The Cooking Thread
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@JBert That is another dish that looks like way more work than it actually is.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Cooking Thread:
The 14yo is crumbling and cooking 20 lbs of hamburger.
...the hell? Why? Feeding Sloppy Joes to 80 people?
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@Tsaukpaetra said in The Cooking Thread:
The 14yo is crumbling and cooking 20 lbs of hamburger.
...the hell? Why? Feeding Sloppy Joes to 80 people?
About 150, though I may be off on my stated quantities.
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@JBert Next time, try to make the sauce with only the yolks of the eggs. IMO it's much better that way (more creamy), and the "correct" way of making carbonara. Adding the egg whites can actually ruin the consistency of the sauce because the egg whites tend to become solid way too quickly.
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I am deeply sorry I haven't posted an apology to this thread sooner. I have not kept up with relevant threads enough to make timely comments.
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@asdf said in The Cooking Thread:
Adding the egg whites can actually ruin the consistency of the sauce because the egg whites tend to become solid way too quickly.
Can't say I had any trouble with that. The white would mix well enough and adding the freshly-grated cheese resulted in an even consistency of the (cold) sauce. Mixing with the (slightly-cooled) pasta didn't do a whole lot other than melting the cheese.
I might try your suggestion next time, though that'll have to wait until I worked off the calories of this here meal...
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@JBert said in The Cooking Thread:
that'll have to wait until I worked off the calories of this here meal...
That's going to be a while...
I have never had any issues using whole eggs in Spaghetti Cabonara. It would probably be creamier if I did, I guess, but I have always used whole eggs.
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@Polygeekery Then I guess you're either better cooks than me or I should try to reduce the heat next time. Next time, I'll try whole eggs again and check whether it makes as much of a difference as I remember. ;)
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@asdf said in The Cooking Thread:
I should try to reduce the heat next time.
There's your problem. Spaghetti Cabonara is cooked with the residual heat of the pasta and the pan.
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@Polygeekery TIL. I always reduced the heat, but I never thought about using only the residual heat.
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@asdf
Take your pan completely of the heater when throwing in the eggs if you cook electric.
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Wino strawberries and grilled pound cake went over very well. The reaction of the lady of the house when she found her husband and I pouring a bottle of bottom shelf vino into a tub of strawberries was almost violent, however.
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Related: Never bothering with packaged whipped cream again. Superior and cheaper to DIY
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I've decided I'm going to do a modified Carbonara for lunch this week. TO THE BAT SUPERMARKET!
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@Weng said in The Cooking Thread:
Related: Never bothering with packaged whipped cream again. Superior and cheaper to DIY
Also, whipped cream is dead easy to make if you have a mixer. Even a hand mixer works great. I can't stand Cool-Whip since I made my own. The packaged stuff has a real oily mouth feel and no flavor as compared to what you can make on your own.
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Pictured: Modified Carbonara. And entirely too much spaghetti (5 for 4! Could have done 10 for 10 but this shit has a shelf life)Also, note the inferior baconish product. Even from the butcher counter, this is the closest to the correct pork I can get without resorting to presliced bacon. America blows sometimes.
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@Weng said in The Cooking Thread:
And entirely too much spaghetti (5 for 4! Could have done 10 for 10 but this shit has a shelf life)
Dried pasta has a shelf life that is roughly the shelf life of the universe.
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@Polygeekery Yeah, but I prefer to get through it before the cardboard box decomposes.
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Sitrep: Salt Pork is not a suitable substitution in this recipe. In fact, I don't think salt pork is likely to be a suitable substitution for anything. It belongs in military and emergency rations.
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@Weng I have had some success on similar recipes buying thick-cut sliced bacon and cutting it to make cubes. They're not as thick, but they're reasonable.
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@Yamikuronue I really just need to talk to my bacon hookup.
He's a racer like me, and is a serious racetrack cookout enthusiast. Literally for shits and giggles he sent an email to a boutique bacon supplier asking them to sponsor his race team because, well, why the hell not.
They wrote back saying that, unfortunately, they couldn't do a car sponsorship but they certainly would let him order bacon direct from them at wholesale distribution prices with no minimum order.
So he is now The Bacon Guy. He brings hundreds of pounds of bacon to the track and cooks more or less continuously, feeding hundreds of people glorious bacon all weekend. He also sells on 10lb slabs of the best goddamn bacon I have ever tasted for less than shitty-bacon grocery prices.
At one point, he was driving to a race and wasn't aware that 90mph in Virginia is automatically felony reckless (nevermind that 85 is 'barely keeping pace with traffic' on the roads involved) driving and an instant arrestin'.
