Let's Cooking: TNL!

[Hubbitron]

Found a vintage Julia Child "Mastering the art of French Cooking" at goodwill. This week so far I've done beef sauté with cream and mushroom sauce over asparagus risotto, roasted chicken and ratatouille, and tonight braised rump roast with pork belly and red wine. I'm getting fat as fuck and I love it.

[Josh]

Fuel for sex machine, imo.

[Tones]

I just made some pretty damn good blackeyed peas and rice, with spicy sausage meatballs. I love southern food.

[Dunlap]

Blackeyed peas, collards, and corn bread. Why don't I eat thus more often?

[Tones]

I don't know, why don't you? Those are all solid choices.

[Dunlap]

It shall be this year's resolution.

[Hubbitron]

Protip: no pork product works as well as ham hocks when making collards

[Tones]

Ideally, I like to use a mix of smoked meats. Smoked turkey products (necks, wings, and drumsticks) are readily available here, and they are nice to have as supplements, since they provide a lot more meat. Have your butcher cut the wings or drums crosswise into four or five slices. Smoked pork neck bones are also supposed to work really well, but I have never used them myself. Bacon is okay, but it has to be cooked until it is super crispy, or else it will go gummy. Honestly, there are better uses for bacon. What is really important when cooking greens is to use only as much water as you need. It will be a lot less than you think. If you are cooking a more tender variety of greens, such as turnips or mustards, simmer the bone-in meat in water for an hour or two before adding the greens. The base will be a lot richer and more flavorful because of it.

When I'm cutting the greens, I like to cut the stem off at the base of the leaf. This lowers the stem:leaf ratio, and also gets rid of the pieces that take a lot longer to cook. To get rid of all of the grit, I have found that they need to be washed three times.

[cigsthecat]

I made some steaks and burgers when I visited my parents for Christmas. As I suspected, they "don't like steak" only because they haven't eaten a properly cooked one. I just used the cursory knowledge I've absorbed from cooking shows and they turned out great. I bought some ribeyes and did a basic spice rub of salt, pepper, onion, garlic and paprika. I chopped up some fresh garlic and onion for that. A little olive oil before grilling and they tasted great.

Mine was fairly close to medium rare, and theirs were probably just about medium. The most important thing seemed to be that I timed the cooking so that the steaks hit the plate as we were about to eat. I can see myself turning this into a hobby once I have gas in an apartment.

[Josh]

Eat enough steak, and there will always be gas on your apartment.