What's everyone's opinions on brining ribs? I've gotten in a habit of always brining chicken, turkey & pork loin and that sort of carried over to ribs as well. When I brine them, they always come out awesome. But I'm wondering if I'm just wasting my time because of all the connective tissue in there. Even when I brine first, I always dry rub overnight (I dont use a very salty dry rub). I'm smoking 6 racks of spareribs Sunday and don't wanna break out the brining buckets if I don't have to.
Ehh....I wouldn't, just because there's very little muscle mass and a large amount of surface area. I'd bet it'd be too easy to overbrine them. I love to BBQ and have tried almost every recipe and method for making ribs. I smoke them for 3 hours with hickory or apple, steam them for 2 hours in the oven, and finish them off on a charcoal gril for the last 90 minutes or so. So tender you could eat them with a fork, but with a crisp, smoky bark.
Thinking I'm gonna skip the brine this time and see what happens. I've never had a problem with overbrining them, but it is a hassle. I also do the 3-2-1 method for spareribs; 2-2-1 for babybacks. I've been using oak lately and seem to like that as well.
The Wife has her hands full with the baby, so because my ta-tas aren't any good at making milk, I have the sweet job of doing most of the cooking to try and help out- hence me spamming the crap outta this thread. Its fun, though! Ceviche and seared tuna from last night: Breakfast I made for us this morning: omelet with diced tomatoes, jalapenos, cheese, and chicken breast (Her's was prettier than mine- I accidentally tore it while flipping). Served with deer sausage (cooked in the sausage grease): And the Tacos de Barbacoa I made tonight: Spoiler Cut up a 3lb chuck roast, seasoned with salt and pepper Seared off in a cast iron pot in batches to prevent the meat from steaming due to overcrowding While the meat browned, I threw some whole chipotle peppers, jalapeno peppers, 6 cloves of garlic, some apple cider vinegar, 2 limes worth of juice, some some oregano, nutmeg, clove, and cumin into a food processor to make the sauce Once the meat was seared, I covered with the sauce, added some beef broth and some bay leaves, stirred well to mix, brought to a boil, covered and then threw into the oven at 300 for 3 hours Out of the oven Pulled apart with two forks- meat was tender as can be Served with queso blanco, some of my salsa, and a side of leftover ceviche
Going to Seattle for I think six days in about a month. It's our anniversary gift to each other. I told my (now wife) as soon as she moved in with me that there are two and only two things I will never question her spending my money on: beer, and food. Some of my favorite memories from vacations are of the food. If done right, it's an experience. We even spent less on a hotel so we'd have more to spend on consumables. If anyone is familiar with the Seattle area, I'd like to ask for some restaurant suggestions, lunch or dinner. Price doesn't matter, the style of cuisine doesn't matter (as long as it's not chinese), but bonus points for uniqueness. And if they have a good selection of brews, all the better. We're staying near Pike's Place if that matters.
I spray the ribs down with apple cider vinegar and then apply the dry rub, let sit covered overnight and then smoke them. But brining is a must for poultry & pork chops to me.
