What Have You Cooked Recently?

[Thomas Highway]

But I managed to burn the rice, too, the first time. "How do you do that," you may ask?

This is pretty easy to do, despite how shameful it feels.

 

[Lunete]

Made a simple pasta dish with spooky Halloween shaped noodles because I'm an adult who pays taxes.

 

[AnOminous]

Had nothing left of a pot roast from a couple days ago but a big chunk of chuck so pulled it apart and made a BBQ sandwich sort of like the Culver's pot roast sandwich, with the last of the peppers.

For myself - just made spaghetti marinara and sausage in the Instant Pot. Looking for easy weeknight recipes and wanted to start with a good basic one that can be customized and expanded.

As you might have noticed in this thread, pot roast with chuck is one of my standards. Also note that while high end meat prices are going through the stratosphere right now, the mid range stuff like chuck and whole chickens is pretty stable, at least where I am.

My only real prep on pot roast is rubbing the meat with kosher salt and pepper and letting it come up to room temperature for a half hour or so. The carrots, celery and onions get cooked with the meat at pressure and are more or less unrecognizable, and at the end, I add tons of potatoes for another 20-40 minutes because I prefer those to be recognizable as potatoes.

More or less any recipe will do. I usually put in a couple bay leaves, some kind of savory (really anything will do from soy sauce to Worcestershire to fish sauce or even just mushroom broth), a bit of tomato paste, whatever.

The fact it costs less than a buck per serving makes it taste even better.

 

[Kosher Salt]

My only real prep on pot roast is rubbing the meat with kosher salt

Jesus Christ, dude, what we do behind closed doors doesn't have to be made public...

 

[MoffAlbert]

Oven fried pork chops with steamed brocolli and tater tots. The pork chops were prime cut, I coated them in a mix of panko crumbs and an Italian seasoning with parmesan, baked them on a greased pan 10 minutes per side. Will do again.

 

[GeorgiaGuidestones]

Stocked up on a bunch of meat before our dystopian winter hits us. Thanks, Joe.

I am pulling out a pork shoulder for spicy pulled pork with homemade buttermilk biscuits and KFC coleslaw copycat. It’s going to be divine.

 

[Kermit Jizz]

Made some carbonara the first time. Never realized how simple the recipe is. Came out fantastic, although I learned that I am basically a mongoloid when it comes to extracting egg yolks. Broke the majority of the yokes when I cracked the egg, got to work on that.

 

[EnemyStand]

Did pork chops again. Rub was brown sugar, garlic salt, pepper, chili powder, and cayenne (yeah, it sounds like a Scalfani rub but I wanted something spicy). I almost smoked myself out with the sear, though. Is it smart to use olive oil for sear or was the temperature the problem?

 

[Goyslop Muncher]

Did pork chops again. Rub was brown sugar, garlic salt, pepper, chili powder, and cayenne (yeah, it sounds like a Scalfani rub but I wanted something spicy). I almost smoked myself out with the sear, though. Is it smart to use olive oil for sear or was the temperature the problem?

was it extra virgin olive oil or regular olive oil? extra virgin olive oil has a very low smoke point and should never be used to fry. Regular olive oil is better, but it's better to use something with a higher smoke point like canola oil, peanut oil, corn oil, or avocado oil. Your temperature may have been too high, I recommend using a temperature gun to measure.

 

[EnemyStand]

was it extra virgin olive oil or regular olive oil? extra virgin olive oil has a very low smoke point and should never be used to fry. Regular olive oil is better, but it's better to use something with a higher smoke point like canola oil, peanut oil, corn oil, or avocado oil. Your temperature may have been too high, I recommend using a temperature gun to measure.

Ah shit, it was extra virgin. I'll use canola next time around, it took an hour to air out my place.

On the plus side the sear was good and the chops came out tasty,

 

[Crunchy Oats]

Did pork chops again. Rub was brown sugar, garlic salt, pepper, chili powder, and cayenne (yeah, it sounds like a Scalfani rub but I wanted something spicy). I almost smoked myself out with the sear, though. Is it smart to use olive oil for sear or was the temperature the problem?

If it smoked too much, it was possibly too hot even if you used the right oil.
You can cut a small piece of meat or vegetable first and toss it in to test the pan before putting everything in.

Also, I wouldn't have put any kind of sugar on the meat if it was going to be seared. Instead, you could try to make a 'glaze' that contains the sugar so the meat can cook without burning the sugar, then add the glaze after; you can cook it a little more if you want, too.

Crisco seems to work well as frying oil because it has no flavor and doesn't alter the taste of your food as much as other oils.
You can also flavor the Crisco with other oils.