The cop, on discovering that he had literally 300lbs of bacon in the car, decided that arresting this guy and impounding the car would be a crime against humanity and decided to just ticket him instead.
He has also recently ridden a Honda Grom minibike hundreds of miles to the track (a Grom can't hit the minimum Interstate Highway speeds, so all back roads!), toting along the requisite bacon. In reduced quantities, but still present. Dedication to his craft.
Anyway, I haven't been racing this year. Therefore I have run out of bacon.
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@Weng I should also mention that the first time I met this man, he was inexplicably wearing a child's superman costume. With underwear on the outside. In order to decrease the amount of visible genitalia. And if memory serves, he was working on an Simca 1100 "racecar".
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@Weng said in The Cooking Thread:
I bought 24 small corn tortillas.
I recently made tacos for the first (and second) time ever, myself. My favorite part was discovering just how good a fried corn tortilla is - I usually don't care for hard/crispy tacos, but that beats almost every other version I've had, hard or soft.
The recipe I used was like yours but more basic (no curry, lime, legumes, or grains), but the onions were chopped and caramelized instead of onion powder.
I have some more adventurous ones planned, but those require more prep than I've felt like expending recently.
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
pulled pork tacos,
Actually, it's something like this. Oh look, the exact recipe is online:
Shredded Pork in Ancho-Orange Sauce (Chilorio) from 'Pati's Mexican Table'
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Carnitas make for one of the best taco fillings: slow braised pork, shredded and then crisped up before serving, is perfect unadorned in a warm corn tortilla. But what if you're looking to take it up a notch? In Pati's Mexican Table, Pati Jinich presents a different version of braised and shredded...
On another note, I've been thinking of saving up for a smoker of some sort. Any suggestions/advice?
@asdf said in The Cooking Thread:
@dkf Ever had chili in your lungs?
and eyes, and well, everywhere in the air. I like to sauté pickled jalapeños for hot sandwiches and hamburgers, and it can get interesting inside.
@Dragoon said in The Cooking Thread:
Yeah, I am abnormal when it comes to cold weather. I wear shorts all year.
Abnormal? What're you talking about - winter is perfect shorts weather! And there's all that snow to cool you off if you get too hot!
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@Dreikin said in The Cooking Thread:
On another note, I've been thinking of saving up for a smoker of some sort. Any suggestions/advice?
IIRC you are in Germany? If so, I have no clue what they have there. But, if you gave me some options to look over I could do what I can.
As far as what I have, I love my new pellet grill. The electronic control of heat is amazing and makes it super easy and the flavor is great.
The Kamado grill also does a great job, but I never use it for smoking because of the pellet grill.
Before these, I had a Bandero smoker and it worked well, sort of. It was super leaky, so it used a lot of fuel. If I smoked a few pork shoulders, it would take a full bag of charcoal and then some to keep it up to temperature for that long. The pellet grill is still on its first 40lb bag of pellets and I have used it a bunch. The Kamado is also on its first bag of lump charcoal and I have cooked a dozen or so meals on it. Fuel is cheap, but when they are this airtight temperature control is a lot easier.
Smoking meat is pretty damned forgiving though. A lot of people make it out to be some sort of arcane magic. It isn't. With the exception of brisket, all the cuts of meat are very forgiving. Nicer smokers like pellet grills or Kamado grills get you more ease of cooking and easier temperature control, but I saw Alton Brown make a smoker out of two terra cotta pots, a hot plate and an old cast iron skillet and I imagine it worked great.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
IIRC you are in Germany?
Nope - Virginia, USA.
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
As far as what I have, I love my new pellet grill. The electronic control of heat is amazing and makes it super easy and the flavor is great.
I saw your link to that later on, and it looks interesting. Cheaper than I expected, too, so it's looking like a good option so far.
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
With the exception of brisket, all the cuts of meat are very forgiving.
What's the unusual difficulty with brisket?
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
but I saw Alton Brown make a smoker out of two terra cotta pots, a hot plate and an old cast iron skillet and I imagine it worked great.
The food world's McGuyver, he is.
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@Dreikin said in The Cooking Thread:
Nope - Virginia, USA.
I was only off by 1/4 of the globe. That makes me able to answer your question a lot more easily :)
@Dreikin said in The Cooking Thread:
I saw your link to that later on, and it looks interesting. Cheaper than I expected, too, so it's looking like a good option so far.
Pellet grills are amazing, but they are sort of one trick ponies. Due to their design, they are incapable of direct heat. They also max out at ~400F, which is pretty low temperature for a grill. They are good for more than just smoking meat though. They do great on chicken and other dishes that need indirect cooking. Nothing else I have seen can do indirect cooking the way that they can.
