Kim Shook

Since getting a Firestick, I find that I hardly ever watch what it actually ON cable anymore. I watch a lot of Antiques Roadshow, America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country (IMDB has the both the older ones and some newer ones), various Youtube things and some old Food Network shows. I’ve recently been bingeing by going back and forth between Ina Garten and Sandra Lee. Ina for good, dependable, elegant-but-not-fussy food. And Sandra for hilariously horrible food and her mind-numbingly stupid pronunciations and statements. Sandra has not disappointed. When she’s on the three of us are either howling with laughter or screaming at her in disbelief. It is theatre of the absurd and truly entertaining. Ina was, up to a couple of recent viewings, equally reliable – in a completely different way, of course. And then…on one episode she makes a sausage roll with merguez. She specifies 1/2-inch sausage. And proceeds to tell you to cook it at 400F for 20 minutes. Then you turn it over and cook for another 10. Then you cool it before rolling up in puff pastry and baking it for ANOTHER TWENTY TO TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES 😳. In other words, she instructs you to cook 1/2-inch-wide sausage for a total of almost an HOUR!!! I confess that I didn’t try this recipe. I really don’t feel that I need to. I firmly believe that sausage cooked that long, at that temperature, is going to be very, very dry and tough. And then I happened to watch an Ina episode and a Sandy episode on the same day where they made the same dish – crab cakes. Imagine my shock when SANDY won the day. Ina lived and worked in Washington DC for a time. You can’t tell me that someone with her palate never went to Baltimore or any of the little Eastern Shore towns for crabcakes. There is no excuse for the appalling crabcakes she made on this show – they included onion, celery, yellow bell pepper, red bell pepper, and capers. Sandy’s: crabmeat, mayo, bread crumbs, Old Bay, egg, lemon juice, and saltines. Except for the breadcrumbs (not necessary), I can’t argue with those ingredients at all. I still love Ina and will continue to make many of her recipes and I will also continue to enjoy mocking Sandy, but this rocked my culinary world and put a dent in my assumptions. 😁

I really love the flavor of classic American breakfast sausage (+ sage 😊), so most of the time it's Jimmy Dean. When I go to NC, I stock up on Neese's. Especially if they have the sage.

Yesterday's breakfast: The last slice of my homemade bread, sage sausage, and sausage gravy left over from our brunch out on Sunday.

@Captain – I love that lamb shank meal! Lovely yorkie! Question regarding the shank – because I know you’re in Australia and we use different nomenclature from one another, was the shank cooked on an outside grill at a high temperature or was it cooked low and slow? And was it smoked? It is my favorite cut of lamb and Mr. Kim could do either, so I’d love to know what you’ve had success with. Mr. Kim smoked four butts on Saturday – two up top: And two below: Therefore, dinner on Sunday was dogs and Mr. Kim’s BBQ. I like mine chopped rather than just pulled: My dog was subsequently covered with lousy canned chili and good BBQ slaw (finely minced with vinegar, Dijon, olive oil, and a little bit of Dukes). I really need to find a good recipe for hot dog chili. I’m not really satisfied with the one I’ve used in the past.

I brought home one sausage link (sliced into bite-sized pieces and microwaved for about 20 seconds), pancakes (CSO), the potatoes (bake/steam CSO), and the gravy (microwaved and put on top of the last slice of my homemade bread. I don't think you sound whiny at all. I am not a fan of leftovers at all, so the CSO has become a lifesaver for me. And as for those gigantic, jaw defying deli sandwiches, I can't manage them and actually find them unbalanced. I end up pulling off half the meat and taking it home.

@BonVivant – those baklava look exquisite! One of my favorite sweets! On Sunday we had a post church lunch somewhere we don’t eat at very often and I’m not sure why we don’t. The food was fantastic. I had breakfast food and Mr. Kim had lunch food. I double ordered and took half home. Over medium eggs, fat link sausage, great potatoes, pancakes, and one biscuit and sausage gravy: I really wish I could find that fat sausage somewhere. It’s the best link sausage I’ve ever eaten and I’ve only ever had it at restaurants. Mr. Kim got one of the best tasting and most balanced Reubens I’ve had recently: Some people might think it doesn’t have enough corned beef, but to me it was a perfect bite – you could taste every single thing in the sandwich. Mr. Kim’s lunch yesterday was dogs with mustard, jalapenos, and slaw:

Jif is our favorite brand. Our jar was fine, but all of the jars we had stored at church for making lunches to take to homeless shelters were affected. 130 sandwiches were made and distributed on Saturday, May 21st. By the time someone thought about it (there are 3 groups at our church who take turns on this project and it wasn't our groups turn), the trash had already gone, so we suspect, though can't be sure, that the PB used in those sandwiches were also from affected jars. So far, no one has had any issues, but it is a real nightmare scenario.

