Smithy

We spend a significant part of each winter traveling around in a trailer, and our trailer stove uses LP gas. I wish I could have the same thing at home, but it would have added too much to the cost of our kitchen renovation to run gas lines from the first floor (where gas comes in for heating) up to our second-floor kitchen, so our home stove is electric. What I like about cooking with gas is its immediate response. Want a hotter flame? Crank up the burner, and you have it. Want cooler? Turn the flame down, and the reduction is almost immediate. The stove grate takes some seconds to get to the lower temperature, but it's nothing like the minute+ time lag of an electric heating element. I think the oven chamber temperature is a bit more even with gas than with electric also, but that may be a function of the particular make and model. My home oven's temperature isn't very steady. For what it's worth, our trailer stove is a Wedgewood Vision. It's smaller than most household units, though: only 3 burners, and only 1 oven rack.

Suddenly, Amazon is stalking us across all platforms with a lightning deal for an air fryer. We've let the lightning deal pass, but I'm still watching this topic with Great Interest.

All this talk of different ways to cook corned beef convinced me to try side-by-side experiments: an in-home cook-off, if you will. We usually boil our brisket - roughly 50 minutes per pound of meat - and add the vegetables around a half hour before the meat is done. We've been shooting to maintain an internal temperature of around 175F, but going by the fork-tender method and looking at my notes, this time the temperatures were higher and I don't think the meat suffered. I've been very curious to try oven-braising, oven-roasting, and sous vide as cooking methods for corned beef. The oven-braising method won the first slot, thanks in large part to @Shel_B's writeup of his corned beef cookery starting here. In both cases, the vegetables were potatoes and parsnips. I began with two Kroger's Corned Beef Briskets, Point Cuts, as near to identical as I could get them. One weighed 2.53 pounds. The other weighed 2.54 pounds. (They were closer in size than this photo suggests. I must have not taken this picture from directly above the packages, as I'd thought.) One was was flatter than the other, so I chose it for the oven braising method. I soaked it for around an hour, then used a Scottish-style ale (no Guinness in the house) as a braising liquid. Our oven's lowest setting is 300F, so there was a fair amount of messing around to regulate the temperature at more nearly 275F. The potatoes and parsnips were added late in the game and cooked until finished. This also was a slight miscalculation - they should have gone in sooner, if for no other reason than to insulate the meat better - but it all worked. The internal temperature was 90C when the meat felt fork-tender, and I was afraid it would be overcooked. The oven-braising method: The stovetop boiling method got the potatoes in too early. By the time the meat felt fork-tender the internal temperature was 98C and the potatoes were about to fall apart. It was an interesting test. On the left is the braised meat. I thought the braised meat looked more appealing, but we couldn't tell any difference in the flavor or texture. The real surprise was the potatoes and parsnips. Why I didn't take a picture of them plated, I don't know. The braised vegetables had much more intense flavor than the boiled, and we liked them better. Whether we thought the flavor difference was enough better to justify the extra work of oven braising is another question. I think I'd be inclined to try sous vide next, for the better control of the heat. However, we have a lot of delicious leftovers to get through before we try this again.

I too would like to know what the baking scientists and experienced bakers have to say. My working theory, supported by my limited (and inexpert) experience, is that the dormant starter is more sour than freshly-fed starter. The final result is a more sour bread, and that hasn't necessarily been a good thing.

I agree that it has too many hoses. I've been very happy with kitchen faucets with heads that either spray or stream, depending on the button pressed, and that have flexible arms. Here's the one in my trailer kitchen: (It actually has a more generous stream than the photo would suggest, but we're in a place with very low water pressure right now.) Note the spring and hoop that capture the faucet head but allow it to undock and swing freely for spraying purposes. It works for my purposes - I will never again have a kitchen sink with a faucet that won't spray, if I can help it - but I don't like this design as well as the one at our house. That one is a "pull-down" faucet, in which the spray/stream head is attached to a hose that retracts into the faucet. I prefer it because the hose is much longer than a spring-loaded faucet like the one above can allow. I also think its design looks less cluttered. Here's an example of a Delta pull-down faucet with a magnetic docking spray/stream head. Finally, the faucet you're looking at looks like the sprayer is more cumbersome to use: to turn that spray on, you squeeze it (occupying one hand); to keep it on, you move the little hoop down over the trigger. Will that take two hands to get it to go? With the sprayer built into the faucet heat, it's a simple one-handed button push.

