What's cooking? part 4

I don't do the soak-in-milk business, just meat (beef and pork generally), egg, onion, and bread bits. You really want some fat, otherwise it will end up a gray, dry loaf of bleh.

Taco night for eight the other night. Fillings:

Pork, simmered forever in just salted water, then shredded and simmered some more in a tomato-chipotle-garlic sauce.

Shredded chicken, simmered in homemade tomatillo sauce.

Gringo ground beef w cumin, chili, chipotle powder, tomatoes.

A ton of black beans cooked forever and mashed when refried.

It was goooooooood.

For my meatloaf, I saute onions, garlic and a little bit of tiny-diced carrots and let them cool. I don't like raw-onion flavor in my meatloaf, and the baking alone doesn't seem to be enough. The loaf: 1.75 lbs. ground chuck, 1 cup bread crumbs, 4 oz. tomato sauce, 2 eggs, sauteed aromatics, salt/pepper.

The sauce: 12 oz. tomato sauce, a little bit of water, and then the condiment cabinet: ketchup, yellow mustard, cider vinegar, worcestershire sauce, sriracha or tabasco, salt/pepper, a handful of brown sugar. I think that's everything. Pour the sauce over the meatloaf, 350 degrees for about 85-90 minutes. The sauce thickens up to a nice gravy for the mashed potatoes.

I've juiced and peeled and segmented and now I have the peels from six grapefruits and four big lemons for candying. They're off my aunt's trees in Arizona and have never been touched by food grade wax, so I wanted to eat more than just the insides.

genius!

There's a lot of exceedingly tasty sounding food on here, tacos and meatloaf and pork oh my...

last thursday I did bouillabaisse and poulet au pot for forty-five people, that was fun. More organising than actually cooking.

Holy crap, for reals? My friend used to freelance cater box lunches and prepared meals for 60-80 people, I have no idea how she did it.

Okay so today I cleaned and re-organized my kitchen, then I went on the most organized grocery trip I've done in a long time. The menu for the next week includes: oyster stew, hummus (always have a batch of that ready to go though), bourbon fried rice (unless I drink all the bourbon LOL), spinach & sundried tomato quiche, cornmeal skillet flatbread, whatever goofy shit happens in between. Also grilling steak, asparagus, potatoes, flatbread tomorrow before band practice*.

WHY THE REJUVINATED COOKING INTEREST? My roommate is all woe-is-me because our oven door shattered and hence we have no oven. He only ever eats frozen eazy-make foods, and out of one of those ridiculous kind of arguments only bros can have I was challenged to keep us well-fed sans oven. Which I don't think is much of a challenge but here we go nonetheless.

ALSO: I guess it's worth mentioning that, even before the oven broke, I have been making flatbreads in the skillet; experimenting with mixes of maize flour, cornmeal, wheat flour, regular American white flour (almost always only flour + water for dough), also patting the dough with garam marsala or old bay or some other ridiculous spice blend depending on what I'm serving it with. Sometimes it's not so great but sometimes it is GREAT great. I feel like, having been gifted a 6-generations seasoned cast iron skillet it is my DUTY to work it to it's fullest.

Wait...mom, grandma, great-grandma, great-great...okay I guess that's only 4 + me = 5 generations. D'OH!

I support you in this endeavor, and salute your intrepid spirit.

Damn straight, and that sounds like an awesome skillet.

Laurel, yep. I seem to have diversified into outside catering without actually meaning to. It just sort of happened. The trick is to make something which you just need to lash in a giant pan

wow nicka pls to come cook me flatbreads - i can provide you with oven!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/11/Odb_-_nigga_please.jpg

nicka pls - lol, next album title

The thing with the unleavened flatbreads is they are more like big glorified crackers or something; fun but not quite the substance I'm looking for...AND there's not really anywhere in my kitchen that stays warm enough for yeast dough to rise properly. I am trying something ridiculous today; I am making a sort of soda bread dough (with bicarbonate of soda + buttermilk as the activator) but rolling it out flat and skillet frying them. Hopefully it works out well...because I have a GURL I want to impress coming over.

There's this one vent in my bathroom that BLASTS heat and I bet dough would rise really well there but yeah right I am going to put dough on the floor of the bathroom.

nicka pls - lol, next album title

just thank me in the liner notes lol ;-)

that soda skillet bread sounds like an adventure!!!! good luck!

Nick, the last Cook's Illustrated I read had this tip: for keeping dough warm, get one of those microwaveable neck-wrap things full of gel or barley, heat it up as instructed, then wrap it around your rising bowl and cover the whole thing with a moistened tea-towel to prevent drying.

Let your yeast dough rise really slowly overnight and the yeasty flavors will astound you. Grease the surface well w/ softened butter or olive oil though so it doesn't dry out. Punch down, knead the butter in until the dough is smooth, coat again and let rise a second day for OMG deliciousness.

I just got home from my first trip of any length this year and have apparently forgotten how to cook. Breakfast was a disaster.

Also - use your cast iron pan to bake a round loaf in. Cast iron gives an astounding crust.

(I am all about the astoundishment today)

4 incredibly garlicky lamb + pine nut sausages browned in fat then braised in 1 cup of red wine and 1 can of diced tomatoes (slow oven for 2 hours), served over bowtie pasta with a tiny bit of parmesan cheese. So delicious and so easy.

