Dateline: January 8, 2022 Pho: Instant Pot Beef Pho

It is cold here in Brooklyn.  Winter came screaming in and it is chilling my bones.  I wanted something hot for dinner as Mandy and Servet were coming over.

It was my luck that Servet had pho for lunch, oh, well, he was getting it for dinner as well.

I was intrigued by this Pho recipe from the NYTCooking.  It looked doable, I had the bones, oxtails, onions, ginger, and assorted necessary spices, so why not.

I did go to the supermarket to get the addending greenery and so picked up a piece each of thin sliced brisket and chuck steak.  I had an eye round in the fridge that is going to be turned into breseola so that raw beef part was also covered.

The recipe is clearly laid out and easy to follow.  I did read the comments and did deeply brown the onions and ginger in the instant pot before adding liquid and bones.

The brisket and chuck provided a nice textural difference to the oxtail that needed to be picked through carefully to remove tendons from any useable meat.  

The broth once strained was a work of art.  Beautifully clear, deep amber color with a satisfying flavor and aroma.  

Of course, I forgot to take a photo, but the photo connected to the recipe pretty much says it all.

Would I make this again?  Yes, it was very straight forward and to make it even easier I would try to pick up some pre-sliced beef for shabu shabu or hot pot.  Don't forget the greenery, it makes the dish.

Dateline: July 6, 2021 Birria de Res

I have made this on the stove top and it is excellent, today I did it in the instant pot because it was 97° and too hot to turn on the stove, plus it was raining off and on, so smoking the huge hunk of beef was not going to work either.

This is a recipe from NYTCooking, Birria de Res.  The only ingredients that may need a bit of a search are the dried pasilla peppers and the fresh poblano peppers. 

This dish is relatively easy but has a bit of labor involved, searing the peppers and removing the skins, blending the sauce in a high powered blender, and letting it cook until fork tender.  The recipe is clear and easily followed.  I used a HUGE boneless chuck roast, about 6 lbs.  

Adapting for the instant pot, I used only a 14 oz can of tomatoes and not all of the soaking liquid from the dried peppers.  I "cooked" them in the microwave on paper toweling for 30 seconds then put into hot water to soften.  That is a Kenji Lopez-Alt  trick, and it really works.  

The final product was good, but not as good as the stovetop version, I think it is the long slow cooking vs. the pressurized cooking that makes that so.  

I give this recipe a 2 opposable thumbs up in its original version, and 1 thumb up for the Instant Pot version.

Dateline: February 28, 2021 Orange Beef Redux

I had a package of beef strips in the freezer and decided to make orange beef again.  I used the NYTimes Sam Sifton recipe again, as a framework and riffed on it.   

The riffs this time were adding more vegetables, broccoli again, green bell peppers, onions, and red finger peppers and jalapeno.  The big change was kind of Koreanifying it but sauteeing until crispy some dduk rice cakes.  These are the finger thickness 2 inch round rice cakes that are sold in asian markets either vacuum packed or frozen.  These were vac packed.  I grabbed a couple of handfuls from the package and cut them into thirds so they would be these crispy nuggets coated in orange sauce.

I proceeded as the recipe says by making the sauce.  I did not make it very sweet, I used about a 1 inch chunk of rock sugar instead of 1/4 c of light brown sugar as I don't like it when chinese food is too sweet.  It did not totally dissolve, so there was even less sugar.  I added an ounce of shaoxing wine as well did not reduce it by half.

For the woking bits, I fried the rice cakes first until crispy and held them in a bowl lined with paper towels.  I then fried the beef strips in 2 batches until they were nicely colored and crisp on the outside.  I used 3 T of cornstarch 1/2 t baking soda, and 1/2 t of salt in the dredge.    As the meat cooked I removed it to the same bowl as the rice cakes.  

1 precooked the broccoli florets in the microwave for 2 minutes and left them in there until there were needed.

Next I stir fried some extra ginger slices, dried red peppers until fragrant and then I added the onions and bell peppers.  Stir frying them until they got a little bit of color.  Then in went the broccoli, beef, rice cakes they got all mixed together.  Lastly I dumped in the sauce and cooked until well coated and heated through.  Dinner is served.