@Owtahear – That biscuit sandwich sounds right up my alley! Saturday: Homemade bread, strawberry preserves, sage sausage, and some ok strawberries. Today was more homemade bread – one slice with butter and the other with Dukes and Campari tomatoes:

😠 This happens to me all the time. And the response when I complain is basically "Well, if you want it done a certain way, you should do it yourself". How about you all just learn the right way to do stuff? From putting away the dishes that have dried wrong to putting sharp knives in the dishwasher (not the good ones - I have managed to train them not to do that) to "clearing up" after dinner but not wiping down the stove or the countertops. So infuriating. Just this morning, we had the refrigerator discussion. He can't find something and when I go to look, everything is in utter chaos. I haven't organized the fridge in a few days and he shrugs and says, "I have to put things where they'll go". Sigh. I assume we're out of relish if it's hiding behind the marmalade. And if the deli ham is in the salad drawer, it goes on the shopping list.

New Products.

Had a nice roast dinner last night including Kenji’s roast potatoes that @weinoo made. At this point, I was sure I’d overcooked the potatoes: But I persevered and made the best roast potatoes I’ve ever made: They are just slightly overdone, but were so good – actually crunchy! I SV’d the beef tenderloin: Home made bread, horseradish sauce, and gravy: Plated with broccoli and corn: I would have preferred Brussels sprouts, but we had broccoli and it needed cooking.

Thanks for the information, everyone! I ended up SV it for 2.5 hours at 128. Out of the bath: After the iron skillet sear: It was delicious and so tender, but I think I'll set it for 132F or so next time. It was a bit underdone for us and really hard to carve because it was so soft. The other half of this will be cut into filets, so I'll be using your temperature you recommended for them, @Dave the Cook!

Made some American Sandwich Bread from Cooks Illustrated yesterday. I tend to alternate between this and Shelby's White Bread Loaves for a regular loaf of white sandwich bread. The CI recipe makes one 9x5-inch loaf and @Shelby's recipe makes two 8.5x4.5-inch loaves. Shelby's loaves are more foolproof, I think, but the CI loaf is slightly tastier. Both are extremely good. One odd thing with the CI loaf is the lines across the top and down the sides. They always occur with this recipe. It is a very soft dough - I always end up finishing by hand rather than in the KA so I don't have to add too much flour. I use a bit more flour than they recommend as it is. The recipe calls for AP flour, but I used King Arthur bread flour this time and it was fine.

@JoNorvelleWalker – Thanks for posting the link to the recipe. I am definitely making that beef! It looks so delicious that it mitigates the cooked carrots 😉! @weinoo – nice roast potatoes. I’m trying the same recipe tonight. And that article IS long-winded! But if mine come out as nice as yours, I won’t mind at all. @Shelby – Good LORD! So much good food! I would be happy to sit down to any one of those meals. And I truly covet those radishes and dare not let Mr. Kim see them after his radish-challenged garden last year. I don’t know whether to be proud or apprehensive that he’s trying again this year 😁. I’m madly in love with peonies and yours are gorgeous. I give off some kind of bad plant vibe and the one beautiful, prolific one that was here when we moved in got more and more sparse and this year sent up one single blossom that lasted a couple of days and then all the petals dropped off 🙄. @Dejah – thank you! And that Vinarterta sounds delicious! We seem to be eating out or eating take out a lot lately. Last night we were supposed to meet some friends for Vietnamese, but they had to cancel. It was kind of last minute, so I didn’t have anything ready to cook. We’ve all been craving fried chicken, so Mr. Kim did a Popeye’s run: My plate with chicken, biscuit, slaw, mashed potatoes, and some fixed up Kraft:

Yesterday morning: The potatoes were leftover from our lunch out on Tuesday. Just pan fried them in a little oil and they were like they'd just come from the kitchen. I honestly think that, for all the methods that folks swear by to rejuvenate leftover fried potatoes, frying them again is the best method. This morning I made Mr. Kim some sausage and stuffed a leftover biscuit from last night with a patty. My breakfast was a hot sage sausage patty eaten at the stove while frying the last batch! 😄

Found these at Food Lion yesterday: Nice for snacking, but I'm already thinking of buying a few more packages to use as crumb coating for fish and crab cakes. I had a half a bag of oyster crackers getting ready to go stale, so I made a batch of those Ranch crackers:

I'm not worried that bringing to approx. 130 won't be warm enough. I was wondering if I SV'd, then chilled before searing would it then not be warm enough. @gilbertlevine - what are the benefits of chilling before searing? I've never done that with thick steaks. Thank you!

