2681

Made lazy man’s carnitas tonight with brown rice. So easy.

4 pounds pork shoulder butt
2 cups low sodium chicken broth
one onion
some garlic

Cut pork shoulder into big chunks. Liberally apply kosher salt, black pepper and cumin. Stick in pot. Add coarsely chopped onion and garlic. Add broth. Stick in oven at 350, covered, for about an hour. Uncover, cook another hour or two. Serve with brown rice when you feel like it.

2682

For me cooking and music often works as therapy. It lets me get out of my head for a while, and that’s been very much needed during the past few days. The theme this time was seafood with fancy names. Here’s a salmon mousseline, on parsley/dill oil. It’s not cat food, honest.

And here’s my take on a traditional Bouillabaisse. A soup with vegetables, cod, salmon, mussels, and a bottle of white wine.

2683

Okay I’ma delurk to point you to the absolute best gluten-free cookie recipe in the world, from Alton Brown.

I bake these all the time for people who can eat wheat & gluten and they tell me they taste better than regular cookies. Maybe they’re just being polite so as to get more free cookies, but if the cookies were bad I figure they wouldn’t lie to get more, right?

As for bread, I didn’t see why you’re cooking gluten-free, but if it’s because you’ve been diagnosed with Celiac Disease hopefully your bread machine isn’t used. If it is, and it’s ever had wheat flour in it, give it away and get a different one because you’ll never get the contamination out and you’ll be sick every time you use it. :/ If not, I make a lot of recipes from this website and she’s got a lot of bread recipes that work with machines, and the tips you’ll need to make them work best:

http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2008/09/bread-and-quick-bread-recipes.html

I’ve baked a lot of gluten-free breads in the past two years, and while I’ve found that homemade GF baked goods are almost always better than what you can buy in the store, I’ve yet to be able to make a loaf of sandwich bread that tastes better than the Udi’s brand I get at the store. Still, perhaps you will have more luck with your breads, and will be able to save a lot of money. :)

2684

Bacon-wrapped wild halibut (kveite), potato gnocchi, homemade pesto, rocket salad, and a basic balsamic vinaigrette. Not the prettiest plate I’ve put together, but I could eat a crapton of that halibut :D

2685

This is my favorite recipe for getting people to try Tofu:

2686

Halibut - the king of fish!

I’m lucky enough that my girlfriends family are fishermen, both professionally and in their spare time. Once or twice a year we receive a bigass carton of fish from them, normally 15+ kilos of Halibut and other goodies. I love barbecued Halibut, wrapped in foil with some lemon wedges and dill.

2687

I hadn’t had halibut in years before that, so it was really nice. My plan was to wrap it in pancetta, but I couldn’t find any in any of the shops. Seafood has’t been my strongest point as far as cooking goes, but I’ve been able to cross off a few big ones over the past couple of weeks, and I’m planning a couple more before I head on back to my hometown.

2688

Visited my uncle today and (over)cooked some beef sirloin, plus a spinach/cream sauce, a pan sauce to drizzle over, potatoes (not in the photo), and garlic boiled four times to get the bitter taste out.

2689

Awesome. <drools>

Feeding eight people this weekend, so spent most of the day cooking. Today’s results: chicken and dumplings, bastardized cream cheese biscuits, punitions (French sandwich cookies), salad Olivier, cold-brewed iced tea.

Tomorrow’s results: ideally, gazpacho, if my roommates remember to buy enough tomatoes. Trying to duplicate my Spanish host mum’s recipe, which was delicious enough that it wasn’t served by the bowl, but rather by the glass. Just a glass of cold tomato soup with dinner. So. Good. :D

2690

How did you prepare that mousseline interman? It looks fantastic…

While I’m at it, can you give me an idea of what’s in your boullibaisse recipe too?

2691

Sure, let’s see.