If you need one piece of kit that will do it all, get a Kamado type grill. I love the Akorn that I have, and it is pretty affordable at ~$300. It will also cook directly at 700F+ and makes a great pizza. And, for an additional $35 they sell a stone that fits in to the firebox that allows indirect cooking. As it is extremely airtight, it holds temperature very well also. It is so airtight that when I am done cooking I close both dampers and the charcoal goes out and is left there to cook with next time you want to use it. That saves a ton of fuel. I would guess I am using 75% less charcoal with the Kamado than I did with my old Smokin' Pro grill.
There is also a microcontroller temperature controller that you can add on that would give you as good a temperature control as a pellet grill.
Honestly, the only reason I have a pellet grill and the Kamado grill is because I got them both for pennies on the dollar. If I were buying at full retail price today, I would only have the Kamado grill.
If you have the money to spend, want the easiest smoker and indirect cooker that has ever been built, and have the room for two grills, etc., get the pellet grill also. They are amazing at what they do and there is nothing better for indirect cooking and smoking in my opinion. But it is not something you could cook a burger or a steak on and it turn out worth a damn.
Also, the Kamado makes the best pizza I have ever made.
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I missed part of your question. Sorry about that.
@Dreikin said in The Cooking Thread:
What's the unusual difficulty with brisket?
It seems to be more sensitive to temperature, in my experience. All the old BBQ gurus say that to smoke meat you need to cook at no more than 225F and going above that will ruin your meat, make it tough, etc. For most cuts of meat, and especially for pulled pork, that is utter bullshit. (with one caveat, which I will end on) Brisket really does need to be cooked at ~225F and temperature spikes can turn it in to shoe leather. Pulled pork and ribs are much more forgiving in this respect. If you want to get pulled pork done more quickly, you can smoke it at ~300F with no real adverse effects (except the caveat).
Now, here is that caveat: While you can cook pulled pork and ribs at slightly higher temperatures and end up with perfectly tender meat, you will lose some smoky flavor in the process. I am not a food scientist (here is where if I were Alton Brown, one would appear) but my theory is that the meat stops accepting smoke flavor around 160F internal temperature. By cooking at a lower temperature, you have a smaller delta, and it takes longer for it to get to that temperature, so it takes on more smoke flavor. This is also why I start my meats cold, straight from the fridge. That would be a no-no for a steak or a chop, but it works in your favor with pulled pork, etc. They spend more time in the smoke before reaching 160F, so they take on more smoke flavor. So what I do with the pellet grill is keep it on high smoke (225F) until the pork reaches ~160F internal temperature, then I crank the heat up to ~300F and finish it. Best of both worlds. Good smoke flavor, and reduced cooking time. It also seems to give you better bark and caramelizes any sugars that are in your rub.
But, I am not a food scientist, and my theory is based on anecdotal evidence, so I could easily be way the hell off in my assertions. IANAL, YMMV, etc.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
my theory is that the meat stops accepting smoke flavor around 160F internal temperature.
Interestingly, something I was reading recently said something relevant about that:
Myth
After an hour or two, meats stop taking on smoke.
Busted!
Meat does not have windows that shut as it cooks. If the surface of the meat is cold or wet, more of the smoke sticks. Usually, late in the cooking, the surface gets pretty dry, and when the coals are not producing a lot of smoke, we are fooled into thinking the meat is somehow saturated with smoke. Throw on a log for smoke and baste or spritz the meat, and the meat will start taking on smoke again. Just don’t overbaste or aggressively spray, because in seconds you can wash off the smoke that took hours to build up.
Maybe those two work together? 160° is about when the (unwetted) surface gets too dry to take on smoke effectively?
Edit: More, from a different section in the chapter:
To demonstrate the way smoke sticks to food, we did some experiments. We painted three empty beer cans white. We filled one can with ice water and left another empty, and both went into the smoker. The control sat on my desk. After 30 minutes, both cans in the cooker had smoke on the surface, but the colder can had a lot more. That’s because cool surfaces attract smoke, a phenomenon called thermophoresis. Another factor was at play. The cold can also attracted water in the atmosphere and in the combustion gases, which condensed and ran down the can. Smoke particles stick better to wet surfaces.
Similarly, if meat is cold and wet, it will hold more smoke. As the meat warms and dries out, smoke bounces off. It’s the same reason a cold mirror holds on to steam from a hot shower.
That backs up your cold meat does better hypothesis, too.
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@Dreikin Nifty. I had a theory that did not turn out to be total rubbish.