I have just finished the leftovers of this for lunch, and I promise you it is fanfuckingtastic. If I could figure out how to kiss myself just to taste its leftover juices on my tongue, I would. Without further creepy ado, I present: Cajun-blackened Steak with Brandy Cream Sauce. Ingredients: (note: this will make a lot. You could feed a hungry family of four, or one Michael Moore, with this.) 500gm of the best quality steak you can afford, whole. (I used fillet, because I'd just been given some). Lots of cajun spice mix. 200gm button mushrooms, sliced thinly. 1 onion, sliced finely. 2 cloves garlic, chopped. 1 to 2 cups brandy (I used 2, and the brandy was definitely noticeable. I love the taste of brandy so this worked well for me, but if you aren't so keen on it you might want to adjust down. Also, I used Hennessy, because that's what us gangstas have lying around the crib, yo.) 1/2 cup beef stock. 300ml thickened cream. Butter (yes, butter, not oil. If you want something healthy, try Blue Dog's fish. I like my food deadly.) Salt and pepper 1 packet of flat, broad pasta, eg tagliatelle or fettucine. Method: 0. Cook your pasta. Drain, toss through with a bit of oil, and set aside. 1. Place your steak in a plastic bag. Pour in a stack of cajun spice mix, and shake bag until steak is covered. Heat your butter on the highest heat you can muster, if you keep stirring it it won't burn. Sear the steak for 1-2 minutes on each side, depending on thickness and your preference for steak. If you are using fillet I suggest just threatening the steak with the flame. The cajun spices will form a hard black crust, and it will taste like sex feels. Remove steak from pan and set aside. 2. Turn heat to medium, add onion and cook until translucent, then add your mushrooms. Wait until they begin to soften, then add your garlic. Keep stirring during all of this, as you don't want the remaining butter / cajun spice mix still in the pan to burn. Sacrifice for your art. 3. Add the brandy, deglaze pan. Then add the beef stock and cream, and salt and pepper to taste. While this simmers gently for 5 minutes or so, slice up your steak which has been resting and gathering its strength. Combine steak, onion/cream mixture, and pasta. Serve. Eat while gazing into mirror Buffalo Bill style and saying "I'd fuck me. I'd fuck me hard." Seriously, this was absolutely phenomenal last night. Highly recommended.
http://tomdouglas.com/ That's pretty much all you're going to need. We were in Seattle a couple weeks ago, ate at only his restaurants, and it was honestly the best couple days of gorging I've ever had. You gotta do Lola for dinner AND breakfast. I'm still thinking about that place, holy hell. Serious Pie is also a must, can't even describe how good it was. Dahlia Bakery has fresh doughnut squares with fruit compote and marscapone cheese that is out of this world, you'll each want a bag. Best part is, they're all within about 300ft of one another. Couple blocks from Pike's Place. If you're going to do the Space Needle, fuck buying a ticket and just go eat lunch there. Restaurant revolves, you save the $30 or whatever it costs, and you get a decent meal out of it. Not great, but the view certainly justifies it.
The Wife cooked me salsa verde enchiladas over the weekend for Fathers Day: She wouldn't let me help, but here's how I think she made it for those that want to try it: started by boiling some chicken breasts in water, and then removed it to a plate where she could shred it easily. She saved a little bit of the broth that was made for later In a food processor, she pureed some tomatillos, jalapenos, and red onion, and then added this to the broth pot along with the shredded chicken. Brought it to a boil, reduced to a good simmer, and let it go for a good couple of hours. (she actually reduced it a little too much I think, as there was not enough sauce to really cover everything, but it still tasted good and I didn't say anything). In large pan, she lightly fried up some corn tortillas (not to crunchy, just a little bit of a bite), and set enough aside to fill the casserole pan. Once the sauce was where she wanted it, she used tongs to grab the shredded chicken and stuff it into each tortilla. Once down, she poured the rest of the sauce over the top, covered with colby/MJ cheese and baked until the cheese was melted. Served with a dollop of sour cream on top. Me gusta comida de Mexicana.
While it's hard to follow up any BD post on this thread, one of the meals that followed me from poor college student to professional life is Tuna Casserole. This is my go to recipe with a slight modification... I take the Ritz crackers that are supposed to be used as the breading and crush them up with a rolling pin while contained in a zip loc bag, melt a quarter or so stick of butter, and throw that into the zip loc bag to make a nice buttery topping that will brown awesome. Add some Frank's Red Hot, and hello next few days of meals!