If I do that won't the roast be cold?

Advice, please! I have a little 1 1/2 lb. beef tenderloin (I cut a big one in half). I'd like to cook it sous vide tomorrow. I'm thinking 125 for 2-3 hours (which?) and then sear in a hot iron skillet. I want medium-rare - will that be too underdone? Thanks!!!

I also love Social Tea cookies. They couldn't be plainer, but they are somehow addicting.

I love Phil and I love this show. I don't apologize at all for it. I love watching someone love what they do and he's hilarious.

@Shelby – mmmm! Everything looks so good. I need some fried chicken soon. I think I’m going to try the sous vide, then fry method finally. And those strawberries are utterly gorgeous. I don’t even know if there are any pick your own farms around here anymore. The big one we used to go to is now just a garden center. Your shortbread looks good, too. This is my recipe for shortbread, what do you do? @Tropicalsenior – Happy Birthday! Your tonkatsu dinner looks delicious. That’s a favorite around here that I haven’t made in a long time. @Kerala – Happy Birthday to you, too! @Dejah – please excuse my ignorance, but what is the fuzzy stuff on the congee? On Friday, Jessica and I traveled to Northern VA for a couple of days to visit family and do a little sightseeing. On Friday, we had dinner at Viet Foods in the Eden Center – a large shopping center with all-Asian businesses. The restaurant that we celebrated Jessica’s 2nd (or 3rd) birthday in was in this center. She’s now 38 and was the one who found the shopping center – not knowing the history. We’ve got a great picture of her eating lo mein with chopsticks. We shared the crispy rolls: I had the Shaking Beef: I’d never had it before but had seen it on Food Network. It was so good. Even the bell peppers didn’t ruin it – they didn’t flavor the entire dish like they normally do. The beef was incredibly tender, and the rice and sauce were great. I didn’t use the sauce in the little cup – it was way too hot. Jessica got the vermicelli bowl with sugar cane shrimp, roast pork, crispy roll: For dessert, we shared a crepe cake with mango cream and mango puree from a place in the same center called Mango Mango: It was truly delectable. Sunday night: A BLT. Just had a craving. Last night dinner for me was (canned) clam chowder and a tomato sandwich: What can I say? It scratched the particular itch I had. And the bread was wrong, but it still tasted good!

@Anna N - your pate lunch is exactly my idea of the perfect lunch. The soft shells have arrived in Central VA! We had lunch yesterday at a favorite little place called Dot's Back Inn. Salad with their great house made bleu cheese dressing: Mr. Kim had the red beans and rice w/ Andouille sausage (weirdo): It was good. Jessica and I had soft shell sandwiches: Heavenly.

I really wanted to stop there this past Friday night while we were up there. But we were so beat from the drive and the heat and all the visiting that we just took cool showers and dropped into our beds by 9pm. I'd love to have a meet up there sometime!

Jessica and I went up to the DC area on Friday to make some family visits and to tour the Mormon Temple which, due to some construction work, is currently unconsecrated and open for tours to the general public. We had lunch with my dad and his wife at a place called Ford’s Fish Shack in Ashburn. No pictures, but it is only the second place I’ve ever seen whole belly clams in the South. They were delicious. I cannot imagine why more places don’t have these. We had lunch after the tour on Saturday at a place called The Dish & Dram in Kensington MD. We shared a good Caesar salad: Jessica had the falafel burger: I had the brisket sandwich: The sandwiches were both excellent and the fries, which are hard to see in the pictures, were really amazingly good. Especially with the Old Bay aioli. We made our way back to Richmond after lunch. By the time we got as far as Fredericksburg, we were far enough from lunch that we stopped for frozen custard: Strawberry and chocolate: As far as I’m concerned the best, creamiest, most delicious frozen dessert in existence. On Sunday, we had a church picnic (inside – it was upper 90s in VA this weekend). Poor Mr. Kim cooked hamburgers and hot dogs all morning and I brought a really old favorite: This is my favorite layered salad – iceberg, cauliflower, mayo, red onions, bacon, Cheddar, and sugar (yep). Made the night before and tossed a few minutes before serving. I add a lot of freshly ground black pepper when I toss it. Sometimes I’ll put in some sliced hard-boiled eggs, too. I’ve been making it since the early 1980s – as a new bride – it was a good, inexpensive thing to take to a potluck. But it was apparently made as far back as the 1950s in the American south.