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Everything posted by Smithy
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Another BLPT sandwich, this time with C added as well. Another precious slice of my last-of-the-year farmers' market tomatoes gone. Another 2 slices of my oven-baked bacon, gone. By the time the bacon had been heated adequately atop the dressed bread and the cheese, the cheese had melted more than I'd have preferred. That was all right, though: I just let it cool slightly to solidify, and then I could pick up the whole thing. Messy. Juicy. Delicious. Filling.
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@Victual Vignettes, I think you can seecfrom the posts above that there are many, many seasoning and flavor methods in a standard braise... and I suspect that @rotuts has the right of it: grass-fed beef will behave differently than grain-finished beef. Let us know more about what you've done in the past, and maybe post some photos of the beef you're working with now.
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I think you're using the right equipment. The Staub Dutch Oven has good thermal mass, and that's what you want although I don't think it has to be Staub. I've had good results with other brands of heavy cooking equipment, and even with glass Pyrex baking dishes and aluminum foil in a pinch. My basic procedure for beef short ribs is: rinse the ribs, pat them dry, and coat with the seasoning (rub) of your choice; brown on stovetop in fat of your choice (I generally use olive oil); add enough water to cover the bottom of the pan, and come up maybe a quarter of the way, no more than halfway, up the side of the ribs; cover and put into a low oven temperature (225F to 275F); walk away and leave them for 1.5 - 2 hours, then check; you're looking for the meat to be tender enough to remove the bones; remove the meat from the juice, let it cool enough to remove the bones, and set it aside; defat the sauce; make gravy from the sauce if you wish (here's where I would add wine); reduce sauce to the thickness you want; reheat the rib meat in the sauce; serve and enjoy. I haven't cooked short ribs since December 2023, but this post shows the steps and the results. The pan used isn't an enameled cast iron because I didn't have one available, but it was the biggest Dutch oven that I had, and it worked well despite its light weight. Some notes: @Margaret Pilgrim, in this post, recommended a French Laundry - inspired recipe with video. She cautioned that the volume is very loud, so be prepared to turn it down. This is considerably more elaborate than what I do, and probably orders of magnitude more flavorful. In an eGCI lab on braising, long long ago, some people reported having good success with stovetop braising so they can monitor the progress of the braise and be sure that the liquid is at the lowest possible simmer. It's never worked as well for me, whether I used an electric stove / oven or gas stove / oven, so I've always stuck with oven braising for best tenderness. YMMV. For all the detailed experiments and discussion on the braising seminar, search the eGCI for "braising" or "The Truth About Braising". It was a week-long seminar, followed by Q&A, and it's where I first learned about braising and fell in love with the method. The introduction is here. Some people found that browning beforehand helped; others didn't. Some found that the braising liquid mattered; some didn't. So my method listed above works for me but isn't the do-all and be-all. See my first note about Margaret's method! Finally: I've never tried braising grass-fed beef ribs, and don't know what the marbling is like. If that meat is very lean, you may have to adjust methods. I've listed what I do with grocery-store ribs. Maybe someone else can help with the grass-fed aspect. My guess, based on your "stringy and not very flavorful" results, is that you're overcooking them and maybe not seasoning them properly at the outset.
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I had to look up ajvar. Grilled red peppers and eggplant sounds like a good combination that I've seen under other names. Do you make your own? If so, is the Serious Eats link I put in here close to what you do?
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@AlaMoi, opening the oven multiple times for misting may result in more heat loss than you'd want. Another option to consider is placing a pan on another shelf and letting it preheat; when you put the dough in, throw either a cup of water or several ice cubes into the preheated pan. I don't remember whether the water or the ice cubes worked better for me, but they helped with oven spring.
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This was originally going to be a fattoush: toasted bread broken up, laid as the bed for torn lettuce, tomato, hard boiled egg, with my current batch of dressing. But I wanted hummus on that tiast, so kept the bread whole. Open-faced toasted sandwich with hummus, salad atop it. This tomato is from the very last of the excellent locally-grown tomatoes I can get here for the season. I'll be sorry to see it go, but I'll celebrate it while I can. It turns out that the hummus plays very well with the salad dressing. I've added some hummus to the mix. It looks too goopy to honor with a photo, but that doesn't stop its being delicious!
