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

ccesarano wrote:

Anyway, note that beef stew usually comes with potato and carrots. I removed the potato, but while I enjoy the end product, it is definitely missing something. I tossed in some cut up garlic to help with flavor but that stuff didn't make much difference. The carrots are precisely like I want 'em: mushy and lacking a distinct flavor so that it just tastes like the beefy goodness of the stew.

Missing something flavor-wise or missing something texturally?

Flavor-wise make sure you have your aromatics (onion and garlic) in the stew from the start. They help to deepen and round out the stew's flavor. You can boost the stew's "meatiness" by adding some sliced mushrooms or, a little more advanced, some anchovy fillets, Asian fish sauce, and/or some Worcestershire sauce. They're all big on umami, which provides a very savory flavor and meaty mouthfeel. A bay leaf or two never hurt a soup or stew.

Texturally, I'd probably add back at least some of the potatoes because they add bulk and creaminess to the stew. Keep the skins on to boost the nutritional and fiber content. Also think about adding some frozen peas, which are also kinda traditional, or some pearl onions.

ccesarano wrote:

First question is what else might work with this. In certain contexts I can eat broccoli, but broccoli has a far stronger flavor than carrots so I dunno about tossing that into the beef stew. I'd probably do better with leaner meats (I'm supposed to be eating white meats like chicken, in fact), so other stews or soups that might work are also welcome.

Spinach is always an easy addition to soups and stews. Use frozen spinach and add it towards the end of the cooking time. It cooks very quickly and you don't want it in there for hours.

Instead of adding broccoli to the stew, you might want to look into roasting it. Roasted broccoli has this amazing nutty flavor that's completely different than raw broccoli. Cut it up into bite-size florets, toss with some oil and minced garlic, and put it on rimmed baking sheet that was pre-heated in a 500 degree oven. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the florets start to brown. If you want to get fancy, hit the broccoli with some parmesan cheese, lemon juice and red pepper flakes. It's a great veggie side you can meal prep and use throughout the week. Roasting also works wonders on cauliflower.

As for other soup or stew recipes, I think you're going to find that beans are your new best friend. They're crazy high in protein and fiber, both of which will make you feel full longer, very nutritious, and cheap. Beans have also been historically used in a lot of cuisines to either stretch or outright replace meat.

Personally, I'm a big fan of a nice split pea soup. There's a million recipes out there, from pure vegetarian to a much more decadent version with a big ole ham hock. My second favorite is a good black bean soup. I've also been enjoying red beans and rice lately which you can make even healthier by using a chicken sausage. Over the winter I discovered a really hearty Tuscan sausage, white bean, and kale soup. If you want to use more chicken, then you can't go wrong with a nice white chili, or chicken tortilla soup, or a good old fashioned chicken soup.

Google's your friend for recipes and you can typically find one that fits your skill level or time restrictions. Most soups and stews will have a slow cooker variant out there.

Parsnips.

OG_slinger wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

First question is what else might work with this. In certain contexts I can eat broccoli, but broccoli has a far stronger flavor than carrots so I dunno about tossing that into the beef stew. I'd probably do better with leaner meats (I'm supposed to be eating white meats like chicken, in fact), so other stews or soups that might work are also welcome.

Spinach is always an easy addition to soups and stews. Use frozen spinach and add it towards the end of the cooking time. It cooks very quickly and you don't want it in there for hours.

Instead of adding broccoli to the stew, you might want to look into roasting it. Roasted broccoli has this amazing nutty flavor that's completely different than raw broccoli. Cut it up into bite-size florets, toss with some oil and minced garlic, and put it on rimmed baking sheet that was pre-heated in a 500 degree oven. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the florets start to brown. If you want to get fancy, hit the broccoli with some parmesan cheese, lemon juice and red pepper flakes. It's a great veggie side you can meal prep and use throughout the week. Roasting also works wonders on cauliflower.

A couple of years ago, a friend said something that really stuck with me: if you want to make good vegetables, you have to treat them like meat (i.e., season them). Any kind of vegetable is much better with seasoning, so if you really want to up your intake, and maybe even start enjoying veggies more, seasoning's your friend. OG_slinger's suggestions on broccoli, for instance, are great.

Chris - have you considered taking an actual in person cooking class?

