Smithy
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Posts posted by Smithy
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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.
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17 hours ago, liamsaunt said:
bacon Parmesan cream sauce with spinach
This sounds inspired! With or without the oysters!
Thanks for another fine trip.
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49 minutes ago, Steve Irby said:
My flat of marked down peaches has made a lot of neighbors happy. I made four galette's which I gave away except for a couple of slices. The flavor of the peaches, as @Smithy and @OlyveOyl commented, matched the flavors of our memories. For eight dollars I got four galette's, ~10# of prime sliced peaches in the freezer and a whole lot of love.
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?
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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.
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36 minutes ago, Ddanno said:
What's an A4 box please? Google only wants to show me paper
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.
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57 minutes ago, Shel_B said:
a big dollop of DCKC
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?
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@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!
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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.
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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.
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On 6/5/2025 at 1:39 PM, Smithy said:
I've had a hankering lately for a Reuben sandwich, as mentioned here in the sous vide topic, but haven't gotten around to cooking a corned beef (with or without sous vide help) yet. Yesterday I gave in and bought a Reuben sandwich at my favorite grocery store, and waited while they grilled it in their panini press.
Know what? I like mine better! Time to get going on that corned beef.
On 6/5/2025 at 4:02 PM, Shel_B said:That's a pretty poor looking Reuben sandwich. The cheese doesn't even look well melted. I'm sure yours would be measureably better. I'm old school, Reubens have no business being on/in/under/near a panini press.
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!
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5 hours ago, Pete Fred said:
Another mention of the eGullet of yore here.
"eGullet was the feral frontier of early internet food culture"
That is a fine, fine article. Thanks for the link!
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Thanks. I'll be sure to post one of mine when I've made it.
But...
2 minutes ago, Shel_B said:I'm old school, Reubens have no business being on/in/under/near a panini press.
Why? Don't you like them grilled somehow?
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I've had a hankering lately for a Reuben sandwich, as mentioned here in the sous vide topic, but haven't gotten around to cooking a corned beef (with or without sous vide help) yet. Yesterday I gave in and bought a Reuben sandwich at my favorite grocery store, and waited while they grilled it in their panini press.
Know what? I like mine better! Time to get going on that corned beef.
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Nice job on gussying, @Steve Irby! (I love that word. 😀 )
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2 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:
I shall never again save yeast raised pancake batter for a week.
I take it the fermentation was not pleasant?
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49 minutes ago, rotuts said:
I think a Fz CB , Fz close to purchase date , will do fine SV for either length of time.
These are months from purchase date...so I won't be taking any chances with it. As it happens, I've never tried freezing a prepared corned beef. You Enablers (I'm looking at you especially, @rotuts) tipped me into buying meat that I simply couldn't resist although I didn't need it. 😉
If I do anything of a sous vide nature with one of the corned beef packages, I'll report here. Otherwise, I'll bow out but continue reading with interest.
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@rotuts and @gfweb, thanks for your input. The truth is, my darling and I were always pleased with a commercial CB that we'd boiled, with potatoes. Got a good dinner or two that way, then used the rest with sandwiches. I think I'll do that, at least with the one that hasn't been frozen. Reubens are calling me rather insistently.
Trying the sous vide treatment on one of the frozen ones, now, that still sounds like a fine experiment. But I'll keep the time short. Mush isn't what I want.
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5 minutes ago, rotuts said:
I think the difference between 140 F @ 36 H vs 48 H might be slightly noticeable
if you had them side by side , but I'd pick the time that was most convenient
and just slice the 36 H a bit thinner.
hopefully you froze the commercial CB ?
You think the 48 hours would produce a slightly better result?
Two of the commercial CB's are frozen. One is not, but has been kept
chilledvery cold in its original package since I purchased it. -
20 minutes ago, gfweb said:
Home corned beef 5 days with a dry rub and then SV at 140F for 36 hours. Pretty perfect!
That looks excellent. I have a few corned beef briskets squirreled away from sale times. Although it can't be the same as yours, since mine is already corned, I'll try your time and temperature when I get to it. Am I looking at a flat cut here? (I have both flat and point cuts.)
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So, @Ddanno - what sorts of foods do you like to cook and/or eat? Given your location, is it easy to get fresh seafood? Are you near a fishing area? "The South Coast of England" covers quite a bit of territory. I don't recall seeing fishing fleets near Brighton, for instance, but if you're near Dover or Falmouth I'm sure it's a different story.
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Thanks for the music and movie references, folks. FWIW the Duluth folk musicians with whom I play play a LOT of Cape Breton fiddle music. It's one of many, many reasons I'm glad to be home.
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14 minutes ago, FauxPas said:
Welcome home!
Funny, I was just listening to Jimmy Rankin's acoustic version of North Country. I think you might be familiar with The Rankin Family? The song is about a homecoming in the Fall, but somehow I thought it might appeal. The original version:
And JImmy's acoustic version:
It does far more than appeal. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
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3 minutes ago, Shelby said:
To clarify I know that your beloved husband is not with us...I was just trying to be delicate.
I knew that. But thank you. 🙂 🤎
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I'm home!
I spent the night before last at a Walmart parking lot. Although I gave the company plenty of money for pet food items and other things I needed then or would need soon, their deli was closed when I started shopping. That was okay; I enjoyed the last of the chicken and rice dish I'd made a week or two before. I also celebrated: finished one fine (by my lights) wine and opened another. I was almost home, and I had the blessed sound of frogs at the pond across the way. The first I've heard in months.
Yesterday I arrived home around noon, finally got the Princessmobile parked on our snaky driveway, and began the fun of unpacking and enjoying being home again. The dog and cats felt the same way.
It feels as though I've been gone forever, but it was actually only 4 months, as opposed to the 6 months my darling and I were gone each year. It feels longer. One factor is that I'm back a month later than usual. I have the green jungle ("yard") to prove it. The ramps are up. The chives are already about to flower.
I've started laundry and emptied the boxes that have been waiting for me. Hallelujah, the capers I ordered back here have arrived! The packaging was superb.
I've been on a considerable venture and adventure, and am on my way to establishing my new life. There's a mountain of chores and a sea of choices ahead of me. But I'm glad I went, glad to be back, and glad that I wrote about it here.
Thanks for coming along, folks, and for your comments (culinary and otherwise) and encouragement.
Maybe it's time to revive the Best Use of Stale Bread topic?
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Corned beef at home: cuts, techniques for prepackaged corned beef brisket
in Cooking
Posted
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.