The General Cooking Thread

Anybody have any experience using cedar planks for grilling? I have a couple and I want to try but I have some questions.

All the recipes seem to be for salmon, can you use it for chicken too or is salmon the best for it?
Can you use dry rubs or does the wet plank ruin it?
If I do use salmon, should I leave the skin on, take it off first, or is it dealers choice? Do you oil the plank first? I know grilling right on the metal makes sticking a real bitch.

Any tips would be awesome.

 

One of my favorite ways to grill. And my two favorite dishes with them are BBQ chicken (soak the planks in a combination of cheap champagne and water), and mahi mahi (soak planks in 50/50 OJ and cranberry juice, add mint leaves and cayenne to the soak).

I've never grilled salmon on it though, as wife doesn't really like fish, and the fishier the worse. Can't give you any advice on that specific fish, but grilling with planks is kinda hard to fuck up, and can be incredible as long as you follow a few simple tips:

- soak them for a while first, at least 30 min on each side. What you soak them in is gonna dictate the flavor of the smoke. Want it a little sweet? Try apple juice. Little tart and fruity? Cranberry is great. Beer works great too for more hearty meats. Think of your soak almost like you would a marinade, except water base instead of oils since it has to absorb into the wood.

- keep a bowl of water (to sprinkle with your fingers) or a spray bottle on hand for flare ups. You want the wood to smoke, not catch fire. And corners and sides of it will catch fire. This is part of the reason why you soak it first, but also why you wanna have something on hand to put out the little flames if they start. However, you can let the flames catch the wood strategically if you wanna serve the food directly on the plank for presentation purposes.

- cooking it on planks is gonna take longer than you expect. I promise you. I've done it a few dozen times and it always takes me a little longer. But I'd rather it go longer than burn the crap outta the food, since remember, you are basically cooking it over fire fuel. Easy solution is to plan for a little longer with something to munch on while your guests wait.

- Usually the fat from the meat will allow whatever you cooked to slide right off when you serve it. However I always just keep the plank on a cookie sheet and serve directly off that, or the day of the meal I'll cut up the plank into into, smaller serving-sized pieces using a jig saw and just serve the entire plank directly onto the plate..

 

We recently got a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer and now we've been tasked with making the dessert for a family dinner this weekend. Do any of you idiots have a pretty fail safe dessert? The Wifey and I aren't the most professional bakers so the easier the better.

Thanks.

 

My absolute favorite for both simplicity and taste is a trifle layer cake. You simply layer bits of light cake (angel food is good, for example, or a sponge cake or yellow cake will fly) with whipped cream and fresh cut fruit like berries and stuff- or chocolate if you're into that. Even better when you mix the whipped cream half and half with vanilla pudding or a light vanilla greek yogurt, or add a liqueur. The KitchenAid makes fresh whipped cream stupid simple and you can easily whip up a cake mix for it too, and cutting fruit is just cutting fruit. You can be very flexible with ingredients and can make them looking really elegant or just throw it all into a big bowl and it will be delicious no matter what. Makes for a REALLY good breakfast the next day too.

You can easily get a lil fancy by decorating it with berry bits, I make them by freezing fresh raspberries as solidly as possible and then smashing them between cutting boards. It instantly turns them into raspberry sprinkles, which look and taste great.

 

You could make Eton Mess or a pavlova. Meringues are really easy to make, you can bake them ahead of time, and assemble right before serving. There's lots of variations for toppings available.
Eton Mess - you bash up the meringues in pieces, and fold in fresh berries (usually strawberries or raspberries) with a not super stiff whipping cream.
Pavlova - you leave the meringues whole and put the fruit on top with whipping cream. Pretty much any combination of fruit works here. kiwi's, berries, citrus fruits, passion fruit....

The only secret to meringues is making sure you don't get any egg yolk in it. They'll stop it from stiffening.

I'm particular to Jaime Oliver's recipes for these, but there's thousands of different ones on the internet.

