Food Thread: Beef! Cheese! What lese Do We Need Except Bourbon?

That's a chuck roast, and it's a very nice looking example of an underrated and delicious beef cut. Exactly where on the carcass it is cut is a matter of some mystery to me. Sure, it's from the chuck roll subprimal, but some of them look spectacular, and some look like they were the detritus from Texas Chainsaw Massacre V.

Anyway...I had some American Wagyu in the freezer (from Washington State's Department of Animal Science), and grabbed the chuck roast because I was curious what it would look like. My plan was to roast the whole thing, but when I defrosted it the individual muscles looked spectacular, so I separated it along the fat seams, and was left with some glorious looking and tasting beef.

Obviously it was very nicely marbled, and I paid a premium for it (shipping from Pullman Washington to NJ was painful), but it is entirely possible to find excellent quality beef in your local market. Not every day. Maybe not every week or month. But if you pay a bit of attention while walking past the meat counters and displays, you will eventually see something that looks like the graphic up top...so grab it!

I grilled the various cuts, and every single one was delicious and beefy and fairly tender. But also a bit different, which is fascinating. That variety is wonderful, and was exactly what I was shooting for when I split the roast up into individual muscles.

I know...I know...shocking!

When I go to McDonald's it is to get something quick so I can get back into the car and get where I am going. The last time I ate there was on the way back from NH a few weeks ago. And I was quite pleased with the meal! Two breakfast sandwiches from their "Cheapskate" menu...about $4 total, and it took about two minutes from the time I walked into the restaurant until I walked out. And the damned things were hot!

I don't want some highly processed, virtue-signalling mess of a fake burger that probably costs more, is from dubious sources, and is a pale reflection of the real thing.

I hope all of these companies fail spectacularly, and I hope that the investment firms that pumped a lot of money into them are burned, and are suspicious of that sort of silliness for the next few generations.

American agriculture is efficient, and has no problem producing enough protein for us and a lot of the rest of the world. We don't need fake meat. If you want to be a vegetarian...have at it! Just eat the soy beans and rice and yams and tree bark on their own, but don't plague me with your virtue-signalling nonsense.

[Hat Tip: Lizzy]

How sour a sourdough loaf tastes is a function of the activity of the acid-producing bacteria. A longer and cooler fermentation favors those organisms, so I tried a two-day fermentation in the refrigerator just to see what would happen.

And while it was delicious, I don't think it was appreciably more sour, and it was more work to handle. I put it into a banneton for the cold rise, and while I dusted it liberally with flour, and it came out of the mold fairly easily, the wicker was coated with a very thin but very messy sheen of dough.

Yuck. It was a pain in the ass to clean.

Anyway, fresh ricotta (I like Anne Burrell's recipe) is easy to make, and blending it with tasty stuff such as honey and pistachios and maybe some herbs makes perfect sense. it reminds me of something that our neighbors brought over last night...they called it "Crack Cheese," and it tasted great! Sadly, they didn't tell us what was in it...I obviously didn't pour enough booze.

Make pickled red onions. Trust me...they are delicious.

• 1 large red onion, halved, then thin-sliced
  
• 1 cup cider vinegar
  
• 1 cup water
  
• 1/4 cup sugar
  
• 2 tablespoons Kosher salt
  
• 2-3 garlic cloves (crushed)
  
• Dill seeds to taste (I use 1-2 teaspoons)

Dump everything except the onion into a pot, and bring to a boil. Stir a bit to dissolve everything, then set aside.

Rinse a clean canning jar in hot water, then pack the onions into it. Pour the pickling liquid into the jar, making sure the garlic and the dill gets in. Let cool, put the top on and refrigerate overnight.

Or just dump the onions into the pot, let cool, then place in a jar.

The important thing is that the onions meet the hot pickling liquid. Doing it cold simply doesn't work. I have also poached the onions briefly, and that works too!

Yeah...that's it. I'm just pissed...I realized that onions...ONIONS! have doubled in price.

[Hat Tip: Powerline]

Who are those poor deluded souls who shake their Manhattans? These are the same people who drink fine bourbon with coke, and probably shake red wine with ice too.

My and the world's patience has run out. Shaken Manhattans henceforth will be banished to the land of Long Island Ice Teas and Frozen Strawberry Margaritas.

And yes, I used to demand fancy bourbon, but let's face it, $1,200 for a bottle of bourbon is just stupid, insulting, and a ghastly affront to most people's palates and wallets. I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.

posted by CBD at 04:00 PM

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