The Ultimate Meat in Sauce Method

Most recipes tell you to cut the meat into cubes, fry 'em and then add veg 'n stuff to the pan, and subsequently cook the entire thing for a longish while, often in a slowcooker.

This sort of works, but does the meat no favours and does not really improve the sauce either.

What people like about the slow method is that it breaks down the connective tissues in cheap cuts, but, there is a much better way of achieving the same effect, whilst keeping your other ingredients in prime condition.

Use a pressure cooker, and do the following with any meat-in-sauce recipe of your choice:

1. Fry your uncut lump of meat on a medium heat setting until brown on all sides.  
2. Lift out and place into the steam basket.
3. Add your stock or water to the pan to just below the basket level, put the trivet in and the meat basket back.
4. Pressure cook the lump in the steam for 25-45 minutes, depending on size and type.
5. Set cooked lump aside (and cover so it does not dry out), reserve the stock, wipe the pan dry.
6. Make your sauce as per recipe, without the meat, but use the reserved (and perhaps reduced) stock.
7. Pressure cook the sauce for 7-10 minutes on the middle or lower pressure setting, use the quick release of steam.
8. Take a blender stick to the sauce and veg in the pan (optional)
9. Cut the meat into bite size pieces and add to the sauce.

Freeze in portions once it's all cooled down; or season and re-heat to eat now.

Why is this better?  Because your meat just cooks so much better as a lump (as in, stays juicier and has a much nicer texture and flavour), and the pressure[1] will take care of any connective tissue much better than a slow cooker.  And your veg and spices are not going to be boiled to death but only the amount of time necessary.  Plus, you get to purée the sauce, so it has a nice consistency. (if you use whole spice to cook, use a spice bag to remove them!)

Also, this method of course works for curries (where you sometimes may not want to use the pressure cooker on the actual sauce, but just for the meat) or Au Vin style sauces.

[1] If you're buying a pressure cooker, be very sure that it does deliver 15psi (or, 1 bar) as the top pressure. Otherwise, you need longer cooking times, which in turn affect the taste of the food.  Lots of pressure cookers don't offer that performance that and price is no indicator of quality here.  Beem (a German company) is a very good brand and I have their 8 litre model which I am very happy with. But Tefal, Tower and Kuhn Rikon all max out at 13 PSI, so always check the manual.  If it does not mention the actual numbers, chances are that the pot will not make the grade.  Moreover, if you use your pressure cooker to can food in WECK jars, 15 PSI is mandatory to produce the high temperatures needed to be safe from botulism.

Programming is fun (when stuff compiles)

Went to a BBQ.  Seemed to be a training session for competitive eating :-)

Came home, got my project's blueprint working.  Got emacs to smoke'n'choke with an M-x indent-region -- no idea what it did there, but it needed 20 minutes to indent gbg_test.h.  Impressive.

This music definitely helped things along :-)

Shellicious!

Shell Style Guide -- how to code bash scripts in style.

How to scramble eggs inside their shell, for a neat pocket omelette, now with industrial trick:

The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools. 

          Confucius

TIL: Nuked Broth + Salt = Instant Geyser

This is not a code post.  But I was very impressed and thought I share this warning.  But sheer luck I avoided what could have been a serious burn on my hands and fingers ;-( )

I made some of my famous broth[1], formed 4 small meatballs and dropped that with a squirt of tomato paste and some parsley into a 1pt pyrex jug and filled it up to 1/2 pt with extra strong broth. Covered it with a silicone mat and nuked it  @600W for 4 minutes and ... added 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Luckily I poured the salt into my hand and dropped it in from a height --- because the entire thing welled up with a bubbly vengeance and poured forth over the edges of the jug.

Superheated much?  OMG.

Points to make:

• I was very lucky moving it out of the nuke didn't make it erupt.
• I was even more lucky not to stick the salt onto a spoon and stir.  To stir this kind of thing, you'd need a long cooking spoon.  But that's not the smart way to do it either.

What I should have done is pull it out at 1 minute intervals and stir it, leave it sit for 20-30 sec before zapping it again.  

Be safe and eat well.

[1] The recipe!

Don't use salt or pepper (and other spices) until you're ready to use the result.  

Hour 0:

Start with a slow cooker or a pressure cooker (because that closes very well).  Set on low heat, you want a very slow simmer, if the pressure valve releases steam, it's too hot.  Ideally, no steam leaves the vessel.

