Oh, I know that. It's just I really don't usually buying ingredients unless I'm gonna use it frequently, or I can exhaust it all in one session. I use corn/peanut oil pretty much everyday. Lard? Eh, I really can't see myself using it too much.
That being said, I'll at least give lard a shot. If it makes my stuff taste that much more amazing, then I wouldn't mind putting some extra money into my baking experience.
Right there with you my friend One of my biggest "gripes" so to speak with recipes is the issue of buying one-shot ingredients. I'm much happier keeping a few staples and being inventive.
Agh, that's what I figured. Saturated fats aren't very healthy either... oh well. I'll just stick to corn/peanut oil for now.
No, but they certainly are delicious I think it's another "moderation is key" kind of things. You shouldn't be cooking everything with lard, but as a special occasion treat it probably won't kill you.
Great plan. I still go to the website and drool over the menu and I'll likely keep doing so until I can get back to that restaurant. Truly one of the all time greats. Bourdain ought to know...
Oh that's awesome! Do you remember any of the highlights from your trip? A few of the places I've done tasting menus have given me copies at the end of the night to remember; do they do something similar?
Also, your post nearly made my jaw drop I have absolutely no experience with baking or pastries, but I certainly do love them!
I like to keep stuff simple. It could be that my laziness transcends that desire for different or tasty.
This may just be personal rationalization, but I think part of it is that there's a much wider gap between "bad" and "good" food than there is between "good" and "great" food. After cooking a pork loin, deglazing the pan with apple brandy and adding chopped pecans to make a reduction would be delicious, but to me it wouldn't be "that much better" than the pork loin by itself, if that makes any sense. For everyday meals, the extra effort (both in preparation and cleanup) required to bump things up to the next level just doesn't seem worth it. I don't think that's laziness, but rather sensible restraint. Special occasions are obviously an exception.
Hey, what do you think about Deep South cuisine in general? It sounds absolutely scrumptious or worth trying but, in light of literature, it seems good/bad more than good.
Obviously I'm biased, but I honestly think that you'd be hard pressed to find a regional style of cuisine that surpasses Deep South in terms of satisfying, "rib-sticking", umami-packed flavors. Other styles are certainly spicier and showcase a broader range of flavors, but to me classic Southern dishes are the quintessential comfort foods. Scrumptious is a very good word for it!
In a lot of ways these qualities are at odds with current treads in healthful cooking and have resulted in Southern cuisine being vilified in these times of rampant obesity and diabetes. Southern cuisine uses tons of butter, lard, salt, and sugar, and focuses heavily on pan and deep frying at means of cooking. It's almost certainly not a good idea to eat "classicly Southern" foods for every meal of every day, but as a treat they are wonderful.
One of the biases that I've inherited from reading books by chefs is that the most skillful types of cooking tend to be those that originated with poor people and make use of lesser-quality ingredients. The point being that anybody can make a piece of Kobe beef taste good by simply not messing with it. Making a tough, stringy cut of meat like pork shoulder or a "dirty" animal like catfish into something delicious takes much more in terms of time and skill. That's a big part of my love for Southern, Cajun, and to a lesser extent (solely because of lack of sufficient exposure), Caribbean styles of cooking.
Ah, *envy*. I don't have the motivation/time/energy/direction to follow the industry or any chefs. Who's good? Who's not? How do you get into that?
I'm certainly not as tuned in as I could be, and I don't follow things religiously. I learned some of the famous names by reading books by Anthony Bourdain, and I try to follow the James Beard Foundation Awards to get a sense of who's being tapped as "big" each year.
Among the ones that I'm familiar with, I'd say a "good" list includes Barbara Lynch (Boston), Wylie Dufresne (NYC), Tony Maws (Cambridge), Grant Achatz (Chicago), and John Besh (New Orleans).[/quote]
Anyone here dine at any Michelin-starred restaurants or particularly good places? I've only been to a number in Japan, the United Kingdom, Switzerland (a sad and lonely one), China/Hong Kong, France, and New York (:().
