Ask HN: How many hackers (or even tech enthusiasts here) love to cook?

I'm working my way through Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking", but I keep getting drawn back to the very early chapters on cheese and dairy, even though it isn't particularly specific.

Any tips?

For cheese-making, I recommend starting with paneer / farmer's cheese, rather than aged cheeses. Gradually heat milk in a big pot, stir in a curdling agent (such as lemon juice), let it separate, then wrap the curds in cheesecloth and let them drip, maybe press them after. Real directions will be more specific (the book I linked has a great intro!), but that's the gist. Paneer is great fried with spinach and/or scrambled eggs. Also, try making bread with the whey.

Homemade yogurt is also good, particularly if you strain it a bit to thicken it ("labneh", among many other names). Buttermilk is even easier, since it's less finicky about being kept warm, and it's fantastic for baking - soda bread with lots of rolled oats, pancakes, etc. Having a lot of large jars helps; I've accumulated a bunch of half-gallon (~2L) jars from honey used for meadmaking. They're incredibly versatile.

I really like _On Food and Cooking_ as a reference, though it doesn't inspire me the way _Wild Fermentation_ does. I also wholeheartedly recommend John Thorne's books, particularly _Pot on the Fire_ and _Outlaw Cook_. The newsletter is good, too, if a bit sporadic these days.

You will need:

* 4 lamb shanks (you can use about 1.5lb - 3lb leg or shoulder instead, but it's not a shank then)

* 2tsp cumin seeds

* Just over 1inch of fresh ginger, chopped

* 4 garlic cloves, chopped

* 1tsp salt

* 2 tbsp olive oil

* 2 large red onions, cut into wedges

* 1 and 1/2 tbsp Harissa Paste

* Small can of chopped tomatoes

* 1 pint (about 568-600ml chicken stock, hot - use beef stock if you haven't any chicken)

* 1 cinnamon stick

* 4oz halved dried ready-to-eat apricots

* 4oz halved dried figs

* A reasonable sized crock pot

Protip: if you have a very large crockpot you can add a couple of potatoes cut into larger wedges, the odd carrot or half a swede will work but don't put too much in or you're overpower the flavour. Note, by swede I mean vegetable, not someone from Sweden.

I've put the measures in US imperial as the majority of the site have it - I cook metrically, but roughly so you'll be fine with these or converting back to metric.

Bash the cumin and coriander in a pestle and mortar for a while, then add the ginger and salt and keep bashing till you have a nice paste. It doesn't need to be perfect - a rough paste is fine, but it needs to be fairly mashed and mixed up.

Heat some oil in a pan (I use sunflower or olive) and brown the shank off in the pan - this is purely for aesthetic purposes, you don't have to do this but your lamb might look a bit grey otherwise. If you do this, just brown it for a minute or two and put it in the pot.

Add your onions to the pot, along with the spice paste (you might want to rub it onto the lamb, maybe not), harissa (I generally smear this over the lamb but it doesn't affect the taste much), tomatoes, cinammon stick and stock.

Put the crockpot on low for 8 hours or high for 4. I cannot stress this enough - your meat will be so much better the longer you cook it. My record is 16 hours for lamb, you'll reach the point where the shank just falls apart and the meat falls off the bone around the 7 hour mark on low. Cooking it on high is fine, but it affects the meat more and more importantly sends the stock over boiling point. You won't lose too much but you will lose some. If you put it on low it really doesn't matter how long you cook it for, it simply will not burn, so feel free to put this on the night before if you really want to, all you'll do is get even more tenderness from the meat.

Ok, now between an hour to half an hour beforehand (closer to an hour) add the apricots and figs, make sure they're in the sauce and put up on high if the lid's off for a while or you only have half an hour, low if you barely took the lid off and you have an hour.

About 15 minutes beforehand, it's time to make the accompanying lemon and mint couscous if you want. Get a bowl and add some couscous (bear in mind that it will swell to between two and three times it's size). Bulgur wheat or quinoa are fine as alternatives (and may be cheaper depending on where you are).

Add 4 tablespoons of olive oil to the couscous along with the juice of half to a whole mid-sized lemon (depending on how much you like lemon). Add a cup of chicken stock, roughly enough to cover the couscous along with some salt and pepper, cover the bowl and let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes. If you run out of water add some more. It's ok to stir it up as well. After 10 minutes drain off the excess couscous, add 3 tablespoons of freshly chopped mint (you can use parsley instead if you want) and optionally add another two teaspoons of coriander and mix it in with a fork. Using the fork is important as this 'fluffs up the couscous. Bring the couscous to the table with a nice big spoon as the smell of the lamb will be driving anyone else at home wild, then serve the lamb individually, with enough sauce, figs and apricots to get the balance.

The thing I really love about the recipe is how the spicy heat from the harissa complements the sweetness of the apricots and figs. The lamb acts as a neutral balancer, but the texture is just incredible. It's an amazing modern and exotic take on a great classical dish. Please do try it if you have a slow cooker.

Protips for the not yet ramen profitable: Looking to do this on the cheap? Then bear these tips in mind.

1. Shanks are normally quite cheap, but you can get away with the cheapest possible cuts of lamb you can find. You can also use beef if that works for you. This dish was designed for low quality cuts - the key thing is giving it enough time. If you cook it for 12 hours on low and use a shank I pretty much guarantee that when you lift it up out of the crockpot by the bone the meat will fall off and back in. It's that tender.

2. Don't be afraid to use apricots or figs near their sell by date. If it's cheaper to get fresh or on the turn, just dry them out in the sun for about 6 hours beforehand. Apricots get squishy before going off, figs get sweaty. They're still good for this dish.

3. You can keep the dish in the cooker and reheat it the next day - you should get about 3-4 days worth of shank on your own. To reheat just give yourself an hour or two, alternatively top up the harissa, add another cinnamon stick, put it on low in the morning before work and come home to an even better tasting lamb shank in the evening. You can also pad it out with vegetables like potatoes cut into large chunks on days two and three. You can also top the sauce up with a little red wine if you want on days 2 and 3, but don't overdo it and chicken stop is cheaper.

4. If you're going to make this dish for someone you're having over for dinner (such as a significant other) then it's probably best to make the dish beforehand once. It is really really easy though, very hard to get wrong (given that you have about 8 hours to fix anything that pops up) and is pretty much a one pot recipe so there's less washing up. This is definitely a hacker and newb-cook friendly dish.

5. Most importantly if an ingredient costs a load then ditch it. Use dates instead of figs if they're cheaper, just use less of them because they're sweeter. Use the cheapest onions you can find, use dried herbs instead of fresh if you don't grow your own etc. - chilli paste will taste slightly different compared to harissa paste but if it's cheaper and cash is tight then go for it.

I hope you enjoy that recipe, if you don't mind this took a while, I'll do my roast lamb with slow-roasted dates in white wine and garlic.