Dateline: February 17, 2021 Sous Vide Picanha and Baked Veggies

In my quest to create more room in the freezer, I grabbed a big hunk of picanha and decided to sous vide it.   

I seasoned the steak with a mixture of smoked salt, dried garlic, and ground pepper.  Bagged into a large vacuum bag and set up the sous vide rig.  As the steak was frozen still, I had to sous vide for 3 hours!  In the mean time, I set up the sheet pan with broccoli florets, fingerling potatoes, some chunked sweet potatoes and additional white potatoes.  I oiled them and seasoned with salt and pepper.  I added for good measure 1/3 of a yellow bell pepper and 1/2 an onion and scattered that over the veggies.  They went into a 350° F oven for just about an hour....when I started to smell the broccoli, I pulled it out and tented with foil for a few minutes.  I turned off the oven and stuck the pan with its foil into the slowly cooling oven.

When the steak was finished, I pulled it out of the water bath, patted it dry from the juices in the vacuum bag and then torched it on the fat side to crisp up the fat and give the meat a good look.  Without the torching, the meat is kind of grayish, and very unappealing.  After torching, it looks like a good steakhouse!

Sliced steak, quite rare

Baked veggies

I tried slicing the steak in two different directions to see which would be the more tender, and definitely slicing against the grain created a more tender thin slice, not that the steak was tough either way, but it was a little bit more tender in the across grain cuts.

The meal was rounded out with a winter salad of cukes, tomatoes, onions, and celery with a sherry vinegar and olive oil dressing.

Cooking sous vide is very easy and allows one to have a cocktail without screwing up the meal timing!  It is all about the cocktails, after all.  I am currently on a Manhattan or Boulevardier kick, depending on which Bourbon or Rye I am pouring.  I am very particular about my Manhattan or Boulevardier cocktails!

Dateline: February 13, 2021 Orange Beef with Broccoli

Our pseudo-son, Servet, came over for dinner last night.  He brought with him some fabulous treats!  A whole box of goodies from Murray's.  So there was duck prosciutto,  some bacon, some duck pate, some salamis, nudja, and too many more to remember.

We started our dinner with some of the treats, duck mousse pate, salami, nduja, brie, and crackers.  We easily could have made a dinner of that, but there was the marinating beef strips....

I used Sam Sifton's Orange Beef recipe, of course with a few tweaks.  As I knew I was going to add in some half steamed broccoli, I did not reduce the sauce much.  I also used my secret orange weapon, ground dried mandarin orange peels that I save up as I eat the mandarins every winter when they are in season and on sale!  And then I grind them up as needed.  I used about 1/4 c of the ground powder.  Instead of the jalapeno, I had some hot red finger peppers, so I chopped up one of those.  I increased the liquid measure by using 1/3 c instead of 1/4 c for all specified liquids because I was 1) using more beef than called for in recipe, 2) was going to be adding in some broccoli.

Another tweak was not using the egg, but using baking soda with the cornstarch for the beef strips.  I marinated them over night and they were velvety and oh so tender, even though it was chuck strips for fajitas!

After noshing mightily on the delicious treats, we hastily sat down to eat, voila!

Dateline: February 10, 2021 Chinese Hot Pot to Celebrate Lunar New Year a Bit Early

Bill and I went to Industry City yesterday to wander around the various stores that were there.  We went into Japanese Village and I saw some thinly sliced meats for shabu shabu and decided to do chinese hot pot for dinner.  I picked up some thinly sliced beef, round and rib eye, and also some thinly sliced Kurobuta pork loin as well.  I then searched the veggies and grabbed some lotus root, pre sliced, and some Enoki mushrooms.  I had other vegetation at home as well as the necessary spice for the hot pot flavoring.

I used Fuchsia Dunlop's recipe for hot pot broths.  One is based in a beef broth, the other in a chicken, but I made it vegetable broth.

    

                        

Left is the spicy one, right is the vegetable one with a few flecks of chopped garlic floating in it, as a small piece of tree ear mushroom that I had not removed!