Do elaborate on the texture, please. I'm about to pull the corned beef briskets from a side-by-side comparison between oven braising and stovetop boiling. (Hey, I only bought 2 packages and there are many more ways to do them!) I put the pressure cooker method off to second or third round, and am interested to know whether it's worth doing.

KCRW's Jonathan Gold, with his show Good Food on the Road, also has recommendations you may appreciate.

Interesting thought, thanks. I had some more Aussie Bites a couple of weeks ago. The name may be silly, but those little seed cakes are delicious!

It might depend on whether that person is intimidated by cooking. I was. The book that got me over it was Sunset's Easy Basics for Good Cooking. It isn't big or threatening or dense. It's well-illustrated and clear. For each ingredient and cooking method it gives a few different recipes with big differences in the final result (chicken cacciatore vs. chicken in vermouth, say). Its theme-and-variations format demystified cooking for me. Unfortunately it's out of print, but if that doesn't bother you I'd recommend tracking down a copy.

Welcome! It sounds like you'll fit right in here. We have a lot of equipment aficionados here. Speaking as one of them, I look forward to seeing some of your collected gear - and what you do with it. If you have any trouble figuring out how to use the forums, or where to find something, don't hesitate to ask a host. What sorts of things do you like to cook, now that you're doing it for yourself and not professionally? Is there anything that you're relieved not to have to cook any more?

We moved back to (mostly) more familiar culinary ground and cooked over the campfire after the tomato cobbler debacle. I do love chicken thighs, rubbed with seasonings of my choice and then grilled over the fire. In this case the rub was berbere spice augmented with smoked paprika, cumin, and possibly a touch of salt. While they grilled, I had parsnips steaming. The parsnips were the adventure of the evening. We liked them. I'll be doing more with parsnips. I remembered yesterday, when we went grocery shopping, to check the source of the oversized shallots. Sorry, @JoNorvelleWalker - the grocery store sign simply said "Grown in the U.S.A." without further elucidation. At least now I know they aren't from Brobdingnag.

I can see now where I went wrong. Thank you for the link to the blog post - which is excellent reading, by the way - with its recipe for this novice.

I think the larger pan so the cornbread is "lower to the ground" is a key issue. Thanks for the suggestion about the cornbread mix. That may be a way to fine-tune things and see which way to take it. My darling has made it clear that he doesn't want cornbread for its own sake (I tried to make kayb's cobbler as a stand-alone dish) so I'll need to wait until I'm ready to do beans or soup again. Otherwise, he's likely to bludgeon me with the hash skillet.

Funny, I checked out Tartin Every Day from the library last year and never even noticed its gluten-free emphasis! For me the attraction was the preserves. There may have been other things that I've forgotten as well; I purchased the book but haven't downloaded it yet.

By the way, my best friend says she "used to think even a monkey could make cornbread". She's had a couple of fails lately, but is nonetheless mystified that cornbread, so far, is such a Big Deal to me. If anyone reading this thinks so too, you're in good company.

*sigh* . 2 more on my shelf. Only 1 was on my wish list.

