Steve Irby

I'll skip the veg's intro - darn tasty ribs

Here's a couple of recent meals that deviated from the summer norm. The first dish was oysters & bacon in heavy cream. The bacon was rendered with vidalia onion, the excess fat drained off, and combined with heavy cream then reduced. Added a pint of oysters and oyster sauce for a quick and easy supper. Supper last night was beef laap or at least my in-the-spirit-of variant. I started by finely mincing beef sirloin and briefly poaching in beef stock. I drained the meat and added red onions, basil, mint, fish sauce, lime juice, a little canola oil, and rooster spice blend from worldspice. I added additional stock to produce a nice wet mix and served as a very refreshing summer salad.

A few dishes from the past week. House ground beef (brisket, round, trimmings and pork fat) combined with spinach, Fulvi romano, pancetta, egg and a little matzo meal then grilled and served with a nice romaine mediterranean'ish salad with Bulgarian feta. A very simple dinner zucchini, onions and mushrooms sauted in sunflower oil with Halloumi. And the start to dinner last night with a killer pork butt smoked with pecan and mesquite.

Great looking rolls served with a burger in a skirt! And that tomato looks like our pit bull's tongue in anticipating of the treat to come.

A tasty morsel that I brought to a KY Derby party. I munched quite a bit as I was prepping so it pretty much became my dinner. Homemade lox cured with a touch of World Spice Kashmir Curry blend served on a dinner plate size Leksand rye crispbread round.

How's this for cooler overload? Right at 30#'s of meat in a 48 qt. ice chest in my homemade SV contraption -15# pork loin, 12# chicken thighs, 2# longaniza and 1# chicken tarragon sausage. 20 thighs were deboned and rolled around the longaniza, 8 thighs were deboned and sandwiched/slabbed around the chicken tarragon and the loin was sectioned to fit in the 12" x 12" vac bags. Sous vide temp of 145 F for 1.5 hours for the chicken and 3 hours for the pork. I pre-heated the water bath and the 1150 watt heater had no problem maintaining the temp. The end game was pork paprikash, chicken with tarragon cream sauce and chicken rolls with a take on Blake and Alison Rushing King Ranch Chicken. No pictures of the final product as things got pretty hectic toward the finale. Pre-bath Off the grill

I hate to preach to the choir but SV and a chamber vacuum sealer are pretty darn indispensable-with the vacuum bagger at the top of the list. Tonight I prepared center cut pork chop's two ways - 5-spice with tangerine and the second with a Cajun rub. Into the old VP-112 then into Anova hot water bath. Chops prepped What you attend to while the SV magic transpires. Magic transpiring The final product(s). Four 5 spice & 2 Cajun. And not for dinner - I'll chill then vacuum bag for later in the week.

I haven't had a dinner post for awhile but tonight I got motivated to break the camera out. It's Cobia (aka ling, lemon fish) season on the gulf coast and I bought really a nice at fillet Maria's Seafood. I also picked up a nice swordfish fillet. A couple of little tweaks with marinades to suit the wife and myself then onto the grill.

A quick supper that hit the spot. Fried green tomatoes, butterflied shrimp, oysters and salad with a tart vinaigrette. The oysters were from the Pass Christian MS and were really tasty.

Supper was pork paprikash over gnocchi. And a meal from awhile back - mushroom lasagna with roasted tomatoes and shishito peppers Insert other media

Thanks for the post. I'll be in New Orleans next week and will try Hong Kong Market.

Here's a few meals from this week. Poached oysters in cream with pork belly lardons. Roast beef ravioli from a chuck roast last week and mushroom ravioli made from baby bella's, ricotta and montasio cheese. And a brisket I cooked today which will be served for dinner tomorrow night.

Those photos by liamsaunt, Ann_T and Okanagancook are carnivore porn. I wish I had that popover to mop the drool! ninagluck that pear salad looks awfully enticing too.

Kind of and old school supper tonight. Pan fried chicken like my mom used to make. The fryer was sectioned into 11 pieces plus the liver. As kids we would fight to get the pulley bone. The chicken turned out really well for not being fried in an avocado green electric skillet! The jalapeno cornbread incorporated leftover cheese grits and creamed corn with Indian style yogurt. I used three differnt pattern cast iron skillets with generous doses of bacon renderings. Peas, squash,mashed potatoes and pan gravy rounded out the menu.

We're working through a sack of salty apalachicola oysters. Lunch was a hollowed out ciabatti loaded up with just fried goodness.

Tonight's dinner was kind of a summer meal since the weather has been so darn warm. Fried green tomatoes, boiled shrimp and remoulade along with fried oysters and catfish. Dessert was leftover from Christmas -brandy eggnog panna cotta.

Merry Christmas to All! Santa passed us by again but I'm not going to take it personally. We're happy to share the season with friends, family and food. And what better way to start the day than homemade cornetti and cappucino.