 

[EnemyStand]

If it smoked too much, it was possibly too hot even if you used the right oil.
You can cut a small piece of meat or vegetable first and toss it in to test the pan before putting everything in.

Also, I wouldn't have put any kind of sugar on the meat if it was going to be seared. Instead, you could try to make a 'glaze' that contains the sugar so the meat can cook without burning the sugar, then add the glaze after and cook it a little more if you want.

Crisco seems to work well as frying oil because it has no flavor and doesn't alter the taste of your food as much as other oils.
You can also flavor the Crisco with other oils.

I did put it on high to heat the pan up fast...it did kind of confuse me because I used it before but I never turned the heat higher than med-low before.

So, you would do the sear and put the glaze on before you put it in the oven, or after?

 

[Crunchy Oats]

I did put it on high to heat the pan up fast...it did kind of confuse me because I used it before but I never turned the heat higher than med-low before.

So, you would do the sear and put the glaze on before you put it in the oven, or after?

One way to do porkchop is to sear or bake the meat until you think it's done, add any glaze or sauce, and put it in the oven just to briefly bake it onto the meat - or just smother it in sauce and eat it, that's up to you.

Barbecue sauce should cook on the meat for a little bit after it's applied so the sauce sticks to the meat by removing moisture.
If the sauce gets overcooked, it can be tacky or burnt. I can't imagine the sauce needing more than just a few minutes to settle, but keep an eye on your food because your oven/stove will work differently.

Some food like sweet and sour chicken deep fry the meat with breading and add the sauce last.
The chicken and sauce get tossed together once both are done, and are then usually served without baking the sauce on.

 

[burntgrilledcheese]

So my first foray into sourdough and leaven work was a raging success lol. The starter went crazy and grew like a champ. The slow rise and fermentation went beautifully. The bread is soft in the center and crunchy on the crust. The flavor and scent are classic sourdough, even though I used half rye flour. The rye doesn't really come through; I was going to add caraway but kept forgetting. Still, 10/10, easy and delicious.

 

[XYZpdq]

had gotten some "crab rangoon dip" from aldi, basically crabstick dip
had the last glob or two, put it on a tortilla in some grease I quesadilla-ed up
uncannily similar to an actual crab rangoon
not actual crab, but like, you know

 

[Helvítis Túristi]

Made a tomatillo salsa with ground cherries and it turned out amazing. Might make it again and see about canning it.

 

[mindlessobserver]

The salt pork is sitting in my shed now.

Little worried as it's not as cold as I would like yet, but then I remember this recipe was meant to preserve pork on a ship traveling to the tropics so I need to readjust my modern expectations. Will report back in a month. My one worry is it seems the hot brine washed alot of the packing salt to the bottom. Dunno if that is supposed to happen or not.

 

[Thomas Highway]

The salt pork is sitting in my shed now. View attachment 2652592

Little worried as it's not as cold as I would like yet, but then I remember this recipe was meant to preserve pork on a ship traveling to the tropics so I need to readjust my modern expectations. Will report back in a month. My one worry is it seems the hot brine washed alot of the packing salt to the bottom. Dunno if that is supposed to happen or not.

Curing/brining meat is something I am not yet brave enough to try. I want to, but am scared.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Curing/brining meat is something I am not yet brave enough to try. I want to, but am scared.

I am pretty confident in it. Used a shit ton of salt. My only worry is the temperature is stubbornly in the 60s right now when I need it to be in the 50s, and I didn't have a handy weight to press the meat down into the brine. So I used a plate. Eventually the meat should absorb the salt and sink on its own. So I guess I will keep pressing it down every few hours or so.

Thinking about the process logically though, the hot brine is super heated. It is hotter then regular boiling water. When that got poured in, it killed pretty much all the bacteria. The already packed salt added to it and should create a super solution where only an extremophile bacteria can survive.

 

[Thomas Highway]

I am pretty confident in it. Used a shit ton of salt. My only worry is the temperature is stubbornly in the 60s right now when I need it to be in the 50s, and I didn't have a handy weight to press the meat down into the brine. So I used a plate. Eventually the meat should absorb the salt and sink on its own. So I guess I will keep pressing it down every few hours or so.

Thinking about the process logically though, the hot brine is super heated. It is hotter then regular boiling water. When that got poured in, it killed pretty much all the bacteria. The already packed salt added to it and should create a super solution where only an extremophile bacteria can survive.

I like pickling stuff. Have done some pretty mean sausages and other things.

Not brave enough to go beyond that when it comes to brining/curing.