Food and How you Cook/Eat it (2015)

[NJ Ave]

I think one interesting thing about that recipe is that "Sunday Gravy" is, I believe, traditionally a meat sauce on its own. For example, if you look at this recipe, it calls for adding 3 lbs of mixed meats to the gravy BEFORE adding braciola or meatballs.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sunday-gravy-with-beef-or-pork-braciola-and-anna-and-frankies-meatballs-recipe.html

Also, tomato paste. Always, tomato paste.

[imref]

I watched an infomercial over the weekend on the power pressure cooker XL.  They are selling it on TV for about $100 ($33.33 x 3 payments), and are throwing in a slap chop and a cookbook.  Bed Bath and Beyond has the same unit for $99.99 as well, but I can use one of their monthly 20% off coupons.    It's around $120 on Amazon.  I've been digging a bit into pressure cooking discussions and recipes and the consensus seems to be that there are plenty of good recipes, that pressure cookers live up to the hype, and that there's a small learning curve to become proficient in using one.  I'm probably going to pick one up next weekend and give it a shot.   I like the idea of being able to throw a bunch of things, even frozen meet, into a pot and have a meal in 30 minutes or so.

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

My dad and his old lady used to live at 10,000 feet and a pressure cooker was the only way to cook anything at that elevation.

[HalfSmokes]

traditional ones are much cheaper http://www.amazon.com/Presto-6-Quart-Stainless-Pressure-Cooker/dp/B00006ISG6/ref=sr_1_2?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1425915309&sr=1-2&keywords=pressure+cooker if you want something to play around with

edit, relevant

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

Asian markets often stock them too. I gather that Indian cooks use them a lot.

[Mathguy]

Why did elevation affect cooking on/in the stove ?

My dad and his old lady used to live at 10,000 feet and a pressure cooker was the only way to cook anything at that elevation.

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

Because it does   

Boiling point of water is like 190F at that altitude. Stuff takes a long time to cook.

[Nathan]

OK, chuck eye steak is awesome.  Grilled to a nice rare, starting toward med rare, it was super tender and very flavorful.

[dracnal]

Because it does   

Boiling point of water is like 190F at that altitude. Stuff takes a long time to cook.

That's a big part of it right there, Ali.  A surprising amount of cooking, especially with things like frying, is actually done by the steam as the water changes to gas.  Lower the temp of steam by 20 degrees and you've just cut your heat by 10%.  I bet it'd be next to impossible to get good, crispy french fries that were cooked all the way through.  You'd either get crisp with raw center or burnt with proper center.

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

Krispy Kreme bacon doughnut dog

[HalfSmokes]

take the dog out an that looks really good

[imref]

traditional ones are much cheaper http://www.amazon.com/Presto-6-Quart-Stainless-Pressure-Cooker/dp/B00006ISG6/ref=sr_1_2?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1425915309&sr=1-2&keywords=pressure+cooker if you want something to play around with

edit, relevant

i like the one-button ones because they are virtually idiot proof, and you don't have to worry about modulating the heat.

[HalfSmokes]

http://kitchenette.jezebel.com/the-st-louis-cuisine-wikipedia-page-is-goddamned-hil-1690071082

funniest thing I've read in a while

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

 

[1995hoo]

Trying Gaelic steaks tonight. I've had this recipe for years and have never gotten around to trying it. We have about half the amount of steak called for by the recipe, but I'll probably use the full amount of sauce since 50 ml of whiskey is one shot and is thus a convenient amount.

4 tranches de faux-filet (250 g chacune env.)
Poivre noir
Beurre, huile
50 ml de whiskey irlandais
1 timbale de crème fleurette
Sel

Faire chauffer une poêle en fonte. Laver les steaks et les sécher sur du papier de cuisine. Poivrer. Mettre du beurre et de l’huile dans le poêle, puis attendre jusqu'à ce que le beurre mousse un peu. Mettre rapidement la viande dans la graisse très chaude, afin que les pores se ferment, et réduire la flamme.

Faire cuire les steaks de 3 à 4 minutes de chaque côté, retirer de la poêle et réserver. Retirer la graisse, verser le whiskey dans la poêle et déglacer le fond. Faire un peu réduire, ajouter la crème et laisser cuire à petit feu pendant quelques minutes.

Saler et poivrer la sauce à la demande et en napper les steaks. L'accompagnement traditionnel compote des pommes des terre poêlées, des rondelles d'oignon frites, et des légumes verts.

[imref]

made kalua pig in the slow cooker today, just a pork shoulder, salt, and a tablespoon of liquid smoke that cooked for about 9 hours.  It came out great, but not eating it in Hawaii takes it down a few notches.

[MarquisDeSade]

http://kitchenette.jezebel.com/the-st-louis-cuisine-wikipedia-page-is-goddamned-hil-1690071082

funniest thing I've read in a while

Misery is such a weird place.  Kansas City seems like it would be a decent place to live and has fabulous food and a great ballpark.  St. Louis is just wall-to-wall crap.  Terrible food (frozen ravioli? ketchup and cracker pizza?), terrible people, and an awful stadium. 

[1995hoo]

Trying Gaelic steaks tonight. I've had this recipe for years and have never gotten around to trying it. We have about half the amount of steak called for by the recipe, but I'll probably use the full amount of sauce since 50 ml of whiskey is one shot and is thus a convenient amount.

