fifi

To catch up... Last night I had a couple of slices of the brisket and some leftover green beans that I made last weekend and needed to use up. The brisket is excellent. This morning so far... I am on my second cup of coffee. Haven't thought about eating yet. Well... That is not entirely true. I did look in the freezer and saw that I still have 2 corndogs left. This is what the corndog thing is all about.

Rinsed diced white onion is traditional. That is what we do. Shallots would be "feh". I am not aduterating my salsa. That is the way it is done. I can confirm that. I just e-mailed some compadres. The cook we inherited with the house we rented in Mexico always rinsed her diced onion. And the onion was always white.

To quote Jin... GAH Maggi should never be used as a primary ingredient, especially in a dipping sauce. It is an addative. Nothing more.

Retrospect on the pork roast. In the future I would be more aggressive in the use of the bitter orange. It was there but not strong enough to make me go WOW. What was there was enough to make me want more. The Central American seasoning was good but I think it is too subtle to come through smoking. I have used it in the oven to great effect but I think it is lost in the smoker. I am headed in the direction of a lot of orange for a pork product. Orange, pork, and smoke seem to be made for each other. Haven't eaten anything since munching on the pork. I'll have another glass of merlot.

could these be kumquats? can't wait to hear more! No, we know they are not kumquats. I did see a show on Food Network in Hawaii where they had some things they called "limes" that looked like this. Not sure if that was the same thing. These are little sour orange tasting things.

6:00... I made some bean salsa stuff. That way I can say that I ate something vegetable today. Also, my friends demand that I bring this stuff so I will when I bring the brisket to the party tomorrow. I have to pass along a tip. When I make the bean stuff, I use white onion. After you dice the onion, you rinse it in cold water. This removes all of the strong onion stuff that happens when you break the cell walls Ate about 1/2 cup of the bean and veggie salsa. So far today does not look good from a nutritional standpoint. I think I will go swallow some vitamins and have a glass of merlot.

Now that is a very interesting thought. I have talked to other "cook" friends that say that after they have cooked it they really aren't interested in eating it.

I finally got in touch with my sister and got the mac salad recipe that she uses. This started with a recipe in a book she bought while in Hawaii but has been modified as she is inclined to do. Boil 1 lb of elbow macaroni in salted water. Mix while the macaroni is warm with: 1 can oil packed tuna, drained 1 cup grated carrot 1 cup finely sliced cabbage (not red cabbage, red cabbage makes for a nasty color) 1/4 cup pureed sweet onion (run it in the food processor or blender) 3 hard boiled eggs, grated on the big side of a box grater 2 tsp Kosher salt 2 tsp white pepper (Sprinkle the salt and pepper on the egg before mixing.) 3 cups mayonaise Chill. Add another 1/4 cup mayo and mix well again before serving. I have no idea if this is "authentic" but it is what she does and it is a huge success.

The pork roast is off. After letting it rest a bit, I sliced into it. It is juicy in the extreme. The orange comes through in a subtle but delicious way. I keep slicing and munching. To be civilised, I really should get one of my biscuits. NAH... I just keep slicing and eating, slicing and eating, slicing and eating.

For some dumb reason, red and yellow together is disturbing to me. I don't allow it in my garden.

OK Stone. Where does one get this wonder? Link?

Noon. I actually made the biscuits. I had one with the leftover pulled pork. It needed some zip so I squirted on some sriracha. A second biscuit was consumed with some butter and a marmalade made by my sister. She found this citrus tree on a high tension electrical line easement. It produces these orange fruits about the size of Key Limes but orange. And they taste orange. She revisits this tree on an annual basis. It is currently loaded so I am expecting another batch of marmalade and some infused vodka. (My sister is our family forager. She puts chickweed in salads. My kids wonder what is in the salad that a cat pissed on.) The bullet is cranking along. I am adding water to the pan a little at a time using a neat piece of glassware. It is a graduated cylinder made by Houston Glass Fabricating Co. that holds 100 ml. The graduations are actually etched into the glass. I don't remember which laboratory I stole it from. I love lab ware. This will have to do until I get a more practical water-adding device. I put the pork roast on just now. No wind from Grace. More rain to come. Flash flood warnings are in effect. Some streets and Interstate service roads are flooded. The travels of the brisket tomorrow are still in question.

I wanna know where you got that cool smilie.

10:00... The bullet is lined out at about 250 vent temperature. This thing is a marvel. Still no wind. Light rain. Heavy coming. The tide is high. I look out over a big harbor so I can see what the tide is doing. Fourth cup of coffee consumed. I am THINKING ABOUT making a batch of cream biscuits. I am not really an accomplished baker but I have mastered that Cooks Illustrated recipe for cream biscuits. I favor the form of patting out a big round and cutting into eighths with a sharp knife. I put them on my heavy aluminum baking sheet with the Silpat. My favorite use of my toys. My cream biscuits are a thing of beauty. Lovely little triangles of meltingly tender dough that split in half with great precision due to that last fold of the dough. I am not shy of acknowledging those few things that I do well. I took my last little foil packet of pulled pork out of the freezer. I am seeing pulled pork in a cream biscuit. I have to start thinking about something vegetal. Note that I am still THINKING about food. I haven't really eaten anything yet. I am not hungry.

