Um, this recipe actually turned out really tasty. I pulled it out of a 1968 Family Circle Great Chicken Recipes book, see?
Yeah, that one. I had originally wanted to do a recipe from a recent Food & Wine issue. But after nodding off while reading the list of ingredients I decided this book would do just fine for a Saturday evening. Come see, the pictures are quit tastee.
You know the ones, they're shaped like a triangle log. Fat on one lengthy side and the rest looks pretty lean? Was looking for a tri-tip or sirloin, but no luck. It's the holidays for crissakes, why would they have those cuts? Sigh.
It was 4:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday, I had a preheated oven, could I get this on the table in time?
I call this, Meat Therapy. I had a hankerin' for some meatloaf the other night, a good solid hank. I knew Tiny E wouldn't have anything to do with it, so I figured I could really mess with the recipe I usually use and not hurt anyone. Or piss them off, that's no good. Wanna come see what I did to this one?
Saturday morning found Biggles thumbing through a few cookbooks. He ran across a recipe wherein the roast was cooked all night at 250 degrees F. With a nod, some rustlin's, and note taking, he was off.
Please read on and find out why he's never going to do that again.
Well, that was a lot tastier than I thought it was going to be. Okay, so people have been putting fruit with pork since pork began. But you see, I don't have a sweet tooth, I have a meat tooth. So Fruit & Pork have never crossed my path, until last night.
Music: anything by Deep Purple
Meat: country style pork ribs seasoned cajun like stuff with fatted calf's breakfast sausage
Heat: 300 degrees
Time: 6 hours
ETE: after that
Ah the joys of simple foods.
xo, Biggles
ps- Here we are 6 hours later and cooling. What's next? Anything we want. Warm as is, fry in lard, install in to soups or stews. It's juicy, tender and yet more than tasty. How do I know? I ate some. Get to it!
Whull, this turned out a heck of a lot better than I figured. I had planned on doing a basic pan seared porky chop dinner that would finish in the oven. Something with browny pork goodness that was quick and darned tasty. Well, as quick as you could slice a jalapeno pepper I decided to finish the chops in milk, in the oven. An unexected surprise indeed!
As you can see, I went for the Piglet Roulade this last weekend. Ovened it up last night for dinner. Prolly a bit fancy and yet quite rich for a Tuesday evening after work's kinda meal. What the hell, eh? A Biggles has to eat.
If you look, you can see the skin was on, got all crunchy! The pork roast was filled with juicy flavors that it got from not only the fancy meat, but the peppery sausage kicked in and did its part too.
I think next time I'm going to give myself more time and knock the oven's temp from 350 to 325 and drag the time out a bit. And since they offered, have them wrap it up with the head included. Thank you team Fatted Calf!
UPDATE: December 6th 2006
Hey, check this out! A friend of Meathenge and obviously a consumer of Fatted Calf's fine goodies sends this over for our enjoyment. Remember that roast, up there? The piglet roulade? This is the optional head!
Dang, I wish I'd got all the options on my model. Mebbe next time. Thank you Stephen!
Biggles
I'd like to preface this entry by saying it was meant for Robert over at Get Your Grill On. A few weeks ago he sent me a kind invitation to do some writing over there. I bought this little roast and had planned on doing this outside, in a certain manner, which will remain a secret for now. But we had some nasty ass cold rain and while I don't mind the cold, I'm not going to cook outside in the pouring rain. So, I moved today's entry in to the dry kitchen inside. I'll be posting a notification here when I get my first piece up for those fine people. I can hardly wait !!! It'll be later this week, me thinks.
***
Okay, on one week we're playing around outside. It's pleasant, sunny & does a body good. The next week? I got my scarf on, gloves and all the windows are closed for the first time in 8 months. Time for a little lamb leg roast on a Monday night.
Prep time was about 45 minutes with oven roasting time of 1 hour and 15 minutes (meat only).
I was standing in line at Highland Hills Farm's stall on Saturday morning. Ted was tending to a customer who ended up spending 77 dollars on a handful of beef roasts. One of the items they passed up was a cute little brisket, a few pounds worf. Snatch and grab, I had me a brisket. This wasn't planned, but the lure of the slow cooked beef brisket in my mowf was too much, I had to make it go.