Okay here's my two cents. Figure around $2,000-$2,500 for a good machine, grinder and a few accessories. You'll be pulling great shots within a pound or two of beans and you won't be second guessing yourself about the need to upgrade. Buy a machine with the plumbed in option and a rotary pump. I started out with an inexpensive Gaggia with a Rancilio Rocky grinder and within a few months upgraded to a Quickmill Vetrano and Mazzer grinder. That was in 2007 and I have not had any need (or irrational urges) to upgrade. My machine is a pre-PID single boiler model with E61 group and it has been rock solid producing great shots in accordance with: http://www.espressoitaliano.org/files/File/istituzionale_inei_hq_en.pdf Don't worry about wasting coffee. I think you'll find that your bad shot is superior to what passes as espresso at a majority of the coffee shops (yemv!). If the shot is off it becomes an Americano. The espresso grind is so fine that it's not much use for anything else if things go south. Get ready to roast coffee beans to keep the cost down and quality up. Great espresso requires fresh beans that have not degassed or you'll loose the crema or emulsion that is the hallmark of great espresso. Like Rotuts I have been a big fan of Sweet Marias blends. In my experience the window for great espresso is within a week or two from roasting. After that the bean have degassed and you loose that nice mouth feel. A pound of greens beans is ~$5 versus ~$20 for an equivalent roasted bean.

Shelby - Keep'um coming. Really nice looking oysters. They look nice and fat. Are the oysters from the Gulf Coast? Sartoric- Beautiful plating gfweb - Lots of tasty food. The crust on the HPR and those au gratin potatoes really look great. I was in Selma AL this past week and bought some sugarcane from an 82 year man selling cane from the back of his truck. It was about 40 years ago that I bought a copy of Craig Claiborne's Favorites from the NY Times and discovered there was a use for cane other than syrup. That book was kind of my "gate-way" to the world of possibilities in food beyond congealed salads and casseroles. Kind of a long winded intro for tonights dinner of Chao Tom (Grilled chopped shrimp on sugar cane) with Nuoc Mam Sauce from that cookbook. It was many years before fish sauce made it to the isles Winn-Dixie in Meridian MS. Finished the panna cotta tonight made from a recipe from epicurious.

Dinner tonight was a little bit of this and that. Purple hull peas seasoned with rosemary, garlic and olive oil, creamed corn, baked beans and coleslaw. Deboned chicken thighs were stuffed with homemade longaniza and deboned drumsticks stuffed with stuffed with homemade pork sausage with sage and wrapped with bacon. Both dishes were cooked sous vide and finished on the grill. Also brisket burnt ends to round out the protein offerings. The cornbread included thinly sliced anaheim peppers, garlic chives, onion chives and Ballyshannon cheese. Dessert was panna cotta with a raspberry coulis. The photo is the plate that I prepared for my neighbor.

Okay, my turn to repost! Actually maybe, maybe not as I'm a little confused as to what and where I posted. I had another good trip to the farmers market over the weekend where I bought some nice pearl and shiitake mushrooms, assorted greens and cherokee tomatoes. Some of the bounty became a nice breakfast/lunch with saffron tomato gravy and for dinner a huiray influenced dish of smoked turkey broth seasoned with tamari and oyster sauce served with mushrooms and a type of bok choy. Dinner the next night was a nice locally source pork chop with pork demi-glace with pearl mushrooms, broccolini and gnocchi.

Good trip to the farmers market this AM. Really nice salad greens and rainbow radishes. We were in New Orleans a few years ago and went to MiLa when Slade and Allison Rushing were the chefs. We had a great mixed green salad with fried oysters and buttermilk dressing. The oysters were buried in the salad and covered with the radishes so they did not get soggy. I tried a pretty successful version tonight and also a more conventional version with fried green tomatoes and leftover remoulade & shrimp.

A few photos from Thanksgiving dinner. I made a shrimp napoleon as a starter. It is fried mirliton chips layered with shrimp in remoulade sauce. The plate is drizzled with a cayenne beurre blanc. Soup was a winter squash veloute finished with apple matchsticks, coconut cream and candied walnuts. I used agave syrup, lime juice and an Indian spice mix when I roasted the walnuts. I made a turchetta following serious eats recipe and chicken tarragon sausage wrapped in bacon. I used meat glue in both preparations to adhere the skin/bacon and cooked sous vide for 5 hours. They were finished in a hot oil bath to brown. Served with roasted carrots and a spinach gruyere crepe gateau from a Martha Stewart recipe. Dessert included a pear tart with a nut crust and a sour cream bundt cake served with whipped cream and raspberries.

I've been buying these Georgia Striped Candy Roasters at the farmers market this fall and they are turning into our favorite variety. Great taste and color. I usually roast them at a low temp in the oven till tender then brush with butter and finish under the broiler to get a little caramelization. I made a winter squash veloute for Thanksgiving dinner using a recipe from http://franglaiskitchen.com/pumpkin-veloute-soup-recipe/. The soup is finished with apple matchsticks, cream of coconut and candied walnuts. It was really delicious.

BKEats and cooks like a SOB! What a bunch of good looking dishes. It would be hard to pick a favorite from that diverse line-up. Nice to see family and friends enjoying the bounty. BonVivant kudos also on the range of dishes and immaculate presentations. huiray is another member that keeps me googling ingredients in many dishes that are definitely outside my food orbit. It's amazing to see the diverse meals served up by members of the egullet community and it certainly keeps me inspired. I made a batch of gnocchi the other night in preparation for Thanksgiving using a recipe by Jodi Adams. I cooked a few testers and served them with a lamb burger dusted with kofte spice blend from World Spice. The gnocchi may have turned out looking a little homely but they were tender and tasted great. The burger rocked too.