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The guiding idea for this tabbouli is from Balaboosta (eG-friendly Amazon.com link), written by Einat Admony, a restaurateur / writer / cook in Manhattan. Her proportions are 1 c bulgur (before soaking), 1 c each cilantro and parsley, and 1/4 c mint, with the tomatoes, onions and dressings thrown in. That said, she herself writes in the book: Last night I was busily using as much of the herbs as I had available, and flying by the seat of my pants -- that is, no cookbook. And to @rotuts' point, I like the bulgur for its texture and ability to absorb and show off the tangy dressing. So I suppose you could say my version is from Northern Minnesota.
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Oh, the La Chamba pot! I look forward to reading more about it! And the salsa: chile and peanut may be marvelous!
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So many beautiful dinners and spreads show up on this topic! But then, here I am: I needed to use the herbs before they went off, and by the time I'd finished making tabbouli I wasn't very hungry. I post this to show that non-fancy dinners are also welcome here. Tabbouli in Tostitos Scoops, sometimes supplemented with hummus (yesterday's culinary achievement). Not fancy, but delicious and filling. And the dishwasher is now taking care of yesterday's and today's dishes.
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Thanks for the link. I'd forgotten about that website, but I shouldn't have. There are some good recipes and writing in there.
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Buried under all this vegetation is a couple of strips of bacon I cooked in the oven a few days ago, for ease of making a favorite sandwich later: Bacon, lettuce, tomato, pickle on toasted sourdough bread. I'm not sure the oven-baking method cooks bacon as satisfactorily, for my tastes, as cooking it atop the stove. Granted, it's less messy. Granted, the bacon is ready to go when I want it, with just a quick reheating if necessary in the microwave. But the bacon out of the oven isn't as crisp as out of the skillet, and the flavor isn't as good. It might be my technique. It might be the brand of bacon. But it might be the method. Time and experimentation will tell. I think I drew different conclusions in earlier tests in the Princessmobile, so it might even be the oven!
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Try this (should be an unlocked gift article now): Chris French's Eastern Shore Crab Cakes
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In the dinner post where you described this, you commented that it needed more time to cook and that it wasn't as crisp as you'd have liked. I encourage you to try the air fryer, or else convection mode. I don't have an air fryer, but I found that cooking it in my CSO on convection (425F, 30 - 40 minutes, flip after about 20 minutes) did the trick. I like your overall presentation, by the way. Much more elegant than mine. 😀
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i'm not usually much of a breakfast eater, but a friend offered to buy me breakfast this morning because I was driving us to a late morning event. So off we went to At Sara's Table at Chester Creek Cafe in Duluth, MN. For a full perusal of their offerings I recommend visiting their website. The main thing to know is that they focus on good food, locally grown where possible, organically grown (ditto), prepared to order. A sign near the entrance notes that "Good food takes time to prepare". That said, I think our plates were delivered about 15 minutes after we ordered. Here's a small selection of shots from their menus...and I do mean "small" selection because there's a lot to peruse. You can always skip down if you don't want to read them. "Peanut butter mocha" below brought me up short, but hey -- I didn't have to try it! Here is the section from which I ordered: I ordered the Florentine Eggs Benedict, and I'm glad I did. Normally those things called English Muffins make me flinch -- I don't like their flavor or texture -- but these had been grilled and crisped in such a way that they supported the stacked food and absorbed the sauces when cut and dredged through the sauces and egg yolk. This is how it arrived at the table: Look at the beautiful shape of those poached eggs! And I missed the fact when I ordered that the greens were both spinach and basil in a pesto form. The first bite informed me. It was inspired, I tell you. The sauce photo isn't quite as crisp as the as-plated photo, but I want you to see how it all blended together for dredging. My friend ordered eggs over easy and one of the locally-produced sausages, but I forgot to take a picture of his plate. We both had their house coffee (mocha java) without extras. The place has books all over ("available for adoption for a small fee!") and a relaxed vibe, though customers aren't encouraged to linger when the line is as long as it was today. I don't go out to eat often these days, but I think I'll have to make a point of visiting Sara's more often than once every 5 years.
