I actually dont eat catfish much but it was on sale at Whole Foods and originally was going to fry it in panko but decided to grill it and it turned out really well. I think if all the silver skin is removed its really a great fish and decently mild (just make sure its fresh!). I enjoyed it a lot.

Catfish is one of those foods where if you have a bad experience with it early on, it can really discourage you from eating it again later. Unfortunately, catfish is one of those fish that has close to zero tolerance for not being served fresh. It doesn't take much to push it into being horrible, unlike some other fish which can stand up a little better to being less than completely fresh.

One of the nice benefits of catfish is that it's pretty easy to get super fresh, if you are willing to do a little fishing. Catfish are pretty much everywhere, and not difficult to catch. Just watch out for the spines when handling them.

Fresh catfish is supergood, and removing the silver skin isn't as much of an issue if you are going straight from filleting to cooking.

Nail that catfish to a tree.

would appreciate a recipe for this (or any risotto recipe, never made it and would love to try)

Tilapia is mild IMO. Give it a go

pretty easy but time consuming. It involves a lot of chicken stock and 30 minutes of almost constant stirring but not that hard. Most recipes you find online are going to tell you the same thing. Saute some garlic/shallots add arborio rice, saute for a couple minutes together and add a liquid (was warmed chicken stock, and a little bit of white wine for me) and stir until liquid goes away and repeat a bunch of times until the starches have released and the rice is cooked to your likeness.... I added the crab, sauteed mushrooms, and parmesan cheese at the last second with a little butter.

Hey guys,

Here's one for the people in this thread who aren't semi-pro chefs.

I got a request to make turkey meatloaf the other day. I told her I didn't think Snipe would be impressed by that, and she said "who's Snipe?" I said "oh some dude on an online forum" and she said "WTF are you talking about?" and then I said "nevermind, but can we do it w/ delicious beef instead?" and she said "no." So that brings us to this.

Did a hybrid of:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/fo...eatloaf-107599
and
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/fo...-Tomatoes-1560

1lb ground turkey thigh
.5lb ground turkey breast
1.5 cups breadcrumbs
1 chopped onion
1 chopped carrot
3 stalks chopped celery
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
2/3 cup chopped sundried tomatoes
1/3 cup chopped parsley
various seasonings

Chopped up vegetables and sauteed them until soft, ~15-20 mins. Added parsley at end and cooked it for another minute or two. Dumped into a bowl and mixed with all the other stuff. Shaped into a loaf and brushed w/ ketchup. In the oven at 400 for about 50 minutes, until internal temp was ~170.

Meatloaf!


Super-fancy plating like Snipe:


We demolished over half of it:


Along w/ a bunch of old-fashioneds:


This was very tasty, though obv would have been way tastier w/ meat other than turkey.

Those are some serious ice cubes right there.

Girl drinks old fashioned with giant ice cube like a boss but insists on turkey "meat"loaf? WTF!

SK,

Prior cooking request was ribeye w Mac and cheese (posted in steak thread) so I'll let this slide this one time.

Get some

E,

Yep, that's what I have. I love them, really make cocktails better.

That is some expert ice deployment, having the ice tower above the rest of the drink in order to maximize cooling and minimize melting.

el diablo is nothing if not serious.

27,

In my more serious days I used distilled water for those cubes. I never invested in a tray agitator, though.

Pasta deserves no love.

Mind you, I love pasta. It just doesn't deserve it.

Good to see an OOT cooking thread after last year got skipped.

Grunching this thread (will go back and read soon though):

Snipe, I made those meatballs. They were awesome, thanks for the recipe. The meatballs were really tender, and they had such an amazing flavor. This is definitely a keeper-recipe, and we got lots of compliments from friends.

The changes I'd make for next time are:

- Your recipe made about 45 meatballs, and we had to brown them in 3 batches. I think next time I'll heat up a dutch oven or something in the oven and then try to brown the meatballs all (or mostly all?) at once, just kind of rolling them around in the really hot pan. Browning the meatballs seemed like a real bottleneck for us, timewise.

- Holy **** 3tbsp of red pepper flakes? We stopped at 2 and those bad boys were pretty spicy! Partly, this could have been because in the sauce we used some pretty hot peppers that we had dried ourselves. But I tasted some browned meat that hadn't gone in the sauce yet, and even that was pretty spicy. Maybe I have some potent red pepper flakes but I definitely wondered if you really meant 3 tbsp of red pepper flakes. I'd cut it back to 1 next time (or maybe 0 but stick with the chilies in the sauce). But if you have anyone sensitive to spice, you can definitely omit the red pepper flakes and the chilies, and these are still really, really good meatballs.

I am slow roasting a chicken today, following Heston Blumenthal's recipe that has been discussed in this forum earlier. After roasting to the desired temperature, he lets it rest for 45 min, and then puts it in a blazing hot oven. Could this last step be done with a blowtorch? I have used the blowtorch on beef a lot, but always prior to putting it in the oven. It occurs to me that if the only purpose of the blazing oven is to brown and crisp the skin, a blowtorch might do it faster and maybe even better?

My default position is to use a blowtorch whenever the idea occurs to me. So yes, use the blowtorch. TR please.

What I will do is heat up the oven, and start with the blowtorch. If it doesn't work, I have the oven as plan B.

NICE!!! Glad you enjoyed them! The original Mozza recipe calls for less pepper flakes, so perhaps you're more indicative of the general populace. My gf and I tend to go pretty heavy on heat, so very good note.

As far as the browning goes, it's definitely a time consuming part of the process, particularly as I like to get them very, very brown. As you can see from the pics, I use my Le Cruset, and it lets me do ~10 or so at a time, which requires 4 batches or so. While I love the idea of browning them on something larger, like a griddle, the thing to keep in mind is your burner power. My range sucks, and I get massive heat variance across the bottom of any pan 12" or more (I'm working on getting a new range but do not own the home I live in). If you have the BTUs to support a larger browning vessel, it would definitely improve efficiency, but for the most part, home burners are pretty anemic ime.

El D: Meatloaf is one of my favorites, as are those ice cubes (which coincidentally my gf bought for me last week after my small sized tivoli gave up the ghost). Looks like the loaf came out moist but not oily. Nice work!

http://www.eatdrinkcheer.com/a_mozza_mothers_day

This meatball recipe looks great, and cool to hear they turn out well. I will hopefully get a chance to try them this weekend and report back.

El Diablo - for meatloaf, and similar actually to Snipe's meatball recipe, I don't really like to go all ground beef (and obvi all turkey is not acceptable at all, save for the hottest of chicks), but instead go 1/3 pork, 1/3 veal, 1/3 beef - adds more texture, fat, and general depth of flavor, imo.