My short list of awesome places would be True Blue in Singapore, which was featured on an episode of Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel; Craigie On Main in Cambridge, which is Tony Maws' restaurant; and Menton in Boston, which is Barbara Lynch's restaurant. My best friend (also a foodie) and I have promised each other that when we graduate (we're both in PhD programs) we'll celebrate by going to The French Laundry, which Anthony Bourdain called, "the best restaurant ever, period."
Goat brains tasted and were textured much like snail/oyster. They're also fairly high-priced. Do pig brains taste the same? What about price range?
Interesting! How were the goat brains cooked? Were they chewy like a snail typically is? I've only had pork brains fried, and the texture is the worst part for me. It's not bad, but it's a little mushy and a little mealy, almost like tapioca pudding. The taste is "porky" (sounds funny but that's the best way I can describe it, you can tell it's pig you're eating) but still very minerally like a lot of organ meats are. Price was pretty reasonable as I recall.
I don't consider myself to be an expert on barbecue, but I did work at a barbecue restaurant - so I think I'm a little knowledgeable on the subject. I can't tell you my old store's rub, but for our briskets we did a memphis style rub and used a half oak, half cherry wood mix. 208 degrees for 18 hours, but we cheated and used a gas/wood smoker that regulated the temperature and rotated the meat on racks for us (most barbecue restaurants cheat like this).
You can really smoke with just about any non-poisonous, non-pine tree wood, Oak is a surprisingly mild wood that can be used with any other wood to mellow the flavor. Fruit trees are sweeter, oak is mellow, hickory is strong, and 100% mesquite wood is asking for pain.
Seriously, mesquite wood is a world of it's own in terms of flavor. Just don't do pure mesquite. It hurts
You've officially piqued my curiosity! Is it a burning pain like from spiciness, or a "too much smoke" pain, or something else entirely?
I suppose I can be called a "foodie", but I really don't like that term. It's too geeky for me, and I play Magic/DnD... I prefer the term "food enthusiast". I'm not much into cooking new stuff, though. Not that I can't cook, just that I don't have much patience to learn preparing new stuff. I do bake new things occasionally, though. Just recently learned to making cheesecake!
I enjoy trying out food from around the world, and I'm particularly fond of eating weird food as long as it's not alive or just plain sickening. Rue, alligator, frog, goat brains, and eyeballs are some weird stuff I already tried, but if you name it, I'd probably eat it. (I hear Rocky Mountain oysters are pretty good :P)
I think I'm kinda spoiled as far as eating weird stuff, though. I grew up eating Caribbean food, which I see many non-Eastern American people consider "exotic". Marrow, pig/cow feet, tripe, tongue, liver, and ox tail (which I love so much!) are things I eat pretty frequently, of which I see people usually giving stink eyes. I have yet to eat Trinidadian food, though, which commonly have iguana on their menus.
When I'm traveling around/on a roadtrip/in a food enthusiast mood, the first thing I look out for are the local eateries, especially specialized buffet tables. I have an addiction with stuffing myself while sampling a variety of tastes. Breakfast buffet, country buffet, fruit buffet, Italian, Japanese, Chinese... hell just mention the word buffet and my mouth starts to water. Speaking of buffet, I am dying of anticipation to pig out at an Indian/Thai buffet that opened up around my area recently for a relative's birthday.
Brains are surprisingly good. I've only had them a few times (and they've always been pig) but I've always loved them. Same for the unwanted cuts of the pig. There's an upscale restaurant/bar near me that serves deep fried pig tail as an appetizer and it's freaking wonderful. The same meaty texture as oxtail but with a crispy coating that tastes like a cross between bacon and pork rinds. Amazing bar food!
keep in mind that any of these types (really any wild game) will require additional fat form another source (such as pork fat). You will need to find a decent butcher / grocery store that is willing to sell it to you.
