Topics include: Cooking (recipes, techniques & equipment); Beverages (appreciating & making your favorites); Food Philosophy, and various books, articles, blogs, and related discussions.
Mmmmmm, sounds tasty. Sadly for us here in the states, the closest we get to tasting real juniper is in a Gin & Tonic.
As for grilling - made some Korean style grilled short ribs this past weekend ... shortly before getting sick with a summer bug. The ribs were tasty, but the bug is unpleasant.
The ribs are easy - just marinate in soy sauce, lots of freshly grated, a touch of vodka, a little garlic (which I had to omit, because of my wife), some peanut oil, and a touch of lime juice and simple syrup ... then drain after a few hours and grill. I used the cross-cut "flanken" syle cuts, which grill easier and are a bit more tender than individual ribs.
Last edited by Darb on Tue Jul 26, 2005 4:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
a gin and tonic would be down-right fabulous at the moment. Why do they always have to have nasty rules about drinking on the job
That's a sensible rule. If work wasn't boring and rule littered, you wouldn't notice the fun you can have in your off time. What's the point in getting wasted after work if you're allready a a a biiit tiptip-tipsy at work?
As for grilling tecniques: *Potatoes wrapped in aluminium foil down among the coals (remember to twist them around ever so often, otherwise one end will become coal whils't the other remains uncooked)
*When using grill marinades: Let the meat/fish/whatever soak in the marinade for quite a while befor it's grilling time, and wipe off surplus at the surface of said meat/fish/whatever before laying them on the grill. This will prevent some of the charcoal surface and flames I've often seen on barbeques. Or use aluminium foil here as well. Foil sticks? Remember oil (I Think Brad wrote something about that earlier).
Sadly for us here in the states, the closest we get to tasting real juniper is in a Gin & Tonic.
But I seem to remember soemeone telling me once that there are several trees that will lend about the same taste as juniper. Surely there must be some trees that have fragrant smoke over the pond (the atlantic) as well? Anyway, you can't use gin to operate a smoke oven (pretty flames!)- other than into the cook operating the oven, and even then keep close watch on the amount used.
Surely there must be some trees that have fragrant smoke over the pond (the atlantic) as well?
Ok, absolutely ... besides plain oak and maple, there's apple, mesquite, hickory, cherry, cedar, grape branches, and you can use things like nut shells, tea leaves, rosemary sprigs in foil pouches), etc.
However, juniper is a unique flavor, and it's not as readily available/commonplace over here. I'm not sure what would be close to it. I'm still a bit of a novice, when it comes to varietal woodsmoking ... so far, I've only played around with mesquite, cedar and hickory, and only about a dozen times at that.
I oten use apple for burning, not only because it adds good flavor, but we had a large apple tree, and had close to a cord of apple wood around the houser. I made a bunch of shavings, sold them off for teh price of getting the tree taken down, and still had about half a cord of wood....I think I have a few small-medium logs left, I'll have to check, they'd be 5-6 years old now.
I find that I need- in order to communcate food in the queen's English- a translation of the varous cuts- in beef, pork, lamb. I know them in norwegian, but not in english, and standard dictionaries are not of any help.
Is there anywhere online with this information (and preferrably a illustration as well)?
KEE
[Mod note: thread title clarified slightly on 7-Dec-2005 by Brad]
This link does have illustrations. This link will take you to beef cuts, but if you look on the left-hand side, you will see there are also links for pork, veal, and lamb.
For those who are curious about the different grades of beef (USDA Select, Choice & Prime) available to consumers, here's a decent link that gives a brief overview.
Last edited by Darb on Wed Dec 07, 2005 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Incidentally, dry-aging is a way to further enhance large primal cuts of USDA Prime grade beef ... typically whole rib-eye and short loin primals.
Ideal aging is roughly 21 days, or longer (14 days is acceptable, but not nearly as good), and accomplishes several things:
* Moisture loss, due to controlled slow evaporation (under precise temperature and humidity control), firms up the flesh, and concentrates the favor of the meat. During this time, the exterior of the primal cut will develop a hard dry skin that looks like beef jerky ... this actually seals the meat and protects it from bacterial invasion. This crust is typically shaved off and discarded when the primal is broken down into smaller roasts & steaks.
