What's cooking? part 4

After being traumatized as a child by my mother's pork chops, I swore them (and all pork) off forever.

Brining them and cooking them to 155 (final temp; pull from heat and rest at 145) as opposed to whatever charcoal my trichinosis-fearing mother dried them to cured me of my pork phobia.

brining seems to help, but i can't get the right balance of searing, broiling, baking, etc. etc

CI prefers a cold pan technique, where you don't get a nice sear but you get maximum juiciness with minimum prep. Have you tried that?

hmmm no, that i have not tried

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipes/article.asp?docid=156

I have the full print version somewhere, basically you start in a cold pan and never get above medium heat, I think. They might have added a little sugar on the down side to enhance the browning.

interesting! i just subscribed to the magazine (well my gf subscribed me) but maybe i'll get the site access too. i love how counterintuitive some of their stuff is.

Do you guys eat apple sauce with pork or is that not a thing in the U.S? (if not I have no idea what the multiple shelves of apple sauce in supermarkets are for...)

I always associate "pork chops and apple sauce" with an old Brady Bunch episode I cant even remember the context of now.

Never eaten one in my life tbh.

you can eat apple sauce as its own thing, it's a staple in schoolkid sack lunches imo

but yeah, people have pork chops with apple sauce on occasion

what, just a glop of sauce in a lunch tray? ew.

Mind you I say that and we didnt even have sit down lunches at our schools, it was all "buy a hot meat pie/sausage roll/salad roll and eat it in the playground" thing.

ime it's seen less as a "sauce" and more like pudding (american meaning, not pudding-as-generic-dessert term)

there are little single-serving applesauce cups and everything

as google reminds me, the other great use for applesauce is on latkes. mmmm.

Yes, apple sauce is traditional with pork here and the pork + apple combo is obviously timeless, but the whole "grocery store jar of applesauce" on a dried-out chop has a mid-century kind of feel to it? You can achieve a way tastier version by throwing some cubed apple with salt and thyme under a pork roast in the last 30 mins.

I have a 7lb pork shoulder coming tomorrow btw. Getting kind of hungry just thinking about it.

Still, its just a mouthful of glop. Its like the lovely japanese bento trays I sometimes get for lunch: they always include a little blob of mashed potato salad in one little cube. I love it.

xxpostsomething

lots of great foods are just mouthfuls of glop, like yogurt

wonder if I can summon LL by saying chobani

Haha! I was just going to check in to say that there are kitchen pics on flickr if anyone wanted to see my new dominion. I've still gotta make a substantial produce and meats grocery run but I predict great things to come.

my crockpot pork carnitas turned out really good! am going to experiment with adding more/different things to the pot for more flavor. this time was just the juice of an orange, onion, garlic, a little chopped jalapeno and rubbed down with cumin, oregano and salt.

That reminds me of my NC bbq crockpot recipe, which I plan to revive as soon as I go grocery shopping! I've had a hankering for weirdo tacos ever since you guys have been talking about meat all the time :)

Coincidentally, I have a 7lb pork shoulder coming today. Going to slow-cook it, obviously, but votes on whether to brown the outside first?? A shocking (to me) number of recipes for carnitas/pulled pork/etc do NOT call for browning, which downright confuses me.

when i've made carnitas i've browned it at the end (once its been pulled apart)

Last few days: Cream of swede and chestnut soup. Variations on crockpot stews. Leftover roast chicken and mushroom risotto. Tomorrow: Lime zest and coconut encrusted blue warehou with crispy spuds and garden salad.

yah i agree w/just sayin--cook it, break it apart, then brown it under the broiler.

I third that.

Something I am starting to really master (and am embarrassed that I have not mastered this previously) is the NO WASTE thing. I'm really using up every bit of leftover, getting produce taken care of (including pickling, if necessary) before it goes off, using the freezer effectively, etc.