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@rotuts, I'm sorry but I'm not tracking your point #2. I realize I'm not @gfweb (nor do I object to Twang) but I'm curious what you're getting at here. Please explain?
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I don't notice this difference with freshly opened jars, though I haven't tried comparing freshly opened jars side by side. What I have noticed, and it probably goes to the same point, is that Duke's sets up if I keep the jar past its recommended date. I know this from having stocked up on it once, some years back. When I got around to opening the final jar, perhaps a year (but not two) old), the contents hadn't dried out but had jelled or congealed in a way that it had surface cracks. Most peculiar. I couldn't taste the difference, but texture was different. I've never seen a jar of Hellman's do that, but I don't think I've ever opened a jar of Hellman's that I'd kept around that long.
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I like it. I've been able to find it in Duluth from time to time at a reduced price also, but I notice that all the mayonnaise brands seem to be going up. I think Duke's and Hellman's are comparable flavors. i'll be interested to see what you think!
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I think you might want this topic?
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Did you make the varza murata salad? Can you say what goes into it that makes it different from German sauerkraut?
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Is that a layer of fat at the top? Did you have / use more fat than usual for this - for instance, more skin? If so, I'd be inclined to skim off the fat layer, keep it separate for flavor experiments (it might make fine schmaltz) and then save the lower layer in cubes as usual. If not, well, I'd still do a taste test for both layers before remixing.
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Thanks for the compliment! I feel your pain...all that work and your fine gardening, and then having it be wiped out by the storms! I'm glad the nearby Amish community has tomatoes for you.
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I got my last major haul of tomatoes and eggplants last weekend from my neighboring farmer. Today I faced facts: I wasn't going to get through all those tomatoes or eggplants before they went off. Time to get going on preservation. It just about killed me, though: those beautiful slicer tomatoes! I had too many, and I have some green ones as well waiting for me to fry them, so I had to slice them, roast them, and save them for later. (I kept out two fine-looking slicers, seen in the photo above, for the last-gasp-of-summer sandwiches: BLPT, or simply tomato and cheese. Believe me, I've been eating a lot of those!) The sliced tomatoes got the same treatment I wrote about here: scattered salt, a bit of white pepper, finely sliced shallot, and EVOO, then roasted at around 425 - 450F until a lot of the juices had been cooked out. It will all go into a container and placed in the freezer. It's cooling now. I may not have cooked the slices as much as in past attempts, but I want to see what happens if the slices aren't dried quite so thoroughly. I also bought 3 generous pints of cherry tomatoes from her, and today realized that I can't use them all before they go off. I saved some -- they're wonderful for snacks -- and roasted the rest more or less per @ElainaA's recipe for Slow-Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce. Finally, most of the Asian eggplants I bought from the same farmer became Preserved Eggplant per a recipe from Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). For more discussion about this recipe, see here.
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I decided to try some of my precious remaining Asian eggplants in his recipe for Preserved Eggplant. It's an easy recipe: peel the eggplant to the degree you can be bothered; slice; toss with salt; allow to drain; press to drain more; press to drain even more. (His steps are more elaborate, but this is the gist.) Eventually, blot the eggplant and toss with red wine vinegar, then load all into sterilized jars with smashed garlic, enough olive oil to cover, and a sprig of rosemary if you have it. Cap. Stick in the refrigerator. Wait at least a week to try it, but use it all within a month. I worry a little bit about having raw garlic in that anaerobic environment. Sure, there's vinegar. Sure, the garlic was peeled shortly before loading into the jar. Still. Is botulism likely under these circumstances and timelines? I remember having the same misgivings about a recipe from @FoodMan for Stuffed Chiles in Oil. I made the recipe, kept the chiles around, ate some, and eventually threw them away because I was afraid of poisoning myself or my darling. Nobody got sick, and I had been assured that it wouldn't happen, but my internal Food Police took away all the fun.
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@blue_dolphin, my first thought was that you were so painstaking as to coil all those bits of pasta. It appears, from the TJ's website, that black pepper barilotti pasta comes coiled as in the photo. (Whew!) How was the texture? I can imagine something that thick becoming gummy.