What's cooking? part 4

I guess "a bother" was a silly phrase to use – I am willing to go p far to make a flavorful liquid to suspend shit in. It's not like the flavorful liquid needs you to watch it the whole time.

Do you need meat, really, or can you just ask a meat cutter for bones?

I mean CUTS of meat. You just need bones with some meat still attached to them, is what I should have said.

Yeah, you need bones with a little meat and lots of cartilage. Your options for getting those bones vary a lot with where you live and how badly the state of butchering has deteriorated. (Pretty pretty badly, in NH, for instance. "Butchers" here are "stores that buy already-cut-up pieces of meat and marinate them for you.")

I am willing to go p far to make a flavorful liquid to suspend shit in. It's not like the flavorful liquid needs you to watch it the whole time.

That's how I feel about this stuff. I don't do a whole lot of things that are difficult, except maybe conceptually once in a while, but I do a lot of things that are time-consuming, because the time is usually spent with me around the corner working in the office, with an eye on the kitchen to make sure it isn't on fire.

I make stock twice a year with beef neckbones, $1.99/lb at the supermarket in Tupelo with the best meat dept. Lots of collagen, plenty of meat -- perfect for stock. Per Bourdain, I roast them for several hours, then add them to a vat of cold water (making sure to get all the scrapings off the sheet pans).

I miss neckbones!

That's the other thing about stock, though, yeah - if you have the freezer space and large enough pots, you can make a lot of it and freeze it for later. Or concentrate it down into new-school demiglace and it's virtually immortal in the refrigerator. It's not harder to make 8 gallons of stock than it is to make 1 gallon, so what labor there is can be spread out more.

Butchers up there don't offer neckbones? They were the stock bone of choice for me out in Calif. as well.

I'm not kidding, butchers here simply aren't butchers. They sell boneless skinless chicken breasts and steak tips, in various marinades. The first time I walked into one, I wanted to yell at them. It's a totally different approach than anything I've seen before. The meat counters at the supermarket, they vary - none of them seem to handle whole sides anymore, some of them don't even grind their own ground beef. But yeah, neck bones aren't a cut I've seen here at all. Braising cuts in general aren't terribly popular - pork picnic and chuck roasts, that's about it. Even oxtail isn't at my local store, I have to go to the other side of town for it.

I was so spoiled in Indiana - a butcher that gave me 3/4 of a headless goat, Mennonites selling their beef at the farmers market, local deer and buffalo ranches, Jungle Jims a few hours away in Cincinnati.

Woah thats weird and terrible and also makes me wonder how they can stay in business? i mean why would ppl even bother going there when they sound like they're the same as a supermarket meat counter (but worse) xpost

It's the "convenience" - the angle is that this place, unlike the supermarket, has ten different marinades for you to pick from. The whole gamut from lemon pepper to pepper and lemon. I'm so glad this sounds crazy to other people, because I couldn't believe it when I moved here five years ago, and the place is still in business. (They have a freezer the size of a coke machine where they sell buffalo ribeyes, duck, and occasionally whole rabbits - a weird afterthought, but the reason I've gone back.)

I'm also still adjusting to oxtail being expensive, because when I was learning to cook in New Orleans, it was one of the cheap cuts next to the chicken feet and pigs' ears. I ate a lot of oxtail as a grad student because it's what I could afford. Ditto skirt steak.

I'm not kidding, butchers here simply aren't butchers.

North MS is in pretty much the same boat, except for that one store in Tupelo (and, I'd like to think, somewhere in Oxford, which is gaining traction as a serious eater's destination).

xp -- the last time I saw skirt steak was at the Dekalb Farmers Market in Atlanta, at $9/lb I think. Crazy.

That is sheet madness. Skirt steak is SO BASIC and cheap!

Err, sheer. I'm typing while standing up, should be sorting laundry right now.

Oughta be! It's only - "only"! - $7/lb here, but is hard to find and almost entirely flavorless. Which is kind of a miracle of science for that particular cut. And although New Hampshire is generally more expensive than Louisiana or Indiana were, that's definitely not enough to account for this price difference.

Don't get me started on duck.

No, I'll start on duck, before going back to work. A couple years ago, maybe three or four years now but definitely after I'd lived here a year or two (so it's not simply a regional difference), the local price of duck doubled. I mean, it doubled all at once, because I was buying duck on a regular basis, and all of a sudden they were all $18-20 instead of $8-10. It never came back down.

I can only get whole frozen ducks here, except at Asian markets in Lowell's Little Cambodia - but the duck parts there are now always sold out, presumably because of everyone else getting frustrated by the cost of whole duck. The last time I bought a whole duck under $15, I had to eviscerate it myself.

"Butchers" here are "stores that buy already-cut-up pieces of meat and marinate them for you."

Heh, I'm in the UK, but this is exactly what my local butcher is. Luckily there are some very good traditional butchers in town, but in the suburbs a butcher is basically a place with 6 kinds of sausage, 6 kinds of marinated chicken breast, and a counter full of pre-cooked pies and pre-packaged bacon.

They don't give the impression of having anything more unusual in the back room, but maybe I should try asking; maybe it's just that having large cuts of meat and headless carcasses hanging within sight of the windows is frowned on these days.

I don't know of any grocery-store butchers that get a whole side of meat or w/e, I think they all get parts and cut them down these days. But at least if they have a meat dept with actual staff, you can ask if they have any more skirt steak in the back or can they roll you up a boneless tied pork roast, around 6lbs' worth, and so on.

