col klink

Stone, I'd warm your pot up so the congealed grease is no longer congealed and then pour the excess out and then clean like you'd normally clean cast iron. Which is clean out, dry and seal. If you actually have stuff stuck to the surface you need to deglaze. Right after I'm saute-ing I add a 1/2 cup of water to deglaze and if needed (not often) I scrap with a metal spatula and even then it's hardly any work. I rinse it out under the faucet and if there's still a decent amount of lipids, I'll use a (clean, i.e. non-soapy) sponge to wipe out the excess and then I'll put it back on the burner to dry out. When there's only a couple of drops, I turn off the burner, take a paper napkin to dry it out completely and then take the dry portion of the napkin to smear Crisco to lay a clean layer of fat to seal. Non-stick pans are really cool, but if that's the best technology to rival the cast iron pan EVER, I have a hard time believing anything can better it. Of course I will admit that non-stick pans are far lighter than cast iron, but since I have no problems working with the weight of cast-iron, I say it's the best.

The T-bone is the poor man's porterhouse. They have the cuts of meat (strip steak and tenderloin) but it's further down the tail than a porterhouse, thus the size of the strip is larger and loin is smaller.

Me again folks, after some further number crunching, I don't see the final product being higher than $8/lb. Secondly, I didn't say how I was going to ship! I have a vacuum sealer, and as soon as the brisket (or any other meat I'm planning on shipping) has cooled, I seal it right up. So to allay any fears of spoilage, this brisket is fully cooked (just like regular Texas beef brisket), smoked (a form of presevation) and then vacuum sealed to make sure no oxygen can reach it. The flat rate shipping will deliver it within 2 to 3 days. I've been shipping smoked meat, mostly kielbasa, but aslo brisket, turkey, pork shoulder and even lamb for the last six months without any problems. Well, that is nobody's complained so far!

Howdy folks, As you may or may not know, St. Patty's day is coming up and corned beef briskets are coming out of the woodwork here. If anyone would like to try my smoked corned beef brisket either post here or pm me like we've done for my kielbasa endeavors. Here's the deal, you pay for the meat, the vacuum bag and shipping and I'll smoke it and mail it out to you. Donations are accepted too. St. Patty's Day falls on a Monday this year so I'll smoke everything up on Saturday the 8th and ship on the following Monday. Shipping runs $3.85 and a pound of finished product will run about $6 to $10. It's hard to gauge exactly how much shrinkage there is in the smoking process. A few of you have tried the smoked corned beef brisket and you know that it's a completely different animal than your regularly prepared corned beef brisket. Mine is more like a pastrami but a lot smokier and less peppery with the added bonus that he brisket fat is very smooth and almost the best part. Here are some user comments: Fat Guy: Jason: Yes, this sounds like Jason. Then again, I've heard he likes Corned Beef too. Agreed. But I don't think Jason normally likes Corned Beef - he probably liked Klink's though.Its true, I'm not really a corned beef kind of guy, but Klink's was so smoked that it really wasnt corned beef any more, it was like a chunky beef bacon.It was not inspiration but rather desperation that initially led me to smoke corned beef brisket. I was having a case of the shakes for brisket, but unlike Texas, Seattle does not have a ubiquitous supply of fresh brisket in every grocery store. So, I bought the only brisket I could find and smoked it. I didn't even like it at first so I saved it for the next day and brought it over to my buddy's place where in a whole mess of people dove into it. Now, I just love the stuff and so has anyone who's tried it. I primarily serve it as an appetizer or make sandwiches out of it. Or you can do as Fat Guy did and make hash and he's right, it makes for some damn fine hash. If you'd like to give it a whirl, let me know! edit: I recalculated a lower estimated cost.

I've found that such lean cuts as the chop don't do well with braising. Shoulders do much better due to all of its beautiful marbling. If you do decide to braise use a meat thermometer and pull at 150 for medium doneness. You can easily go as high as 160 if you're a little squeamish. 325F for an hour is WAY too long for chops, regardless of thickness. edit: yes, converging brains!

Not really, a friend of mine had one and I was jealous. I just looked at the bottom of the mug and did web search. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a god, but not for this.

If you'd like, you can buy more. You can even order just the bunnies. edit: typo.

Not me, I have a cute little bunny rabbit mug:

Ditto. I also write my notes on small pieces of paper that I can slide under the plate. The pencil/pen is a little more difficult to hide.

Pickle brine, vinegar, Nestle Quick.

I'll do experiments with both and let y'all know. What is the minimum gestation period for the garlic in the vinegar?

I seem to have an excess of garlic at the moment (8 heads) which means that a lot of it will sprout before I get a chance to cook with it. So I was thinking of pickling it for another day. Anyone do this before? Oh yes, I will be roasting some of it too.

You can buy it here. I however picked it up at my local Fred Meyer here in Seattle.

I've tried one of those but it must have been old because it gave me really coarse slices and it got stuck a lot. Is there any way to sharpen those?

I'd be in for the kobe beef.

Oh, then we basically have the same thing. What about large amounts of pepper? edit: or mustard seeds?

Do you have a separate coffee grinder for coffee? I imagine that all of those herbs and spices would taint any coffee ground in there. I only use my coffee grinder for pepper and other hard seeds. For what you've mentioned I'd use my chopper. I bought it the day I did my last batch of kielbasa. It paid for itself the first day! There was no way I was going to mince 7 effin' heads of garlic by hand.

Only sometimes, it depends on how much I've been drinking! Really, if I'm mincing more than 5 or 6 cloves, I'll go to my small food processor: It's quick, easy and most importantly it's easy to clean. But personally, I really love to mince garlice. Something romantic about it I suppose, as dorky as that sounds. That and I REALLY like wielding my chef's knife.

For only a clove or two, mincing is far quicker (for me) than a press. If I'm doing more, let's say something like 7 or 8 heads, I have a small food processor that does a fantastic job. So far I haven't had a need for a press.

Cool! I didn't know we had so many Indian restaurants in the area.

Very nice report NSM, and a happy belated birthday!

Long live Tivo!!! TFL (Tivo For Life)

You mean the deli bacon? I don't know, but they did have whole uncut slabs pre-packaged that looked pretty decent. If you ever get back there make sure to buy some guanciale, after buying it you'll never want to cook with regular bacon again. edit: and it's only $2.19/lb!

Yup, it's just like people who think they're smart but actually aren't. They just prefer to ignore all of the clues.

I like my bacon half flaccid. I like the fat to be crispy but not at the expense of chewy, leather like meat. Thin sliced bacon is good for wrapping dry meat but I'd just as easily go with guanciale. So I like medium sliced bacon that in a pinch I can fry up in a pan which leaves me with the best tasting bacon in the city, Freddy's. Jim, applewood smoking cracks me up. It gives far less smoke flavor to meats so I don't see a use for it unless you just happen to have a lot of it around and it's just going to rot. But people think that if it's applewood smoked, it walks on water or that's how it's promoted. Ah, I love the evilness of marketing. Hmm, uncured. Sounds a little hairy to me. If it's uncured and doesn't have nitrites, how do they keep the germy germs from infesting the meat when it's at 100F for 24 to 36 hours? If they add any salt at all, it's cured right?