Also, I rub most meats the day before, wrap them, and put them in the fridge overnight. The salt draws out moisture and makes the rub very wet. I guess that helps a lot with the smoke flavor also.
BTW, you can definitely have too much smoke flavor. I think my methods strike the right balance. Over smoked meat tastes horrible and acrid.
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@Dreikin Also, if you like reading about cooking and grilling, I can heartily recommend anything by Steven Raichlen. The guy has some amazing recipes and techniques.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@Dreikin Also, if you like reading about cooking and grilling, I can heartily recommend anything by Steven Raichlen. The guy has some amazing recipes and techniques.
Thanks, I'll look for that :)
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
Over smoked meat tastes horrible and acrid.
Explains why I don't like most smokey flavors.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
This is also why I start my meats cold, straight from the fridge. That would be a no-no for a steak or a chop, but it works in your favor with pulled pork, etc.
I do exactly that these days. I can get a really nice char on the surface without overcooking the steak.
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So where are we on sous-vide cooking? I've done chicken using that method before and didn't really notice any differences personally. I was told it was surprisingly good for "ziploced-boiled-chicken".
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@boomzilla I think I work with a lot higher heat than most do. If I start with a cold steak, the interior is still raw when I get a good crust. Not rare. Raw.
Plus, I salt the meat and allow it to pull proteins to the surface as it sits which helps improve the crust.
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@Polygeekery I salt it, too. OK, so it's usually out for 10 minutes or so, not quite directly from the fridge.
I've actually taken to cooking for longer with the top up to get a nice crust. Yeah, presumably not as much heat as you're using. My grill will only get to around 600 or so.
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@MathNerdCNU said in The Cooking Thread:
So where are we on sous-vide cooking?
I label it as hipster cooking. It will help you be more consistent I suppose, and gives uniform doneness. But you still have to use high heat or infrared in order to get a Maillaird reaction for flavor. So, you may as well just cook conventionally.
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@Polygeekery the fact that, when I was buying industrial control equipment for use in my garage and brewing operations, the main use case people talked about for the timing and temperature control gear was sous vide basically told me everything I need to know about it: The people who do it are irredeemably boring.
And they suck at wiring diagrams.
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@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
I salt it, too.
Yeah, well, I assumed that. The point was that if you salt your cut of meat and then leave it out for 30-60 minutes to come up to temperature it pulls to the surface a lot of things that contribute to a great crust.
@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
I've actually taken to cooking for longer with the top up to get a nice crust. Yeah, presumably not as much heat as you're using. My grill will only get to around 600 or so.
I think that the infrared heat of a rocket hot charcoal fire contributes more to the excellent crust than the actual dome temperature of the grill when it is closed.
If you want to get super hot, like when cooking tuna steak (which should be almost burnt on the outside but cold in the middle), I have taken a cooking grate and put it over the top of my charcoal chimney starter. That's another trick I learned from watching Alton Brown and it works like a charm. There was a cool video on the Tested YouTube channel that went over various ways to get a good crust on steak. @MathNerdCNU might like it because they "cooked" them via sous vide.
Adam Savage Tests the Best Ways to Sear a Steak! – 33:12
— Adam Savage’s Tested
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@Polygeekery Mind you IIRC the Steak Tartare episode turned out well, too.
For another take on steak:
Deep Fried LIVE with Tako the Octopus - Episode 7, "Fleeb Cooks A Cow" – 09:59
— Furr Bear
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Internet went out last night as I was typing this, so it is being posted this morning:
Tonight I needed to come up with dinner so I looked around. Bone-in pork chops in the freezer, half a bag of red potatoes, some romaine lettuce and other assorted veggies.
Sliced up some red potatoes after rubbing the sprouts off of them. Put in bowl, drizzled with olive oil, seasoned with kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper and Chinese Five Spice. (seriously, it is amazing on potatoes). Put my cast iron casserole pan in the oven and set it to 425F. Once preheated with the pan in, I slid out the rack and put in the potatoes.
Pork chops went in to the sink with hot water to defrost. After they defrosted they were dried off with paper towel, drizzled with canola oil, seasoned with kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, granulated garlic and paprika. Started the Akorn grill with a load of lump charcoal and preheated it to a medium-medium hot fire.
While the chops were defrosting I tore up some romaine and put it in a bowl along with some celery sliced in to short matchstick shapes and some radishes from the garden. Looked in our produce basket and found an orange so I juiced it and put the juice in a squeeze top bottle with some olive oil, red wine vinegar, little bit of dijon mustard (as an emulsifier), freshly ground black pepper and some olive oil. Put the top on and gave it a shake to mix.