HotPot Spicy Broth

1/4 c fermented black beans

1/3 c shaoxing wine or dry sherry

3 inch piece of ginger, unpeeled

1/4 c dried szechwan dried chili peppers

1/2 c peanut or vegetable oil

2/3 c beef drippings or lard

1/2 c doujiubang

3 quarts good beef stock

1 T rock sugar

1/3 c fermented glutinous rice wine

salt to taste

1 t whole szechwan pepper corns

Method

1.  Mash black beans with 1 T shaoxing wine either with mortar and pestle or in a food processor.  Wash ginger and slice into discs about the thickness of a coin.

2.  Snip all chili peppers in half with a scissor and knock out as many of the seeds as possible.  Heat 3 T oil in a wok over medium flame until it is hot, but not smoking and add the chiles and stir-fry until crisp and fragrant, but not burned.  They should sizzle gently in the wok.  Remove with a slotted spoon and remove oil to a bowl and clean wok.  

3.  Add beef drippings or lard to the wok along with the rest of the vegetable oil.  Melt the fats completely to about 250-300°F.  Add chili paste and stir fry for a minute or so until the oil is richly colored and fragrant.   Be careful not to burn this mixture.  Add mashed beans, and ginger and continue to stir fry.  Add in 1.5 quarts of the stock and bring to a boil.  The balance of the stock will be held in reserve to replenish the hot pot when necessary.

4.  When the liquid has come to a boil, add the rock sugar and the rest of the shaoxing wine, the fermented glutinous rice wine and salt, if necessary.  (Mine certainly did not need any additional salt).

5.  Add the reserved fried peppers and the szechwan pepper corns and simmer for another 15-20 minutes until it is delightfully spicy.

Plain HotPot Broth

3 quarts rich chicken stock (I used vegetable stock)

2 T shaoxing wine

salt to taste

1 ripe red tomato, halved

2 scallions, white part only, cut into 2 or three sections

Method

1.  Stir wine into the stock and season with salt to taste.  Pour about 2 quarts into the hotpot and use the rest to top up as needed.  Shortly before you are getting ready to eat, add the tomato and the scallions to the broth.

 

Meats used:

Thinly sliced ribeye, I tore these pieces in half

Thinly sliced round

Thinly sliced pork loin, I tore these pieces in half

Vegetables used:

2 potatoes, sliced about 1/4 inch thick, soaked in salted water

butternut squash, sliced about 1/4 inch thick, soaked in salted water

lotus root, sliced about 1/4 inch thick, soaked in salted water

4 carrots, peeled, using peeler cut into thin ribbons

large handful of snow peas

Enoki mushrooms, pulled into shreds

1/2 cabbage cut into chunks and split up into a couple of leaves in each chunk

broccoli florets

Dipping Sauces

Sesame paste mixed with fresh chopped garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil

Lao Gan Ma Chili Crisp

Dark Soy Sauce with Black Vinegar and minced scallions

Dipping Sauces

Meats, beef above, pork below



The carrots and peas are at the top and the 
cabbage and root veggies at the bottom

Vegetation

Broths:  top is spicy and below is not

Both Bill and I were very happy with our early Lunar New Year Celebration.  Obviously, too much food, but the veggies will be used in other dishes going forward.

Dateline: January 20, 2021 Chinese Night-Hunan Beef and Spicy Mixed Vegetables

 I bought some beef strips from FD a while ago and decided to pull them from the freezer and make something spicy to celebrate the Inauguration of Joe and Kamala!

I checked what was in the fridge, and found some brussel sprouts hiding in the vegetable drawer along with a lone bok choy and some leftover broccoli.  Perfect!

I chose Hunan Beef with Cumin after browsing through the NYT Cooking site.  I trusted the recipe as it was a riff on a Fuchsia Dunlop recipe.  I really love her recipes, haven't tried a dog yet!

For the veggies, I decided to wing it and come up with a stir fry that was easy, and quick, and could use the same pan as the beef.

