Peter the eater
-
Posts
2,616 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by Peter the eater
-
-
Using a Jaccard actually prevents juice loss by limiting the contraction of the muscle fibers. There is the argument that it could drive surface bacteria into the meat but the Jaccard thread has covered several ways to avoid that.
Right you are -- that's the thread that got me thinking. I'm not overly worried about the bacteria in my home kitchen as long as I use common sense.
-
Let’s say I’ve got a cheap cut of tough beef like a thick blade or round steak. I want to improve the taste and texture of the meat somehow. I can think of seven ways to do this . . .
- Pound it with a spiky mallet or wine bottle
Pro: physical pounding softens the tissue, gives it a uniform thinness
Con: meat can get mushy - Stab it repeatedly with a fork
Pro: low tech, fast and easy
Con: drives surface bacteria in deep, enables juice loss - Pass it through a jaccard
Pro: thoroughly slices through muscle fibers and connective tissue making tough meat tender
Con: I need to buy the device, enables juice loss - Marinade it in a sauce with acid and enzymes
Pro: fruit juices like pineapple and papaya add flavor and break down protein with acidity and natural enzymes
Con: meat can get mushy, saucy meat makes a mess on the grill - Age it in the fridge
Pro: flavors develop and concentrate as the meat dries and breaks down naturally
Con: shrinkage, takes time and fridge space - Braise it
Pro: prolonged moist heat melts connective tissue, makes meat very tender, a classic technique
Con: rare not possible, takes time - Sous vide it
Pro: same pros as braising, but with a precise level of rareness
Con: time and equipment required, no maillard reaction
Do these descriptions sound legit? Are there more?
- Pound it with a spiky mallet or wine bottle
-
I like pork patties. In the past, when processing our own pigs, I dice up then grind much of the shoulder. What doesn't become a sausage gets frozen into flat disks. Same goes for turkey.
How do you garnish them? Straight up like regular burgers, or with some twist?
A thin slice of pineapple with some sweet & sour sauce makes a luscious pork burger.
-
Thanks for the information on the sustainability status of the different species - although I have yet to be able to connect to fishbase.
The Seafood Watch Program from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Greenpeace's Red List are worth a look.
-
I like pork patties. In the past, when processing our own pigs, I dice up then grind much of the shoulder. What doesn't become a sausage gets frozen into flat disks. Same goes for turkey.
-
What are your favourites and why?
Haddock has the perfect texture and taste for a crisp beer batter. Cod and halibut are also good. I've battered and fried mackerel, salmon, trout and char but always go back to haddock. A non-oily white-fleshed fish works best for me.
-
Definitely not brass for the handles ... to conductive.
I don't know about people who actually cook for a living, but for every hour I work with a copper pot in my home, I spend ten looking at it hanging from the ceiling.
Brass and copper are beautiful together. I know it's superficial but when it comes to handles, I'll take appearance over heat transfer coefficient.
-
What would your ideal copper pans be like?
Be specific. I want to know the shapes and sizes, lined vs plated (not limited to tin here - my business is mostly about plating stuff, often with pretty exotic materials. I just need to find out which are food safe), thickness, lids, handle material(s), how they're attached, everything.
We're talking a super-premium product so go nuts.
I'd like thick copper, lined with primo stainless steel, through-rivet cast brass handles, hand-finished. 3 lids max for a set of 8 pots/pans, plus maybe an oval.
-
I'm rife with kitchen sin, but you know what helps? Keeping appliances on the counter. My wife's pink KA mixer and new 1.7L food processor sit beside my Foodsaver fully exposed and easily accessed.
-
By the way, has anyone tried pork fries?
I think most males are castrated within the first week of life, so these fries would be very small. The few times we've bought piglets to raise ourselves, they've always been sows. I don't think our Co-Op even sells barrows.
I found some large pork fries for sale (click). $4.52 per pound, and it's sold as pet food.
-
The last apartment we lived in in Manhattan had a box like that, but it was on the sixth floor of an apartment building, so it was definitely not for milk delivered from the outside. I don't know if it was a cold box or maybe a box for storing fuel for a coal or wood fired stove before gas was installed. There was a metal plate on the wall for a flue near the stove. The apartment also had a defunct dumbwaiter.