* Enzymatic action - the longer the meat is aged, the longer certain natually occuring enzymes in the meat will have time to develop and intensify the flavors, as well as tenderize the meat. The result is richer flavor, and a more tender texture. Here, the crust mentioned above will actually develop some darkening discoloration, and some mold ... not all that dissimilar from old fashioned country ham, and old fashioned dry-aged sausage covered in fine white mold. The longer it's aged, the more intense the flavor, and the more tender the meat ... but the meat does, eventually, reach the point of diminishing returns. Anyway, as mentioned above, this dark/moldy crust is cut off and discarded when the primal is broken down into smaller roasts & steaks.
The result: prime beef, elevated by proper dry aging, to exalted heights of flavor and tenderness. The meat, uncooked, is tight and firm and richly marbled, has a rich beefy smell and taste, it's tender, and the fat is hard and waxy ... you can almost slice it and eat it raw, like prime toro tuna belly. In fact, many restaurants DO serve it way, as beef carapaccio, drizzled with olive oil, salt and black pepper. Also, if you order your steak "black and blue", you're essentially ordering the steak RAW ... just briefly blackened on the outside over mega-heat.
Anyway, dry-aged prime beef, in it's various forms, is definitely something to seek out and try sometime, if you're a hardcore aficianado of serious cow. However, be forewarned that you get what you pay for ... and ordering a 21 day prime porterhouse in a high-end steak house can set you back a pretty penny - easily $30-50+ PER PERSON. Worth every penny too.
The classic cuts are either rib-eye for one ($30-40+), extra-thick Delmonico/NY-Strip for 1 ($30+), or ... the king of kings ... the thick-cut porterhouse for 2 ($55-75+), grilled to crusty (but still cool rare inside) perfection. Some people like fillet mignon, but I find it's overrated ... yes it had perfect grain and looks pretty, but it's too lean, the flavor is too mild, and adding a sauce to help it along (be it steak sauce, or an upscale horseradish creme sauce) runs contrary to the whole premise of worshipping pure unadulterated beef in it's highest expression of spendor. If you're gonna pay for prime, skip the knee-jerk reflex to order FM, and go with the rib eye, or the porterhouse/t-bone instead.
Somewhere at home I have photos of a chef friend and I breaking in my (at the time) new beefeater grill ... I bought a dry-aged half-short loin, from the porterhouse end (dry-aged 14 days), had the butcher cut it into six 2" thick chops. We grilled all 6, for 6 people, ate like gluttonous kings, and still had plenty of leftovers.
Every time I'm at the supermarket, staring at some soggy, mushy, sorry slab of 'select' london broil, lopped off haphazardly from some equally wet, sloppy, soggy primal cut, hauled straight out of a cryovac bag filled with evil-looking cloudy pink juice (often filled with bacteria), I lament the ready availability of decent prime meats. All the more reason to patronize your local butchers, to maintain demand, and keep the trade alive.
In any case, people who read this post, and the link in the post above it, can consider themselves better educated about beef than 90% of the general public ... you'll know the basic lingo, you'll be an informed consumer, and you'll better appreciate what you're paying for when you order steak in a restaurant.
Brad wrote:Every time I'm at the supermarket, staring at some soggy, mushy, sorry slab of 'select' london broil, lopped off haphazardly from some equally wet, sloppy, soggy primal cut, hauled straight out of a cryovac bag filled with evil-looking cloudy pink juice (often filled with bacteria), I lament the ready availability of decent prime meats. All the more reason to patronize your local butchers, to maintain demand, and keep the trade alive.
Don't get me started on that "Top Round London Broil" in supermarkets, which is just a sham invented 20 years or so ago to get a top price for tough meat that really should go into the grinder. When you want to make a London Broil buy a flank steak instead and all will be right with the world.