(Mods, I think I've put this in the right place despite it not being a recipe, but I wouldn't swear to it. If not, apologies.)TiB, I am requesting some help. A few nights ago some friends and I got hammered and decided to bet on a cook-off. 3 competitors, everyone makes a 3 course meal, 3 judges, winner takes $300. We still need to sort out the finer details, but that is the crux of it. Spoilered for long backstory which probably won't interest you: Spoiler I want to win. I want to win bad. My cooking skills are solid without being great - I've cooked some very good things from recipes, and I enjoy cooking as a hobby when I have the time, money, and inclination, but have no training and only a limited understanding of the theory, e.g. what flavours complement each other, etc. Of my two competitors, one has probably cooked a handful of times in his life, and bet mostly out of drunken bravado. He will probably whip up something decent out of a cookbook, but he's not a huge threat. The other guy, though, is a more 'intuitive' cook than me. He has a knack for pulling off weird shit in his cooking - strawberry jam in his bolognese, honey in his carbonaras, that sort of thing. (Incidentally, I suspect he will make his carbonara hybrid, which he once gave me the recipe for: it contains "fettuccini, chicken, bacon, mushrooms,onion, cream,garlic,chili,corn flour, white wine, snow peas, whole seed mustard, honey, butter (maybe vinegar)". He throws shit together and it just works, a skill which I haven't yet developed. He also gets laid more than God and earns 6 figures at the age of 23, fueling my desire to crush him. Now my problem: 100% of my cooking has been aimed at main meals, e.g. the Beef Bourguignon etc I've posted in this thread. I've never made an appetizer or a dessert in my life. Any recipes for moderately impressive appetizers / desserts would be extremely welcome. Also, what should I look for when I am planning my menu? I get that it would be unwise to have, say, 3 really rich, creamy, dishes, but are there other rules of thumb beyond that? I have about a month to prepare, and practice making the dishes. If you have any advice or recipe suggestions, I'd really appreciate them.
After reading all of BD's posts about real Mexican food, I decided to try my hand at it. Here are the results. I improvised off of this recipe, but made 2 pounds instead of 4: http://www.foodpeoplewant.com/tacos-de-barbacoa/ I used a tiny bit of cinnamon instead of clove, because that's what I had in my spice cabinet. I also put a little beer into it, because beer makes everything better. Spoilered for large size, I don't feel like re-sizing. And seriously, these are huge pictures... Spoiler This is the meat after I shredded it and let it sit for a bit: This is the final product, just the meat with some cilantro, white onion, and a bit of salsa verde underneath. It was delicious and totally worth the 5 hours in the oven.
Hey guys, I am planning on making a chili with 2 or 3 lbs of beef this weekend. My question is: Would I be better off cooking it in a pan and adding seasoning there, or using a slow-cooker? I can figure out the recipe on my own, but I wonder which is the better cooking method. I don't want to make it rubbery.
Sear/brown it in the pan. NOTHING beats the flavours that burning/caramelizing it can give you. Drain the fat, then dump it into the slow cooker. Then I'd add your spices. Fat really absorbs the spice, so if you brown it with the spices, then drain the fat, you're losing a bunch of the spice. The key is to slow cook it with the spices and other stuff, and then let it cool down and sit for a day in the fridge. Not only will it tenderize and infuse the meat with flavour, it'll also give the spices a chance to mature and bring out their flavours, and soak up a lot of the fluid. Don't be afraid to keep it juicy/runny before you let it sit.
For whatever reason, I planted a Bhut Jolokia aka The Ghost Chili. What can I do with these chilis besides smear them on fences to deter elephants?
Don't worry if you don't stress them the right way or live in a climate that doesn't help with producing the heat they are known for they won't be as hot as you think. Are you are starting from seeds? Im guessing you live in the Southern hemisphere if you are since this would be way to late in the season to start them here. They take quite a long time from seeds to barring fruit. Luckily I overwintered my plants from last year and have some chilis setting right now, I was only able to start some seeds about a month ago and I don't think they'll have time to produce any chilis. They do have a very unique taste to them that goes well in Indian food and I am sure it would taste great in Mexican dishes. I haven't done it yet but I have a suspicion theyd taste damn good smoked like the do with Chipotle peppers.