For the mousseline I took a decent chunk of “Salma” salmon, which is arguably the best you can get. Fortunately for me I won it at a food festival just by spectating this contest and getting lucky. I cut it into pieces, added salt, pepper and cayenne pepper, covered with cling film and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes or so. More would probably be better, but I doubt I’d be able tell much of a difference. You then add the salmon, finely diced shallots and finely diced whatever else you like to a mixer. Add some heavy cream if you like, and a touch of white wine vinegar maybe. Once you’ve got a mix of stuff you like blitz it in the mixer to get a chunky yet fairly smooth consistency. Next make a meringue. I made two mousselines of that size and used three egg whites. This makes the batter lighter, and a bit like a souffle.

Next I cut parchment paper to cover the molds I’d use, which I then filled up fairly close to the brim, making sure to smooth it out properly.

I put a slice of lemon on top, and made a waterbath in a big pot, which I brought to a low boil. I left this for about 20 minutes or so, but a few less wouldn’t have hurt.

Once done unmold and add whatever you like. For the parsley/dill oil I added a pretty solid chunk of parsley and dill to the mixer, and added olive oil in a slow and steady stream, while mixing it all together. As you can see the parsley and dill are soluble in oil, which gives it that nice color. I then strained it a couple of times, though I should’ve run it through a piece of cloth or something to get the remaining pieces out.

For the bouillabaise I started off by cleaning and preparing the mussels. Google it if you don’t know how. I heated up some oil in a pan and sauted some shallots, carrots, and celery. I added a bottle of white wine to the pot, and steamed the mussels. This builds a stock for the soup that is just awesome. Next I added some more vegetables, cod, and other yummy stuff and left it to simmer for about 45 minutes. I then ran it through the mixer to get a smoother texture, brought it back on the pan, added cream, checked for seasoning, and then added the salmon, which doesn’t need very long to cook. When serving I added the mussels back in.

Overall not too hard if you do things in a sensible order and taste along the way.

2692

That sounds fantastic. I am going to have to try both of those out soon, thanks!

2693

I went on a cooking binge yesterday evening and made two things. First, zucchini-asiago bread:

IMG_3879.JPG1024×683

It came out a bit pale, but quite tasty. Also, sweet-onion gratin:

IMG_3881.JPG1024×683

Vidalia onions, chicken broth, parmesan & Gruyere cheeses, and olives. It doesn’t look like much, but it is heaven on a turkey sandwich.

2694

Mmmmmm, cheese! That looks yummy as heck. Never thought about making a bread like that, but now I have to - one day.

2695

Well interman, I put together a salmon mousseline tonight. It’s currently in the oven. Fingers crossed!

I didn’t make the meringue, for lack of cream of tartar. I was also a bit worried about the sugar making the overall dish too sweet - is that something I should be concerned about? I just added an egg white in the mixture, hopefully that will work out OK…

2696

Also: When you put the boullibaisse in the mixer, I assume you remove all the solids (veggies, cod, &c.) first?

2697

Anyone know a good recipe to make babyback ribs on the grill? I usually make them using AB’s method, but don’t feel like doing that and want something fairly easy to do.

2698

Ribs on the grill are hard. The reasons are due to them getting -extremely- dry tasting unless you cook on a side opposite heat, and have a very low temp setting on your grill (300 or so) and have the patience to cook them for like … forever, 3-4 hours.

Being perfectly honest, if you want delicious and tender ribs (who doesn’t) I would either suggest a boil/bake combo (the latter still taking a long time) or a slow cooker. I find the easiest method for me to be smothering them in sauce and seasonings in a slow cooker for about 6-8 hours, and if needed, take them out at the earlier part of that time and smoke them on the grill to finish. That finish depends entirely on how much you prefer the “smoke” flavor on your ribs.

2699

Well, I have the time, but what I mean by easy is something that I can set and forget (or maybe turn every hour or so). The AB rib recipe is just a tad more involved than I want right now.

2700

Do some digging on the slow cooker method then, it’s about as easy as you can make it: throw it in, smother it with good stuff, set it on low, come back about 8 hours later. A side benefit is that your house will smell amazing by the time they are done.

Here is an example of the 8 hours slow cooked only (can also be done in a stove.)

Here is an example of the 6 hours slow cooked plus grill finish.