4 tranches de faux-filet (250 g chacune env.)
Poivre noir
Beurre, huile
50 ml de whiskey irlandais
1 timbale de crème fleurette
Sel

Faire chauffer une poêle en fonte. Laver les steaks et les sécher sur du papier de cuisine. Poivrer. Mettre du beurre et de l’huile dans le poêle, puis attendre jusqu'à ce que le beurre mousse un peu. Mettre rapidement la viande dans la graisse très chaude, afin que les pores se ferment, et réduire la flamme.

Faire cuire les steaks de 3 à 4 minutes de chaque côté, retirer de la poêle et réserver. Retirer la graisse, verser le whiskey dans la poêle et déglacer le fond. Faire un peu réduire, ajouter la crème et laisser cuire à petit feu pendant quelques minutes.

Saler et poivrer la sauce à la demande et en napper les steaks. L'accompagnement traditionnel compote des pommes des terre poêlées, des rondelles d'oignon frites, et des légumes verts.

Didn't work out too well. Steaks were a bit tough. That's easy enough to solve by using a different cut of meat. But bigger problem was that the kitchen filled with smoke (due to cast-iron pan) and grease spattered all over the place, including both iPads (which we were using to display recipes), and the sauce didn't have much taste.

The fingerling potatoes my wife cooked were pretty good, however.

I think I'll play with ways to make the sauce without it being a pan sauce so that I can cook the steaks outside on the grill.


Edited the following morning to add: Kitchen still smelled of smoke this morning. Ugh.

[MarquisDeSade]

How old is your exhaust fan?  We get around having that issue by opening a window (even in the dead of winter) and running our 1960s aircraft exhaust fan at full blast (it can pull paper off of the floor) and don't have any problems. Most consumer level kitchen exhausts are crap (especially ones in microwaves) but if you're looking to replace yours look at what DCS has out. They're quite pricey but do a hell of a good job and a repairable after 20 years of service vs the junk you throw away.

[imref]

Misery is such a weird place.  Kansas City seems like it would be a decent place to live and has fabulous food and a great ballpark.  St. Louis is just wall-to-wall crap.  Terrible food (frozen ravioli? ketchup and cracker pizza?), terrible people, and an awful stadium. 

I've only been there once but I liked the downtown area.  Riding to the top of the arch in a small ball is fun and interesting, especially as you feel it sway when you are in the observation deck.  The museum underneath the arch is spectacular.

[HalfSmokes]

KC is ok, surprised MDS likes it- the gas light district seems like the embodiment of everything he loathes

[imref]

KC is ok, surprised MDS likes it- the gas light district seems like the embodiment of everything he loathes

the airport in KC is really odd, they have security checkpoints at each gate, rather than the model that most other airports use of having secure and non-secure areas.

[1995hoo]

How old is your exhaust fan?  We get around having that issue by opening a window (even in the dead of winter) and running our 1960s aircraft exhaust fan at full blast (it can pull paper off of the floor) and don't have any problems. Most consumer level kitchen exhausts are crap (especially ones in microwaves) but if you're looking to replace yours look at what DCS has out. They're quite pricey but do a hell of a good job and a repairable after 20 years of service vs the junk you throw away.

The issue there is that our kitchen windows are a bit drafty, so we cover them with that Frost King window film during the winter to keep the kitchen less cold because we don't have the money to replace the windows right now. So we can't open the windows until the film comes off later this month. Last night we opened the door to the deck and put the Dyson fan/space heater in front of it blowing outwards and it sucked most of the smoke out pretty well, but the smell lingered. If it weren't for the window film, I would have opened the windows as well.

The exhaust fan is indeed the one that comes with the over-the-stove microwave. The microwave was fairly new when I bought the house in 2001 (house was built in 1992), but it's still never going to have a good exhaust fan. One issue with replacing it is that unless we ripped up the whole kitchen to renovate (which is even less in the cards than replacing those windows is!), there is no other place for a microwave to go than that spot because it would take up too much counter space.

[MarquisDeSade]

KC is ok, surprised MDS likes it- the gas light district seems like the embodiment of everything he loathes

You mean the Power and Light district?  Yeah, that crap is lame.  The area around the Negro League Baseball Museum and the original Arthur Bryant's is more my bag.  Some of the Kansas suburbs are really nice and affordable but the summers there are way too miserable for me.  They're doing a good job of getting people to move back to the city centre and the surrounding neighbourhoods after years of being the host for 33% of "COPS" episodes from 1991-2009. 

[JCA-CrystalCity]

the airport in KC is really odd, they have security checkpoints at each gate, rather than the model that most other airports use of having secure and non-secure areas.

IIRC, the KC airport was designed in the 70s before air line deregulation and the hub and spoke model for scheduling.  In the CAB era, what airlines sought to provide passengers was easy and quick to the gate because they did not compete on price and had less incentive for efficiency.  I'm not sure there was meaningful security screening on domestic flights back then.  For a while, I think KC was a hub for Eastern or some old carrier into the early 90s (TWA used St Louis), but it was poorly designed for hub service due to the inability to get easily from one end of the terminal to another (DFW is similar, I think, but was built with the rail system).