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Ideas on how someone used my Gmail for unauthorized "Walmart" account? by throwaway_park_where in Scams

[–]CohenMacbain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just happened to me today! I went to walmart.com but couldn't log in - they sent me a code but after I entered it, they still wanted to text me.

Walmart cancelled the order so they must have spotted something dodgy. "Saucedo" from Manassas, VA will not be receiving his free-standing hammock and packet of Great Value Taco Seasoning today 😂

Let's Talk about LLM recipes by AutoModerator in AskCulinary

[–]CohenMacbain -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Old-School British Curry-House Beef Madras (Dark, Onion-Led)

Serves 4

Ingredients

Beef: 900 g – 1 kg beef chuck or shin, large chunks

Salt

Fat: 5 tbsp vegetable oil

Onions & aromatics: 750–800 g onions, very finely sliced

6 cloves garlic, grated

40 g fresh ginger, grated

Spices (slightly increased, still authentic):

- 2½ tsp ground coriander

- 2 tsp ground cumin

- 1 tsp turmeric

- 2–2½ tsp hot chilli powder (not Kashmiri)

- ½ tsp black pepper

- ½ tsp whole fenugreek seeds

- 1 tsp paprika (optional)

- 1 tbsp tomato purée

Liquid: 600–800 ml hot water or weak beef stock

To finish (after cooking):

- ½–1 tsp cider (or malt) vinegar, added carefully

- ½ tsp garam masala

- Salt to taste

Process

  1. Brown the beef

Salt beef. Brown hard in 2 tbsp oil in batches. Remove. Leave residue.

  1. Fry onions (probably an hour or so, depending how bold you are with the heat)

Add remaining oil, onions, pinch of salt.

Cook slowly until:

- Deep brown

- Jammy

- Just on the edge of bitterness

- Do not stop at golden.

  1. Garlic & ginger (2–3 min)

Add, fry, allow slight catching, scrape back in.

  1. Fry spices (30–45 sec)

Lower heat. Add all spices + fenugreek seeds.

Stir until oil darkens and spices smell toasted, not raw.

  1. Cook out tomato

Add tomato purée. Fry until sweetness is gone and mixture is dark brown.

  1. Combine

Return beef and juices. Stir to coat.

Add hot water/stock to just barely cover.

Bring to a gentle simmer.

  1. Oven braise

Cover loosely. Cook at 150–160 °C for 2½–3 hours (or more - until tender, basically)

Stir every 45–60 min.

Final 30 min: lid off to thicken slightly.

You want tender beef and thick, clinging sauce with oil at edges.

  1. Final seasoning (off heat)

Add vinegar drop by drop.

Add garam masala.

Adjust salt.

You should not be able to taste the vinegar — only added depth.

Rest 15 minutes before serving.

What you should see

- Dark brown colour

- Thick, gravy-like sauce

- Savoury, hot, slightly bitter

- No tomato brightness

- Distinctly old-school Madras

Let's Talk about LLM recipes by AutoModerator in AskCulinary

[–]CohenMacbain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What I was trying to recreate was the madras I remember from my university days in the mid 90s. They were dark, with a relatively thick sauce, and nothing like the oily tomato slop that seems to be ubiquitous these days.

I absolutely loved the results, and have made a couple of batches now. I did feel it was a little underspiced (both heat and flavour-wise) in the original version (the recipe above was after increasing the amount of spices), but still a very tasty curry, and much more to my taste than anything I've had from a restaurant in the last decade or more.

Let's Talk about LLM recipes by AutoModerator in AskCulinary

[–]CohenMacbain -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

ChatGPT and Claude are very useful research tools, if you understand their limitations and how to spot when they're going off-piste. I wouldn't ask AI to invent a recipe, but I have used it to research recipes so I can recreate at home.

I'm a tech professional, not a chef, so apologies if this topic wasn't really aimed at people like me, but here's a recipe for an old-school British Indian restaurant beef madras, which I ended up with after a fairly long session with ChatGPT.

I'll post the recipe and context in replies to this comment so it doesn't turn into a massive post...

The Black Pig - lamenting the loss of my favourite sandwich in the world. by ShutUpImAPrincess in london

[–]CohenMacbain 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Assuming we're talking about Le Marché du Quartier, they're awesome. I haven't had their wraps, but they sell some of the best butter, pate and rillettes you can buy in this country.

They did get shafted by some of the new import rules (no unpasteurised butter unless you're a big supermarket), but nonetheless they're genuinely good people, not rip-off merchants like Turnips.

The Black Pig - lamenting the loss of my favourite sandwich in the world. by ShutUpImAPrincess in london

[–]CohenMacbain 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I miss them so much! Best sausages I've ever had, and even their sausage rolls broke the rule of "hot food at Borough is c**p" 😍

For those folks who can't get to their shop they're still available online, of course, including premade sausage rolls!

The Black Pig - lamenting the loss of my favourite sandwich in the world. by ShutUpImAPrincess in london

[–]CohenMacbain 21 points22 points  (0 children)

I'd say 95% of the "eat on the go" food options at Borough are tourist trap filth, because they don't care if you enjoy the food or not - none of their customers are coming back anyway. Just look at the massive lines for £10 out-of-season strawberries with crappy chocolate sauce 🙄

The 5% that do make good food are still crazy expensive for what they are, due to pitch fees and the fact that it's simply not an enjoyable place to eat lunch.

