What'cha Cookin' Tonight II

[MaryKB]

Another of my caprese flatbread pizza experiments. This one turned out rather tasty! I used freshly shredded mozzarella instead of fresh, but it still worked out okay I think.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Have you guys ever smoked ribs? I looked up a bunch of recipes and some do some crazy stuff. Like I've heard of wrapping but this pit masters for competition ribs they put sooo much rub on their ribs, smoke em, then wrap them in foil with honey, brown sugar and butter, cook em some more, then put a bbq sauce on top to glaze them. That seems like an insane amount of sugar.

I'm going for a more straightforward memphis style. Recipe is rub night before so the ribs sweat a little bit and get tacky. That's the "sauce" on memphis style. Then smoke, you don't wrap. Instead after a couple hours you baste em with apple juice/oil concoction every hour. Just wondering if anyone has any tips.

I made a rub with paprika, brown sugar, black pepper (almost broke my wrists trying to hand mill a whole tablespoon of this stuff), kosher salt, garlic and onion powder, chili powder, cayenne.

My biggest recommendation is to blanch them first. No matter what your variations from that point, they will be better than if you didn't.

Secondary possibility is to actually let them boil a while to get a partial cook so they don't have to smoke as long. It will allow you to adjust the balance between seasoning flavor and smoke flavor back towards the seasoning without having to just pile it on to overcome the smoke flavor, which is otherwise sort of a fixed quantity.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@Civver
When I worked at a smokehouse we cut off the membrane on the back, slathered the front with seasoning and wrapped it in aluminum foil. Cooked that in the smoker for a couple of hours on low, then wrapped it in cellophane and cooked on low for a few more hours in the smoker. Sauce got added at the end and was optional. I do not know what was in the dry rub but it wasn't anything special.

 

[civvver]

cellophane didn't melt in the smoker? Most people use foil or butchers paper. That seems a little weird though, you wouldn't get much smoke penetration if it's wrapped the entire duration.

 

[civvver]

I have some smoked sausage that was going to spoil and not enough time to make actual jambalaya so I make faux jambalaya fried rice. Some green peppers, onions, sausage fried with spices, paprika, cayenne, garlic, salt, then added the rice and fried that. Really good, not as good as real jambalaya but close and perfect in a pinch since I made it in like 15 minutes, basically the time it takes to cook rice.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

cellophane didn't melt in the smoker? Most people use foil or butchers paper. That seems a little weird though, you wouldn't get much smoke penetration if it's wrapped the entire duration.

The temperature was low enough that it didn't melt. Thinking back, I think they did go for a couple of hours unwrapped with anything first. It's been a long time. The wrapping held in all the juices while it cooked and prevented it from getting too smoky as well.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Beyond meat changed the recipe for their burgers slightly. They added little white globules of what I presume are fat that they advertise as marbling. They certainly melted and coated the burger with grease but I can't say they made the inside any juicier. They also tinkered with the texture and now the mouthfeel and the way the protein clumps together as you chew it is closer to real ground beef as well. They also managed to get the aftertaste under control. Overall a decent improvement.

I still have not seen the impossible burger for sale but I haven't been to a frou-frou grocery store in a minute.

 

[civvver]

I smoked two whole chickens and two racks of st louis ribs. The chicken took on a lot of smoke flavor, I may have used too much wood, but I used a mild apple wood. The light one was just salt and pepper, the darker one had a bbq rub I made. I used the same rub on the ribs. Unfortunately when doing the ribs I didn't space my racks right and one was below too close to the heating element and the bottom was completely charred. I managed to salvage the meat on top and I find it edible, but wouldn't serve to anyone. The top rack though was perfect. Really good chew, came off the bones easily but not like falling off tender (which is how memphis style ribs are supposed to be). I just put em on, left em for two hours, then I basted them every hour with apple juice, butter and apple cider vinegar for another three so a five hour smoke thereabouts. When I took them off I wrapped in foil and rested for 30 mins. I used half cherry wood and half hickory. They had a good smoky flavor without being overpowering like the chicken. I liked the strong smoke on the chicken but my kids and wife thought it was gross lol. They devoured the ribs though so that worked out. My wife even said I should make them to bring to grandma's christmas for an appetizer. I don't really think I'll have time though cus christmas eve is super busy for us. Anyway it was fun, not too much work. My smoker leaked grease out the legs though so I'm not sure if it's defective. For the ribs I put it on the lawn so I didn't have to clean up really just wipe it down. The chicken juice got on the drive and that was a pita to clean up. I'll do more ribs and a pork butt sometime soon. Rub recipe: https://www.thespruceeats.com/kansas-city-rib-rub-recipe-335915

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I managed to salvage the meat on top and I find it edible, but wouldn't serve to anyone

Put it in grilled cheese sandwiches or as a topping for nachos!

With my burgers last night, I cooked waffle fries in the oven. I lightly sprayed them with some oil and sprinkled dry rub seasoning on top and they ended up being delicious.