Ingredients

1 package of brussel sprouts, sliced in half

1 bok choy, leaves cut into ribbons and stems chunked

couple of florets of broccoli, leftovers are great

2 small leeks, cleaned and chopped 

3 or 4 pieces of dried tangerine/mandarin peel

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

3 dried chinese hot peppers

1 T light soy sauce

1 T dark soy sauce

1 T chili crisp, Lao Gan Ma brand

2 T neutral oil, canola, peanut, grapeseed, etc

1/2 c stock or water

Method

1.  Steam the sprouts in the microwave for 2 sessions of 2 minutes.  You don't want to over cook them.  This will depend on the strength of your microwave.  Mine, the 2 sessions were perfect.  Hold to the side.

2.  Heat wok.  (I learned a new trick from the internet, if you have cast iron flame tamers, turn them upside down and set wok on top.  The cast iron will heat up and spread the heat better than just setting on the burner.  You're welcome.)  Add oil and swirl around the pan to coat the sides.  Add peels and hot peppers and fry until the peels turn dark brown and the peppers get dark as well.

3.  Add in leeks and stir fry until they start to wilt.  Then add sprouts and bok choy.  Stir fry to coat with the hot oil and begin to darken in spots.  Add the soy sauces, garlic and stock.  Stir and bring to a boil.  Add leftover broccoli and chili crisp.  Stir to incorporate.

4.  Taste, add salt, if necessary, or more Lao Gan Ma, and serve over rice

A shocking result, Bill was just gobbling up the sprouts.....I am not sure he realized that it was brussel sprouts!  It was a perfect foil for the beef.  The beef was also excellent, tender on the inside and firmer on the outside.  I think if I were a more patient cook I would have deep fried the beef instead of shallow frying it.  I did it in 3 batches and probably should have done 4.  My impatience did not effect the taste, just the crispness of the beef.  I would definitely make the Hunan Beef again, perhaps I would use some ground AND whole cumin seeds to amp up the flavor.

Dateline: December 31, 2020 Let's Kick 2020 to the Curb. HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY

Since we are not able to party with friends, I wanted to cook something fun and special.  So we are having picanha steak.  This is a South American cut of steak, the sirloin cap, with fat cap.  

If you have been to a Brazilian steak house, you have seen the skewers of beef that is put on the skewer in the shape of the letter C.  That is picanha.  It has a generous fat cap and well marbled beef.  I bought mine from Grand Western Steak in Florida.  I found this outfit through my favorite sous vide YouTube channel, Sous Vide Everything.  This hosts are 2 South American men and a Cuban.  They are absolutely hilarious and have great tips and directions for learning how to sous vide food and how to finish it.

Back to dinner plans.  I ordered some lumpfish caviar and shrimp for a bit of caviar on idli (instead of blinis), shrimp cocktail, then steak and veggies.  

The sous vide of the steaks will take about an hour +, idli will be done shortly before that and the shrimp cocktail will be ready by then as well.  Maybe bubbly, but not sure yet.  Bill is not a fan, and I must say, I prefer cava.

I made the idli, which are steamed rice cakes.  I really love them, they are Indian breakfast food eaten with soup and curries.  I made a pretty platter and put the jar of caviar in the center.  Another two dishes  had chopped scallions and some sour cream.

This is the batter.  I used a packaged dry mix and added water and sour cream.  I read the instructions and they said to add sour curd.  I know in most Indian recipes when they write curd, they mean yogurt, so I assumed sour curd was not yogurt but sour cream.  

Found out this morning that sour curd is still yogurt!

 

Here we have the steaming little rice cakes.  They are steamed in these special idli trays that you can make out the little black plastic knob which unscrews and the trays separate from each other.  I also decided to add a little bit of scallion to some of the rice cakes.  

 

The steamed rice cakes are resting on some paper toweling to remove any moisture.  You can see the little bubbles on the edges of the cakes.  They are sooooooo tasty.  Light and fluffy little delivery bases for anything you can think of.

TADAH!

Now on to the shrimp cocktail.  I did buy a ring of shrimp from Fresh Direct that came frozen.  I defrosted it and then after tasting the cocktail sauce that came with it.  Decided I could do a lot better in that department.  I had some cocktail sauce in fridge, along with horseradish, ketchup, and lemons.  After tasting and adding, I finished up with a pretty good version.

I re-plated the shrimp, and this was the second course!

