Smokeydoke

Everyone's corned beef looks great. I love it.

I've noticed that beautiful bark on yours, I can't say mine has a "bark". Obviously, this recipe is for amateur homecooks, I'll need to experiment further to get a nice bark. I do have an IP, but why the finish in the PC? Is it to tenderize it further? I've seen a few recipe call for steaming after the smoking. I will try it and report back!

Pastrami, pastrami, everywhere. For days. eGullet steered me right again, pastrami was the way to go. Delicious! Mine was a basic recipe, 6 lbs corned beef, 2 T black pepper, 1T ground coriander, 1T powdered garlic. Smoked for 3 hours till internal temp was 155F. It was delicious. So flavorful. I can't wait to make sandwiches and hashes all week. Or I'll just eat it straight from the fridge! My only comment, smoking the meat was not as tender as braising it. It had a chewy quality that I enjoy, kinda like soft bacon. The pastrami had to be cut against the grain and very thin to be palatable in my sandwich. This could be user error, the meat cooked much too fast, most recipes recommend 4-6 hours, I cooked mine in 3. I'll keep a better eye on my smoker next time. Can't beat the flavor. Yum! Feel sorry for people who have to buy the packaged stuff.

The reason I cook so much at home is because my husband has horrible taste in restaurants. Now, we are torn, because our favorite restaurant has closed and the only place we can agree on is McDonald's. I was so exasperated yesterday, I almost gave in to eating at Buffet @ Asia. Their specialty is lukewarm sushi on dirty hot plates. https://www.yelp.com/biz/buffet-at-asia-las-vegas-3 Ignore the 2.5 stars, it is Yelp. It should be more 2.5% chance of catching salmonella.

Persians know how to eat!

I'm going to take gfweb's advice and braise, the sous vide will have to wait. And I agree, 185 is too high.

I'm sorry to hear John Curtas will be ending his blog. http://www.eatinglv.com/ Honestly, he was the last reliable source for goods eats, at least for me.

@gfweb Thanks. I got the 185 from here https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/beef-short-ribs-your-way But 140 sounds better, I'll try that.

First time diving into the souv vide water bath. I decided to do short ribs, because, 1. I had them. 2. I want to make a Short Ribs and Vegetables consomme. Why? Because I like the recipe. It's not made for sous vide, but I was hoping to incorporate it into the recipe. Is this a good idea? Will the consomme have any flavor if I use the jus from the sous vide bag? I was planning on doing a 24 hour sous vide @185F, then using the jus from the bag to make the consomme. Also I have short ribs from the Korean market, the ones they make kalbi, but cut long, not LA-style. Are these ok? I read earlier in the thread that someone's ribs came out dry. My last question is, can I use plastic bag, for 24 hours? Or do I have to buy a vacuum sealer? Wish me luck!

@FeChef perfect color on that pastrami, looks so good. Congratulations.

@Norm Matthews was it this recipe? https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/who-loves-ya-baby-back-recipe-1937448 I've made so many Alton Brown recipes over the years, it's scary.

^^ gorgeous photo, perfect lighting.

Power of peer pressure... pastrami for my next batch. I'll still have 3 more packages afterwards.

@Ann_T Your biscuits are gorgeous, love the layers.

This is bokeh, what @chromedome was talking about, not bad for a 99 cent app. I know, I know, with some practice, I could've done it without the app, maybe when I get better at using the manual settings on my camera. This was an awesome lesson. Thanks everyone. I'm going to post on this thread more often.

My iPhone 6. What do you recommend?

Much better, I'll have to learn how to blur the background, but I do like how the layers of the cake show through. Still a lot of brown, but that's an easy fix.

Oh my, that's great! How'd you do it?

I've never understood the Bittman-love either. He always came across to me as the new "Joy of Cooking".

Thank you, all! I'll try all of these tomorrow in the natural light.

It's time to start getting serious about my photos. Help me. Yeah, yeah, I know, dirty fork. But outside of the crumbs, I have no idea how to bring this photo to life.

Another chocolate cake, this time by Joy the Baker from Homemade Decadence. Classic American Chocolate cake. Can't go wrong with that. Frosting was a bit wonky, it included a lot of sour cream, but it was ok. Still doesn't beat Ms. Field's chocolate cake which I've been making for twenty years. Sorry for the unphotogenic photo, so much brown, I didn't know what to do!

twelve layers.... TWELVE LAYERS! Congrats. It looks great.

Corned Beef and Cabbage with parsley-mustard sauce from Sunday Suppers at Lucques I doubt this dish was suppose to be made with $2/lb corned beef. However it was delicious. After dinner, I went to Albertsons and cleaned them out. I'm going to have corned beef for weeks! I even convinced Mr. Smokey to buy a sous-vide, since it'll taste better and we saved so much money on the corned beef.

@BonVivant your ssam spreads look amazing. That pork belly! I can just hear the skin crunch. Do you make your own kimchee? I love the addition of endives too. I've never tried that. I have done daikon wraps before, they were delicious.