I've seen old buildings with systems for ash disposal, but your box sounds more mysterious. Just imagine what future archeologists will postulate about our current crazy material culture.
-
Unless someone can come up with a good reason to use a round board I suggest you stick to the square/rectangular ones.
Even ignoring your "long" dimension, a 12" round board will have a surface of ~113" sq, while a square board will have 144" sq. A rectangular board 12x24" will have 288" sq area.
I like rectilinear boards, but less than I like round boards. Look at the wear pattern on old boards of both shapes -- a square board gets four positions on the counter. A round board can be rotated from nothing to 360 degrees. This feature makes it last longer.
-
I would have to say homemade tomato sauce. Peeling and deseeding pounds of tomatoes then cooking down for what frankly was less tasty than canned.
I didn't think I had anything to add to this thread until you reminded me. I once had a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes.
We had a huge quantity of Tiny Tim tomatoes last year. The solution was to purée the bejesus out of them, simmer off the water, then freeze the concentrate. We're still eating them.
-
It depends where you live who you ask. There's probably a precise biological explanation, but I go with local lingo even if it's confusing. For example, I buy local shrimp (Pandalus borealis) which gets sold as cold, deep, or Atlantic shrimp. The same creature is a sold as a prawn in Europe. I believe any large shrimp is called a prawn in Australia.
<edit to undangle my participle)
-
I could see me making tripe exactly once.
I almost bought the raw ingredients last summer after watching Julia do it in on The French Chef. The butcher came out with a huge clear bag full of brown watery cow rumen and said "it needs to be washed . . . five bucks?".
-
Cassoulet
Cassoulet is a good example of a dish that makes sense if you live in rural France with all those ingredients at hand. In my neck of the woods the components are expensive and/or hard to find: duck confit, dry French wine, Toulouse sausages, goose fat, etc.
-
Catering a a party for 75, while I was 8.5 months pregnant, in August, pops into my head, immediately.
Oh my, pops is the word. The heat, the mayhem, the physical demands -- I trust it all worked out.
I want to buy one of those big mammal heads from my butcher. That's got Once-is-Enough written all over it.
-
While I tournéed a 10lb sack of potatoes for the first and last time, I began to think of other culinary accomplishments I don’t ever wish to reproduce . . .
-
Nobody builds new ones anymore . . .
Well, what do you know? I found one in a restoration catalog: click. Some boxes are just for mail, others have a milk flap below. Very quaint.
-
I'm jealous of all that well-seasoned cast iron!
The oldest thing in my kitchen with a date on it is an Old Mr. Boston De Luxe Official Bartender's Guide, 6th printing, November 1946.
The oldest thing without a date -
Any ideas what this might be?
It's in my kitchen, apartment in New York City built in around 1923. It's under the window on an outside wall, so it gets cold in the winter. Metal, and I apologize for the poor quality photo! My great aunt used to keep soda pop in it in the winter.
. . .
Looks like a milk box to me - accessible from the outside so milk could be delivered and kept cold while the occupant was away.
Looks like a milk box to me too. When I was a kid living in Montreal we had a through-the-wall milk delivery box with inside and outside doors.
Nobody builds new ones anymore because A)it's like leaving a window open all winter, and B)who gets milk delivered?
-
-
I pass an old guy selling smoked fish almost everyday -- I've never stopped. Somebody must buy his stuff since he's been setting up there for at least five years. I'm not sure what it is that puts me off, the rusty van and the "hadock" sign don't help.
-
The problem with coke is its complete worldwide overexposure. I like it as a rare treat, like a few times per year. Cold, fizzy, caffeinated caramel with a shot of dark rum is the extent of my hacking.
I think I once watched Paula Dean put coke on a chicken.
-
I do wish my thighs still had the skin on, but you can't beat $1.78 for a pound of boneless chicken thighs especially from Whole Foods.
That's a great price. I don't understand why breasts are the most expensive part and legs are always less.
7 Ways to Make Cheap Beef Tender & Flavorful
in Cooking
Posted
Corning could be number eight. I think of curing beef in brine as a preservative process, but that brisket gets soft and pink before any heat is applied, just like an uncooked ham.