Anyway, for those of us on a budget it is possible to dry age beef at home. Occasionally you will see a sale on choice grade standing rib roasts, and they work quite well. It is a fatty cut to begin with, so the difference between prime and choice in this instance isn't really all that great. Having a spare fridge helps because you are giving up that space for a few weeks. It is my understanding, and I'm sure Brad will correct me if I am wrong, that the bulk of the enzymatic action happens in the first few days and the rest of what is happening is moisture loss, so even doing it for a few days is a heck of a lot better than doing nothing.
My favorite cut for grilling is the skirt steak, both in terms of flavor and texture. The rest of the world around here seems to have caught on- you very rarely see it on sale these days. It is very thin so you have to use the highest heat possible to get some good caramelization on the outside. A squirt of lime at the end, or even a chimichurri sauce ( http://gosouthamerica.about.com/od/sauc ... churri.htm ), are the perfect accompaniment.
"It was the best of times, it was the 'blurst' of times?!! You stupid monkey!!!"
for those of us on a budget it is possible to dry age beef at home.
That's true, but the results are not as good as you get in a properly run professional meat locker, which permits plenty of airflow around the meat (fridges tend to be somewhat stagnant by comparison), has much less bateria, and much more precise temperature and humidity controls.
You can control things somewhat with a foil drape, with vents cut in it, but it's just not the same.
Alton Brown did a show on it a while back, and said pretty much the same thing ... you can do partial dry aging at home with USDA Choice, but the best you can do with home equipment is about 5-7 days, which will help firm things up a bit and get rid of that wet sloppy fresh-out-of-cryovac supermarket character, and it'll help develop a little flavor
Choice with 5-7 days of semi-dry aging at home is better than wet-aged Choice ... but it's definitely not prime, much less dry aged prime. It's the old saw about trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear ... in this case, all you're doing is making a really good sow's ear purse.
As for enzymatic action ... the longer, the better, but if you do it too long, the meat will darken, dampen and start to taste funky. That threashold happens a lot faster in a home fride than in a professional dry-aging meat locker ... but it can/will happen in the latter, depending on the humidity/temp settings, and how long you hold it for.
Last edited by Darb on Thu Dec 15, 2005 2:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
There is definitely a trade-off involved, but I'd rather sink the money I save on the beef into a kick-ass bottle of wine myself. What best accompanies a sow's ear, anyway?
"It was the best of times, it was the 'blurst' of times?!! You stupid monkey!!!"
The difference in quality in a modest-sized rib roast, between home dry-aged choice ($5-9, depending on where you go & calling in a few favors), and pro-dry-aged prime (I'm paying $12/lb ATM through a local butcher ... to heck with high-end gourmet meat markets who want $20+/lb), is only $3-7/lb. So yes, it's comparable to the cost of a good wine upgrade. I've gone both ways ... however, since I have a brother in law who's an excellent winemaker, I don't have to buy wine, so I only need to worry about the meat.
Incidentally, since you're in the area, would you (and your wife) like to come to dinner this Saturday ? I still owe you for that killer party you threw a few years back ... this might could be a small repayment. I'm doing a full size prime rib at my parents house, and my brother in law (and I) would love having another oneophile & scotch hound on hand, to taste and chat with. He's bringing some nice homemade barrel-aged vintages, and we have some 15+ yr Single malt handy. I could also pick your brain on some house mods and kitchen layout options for the place. Let me know (via PM) if you're interested.
Well, the rib roast was a smash hit this past weekend. When the film is developed, i'll scan and post a pic or two.
The roast was just over 23+ lbs before trimming, and about 19 lbs after trimming. It cost me about $278, at $12/lb. It was actually too big for the slotted roasting ban, so I had to lop off the 7th rib from the big end, to make it fit. I rested it for 4 hours at room temperature, gave it a gentle massage with some olive oil, seasoned it with black pepper and sea salt, and roasted it for 15 mins at 450F, then roughly 140 mins at 325F, and 25 mins at 300F, until it hit 122F internal. After a 30 min rest at room temp, I carved it, arranged 2/3 the meat on a large platter, and placed the ribs themselves in an honor guard formation.
The 21 days of aging made the meat virtually fork tender, and there was very little free-running juice ... it all stayed in the meat, courtesy of the long dry aging and long resting.
