NulloModo

London Broil with crumbled Bleu Cheese atop (alas no onion confit due to carbonization) Fennel au Gratin

I used two large spanish onions, about a quarter cup of Dow's Port, four tablespoons of butter, some salt, and some pepper. I tossed it all into my large crock pot last night at 10, on high, turned it to low this morning at 6, and came home at about 5 in the evening to find the charred mess. In total then it was in for 19 hours.

Upon returning home - Disaster! My onion confit had turned into a blackened mass of charred carmelized onion scented coal. Absolutely no moisture, just lots of crunchy black ash.... The very edges were beginning to char this morning, at which point I turned it down to low. I had left it on from approx. 10pm until 6am on High, perhaps I will try another batch and just do it on low from the get go....

I have just finished reading this thread from start to finish... I am at work now, but I have had a confit simmering away in my crockpot since approx. 10pm last evening, I hope it is ready when I return. I am not sure how I should use it first, maybe on some rare burgers with gruyere like was previously mentioned? I have some bacon and bleu cheese I must use... and I also really want to make a Fennel Graten this evening... I wonder if all of these desires can be accomodated in one meal....

Interesting ;). I am a 'recreational' cheese user I suppose you could say, I certainly don't have a restaurant to run. I am just beginning to get into this appreciating fiine food and cooking thing, so I am a complete novice with regards to what to look for or where to look for it. I have learned a lot simply reading threads in e-gullet, and am otherwise sort of picking it up as I go along. I don't recall ever seeing a shop which sells only cheese anywhere around here, but I can't say I have ever looked either, I will have to do some searching and then report back my findings.

I am less than 45 minutes outside of Philadelphia. I have a feeling I will have to make some trips into the city to buy some of the things I hear about on these threads. I am not against ordering online, but I tend to be rather impatient when I Want to try something new, so I would rather drive that day to Philadelphia and search till I find it than wait the several days for an air-delivery.

The batter rested while I chopped the onion, but that was only for a couple minutes. The batter, onion, and beer, were therefore all fairly cold (the onion and beer having come straight from the fridge) so perhaps that made the difference? I used soy flour because I am low-carbing at the moment and unfortunately rice flour would not fit into that model. If I can't find a way to make the soy flour work I will go for a more traditional style 'breading' feel by using crushed pork rinds and an egg wash... hmmmm... the tastes of pork and onion rings combined, now that has potential ;).

Hi, Tonight I tried my first experiment with making beer battered onion rings. I made my batter, dipped my onion pieces, and tossed them into my deep fryer (the el cheapo fry baby) which was fully heated and full of peanut oil. When the rings went in however, I was greeted with a huge burst of bubbles, and the onions floated back to the top devoid or batter. I tried changing the ratio of flour to beer in my batter several times, making it thicker and thinner, with the same results, here is my approximate batter recipe: 1/2 cup soy flour 6 oz Beer 1/4 tsp baking powder seasoned salt pepper I dipped the onions in, then put them right into the fryer. Any ideas why this may have happened, or how I could go about fixing it?

Recipe without sugar here. Sucrose is sugar. There would probably be a way to leave it out however...

Well, it was definately fish sauce, not soy sauce, I just thought it might have been kikkoman brand, I will double check when I get back home. I believe the sweetness came from the fish sauce, corn syrup was listed as one of the ingredients. I will try it again without the lemongrass perhaps as I do not have a functional food processor at the moment. I will also make my next batch with ground pork instead of turkey. Do you think that using fresh vs. dried thai chiles would make a big difference? I can find plenty of ground mexican chiles around here, and the standard cayenne powders, and italian style crushed red pepper, but no thai chiles...

OK. I tried Larb for the first time tonight. As it seemed the meat was of variable origin, I used about a pound of ground turkey that I had laying around which I had to get rid of. I sauteed it with the garlic in peanut oil, and in a seperate bowl combined the zest of a lime, the juice of said lime, some sprigs of fresh mint, some dried thyme, some lemongrass I chopped up, about 10 or 15 fresh green thai chilis, a couple tablespoons of fish sauce (kikkoman I think, or some other generic grocery store brand of fish sauce), some green onions, and a bunch of fresh cilantro. I added the meat when browned, tossed it together, and served it in lettuce boats. I can only assume Larb was not supposed to be used with Turkey, or that my fish sauce wasn't very good, as overall it was cloyingly sweet, the lemongrass had an unpleasant mouthfeel, and the taste, while not unpleasant, was not harmonious as much as clashing.

