May I make a suggestion? Venison Terrine, wrapped in bacon. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Venison-Terrine-with-Red-Currant-Sauce" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/V ... rant-Sauce</a> I don't know if you have a terrine pan, but you might be able to do a free form meatloaf wrapped in bacon. You can stud the meat with dried cranberries, cooked mushrooms, more cut up bacon. Saute up onion, green pepper, garlic to flavor the meat. Add some cream and bourbon to keep it moist. You just mush everything up in a bowl, or a food processor. Tell me this isn't sex:
CJ - you work retail, right? Why are you not in something food related? You truly have a passion for food.
I'm a dilettante. My recipes can be sloppy; precision is not my aim. The true test of a cook is if he can pull off fine French cuisine (at least to me). I will never be making lievre a la royale. Cooking on the line holds zero interest to me. I'm too old to start that from nothing anyway. Neither does food writing. I'm much happier dabbling in my kitchen, reading cookbooks. I gave some thought to compiling a cookbook of my own since any asshole can apparently publish one, but there is no focus to my interest. It'd be an incoherent mess. I do admire Thomas Harris though. In between writing Hannibal Lecter books he put himself through Le Cordon Bleu. For fun. He just throws dinner parties with his skill.
I say you start a website where you make fun of Food Network hosts and improve their recipes. Drunk, if possible, would seem to be the way to go.
The boyfriend and I had an insane amount of tomatoes from the garden this year, both roma and heirloom. After days of bruschetta, I came up with this. I have to admit, it was pretty damn good. After that, this is all he wanted to eat with every subsequent tomato harvest. 4-5 tomatoes, peeled and roughly chopped 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 large onion, diced into small pieces 2 large basil leaves, torn or cut into ribbons, your choice heavy cream salt Heat olive oil in a medium sized pan over medium/high heat. Add the onion, cook until translucent. Add the garlic, cook until light brown. Add the tomatoes. Add the basil. Add a pinch or two of salt. Stir. Let the tomatoes cook over medium heat for 15-20 minutes or until the tomatoes cook down. Add a few glugs of heavy cream. I didn't measure, I just added until it tasted right. You may prefer a creamier sauce, I wanted this to just have a splash of cream. If you prefer a chunky sauce, leave as it is. If you want a smoother sauce, use an immersion blender to break up the tomatoes. I don't own such fancy equipment, so, we stuck with a chunkier sauce. Serve over your favorite pasta. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Gorge. To peel tomatoes: bring a pot of water to boil. Add the tomatoes and let them simmer in the water until the skins start to pull away -you can see it very clearly. Remove them and immediately drop them into a bowl full of ice water to stop the cooking. Once they're cool, you should be able to peel the skin off very easily.
Just ordered Thomas Keller's "French Laundry", considered by many to be the best cookbook of all time. I'm not a huge fan of French food, due to its richness. The man invented butter poached Lobster for chrisakes. But I'm excited to learn from a 3 star Michelin chef and try new techniques.
If you're looking for something new to try, I bought a bottle of this stuff at a local arts/crafts fair. And it's FANTASTIC. You can use it on anything you would use BBQ sauce on.
Haven't looked at this thread in quite some time. Use his whole roasted chicken recipe. Just go and do it. Now.* If you like amazing cooking but the typical French stuff is too rich, it's right up your alley. He probably has multiple roast chicken recipes, hence his status as my personal roast chicken Jesus. Do the simplest preparation first, where all you do is temper the bird by letting it come to room temp, cut and truss it as he suggests, season it simply, and roast the beast in a pan. If you don't already know and love them, cut out the oysters I may have even read that suggestion here first. Thanks TiB! *After you temper the bird.
Making one of his right now with turnips, rutabagas, and other root vegetables as a bed with the chicken and red potatoes on top. It's still cooking but smells divine.
I made "Julia Childs favorite roast chicken" this week and it was pretty fucking good. Ill give this a try. I honestly have no idea about chicken roasting temps/times as most of the recipes suggestions have resulted in way undercooked birds.