I served it with 2 optional condiments ... horseradish cream sauce, or fresh beef gravy (drippings + roux + beef stock) with crimini shrooms browned in butter (seasoned with thyme, pepper and salt).
My one nit was that the butcher's meat locker is too cold ... the roast arrived with an internal temp of almost 28F, and it wasn't quite as dry as I'd hoped, but boy was it nice and tender, and he did an excellent job of frenching it ... I didn't have to redo it. Anyway, even after a full 4 hours at room temp, the internal temp only climbed up to 39F, which was a wee bit colder than I wanted (I prefer 45F before I start a long roast). As it was, I had to roast it a little longer, and as a result it coasted a bit further and finished closer to med-rare rather than true rare.
Ah well - perfection is fleeting, and rarely attained.
Brad wrote:My preferred way to do NY Strip (aka "Delmonico Steak") is as follows:
* By an entire Short Loin primal cut (or as large a section as you can easily find/afford).
* Dry age it in the fridge for 4-6 days, or until it just starts to darken - which allows the flavor to mature, the testure to tenderize a bit, and for the meat to shed about 10-15% of it's weight by controlled evaporation (keep it loosely tent it with foil, in a hotel pan, atop paper towels that are changed daily)
* When ready to cook, separate it into the Top Loin on one side and the Fillet Mignon on the other. Reserve the latter for another use. Remove all fat and silver skin from the former, and divide crosswise into as many 1.5+" thick steaks as you need, and return the rest to the fridge, for separate use.
* Let meat come up to cool room temperature for 30-60 mins. This allows for a wider zone of pink and higher cooking temperatures ... and the meat stays moister because you dont have to overcook the esterior in order to get the interior done.
* Season generously with kosher salt and lots of freshly cracked/ground pepper (you want a nice and savory crust)
* Heat a large cast iron griddle until water dances.
* Sear steak on both sides over high heat (No Oil - you want a natural crust to form, and oil inhibits that) until dark brown and crispy on the surface.
* Reduce heat to medium, and continue cooking, turning occasionally, until meat reaches desired doneness ("black & blue" extra rare, classic "rare" or med-rare ... but no more or you're just ruining the steak)
Remove from grill and let rest for 5 mins to let meat relax.
Serve with "Horseradish Cream" (recipe follows)
Ingredients
1 pint Whole Sour Cream + Mayo (3:1 blend)
6 fl oz jar Hot White Horseradish (drained & squeezed lightly)
(to taste) Salt & Freshly Ground Black Pepper
Directions:
· Mix all ingredients, adjust salt and pepper to taste, and serve with crusty rare premium steak ... the classic pairing is griddle-blackened Fillet Mignon or NY Strip w/peppercorns.
There you have it.
p.s. I use the same recipe for Fillet Mignon steaks ... only you have to belt those with butcher's twine before grilling them, to prevent them from splitting, and looking like overcoooked 'scallops'
p.p.s. Sorry about the sloppy typing and spelling ... I've had a few drinks already
p.p.p.s. Kilt - I may do strip steaks for memorial day come spring ... if you're still in country then, I'll be sure to invite you and the lovely lady.
I did the short loin >>> delmonico + fillet mignon steak recipe last night ... grilling after a major blizzard is something of a tradition for me, so after the snow was done, I grabbed an 8 lb chunk of short loin (mostly from the T-Bone end), deboned & trimmed it, and wound up with 4 two-inch thick Delmonico steaks, a two-inch thick fillet mignon steak, and a few assorted scraps that I butterflied, pounded thin, and froze, for soup and stir fry.
Oh, and I sliced off a few thin slices here and there for carrapaccio ... chef's privilege. Nothing like a little raw top loin, sprinkled with sea salt, freshly ground pepper, and a drizzle of CPEVO, and a little paper-thin onion and a few drops of lemon juice.
I have family coming into town soon, so I'll probably be doing this again in a larger format ... next time with a whole 18+ lb short loin. Short loin is currently on sale for just under $5/lb US at one of the local supermarkets this week, so buying a whole one won't be too much of a stretch. I should be able to generously feed 12+ people with it.