Add 1 kg+ of oxtail or other big bones (break with a hammer if not cut), 2 table spoon of vinegar (to leach the bones' goodness) and cover the bones with boiling water.

Hour 24:

Add those frozen, broken bird bones, gristle, skin and knuckles you carefully have saved in a freezer bag every time you gnawed or otherwise dissected something delicious.   Add more boiling water to just cover.

Hour 40:

Add veggies --- 1/2 a green celery head, 4-6 carrots, 1 -2 quartered onions and if you have it, some chopped celeriac or, chopped parsley root(for the gardeners amongst you).  And a big bayleaf.  Add more boiling water to just cover.

Hour 47 1/2:

Now is the time to optionally add things like parsley stalks (not the leaves) or 1/2 a leaf of lovage (beware.  It's nice but easily dominates, pervasively so).

Hour 48:

Leave it to cool down, now pour the entire thing through a sieve.

Once cooled down:

It should solidify into a jelly.  If not, use bags you put into mugs for easier pouring and tying, before you stick 'em into the freezer (minus the mug).  For small cubes, use the ice cube tray, or silicone muffin cups.  If you have jelly, use a big spoon to carve off pieces, wrap into cling film and freeze. 

The fat is good for frying eggs and other stuff in (skim and heat carefully to evaporate the last bits off moisture), or if you don't like fat, for bribing a deserving doggy with suitably small portioned treats.

You broth stash will go well in soups and the smaller pieces in cling film go well in vegetables and sauces.  

Plus, it makes your kitchen smell great for 2 days. This makes about 1-2 litres of very strong broth, depending on how many bones and water you've used.  Not enough?  Well, make another lot! ;-D

Search, and ye shall find (or not)

Tesco.ie search at it's finest:

Search results for 'LIVER'

We have found 1 result for LIVER

Did you mean to search for 'love'?

With much hope, I clicked on the link, but, alas:

Search results for 'love'

We did not find any products to match 'love'

Oh well, I'll just have to stick to liver instead... ;-D

Or... maybe some of Charlie Parker's version of 'Love for Sale':

(Actually, I already bought that, some time ago...)

The Raven Dinner Party Recipe

A friend sent me this wonderful 'The Raven' Video.  (gzip and poetry! Oh My!)

It would make a great overlay for Alan Parsons' The Raven song video on the Tales of Mystery and Imagination album.

"The Raven" features actor Leonard Whiting on lead vocals, with Alan Parsons performing vocals through an EMI vocoder. According to the album's liner notes, "The Raven" was the first rock song to feature a digital vocoder."

The entire album is probably one of the finest ever made.  Well worth getting the original Vinyl and a proper old school stereo with serious speakers for.   Everything about it is perfect!

Each song is about one of Poe's stories, here is a sample:                                  
                                        
                      

The Cask of Amontillado: Story mp3, Story html,  Song Video
                                                     
The Tell-tale Heart :  Story mp3, Story html,  Song Video

The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether :  Story mp3,  Story html,  Song Video 
                                                                                                           
I adore all three of them, ...just don't listen to them before bed time.  They all are a little bit darrrrk...

Candle light, ale (and/or Amontillado, plus Champagne) and fine dining are optional (but highly recommended, for a great themed dinner party experience).

Note that all of the stories are lovely to read aloud and just the right length for the necessary breaks in a 3 course meal.

Bon Appetite!

Clean, sliced Data. It's what's for dinner!

Difficulties with data? 

Just curry the lot with coconuts and prawns, and eat it.  

Problem solved.

Guten Appetit!

Ibco Clean Sliced Data 400G

Cleaned sliced data (Amaranthus Lividus)

Ibco Brand frozen vegetables are carefully hand picked, cleaned, washed and processed in the most advanced technology to preserve the natural taste and texture of the product. We take great care to ensure that all Ibco Brand products reach you in perfect condition every time.

Pack Size: 400g

Specially selected and freshly frozen
Cleaned ready to cook
Premium quality

Preparation and Usage: 

Cooking Method
Remove from packaging and defrost at room temperature for 2-3 hours.
Cook like fresh Vegetable.
The above are guidelines only.
Please ensure your food is cooked until piping hot.

Storage:
Food freezers* **** Until Expiry Date
Star Marked frozen food compartment
*** 3 months
** 1 month
* 1 week
Ice making compartment 3 days
Refrigerator 24 hours
*Should be -18°C or below

Country of Origin:
Bangladesh

Om Nom Nom.

I'm having a tough time.