 

We washed down everything with this delightful Cremant from Alsace, Ginglinger.  It was really tasty!

We were so full that we never ate the picanha steaks!  Don't they look lovely all crisped up and glistening!  We did finish the salad, though!

 

Dateline: December 23, 2020 Meatloaf, Sprouts, Cabbage, and Crispy Taters

I decided to try the FD meatloaf mix based on a recommendation from my friend Jen.  It comes seasoned and ready to load into a loaf pan.  I added a topping that I was hoping would be somewhat spicy, but it turned out to be on the sweetish side instead!  A bit surprising given that the ingredients were Worcestershire sauce, cocktail sauce, Italian hot peppers, ketchup, oyster sauce, and dry mustard.  Strange indeed.

I also made my friend Lyn's Brussel Sprouts with butter and Vegemite.  Bill hates sprouts.  I love them.  He said over dinner, "if you didn't tell me these were sprouts, I would never have known."   High praise for the recipe!  

Sprouts with Butter and Vegemite

Trim and halve sprouts

1 -2 T butter

2-3 t Vegemite or Marmite

water/stock/wine

1.  Heat pan and lightly char sprouts in a dry pan.  This can take a while to get them on both sides.

2.  Pan will get bits of brown in it, this is good.  Use about 2 oz of water, stock, wine to deglaze and steam sprouts for a bit.  When liquid have evaporated, add butter and vegemite/marmite and cook to coat the sprouts.  Add water or stock as necessary to soften the sprouts to your level of doneness.

Braised Napa Cabbage 

1 small head napa cabbage

1 small onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped

water/stock/wine

1.  Cut the bottom 1 in off of the cabbage.  Make a cut in the base of the cabbage about 1-2 inches long, as if you were going to cut it in half lengthwise, but only go those 1-2 inches.  Grasp both halves and gentle pull the cabbage apart, tearing toward the tips of the leaves.  This splits the cabbage without lots of shredded leaves flying about.  Split each halve again the same way and perhaps again depending on the circumference of your head of cabbage.

2.  Cut the stem portions into about 1/2 inch slices and keep separate from the chopped leaves.  Cut the leaves into about 1/2 inch slices as well.

3.  Heat a pan, and add some olive oil.  When hot, add the onion and saute until softened, add in the garlic and some salt and pepper.  Saute until the garlic starts to soften.  Add the cabbage stem pieces and a sprinkle or two of salt and pepper, and saute until wilted a bit, then add the rest of the leaves.  

4.  Coat the contents of the pan with all of the onion and garlic mixture and allow the leaves to begin to get bright green.  Add about 2 oz of water/stock/wine and bring to a simmer.  Taste and adjust.  Reduce the liquid by 1/2.

Crispy Taters

8-10 new red potatoes, small ones, scrubbed 

salt and pepper

olive oil

1.  Coat a pan with cooking spray and add dried potatoes season with salt and pepper.  Put in a 350° F oven for about 30 minutes, or until taters are somewhat soft.

2.  Smash the taters with a fork so that they split open, add olive oil and put back in oven, but raise temp to 400° F for 15-20 minutes.  The should be crisped on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

Drank a lovely Barolo with dinner.  Happy, happy camper!

Dateline: November 10, 2020 Beef Jerky

I had wanted to try to make beef jerky for a while.  The idea was sparked by perusing the Modernist Pantry website and seeing vinegar powder and soy powder!  So I ordered some along with hot sauce powder.

Easy Teriyaki Jerky, I followed their weights and measures, but added 2 t of hot sauce powder to the mix. After marinating for the 8 hours, I put the flank steak slices into the dehydrator.

I set it to 160°, and let it go for the suggested 6-8 hours.  I did get up a couple of times during the night to check on it, and munch a little.  The first taste was quite spicy, but as the meat dried, it became less prominent.

In the morning, I packaged it up into containers!

Ended up trading one container for some koji spores.  A neighbor makes sake! And gave another container away to a friend.  That left one container to enjoy.  I will definitely make this again.  

What did I learn?  