Yesterday I realized that the pineapple I picked up was getting overripe--hello pineapple shrub doing its thing with some rosemary and apple cider vinegar! Will be great with tequila when it is ready.

Wow, okay! Is that a beef vs pork difference? I can't imagine not fully browning a piece of beef before slow-cooking, it just doesn't exist.

yeah i wonder if there's some interesting food science thing there. i know that on atk they were making carnitas and experimented with browning first and found that it didn't really add much flavor.

I've never browned pork before slow cooking. Also bonus pts if you tell ppl you made lechón.

la lechónera

tonight i sear-roasted some halibut, made a two-pea saute from my invaluable williams-sonoma vegetable sides cookbook (cost: $3), and made some modified homefries by boiling halved fingerling potatoes and then frying the flat sides in duck fat with a bunch of minced shallot. came together quickly, too.

I just realized that I always hold pans with right hand/do whatever else (stir/flip/whip/etc) with left hand. Does that mean I cook left handed? ( I'm generally left handed btw)

That meal sounds lovely and delicious. I'm almost done restocking after the move and it feels gooooood.

i cook lefthanded and write lefthanded but do sports type things righthanded. i am confused.

I'm right handed and hold the pan with my left, flip/stir with my right

CAD that sounds so good!

i do all significant tasks with left, but cut (with scissors, not knife) with right because those were the only scissors available when i was a kid. there was one pair of green ones, and then there were none. i sometimes bowl with right hand too for fun. i was just wondering if there were any other lefties out there and what sort of cooking tasks were delegated to right and left hands.

I'm a leftie! I think I mostly use left hand for stirring/flipping. but I am kind of randomly ambidextrous for weird things like applying mascara and playing tennis.

that cook's illustrated pork chop technique worked well btw

cooking is a wheel. you think you can cook and then you steam an artichoke for the first time and fail miserably.

next week I'm gonna get it right, goddammit.

For tonight's supper I made the Spinach Provencale recipe from the venerable The Vegetarian Epicure cookbook, circa 1977.

You wash up two large bunches of spinach, saute a chopped onion and some garlic, add all spinach long enough to wilt it, then add a mixture of two beaten eggs and grated parmesan, stir well, then turn it into a baking dish and bake at 375 for about 20-25 minutes.

With that I made a cole slaw and some steamed brussels sprouts, and I served it all with french bread from a local bakery and butter.

That sounds a lot like a quiche? And also delicious.

Unlike quiche it has no crust, consists of about 80% spinach, 15% onion and very little egg. As you suspected, it's delicious.

Oh I make crustless quiches pretty often, after Lechera recommended them a few years ago. The egg balance difference is otm though. I'm going to try that as soon as my oven gets fixed!! (The door hinge is broken or stuck and it won't open now.)

The original recipe (iirc) calls for:

2 lbs. fresh spinach, washed, destemmed
1 onion, chopped
garlic
2 Tbs. olive oil
2 eggs, beaten with:
3/4 cup grated parmesan
salt, pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. I use a heavy-bottomed 8 qt. stock pot to saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil. When onion is transparent, add spinach. Wilt it for three or four minutes, stirring. Remove from heat. Mix in the egg-parmesan. Turn into a buttered baking dish. Bake for 20 minutes at 375.

Bought all the parts to make my own sous vide oven! Weekend project time :)

whoa! details pls.

This thing: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0088OTON4/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
and one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0088OTON4/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
and one of these, which I hope will work okay:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I8VE68/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i03?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've got a medium sized Coleman cooler to modify - drill holes in the lid for the heating element wire and the temperature sensor; install a grill at one end to encompass and stabilize the heater and one at the other to house the pump. Fill with water, turn it on and see how it goes.

And, if that weenie little coil heater doesn't do the job, I've got my eye on this one: http://www.amazon.com/MARSHALLTOWN-Premier-742G-Bucket-Heater/dp/B000BDB4UG/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=38RDX3ZA000BS&coliid=I1IRTZB02SYD9J