To accompany pork: cup of dried cherries, bottle of Jim Beam, couple tablespoons of butter. Melt butter in saucepan, put in cherries, toss to coat, cover with bourbon, reduce until cherries are plump. I do not add sugar but you could. Good over ice cream too, and I'd like to try the same idea with preiselbeeren and cognac for venison. Somebody kill me a deer.
Last edited by JAD; 08-21-2015 at 07:04 PM.
Argentine BBQ (Beef!!!) is the best. One of my longest friends is fully Argentine (born in USA to two Argentine parents) and he introduced me to Argentine grilling. Beef mostly, pre-salted and covered with chimichurri. Pure heaven. He also made his own gaucho sausages and empanadas which he sold locally for a while. Your chimi recipe is very similar to the one we use, only we substitute lemon juice for the vinegar. I always believed that if you could put together a nice Argentine BBQ restaurant and did it right you'd make a killing.Originally Posted by rauchman
Sadly he and his family moved back down there, probably for good. I do my best to maintain those Argentine grilling traditions up here, but that mastery with cooking with wood takes a while to perfect. Can't wait to visit, though!
For me, cooking usually starts with a box or bag of something and goes from there. Just don't have the patience or interest to invest the time and effort. That said, I have been informed that I need to start transferring all of Good eats from the DVR to another medium...
Here, however, is a "recipe" for Sangria I came up with that Mrs. Drang loves.
1 bottle white moscato. The cheap stuff is okay.
1 can Peach Fresca
1 6 oz. cup diced peaches in light syrup. Generic grocery store brand is fine.
16 oz. of iced tea
Spices to taste
Moscato and Fresca go in pitcher, add peaches w/syrup. For spices I throw in a stick of cinnamon, and then take the large tea ball and put some nutmeg, ginger, and orange peel in it.
Take one 16 ounce water bottle, pour in about 3-4 ounces of rum or vodka, add one packet of whatever brand of "single serving" iced tea mix you like -- a peach flavor might be too much, I most recently used a "citrus green tea" and apparently am now a supergenius -- mix thoroughly, and then top off with water. Add to the sangria. Chill overnight... if you can wait that long.
Most sangria recipes start with a chardonnay and spend a lot of time and effort trying to make it sweet. I say start with something sweet and see where that takes you. (Mrs. Drang doesn't care for chardonnay anyway.)
Many recipes also add a ton of hard liquor, we were looking for something to sip at the end of the day, not to get us hammered.
Recovering Gun Store Commando. My Blog: The Clue Meter
“It doesn’t matter what the problem is, the solution is always for us to give the government more money and power, while we eat less meat.”
Glenn Reynolds
Oh geeze, don't blame me if they don't turn out right!Ah, have heard about this but never tried it. Wife scoffed at me when I mentioned it.
Anyways, hope this is not a dumb question, but how do you know the steak is at 125 deg in the oven?
My test case would be a couple decent 10-12 oz Ribeyes, if it matters...thanks!
Rich
I just use an old school meat thermometer. Take out the steak after ten minutes or so, stick the thermometer in to the thickest part of the steak and see if it has reached the correct temp. If not, I pop it back in the oven for a few minutes. The remote thermometer in the link above is the best method and saves a lot of checking. It also gives you time to fry the mushrooms and onions!
Last edited by Clobbersaurus; 08-21-2015 at 08:05 PM.
No worries, thanks a bunch. I will give this a shot and report back soon.
Random thoughts from an ex-chef:
Try to let go of recipes and learn general principles instead. At its root cooking is a survival skill; you want to learn how to make stuff taste good with what you have, rather than what Fresh Fields will sell you. One of my favorite things is to walk into someone's kitchen I've never been in, go through all the cupboards, and whip something tasty out of whatever is there. First time I met my in-laws I went through their rather empty larder and turned 3 qts. of milk, some half and half, a partial bag of frozen peas, some flour, some canned salmon, butter, spice and such into a salmon soufflé. Made for a good first impression.
Exception to the above: when baking, follow the freaking recipe. I see entrees as an art form, baking is all chemistry. If you don't follow the recipe you'll create a monster.
Spend some time learning how to make stocks. Just about anything rotting in the 'fridge or that you scrape off your plate into the trash can be tossed in a stock pot. Teach yourself how to make beef, chicken, and fish based stocks. Once you have those down--they are easy--start working on sauces. If you know how to make a basic brown sauce, white sauce, use a butter and flour based roux, and a cornstarch roux, you can turn just about any critter into something tasty. It takes practice to figure out what works with what, but once you got stocks and sauces down there is very little you can't turn into a meal.
For the most part, low and slow is the way to go on meat. Exceptions are broiler items, but if it is going into a sauce, being marinated, smoked, BBQ'd, whatever, I like starting it at 250-275 and really taking my time. As it gets near done, blast it at 350-450 for color/exterior texture.
Learn food sanitation basics. Avoid cross contamination, i.e. using the French knife on raw chicken and then cutting lettuce with it. Drop a teaspoon full of bleach into a gallon of water and then wipe down everything that touches food with the solution: cutting boards, countertops, implements, etc. Do it often.
Understand safe internal serving/holding temps: Chicken to at least 165, old school pork the same, though if you trust your pork source I think 140 is good. Beef, an internal of 125 or so for rare to 180 or so for pretty freaking well done. Fish, 140 to 165, depending on source. Try to "hold" foods, i.e. store them for serving at 150 to 180, depending on food item (cooler for tender/flaky stuff like fish, warmer for pork in BBQ or something else still breaking down proteins while holding.) Get yourself a cheap probe type thermometer and stick it into your stuff to see what the temp is. Dip said thermo into your sanitizing solution between uses.
It takes a lot of work to allow food poisoning to occur: first you gotta introduce a pathogen to a food medium, then you gotta let it reproduce at a temp it is happy at, then you gotta fail to bring the food item to a temp that kills the pathogen, and so on. Interdict this process at any point and you have no worries. It's kinda like NDs: you gotta break all the rules all at once to make it happen. With that said, there are still some oddball ways of creating, say, anaerobic processes that allow botulism to flourish and such so err on the side of caution. Also note that my low and slow meat preferences is counter indicated if you don't trust the meat source. If that's the case, blast that snot out of it.
That's what leaps to mind, but feel free to throw any specific questions you have at me.
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Lets start with typewriters."
Frank Lloyd Wright
Great stuff. Thanks.
Question: besides salt and pepper, what would be the 'basic' spices you would suggest for a beginning cook just starting out?
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Thyme, basil, oregano, garlic (we can argue whether it's a spice), onion (ditto), are the ones I can't live without.
Tabasco (or other hot sauce), Worcestershire, red and white peppercorns, rosemary, tarragon, cilantro are next in line.
Raspberry flavored vinaigrette (poach some carrots in it, water, peppercorns, and rosemary then thank me), Kitchen Bouquet, dry beef and chicken stock (these three can add a deep color/flavor) are the third line. Sure I'm forgetting something.
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Lets start with typewriters."
Frank Lloyd Wright
That's a really great starter list, Hatchetman. Your experience shows!
And for the live of all that is delicious, if you are serious about cooking, plant some of those herbs and tend them. Fresh herbs are soooooooo much better than bought dried from the store. You can always dry your surplus.
Herbs are easy to grow in a small amount of space, and it will save you money on top of making your food super awesome.
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I need something easy and cheap to make with chicken. I eat 2 boneless skinless chicken breast every day and I'm to the point where I could barf eating them. Been doing them on the stove with black pepper and garlic powder. Can't afford to grill everyday so would prefer stove top. Something with sauce would be good. The more calories the better. Seems like a good place to ask!
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