I sliced the meat too thin.  I cut the flank steak against the grain on the bias, which made lovely, almost, paper thin slices, which when dehydrated, were less satisfying.  So next time, a little thicker.  I did like the bias cut.

The marinade in the recipe is quite good, not too salty.  When measuring things out, 60 g of soy powder looked to be a ridiculous amount, but it was perfect.  The white vinegar powder left no doubt about what it was.  It could be smelled across the room once the bag was opened.  This is perfect for adding tang but not hydration.  

Hot sauce powder is hotter than expected.  Will use judiciously going forward in other dishes.

Dateline: October 29, 2020 Egyptian Kebabs and Cranberry Beans with Butternut Squash

I had to cook the kebabs.  They are a prepared product from FD and they are fabulous.  Redolent with cinnamon and spices, they do evoke our trip to Egypt.

I made the bean recipe from a couple of days ago again, except using cranberry beans and butternut squash to stand in for the escarole.  As the beans were larger than the white beans I used the other day, I opted to set the Instant Pot for 33 minutes rather than 30.  Still using the natural release.  They outcome was good, but not as slam-bang delish as with the white beans.  More than likely that was because I RAN OUT OF GARLIC...no kidding, I only had granulated.  So, that I was I used.  The squash did not provide the sweetness of the carrots in the early rendition, but did add a lovely color interest.

I used a leek for the onion and as I usually do, doctored the sauted veggies with some of the pesto I made the previous day.  

The leek sweated nicely and when it was mostly melting onto itself, I added in the thinly sliced butternut squash that didn't get added to the beans. 

As it cooked down, I realized that it would benefit from some additional flavors, so I drizzled in some of the pesto from the previous day and a touch of the calabrian pepper paste.  

I browsed through the fridge and found a couple of slices of cooked red cabbage from the other night and chopped those and dumped them in.

Here is melange that will be added to the beans after they finish cooking and are drained.  The final product did need salt, but was still quite tasty.

There was one catastrophe.  I cooked the kebabs on a plancha on the stove.  Except there was not a deep enough rim to catch the grease.  Consequently, much of the fat ran off the plancha onto the stove top.  No fire, but annoying.  Didn't effect the taste of the resulting kebabs.  

Dateline: October 30, 2020 Indonesian Beef Rendang

There were several Indonesian recipes in the NYTimes Food section on Weds.  The Beef Rendang caught my eye.  I ordered some beef chuck cubes from FD and some lemongrass.  Everything else was in house, or so I thought.  I didn't have enough of the long red hot peppers, so I did a little fast substituting and used some drying sishito peppers, a couple of serrano, 2 reddening poblanos and a single red bell pepper for color. Just enough to make the 4 oz. amount called for in the recipe.

Everything got ground up in the ninja and ended up looking like this.

I did use a pinch of citric acid to keep the color and provide a bit more sour than the lemongrass.

Here are the rest of the ingredients ready for the pot.

On the left is the coconut milk.  I had 1 can of milk and 1 six oz can of cream.  I figured that would suffice.  I wanted to break up the cream into the milk.

On the right are the aromatics, bay leaves, lemongrass stalks, lime leaves, and beef.  All of this plus the spice paste went into the coconut milk.

Everybody into the pool.  I had tasted the sauce, and it had a bitter overtone, so I added some agave syrup to try to balance it out.  It needed a bit more after cooking for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, the beef was tender and it had reduced a little bit.  The lemongrass has given its all as have the bay and lime leaves.  

The pooling fat is very visible.  Haven't decided if I will get most of it out, or wait until after things have browned. It will be easier to spoon off the fat once the sauce has been absorbed into the meat and the meat fries in the remaining fat.

Just thinking about eating this later tonight makes my mouth water.

October 22, 2020 Meatloaf

Ever since talking with Jen I have wanted meatloaf.  She described her version and it sounded great!

I found on NYTCooking Bill Blass' recipe for meatloaf and it sounded great.  So that is just what I did. 

I made a big mistake, confessions up front, I added the doctored ketchup into the meat loaf instead of just on top.  We will see how it goes.