But Biggles, how come the brisket you're picturing here is clearly a brisket a little more than twice just 2 pounds?
Cause I switched gears mainstream, doof. What was to be a little happy meal turned quickly in to an all day affair with a pink slab of beautiful beefy love. And I'm man enough to admit when I'm smitten and on my knees pleading for more.
Come in to my parlor, got your ring ready? You'd better be able to support my brisket or you'll have me to deal with me little mister. Beware all who enter here, it's beefy!
Here we find Biggles' Pork Nurse inspecting the new arrival, pre-op if you will.
I picked up this interesing cut of pork at Mercadito San Juan yesterday after work. The butcher is an interesting guy, his meat changes on a daily basis. What I mean by that is one day they have a load of center cut pork chops and the next, they gone. One day they have a load of whole chickens and chicken pieces and today they're gone. Last week they only had one kind of white fish with shrimp and last night 1/4 of the cooler was filled with fishy items. While this might make some people crazy, I love it because it keeps me on my toes. And you have to admit it sounds kinda nice to have some variety in your meat selection.
I knew I didn't have time to cook this roast on a week night, but I bought it anyway.
A local grocery store with a real butcher is still eluding me, even after a week and a half. Mercadito was next on my list and yesterday was the time. It's in the wrong direction, but I don't have many choices left. I've been to this place before and only semi-recently have they opened up a meat counter. I was apprehensive and yet totally willing to let this be the place. In fact, I really wanted this to be the place. I've been feeling a little lost over the last 4 days and in need of some healing.
On today's grocery list are house marinated chicken pieces, fresh tortillas, cheese, limes and any veggies I think the kids might eat. This would be broccoli, sigh. Man, I'm so damned tired of the brocc.
Wanna know how the best damned Thursday meal went?
It still hasn't become real for me that Rick's Quality Meats is done and over with. The last few days have found me teary eyed over the fact I'll no longer find my fancy teriyaki marinated beef ball-tip roast (marinated for 5 days +) for an easy & luscious weekday meal. In spite of myself, life goes on. I must find another neighborhood grocery and meat counter to visit each and every day on my way home from work. Today's adventure lead me to El Cerrito Natural Grocery.
I hadn't planned on posting this meal from last night. It's a rehash of a few other posts I've done in the past, just search Meathenge for turkey breast. But goldangit! I just checked the snapshots to send to Kudzu, for show & tell and decided it needed to be SEEN !!! Awww, pretty meat.
Yes, yes, I know and have heard all the comments about how nasty and tasteless chicken & turkey are. I can still see Scott's face spewing and contorting when confronted with the mere thought of a chicken breast. More for me is all I have to say about that. Wanna see how you can make it worth eating? I maarrrinated it in Italian coarse saallllt.
I believe it was Wednesday when I remembered I'd picked up a little package of duck proscuitto from fatted calf last Saturday. I wanted to move fast and since it was during the week it had to be an easy meal that wasn't too involved AND the little chilrens would eat. So a badass juicy pasta dish was out of the question, along with most other things with ingredients and flavors.
We hadn't had a roast chicken in over a week, it was time.
I received an inquisitive email from Shuna of Eggbeater last week. She was interested in preparing the Fatted Calf's special this week, the Brasato al Midolo. I had to admit I hadn't purchased / gnawed on one as of yet. It couldn't be that tough, it's a simple pot roast and they did most of the work already. After a few more emails it was clear I needed to reserve myself one. Interested to see what went on that lazy Sunday afternoon?
What seemed like a simple, yet easy recipe has turned in to one of the best experiences in cooking and food in the last 6 months for us here at Meathenge Labs. Yup this would be Arrosto Di Maiale Al Latte (Pork Braised in Milk).
Earlier this week I was monkeying around at Kate's Accidental Hedonist and came across a recipe she did, this Pork Braised in Milk. It was simple, it included pork and I hadn't done anything remotely close to it ever before, I was sold.