I signed up for the Coursera Automata Class, and it reminds me of the Schraraffenland Fairytale: to get to the fabled country where delicious fried birds fly into your mouth and pralines grow from bushes, you have to eat your way through a mountain of pumpernickel.

Om nom nom. 

(I will probably need to take this class twice, once for the measure, once to sink in)

File under:

'And you do Addition?' the White Queen asked. 'What's one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?' 'I don't know,' said Alice. 'I lost count.' 'She can't do Addition,' the Red Queen interrupted.
                                                                           Through the Looking-glass

(Maybe I should make this into a t-shirt ;-)

I'm also reading through 'The Linux Programming Interface'  book and I'm now starting to cycle down into re-reading the chapters and doing the exercises [(I'm half-way through the book in the first sitting, time for some action), and whilst I'm having fun learning the basics, maybe you would enjoy refining your systems programming jutsu at the same time and heckle a beginner in style ;-)]

If you want to pile in, mail me.

Music I'm listening to:

(this is probably more 'ye olde jazz head stuff' -- but if you spool forward a bit to 10:35, you find some easier listening.  That said, Michel Petrucciani is just wonderful.  Yeah, some stuff is wild, but it always has soul(and much jump). Lots of it.)

Finally, my latest culinary foible is 'sharpening carrots':

See it in action:

Stuff the resulting peel with anything!  Om Nom Nom :-)

{{{ Life is good! }}}

Char Sui chasing Bratwurst & Eggs chasing Chicken Kiev chasing Omlette

Day 1:

Make lots of cuts into the top of a pork belly.  If you like, stab it with a needle too(or a bunch of needles you tied together), as many times as you can be bothered.  Put on a trivet on a plate uncovered into the fridge to dry out, overnight.

Day 2:

In the morning, rub the belly top with ground sea salt working the grains into the cuts.  Make a mix of 1TB  fishsauce, 1 tsp Fivespice powder, 2 TBL vodka, 2 TBL rosewater, pour into a tray with sides that the belly can sit in.

Bathe the non-salted parts of the belly in this,  leave to sit for 3-4 hours.  Dab the moisture off the top, bathe the sides of the belly again, and rub some more salt into the top.  Leave to sit another 3-6 hours. Wipe the top again.

Now take a pyrex tray (I like the big quiche forms) put the trivet back, place belly in skin side down, cover with foil and bake @150 C in a convection microwave (oven only!) for 30 minutes.  Remove the foil, bake another 30 minutes, douse in whatever marinade was left.    Turn over on the trivet.  Bake (no nuke!) another 10-15 minutes @ 170C, until the skin blisters.

Grab a big black iron wo or fry pan.  Put a big hunk of beef tallow in so it's about 2cm deep in the very middle, heat smoking hot.  Sling the belly in, skin down and cover this show with a fat guard (also, wear an apron and stand back, this can and will spit) and watch the skin crackle and pop like popcorn.  When it looks nice, remove, turn over and put on the cutting board.  Eat in slices.  Works great cold too! (and stays crunchy, so it's lunch box material!)

Day 3: 

Heat the wo again, cook 2-3 belly slices for breakfast, along with 2-3 eggs.

Heat the wo yet again, and fry a bratwurst along with 2-3 eggs for lunch.

In afternoon, go to work on a big fat chicken, Pepin style:




Note: Pepin doesn't remove the Parson's nose(ie, the tail) here -- and that usually has the glands the birds use to oil their feathers with, and that doesn't taste that nice.  So I always cut it off and chuck it. (If you have a deserving doggie, then a few minutes in the nuke will make a good treat from this)

The chicken roll Pepin demonstrates is very nice(as is all of his food!), but for my purposes, I split the bird up, and peel the skin off the chicken breast halves.

Grab another pyrex quiche dish again.  Put the chicken breast halves like yin and yang, sprinkle with Italian seasoning, use the parmesan grater to grate a clove of garlic on each, and park as much grated cheddar/mozarella as you can pack on it, top with a slice of Emmental.  Cover with a thick slice of middle bacon (the stuff that is one piece of back AND streaky), mill pepper and cover again with more grated cheddar/mozz mix.

Stick that in your convention microwave and combination cook on 140C for 30 minutes.

Heat your wo (which will have plenty of flavored fat still) again to smoking.  Park the baked chicken (cheese side up) in there and fry for about 5-8 minutes until it's cooked through (the bottom will not be cooked when it comes out of the microwave!)

Serve and eat.

