My mom is the best cook I know. We talk about food a lot. Here are two emails I wrote her recently.
Last time I saw her she told me how to make quick pickles. This is an incredibly simple procedure which makes very, very delicious pickles in no time at all. You boil 2 parts vinegar to 1 part sugar with a lot of salt and whatever seasonings you like -- traditional ones are garlic, mustard seed and dill. Then you chop up some vegetables -- celery and carrots are especially delicious, along with the traditional cukes -- and pour the hot brine over them, cover and let them sit until the vegetables are duly pickles, 10 minutes - 1 hour depending. You won't be sorry you did this.
pickling brine was made with 1 part rice wine vinegar 1 part apple cider vinegar 1 part sugar and lots of soy sauce, and a mixture of green, white and szechuan peppercorns. i would have put in some wasabi as well but it's already going in the potatoes. pickled some celery and carrots a la beast, and they turned out so good i moved on to cabbage for fake kimchi and onions, all separate. very, very tasty. and i think i can save the brine for next time too, don't see why not.
Mom and I also talked some about America's Test Kitchen and how we resent their often persnickety and specific but infallible directions, the last time I saw her.
they recommend that you dry-age your roast on a rack in the fridge for 5 days before cooking. i put mine in the day before we left for pdx. when we came back it was a shriveled, dessicated, jerkylike shadow of its former self. i thought i'd ruined $30 worth of meat BUT NO. trimmed off a surprisingly thin layer of jerky and there was the roast, looking very red and happy and smelling great. WEIRD.
then they say that you should brown the meat on all sides in olive oil in a dutch oven, as for pot roast, and then put the whole thing -- dutch oven incl., no lid of course -- in oven at 250 (!!!) for 45 minutes or until internal temp reaches 110. then you're supposed to crank the heat to 500 (!!) until internal temp reaches 130. i could not have accomplished this without my other dad gift, an instant-read thermometer which is really an incredibly useful gizmo. but i did what i was told, allowed the roast to rest for a full half-hour and everything.
the result looked like a picture in an in-flight magazine, an ad for one of those beef-of-the-month clubs. it looked styled. the outside was perfectly brown and crunchy and the inside was solidly, flawlessly rare, with absolutely no grayish ring. it was unnervingly perfect -- too perfect, i found. i kind of like the grayish part. WEIRD AGAIN.
so there's that.
the yorkshire pudding was delicious thank you very much.
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Posted by: オテモヤン | March 26, 2010 at 04:43 PM