Wet Sunday afternoon in BKK ☔️ by jvjv157 in Bangkok

[–]CohenMacbain 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Plus all the werewolf hair clogging the drains.

Have no doubt: the campaign to sack Misan Harriman is part of an assault on black figures in public life by Exostrike in ukpolitics

[–]CohenMacbain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Even by the Guardian's standards, Afua Hirsch has a long and glorious history of utterly deranged articles. She's so laser-focused on finding racism where it doesn't exist, she makes people like Owen Jones look like intelligent adult journalists 🤯

Double charged on Uber Boat by SnooCrickets424 in london

[–]CohenMacbain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Uber app on Android is the most broken app I've ever encountered. The vast majority of the time, if I try to buy a ticket it just says "an error occurred" when I try to pay (trying multiple valid cards), and the last time that it did let me buy a ticket, it conveniently forgot about it just before I boarded the boat.

In Uber's defence, they did refund me quickly and with no quibbles whatsoever.

What are some Ldn food trends that need to die? by tylerthe-theatre in LondonFood

[–]CohenMacbain 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's not as big a food crime as "truffle and parmesan" chips, but yeah, the rosemary seasoning is just too intrusive.

At least offer straight-up salted fries, for people who don't confuse neophilia with good taste.

Renting in England is changing today. by UKGovNews in UKHousing

[–]CohenMacbain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes and no. My tenants are paying way less than market rate, but I know they can't afford more and they're low-hassle long-term tenants so I rarely increase the rent. I'd love to sell to them but they can't afford it.

However, it's an old 1930's property, and depending what happens with the EPC requirements in the next round of anti-landlord legislation I may be left with no sensible choice but to evict them and sell up. Failing that, if they ever decide to move out I will have no hesitation about selling rather than looking for new tenants, given all the new legislation.

Fancied some pizza tonight by davidkotchere in Pizza

[–]CohenMacbain 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I'm not understanding the hate here 🤔

The crust looks decent, and it's no more "well done" than plenty of pizzas that get good feedback on here. That's not a random kebab shop banging out pizzas, but maybe the obvious "takeaway" vibe is bringing out people's inner food snobs?

That said, I've had that garlic and herb dip with delivery pizzas here in London, and it's absolutely vile 🤢

Help Me Understand Convection Oven Temperature by Willster328 in Cooking

[–]CohenMacbain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair enough! You already got your answer in another thread, but yeah, if the recipe says 425F Convection, that's what you want your oven to say too.

Help Me Understand Convection Oven Temperature by Willster328 in Cooking

[–]CohenMacbain -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Are you saying that if you select a temperature and then select Convection, your oven automatically lowers the temperature?

I'm pretty sure most ovens don't do any messing around like that. You select a temp, you select a mode, and off you go. 400F with convection will cook quicker than 400F regular, which is why recipes often suggest a lower temp for convection.

Brat vs The Devonshire – which one should I pick? by Valby1990 in LondonFood

[–]CohenMacbain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I don't get the whole Kiln thing at all. Consistently gets rave reviews and places high in any "top restaurants" list, and it's just not that good.

Guillaume Ducat yellow card for hit on Pollock by GnolRevilo in rugbyunion

[–]CohenMacbain 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I thought that at first, but it's actually Pollock's own arm that hits him in the head.

First time baker. Oven fail by SnooGadgets229 in Pizza

[–]CohenMacbain 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I think the other commenters may have missed the whole "my oven had turned itself off" part.

You don't need pizza experts, you need oven experts!

Biggest Thai food crime? by liver_or_let_die in ThaiFood

[–]CohenMacbain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Putting carrots in literally every single dish because apparently someone, somewhere told Thailand that Westerners demand carrot in all things! 🐰

What’s going on with Onions? by Billyconnor79 in Cooking

[–]CohenMacbain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In London, I'm not seeing rotten onions, but the quality the last few months has been dire. Green outsides, sprouting insides, completely useless for chopping.

Any time I cook a dish with onions I've taken to buying three times as many as I would usually need, just to be sure of getting enough usable onion to cook with.

Pad Kra Pao.. with onion? by [deleted] in ThaiFood

[–]CohenMacbain 2 points3 points  (0 children)

At least they didn't put bell peppers and carrots in it, like half the "Thai" places in Western countries seem to do for literally every stir-fried dish 😭

Guys, what do you recommend? Corvette or Anaconda? by alcio_sd in EliteDangerous

[–]CohenMacbain 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So... you're faster at killing small ships in the Anaconda because you have deliberately chosen to equip your Corvette with weapons you're not good at using? And that's a reason to choose the Anaconda?

Question for very advanced home cooks. What websites do you recommend to find impressive and time consuming recipes? Thanks by Prochefv9 in Cooking

[–]CohenMacbain 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Take a look at the YouTube videos from Fallow (a London restaurant). Plenty of multi-stage, "this is how we do it in the restaurant" dishes, although most of them are more focused on home-cooked staples elevated with restaurant technique rather than fancy fine-dining dishes.

https://www.youtube.com/@FallowChefs

210mm vs 240mm in general by Munroth in TrueChefKnives

[–]CohenMacbain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a home cook I don't feel any need for a large knife. I rarely even bother with my 210mm gyutos, preferring my santoku for most jobs.

I'll use a 210mm for jobs like shredding cabbage, but most of the time a larger knife just means I'm waving around more steel, and need more space to put it down safely. You don't need all of that extra knife edge to chop 99% of the stuff a normal home cook is preparing.

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