Food Thread - Those that eat

[Gromnir]

food confession:

if you eat a meal at our table and we had to microplane anything as part of a dish's preparation, there is at least a 50% chance you are getting a smidge o' Gromnir skin along with the traditional and expected ingredients.

fair warning.

HA! Good Fun!

[Gromnir]

found a trick for giving our dogs medications-- chicken skin.

one of our dogs requires multiple medications daily and she don't like taking meds. our dog is preternatural cunning about pill syringes/pillers and perhaps ironic, the chewable meds the vet prescribes is the worst as they is oversized and it is harder to disguise 'em as they has odor/flavour. am having tried hiding pills in any number o' foods, but the dog rejects the alloy o' pill + meat/cream cheese/whatever. commercial pill pockets is useless. 

however, am having noticed none o' our dogs meds is including microcapsules, so am able to mortar and pestle the pills into a powder w/o screwing up the med efficacy. we then combine the pills with a paste made from chicken skin.

we remove chicken skin from thighs or breasts and then cook the skin in the oven at 375F until is dry and virtual all the fat has rendered. jaques pépin refers to the stuff as "chicken bacon" and he uses it in all kinda recipes, but for our purposes we make sure the rendered skin has no salt or seasoning added. the dry chicken skin may be crushed into a paste which retains only a little oil. a relative small amount o' the resulting chicken paste may then be combined with our powdered dog meds to form a tiny round "pill" which the world's most persnickety dog never rejects. 

dunno if anybody else has ever had trouble with dogs and meds, but for those who do, and if pill syringes/pillers don't work as advertised, the chicken skin option might be worth a try. takes a bit o' effort to mortar and pestle meds not to mention the chicken skin prep, but for those who has difficult canines...

also,

we made the stew o' violence and it is surprisingly tasty, particular if you like a bit o' sweet in your pork. we ordinarily shy away from sweet pork or beef offerings, but this were enjoyable as the sweet is not overpowering.

red wine vinegar substitutes for kobold blood (we couldn't find kobold blood even at corti brothers,) and any dry red wine will work as a replacement for black currant wine. 3lbs o' pork shoulder is what we used 'stead o' boar. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gromnir]

did reverse sear on a bone-in ny strip.

*sigh*

we don't typical do bone-in ny strip, but our preferred method for steak nowadays is that we bring the meat up to 120F in the oven which is set at 275F. we then quick hit the steak with our infrared broiler. let the steak rest for a bit less than ten minutes and by then the steak comes up to perfect med-rare internal.

sometimes we do similar but after the oven, we finish in a pan with compound butter... or even just butter. this method works well in part 'cause we often let the meat rest before we do the pan finish. carbon steel pan is kinda ideal, but we also like to use a cast iron pan for this approach, and if we go cast iron, we put the pan in a 500F oven first so it is ripping hot before we place it on the stove. pretty much need less than 30 seconds per side to finish in the hot cast iron... though we highly recommend buy an elastic shower cap and covering your smoke detector while crustifying your steak as you will produce a fair amount o' smoke.

we went smoky cast iron last night, but in part cause the steak was bone-in, it took a bit more than 30 seconds on one o' the sides to get the crust we demanded. "a bit more than 30 seconds" meant we overshot medium-rare and were firmly in medium territory.

is not as if the steak were ruined, but am admitting we were disappointed for at least a few hours afterwards... and clearly we ain't managed to let go completely even today.

perhaps we take food a bit too serious? 

also, we made frijoles charros the other day, which is kinda our alternative to making chili with beans. we always use mexican chorizo as one o' the meats, and while we ordinary use pinto beans, we had good mother stallard beans on hand and they have some nice coffee/chocolate undertones which we enjoy in charros. am kinda conflicted on using bacon, 'cause no mater how crispy you make your bacon, the meat becomes soft and less appetizing when cooked. we did have a bit o' very bacony ham, which we substituted for bacon... even if bacony is not a real word. also, this is one o' those recipes where am using cilantro stems as 'posed to leaves. the stems many people ordinary throw away have more cilantro flavor than does the leaves, but the stems is woody... but not woody once they has been frozen. am highly recommending to chop up frozen cilantro stems and throw 'em into a soup or stew if you has never done so before. the freezer burned cilantro will dissolve into your soup or stew. warning: cilantro flavor is concentrated in the stems, so you need less stem than leaves to get same flavour. 

...

am also willing to admit that we added more than a few dashes o' this into the soup/stew/whatever. rather than opening up a can/jar and chopping up a whole chipotle pepper, in a recipe which cooks for a considerable time, am finding the cholula sauce gives us the same, chipotle flavour we want as well as some heat without any additional work or mess.

sue us.

anyways, we serve the frijoles charros with queso fresco and lime... and maybe even some carne asada. we ordinary make a few quarts and then freeze half o' the batch, so am gonna have cowboy beans potential for a considerable period o' time as well as the accompanying gas and gas pains from the beans, meat... and the cheese we add with little restraint. worth it, but luckily we live alone and the dog doesn't mind our increased presence following the consumption o' a bowl o' beans.

HA! Good Gun!

 

 

[Gorth]

I wonder if Gromnir would consider visiting the large hadron collider some day… bringing a steak

[Gromnir]

6 hours ago, Gorth said:

I wonder if Gromnir would consider visiting the large hadron collider some day… bringing a steak

the cern facility is only a bit more excessive than our current setup... not to mention the vulgar oversized outdoor grill on our back patio, a weber charcoal grill, smoker, multiple air fryers (one toaster-style and two basket,) microwave oven, instapot, rice cooker, this and one of these... none o' which makes us near as good a cook as were our grandmother who cooked 99% on a circa 1957  basic 4-burner kenmore gas range. avocado color. 

HA! Good Fun!

ps we got a bunch o' other additional cooking appliances, but they mostly sit in the pantry unused... as well as prep stuff like blenders, food processors and the stand mixer we almost never use 'cause we hardly ever bake. 

[ShadySands]

Grilled a whole rack of lamb and my wife and kids loved it. I don't like lamb so I didn't try it.