First post in this thread, just got an America's Test Kitchen cookbook for slow cookers for Christmas and made red wine braised short ribs. Left out a couple ingredients (celery rib, parsley, bay leaves) but it came out phenomenal. I guess America's Test Kitchen's deal is that it wants you to take some more steps ahead of time rather than throwing raw meat into the slow cooker. So you have to actually sear the short ribs and make a sauce and reduce it. But it was well worth the effort, and we had friends over and they gobbled it up. No pics unfortunately.

Red Wine-Braised Short Ribs Recipe
Yield: Serves 4
Prep Time: 45 min
Cook Time: 9 to 11 hours on Low/5 to 7 hours on High

Ingredients:

5 pounds bone-in English-style short ribs, meat and bones separated
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 onions, chopped medium
1 carrot, peeled and chopped medium
1 celery rib, chopped medium
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups dry red wine
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Directions:

Arrange beef bones in a dish and microwave (in batches, if microwave is small) until well browned, 10 to 15 minutes; transfer to slow cooker.

Dry short ribs with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in 12‑inch skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Brown half of short ribs well on all sides, 7 to 10 minutes; transfer to slow cooker. Repeat with remaining tablespoon oil and remaining short ribs; transfer to slow cooker.

Add onions, carrot, celery, tomato paste, and thyme to fat in skillet and cook over medium-high heat until onions are softened and lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute. Slowly whisk in wine and vinegar, scraping up any browned bits and smoothing out any lumps. Bring to simmer and cook until reduced to 1 cup, about 5 minutes; transfer to slow cooker.

Stir broth and bay leaves into slow cooker. Cover and cook until beef is tender, 9 to 11 hours on low or 5 to 7 hours on high.

Transfer short ribs to serving platter and tent loosely with aluminum foil. Let braising liquid settle for 5 minutes, then remove fat from surface using large spoon. Strain braising liquid, discarding solids, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir in parsley. Spoon 1 cup sauce over short ribs and serve with remaining sauce.

All,

A simple and awesome dish: spaghetti carbonara.

Ideal if you have some guanciale or pancetta, but if not, bacon is a fine substitute.

Here's all you do:

Mix up an egg w/ a bunch of parmesan cheese, and some salt and pepper.
Chop up some garlic and some bacon.

Get some spaghetti going in a pot.
Get the chopped bacon going in a pan.

When the bacon is starting to crisp up a little bit, pour off extra fat if you have more than a tablespoon or two per serving. Then toss the garlic in and brown it.

Time it so your spaghetti is ready at this point, and toss the spaghetti into the pan. I toss a little pasta water in with it too. Mix this around and get the pasta nicely coated w/ bacon grease and garlic and bacon pieces mixed in.

Put the steaming hot pasta into a bowl and pour the egg/cheese mixture over it, and mix it all up real good. Enjoy!

Poaching eggs and throwing them on top of the dish instead of mixing them with cheese is really good too

Sorry yim I didn't see this. Bought a Marcato Atlas 150. The build quality is fantastic and it's very solid. Seems like it'll last forever. Ergonomically I haven't used it enough to comment thoroughly but nothing sticks out as bad.

CR,

This is something similar I've made a lot: http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.c...th-fried-eggs/

Very quick and easy.

Just got the Atlas 150 for Christmas myself (snagged the ravioli maker attachment, too). I'm pumped to use it.

I wanted to save this post now that the playground is closed

I read the steak thread religiously. I make some pretty incredible steaks that wow my friends and I have the people who participate in that thread to thank for it. I also have the thread to thank for igniting a passion for cooking that I've developed over the past few years.

Sadly I've never really had much innovation to add. I just sort of borrow the concepts and then add them to my steaks. Similar to what I'm doing here.
I did a search in the "cooking everything else" thread and I don't think many have written much about Duck. I saw gobbo post some excellent pictures about sous-vide duck breast, but I didn't read anything about preperations or tips (Granted I could have missed them). I saw a thread about a roast duck in the Food and Drink forum. It looks excellent but, as I'll explain, I don't think roasting the whole duck is the best way to go about it.
I love duck and I think it is absolutely one of the most delicious things on the planet. I don't think there is anything so tasty as a perfectly crisp, orange duck skin.

From reading and my experience of cooking 5 whole ducks, this is what I've learned as the best way to prepare duck. I'd appreciate any other contributions or ideas.

I apologize that I've never taken any pictures of my own and that the recipes/ideas all come from one site. Nothing orginal here on my part. I just want to share with you what has worked so well for me.

Where I live in Buenos Aires, I have never seen duck parts. I've always bought or ordered the whole thing. Even if availablity isn't an issue where you are, you should buy the whole duck anyway as it is more cost-efficient and I'll show you how to use EVERY PART, even all the skin and bones!