It cooks fast too ... 6 mins on a nuclear hot grill to get em crusty (90 sec + turn + 90 sec + flip + 90 sec + turn + 90 sec + remove = 6 mins), then you just park em, on edge (when they're 2" thick & belted with twine, you can stand em on edge), in a slotted broiler pan, and finish em 5-15 mins in a slow oven to desired doneness ... which in my case is 125-130F for rosy rare.
Last edited by Darb on Tue Feb 14, 2006 4:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
For culinarily astute readers who might be wondering how it's possible to get a decent sized 2" thick fillet mignon steak from the t-bone portion of a short loin (which is noteworthy for it's comparatively tiny percentage of tenderloin), they way you do it is this ... remove the tenderloin fragment whole (what little there is of it), remove the chain meat (reserve for other use), trim off the tip (reserve).
In my case, I wound up with a 6" long piece of tenderloin that was about 1.5" wide at the thickest end, and which tapered down to a point. I cut of the 2" point (which I cut thin, pounded gently and used for carapaccio), then cut the 4" long piece that remained in half crosswise (but not fully through), then folded it in half at the seam, and used butcher's twine to belt it, to make a single 2" thick steak.
It's an old butcher's trick to get an extra steak out of the otherwise too skinny long tip (aka the 'tail') of a tenderloin.
The short loin went well ... we got ten 1.75" thick delmonico steaks, four 2" thick fillet mignons, and 2 platters of beef carapaccio, out of a 21lb shortloin.
Eleven of us ate like kings, and only one steak survived (narrowly) to become a lone leftover.
Who did you invite - the NY Giants' defensive starters?
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." -- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Ah, but there's only about a 50% yeild, by weight, when breaking down a short loin into lean, boneless steaks - esp the way I cut them (extra lean). The rest (bones, fat, etc.) is inedible.
It actually worked out to a little over a pound of lean meat per person.
One of my favorite ways to cook salmon is grilled single-serving boneless rounds ... I guess you could call them "noisettes", although the term is mostly reserved for boneless loin rounds of lamb.
I basically take a whole side of fresh salmon (for a standard mid-sized atlantic salmon on the 9-11 lb size, figure a whole fillet, with the skin, is 3-4 lbs**), remove the pin bones, and remove & discard skin & the surface of the belly flap.
Next, I'll trim the head end of the fillet off square (too irregular shaped), and remove the tail third (too small & lean), and freeze those for use in soup. That leaves a large rectangular piece of boneless skinless flesh.
Next I'll slice it crosswise into strips 1.25 - 1.5" wide, and reserve (for another use) the last piece if the total number of slices is not an even number.
Next, taking 2 pieces at a time, I'll turn them on their side, reverse one, and fit them together into a yin-yang shape, and use the thin ends to wrap around each other ... forming a single serving noisette, which I then belt with butcher's twine. Figure a 3 lb skinless fillet should yeild about 4-5 noisettes of roughly 6-8 oz each, plus assorted trimmings.
To cook them, I just season them with salt and pepper, and slap em on a very hot and well oiled grill. Grill 1.5 - 2 mins, turn 45 degrees, repeat, turn over, grill 1.5 - 2 mins, turn 45 degrees, repeat, then turn over again and move to coolest part of the grill, cover, and bake at 350F for 10 mins, or until interior hits 140F (med-well) on an instant read thermometer ... they will drift to perfect juicy doneness off the heat. Don't overcook them, or too much of the natural juices and fat will melt/sweat out, and they'll turn dry and tough ... which is why it's important to let the flesh come up towards room temperature a bit before you cook them.
If not eating the cooked noisettes right away, chill immediately (fridge), to preserve maximum juiciness, and remove twine. After cooking, consume within 5 days.
They're great as is (plain with a little remoulade, or on a toasted roll with same), crumbled cold into salads (with a little lemon), crumbled into pasta, or crumbled into hot soup.
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** If working with larger salmon, you can butterfly the fillet horizontally prior to cross-slicing, and then just roll up each slice into noisettes, without having to pair spices.
What best accompanies a sow's ear, anyway?
