Come all ye self-styled chefs and kitchen users, we must talk.

wordsmythe wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:
momgamer wrote:

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

Their just to inconsiderate.

I'd love to have more free time to properly hand-wash my knives and make sure they're properly sanitized in the process, but I've got this website to run. Adding the regular use of the cast iron pan is enough extra work.

And I haven't ironed in weeks.

I have an easy solution... I dont have a dish washer :P. Didnt stop me from breaking the tip off my vegetable knife though.

Speaking of properly sanitizing stuff. What exactly does one do when a mostly feral teenage relative comes over, makes a messy sandwich using a rather expensive knife, and then puts the soiled knife BACK IN THE BLOCK? Grrrrr!

Oh, yeah. White truffle butter has shown up in my fridge. Any ideas on what to do with it?

ringsnort wrote:

Speaking of properly sanitizing stuff. What exactly does one do when a mostly feral teenage relative comes over, makes a messy sandwich using a rather expensive knife, and then puts the soiled knife BACK IN THE BLOCK? Grrrrr!

That's almost as bad as putting it in the dishwasher!

[size=8]That's way worse.[/size]

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
ringsnort wrote:

Speaking of properly sanitizing stuff. What exactly does one do when a mostly feral teenage relative comes over, makes a messy sandwich using a rather expensive knife, and then puts the soiled knife BACK IN THE BLOCK? Grrrrr!

That's almost as bad as putting it in the dishwasher!

[size=8]That's way worse.[/size]

insert into said teenager?

ringsnort wrote:

What exactly does one do when a mostly feral teenage relative comes over, makes a messy sandwich using a rather expensive knife, and then puts the soiled knife BACK IN THE BLOCK? Grrrrr!

Justifiable homicide.

I made these this afternoon. They make Cheese-Its seem like cardboard sprinkled with the powder from expired generic mac and cheese.

Damn my mother for buying flan mix. Now I want to make crème brulée. All the stuff I'd need is in my Amazon shopping cart. I've been looking up recipes for lavender crème. I'm tempted to try to replicate the Grand Mariner crème I had at a French restaurant in July. The problem is that my mother is a packrat. She's accumulated 28 years' worth of stuff in this house, and that's not even including the stuff we had before that. There's plenty of cookware that's older than I am, and she doesn't want to let go of it, no matter how much of a tetanus risk it may be. *Sigh* my dream house would probably have three kitchens - one for everyday stuff, one for fancy-schmancy stuff or Thanksgiving dinner, and a third in the basement for my soapmaking.

My mother makes a killer crème brûlée, I need to ask her for the recipe. Don't think she uses Grand Marnier though, we're not a fan in our house. So it'll be a French crème brûlée, but not a Grand Marnier crème brûlée.
I've kinda forsaken all milk based desserts ever since we moved, unfortunately. I had a great pana cotta recipe, which I've been unable to replicate here. I suspect it's the milk's fault, it's "partially reconstituted" since were on an island. And it's been doing a number on the pana cotta's texture.

I've been trying out brulee recipes lately. Some recipes sure like to get salty. If I find one I really like, I'll pass it on.

Ah, just stick to the classic lightly vanilla scented custard. Nomnom crunch.

I'm falling in live with pork belly again.

At the wedding I attended this weekend, a goat was roasted. I came home with a big 'ole packet of goat bones.

I plan to make soup. Anyone got any flawless-victory soup-from-bones recipes?

Boil the bones for stock; from there, sky's the limit, really.

Jonman wrote:

At the wedding I attended this weekend, a goat was roasted. I came home with a big 'ole packet of goat bones.

I plan to make soup. Anyone got any flawless-victory soup-from-bones recipes?

Ooh, what was the ethnicity of the bride and groom? I love me some goat!

1. Toss the bones and some onion wedges in a drizzle of EVOO. (optional: depending on what you're going to use it for, include some chopped carrots, big chunks of potato)
2. Spread thinly on a large rimmed baking sheet. Season to taste.
3. Roast all until well browned, turning bones occasionally to brown them all over.
4. Pull out, separating bones and onions (if you added other vegetables, reserve them in a bowl.)
5. Place bones and onion parts in stockpot large enough to cover them with a couple inches of room at top. Deglaze baking pan into stock pot.
6. Cover with water to about an inch above bones. Add bouquet garni if desired. Boil 3 or 4 hours, skimming foam.
7. Pull bones, peel any meat off the bones. Discard any cartilage from joints. Continue to boil stock until reduced to about half or until you're desired strength (if you're preserving it, you might want to go even farther). Occasionally taste and correct seasoning.
8. When done, cool until any fat solidifies and skim from top.

This works for just about any meat (Not fish, though. That's a whole 'nother thing.)

Now, since these are already cooked bones, you might not get a very strong stock off them. If that's the case you may have to supplement. Or if you're doing a recipe that doesn't feature the stock (like a bean dish, which would be more about featuring the beans) you may be okay. I would make that call after the stock is made.

Also, a lot depends if you want a very clear stock or one with some character to it. If you want it very clear, you'll want to strain it thorough cheesecloth as like step 7b. If you want it to have some body or are using it in a dish that has an opaque base (a thickened stew or beans), I'd take the meat you took off the bones and the onions or other vegetables and run them through the food processor until they're very finely minced and add them back in. Once you've boiled the living daylights out of it that meat won't have much flavor of it's own left, but it will enhance that broth quite nicely.

