What's an unusual ingredient, spice, or food item that you can't live without?
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Penzey’s has outstanding smoked paprika if you’re in the US! I’m not sure they ship elsewhere though.
Indeedy they do! They’re pricey though so I don’t order from them often. Mother will probably get me a gift card to them for the holidays so it’s just a matter of time!
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Basically the title. I want to learn more about some ingredients or food items that you use frequently in your cooking and that aren’t super common where you live.
Example: Roasted sesame oil. Didn’t know there was such a thing until a year ago, and I never want to miss it again.
Brit.
HP Sauce. Marmite. Worcestershire Sauce.
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I was thinking about getting a rice cooker. Do you have any recommendations?
I have a Zojirushi NS-ZCC10 that gets used 3-5 times a week since I got it 12 years ago. It’s an amazing kitchen tool and the rice comes out fantastic every time. Sometimes I’ll set it up to make steel cut oats so they are ready for me when I wake up in the morning.
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I hope you’re fencing that shit in, because every time I tried to grow mint, it took over the entire pot and the ones next to it.
I have an old wood box that overflows with mint.
Anything outside the box gets the weed wacker.
Works well enough.
Then again oregano made of easy in there and it’s like the Blood War in there now.
Sometimes the mint starts taking over, sometimes it’s the oregano. -
A good rice cooker.
I use my zojirushi all the time and it makes perfect or near perfect rice every time.
For some easy umami, dried porcini mushrooms are great
For some easy umami, dried porcini mushrooms are great
Why not just

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Dehydrated mushrooms.
They’re shelf stable, delicious, and healthy. They can be the focus of a meal like a stir-fry, or you can add them into anything savory (rehydrated or ground up) to give it more flavor depth— spaghetti sauce or chili are great examples. Throw some in ramen for an easy fancy-up.
They’re amazing.
This. I also pulverizer them into a powder to sprinkle into dishes.
My mother. Is on a very reduced salt diet. I introduced her to mushroom powder and she really likes the flavor it brings to everything.
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Basically the title. I want to learn more about some ingredients or food items that you use frequently in your cooking and that aren’t super common where you live.
Example: Roasted sesame oil. Didn’t know there was such a thing until a year ago, and I never want to miss it again.
I can get dried california reaper peppers at the grocery store near my place. I either stir in or top most my food with slivers of the pepper. Literally almost every meal. I use scissors to cut them. As someone who likes their spicy food, well, spicy, the amount of basic red pepper that I’d need to get to the heat level I want means I’m basically drowning the food in the flavor of red pepper. By using a super hot pepper instead, I can get a lot of heat without much actual change in the flavor of the food because it doesn’t take that much.
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I was thinking about getting a rice cooker. Do you have any recommendations?
What are you looking for in a rice maker? The Zojirushi ones tend to bet the best reviews but are also expensive. Personally I’ve been quite satisfied with a $20 Aromatic rice cooker, it’s very basic, aphas no options and I’m sure the results aren’t as good, but it works. Consistently and conveniently.
Most of my life I rarely had rice because making it is tedious and it’s easy to lose track, but even the cheapest rice maker is a huge improvement for its convenience and consistently. Now I have rice all the time.
That being said, after like five years the non-stick coating is no longer as non-stick and I’ve been trying to reduce the teflon in my diet, so I’ll be looking for a replacement with stainless pot
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For some easy umami, dried porcini mushrooms are great
Why not just

Sometimes you want heavy mushroom flavor. The ajinomoto package is in the pantry also
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Sometimes you want heavy mushroom flavor. The ajinomoto package is in the pantry also
Fuyioo, Nephew Tolookah know how to cook as well!
I didn’t even know the name of the brand but sounded familiar, so had to run to check.


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I was thinking about getting a rice cooker. Do you have any recommendations?
If I may assume you’re Deutsch? Just you, based on a couple or ich_iel comments. Well it’s all I got to go on.
I got a rice cooker a few years ago. Awesome. Never really ate rice before. And it can steam or make a soup and all kinds.
Anyway when I started looking everyone was hyping Zojirushi, and definitely worth their price I gather. But the price tag was like twice what I had thought even in the smaller lower-end models (which are still amazing as they’re Zojirushi, just their lower end.)
Soo… My sister had bought an OBH rice cooker a bit before, said it was good. I saw it on sale I think and grabbed it.
And idd if youre living in Germany then you can buy one from
No relation. Am no shill.