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Food Thread: Luscious Thighs And Dry Butts?

Pork Milanese is one of my easy weekday recipes that I can make with no planning other than buying the chops. Bone-in of course, because A) they taste better and 2. they are fun to eat!

But a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds*, and while my mantra is that as long as the food is good, I don't care what I eat; a little variety can't hurt.

But chicken thighs are damned good, so off to the market I went for boneless, skinless thighs. Usually I would bone them myself, but I was lazy, and in a bit of a rush. And was I happy with the boning job the butcher did? No, I was not. Serves me right!

Anyway, they turned out great! And the variegation of the meat grabbed onto the breadcrumb/cheese mixture very well, so they had a great texture... nice and crusty and crunchy!

*Stuff Jefferson Said, Volume 2. 1938

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Last week, commenter Dash my lace wigs! mentioned that she made a pork shoulder that was tasty but dry. She roasted it at 250 degrees on a rack for a whopping eight hours! I don't know how big it was, but that does seem like a lot of time. Hopefully she will give us the details this week, but in the meantime...challenge accepted!

I made a 10 pound bone-in pork shoulder yesterday, and I cooked it for a bit more than seven hours to 190 degrees. But...I cooked it in a roasting pan, which keeps it in its juices and protects it from some of the drying heat. I think that is the difference, because I cooked mine at between 275 and 300 degrees. I also left the fat cap on the top, and only trimmed the thickest fat.

What? How was it? Delicious! I made a sauce out of the copious drippings, and then mixed about half of it back into the pork after I pulled it. Well, one of the kitchen gnomes did most of the pulling, but I will of course take full credit.

It was moist and flavorful and very well received at dinner. Even the mini humans at the table enjoyed it! Of course the cole slaw was a hit too, and that was courtesy of commenter Bluebell, who sent me her go-to recipe. Good stuff!

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One snag I hit yesterday was that I had bought the pork butt at a local Wild Fork Foods, and it was frozen (all their stuff is). ANd damn! It was frozen hard. Like -20 hard! It took a long while to defrost, and even when I put it in the oven it was still below freezing in the middle.

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This looks tasty and easy and fun. But the insanity of cutting the sausage to ¼ inch makes me deeply suspicious of the recipe.

Cajun Potato Soup

Eh...it still sounds damned good, so I will make it anyway.

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The POSSLQ was given some UK candy by some colleagues, and I of course ate it before she had a chance to taste them. One was excellent! Chewy and caramely and absolutely worth the loosened fillings!

But this one? Yuck! Dry and dusty and bland and not chocolaty at all.

The Brits are just weird when it comes to candy.

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And speaking of Brits...here is my favorite British cooking channel! And this time it is a classic...Braised Short Ribs.

The recipe is about as straightforward as it gets. The reason why it is so good is the attention to detail. Nothing tough, but there are several steps that most people skip.

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Lunch today! A smoked bratwurst from my excellent local butcher and smokehouse.

The difference between good sausages and hotdogs, and the mass-market kind is huge, and well worth the price differential.

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The great garlic experiment of 2025-2026 was a resounding...meh. Send all of your excellent home-grown garlic to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.

About the Bourbon Bubble...I think it has burst, but the category is also suffering from the inflation that affected everything else (Thanks Biden!). I think the sweet spot is still $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.

The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!