I'm more grossed out at the thought of someone else making marinades and marinating meat for me than I am at somebody else grinding my hamburger meat. I know what flavors I want and how long I want to marinate the meat, thankyouverymuch.

Curry doughnuts, based on something I ate 10 years ago in Japan. Not my best idea, but not my worst.

~shudder~

how long does miso keep for? i bought a container of it for one recipe, and it wasn't exactly cheap. as per almost every american food, there is no expiry date or suggestion as to how long it keeps once opened.

pretty much forever, since it's fermented i.e. pickled

I have a never-opened container of white miso back in the depths of the fridge, bought a couple of years ago...I figure it's ok.

i have an opened-several-months-ago miso pack in an airtight box in the fridge, and last month tried it tentatively, wondering the same thing: it tasted and looked totally fine, and i wasn't ill after.

oh that's great to know - i have recipe that calls for a second kind of miso, and was a bit dubious about spending the money, but if they keep forever...

hey, you guys recommend any recipe blogs?? i've been following a few - i gave up looking for specifically vegan recipes a while ago and haven't looked back - and my cooking has clearly improved. i feel way less stressed about food now!

I'm going through my freezer and figuring out what to eat in the next couple weeks and what to hang onto to cook for some friends who are visiting. Uni, goose, sweetbreads, squid, octopus (cooked), fava beans, cranberry beans, frog legs, huckleberries. All of it's so potentially interesting/great I feel guilty making it for just me, but Caitlin's out of town for a few weeks.

And I just had a no-seafood request, soooo dinner for me tonight or tomorrow is squid stuffed with chorizo or chaurice, slow-cooked in tomato sauce.

baller

For the miso thing, I had a container of bonito miso in my fridge for well over a year (and thats the one with the bonito ie fish flavour added!). The only reason I had to turf it is because the lid fell off and it dried up, but it was otherwise perfectly fine.

justine, i like reading cooklocal.com. it's good for ideas and features some beautiful produce.

thanking u! in turn, i will highly recommend 101 cookbooks

anyone got tips for delicious usages of battered chicken pieces? maybe a sauce? I have plenty left over that I made for last night's sweet&sour

* end-of-week kitchen sink quiche with potatoes, onion, spinach, fake chorizo
* cornbread
* roasted tons of garlic while the cornbread was cooking

* used oil from roasted garlic to make the world's most delicious salad dressing
* panzanella

Anyone ever made arepas?

I have!
What would you like to know about them?

- picked strawberries from my patch and had them for dessert with balsamic vinegar, a little black pepper, and softly whipped cream. Food you grew yourself always tastes great!

Well, what I would like to know is, just how tasty are arepas? Are they worth the effort? Is it a lot of effort? What is your favorite arepa filling? I have never eaten them but I am intrigued. I found Harina PAN for sale, too, at the Asian grocery of all places, so my mind is really thinking about them often.

Well, here's my experience. I have had delicious arepas and really bland ones. They're basically polenta cakes, so anything you would put with polenta, you could have with arepas. I like to top them with tomato-based simple vegetable stews, or some shredded chicken and vegetables, whatever. Alone, they're not that exciting because they're just cornmeal.

I have had the most delicious success adding salt, a little sugar, and a spoonful of Earth Balance to the masa when I add the hot water, then putting some cheese in the middle (any melting cheese will do -- smoked gouda if you're feeling fancy, chihuahua or mozz if you're not) and fashioning a little palm-sized pancake. Then I grill them on my cast iron stovetop grill pan. Make sure you use masarepa, not just any old flour. I like Venezolana, and I prefer the yellow to the white by a wide margin.

Pictures forthcoming...gimme a sec

With grilled veggies and a tomato sauce
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5282/5345077970_c53bcf5eb1.jpg

Not the best picture, but here's another vegetable stew (the one i make most often, super easy)
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4065/4364343914_2fa25b2c3e.jpg

Here's one with green beans and chicken (i think this was leftover chicken from something i made the night before)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3084/2685047731_936ec9248f.jpg

Also you do not need a grill pan -- any frying pan will do

This is inspiring! Thanks LL. WIll be picking up some yellow masarepa soon!

hey! what is your favorite pork tenderloin marinade?

on a slightly similar topic...i just made this: http://www.chow.com/recipes/29195-slow-cooked-carne-adovada

it's in the oven now, but like a guy in the comments section, i have massive trepidation it's going to be inedible due to spiciness. i followed recipe to the letter but when i tasted the sauce it blew my fucking head off...maybe cooking will make it milder but i doubt it.

watch this space for an exciting update...

That looks delicious. Lol at the spelling error in the title though. I see govierno a lot too.

hmmm maybe i could do that that with a less fiery chili (i have some dried guajillo that are reasonably mild)!

wow this looks yummy: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/grilled-pork-tenderloin-recipe/index.html

I have little packets of chile ancho and guajillo that I use all the time to dress up salsa verde from a jar, make salad dressing, and/or grilled fish/meats. It's very handy!

For a while I was making chile paste and it was really really delicious, but such a pain in the wazoo, and I had to wear protective gloves and goggles because I am clumsy.

Lol at the spelling error in the title though.

??

I've never seen adobo spelled with a v, but maybe it is in the southwest?