Particularly a vegetarian one - might open your eyes to a lot of different ways to approach vegetables that you wouldn't have considered before...

ccesarano wrote:

Beef stew post abreviated

I think if you want a substitute for potato that gives you a similar mouth feel without the carbs, i would try Parsnips or perhaps turnips. turnips have a more pronounced flavor but i think the texture will be right for what your going for.

I'll look into it, though right now I doubt I can afford it. Could help, though.

If cost is an issue for a cooking class, you might also be able to get some mileage out of a good vegetarian cookbook, or a cookbook that has good vegetable recipes. Provides, of course, that you can push yourself to prepare the stuff.

Also, are there any veggies you like more than others, or any types of dishes you have an easier time tolerating? There might be some people here who can recommend something.

if you are looking to up your basic technique game, this is also a good and accessible resource i've found really enlightening:

Basics With Babish

LastSurprise wrote:

if you want to make good vegetables, you have to treat them like meat (i.e., season them).

If by "meat" you mean "steak" and by "season them" you mean "cook them as little as you can get away with" then we're on the same page.

Though lately I've learned that I do like roasting vegetables, even some that I usually prefer raw.

LastSurprise wrote:

Also, are there any veggies you like more than others, or any types of dishes you have an easier time tolerating? There might be some people here who can recommend something.

The vegetables I like best are potatoes and corn, which are starches and therefore I need to avoid. Broccoli is tolerable under most instances and I'm good with spinach. Onion I prefer to be solid and diced so they're crunchy. I'm not a fan of cooked onions. I actually looked for diced onions at my supermarket and was disappointed I couldn't find any on this trip. I know they've carried them before. As stated, I'm down with carrots so long as they're mushy and tasteless, which seems to be how they turn out in soups.

Try soylent

Start the beef stew with a mix of chopped onion, celery and carrots (optionally garlic). Saute with salt and pepper. Add broth, red wine and the meat.

Simmer that part for a several hours, and the small chopped veg will melt away.

Now add back big pieces of veg you like (carrots, brussells sprouts, whatever). Cook until those are soft enough to eat.

The initial base mix will add a lot of flavor foundation to the stew that you will notice but not see.

If you want this to go faster, do the saute and then Instant Pot the beef for 20min. Then add the rest and maybe hit it again in the instant pot for 5 or 6 more min.

You can also do this with almost any meat. Though white meat chicken will come out on the dry side no matter what you do.

Frozen peas (with or without the frozen carrots) is also a nice thing in stew.

For a more Chinese/Indian bent on this, add chopped fresh ginger to the initial mix.

A lot of Indian curries are just onion, ginger, garlic and chili peppers as a base, and then you stew the meat pr whatever in it with some broth and the other spices (cumin, garam masala and all that).

You can also make the meat base above, and then just eat it with other fresh greens that you cook separately.

The various Chinese green veggies (cabbage, bok choy, etc) are of course the best for this.

ccesarano wrote:
LastSurprise wrote:

Also, are there any veggies you like more than others, or any types of dishes you have an easier time tolerating? There might be some people here who can recommend something.

The vegetables I like best are potatoes and corn, which are starches and therefore I need to avoid. Broccoli is tolerable under most instances and I'm good with spinach. Onion I prefer to be solid and diced so they're crunchy. I'm not a fan of cooked onions. I actually looked for diced onions at my supermarket and was disappointed I couldn't find any on this trip. I know they've carried them before. As stated, I'm down with carrots so long as they're mushy and tasteless, which seems to be how they turn out in soups.

Kaycee is the same about onions. For her sake I saute onions until they turn into a paste, or use onion powder. The former is great for stews.

The initial base mix will add a lot of flavor foundation to the stew that you will notice but not see.

You can also make sure of this by removing the cooked meat after it's done and taking a hand blender to the rest to really pulverize it.

I actually hadn't considered celery. I've tried celery raw and was not a fan.

psu_13, your mention of Chinese green veggies reminded me that, though it's Japanese, I'm actually fine with a lot of the vegetables they put in ramen. So chopped up leeks might be something to look into, bean sprouts, and bamboo shoots. Though I might also need to look into when to best put them in. Right now I'm looking at slow cooker recipes where the idea is toss the ingredients in and walk away for 7-8 hours.

