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: June 7, 2021 Clean out the fridge soup

I had quite a bit of produce that needed using and 2 cups of thawed homemade chicken stock....soup!  We had eaten a big lunch with our friend Jeri, and I thought a lighter dinner was in order.

Ingredients

1/2 head cauliflower, cut into smallish florets

1 pint cherry tomatoes

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped

1 large bunch tuscan kale, chopped into smallish                       pieces

1/4 small head of red cabbage, sliced thinly

3 mini bell peppers, cut into rings 

1/2 serrano pepper, halved and cut into slices

olive oil

2 cups chicken stock

2 cups water

2 ounces dry white wine

salt and pepper

2 T sherry vinegar

Method

1.  Heat Instant pot on saute, and when hot add olive oil and add, onions, bell peppers, and serrano pepper.  Add salt and pepper and saute until softened.

2.  Add in cherry tomatoes and cook until they start to pop.  Add cauliflower and stock with an equal amount of water.  Stir and add wine, taste, and add more salt if necessary.  Add greens and cabbage and stir, then hit cancel.

3.  Adjust Instant pot to pressure cook on low for 6 minutes.  Close the lid.  Allow to release pressure naturally for 2 minutes, then quick release the balance.  Open pot, stir, taste, add vinegar, stir again and taste.  

4.  To make this more hearty, add a can of beans in before the vinegar and saute for a few minutes until hot.  Add vinegar and adjust seasonings.

Dateline: September 7, 2020 Boar Sweet Italian Sausage and Gazpacho

Today was the day that I am making boar sausage.  I used a conglomeration of recipes so I will provide links and details below.

I ordered the boar from D'artagnan and got 2 shoulder roasts each about 3 lbs.  I cut them up into 1 inch cubes and I also added 1.5 lbs of salt pork for the fat.  This was an experiment in terms of using the salt pork rather than the fat back.  Why I wanted to save the fat back is a mystery to me at this moment!

I had 2 very fatty packages of salt pork and decided that they would be the best.  I soaked them for about an hour to cancel some of the salinity.  I cut a thin piece and fried it up to gauge the salt level, and it was about the same as bacon, maybe even less.  I cut the salt back by half until I tasted a patty.  It needed the rest of the salt.  In it went in the emulsifying stage, along with chopped parsley and sage.

Sweet Italian Sausage, from Hank Shaw, was the major recipe of choice, and I used a bit of cure #1 because I am going to smoke them.

My additions to his excellent recipe was the chopped sage leaves, 1 tsp instacure #1, only used a coarse grind, and about 1 cup of chilled white wine.

Here they are resting to dry the casings a bit.  The 5.5 lbs of meat and 1.5 lbs of fat yielded 24 nice sausages.

They smoked up beautifully.  They actually smell more like kielbasa than italian sweets!  They are on the menu tonight!

Grilled it up last night.  Delicious.  A wonderful cross pollination between kielbasa and sweet italian.  The texture was very coarse and crumbly.  I think that was because I didn't have enough fat, or didn't emulsify it long enough by hand.  The flavor was good, it was the texture that was ok, but was looking for something less crumbly.  It is a learning process.

Served it with crispy grilled okra and a fantastic gazpacho.  This is truly a fabulous recipe.  I did make some alterations, of course!  I used some bread soaked in the vinegar, as per a suggestion from another user, added a handful of mixed herbs, parsley, chives, basil, and did not strain.  Used the vitamix and the texture was like a mousse, velvety and smooth without a trace of any fibrous bits.  Garnished with some chopped veggies, a lovely end of summer slice of heaven this meal was.

Dateline: March 25, 2020. Let them eat bread and soup

I had prepped my sourdough starter 2 days ago, mixed my autolysed flour and followed the wonderful New York Times Cooking How to Make Sourdough

If you follow the guide exactly, you will made absolutely dynamite bread.  Yes, it will take 3+ days to get a loaf, but, oh, what a loaf it will be.  Tangy, moist, fabulous crumb and lots of big air holes throughout the loaf.

Guess who made this loaf?

Dinner this night was not so inspired.  I blitzed the bean on bean with an immersion blender and turned it into soup and made "broccoli" croutons by roasting the broccoli until very crispy and dark.  It really made the soup a bit more upscale!