After the potatoes had been in the oven for ~30 minutes, I sprayed down the grill grates with cooking spray and started the chops that had been seasoned on the counter for 20 minutes or so as a short dry/wet rub. On the center of the grate for 2-3 minutes per side and then moved to the outside once they had good color. The Akorn cooks more like an oven on the outside of the grates. The heat is more indirect, so I finished them there, turning occasionally.
Once they were about done, I pulled the potatoes from the oven and covered loosely with aluminum foil to keep them warm, but let them cool down from scorching hot. Pulled the chops at 135F so that carry over would take them to 140-145F. Put them on a plate and covered loosely with foil so they could rest.
While they were resting, I dressed the salad and plated that and put some sliced tomatoes from the garden on the top. Plated potatoes and chop. Dinner time, and it was amazing. The wife said that the pork chop was too big, so she would probably save half of it for lunch tomorrow. She ended up finishing it.
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@Weng said in The Cooking Thread:
Yeah, but I prefer to get through it before the cardboard box decomposes.
You can take care of that by putting it in a longer-lasting container.
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Last night, spatchcocked chicken and baked potatoes with berry fool for dessert.
In the morning, I cut the backbone out of the chicken and put it in a gallon ziploc bag with the brine. Simple brine, lemon and zest for the acidity along with some white wine vinegar, rosemary and sage for the herbs. At the same time I prepped the fruit for the dessert. Then I made a compound butter with rosemary, tarragon and sage (rosemary, tarragon and sage are my favorites for poultry, as you can tell).
About an hour out from putting it on the grill I pulled the chicken from the brine, gave it a quick rinse and then dried with kitchen towels. I put it on a rack on a sheet pan and put it in the garage fridge to finish drying. Time in a low humidity environment helps develop a pellicle that helps browning. Around this time, I put the bowl and whisk from my stand mixer in the fridge also to chill.
15 minutes from putting it on the grill I fired up the pellet grill and pulled the chicken from the fridge. I rubbed it down with olive oil (I am not convinced it needs to be olive oil. Plain canola oil would probably be sufficient.) then seasoned it with kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, ground sage, and rosemary. I also had some woody sections of sage that I set aside to add to the smoke. I also prepped the baked potatoes by putting them in a bowl, drizzling with olive oil and seasoning generously with kosher salt, black pepper and Chinese Five Spice and giving it a toss.
Chicken goes on the grill along with the potatoes. Right before I put the chicken on the grill I put the woody sections of sage on top of the primary heat deflector to smoke. Grill is set to 350F.
About 30 minutes in, give it a flip and turn the potatoes. I cook skin side down for a while to render fat and help crisp the skin.
Roughly 1 hour in, I flip the chicken and the potatoes. Back to right side up to finish crisping the skin. At roughly an hour and fifteen minutes it is time to pull the chicken.
Skin is perfectly crisp. Potatoes are perfectly cooked through. Let it rest for 5 minutes or so and then carve off a leg/thigh section for myself and cut a breast section in half for the wife.
No pictures from here on, because goddamn it I was hungry.
After dinner I used the chilled bowl and whisk to make some whipped cream and layered it with crumbled shortbread cookies in bowls with the macerated fruit for dessert.
Leftover chicken is reserved for topping salads this week.
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And before anyone goes thinking that it is all high-class meals at the @Polygeekery compound, tonight we had pulled pork nachos for dinner.
My suggestions on nachos: Thin-sliced radishes work amazingly well with nachos. Seriously. They have a sort of spicy taste to them, and they add some crunch. Beyond that, the usual nacho sort of stuff. Black beans, pulled pork, shredded cheese, pickled jalepenos, the white parts of scallions, etc. Broiled them in the oven to melt the cheese and heat them through. Slid off of super hot plate on to a regular plate so you can hold them, then topped with the green parts of the scallions, more radishes, cilantro and then drizzled with the various BBQ sauces I made a while back.
When we were eating dinner, the wife looks at me and says: "If these nachos were on the menu at a restaurant for $20, and I knew how good they were, I would pay it no problem."
I call that a success.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
Then I made a compound butter with rosemary, tarragon and sage (rosemary, tarragon and sage are my favorites for poultry, as you can tell).
Did I miss something, or what is that used for?
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@Erufael I have kids, I start posts and finish them later. Shit gets missed. :)
Compound butter over the chicken when it is served. Good stuff. Also helps with the white meat that can tend to be drier.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@Erufael I have kids, I start posts and finish them later. Shit gets missed. :)
I don't have kids, but I do have ADD, so much the same happens to me.
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@Polygeekery Ahhh, okay. Thanks!
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Smoker and BBQ Temperature Control
