Tell us what you have cooked lately (that's interesting)

Yessss! I need some fish tacos.but I also need @MattN 's nachos. Let’s make it a theme night!

So I’ve got some steaks that were wet aged in cryovac. Would you guys repackage in Ziploc’s for a Sous Vide cook or just throw them in that way? I know I’ve read about people doing that, I’m just worried about any weird smell/tastes. I’m usually pretty anal retentive taking it out and washing it off beforehand.

Wouldn’t worry about off flavors, but you do want to at minimum add salt before cooking.

Yeah, I’m the same way. I’d open it, wash it, and add S&P and aromatics, then re-bag.

Good points, I was in a hurry to cut corners and forgot the obvious. I’ll pull, wash season and cook. I normally just buy fresh at the butcher but these were some Amazon Treasure Truck deal and I figured I would give em a try. They look really nice, that was my main concern I like to be precise when I pick. These are Porterhouses and they have a nice sized tenderloin. My wife and daughter get the filet sides and my boys get to “make do” with the strips. I like to torment them with a few scraps of tenderloin so they know what their missing…hehe Of course dad usually just gets the scraps from the carving…so obviously I’m doing something wrong.

Strip side is the best side. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Speaking of beef, there was a rib roast last week that I couldn’t pass up:

I really need to get some different plates:

Yo dawg, that looks amazing.

Dude, have you seen the scratched-up-ass, chipped-the-fuck-up plates I routinely present my food on in here? At least yours have a single color throughout!

Seconded

Now that’s just cruel. I absolutely love rib roast. Best cut of meat ever.
I usually do one just after Christmas. The Meijer around here stocks them up for Christmas and then after the holiday they price drop them to sell the overages at around $7.99 a lb, so it’s a great time to grab one.

Thanks! It’s a handsome cut, definitely. The herb rub is a good one. We ate our fill on the night, and the rest went for stir fry and sandwiches.

I need to figure out a better method for roasting the potatoes, though. These were parboiled, then tossed with the fat in the roasting pan to finish in the oven, while the roast came out and collected itself on the cutting board. But they didn’t crisp up the way I wanted. I think it’s basically a question of more heat.

Agreed. Your plates are just fine. I just love all these pictures. I constantly ask my friends who are traveling to take pictures of food. Some of them don’t get it, until they start doing it, and then most of them start to get it. It’s really cool.

I freaking love pictures of food. Doesn’t have to be food porny. Beautiful and real is fine with me.

In support of this, I’ll put up something I cooked the other night, no plates involved, and the cast iron skillet I still need to seriously work on soon. But it’s my workhorse, so I haven’t yet.

I love this meal for my son. It’s just simply roasted chicken breasts and yellow rice. It tastes amazing, and it provides a few other meals. He loves it when I slice it thin the next day and reheat it in my skillet with a little olive oil and some salt. Just brown up the slices for him. When he’s done with that after leftovers day, I chop up the chicken–as I did this morning–and make chicken salad sandwiches. Which I freaking love. This time I put a little fresh jalepeno in them. Sometimes I do curry. This time jalapeno. Really good.

I need to get better at egg salad. I love that too. But I have an unnatural fear of boiling eggs. I don’t know why this. I think I’ve said it before. It’s just a weird cooking fear.

Anyway, great looking food there!

-xtien

Looks fantastic. And from someone that cooks a lot of chicken, those are nice looking breasts you have, and I’m saying that as a guy talking to another guy.

Sometimes I sear on the stovetop and finish to temp via roasting, which is one thing I love about cast iron. My main skillet is a workhorse, I use it for damn near everything. I use metal utensils in it and I love the clang and bang I make when moving things around. It gives me an, “I’m cooking!” feel.

On the topic of cast iron, I’ve pretty much hosed the seasoning on my one skillet through a combination of limited maintenance, long and frequent use, and recently a high-temperature steak with a slightly acidic marinade. I’ve taken two shots at reseasoning, but both ended up tacky and blotchy rather than smooth. What am I doing wrong? How can I do it right?

So really it’s taking a oil and baking it into the iron via the small “pores” that open up as it reaches higher temps. You take it literally to the smoke point of whatever you are using to season the skillet with. In the past when it was the primary and sometimes only cooking vessel used, they would use lard to season cast iron. Animal fats can go rancid over time (if not frequently heated off,) thus people use different oils these days. A lot of folks like to use oils with a higher smoke temp, but you need to remember that as you literally take it to the smoke point to form that bond of the oil into the skillet.

Example method: Put oven on 400. Rub oil onto all parts of your skillet. wipe down so there isn’t excess. Put it upside down in the oven for 30 mintues. Take it out, rub it down, do it again. Take it out, rub it down and let it cool. If needed, repeat all that a few times. Though it doesn’t really “layer” it does get more and more into the crevices of the iron and will take on a darker and darker sheen because you are polymerizing the oil onto the pan. It forms a bond that is not scrapeable really and that’s the key. That polymer protects the iron from rust, and also gives a bit of a non stick surface.

What people think a lot is that they cannot clean or scrub the cast iron cookware. This is false. You’ll see caked up food and oil on pans that flakes. That is not iron, and not the seasoning. It’s food. Scrub it all off, use soap if you want but get it clean. Then season your skillet.

There are a number of videos and sites that go over how to season, but the basics are that you heat until it smokes, take it out, rub it down (what doesn’t season will pool and create spots, so you rub those to clear it up.) Repeat any number of times you want or need to.

This is my favorite video, however. Skip to 10:07 in the video. He does multiple passes in the oven and slowly raises the temp each time. He also goes over cleaning and quick seasoning.:

Forgot to add, after a light use I’ll wipe mine out and reapply just a touch of oil and rub it in, then store it. That real oil layer just protects it and you can leave it or rub it off before use if you want. For heavier cleaning, I’ll let the skillet cool down, then with the hottest water I can, rinse out and scrub any leftovers with a Scotch Brite Non-Scratch scour pad. I’ll then dry it with a paper towel and put it on a burner on low for just a few minutes to warm it up and ensure it’s completely dry. Finally I’ll rub it with a dab of oil and a paper towel, then store it.

I just did the heat-up till dry and rub down with oil on my skillet this morning so I’m posting what that looks like. Notice it’s clean, slightly oily but nothing caked on. You can see scratch marks and whatnot, none of that hurts it. The polymerized seasoning will fill into any marks on the pan itself.

I feel like fretting over cast iron seasoning is much ado about nothing. It may be because I only use it for searing, but I fine that even when the seasoning is fully off, my super hot bacon grease reseasons after one use.

I just picked up a chainmail cleaner for my cast iron:

I <3 my chainmail cleaner

I have one of those as well. It works great at removing food without taking off the oil seasoning and if you need to clean the pan out for a new seasoning just put some pressure on it and the chainmail does a good job of that as well. Very handy item.