walnuts too. You'd think pecans, but they're too sweet. Good call


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## ishbel (Jan 5, 2007)

Venison collops for a main course.
Cranachan or Tipsy Laird for pudding.


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## koukouvagia (Apr 3, 2008)

My family calls me the queen of potatoes and nobody can resist my lemon roasted potatoes.

I am quite handy with legumes as well. My family loves vegetable bean soup, lentil soup, and fava bean puree.


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## abefroman (Mar 12, 2005)

Sounds good!


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## phatdad (Aug 27, 2008)

I like to take a dish that you would serve in a fine dining restaurant and duplicate it exactly for a banquet of 800 people


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## oregonyeti (Jun 16, 2007)

Without having to make it 800 times, I presume :smiles:


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## dmt (Jul 28, 2006)

Burgers, brats, and steaks (all grilled/bbq[?] of course) and ribs (slow-cooked).

It's mostly in the seasoning of the burgers, ribs and steaks, and condiments for the burgers and brats, along with the overall presentation of the finished products that garner the compliments.

Or maybe it's having someone else prep, cook, plate/present & clean up that gets the accolades.


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## hammerwrath (Oct 2, 2008)

I love knocking up some traditional Thai curries - always goes down a storm


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## mikelm (Dec 23, 2000)

*I also make genuine hangover soup Doesnt matter what kind. Maybe I'm just magic???* What kind?

My family lived in West Africa for a year when I was a kid, and the grownups swore by the local Billy Goat Pepper soup as a great hangover cure. Father was in the State Department, so he had to do a lot of entertaining. As I recall, Johnny Walker Black was about $1.50 a bottle. (This was quite a long time ago.)

I have made enquiries on this site and others about the "Billy Goat pepper" and the consensus seems to be it was the antecedent of the Scotch Bonnet, brought from West Africa (known in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries as the Slave Coast) to the Caribbean plantations by the imported blacks.

The soup was a suitable amount of the peppers in chicken broth with some chicken meat (you should have seen those Liberian chickens- they were about the size of pigeons) and a few vegetables. I remember my mother eating it with sweat beads on her forhead and tears running down her cheeks. I guess it mainly took your mind off your headeache, rather than "curing" it.

What are some other "hangover soups?"

Mike


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## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

Not likely. Chillies moved from the new world to the eastern hemisphere after Columbus. I know. It kills me too. Just thinking about those poor (sub-continent) Indians eating food without chillies _for millenia_ make me very sad.

A few I like are _asari miso _(Japan, and mild); _menudo_ (Mexico, as mild or as spicy as you like); and _soon tofu _(Korea, I like it hotter than you can imagine).

BDL


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