I read through Kate's adventures a few times, she'd used a pork loin roast. While this will render you a wonderful meal, if you must keep a close watch on a pork loin roast. Once it arrives at an internal temperature of 138 to 140 degrees, it must be pulled. It doesn't have enough internal fat to keep it moist much beyond that range. The next obvious step would be to choose a pork butt roast, but I didn't want to deal with all the fat coming out in to my 'sauce'. I know that sounds odd, Biggles recoiling from pork fat, but I'm sure you understand at some level. Next up is the pork sirloin roast! It's fattier than the loin and leaner than the butt, it's what I chose for this meal. So, it was off to the market for a pork sirloin and some whole milk. Wanna come see this most amazing of pork adventures?
I'll be the first one to admit I'm a meat/food snob. This finds it's evil ways in to cooking methods as well. So, I suppose you could say I'm a meat/food/cooking snob. It's taken years, but I've learned to accept it and to hell with anyone who can't deal with it.
However, I'll be the second one to admit, I can't be an snob for every meal.
So, it's with much pleasure I bring you this awesome "BBQ" Pork Spare Rib dinner.
As I situate myself for this post, I flash back to Saturday evening when this beast was removed from the oven and plated up. I started with Justin Wilson's Mushroom Braised Brisket, followed with simmered greens (swiss chard) and finished with Meathead's Southern Cornbread. Mr. Wilson would have been proud of my version, very proud.
How did this all start? Well, that's a story in itself, are you interested?
You gotta know, coming up with a daily dinner menu has lately become akin to slamming my right hand in a door repeatedly. And lord help me if I have to roast another damned chicken. Yet, after wandering the meat counter at Rick's Quality Meats in El Cerrito for a few minutes, I came away with another !@#$%^ whole natural chicken.
Just when I thought I'd run through my bag of tricks, just when I figured I'd done it all. I roasted meat, veggies & tubers in a new and vibrant way. That's right, I brought two roasting techniques together all in one meal and in one pan no less. The results you ask? Click on brother, or sister ...
I have to admit, I've been in a decent mood over the last few days. Been day dreaming about what's next, what new meat concoction can I toss in to my smoker? Counting the little lambs dancing in my head and thinking how wonderful the olive tapanade stuffed lamb roast was. You know, those kinds of day dreams.
Last night I found myself with a whole chicken. Everyone who loves a good roast chicken, raise your hands. Excellent. Now everyone that loves a rich and savory chicken stew, raise your hands. Teeerific. That's about where I was last night. You see, our summer temps never rose above 78 degrees. The other night I considered turning the furnace on, it was that chilly. Keep in mind, this time last year it was 94 degrees outside.
The flavors I wanted for our dinner was a crispy, bright, roast chicken, but I also wanted that rich broth and stewed veggies that a stew comes with. I had an idea and it was bone simple.
You've probably already figured it out.
Preheat oven to 375, bottom rack.
Cut the back out of your chicken, lay cavity side down. Whack breast so it lays somewhat flat, doesn't have to be real flat. In fact, it helps if it has half of its curve remaining. Olive oil it lightly and install kosher salt evenly over all. Set aside.
Get your dutch oven heated up with a bit of oil and toss in your sliced carrots (it's gotta cook fast, so slice them about a quarter inch thick or so), celery, onion, mushrooms and smooshed whole cloves of garlic. Get all those sizzling along for maybe 10 minutes. Pour in not quite a quart of good chicken broth, you want to just more than cover your veggies. Get this to a rolling boil and let it run for 5+ minutes, good and hot. Lay in your chicken, you want the broth to just come up over the sides, no more.
Put in to oven for an hour or hour and twenty, no lid. Pull and let rest for 10 minutes.
It's really damned cool. When you put the chicken on your carving board, the skin is all crispy and bright and salty. Yet, the meat is fall off the bone tender from sitting in liquid. THE CHICKEN WINGS ARE CRISPY !!! The breast meat was flavorful, tender and had a nice texture. The dark meat was fully cooked and juicy as always and it picked up the stew flavor from the broth & veggies!
So, here you have, "Wet Roast Chicken" and trust me, it tasted twice as good as it looks.
Biggles
Here is a typical "look what I ate for dinner and you didn't" photograph. I'd say I was sorry, but I'm not. As simple as a roast chicken is, I'm never bored by the presentation and taste.
Wash, dry thoroughly, kosher salt the sucker and do an hour at 450 degrees.
When sliced? Juices pour and flavor smacks yer cheeks.
Nikon D70 with 50mm f1.4, used a reflected light off the breast from natural incoming daylight. I hate daylight, but it does come in handy from time to time.