Day 4: 

This fat has a bit of cheese in it, so browning meat is not such a good idea, but heating the wo gently to medium and frying some mushrooms and pouring beaten eggs for an omlette is going to make a nice tasting breakfast.

Now go code some stuff! :)

Chocolate Russian

Whenever I'm too lazy to organise dinner there is always the classic, efficient and healthy alternative: the babushka of all cocktails that is dinner, dessert and after dinner coffee with a few shots.  And possibly breakfast.

Recipe: 1 measure of brandy, 2 measures of vodka, 3 measures of double cream. Blend with fork in glass. Take the parmesan grater and process one square of dark chocolate flakes into the glass so they sit like a mound of snow.  Blend in, repeat.

Drink very slowly, whilst listening to an appropriate song:



I love Dschingis Kahn, this video and the song. It's just fun, in the same way that Village People put on a great show, with brilliant songs. What is the lyric about?

Well, here is my translation, it's even singable (for those of you who are fond of drinking songs :)

Moscow - strange and mysterious,

Towers of dark red gold,

as cold as ice

Moscow - but those who know you well

know that a fire burns so hot, deep inside.

Cossacks hey, hey, hey empty your glasses!

Natascha ha, ha, ha, you look fine!

Towarisch hey, hey, hey, let's drink to life!

To your health brother, hey brother ho!

Moscow, Moscow throw the glasses at the wall,

Russia is a gorgeous land, ho, ho, ho, ho, hey!

Moscow, Moscow,

your old soul is everything

at night the devil's partying, ha, ha, ha, ha, hey!

Moscow, Moscow,

Love does taste like caviar

Girls are meant to kiss and dance, ho, ho, ho, ho, hey!

Moscow, Moscow,

jump the table, dance with us,

until the table crumbles up, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

Moscow

Portal into the past

a mirror of Rus and Tzars

as deep-red as blood

Moscow, those who know your soul

know just how love will burn

as hot as white coals

Cossacks hey, hey, hey empty your glasses!

Natascha ha, ha, ha, you look fine!

Towarisch hey, hey, hey, let's drink to love!

To your health sister, hey sister ho!

Moscow, Moscow throw the glasses at the wall,

Russia is a gorgeous land, ho, ho, ho, ho, hey!

Moscow, Moscow,

your old soul is everything

at night the devil's partying, ha, ha, ha, ha, hey!

Moscow, Moscow

We drink our vodka pure and cold

and live to be a 100 old

Ho ho ho ho ho, hey

Moscow, Moscow

Granddaddy your glass is empty

In the cellar there is plenty

Ha ha ha ha ha

Cossacks hey, hey, hey empty your glasses!

Natascha ha, ha, ha, you look fine!

Towarisch hey, hey, hey, let's drink to love!

To your health brother, hey brother ho!

Moscow, Moscow throw the glasses at the wall,

Russia is a gorgeous land, ho, ho, ho, ho, hey!

Moscow, Moscow,

your old soul is everything

at night the devil's partying, ha, ha, ha, ha, hey!

Moscow, Moscow,

Love does taste like caviar

Girls are meant to kiss and dance, ho, ho, ho, ho, hey!

Moscow, Moscow,

jump the table, dance with us,

until the table crumbles up, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

   @}-,--'---,----

Now apparently there is no official Russian toast:

"No one says "Na zdorovje" as a Russian drinking cheer. 

This is increadibly widespread myth. It does mean "To you health", but they only sayy it as a reply to "Spasibo" i.e. "Thank you". 

Furthermore, there is no universal drinking cheer in Russian, however paradoxical it might sound. Sometimes they say "Budem zdorovy" meaning "Let's stay healthy". 

Which sometimes is shortened to just "Budem" (see Ukranian version). or "Chtob vse byli zdorovy", i.e. "Let everybody be healthy". Thanks to Dmitry 

Old index: Na zdorovje (to your health), Vashe zdorovie or Na zdorovia (Not used !)"

... so, I suggest you either just sing this song instead, or pick on toast at random from this handy (and very educational) list  of international toasts.

Prost Mahlzeit!

Just another lazy Sunday

Today is dedicated to reading all about svn properties, and because it's cold and I want a fire, I'm in the garden, cooking pound chicken on the grill, copying this gentleman's excellent example:

The svn dev mailing list is a lot of fun at the moment, the [RFC] Build System Documentation discussion yields a lot of surprises, some neat puzzles and many 'aha!' experiences, and I'm learning a lot :)