Cooking and Dining

[count2infinity]

Damn, nice work c2i. How'd you feel about bake off this week?

I thought it was funny they all massively failed the technical... Prue said that pudding was her all time favorite dessert. There's a whole freaking lemon in the middle of it. WTF?

Results were pretty much what I expected after watching the episode. No real surprises.

I'm pulling for Hermine and Peter. As long as one of them wins, I'll be happy. Dave seems like a bit of a prick and Laura is just nothing.

[Beveridge]

Hello, I am an idiot and also a victim of circumstance.

Every year I go in on a cow with my siblings and parents. So I have about 100lbs of beef in my freezer, and about a third of that is steak. Because of our move, I no longer have a grill. And due to the layout of our house there isn't really a good way to have any kind of grill unless I put it in the front yard, which just feels trashy to me for some reason. I am also hoping to get at least one deer worth of venison this year so I need to work something out.

What is the next best way to 'grill' or prepare steaks like this? No, I am not boiling it in a bag so just don't. Cooking steak in a pan has never been super appealing. Do the George Foreman type appliances cook real steaks? I had one but only ever used it for brats and burgers.
My wife had a pan that acted as a faux-charbroiler but I don't know if we still have it.

Just looking for ideas. So far we have just been cubing it and using it for slow cooker recipes.

Air fryer as one suggested is a good method. It's actually better than you might think.

[dodint]

My wife and I were going to buy an air fryer a few years ago. Then someone here convinced me that a regular oven does the same thing and not to bother. Now I don't have an air fryer and don't know how to use the oven, so I have a house full of cold steak.

[LITT]

use a charcoal chimney and put a grate on top of it

[Ad@m]

Have any of you folks tried butcher box?

https://www.butcherbox.com/

[mac5155]

Backstrap in the jacuzzi tonight. Mmhmm

[tifosi77]

Have any of you folks tried butcher box?

https://www.butcherbox.com/

No, but Mrs Tif has been pushing me to try it for a couple years. Just not for me; to my mind, selecting ingredients is 75% of the process of cooking, and the other 25% is making sure you don't do anything to diminish their quality. But I see the appeal for people who are seeking to find a way to free up a couple hours a week from a busy schedule.

[mac5155]

Good Lawd this was good. Half of a whole backstrap, 3 pats of butter, Montreal steak seasoning. 131 for 2 hours. Finished with a mayo sear and served with baby bellos and egg noodles (for lil mac really but hey why not)

[tifosi77]

Isn't 'half of a whole backstrap' just 'half a backstrap'?



I'm curious about the mayo sear, though. I did it once (finishing a flank steak) on the grill, and didn't really like the results as much as I thought I would. How much do you use? I think my problem was that I went a little cheap with the mayo.

[mac5155]

I did it in a ripping hot pan, was my first time honestly. I probably will never go back. I had seen posts about it on CWJ. I wanted to both impart a little more flavor in the meat (wife's not a huge fan of "gamey" taste) and get a good crust. I used one heaping spoonful of mayo and slathered it on both sides. About 20 seconds and I had a beautiful crust. I'm not sure if it did or didn't have an impact on the flavor but you could hardly tell it was deer.

[count2infinity]

So I have $500 to burn by the end of the year. It's through a rewards program at work. I don't have to spend it, but by the end of the year they're changing the rules to spending the money in an unfavorable way, but they're required to do it, so no biggie.

Smoker? Pizza oven? Finally pull the trigger on a food boiler?

[tifosi77]

$500 would get you 2 Joules.

[count2infinity]

But I currently want zero, so....

[tifosi77]

Doesn't change the fact that it would get you 2 Joules. So I still win.

[count2infinity]

Meh, I'll get the clearly superior instant pot sous vider.

[Shyster]

I'd use it to buy most of an Anova Precision Oven.

https://anovaculinary.com/anova-precision-oven/

[eddy]

Looks like I'm staying home for Thanksgiving so I'm going to make some stuffing. When exactly should I get the ciabatta loaves to time it out with the drying and cutting and oh man I'm in trouble

[count2infinity]

You can dry it in your oven day of. put your oven on the lowest possible setting and pop the bread in there for a bit (like an hour).

[eddy]

Thanks

[mac5155]

Use convection

[NTP66]

@tifosi77: Ever try Alton Brown’s butterflied turkey recipe? We’re doing Thanksgiving by ourselves this year, and I really want to give this a go, since I’ve never cooked a turkey before.

And so it begins.

[tifosi77]

We were going to do turkey yakitori this year, but decided to go KFC style fried turkey.

[NTP66]

This endeavor made me realize that my current kitchen shears are trash, and I need better ones.

[mac5155]

I did that 2 years ago. It was really good. I just didn't have a cookie sheet big enough to catch the drippings so I made a mess of the oven.

[NTP66]

I'm going to be putting two 9x13 pans underneath it, so hopefully it'll be fine. The turkey was just under 12 lbs, but that included the neck, spine, giblets, etc.