I gotta Firstworldproblem on my hands. I was supposed to have dinner plans for about 10 people over at the brother in law's house. The plans fell through, and I have a foot and a half long pork loin thawed in my fridge that I was going to provide. I've only cooked pork loin one way before, which was,,, marinate it in soy sauce and some chili garlic sauce, sear it, then bake it in the oven.... Which turns out is tasty.. But as I stated,,, I got a foot and a half of this fucking thing... Does anyone have any good recipes for pork loin? I was thinking of chopping the motherfucker in half,,, and doing something creative for a change? Maybe something involving the grill? The brother in law is a chef and he was going to hole it out, fill it with tasty things, and cook it. Which led me thinking about doing the same thing,,,,,, and filling it up with stuffing,, to include olives, italian sausage, potatoes, and another assortment of starches. Is this a bad idea? Am I crazy? Any advice before I start this monstrosity?
I know chili recipes are easy to come by, but I think most of them are pretty bland and overly complicated. I just made this last night, it took maybe 20 minutes of prep time and now I'm looking at over 5 lbs of delicious chili to enjoy throughout the week. (Thanks to Nettdata for the advice on pre-searing the meat.) 3 lbs ground beef 2 large white onions, chopped 2 cans diced tomatoes 1 can black beans 1 can pinto beans 1 bulb garlic, coarsely chopped 1 bottle of beer (dark ale) apple cider vinegar olive oil spices: - chili powder - cayenne powder - black pepper - red pepper flakes - paprika - salt - cumin - generic chili mix Directions: 1) Sear beef in pan, enough to cook most of the fat out and burn some of the meat; drain the fat away 2) Mix all of the above ingredients into a crock-pot (in lieu of a crock-pot, you can put the mix into a large pot and let it simmer for as long as you want, but at least long enough for the onions to cook) 3) Set to Low (10 hours) I skipped the jalapeno peppers, not a big fan of the way they taste.
Has anyone made beef jerky with a dehydrator? I'm not necessarily looking for recipes but how to actually make it. What cuts of meat are best, how thick do I cut it, any other tricks with the meat, how long do I keep it in the dehydrator, etc. I've read a few different things and am getting conflicting information.
You want a lean cut. Round steak, sirloin, etc. While I *have* made it with older ribeyes, chuck roasts, etc., the fat actually makes it not dry as well. Every few months I go through the freezer & find stuff I forgot I bought, and make it into jerky, so I've experimented a ton. Even made pork jerky with a tenderloin I found. Never wasted a good beef tenderloin on jerky, but I'd imagine it would be awesome. You could go with a sirloin tip roast & have some nice sized pieces (and roasts are easier to work with than steaks). Ideally, it should be 1/8-1/4" thick. You can go thicker, but then you're going to have to dry it longer. At work (I work at a meat locker, if you missed that), we do big slabs. Like six inches wide & a foot long, but they're still about 1/4" thick. We use the round steak portion, BTW. That won't fit in my dehydrator, so I tend to have them 1-4" wide, and about 6" long (depending on if I'm using an old steak, then it's skinny 1" pieces, roasts = wider, of course). I use a meat slicer, so my pieces are pretty uniform. As far as time, it depends on your dehydrator. I have a five tray American Harvester Pro, and if I fill all five trays it takes 8-10 hours. Key thing is don't overdry. It will just get icky. A couple batches ago I didn't make it home within the time, so it dried for about 12-13 hours. I basically had shoe leather. Only trick I advise is, the longer you marinate it before you dry it, the better the flavor. Personally, I marinate mine for at least a day before drying. OH! Edit to add, partially freeze your meat before you slice it if you're not using a big piece like a roast. Or like myself, when I use the freezer clean outs, don't thaw it completely. It's much easier to slice partially frozen than a fresh piece.