Wow... the french cooking looks incredible ;). Tonight I had: Larb (it was OK.... I can't quite see all the hype, perhaps Ididn't prepare it well)

Jinmyo - I have to ask, do you run a restaurant? I have searched through the bios here, but as you are not staff I can't find the info ;). What you cook looks absolutely amazing, and if you run a restaurant I feel I simply must have dinner there at some point.

Pork Tenderloin marinated and grilled in a bourbon, butter, and mustard sauce with onions and mushrooms.

How odd... I am right handed, but have always simply cut with my left, eaten with my right, and not switched hands. I didn't know if I was approaching bad manners with that somehow.

IS there something inherently wrong with just keeping the fork in the right hand and the knife in the left hand?

Daikon Radish (I have no clue what I will do with this....) Okra Rosemary (fresh) Thai Chili Peppers Dried Ancho Chilis Lemongrass (I hope to try Larb soon) and from the Amish Butchers at the market: Bacon Sage Sausage Pork Tenderloin to braise in bourbon and butter tomorrow

After reading the cast iron thread I had a desire to tackle some burgers on mine so dinner tonight was: Nice big (1/2 lb) burgers given a beautiful golden crust with cast iron and butter, topped with some nearly carmelized onions, grilled portobella caps, and fresh from the Amish bleu cheese crumbles. Deep fried whole okra pods tossed in some cayenne, salt, and pepper

I am going to pipe in here with goat goat cheese. Once when I was in London I sampled the cheese of a goat and I thought it was very very tasty. Recently I saw a little loaf of the stuff in the dairy case at Wal-Mart, and grabbed it to savor at home, however, it nearly made me vomit. I shall now have to figure out where I can find good goat cheese in Delaware...

Darn it, now I am going to have to have steak again this evening to try this out.... Oh the things we must put ourselves through.... ;).

I bought my cast iron pan (not sure of the brand actually) for $5 at Dick's Sporting Goods. Appears to be made out of Iron, and pre-seasoned, so, I suppose it will do me as well as any other cast iron pan until I learn how to use it more properly. Wooden spoons can be picked up for several per dollar at the dollar store (and that is the only place I will get them, as invariably at least once a month one will fall from the dishwasher onto the heating element and burn itself up). My father is also a huge yard-sale/auction hound and therefore everytime I visit him and my mother I end up leaving with a random assortment of goods that he purchased on a whim but has no use for. My last visit resulted in a complete Chicago Cutlery knife set, an ancient Cuisinart food processor, and 8 lbs of ground buffalo (this came from Costco, he just overbought for the size of the freezer ;) ).

Interesting. I had thought that smoke and cast iron went hand in hand as well... as every time I have seen someone cook in person with cast iron, there has been lots of smoke. My first experience cooking in cast iron (tuesday night) resulted in tons of smoke inside of my apartment, me having to disconnect my fire alarm, and my electric range catching on fire (only around the element). However, the steak turned out wonderful :).

Tonight I planned to start my journey into 'How to Cook Everything'. I was, however, sidetracked and ended up creating something on the fly: Sauteed Pork tenderloin with a sauce made of cream, portobella mushrooms, scallions, tarragon, thyme, and paprika. I think it tasted quite good, however Portobella may be too strong a mushroom for this sauce, perhaps if I try it again I will use a milder mushroom.

I just purchased this book this past weekend, and I don't even know where to begin. This thread has definately given me some ideas however. I am a novice with this cooking thing, but I really want to learn how to do it well.

Hmm.. I realize it wouldn't make fiscal sense to serve the entire staff top notch steaks and other expensive cuts of meat, but just from perusing prices at many restaurants, even middle of the road ones, it always looks like there is a significant markup from what those bare ingredients would cost at the grocery store, and I am sure the restaurant can get them a heck of a lot cheaper than I can at the grocery store. Of course, I have never been in the restaurant business, so what do I know, but 20 meals that only cost $5 or so in ingredients is still only $100 a night, or do most restaurants actually run on razor thin profit margins? (This seems highly improbably to me... just considering what alcohol goes for at the bars of most places, wow talk about huge markup there...). My only experience working in food service was at McDonalds at age 15. It was awful, but they did give everyone a free meal anytime they worked a shift. I have to say that after we had been there a while we would tend to get rather creative with what the free meal would be too.... I seem to remember a lot of experiments about what did and did not work well in the deep fryer (for anyone who is curious trying to imitate mexican fried ice cream with McDonalds soft serve and a deep fat fryer results in.... well, a really messy deep fat fryer, numerous burns, and a less than ecstatic management staff).