That galantine / ballotine looks great! Pepin is so great, I would watch him cook all day.

You should always brown mince in small batches to stop the pan from cooling down too much and the meat ending up boiling. Just get a pan really hot and chuck a small amount in and after breaking it up don't touch it for a bit before mixing. You'll be surprised how difficult it is to truly burn stuff.

This.

Nice effort cardcore.

Wow, that recipe called for ground beef and pork? How odd. I never would have imagined as every similar asian dish (which I'd imagined was his inspiration) has very fine chunks of meat slightly larger than what I'd associate with ground.

As far as crisping small, fine, or thin meat without overcooking, I believe it's a question of heat as Phatony noted. I believe that's the primary advantage Chinese restaurants have over home cooks with their 30k btu wok burners that allow them to quick fry, char, and glaze things in ways home cooks never can.

This might be some broscience, but I figure the problem is that when you heat meat, the muscle fibers contract, and if over heated, they release their juices (part of the reason to let a steak rest - allowing those fibers to relax so when you cut in they don't force the juice out). The trick is to get a pan hot enough so that when cooking thin, small bits of meat, the surface releases it's liquid (you get the sizzle sound), and crisps up, but the insides are left semi relaxed and allowed to retain any inherent moisture.

As my quest to properly season my carbon steel pan continues, I've been getting it beyond smoking hot on a daily basis, giving it coats of flax, mixed, and canola oil, along with the occasional bacon fat, duck fat, etc. It get's hot enough to instantly smoke oil and char paper towels, so perhaps I'll have to do some experiments in the near future.

You should probably think about it as deep-frying ground meat (but with such small pieces that you don't need your oil to be very deep to deep-fry).

One thing you could experiment with is actually cooking the meat, then mincing or otherwise cutting it up, and frying it in a manner similar to this recipe for crispy adobo flakes. That way, you don't feel like you are making a trade-off between making your meat crispy and making sure it is cooked through.

Does anyone have a good quiche recipe or tips for making a better quiche?


I've made a couple before, and they were very good, but I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for taking it to another level.

^^^^^ Made a thread in the new Food and Drink forum!

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/21...nd-food-drink/

(thank you mods!)

Made Heston Blumenthal's slow roasted chicken today. It looks great, but was too salty, especially the dark meat.

The recipe basically says (I re-watched the episode to be sure) to brine it overnight. I put it in the brine at midnight and took it out at noon. I have made it before, and cannot tell you how long it brined on these other occasions.

Next time? I am going with 8 hours or so. 12 was too much. Real shame, it looked amazing:

anyone have any suggestions/go-to recipes for crepes? would be my first time making them, should i just go with something like http://allrecipes.com/recipe/basic-crepes/ ?



really any advice would be helpful, will do a test run before making them for a girl




edit: in case it matters, i'm going for more of a meal-type salted crepe (so sour cream + caviar topping or something) rather than sweet crepes, not sure if there is a difference

http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2008/...d-up-ones.html

I've tried this recipe multiple times and it comes out perfect every time.

Made some more lamb cutlets last night:





Then tonight I made Jamie Oliver's seared asian beef salad [only recipe link i could find is a google cache, hope it works for everyone] from his new 15 minute meals show. Obviously took more than 15 minutes but it was still pretty quick to make and turned out to be unbelievably good. The fact that you could play around with all sorts of different flavours that all worked really well together was just awesome and every bite was great - i ate way too much and have zero regrets. Not pictured is the dressing which was meant to be pickled ginger, lime, soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil and chilli but i couldn't find pickled ginger so i toyed around with brown sugar and basically made something very similar to the one in gordon ramsays lettuce wrap recipe - although this time it was a little sweeter and seemed to go much much better with the meal than when i made the lettuce wraps (that one was too salty). Anyway:



Definitely slightly overcooked the beef (the nice looking piece at the front was one of the best ones) so I can see it being even better next time - I also just plain forgot about the carrot and limes so i'm eager to try again soon.

Pickled ginger on a salad is surprisingly good.

gracias

Bought this blow torch at Home Depot for about $30



I just picked up this enameled cast iron pot for 40 bucks at Sams, I'm sure there is something deficient about it since its so much cheaper than the French version, any ideas why its so much less?









This stuff is awesome too:

I can't say if that dutch oven is good or not, but I also have a cheapo one by Lodge. It weighs a ton, and pretty much works perfectly for like 25% the cost of a Le Creuset. One of the best cooking things I've purchased.

A couple of years ago I did some research on French / Dutch Ovens. I cannot remember the source (it might have been America's Test Kitchen) but the Tramontina did very well. I think it is made in China.

Parchment Paper Fish. A really easy, healthy dinner that can be made up of almost anything. I used what I had left over in the fridge for example and it came out fantastic.

Cut four pieces of parchment paper into hearts.

I cut up some leftover peppers, red onion, garlic and added a some olive oil, thyme and a dash of red wine vinegar, salt & pepper. Assemble with skin-on haddock on half of parchment paper:


Fold over other half of heart and then begin folding over corners every half inch or so, beginning at the top-middle of the heart and working around to the bottom:


X4:


325 for 15ish:


Add some rice pilaf into brothy package:


Highly recommend.

I made the same recipe a few weeks ago and didn't find the bird salty at all, however, it took us almost twice as long as he recommended to get the bird up to the right temperature.

so this came out really well and was extremely easy. even the first one i tried came out great. highly recommend, thanks!!

27o,

For en papillote, you don't have to do all that folding every inch or whatever. Get a rectangular piece of parch twice as big as your food and fold it over. Then make double folds on each of the 3 open sides. That's 7 folds total.

How about no.

how about your mom.

lol

I had noticed that as well, but this time it cooked surprisingly quick. I think the salt content of the meat impacts the cooking time.

Sous vide strip steak and turkey breast:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/21.../#post35662429