Smithy

Well, for what it's worth I got up and out the door for morning exercise today, came back with some ambition, and dealt with some of the produce in my refrigerator. I now have a batch of Easy Asian Slaw, along with more shredded cabbage and special dressing, made. It remains to be seen whether it will be yet another thing cluttering up the refrigerator or something I'll turn to, but I've dealt with that head of cabbage that's been lurking for weeks. I bought it after my last visit to my best friend's place SIX WEEKS AGO, when I noted that this was a delicious salad that I'd be making again and again. Ha. The trick for today may have been doing the work in the morning rather than waiting until afternoon lethargy could set in. Or maybe I'm just getting a reprieve. Maybe the sight of last night's Strawberry Moon (the farthest south for years, it barely cleared the trees here) reminded me that there are sources of wonder in the world still. Who knows? But keep those ideas coming, folks. Crackers and cheese, yes...although it isn't a good idea for the long run.

I have a preliminary report on the corned beef brisket (point cut) that I started here at 140F and a 36 hour target. I pulled it at about 36-1/2 hours and let it cool at room temperature, still sealed, until I woke up enough to deal with it. Then, curiosity got the better of me. How is the flavor? How is the texture? Even though it's not my normal breakfast time or routine, I opened the package and cut a bite. Hmm. Definitely tastes better than the corned beef brisket I cooked last Sunday, which had been kept refrigerated but not frozen, and which had been simmered with potatoes per our usual tradition. The saltiness and heat of the spice packet is pronounced. I suppose that makes sense, since I wrapped the packet with the brisket and there's little chance of the seasonings to be diluted. I've never tried soaking a CBB to remove salt, as @rotuts is wont to do. I'm not sure I object to the salt content. The texture is quite firm, not at all like the "perfect for shredding" ad on the original wrapping. That's fine with me. I don't generally like having meat fall apart for shredding, and don't want it that way for this CBB. Nonetheless, it's chewier than I'd expected and perhaps more than I'd like. I've put it back (in its bag) in the 140F bath for the rest of the day, so I can test it at dinnertimes and see whether I can detect a change in texture from this morning.

I jsut realized that I've never knowingly eaten a snail, unless you want to count conch. Even then, it was a restaurant's treatment and not mine. How does one cook those snails? Steam? Boil? Bake? And how is the meat extracted from them? Some sort of pick, like a crabmeat pick?

Those are gorgeous! Thanks for the reminder that cooking apricots intensifies their flavor. I'd forgotten that, even though I've used that trick on other stone fruits.

I believe I just coined that term. Culinary Ennui is the exact equivalent of looking at one's wardrobe and thinking "I don't have a thing to wear!" And it's just as ridiculous. I mean, look at this refrigerator! The freezer compartment is similarly packed. There's another refrigerator / freezer combo and a separate small freezer in the garage. They're all packed. It's an embarrassment of riches, and I know I'm very fortunate to have this wealth. Still...I just spent a preposterous amount of time thinking that I'm hungry and need to eat something, and not being able to think of a thing I wanted to eat. Coooked beans? No. A sandwich of some sort? No. Green bean salad? Cole slaw? Too much work to make. Some, maybe most, of this Culinary Ennui is due to personal issues that are affecting my mood and energy. I have a singular lack of ambition despite oodles of things I need to be doing. But is that all it is? I dunno. I just know I need to do something about it. There's no point in having all this food if I don't want to eat it. So I've thrown together a green salad to provide some sustenance while I contemplate this issue and toss it out for discussion. What do you do when none of your food options appeals? This is related to, but not quite the same as, Help! I've lost my cooking mojo and I want it back! except in the sense that I'm the only person cooking or eating in this household.

Thanks, @blue_dolphin and @KennethT. I can definitely see the advantage of giving this a quick sear, for that Maillard reaction and the extra flavor it imparts, as well as to improve its appearance. (That pale damp surface doesn't look very attractive, does it? ) In this case, odds are I'll be slicing it for sandwiches or cutting it into finer pieces to add to a sauce, so it may not matter as much. Over on the Dinner topic I'm seeing a lot of good-looking curries!

The aforementioned pork tenderloin spent the night in an ice bath. Just now I opened the bag and tested it. Pretty good! The seasoning (2 parts ground cumin to 1 part mild Hatch green chili powder and 1 part garlic powder) is good on it. It could use salt, but that can be added later. The texture is about right. I'm glad I didn't let it go as long as I'd originally planned. This was 140F for 3-1/2 to 4 hours. It'll be good on sandwiches or in tacos or salads. It would also go nicely in a sauce atop, oh, rice. I wouldn't go out of my way to buy this cut of meat again, but I'll easily be able to use this one. Thanks to all of you who offered advice on timing.

Okay! Thank you both for this information. I'll pull it soon and report on the results when I try it tomorrow.

Thanks, @DesertTinker. This tenderloin (I didn't measure it, and should have) is no more than 3" thick at the thickest. The photo may not show it, but there's considerable taper to the meat. It really looks like a tri-tip although that isn't how I labeled it and I don't know whether anyone applies that label to pork. If I remember correctly, leaving it for a longer time at a given temperature -- in this case 140F -- will change the texture but not the doneness / color. Does that sound right? Am I flirting with disaster to leave it for 12 hours? The corollary question, of course, is "what disaster?" given the amount of time it's been sitting frozen. 🙂 Other readers ( @rotuts, @gfweb for starters) may feel free to chime in.