Get a meat thermometer. An instant-read one will cost <$10 and will save you a shitload of guesswork.
It turned out great, but to be honest I've made better. I was especially surprised he didn't use lemon in the recipe. I consider that a staple of roast chicken. The 2nd Annual Turkey Cook-off is next week with my dad, me winning last year's with a deep fried Cajun turkey vs his mayo smothered bird wrapped in parchiament paper. People would expect more of the same this year, but complacency doesn't win turkey cook-offs. This year I'm going to cook my bird beer can chicken style, in one of those Heinken junior pony kegs- Although in good conscience I can't cook the bird with Heineken, that would ruin it. I'll switch it out with anything else.
Don't bother with using the can, it actually detracts from the cooking of the bird. The liquid in the can never actually gets hot enough to boil so really does nothing other than impede fully cooking through of the bird so you'll actually end up with a higher chance of salmonella. The thing that the Beer Can Turkey method does get right is implementing vertical roasting, which allows the heat to vent through the cavity in a convection style. You can find a vertical poultry roaster pretty cheap on Amazon. This is the one I use most often. Now, if you don't already, before you actually cook your bird, the best thing you can do for it is give it a nice brine. I ususally brine my birds from anywhere between 12-24 hours, depending on the size. You don't have to do anything too crazy, just get enough water to make sure you can fully cover your bird, salt, a bit of sugar, some cracked garlic cloves, whole peppercorns, a bay leaf or two and some whole coriander seeds. Bring the whole thing to a boil to dissolve the salt and sugar, let cool and put everything into an airtight container and leave in a cool place. If you absolutely feel the need to include beer somewhere in this endeavor, you could also cut back on some of the water and use the beer instead. If you're going to brine with a beer, stick to lighter styles, like a light lager or ale. Heavier styles like ports or stouts are better suited for making a glaze if you choose to go that route. Next, how you want to season your bird is an endless debate that's all about personal tastes. I personally like to make a pretty simple herb-butter rub and a bit of paprika to give it a nice brown crusty coloring. Just make sure that before slathering your bird to pat it dry as much as you can to remove as much moisture as you can from the skin. Also make sure you get not just on the skin of the bird, but underneath as well. If you want any more tips or help with this, hit me up. I've been doing these types of birds for over a decade now and have no problem answering any questions you might have.
Oww I got one but it is still a lot of guess work. They suggest putting it in the thigh or between the thigh and breast meat. Ive stuck it a few different places, some will show 180 and then the bird still oozes blood after taking it out, others it'll be stuck on 140 for a half hour after it was "supposed" to be done. I feel like roasting a chicken should be on the easier side of cooking for a beginner but my first few full chickens have been pretty raw. One youtube video from that french chef says to cook it for 50-60 minutes at 450. Others say bake at 425 for 15-20 then reduce to 350 and roast for a given time per pound.
In an oven, 450 for 50 minutes, never had a raw bird doing this. Smoker, it's some where between 300-370 for an hour and a half. Spend more on a thermometer, 10 dollar ones are unreliable. I have both of these.. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.maverickhousewares.com/et732.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.maverickhousewares.com/et732.htm</a> <a class="postlink" href="http://www.maverickhousewares.com/PT-100.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.maverickhousewares.com/PT-100.htm</a>
Spiced roast quail with a rocket, pear and pecan salad, washed down with an 04 Tasmanian Pinot for the win. Presentation was a bit rough, but I was onto my second bottle by the time I dished up.
Bought them boned out, so was easy. Then coated them in a mixture of 50% flour heaps of fresh nutmeg, corrianded seed, paprika, salt & pepper all ground together in a mortar and pestle. (The nutmeg is the champ though) then in the oven at 180 deg c for 25 minutes +/-. It's my piss easy classic entree. (This one was a main) Also while I'm at it have some steak porn from a few weeks back.
Sir, I say this with the intent of shouting. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TO THOSE STEAKS? Are you pan frying a steak?