Click on the image to get a larger one, now. Check out the juicy porky love puddlin' below. Come up to the wing there, right there. Golden crunch perfection. Look at the thigh & leg portion, crispy poppy. Hop up on top of the breast portion, see the darker bits? That right there is the Danish Viking-smoked salt. And if move ever so slightly to the right and look carefully you can see the bacon poking out. Do you have any idea what a high roast, viking-smoked salt chicken stuffed with bacon smells like ?!? No? You can you know, all it takes is a little effort and a teaspoon of Danish Viking-Smoked Sea Salt. Oh and a nice chicken and two strips of your favorite bacon. I'm sorry and feel like a bonehead for not keeping this stuff in stock over the last year or two. Never again.
This baked chicken was too easy. And this is why I did it, it was easy. Was it good? Does it look good? Der, it was superb. Moist, moist with a crisp chickenny skin and loads of yummy salt. Yes, it was good. Chef Thomas Keller strikes again.
Rarely do I roast a chicken I don't like, I was not looking for the perfect roast chicken. I tried it because it was so simple, I was able to remember it and it'd take 20 minutes off my cook time. Saving time is a good thing, especially when it looks like this. Interested?
A month ago I was perusing a 1965 Family Circle magazine and ran across a full page ad for Campbells Soup, some recipes too. One recipe was some kind of a meat loaf cooked in a bundt cake pan, covered in Cheddar Cheese Soup & bacon. They called it Crowning Glory. It scared me. The next recipe was a mini meat loaf & traditional American spaghetti with a red sauce. Looks like a gut glump to me. However, the featured recipe was a meat loaf slathered with creamy mashed potatoes and a gravy (yes, made from Campbells soup) over all. This I could do, after all, Comfort Food is what I'm all about. So when Moira from Who Wants Seconds? offered up a contest for a making of some "Comfort Food", I knew what I had to do. I was on a mission.
Tuesday late afternoon found me at the local supermarket feeling a bit wishy washy. I knew I had to find something for dinner, along with some trash bags and kitchen scrubbies. Shopping for meat at one of these places doesn't fill my heart with glee. The chance of getting something worth while is usually quite slim. I figured just so I could get out of there fast, I grabbed the first thing I thought would work, a turkey breast piece. I was on my way out when a light went on, an idea. In my frame of mind though, this light was no larger than a bic lighter flame. It was enough to pull me back to the meat coolers and pick up some halfway decent bacon. I was OFF !!!
Photography Note: I find that my best shots come from single focal length lenses. I know I know, everyone loves those zoom rigs. I suppose their good for many things, but last night wasn't one of them. For this one I pulled out the Nikkor AF-D 60mm f2.8 Micro set to f33. KERPOW.
This meal was a spur of the moment decision. A few days ago my uncle sent me some recipe for a 3 Cheese Potato Gratin. The vision was dancing in my head all that day and by late afternoon I found myself at the grocery store picking up all that was required. First I had to find a hunk of meat that might go with taters. I decided on a pork loin, no bone. Didn't have a choice, if I did I would choose bone-in. Off we go!
As simple as it is, a beef roast during the week brings a warm felt slab of love to the dinner table. We don't have it as often as you'd think, maybe once a month. So I don't get a lot of chance to fuss with different preparations. And since this one was during the week, keeping it simple was a must. Simple, rich, beefy that disapears off the plate too darned fast. Good thing I bought a whole roast.
Sometime late last week I came home and noticed a foodie magazine on the table. The name was Bon Appetit, I heard of it before. Never actually 'looked' at one. The theme of this issue was and still is, "What's Hot, What's Not & What's Next", keeeripes. Whatever. Plus there was something about a Pan-Asian menu, not sure what that is all about. Probably something tasty, but full of vegetables no doubt. First page is a car ad, then an ad for a Celebrity Cruise. Neither of which anyone I know can afford, so I continue. I find Bon Appetit is from Los Angeles, what do they know about anything? Botox!!! That ad is on page 113.
Mama notices me flipping at the magazine and says there's a really nice sounding chicken recipe on page 111 that she'd like to try. I nod and say it really looks like a nice rag and we should definately give it a try!