"Bitter Orange" is probably a misnomer but that is what is on the label. It is actually a sour orange. You can get it bottled here, Goya brand. As I understand it, the uber fruit is an orange that is sour. (DUH!) Sometimes you can get the actual oranges at our Fiesta markets but I haven't seen them lately so I went with the bottled. Your Cuban Pork sounds interesting. If you can expound on the recipe, maybe I can help interpret. The sour orange component sounds like a likely suspect. edit to add: Sour orange is a common component of Caribbean cookery. That extends to the Yucatan in Mexico and the east coast of Central America. That probably made its way to Key West with the Cuban factor.

fresco... I'm with you. Wood is just more pleasant. I have always just thought that plastic was somehow... I don't know... icky. That is NOT a scientific assessment. Just instinctual. Therefore, I have no plastic cutting boards. When the first research reports came out, I wondered if my instincts weren't correct.

Good call, Ruth. I haven't seen the "Tuff" stuff. Sounds interesting. I will look the next time I visit the restaurant supply place that I haunt. Whatever happened to the research that was showing wooden boards to be more sanitary that plastic? The theory was that either the dehydrating properties of the wood fiber or possibly the lignins in the wood caused bacteria to die off much faster than plastic. I haven't seen anything on that recently. I don't mean to hijack this thread to that topic since it was started on stains. I don't have any plastic cutting boards but I think I agree with some of the other posters. Stains? Who cares.

This is something I have always wanted to learn to do. I have some black beans and intend to work on this while trapped by a tropical storm. Thanks, Jin, for bringing this back up to the top.

I have no shame. Besides, I have Grace as an excuse.

Maybe you've been adding too much. Nick is right. You don't use much. For a 2 avocado batch of guac, about 10 drops is all I add. Same is true for a bowl of soup. (Remember, it is added at the table in Mexico.) You can't really taste Maggi but there is a difference in the final guac.

BBQ program for the day... I snagged a 10 lb. USDA Choice brisket. (Sure wish I could find a Prime.) It is about 9 lbs. after trimming. Yesterday, I trimmed it and cut it in half giving me the flat and the point. (This will be easier to position in the bullet.) A standard rub was applied... salt, paprika, ancho chile powder, pepper, cumin, garlic, cayenne. I mentioned on the smoking meat thread that I discovered this magic technique of putting the meat in a 2 gallon ziploc and poured in the rub and massaged it in from outside the bag. This made for even coverage of the rub and no stained fingernails. The brisket will go on the bottom rack for now. For the top rack, I have a small, 4 lb., pork loin roast that had a really nice fat cap. I brined it for 24 hours in a standard brine with some soy sauce and bitter orange juice. The Virtual Weber Bullet site went nuts over pork with orange so I had to try it. Last night I took it out of the brine, inserted some garlic slivers into the fat cap and applied a Central American style rub that I got out of Gourmet magazine a few years ago. The rub is toasted black pepper corns, coriander and cumin seed, ground and mixed with salt and sugar. I will use more of the orange to mop it and finish with a parsley chimmichurri (sp?). This is a recipe development experiment that will get extended to a bigger piece of pork in the future if it is any good. Any porky juices and mop will drop down on the brisket. This does not sound like a bad thing but should be interesting. The plan is that the brisket will finish up late this evening. It is supposed to travel to a friend's house tomorrow. That travel may either not happen at all or happen only by boat. The weather man says we have had 6 inches of rain so far. No wind though. Second cup of coffee about half gone. The bottle of dark rum has caught my eye. I like rum in coffee. Well... It is a little early for that.

Suzanne F tagged me so here goes. The subtitle refers to the fact that I love to cook but I don't eat much. I like to eat, just not much quantity. (So why am I so fluffy?) Therefore, this thread may include what I am THINKING about eating as much as what I actually put in my mouth. I am starting this now because I am expecting everyone to notice the time. This is a lesson in dedication to BBQ. Gotta go start the fire and crank up the magic bullet. More on that later. This should get interesting. We are in the middle of tropical storm Grace. Think the rain planet in Star Wars. Coffee, Melitta brand Columbian, brewed strong, evaporated milk and sweetener added. A Keebler Club cracker... because it was there.

Oh... I'll do it. Have to pay my dues.

ARG! You forget. I don't eat. It is really pathetic.

I think Cooks Illustrated put that one in the trash can. I have also seen other chefs on some of the shows state the same thing. I can't remember who right now but I remember thinking "well if xxx says so, it must be true." I think the story goes that trussing actually makes it harder to get the thighs done before the breast dries out. Makes sense to me.