Very true. He seemed relatively familiar with sausage making so I didn't think to point that out, but I'm glad you did Fat is relatively easy to find at a good butcher, and specialty meat shops with game animals are becoming more common in urban areas. Ideally it should be game you killed yourself, althought that may just be my bias as a southerner coming out
On the topic of smoking, I'm also a big fan of pecan wood.
I completely agree on that mustard-based mess from South Carolina. I do not actually consider that real BBQ. I have had some good Memphis-style BBQ, but I simply think the styles with sauce are a completely different animal. I was born and raised not too far from Lexington, NC, so you can imagine my preference. I actually also like the eastern-style vinegar-based BBQ as well. Kind of an apples and oranges thing, I guess.
Same way for me. I can appreciate and enjoy a lot of different styles, and it often comes down to what I'm in the mood for. If I want pulled pork, I'd rather have a thin vinegar sauce. When it comes to ribs, hold the sauce.
If you can get ahold of it, fresh deer makes wonderful sausage. Game meats in general (boar, rabbit, elk, etc.) are great for sausages because the "tang" can stand up to the spices.
I suppose I would consider myself one, though I'm more of an eater than a cooker. I enjoy cooking and have some talent for it (at least according to the people I cook for), but I generally cook for functionality, frugality, convenience, etc. In other words, even if I know how to make a meyer lemon tarragon beurre blanc, chances are I'm not going to do so if I'm cooking pork loin for myself and my girlfriend on a Tuesday night. I also have a weird gap in my skills for ethnic cuisine; for some reason every time I've tried to make "traditionally ethnic" foods (from the American perspective) like Chinese, Indian, etc. it has come out poorly.
I was born and raised in the deep south (Mississippi), so I have very strong feelings about and biases toward regional cuisine (my passionate opinions about biscuits and gravy can be seen in this thread). I adore BBQ of all types, but I'll fight to the death arguing that Memphis style (dry rub, no sauce) is superior to everything else. Don't even get me started on mustard-based BBQ sauce, though! My family was also very big into cajun and creole food, so I love making many of the classics of that region (red beans and rice, jambalaya, etc.). Proper fried chicken is nearer to art than food in my mind, and I've been perfecting that recipe since my grandmother taught me hers as a teenager.
As for eating out, I enjoy trying strange things when I have the opportunity (I even made a thread about it). When funds permit, my girlfriend and I love high end and celebrity chef restaurants. We usually do that about once a year. Our current obsession is Barbara Lynch, who has a number of fantastic restaurants in our area. I'm certainly not above eating at a food truck, though. For me it all depends on the type of food; I don't want my ribs served at a place with table cloths, for example.
I also enjoy reading about food and following the "industry" as it were. Some of my other favorite chefs (for cuisine, writing, shows, etc.) are Anthony Bordain, John Besh, and Alton Brown.
Wow! I think you're the first person I've ever known to declare a dislike for all things smoked. Is it simply a matter of personal preference? In other words, when you taste smoked foods, can you understand why other people would like them? Or are they all simply revolting to you?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'll second this. Lard brings all the texture benefits of Crisco but adds a nice flavor kick as well.
No, but they certainly are delicious
Lard should give you similar results. You're essentially trading in the hydrogenated oil and trans fats for saturated fats.
Oh that's awesome! Do you remember any of the highlights from your trip? A few of the places I've done tasting menus have given me copies at the end of the night to remember; do they do something similar?
Also, your post nearly made my jaw drop
Indeed, just gottta keep on keepin' on
Obviously I'm biased, but I honestly think that you'd be hard pressed to find a regional style of cuisine that surpasses Deep South in terms of satisfying, "rib-sticking", umami-packed flavors. Other styles are certainly spicier and showcase a broader range of flavors, but to me classic Southern dishes are the quintessential comfort foods. Scrumptious is a very good word for it!
In a lot of ways these qualities are at odds with current treads in healthful cooking and have resulted in Southern cuisine being vilified in these times of rampant obesity and diabetes. Southern cuisine uses tons of butter, lard, salt, and sugar, and focuses heavily on pan and deep frying at means of cooking. It's almost certainly not a good idea to eat "classicly Southern" foods for every meal of every day, but as a treat they are wonderful.