On top I put a mixture of calabrian chili paste and ketchup.  Tastes pretty darn good.  Inside, which should have been on top, I used a combo of ketchup, cocktail sauce and hoisin.  Didn't have sour cream, so went with 5% yogurt and used panko bread crumbs.  I heavily salted the meat and the onion/celery mixture so I hope that I added enough salt.

The taste of the meatloaf was quite nice.  I think that the texture suffered from the mistake that I made.  It didn't hold together very well.  The recipe makes a HUGE amount so I made 2 smaller loaves and froze the other.

I suppose I could have added another egg and more panko.  Next time!

September 26, 2020 Beef Barbacoa

This is a fool-proof, idiot-proof recipe.  You just need a smoker!  It is a riff on Kenji Lopez-Alt's recipe, Smoked and Braised Beef Barbacoa .  I did not use the oxtails, and have never used them.  The couple of times that I have made this recipe, it has been flavorful enough without the seared beefiness that the tails would bring.  

What did I do differently this time around?  I coated the roast with Gravy Master and then a dusting of Penzey's BBQ 3001 spice mix.  Into the smoker at 250° F it went for about 3.5 hours.  I used a mix of dried peppers, ancho, pasilla, guajillo, smoked serrano, and oaxacan.  I softened them until pliability in the dutch oven and then they went into the boiling chicken stock until they were totally softened, and I added ground habanero pepper to the spice mix.  

I think his timing of 3 hours at 250° F in the oven is based on an unrolled hunk of chuck roast.  I found that my rolled ones always take longer than that.  After 2 hours at 250°, I bumped the oven up to 350° and covered the pan completely.  After another 2 hours, it was done.  I just need to keep that in mind when I make this again, as I will!

I served it with flame toasted corn and flour tortillas and chopped onion, chopped tomatoes, chopped hot peppers, chopped jicama, and lime wedges.

 

Dateline: September 5, 2020 DERBY DAY Brisket and Juleps

Bill owns a race horse that is running in the Derby.  Authentic is its name and it is trained by Bob Baffert.  Now, before your head blows completely off your shoulders, he owns just a small piece of this said horse, in fact, 100,000th of it.  If you are horse curious, then visit www.myracehorse.com and see how you too can be a stake holder.

Nothing screams out on this Labor Day Weekend like a brisket.  I got one from D'Artagnan along with some boar, which will become sausages.  I got up at 3 am and prepped the meat.  Salt and pepper only a la Franklin BBQ in Austin.  My brain does not work very well at that hour, and I prepped the meat before lighting the smoker.  

I start the smoker, and it goes through its start up cycle and says it's at 69°F.  Ok, that seemed reasonable.  Again, let me remind you, it's 3:30 in the morning.  I go back into the house, clean up, finish packing up the brisket trimmings for sausages in the future and grab the meat and head back out to the deck.  WTF the smoker is still at 69°.  

The smoker wouldn't light.  It's 3:40 in the am, and pitch dark and I have to troubleshoot the f-ing smoker.  I know that you are on the edge of your seats trying to figure out was I successful at this.  The answer is yes.  I had to pull out the grates, the grease trays, the baffle and get down to the fire pot.  After rooting around in there for a while, I reset the smoker to go back to its start up cycle, and suddenly there was a ton of smoke pouring out.  Now I had to put it back together with smoke billowing out into my eyes!  I got it done, smelling of smoke I went back to bed around 4:15.

I got up again at 7:30 and took this picture:

The internal temp was about 149° with target temp in the mid 190's.  I will probably have to wrap this in butcher's paper to help it get through the stall.  I am spraying it down with white wine mixed with water.  Brisket temp at this moment 10:20 am is in the mid 150's.  

Mint has been cut, washed, and bagged for Juleps later on.

So, it was a very exciting day yesterday!  The brisket came out lovely, albeit, a bit too salty on the top, which can be scraped off, but it was tender and luscious.  It came off the smoker around 4 PM, which made the cook about 12 hours.  I wrapped it, and put it into a cooler until 7:30, when a friend came over for a socially distant dinner on the deck.

The more exciting news was that Bill's horse in the Derby won the race!!!!!  That means he is going to be in the stud fee pool and will make back his investment and a little bit more, God willing, over the course of the horse's, ahem, ability to perform.