But if I can basically use the ingredients of ramen as inspiration, I might be able to come up with some breadless soups that I can enjoy the taste and flavor of while getting some nutrients I don't typically get.

I also dislike celery, but I do like it as part of a stew or sauce. i find sauteing it or cooking it in stock does away with the off-putting character of celery taste.

ccesarano wrote:

Alright people, the song and dance is familiar by now. Learning to eat better.

It sounds like you aren't comfortable cooking things you like eating so how can you cook things you don't like eating and make them taste good? Start cooking your food as much as possible. Try to do as much from scratch as you can. Don't worry about cutting everything out that has carbs. Try to cook dishes that have vegetables but also have things you like to eat. Once you are in the habit of cooking it's a lot easier to swap out potatoes for other things (like rutabega, kohlrabi, etc).

Personally, I don't think you have to cut out carbs. Cook from scratch as much as possible. Be mindful of what you eat. Check your portion sizes.

As others have echoed, if you’re looking for a potato-y substitute, try some other root veg like parsnips, turnips, or rutabaga. For me rutabaga has the mildest flavor, but when it’s in a slow cooker for 8 hours they’re all largely indiscernible from potato.

How do you feel about green beans? Those are typically a staple in my stews.

EvilHomer3k wrote:

It sounds like you aren't comfortable cooking things you like eating so how can you cook things you don't like eating and make them taste good?

It's not that I'm uncomfortable with cooking things I like eating, it's a matter of time. I thought I'd have a lot more time working from home to cook – and I sort of do – but I cannot cook much during work without being absent from the keyboard too long, and I have other activities that cooking eats into the more complicated it gets. It's why I've never been able to keep up with regularly cooking fancy things. Slow cooking is pretty much the best option since it's often about tossing ingredients into a pot and leaving it, and if you get the crock pot liner then you don't have much clean-up.

Granted, this is my health we're talking about so I gotta get used to making sacrifices, but if I make too many then I'm gonna wind up right back where I was, ordering take out too often and over-indulging in frozen foods high in sodium. I'm trying to find that threshold where I can make enough change to make progress, and yet not succumb to the temptation of the "quick and easy".

Regardless, I've still gotten a lot of great suggestions I'll be trying to implement.

chixor7 wrote:

As others have echoed, if you’re looking for a potato-y substitute, try some other root veg like parsnips, turnips, or rutabaga. For me rutabaga has the mildest flavor, but when it’s in a slow cooker for 8 hours they’re all largely indiscernible from potato.

How do you feel about green beans? Those are typically a staple in my stews.

I am not a fan of green beans. Peas, either, but as I'm avoiding starches I get to gladly leave them out of the equation.

I'll have to experiment with a parsnip, turnip, or rutabaga.

I'm not a big green bean or pea fan either, but I am ok with both in a hearty stew as the long cook time blends them into the background and the texture and taste don't pop like they do when by themselves. Peas are also decent in some rice dishes.

thrawn82 wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

Beef stew post abreviated

I think if you want a substitute for potato that gives you a similar mouth feel without the carbs, i would try Parsnips or perhaps turnips. turnips have a more pronounced flavor but i think the texture will be right for what your going for.

Those are a great suggestion. Another option on that score is daikon (sometimes called japanese radish). They're also low in carbs and have a good mouth feel very similar to other root vegetables. They're not spicy when they're cooked -- they pick up the flavor of whatever they're cooked in. I've taken to including them in the place of potatoes or for adding textural interest to lots of things. I put some in some mashed sweet potatoes the other day and it was really nice (to be fair, the potatoes weren't supposed to end up mashed - I over cooked them and it just sort of happened). You can also rice and zoodle them, but that's getting a bit hardcore - don't start there.

A recently discovered favorite in my household is daikon steak, which is a thick slice of peeled diakon boiled in dashi or tsuyu , and then seared in butter. Got it off an anime (episode 1 of Isekai Izakaya: Japanese Food From Another World on Crunchyroll) and it's amazing. I don't bother with making oden -- just boil the them in the stock, then fry them in sesame oil and do a reduction with soy sauce and a dash of ponzu with the pan juices to drizzle on the top. If you don't want to use it for a meal in and of itself, it goes great along with Hamburg steak, with the soup stock you cooked them in thickened for the sauce.