One of the biases that I've inherited from reading books by chefs is that the most skillful types of cooking tend to be those that originated with poor people and make use of lesser-quality ingredients. The point being that anybody can make a piece of Kobe beef taste good by simply not messing with it. Making a tough, stringy cut of meat like pork shoulder or a "dirty" animal like catfish into something delicious takes much more in terms of time and skill. That's a big part of my love for Southern, Cajun, and to a lesser extent (solely because of lack of sufficient exposure), Caribbean styles of cooking.
Dawww
Awesome!
I'm certainly not as tuned in as I could be, and I don't follow things religiously. I learned some of the famous names by reading books by Anthony Bourdain, and I try to follow the James Beard Foundation Awards to get a sense of who's being tapped as "big" each year.
Among the ones that I'm familiar with, I'd say a "good" list includes Barbara Lynch (Boston), Wylie Dufresne (NYC), Tony Maws (Cambridge), Grant Achatz (Chicago), and John Besh (New Orleans).[/quote]
My short list of awesome places would be True Blue in Singapore, which was featured on an episode of Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel; Craigie On Main in Cambridge, which is Tony Maws' restaurant; and Menton in Boston, which is Barbara Lynch's restaurant. My best friend (also a foodie) and I have promised each other that when we graduate (we're both in PhD programs) we'll celebrate by going to The French Laundry, which Anthony Bourdain called, "the best restaurant ever, period."
Interesting! How were the goat brains cooked? Were they chewy like a snail typically is? I've only had pork brains fried, and the texture is the worst part for me. It's not bad, but it's a little mushy and a little mealy, almost like tapioca pudding. The taste is "porky" (sounds funny but that's the best way I can describe it, you can tell it's pig you're eating) but still very minerally like a lot of organ meats are. Price was pretty reasonable as I recall.
You've officially piqued my curiosity! Is it a burning pain like from spiciness, or a "too much smoke" pain, or something else entirely?
Brains are surprisingly good. I've only had them a few times (and they've always been pig) but I've always loved them. Same for the unwanted cuts of the pig. There's an upscale restaurant/bar near me that serves deep fried pig tail as an appetizer and it's freaking wonderful. The same meaty texture as oxtail but with a crispy coating that tastes like a cross between bacon and pork rinds. Amazing bar food!
On the topic of smoking, I'm also a big fan of pecan wood.
Same way for me. I can appreciate and enjoy a lot of different styles, and it often comes down to what I'm in the mood for. If I want pulled pork, I'd rather have a thin vinegar sauce. When it comes to ribs, hold the sauce.
I was born and raised in the deep south (Mississippi), so I have very strong feelings about and biases toward regional cuisine (my passionate opinions about biscuits and gravy can be seen in this thread). I adore BBQ of all types, but I'll fight to the death arguing that Memphis style (dry rub, no sauce) is superior to everything else. Don't even get me started on mustard-based BBQ sauce, though! My family was also very big into cajun and creole food, so I love making many of the classics of that region (red beans and rice, jambalaya, etc.). Proper fried chicken is nearer to art than food in my mind, and I've been perfecting that recipe since my grandmother taught me hers as a teenager.
As for eating out, I enjoy trying strange things when I have the opportunity (I even made a thread about it). When funds permit, my girlfriend and I love high end and celebrity chef restaurants. We usually do that about once a year. Our current obsession is Barbara Lynch, who has a number of fantastic restaurants in our area. I'm certainly not above eating at a food truck, though. For me it all depends on the type of food; I don't want my ribs served at a place with table cloths, for example.
I also enjoy reading about food and following the "industry" as it were. Some of my other favorite chefs (for cuisine, writing, shows, etc.) are Anthony Bordain, John Besh, and Alton Brown.
Wow! I think you're the first person I've ever known to declare a dislike for all things smoked. Is it simply a matter of personal preference? In other words, when you taste smoked foods, can you understand why other people would like them? Or are they all simply revolting to you?