 

[civvver]

oh yeah! waffle fries are the best kind

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I discovered white chocolate smores and now I hate myself

 

[yung.carl.jung]

congrats civver your smokies look fantastic. I'm cooking up boeuff bourguignon today. and probably drinking a whiskey sour or too. I've lately gotten really into mixing, with amazing results. my first cocktails were simply a watery mess, no discernable flavors and wrong ratios. recently, they've been absolutely amazing. I make a great Manhattan (I use herbal bitters instead of orange and add orange peel instead), a superb whiskey sour with egg-white foam, homemade cirtus syrup and a spicy rye, and lovely martinis.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I recently had a drink with an egg white foam (first time having it) and I wasn't really a fan. It wasn't bad though but I wouldn't go out of my way to have another one.

 

[civvver]

I've never made boeuff bourguignon, but it's on my short list of recipes I want to try out along with coq a vin and chicken tika masala.

 

[MaryKB]

Vegan flatbread pizza, using Daiya synthetic mozzarella (made from tapioca) Came out really good! This "cheese" is all stretchy and gooey, and has a very pleasant and similar taste. I found some recipes online to try making my own tapioca-based vegan mozzarella, so I can get more of "fresh" feel to it hopefully (it doesn't spread as well when it melts, but still turns out good )

 

[Ajidica]

First use of the slow cooker I got for Christmas. I made Apple-Smothered Pork Chops with Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes.

The pork chops were outstanding, but the mashed potatoes were a bit rubbish. Pretty bland and dense. I may have used too much buttermilk/butter and it definitely needed more salt.

 

[Quintillus]

I made the Cajun Rice that @onejayhawk posted a couple years ago. Pretty good, and it makes a lot! Next time I think I'll add more spices, and will need to adjust the cooking heat levels up a bit for my range.

 

[Azem.Ocram]

I’m going to make eggs sardou soon. Should I use prosciutto or jamon serrano? Is anchovy paste a good substitute for anchovy filets or should I go all out and use fish roe? What’s a good substitute for truffle? I was considering omitting it though I might use porcini instead. What hot sauce is best? I’m going to cream spinach with cream cheese instead of flour. How essential are the fried asparagus spears? Can I use canned artichoke bottoms pr should I use fresh?

 

[Birdjaguar]

The physics of puff pastry!

EVERYDAY PHYSICS HELEN CZERSKI

The Delicate Architecture of Puff Pastry

A TRADITIONAL British afternoon tea is a thing of beauty. The tea itself nestles in the corner of the table, eclipsed by the table’s centerpiece: a conical stack of silver platters loaded with delicate sandwiches, fresh scones and inventive pastries. You can view this abundance as a celebration of culinary hedonism. Or, if you’re a certain sort of physicist (and I am), you can see it as an elaborate showcase for the potential of flour-based architecture.

The anatomy of each of the pastries is astonishingly varied. The controlled addition of water, butter, sugar, eggs and yeast can turn flour into dense and chewy bread, light crumbly scones or airy springy cakes. But the real structural superstar is the puff pastry. The individual sheets of crispy pastry are often only as thick as a human hair, and there are hundreds of them stacked up in every mouthful. It looks as though there’s nothing holding it together, and yet it can easily carry its load of apples.

Traditional puff pastry-making isn’t for the fainthearted. Flour, water and a little salt are combined to make a blanket of dough that is carefully wrapped around a flattened slab of butter. The two ends of the pastry package are folded over the center to create three new layers, and the whole thing is rolled out until it’s thin enough to fold again. The folding cycle is repeated six times to make more than a thousand layers of dough and butter, all squeezed into pastry half an inch thick.

This folding is a clever way of making what physicists call a laminar material—one with multiple layers that have different characteristics. For the highest quality pastry, these layers must stay intact. It only works if the stretchiness of the butter and the dough are perfectly matched, otherwise one of them will pull the layers apart. This is one of the reasons why puff pastry has to be made with butter and not oil or lard: Fatty layers that are too solid or too liquid will break, making the folding pointless.

The careful work that goes into creating these delicate layers pays off when the pastry goes into the oven. Both the butter and the dough contain water, which rapidly turns to steam, inflating the pastry from within. The fat has kept the microscopic layers separate, creating thousands of weak fissures, and these are where the steam accumulates and puffs up the pastry. The more perfect the layers, the higher the pastry will puff, until the steam escapes and the dough sets, creating crispy layers that are barely attached. This layered material has a surprising amount of strength for its weight, so the pastry sheets resist bending.

What interests me about this process is that it’s all based on simple physics, generated by only four ingredients and a lot of careful construction work. Croissant dough includes milk and yeast, so croissant innards are softer, and the yeast provides an extra reason for the dough to rise. But puff pastry has no additional raising agent





to do the heavy lifting, only ingenuity.

We encounter layered materials in plenty of everyday situations: plywood, car windshields, outdoor clothing, sports equipment. All of them use layers with different characteristics to create a new material, with all the benefits of its various components and none of the downsides. But such materials fail if the layers separate, as when damp causes plywood to split.

Puff pastry laughs in the face of that threat by using layer separation as a construction method. I appreciate the scones and the sandwiches that come with my afternoon tea, but the puff pastry truly is the queen of them all.

ISTOCK




Layers in a puff pastry can be as thin as a human hair.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

For this years NYE I designed a Creole menu, with a Chicken, Sausage and Shrimp gumbo as the centerpiece. It was great. We had deep fried cornballs, soy and ginger braised pork, absinthe cocktails, quality haze and all kinds of delicious sides.