I dig that man. Once I started hitting up the butcher I never looked back. I get great, pork, beef, chicken (especially the Amish chicken) from this one butcher. Then I get Italian beef. There is a huge difference on store bought and a butcher.
Ordered one of these earlier this week and it arrived yesterday.
http://www.japanwoodworker.com/product.asp?s=JapanWoodworker&pf_id=05.100.16&dept_id=13198
Cut through an orange like it wasnāt even there. I canāt wait to actually cook with it this weekend. If it stands up well against general use, I will order a couple of more. Such an awesome knife.
Iām also having trouble figuring out what to pair steak with that isnāt potatoes. I think I might make a mango salsa to bed it with, and a spicy aioli. I want another side though, maybe two. Not sure what to go with.
got the call from Lowes, gonna pick up my smoker after work tonight. My friend wants to play some SF and smoke some meat tonight lol. Thought Iād have at least a day to prep shit, oh well. Just gonna do some basic chicken pieces and maybe sausages (or even spam lol). hopefully I can whip up a quick brine and let them soak long enough before they hit the smoke. I wanna make sure they stay juicy. Iāll try to post my results.
And if anyone else has a WSM I found this dope website full of recipes and ideas by people who have the same smoker. Gonna try the outdoor oven thing after a few months for some pizza oven goodness.
I think this probably one my favorite threads as of lately on SRK.
Generally I never eat steak or a lot of meat without veggies, have you thought of a steak salad? Also grilled corn, SautƩed mushrooms, onion rings, texas toast with cheese, marinated zucchini, roasted tomatoes, even pasta are easy to make and go well with steak.
Iāll put some tomatoes in the mango salsa, and it should add a nice amount of color to the plate as well as something a little extra to the beef. A garlic bread of some kind, like texas toast would be good. Maybe a small salad? Something green would be nice.
Sounds good please post pics. Also this thread isnāt complete without (put it on random and watch the day go by!):
Since we are dropping shitā¦
Buef chanrtrelle
As always start with a quality cut of beef, tenderloin works best, and go with the basicsā¦ must be blood rare or the flavor is killed, and reduce in butter, sea salt, and cherries, the second it stops to bleed you over cooked the damn thing and failed.
Mushroom sauce, half cup cream, basic dirty roux, basic laison, chantrelle mushrooms, sherry, butter, beef stock.
Roux is made by pan heating the flour till it browns to get a nutty flavor, and then tossing it, donāt let it burn! Laison is beating the egg yolks into more cream and reducing the heat on the sauce so you can blend it in without heating it so hard it turns solid. Itās an art. Chantrelle mushrooms give a light and aromatic flavor.
Main key though, never let the beef be anything but blood red on the inside, the juices stop the flow then and you just served your friends shoe leather.
Tried out my smoker today.
My god. Iāll post pics Monday, but let me just say it now. The beer can chicken was so tender and juicy I almost cried manly tears of joy.
Hit a lot of snags last night. Got to Lowes and made the terrible mistake of underestimating the size of the smoker. Called people I knew, no-one has a truck or SUV. Had to rent one from Lowes (only $25 for 75 minutes but I live close so it was ok). By the time I finally got done it was almost 8. I told my friend we should just grill some shit and we can smoke chicken another time (good for me so I can actually do good prep). But then EVERYONE flaked (except 1 guy but I told him might as well wait for Sunday.) So I wasted like $30 buying shit to grill, when I could have used that to buy chicken and spices for smoking! Oh well. the WSM went together easily, and Iām stoked to finally give it a go. This thing it HUGE. comes up to my chest (Iām not that tall about 5ā7").
Anyhow, yesterday was my Dadās birthday. Didnāt have a chance to buy him anything, so I baked him a cake. Coconut cake with coconut cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut on the outside. He loves coconut, so I figured put it in everything. haha
I love that site. My co-worker introduced it to me and now I browse it all the time at work and email myself recipes I like haha
A raise constitutes value that at least equates to slightly higher than the previous amount =P, lol cool site though I still prefer FP.
Problem with sites like that is they tend to get taken over real fast by vegan fuckwads.
Yeah I feel you on that. I have learned some things about the so called āhealthier optionsā and see that a lot of them just replace one bad thing with another. Honestly I had to make my own adjustments about fixing food to be healthier but keep the integrity of the more āunhealthyā options. I respect vegans for what they are into, but a lot of em have this whole elitist complex that makes them think that because they are vegan then they are ābetterā than everyone. But anyways I have leveled up my fried chicken. I will hook yall up with the recipe when I iron out all of the kinks.