They're pretty easy to fit into a day. You can set them to simmer gently for a half an hour or so until they're tender, then turn the off to let them cool in the stock while you're working so they soak up even more savory goodness. Then when you're ready to cook pull them out and dry them gently on a paper towel before frying them. I have also simmered them ahead and then put them in the fridge to fry for the next day (I'm cooking for eight adults so the scale is a little different but the general idea might work for you too).

We're having this tonight because i asked Fire to get some daikon at the store for another recipe and he brought home the entire Radish Spirit except for his bowl/hat.

I actually considered giving daikon a whirl, but I'm not sure those or the bamboo... things in Ramen will be available at a regular American grocery store. I don't think there's any Asian specialty markets nearby me, but I could always go a Googlin'.

For some reason i am really turned off by the flavor of western radish, so I've never tried Daikon. How similar is it flavor wise?

I've definitely seen daikon in my local area, definitely at Harris Teeter, but i think other places as well.

thrawn82 wrote:

For some reason i am really turned off by the flavor of western radish, so I've never tried Daikon. How similar is it flavor wise?

I've definitely seen daikon in my local area, definitely at Harris Teeter, but i think other places as well.

They have a similar flavor, but much less intense. You might not even notice once it's cooked.

I'll have to try it.

ccesarano wrote:

It's not that I'm uncomfortable with cooking things I like eating, it's a matter of time. I thought I'd have a lot more time working from home to cook – and I sort of do – but I cannot cook much during work without being absent from the keyboard too long, and I have other activities that cooking eats into the more complicated it gets. It's why I've never been able to keep up with regularly cooking fancy things. Slow cooking is pretty much the best option since it's often about tossing ingredients into a pot and leaving it, and if you get the crock pot liner then you don't have much clean-up.

Since time is an issue (though I really do think spending time on cooking would be a big benefit). I'd also suggest sheet pan recipes. My wife isn't a great cook but she makes a few things that are pretty good. Take some frozen chicken breast, a bag of vegetables, and a can of chili beans. Put them all on a sheet pan and put it in the oven until it's done. She doesn't even cut the chicken into equal sized pieces (the horror). Just puts it all on there haphazardly. Requires very little work but usually comes out quite good.

Well that was one of the busiest Easters I've had in years (Butcher by trade), the combination of traditionally having lamb here in the UK and the good weather meant we sold a good load of barbecue goods as well.

Did have a couple of unique jobs pop up that I thought would be of interest to foodies.

First was a wedding order for 100x8oz sirloins, we got this one in 6 weeks ago so had put 6 best end striploins by for it.

(We have two chills, our daily chill sits at 3 degrees whereas my smaller walk in sits at 0-1degrees so perfect for maturing beef).

Now of course beef well aged is lovely, but confession time, I HATE BONING IT, the beef is just so dry it has no give to it and will tear quite easily.

This means I have to fleece the bones rather than remove each bone one at a time, hate that so much, but it gives a better end result so it has to be done (offends my professional pride I suppose).

My second was a customer who came in asking for a Colcannon of lamb, ???, which was a bit puzzling as Colcannon to me is potatoes with cabbage.

(Its a Irish favourite : recipe with lamb : https://www.rte.ie/lifestyle/recipes... )

Eventually we figured out he was looking for a piece of double loin lamb boned whole (see vid below).

Interestingly my father taught me cut but we know it as Martyrs Cross because of the bones shape, but after looking around on the web its seems this is very much a South West Scotland name only (all the Catholics I suppose), so was just curious, any of you lot familiar with either the name or the cut ?.

Martyrs Cross

Never heard that name. Around here, suburban Maryland USA, I can find leg of lamb deboned, but the cut you show here would not be usual. I've seen the "loin" pieces, I guess they are called - the tubular muscles running down the spine - cut out (leaving a little fat) and sold that way, as a lean "lamb tenderloin", I think.

Yours looks delicious, though.

Tell us, what's a good way to age meats at home? Is it hard, or easy?

Hmm, the biggest problem for home dry aging is probably temperature and airflow.

You need to keep the temp around 1-2 degrees centigrade to inhibit bacterial growth.

Most home fridges don't run so cold, but I did find an American YT of a box that could help you, if it fits your fridge of course...

https://www.thesteakager.com/

This lad here almost gets it right...

Finally this vid is a good watch as well...

"Science of Dry Aging"