Separating the Breast and Thigh/Leg
As I said before, cooking the whole duck together doesn't produce the best results IMO. If you cook it so you get a wonderfully pink breast, the legs will be undercooked. If you properly cook the legs, the breasts will be overcooked. So seperate the two parts according to the video below (You only need to watch until 1: 50 and read the notes below before cutting the duck up) :
http://video.about.com/gourmetfood/C...t-and-Legs.htm
A couple of notes on the "butchering"
- UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO YOU REMOVE THE SKIN FROM THE BREASTS. I believe the Chef in the video said he had to do that because of some kind of time obligation placed on him by the people at the website. I don't know. I will find you and kill you if you do this. You are losing the very best part of the duck.
- Be sure that when you are cutting the breast away from the ribcage that you are actually "peeling" or even "scrapping" the meat away. If you are "slicing" you are leaving lovely meat on the carcass.
- He says when he gets to the end he tries to find where the leg and the thigh start so he doesn't cut into that. I find that it is best to look from the inside of the bird. When you cut the breast away, you'll see that there is a section on the inside where it is just fat/skin that seperates the breast from the thigh. Make your cut there.

Duck Leg Confit

Let's start with the leg's as this part requires about 20 minutes of prep, 2.5 hours in the oven and then overnight in the fridge. This recipe produces a wonderfully flavorful and super tender duck leg.
Part 1
http://foodwishes.blogspot.com.ar/20...it-part-1.html
Part 2
http://foodwishes.blogspot.com.ar/20...and-sauce.html
- He mentions in the comments that you should use medium to medium high heat when cooking the skin.
- You should do 6-7 minutes on the skin side, then about 4 minutes on the other.
- The sauce that he mentions is so money for so little work. Whenever I serve it everyone tells me I should be in chef school

Sous-Vide Duck Breast

I feel that sous-vide was invented for duck breast.
http://foodwishes.blogspot.com.ar/20...best-duck.html
- The last time I cooked this I forgot to make the shallow cuts diagonally across the skin. Turned out pretty much the same. I don't know what their purpose is.
- You may not need any oil in the pain or just very little when seering the duck. A bunch of fat will render off into the pan very quickly.
- If you have a sous-vide machine, awesome. He does it on top of a stove, which works fine. However my stove's lowest setting is too hot so I use the beer cooler method you can find here.
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/c...vide-hack.html

Duck Skin Potatoes

Now you will be in possesion of a carcass with some skin still left on the underside and also on the wings. You can cut off the remaining skin and make delicious duck fat potatoes.
http://foodwishes.blogspot.com.ar/20...ome-fried.html
-I've never gotten my hands on green garlic that they have in the recipe. I've always used scallions in its place. Turned out excellent.

Duck Stock
You now have a carcass. You can make stock! Instead of the neck and other chicken parts in this recipe just use the whole duck carcass. It is a huge luxury to cook with duck stock!

http://foodwishes.blogspot.com.ar/20...-low-sell.html

excellent - this is very good work

time to cook some duck

Chairman Wood, as an avid duck lover, THANK YOU FOR YOUR POST

Looks like I'll have to hit you up for your steak skills next time I'm in BsAs !

Do you have any methods/suggestions for cooking duck breast by pan or oven? Not all of us have a sous-vide machine

That thread inspired me to cook duck confit

(going all duck fat was too expensive, so we part duck fat (the blocks of fat) and olive oil



Overall, could probably have cooked it under the oil for longer, it wasnt tender enough, but I'd had time constraints which prevented me from cooking longer. It was still amazing though, and definitely would try/eat again!

You're welcome! Talk to me when you're next in BsAs. I believe in the first link of butchering up the bird they talk about how to do it in a pan, yet without the skin. I just realized though the link isn't really working. I'll try to find it again later. Gotta a busy day!

However, I still think you should try sous-vide. I don't have a machine either and in the link there is a way to do it on the stovetop. Personally I use a cooler which is also in a link in the post.

DW,

That is excellent!!! Your skin looks delicious! Any recipes or a rundown on how you prepared it?

Vegetarian Dinner

Pan roasted zuchinni, brussel sprouts, Hen of the woods muchrooms, ****aki mushrooms and oyster mushrooms on olive oil, caper mashed potatoes with red wine reduction sauce:




The hen of the woods mushrooms are expensive and hard to find but are really tasty and have a good texture. I'm going to ty to stove top smoke them next time before a pan roast them to see if that gives it a grilled steak flavor

PS..cant believe that mushroom's name got censored, I assume y'all can do the math

Sure. Like i said before, I used a mixture of olive oil (not extra virgin, i think this would have too much of an impact on taste) and solid duck fat, enough to cover the meat. Also since i had only a half duck to work with, something i didnt do was butcher the meat to seperate the leg and breast (i think confit usually uses just legs), this didnt really impact things that much because neither part was over/under cooked. If i were to do it again though i'd buy a whole duck and butcher it.

I then put it in the over for 2.5 hours at 100C, i'd liked to have done this for longer, maybe 3-4 hours. After that, i removed it, let it cool some (ordinarily i think i'd probably place the pot here in a water bath to slow down the cooking process, but like i said i was pressed for time, so thought this extra heat would actually be beneficial), then placed it in the fridge overnight when it was cool enough.