I'd probably roast the extra veggies, add the veggies and meat back in, and do a white bean w/barley soup, myself.

sometimesdee wrote:

Ooh, what was the ethnicity of the bride and groom? I love me some goat! :)

Ermm - mongrel-white? She's got some South African mixed in there, he's at least partially British. They both have that wonderful pasty Pacific Northwestern complexion at this point.

momgamer wrote:

< instructions.txt >

Perfect - that's what I was looking for. Thanks!

Alton Brown's Pork Wellington is amazing. Seriously, try it sometime.

In the course of making it, however, we discovered that the cheap probe thermometer we'd gotten from Target is seriously inaccurate. Can anyone recommend a reliable (put preferably also inexpensive) model?

shoptroll wrote:

Thank you all for shaming me into realizing I should probably figure out how to go about sharpening the set of hand-me down knives I've had since college.

The Spyderco ceramic kits do a very good job of sharpening, and take very little knowledge. They used to be really cheap, too, but they aren't anymore, at about $65.

misplacedbravado wrote:

Alton Brown's Pork Wellington is amazing. Seriously, try it sometime.

In the course of making it, however, we discovered that the cheap probe thermometer we'd gotten from Target is seriously inaccurate. Can anyone recommend a reliable (put preferably also inexpensive) model?

I swear by Thermoworks.

For oven/probe/timers, I use their TW362B which is on Amazon for $24 but can be found sometimes for $20. It continues to be reliable after years of use.

For fast-read (not instant) they have the RT600C (which I use) and the RT301WA each up on Amazon for $20. Both are accurate and take ~5 seconds to get a reading. The RT600C does not have an auto-off feature, but a new battery can run for over a year continuously and it includes a spare. I always make sure to turn it off when I'm done using it.

Do you really want to boil when making a stock? I though simmering produced a better and clearer end product for stock and soup. Thoughts?

I simmer stocks. Boiling can break down flavors.

Edit: By the way, a medium or small crock pot can make amazing stock overnight. They're great for this.

LouZiffer wrote:

I simmer stocks. Boiling can break down flavors.

Edit: By the way, a medium or small crock pot can make amazing stock overnight. They're great for this.

Crock pot cooking may be one of the least appreciated and unsexy cooking methods, but it is still my preferred means of cooking shoulder and rump roasts. And yes, the resulting stock is often better than what I can create conventionally in a stock pot. Sad truth is, however, that I've never attempted to reserve this crock pot stock. It's stupid but I had this crazy idea that doing so was somehow cheating.

ringsnort wrote:

Crock pot cooking may be one of the least appreciated and unsexy cooking methods,

Actually, I think that's microwave cooking.

Meh. Microwave ovens have their place in a kitchen. My issue there is over use and inappropriate use.

LouZiffer wrote:

I simmer stocks. Boiling can break down flavors.

Edit: By the way, a medium or small crock pot can make amazing stock overnight. They're great for this.

Clear and flavorful stock? Pressure cooker is your friend. Just wait until it cools down, otherwise the debris would mix back into the stock. Refer to Heston Blumenthal for further tips.

ringsnort wrote:

Do you really want to boil when making a stock? I though simmering produced a better and clearer end product for stock and soup. Thoughts?

I should clarify, I guess. When I said "boil", I didn't mean cook it to hard crack stage like you were making candy. I meant a low boil, barely moving.

However, for a "game" stock like goat you do have to cook it harder to get the flavor out of the bones. And for clarity, you skim often and then strain through cheesecloth before letting it cool to get that last bit of fat out of it.

Or, as I said, embrace the cloudiness by enriching the broth with the meat and cook something that benefits from it like that bean soup.

And yeah, I use my pressure cooker for making dishes like this a lot. I didn't think to suggest it to Jonman, and I think they have one.

ringsnort wrote:

Meh. Microwave ovens have their place in a kitchen. My issue there is over use and inappropriate use.

I agree with this completely. My biggest peeve is people that somehow refuse to acknowledge the power level setting on a microwave. Tired of your "fresh from the freezer" meal being burned on the edges and cold in the middile? Then put the power level on 50% or 60% and add a few extra minutes and you'll have an evenly heated meal.

It's like if you only cook with your stove top or oven on the highest setting; you'll get a lot of charred and unappetizing foods.

Blondish83 wrote:
ringsnort wrote:

Meh. Microwave ovens have their place in a kitchen. My issue there is over use and inappropriate use.

I agree with this completely. My biggest peeve is people that somehow refuse to acknowledge the power level setting on a microwave. Tired of your "fresh from the freezer" meal being burned on the edges and cold in the middile? Then put the power level on 50% or 60% and add a few extra minutes and you'll have an evenly heated meal.

It's like if you only cook with your stove top or oven on the highest setting; you'll get a lot of charred and unappetizing foods.

It's a pet peeve of mine too. It's very rare that I use the microwave full blast. Pretty much when I use the 30-second reheat button. I WISH I could set the default to about 70%.

90% of the microwave's use in my house is nuking empty plates so that you're not serving hot food onto cold plates.

Full power eff tee dubs!

Since we moved, we haven't gotten another microwave. ^_^