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A Brisket, A…Brasket…Whatever

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , , on 08 Jan 2013| Leave a Comment »

Simple LivingBrisket. The word alone can conjure images of bubbehs and kosher delis on the Lower East Side. It can also conjure images of oven slavery and hours of kitchen torture that produce only a tough, stringy mess.

I’ve seen dozens of recipes, each calling for anywhere from 9 to 18 hours of preparation and cooking time. Feh. What I have for you is an easy and (so far, for me anyway) foolproof recipe for a nice, thinly sliced, savory brisket.

This is for a large cut of meat (providing days’ worth of leftovers!), so you must have a large enough pot. I used a hard anodized ovenproof 8 quart oval pot, which can hold a 5 – 6 lb brisket snugly, and can move easily from stovetop to oven. However, if your pot isn’t as big, reduce the size of the cut to fit.

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Back in Stock

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 01 Nov 2012| 1 Comment »

There are some times when life opens up the box in which you’ve been thinking since…since you’ve been thinking. Last week, that happened to me. It wasn’t earth-shattering or life-changing. It was a small, simple idea about a small, simple thing. I love moments like that.

Last week, I wrote about consommé and received a comment from my friend, Iron Chef Leftovers, over at the Cheap Seat Eats blog. He mentioned how his stock never got cloudy because his stock never boiled.

When I read that, I guffawed. Literally. I guffawed. Reason? Because no matter how assiduously I oversee my stock while it’s coming up to the simmer, and no matter how much attention I give it during the long process, it always comes out cloudy. Even when I succeed in keeping it below the boil, there’s always a cloud of particulate matter in the stock.

But this is beside the point, and this was not outside the box of my current thinking. The thing he said that stopped me mid-guffaw was this:

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DIY Greek

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , on 02 Oct 2012| Leave a Comment »

Dang. I was hoping to report on my second proof copy of FC:I, but it hasn’t arrived yet. So, to keep up with my “write every weekday” goal, we’ll go somewhere else entirely.

Yoghurt.

Didn’t see that coming, didya?

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Conserve-ation

Posted in Food, Gardening, Recipes, tagged , , , , , , , on 11 Sep 2012| 1 Comment »

What do you do with forty pounds of plums? You experiment.

In an attempt to capitalize on this year’s bumper crop of Italian prune plums, I have been trying several new recipes, like the clafouti I tried a week or so ago. Last night, I tried a couple of conserve recipes, but I’m only going to share one of them.

Italian plums are tricky when it comes to judging ripeness. Even the ones that fall from the tree still have green-colored flesh under the dark, dusty purple skins, but occasionally one goes yellow on the inside, but those are not especially sweet. However, if you cook these little guys, they make up for their tart edge with an especially “plummy” taste, so I’ll forgive them. Besides, a little bite never hurt.

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Clafouti: I Just Love Saying It

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 03 Sep 2012| 1 Comment »

Say it with me: Clafouti!

This time of year, the fruits of summer are coming thick and fast. If you have a tree in your yard, you’re probably trying to figure out what to do with umpteen pounds of <insert fruit type here>.

For us, it’s Italian plums, aka “Italian prune plums.” This year, it’s a bumper crop. All our friends who also have Italian plum trees in their yards are complaining that the branches are bending near-to-breaking under the weight of all the fruit.

What do you do with a hundred pounds of Italian plums? Well, here’s one thing I found this weekend: Clafouti. (more…)

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No-Knead Bread, with IPA

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 12 Aug 2012| 2 Comments »

As a follow-up-follow-up to my No-Knead Bread recipe, this addition.

I carried through on my threat to replace all the moisture in this recipe with a more robust beer. And, in my tradition of not doing anything by halves, I used some Ninkasi Total Domination IPA. This is one of the hoppier beers you’ll find in non-specialty groceries, and I thought it would be a good test to see if there was an acceptable outer limit to the hops flavoring that this recipe can take.

As usual, I went with 500g flour to 308-310g liquid. The long rise went well, and it baked up (in a covered pot) as well as any other variation I’ve tried. What we came up with was a very beery bread, with good texture and nice big artisanal bubbles inside. The crust was chewy without being tough or crackly. In short, another good bread.

Except for the hops. This experiment proved that there is, indeed, an acceptable outer limit to the hops flavor a bread can accept, and as much as I like this IPA as a beer, it is outside that limit for bread making.

The intense hops flavor imparted a delayed but lingering, top-of-the-palate bitterness that just didn’t work. I even wondered if, properly paired, it might be a good addition to a meal and decided, no, it isn’t. It was just too much.

So, lesson learned. Nice malty beers or clean, lightly-hopped pilsners/lagers all work fine, but the strong, knock-your-teeth-out IPAs are to be avoided.

k

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No-Knead Bread Follow-up

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , , , , on 08 Aug 2012| 2 Comments »

As a follow-up to my No-Knead Bread recipe, about which I cannot say enough, this addition.

I tried a new variation last night. I replaced all the water in the recipe with beer. I didn’t want to go overboard, so it was just a nice Canadian Pilsner, but it added a lot of depth and character to the flavor. I’m going to try it again, this time with a stronger choice, like Lagunitas Lucky 13 (one of my favorites) or some of our local Fremont’s Unlimited IPA (that’ll be interesting).

But it again proves how versatile this recipe is.

Loving it!

k

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