Dinner also included a farro and vegetable salad and a crunchy salad.  I definitely decided that I am not a fan of diet juleps.  The after taste of the diet soda is just terrible.  I made a mint simple syrup, and then forgot to put it into my julep.  Sort of describes how yesterday afternoon into the evening went.  

August 23, 2020 Preserved Meats: Bresaola Week 1 + 2 and UMAI bagging

I've made bresaola before and I thought it was good.  So I ordered an eye round and gathered my cure ingredients together.

Here are a few slices of the finished product.  It is so flavorful and succulent.  A good amount of salt, but not overpoweringly so.  

Ingredients

1 kg eye round of beef, trimmed of all exterior fat

kosher salt, 3 % of meat weight

2 T sugar 

Instacure #2, .25% of meat weight

5 g black pepper, ground

2.5 g fresh rosemary

5 g dried thyme

5 juniper berries

Method

1.  Weight your eye round after trimming, mine weighed 1088 g.

2.  Mix together your cure ingredients.  (1088 x .03 = 32.64 g salt; 1088 x .0025 = 2.72 g cure #2 )

3.  Rub cure all over meat.  I did this in a plastic bag that I was going to store the meat in while waiting in the fridge.  The salt and cure will pull moisture out of the meat and replace it with salt and flavoring.  Cure for 2 weeks, massaging and turning every day.

4.  Remove from curing bag, wash off cure and pat dry.  Weigh it again.  Record weight, you are going to need it.  Then you can tie the meat into a nice tubular shape and coat with a layer of extra flavorings, such as black pepper, and rosemary.

5.  Put into an UMAI Bag and seal tight using their vac mouse system.  On the bag write the weight of the post cured meat.  Figure out the target weight which will be 35 - 40% less.

6.  Put into fridge on a rack so that air can circulate all around it.  The UMAI bags are one-way bags, air and moisture goes out, nothing goes in.  The bags are very tender, so be careful, do not use a rack that has any sharp projections or corners.  Every week for 4 - 8 weeks, weigh the meat.  When it has reached its target moisture loss, you are ready to crack it open and slice thinly for a treat.

Day 1, Week 1 (see above)

Day 4, Week 1 (see below)

The cure is penetrating the meat.  It feels a bit more resistant to the touch, firmer to the finger poke.  

Day 7, 1 week, half way through curing process (see below)

The poke test reveals it is getting quite firm and there is a lot more juice surrounding the eye round.

Today was the day to pull it out of the cure and clean off and seal in the UMAI bag.  

The meat absorbed about 11 grams during the curing process.  The color of the meat was a beautiful raw tuna color.  That is what I was looking for.  

Since I need to wait until it has lost 30-40% of its weight.  I arbitrarily selected a loss of 35%.  That target weight is 714 grams.  

What will I look for in the meat in order to decide if it is ready to eat or not.  Firmness to the finger poke, rosy red color.  

I am not really happy with the seal of the bag.  I know it does not have to be air tight, and over time it will pull away from the meat, but the issue may be I coated the cured meat with pepper and paprika which may inhibit the seal.  The UMAI bags are 1 way bags.  They allow moisture out, but not in.  This is how you can cure things, or age steaks without a dedicated space to hang.  I will monitor the situation for a couple of days, and if it looks like it is not properly sealed, I will wash off the pepper and paprika and reseal in a new bag.

I rebagged this as the seal was not good.  I washed off most of the paprika and pepper, and rebagged it in a new bag.  There was a bit of trouble getting the seal to work, but I persevered and finally, it worked.  I also cut a bit of drawer liner that is breathable and put it on top of the rack in the fridge so that I could prevent any pinholes in the bag.  The bags feel quite sturdy, but are very fragile, apparently!  

Weighed it again, and it was 1063 g, 65% of that is 691 g so that is the target weight.  Should take about 4 weeks.

Today's weigh in:  873 g  Only 200 g left

Photo Op

You can see that the bag is coming away from the meat, that is normal.  It shows that the meat is shrinking and giving off it's moisture.  In handling the bresaola today, it is getting firm on one end and has a lovely pliability when squeezed.  I am getting so psyched about this!