Yum.

Duck sausage with champ and red wine gravy. Om nom nom.

Experiments in braising #4: extra-thick chuck steaks browned and braised in red wine, pan drippings, garlic, cracked black pepper, celery seed, whole allspice, black cardamom, bay, and a chunk of ginger. It smells amazing at the moment.

Except, then the gas got turned off for the building so it went in the fridge and we had take-out. Still no gas this morning = toast + tea for breakfast. Thankfully the kettle's electric.

Thank god for you Jaq, not only does that sound awesome but I feared I'd killed the board.

Anybody besides me tried the bandwagony Bittman bread recipe? I've done it three or four times I think and it really is realiably delicious - the only times I've gotten crumb like this is when I've done a poolish and even then it wasn't this proper, only problem with this loaf really is the bottom crust, which is too hard & kinda weird - and I'm using a casserole, not a Dutch oven, so that might be the problem

Yes, I did it a couple of times last year--turned out great once, not so great a second time (the second time I tried to make rye bread, probably used too much rye flour, and it came out as thin as a slipper and as heavy as a brick). The first time, although turning out stupendous bread, was also kind of a disaster, as the handle on the lid of my big pot melted in the oven. I finished it with aluminum foil on top, and ate it with fear that the fumes from melting plastic had infiltrated into the bread. All present at that dinner are still alive, so I suppose it turned out ok. Should make it again, now that I have a new--all metal--handle for my big pot.

I do remember the bottom crust being very hard, but not to the extent that it was a problem. No idea how to modulate that--Jaq?

I found and printed out that recipe, and will give it a shot as soon as I get past current deadlines. The enameled dutch oven I got for xmas will be perfect for baking it.

I'm also going to bust up a duck or a goose and confit the leg quarters.

Here we go again: Bittman points to another piece on home bread-baking, nay, a campaign for home bread-baking.

Just home from a weekend away - and the gas is STILL OFF. This truly sucks. The landlord called a minute ago and said the earliest it can be turned back on is Wednesday afternoon.

I will have a think about modulated crustiness though. I like to knead bread too much to try the Bittman no-knead thing.

i love spring break. tonight, i made whole wheat pasta with sauteed green squash, onions, garlic, tomatoes and salmon. mmm.

Thinking about bottom crust too hard business - possibly too high a temp causing this. If you're using a glass/pyrex casserole, try reducing the temp by 25 deg. Could also be too long a baking time - in that case you would increase the temp, again I would up it by 25 deg, and shorten the baking time by 10-15 min. If the interior of the loaf seems quite well done, you could just shorten the baking time without the increase in temp and see what you get. If the interior turns up too damp and stodgy, it will make good bread pudding still.

There are some after-the-fact things that can be done to crusts, brushing with butter/oil, misting with water, but those are for top crusts which form much differently than the bottom one.

Okra at the market today (+ fish & shrimps) = gumbo for dinner tonight. Yay for the gas company getting their act together finally! Now I can boil stuff again.

mmmm, gumbo. I like the Gumbo Zeb version with a base of greens. (mustard/collard for me.)

Rachel Ray was on at the gym the other day, making just that. Except in 30 minutes with excessive down-cleavage camera angles.

Baking brownies today for a friend's bon voyage party tonight. House smelling of rich chocolate-y goodness.

I've just started a Bittman no-knead loaf for baking tomorrow, and a loaf in the bread machine for comparison. (Same flour.)

And after reading G00blar's post on the cooking blog, I've gone out to get what I need for James Oseland's beef rendang. (I'm pretty sure I still have some lemongrass and galangal in the freezer.)

I would give a hundred bucks for Eugene Levy to reshoot some of Mark Bittman's "Minimalist" videos in his Bobby Bittman character from SCTV.

cosign.

Did you get candlenuts?

ha, no such thing here. I used macadamia nuts. Unfortunately, the chuck roast I used was a little too lean or something, because the meat just toughened up and toughened up as the sauce reduced. Flavor A+, Texture C-.

Huh. I bet that'll be a problem for me too (it's next on my list to make, tho I was hoping to find the elusive candlenuts)--even relatively fatty beef is pretty tough to find these days.

Mmmmm, roasting chicken in the oven, smells so good. Standard sprinkles of thyme, cayenne, and cracked black pepper.

First local asparagus of the season! Making hollandaise, steaming some up and serving with the leftover roast chicken.

i am waiting for mahi mahi to thaw and then i am going to attempt fish tacos for the first time ever!

this is exciting

Fish tacos! Do you marinate the fish in something?

i did a quick marinating in lime juice, olive oil, 21-spice seasoning, and some hot peppers. they came out yummy!!

put the fish in a whole wheat soft taco shell with cilantro, tomato, a little cheddar, salsa verde, lettuce, and greek yogurt as sour cream substitute.

^^Sounds awesome.

Made stock today; used the dark meat of the chicken for tonight's dinner;

Chicken salad+crispy bacon on toasted rye mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Needed to use up 2/3 lb ground beef, didn't want a burger and I'm the only one home for dinner tonight. So, browned it and added sun-dried tomatoes, green olives, preserved lemon, pine nuts, a load of typical tagine spices. Covered with water and am braising for 1.5 hours.