 

This may look hard, but its actually fairly simple... and it looks like you really know what you are doing when you serve up a triple layer cake:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2303676/black-forest-gteau

Its the first cake we baked with our KitchenAid when we got it (funnily enough in exactly the same scenario you are in), and we totally stole the show when we whipped it out after dinner.

 

Anyone got any good pickle recipes? I just ordered a proper canning jar with an airtight lid and I'm going to start experimenting.

 

I don't have a specific recipe, just some tips.

1. Put the pickles in an ice bath before you jar them. It'll help keep them crisp.
2. Jam as many pickles as you can into each jar. Then fill the spaces up with small items: sliced carrots, beans, asparagus, etc. Don't leave any gaps.
3. I always throw bit of fresh dill in the bottom of the jar with a small handful of peeled garlic, and pickling onions, then top with some more fresh dill.

 

I was making Mexican-style quick pickles a lot last summer. I usually used some combo of potato, cauliflower, green beans, jalapenos or serranos, and carrots. You make it just a little sweet, with lots of cumin and garlic, and it's super yummy. But like Whatthe... said, it's always good to cool off your veggies before pickling them to keep things from continuing to cook in the jar more than you want them to. Overcooked veggies do not make great pickles.

 

Going to try making Bison burgers tonight for the first time. Any tips on how to treat it versus beef?

 

Bison is much leaner than beef, so you'll want to be careful about it drying out if you're not adding in some extra fat into the mix. So if you normally cook your burgers to medium, for the bison you should stick closer towards the medium-rare side. Other than that, it's very similar, just a bit more of a "gamey" taste.

 

What a glorious time of year it is!



That would be the second Brandywine tomato we picked and I've also got Cherokee Purple and Christmas Grape varieties that are just loaded with fruit- I am nearly filling a coffee can with the cherry tomatoes every 48 hours. We've had BLTs, caprese salads, pasta sauce, and just sliced up that one in the photo to eat by itself because it's friggin' delicious and has great texture too. This may sound funny but up until very recently I couldn't say I've had a good garden fresh tomato, and wow what a difference there is.

So... does anyone here can stuff? Sounds like a lot of work, but I love gardening and would like an excuse to go stupid with planting next year.

 

Start with pickles, kato. You can grow pickling cucumbers, they stay firmer when pickled, but you can pickle almost anything.

Canning is just how people kept the produce that they needed to save for winter, and it's ok. Fun to do just to see how it goes, like making your own cooked and canned salsa. In our modern era, freezing is probably superior option for most things from the garden.

Beautiful tomato you grew, buddy, fine work.

 

Thanks all for the tomato recipes, all delicious. I ended up processing eight pint cans last night, four packed with whole tomatoes and four with cherry tomato sauce- it definitely just sounds way more intimidating than it really is. Ms. katokoch goes crazy over pickles (and pretty much any other briny foods like olives and capers, yuck) so I will be growing cucumbers next year and prepping to process those too.

Fuuuck that noise. I would take a plain gas stove over the fancy induction tops too, my parents have one and maybe I just haven't used it enough to really appreciate it but once you're used to gas its hard to go back to others.

 

Yea, I love gas, would never be able to go back. When the wife moved in she had never used gas, but after a very short period of time, she was like, I can never go back.

 

Orrrrr... you could be like my husband the food dork and have 4 gas burners and 2 induction installed in your new kitchen. This has not been done yet, but he is giddy with excitement. Oh, and a pot filler over said stove, because why not?

 

I built a UDS about a month ago, and seasoned it with a fatty. So far I've done a bunch of ribs on it, and smoked a pork shoulder. Last weekend I made hickory smoked maple bacon:



I'm forever ruined from having store bought bacon again. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to slip a second fridge by the wife to cure 30lbs-40lbs at a time, just so I can keep a steady supply going. They're smoky, meaty, kinda sticky, and a little bit sweet.

Got the recipe from here: http://amazingribs.com/recipes/porknography/making_bacon_from_scratch.html

 

Where do you buy porkbelly at? Around here it's so expensive that I never do bacon anymore.