Alright, really big picture time!!!
So I had a chance to try out my āUgly Drum Smokerā this weekend. Smoking whole chickens with the beer can up the butt. I closed the neck to keep the moisture inside the bird. It was pretty much the best tasting chicken Iāve ever had in my life. YES, MY ENTIRE LIFE.
I know Mr. Bastos got a smoker recently and is going to do chicken soon, so Iāll state the challenges I had. I cooked the birds at an average of 340 degrees. It was a little higher than I thought, but as most people have eluded to, itās harder to get the temperature down once itās up. I ended up taking the top off maybe an hour in to add a few coals and another piece of mesquite wood and I swear the air causing combustion on the fire made the temperature shoot from 275 to 550 in 10 seconds. So I had to shut all the vents off and let it cool back down.
The skin was extremely crispy ā too crispy for my liking, however on the flip side the meat was extremely tender. I guess the skin didnāt allow much of the juice to escape.
Anyways, the results:
Spoiler
After about 2 and a half hours smoking:
http://i462.photobucket.com/albums/qq348/kazamamaster/IMG_20120505_140117.jpg
After 3 and a half hours smoking; done and juices practically falling out:
http://i462.photobucket.com/albums/qq348/kazamamaster/IMG_20120505_140529.jpg
Looks delicious. does it matter what kind of beer you use? and did you put any spice or hers inside the beer can?
I might try the āminion methodā for lighting coals. though its moreso for longer smokes it also starts you out with a lower temp, and from what Iāve read raising the temp is supposed to be easier than lowering it. I really canāt wait to try it out. might be a little bit longer than I had though because of some unexpected expenses recently. But hopefully by the end of the month I will have successfully smoked a couple chickens.
I used Budweiser 
Iām not a beer drinker so I donāt know really what to look for when cooking with beer. Iāve used Yuengling when cooking with beer on several other occasions (it makes awesome beer battered seafood), but couldnāt find it in can format. So the Bud was more of a convenience thing. It was fairly light tasting which is a good thing also. I did mix some of my rub in the beer prior to stuffing the can in the chicken.
Also a note about the minion method ā it seems convenient, but Iāve always been concerned about the remainder of the charcoals catching on. I was told black charcoals are bad and the chemicals should burn off before using them. Seems kind of weird to me. Then again what do I know, itās a fairly common method people go byā¦
Here is what I use to fry my chicken. Sorry about the cluttered counter top I was doin a whole bunch that day.
The stuff in the blue bowl is a little concoction that I came up with to help keep the breading on and give the chicken some kick and flavor. I am still working with the ingredients so I will hip you to game with a recipe when I have it perfect.
http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o565/djhyperkid/IMG_8395.jpg
Here is the chicken after I seasoned it
http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o565/djhyperkid/IMG_8399.jpg
And here is the finished product. I cut slits in the foil to let any oil drain and not let it be soggy, I also got a few of them a bit too done for my taste, I am still tinkering with the heat and time. All in all I think its really good, but its missing something. My fiance says that my fried chicken is killin her parents (canāt front I was geekin after hearin that)
http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o565/djhyperkid/IMG_8400.jpg
Keep it up with the pics:tup: What I love about italian food is that itās simple and fast this is the perfect spaghetti and meat sauce only takes 20 minutes:
-Boil 1/2 lb of spaghetti in salt water and a little olive oil to prevent sticking together for 10 minutes (anything more and it will be overdone)
-At the same time heat a large pan with olive oil to medium and add sliced mushrooms, chopped onions, minced garlic and stir for about 2 minutes
-Add 1/2 of ground beef to pan and mash it up and keep stirring for 2 minutes
-When beef is barely pink add 1 cup of red wine to pan anything will do but chianti works best, reduce heat to low and stir for 4 minutes (you want to make sure alcohol evaporates)
-When a lot but not all the wine is evaporated add 1 cup of tomato sauce and stir
-Taste sauce and add salt, pepper and chopped basil
-Drain spaghetti and add it to the pan and put some butter on spaghetti so it melts into it and then stir spaghetti with sauce
Zoolander, replace the red wine with vodka. It is awesome.