Next day, put the pot in the oven again to bring the temp up, then when i thought it was warm enough, removed the meat from the oil and placed it in a hot pan to sear the skin. This might have been too hot though and you can see where some of the skin stuck to the pan and got removed. I also flipped the meat after a few minutes and finished some of the paler parts with a blowtorch, which is where that awesome colour comes from.

Overall, it was really tasty for a first try, but you can probably tell from the above that there's some tweaks i'd make next time.

i love that you're serving duck confit with all those vegetables

Yeah, i think most of OOT/TLDR wouldnt approve of the sides, but I eat mostly paleo/warrior, Duck Confit is probably not the healthiest thing you can find in that diet...

haha

NEED THE RECIPE

I'm interested in eating more vegetarian and this looks awesome

I'd like to cook some Porchetta but haven't done it before. I've done some reading and searching and two recipes stand out for me:

1) This one

or

2) Or this one.

The second one is an "all belly" recipe (no loin). Does anybody have any thoughts?

All belly seems excessive. I think I want to follow your lead.

I agonized over the exact same question (same recipes and everything) just before Christmas. I ended up buying a pre-seasoned one at my local butcher (Cioffi's in Burnaby). Their's is loin and belly. I was quite happy with the results, though next time I would do the whole thing on my own, using a recipe that had a fair amount of garlic, like the Serious Eats one. I did make a simple salsa verde that did go really well with the porchetta. Whatever recipe you choose, please post some pics!

I'm not sure how healthy it is after I add all the oil and heavy cream, but here goes (maybe you can improve it and make it healthier):

preheat oven to 350F

Start by boiling potatoes until they are soft and skin can be removed

Red Wine reduction:

fine dice a shallot and sauté until translucent
add equal parts Hock stock (or any stock you prefer) and red wine
simmer until its reduced by half or more, whatever consistency and taste you like. I added some unsalted butter at the end but this is optional

while the potatoes & red wine reduction sauce are cooking, prep the following:

* Brussel Sprouts--> cut off the bases and then cut in half
* Diced zucchinis to desired shape ( I used 1/2" x 1/2')
* Mushrooms--->remove stems of s hitakes and cut bottoms off of Hen of the Woods & Oyster mushrooms but not so much that they dont stay in one piece

Set aside the above and wait for the potatoes to be done

Caper, Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes:

skin the potatoes while hot (as hot as you can stand it)
mash in a large bowl with a fork (or you can use a potato ricer if you want it really fine)
add finely diced capers, salt pepper, olive oil, heavy cream and/or milk. If necessary add some of the water the potatoes were boiled in to thin them out or more milk, your call.

I cant really tell you quantities for the above, I just did it all to taste and the consistency I wanted (I wanted a creamy, reasonably stiff texture)

Roasted Vegetables:

In a large pan add some oil (I use pomice olive oil that can stand high heat)

pan roast the brussel sprouts flat side down until they are caramelized, flip and then put on a bakers sheet (keep them separated when cooking and on the bakers sheet so they cook separately and don't steam and get mushy---its ok to under cook them as they are going to be put in the oven)

cook the zucchini the same way and put on the bakers sheet

do the same separately with each type of mushrooms

place everything cooked above on the bakers sheet in the oven to stay warm and cook while warming the potatoes

Plating:

Smear a shoosh of smashed potatoes on your plate, then add all the roasted vegetables on top, then top with the red wine reduction sauce to taste

You have to juggle all of the above so nothing gets over cooked or burnt, but I've seen your work and I'm sure you can more than handle it and improve upon what I did.

By the way, if you want to make your own hock stock, place 2 or 3 smoked ham hocks in a stock pot, fill with water and let simmer over night on very low, it shouldn't even bubble but it needs to get hot so it will cook. By the next morning it should be ready. Its great for all kinds of stuff and you can freeze what you dont think you'll use quick enough. You can also pick the ham hock meat from the ham hocks after the stock is done and add it to soups, braised cabbage/collard greens or make Heston Blumenthal's Chicken and ham hock pot pie from his video:



PS..I made Heston's pot pie and thought it was too heavy, I'd sub out the thighs for chicken breasts, watch out how much ham hock meat I use and possible use milk instead of heavy cream. I'd probably add more mushrooms and maybe some brussel sprouts & onions.

Let me know if you have any questions & good luck

Tried a marinated pork tenderloin. Supposed to marinade for 6-24hrs. Did 6. To oven roast.

1 cup soy
4 tbl oil
4 clove garlic
1/2 onion
2 tbl ginger
4 tbl brown sugar



Added potatoes and a red pepper.



Cooked until tender but over cooked a little bit I think, trying to get the potatoes right. Ended up taking meat out and roasting potatoes more on high, and reducing the sauce on stove top. It was pretty good! But next time need to pay closer attention to the meat temp I think. Dunno, my first go roasting pork.

Fried chicken, mashed potatoes with bacon fat creamed gravy, braised collard greens & onion rings





the secret to awesome chicken is brining then soaking in buttermilk & herbs

That chicken looks nuts! Recipe for chicken+bacon gravy?