Since I'm running that warm water and circulator anyway, I decided to repackage, treat and cook a pork tenderloin I bought quite some time ago and vacuum-packed for sous vide (or storage), only to get resistance from my darling. He always looked askance at sous vide meats -- meaning, he rarely if ever appreciated the results. In addition, he looked askance at any lean cut of pork. Pork steak, pork roast, ham, bacon...those were good. I had limited success with my efforts at cooking pork loin and arriving at something we both liked. So here that tenderloin has sat, frozen, for far too long. I unpackaged it, coated it liberally with a blend of cumin, garlic powder and mild Hatch green chile powder, and put it into a new bag. Then I added a few pats of butter, sealed the new bag, and tossed it into the 140F bath. I'm guessing that 24 hours will be enough to cook it adequately, but I'm open to suggestions. It went into its bath at 1830, an hour after the corned beef brisket (which is going to get 36 hours). I'm hoping for a few bites of good tenderloin, then some good taco fodder.

That's quite the mascot!

This definitely falls into the OMG category. I thought I must be misreading -- that is, not correctly processing what I was seeing -- until I read liuzhou's comment: I'm no fan of Doritos. IMO you aren't missing a thing.

And that's what I'm trying. It went into its 140F bath just now, and will come out early Wednesday morning. It's the other point cut I purchased, and being cooked from frozen, so I should have a good comparison. I'm writing more about it here.

Okay then. I've just repackaged my other point cut corned beef (Kroger's, purchased last March and promptly frozen) and plopped it into the hot water bath. It's set for 140F. The only spices are what it came with -- that is, the original treatment and the little spice packet. I'll give it around 36 hours, give or take. (That amounts to 05:30 Wednesday and I won't set an alarm to get up and pull it then, but I'm usually waking up around then anyway.) Since it's the same make and model, so to speak, but it's being sous vided from frozen and has been frozen since I bought it, that should make a good comparison with the previous corned beef I wrote about here.

This sounds inspired! With or without the oysters! Thanks for another fine trip.

You're inspiring me to give this a try. Good peaches can sometimes be had here in Duluth, and good nectarines are even more likely to turn up in our grocery stores. But then that leads to the question of what exactly I'd do with them. Can these be frozen, and still reheated and be good? Or should I plan on only making one or two galettes, which I'm sure I could share with / palm off on friends?

Bumping this up to note that this little box is turning out to be a handy countertop cooking appliance on the order of a small electric skillet. Today I used it to reheat a grilled sandwich from yesterday. The removable pan insert will be much easier to clean than my mother's trusty Farberware electric skillet. I think the accessories will never be available again, and I'm glad I only spent $40 on it, but I'll be able to get $40 worth of fun and use out of it.

Sorry! It's a portable induction cooking box that, when first offered, afforded a lot of different inserts. Our dear departed Anna N, and others, enjoyed playing with it. I bought the basic box last year when it was on a very special sale. It appears that the sale was in order to eliminate inventory. Here's the topic on the A4 Box Induction Cooker.

It all sounds wonderful, and I wish you'd posted a photo! But this bit I can't suss out. What's DCKC short for?

@OlyveOyl, how nice that you can score apricots at your Farmers' Market, at least for a few weeks! I very much miss good apricots. They were abundant when I was growing up in Central California, and the last time I was there during the summer my sister and I discovered a neglected tree with apricots that lived up to our memories. The fruit simply doesn't make it to our grocery stores here with any flavor. I think it's the variety, bred for shipping rather than flavor. You go! Keep showing off your good fortune!

I finally got around to cooking one of 3 corned beef briskets I bought last March. Two have been in the freezer all this time. This one has been in the refrigerator, in its original package. Note the "sell by" date. My technique for cooking corned beef brisket is more or less as described by @Margaret Pilgrim above. Two night ago I ended up with a passable, not wonderful, corned beef dinner. I didn't bother with photos. My real reason for this brisket was that I've been jonesing for a Reuben sandwich or three. I wrote more about the resultant sandwich here and here. The first half, yesterday, was fair but missing something. I tweaked the second half today and got better results, though still not as good as I'd wish. Basically, I think I waited too long to cook that corned beef, even though it was held in the refrigerator in its original packaging. Either that, or the Kroger brand isn't very good. I have 2 more briskets (one point and one flat), still in their packaging, that have been frozen since I bought them. I'll have time to try them later.

I reheated the second half of yesterday's sandwich, using my A4 box to try to crisp it again on the outside. I also added pickle juice and a bit of horseradish sauce to give the sandwich the extra oomph that was missing yesterday. It was better. The pickle juice especially helped, although it made the entire sandwich so gooey that it was easier to eat with a fork. In addition to this having been the wrong bread for the sandwich, I think that the corned beef I cooked isn't very good. I'll post more about it in the corned beef topic. Even sealed as it's been, I think there was a deterioration in quality because I kept it refrigerated (not frozen) for so long.

I cooked a corned beef yesterday and cut the slice sizes I want. I used my panini press (yes) on a sandwich comprising the corned beef and slices of gouda and havarti (no Swiss cheese in the house, and I don't like it anyway). The bread is a special bread I've been hoarding in the freezer from a recent California trip. Mayo and mustard on the inside slices; butter for grilling; generous amounts of sauerkraut added after the grilling. Definitely better than what I bought and showed a few days ago (top photo in this post). There's still room for improvement. This bread, as much as I like it, was missing some sort of kick that the sandwich needed: rye bread, or sourdough bread would have been better. This corned beef wasn't as good as I'd expected either, but that's my fault for keeping it (in its original package) unfrozen well past its best-by date. Still. I've started scratching that itch!

That is a fine, fine article. Thanks for the link!

Thanks. I'll be sure to post one of mine when I've made it. But... Why? Don't you like them grilled somehow?