I believe you that, properly executed, it must be one of the best summertime dishes going. Your church sounds just the right size, too. However, after last night I think I need to practice taxiing a bit more before trying to fly. The fillings seem like an unbeatable combination. Unfortunately I made too much batter for the skillet. (Its stiffness may have also been a problem; I was shooting for a casserole texture.) The result was that the outer portions were done long before the inner portion, and the center never properly cooked through. The base was tough. I saved the uneaten innards - with all the good stuff and a fair amount of cornmeal mush - to repurpose elsewhere. Mix and bake with scrambled eggs? Skillet fry like hash browns? I'm open to suggestions. It might make a good enchilada stuffing. Hmm. There was also something bitter in the mix. I suspect the frozen avocado. I'll check that pulp later today, and may end up discarding the rest of it. It's a shame it didn't work out as well as it should have. I'll get the fisheye from my darling the next time I try it...but if I get a good grip on making cornbread alone first, I'm more likely to succeed the next time I try this. Meanwhile, the mix of salted drained tomato, crispy bacon, onion, garlic, avocado, cheese and jalapeño will be great to embellish beans, a salad or soup...or in a cornbread salad. We both liked that salad the first time around, and that means making more cornbread.

I admit it: I flinch every time a notification pops up that he's posted in this topic.

What great timing! I was just perusing your earlier post with the method, as well as the post with the missing photos. I have the onions and garlic chopped and the cornbread ingredients out on the counter for tonight's dinner using your method. Oh, and I've already fried up a bunch of bacon, and the gold* is in the skillet. *aka bacon grease

Tonight was my greatest schnitzel success to date! I picked up a family pack of very thin pork loin cutlets a couple of weeks ago and divvied them up for practice sessions. They're already pretty thin, but tonight I rolled some out to around 1/4" thick and then applied the following steps, picked from various posts above: 1. Dredged in seasoned flour and let them sit for around 1/2 hour; 2. Dredged in that same flour again to ensure a good flour base; 3. Dipped in beaten egg; 4. Dredged in seasoned panko crumbs; 5. Chilled in refrigerator for a couple of hours. 6. At cooking time, I heated vegetable oil (1/4" - 1/2" deep in pan, I didn't measure) to 350F; 7. Carefully placed 2 or 3 cutlets at a time in the oil, then swirled to get waves of oil over the tops also; 8. Turned when the bottom was properly browned, and removed to drain on a cake rack in the warm oven while the rest of the meat was cooking. I didn't bother with a sauce this time around. My darling now thinks that a sauce with these beautifully crispy cutlets would be a travesty, and that the only acceptable sauce will be one served on the side...which may be a problem for things like chicken piccata. These were delightfully crisp, not oily, and too delicious for us to consider leaving any for tomorrow. Oink. My sole niggles are that there still were no air pockets and the seasoning could have been more robust in the flour or panko (or both). I couldn't taste the seasonings in the finished meat although I could smell it during the dredging. STILL...this is a dish I'd have been proud to serve to company, and I'm encouraged enough to keep working at it. Thanks for all the inspiration and education, folks!

Those colors are beautiful, Chris. I'd be enticed to add them to foods!

How much did you steam it? I notice that @Paul Bacino, who started this topic, begins with raw cauliflower. @Jason Perlow refers to par-cooking it. For the moment I'm happy letting someone else do the work, but if I really cotton to this idea I'll be taking the road less expensive and doing it myself. I tend to overcook cauliflower to the mush stage.

This topic has some good ideas. I recently purchased a bag of "cauliflower rice" to try. Last night's dinner began with a simple cooked salsa of tomatillos, red bell peppers, green onions and tomatoes, to which the cauliflower was to be added. I ran out of steam before cooking the meat it was to accompany, so a couple of Polish sausages went into the pan at about the same time as the cauliflower. On its own the cauliflower mix was too tart - I'd used too many tomatillos - but the Polish sausages balanced it surprisingly well. Thanks to @btbyrd for the admonition not to cook the cauliflower too long. As it came out of the bag, the cauliflower already had a pretty strong odor. I rinsed it, and gave it just enough cooking to soften slightly. We both liked this. It's nice to find a low-carb alternative to rice, and I'll be experimenting with cauliflower rice more.

That chef's coat is very flattering. What a great color for you! And I don't especially care for Peeps, but those tuxedo versions would be irresistable.

I suppose not all the casualties can become "cook's treat".