Unless you have children, please take that ugly ass space hogging microwave oven (and I use the term oven loosely) and have it recycled in to a spoon. Or something equally as useful. Yeah, I don't want to hear the whining. "But it's so fast, it saves time" and "oh it's so economical." And it ruins every piece of food you put into it. "oh but it does corn & taters & bacon so nicely." Great, you have something the size of a large dog on your counter to steam corn. You're so SMART !!!
Are you hosting a holiday meal? Is it coming up soon?
You figure you got it all sorted out huh? Your turkey/ham/duck/quail is on order. Family & friends know what they are bringing, the florist will be on time. The yard is mowed and trimmed. There's gas in the minivan, you're set.
Maybe not. There's always something, possibly ninething. How does one see if they have it together or not? Do a test run.
That's right, cook the meal a week in advance or so and run it through. Your kitchen has changed over the year, maybe your turkey serving platter has disapeared. That's what I found out.
Today I ran through a test turkey meal to see what was there and what wasn't. My turkey serving and/or carving platter is missing. Plus I noticed my linen table clothes all had serious creases in them.
Another damned thing to put on my todo list, but that's okay. I have time now to take care of those things along with everything else.
How is your silver looking today ?
Xo Xo
Yes, it is exactly that. Fried Chicken stew and it must be about the most hillbilly thing I've done in quite some time. It doesn't match my country fried pork ribs, but it still ranks pretty darned high. Read on if'n you're interested, if not, I understand.
Last week, during the Time Capsule adventures, Grampa & Gramma mentioned something about a recipe that included putting an entire lemon in a game hen. It'd have to be a small lemon, fer sure. Well, this last weekend I had a big chicken and a big lemon, it was time.
Most everyone loves beef tri-tip roast, smoked, grilled or otherwise. From what I hear, Californians have really pioneered this cut. Robert in New Orleans says finding a tri-tip locally is damned tough if not impossible. And when he did find one, the butcher asked if he was from California. Yeah well, I found a way to improve the cut. Add cured pork (see above).
Arista Panzanese, oven roasted. That's what you're gazing upon. How many of you made it to The Fatted Calf's stall this last weekend? How many of you picked up a roast, like I TOLD you to? Fess up. Good. But for the rest of you, SEE what you're missing? CHRIS YOU FOOL !!! You admitted to me at the baby shower you missed last weekend. See what happens? I didn't miss out, in fact my wife didn't miss out either. It was delightful, a bit much maybe for a tuesday night meal. But what could possibly follow last night's Dreamland smoked rib dinner? This one did, very well too.
Got chicken pieces? Was the butcher out of whole fryers? Rick was. So I bought three breasts & a pound of bacon (to make up for lost pieces I wasn't going to get). I believe I can work with this, chicken & cured pork. Nothing wrong with THAT.
Meatloaf can be one of those wonderful comfort foods that nearly anyone can cook. The simplicity is at the heart of this meaty wonder. One can use just ground beef or stir in some ground pork to help out. Emeril adds half & half and stuffs the center with an italian sausage in the casing. I usually just do a few eggs, crumble up some crackers or old bread, herbies with spices. Coat with que sauce or ketchup, install in baking dish and in the oven it goes along with some bakers.
There's one thing you simply can not leave out, no matter how you make meatloaf. The lack of this turned our meal in to a meat brick. It sat at the bottom of my tummy for over 24 hours, gack.
Salt, doesn't that look nice? I finally got a chance to use a portion of the Coarse Italian Sea salt I bought a while ago. A few months ago I marinated a whole chicken in a salt marinade for nearly 3 days. This bird came out absolutely amazingly moist & happy. You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between that and a fancy rotisserie one. Interested? Yes you are. That was a bit long and the Meathead family had a disaster of a time reproducing it. So, this last Saturday I decided to lay down some recipe that was reproducible. What I came up with only takes 2 hours and just couldn't possibly be any easier. This will render you rotisserie juice flavor action with almost no work. How do you like that? A lot. Time to move on.
One of the most frequent fears I hear from people is the one where you show up at the Super Market and don't know what cut of meat to purchase.
Sometimes the lead butcher tries to help by installing stickers that say, BBQ or Grilling or Pot Roast. Okay, that helps to some degree. But what if you don't have a grill or smoker ready and you want something juicy?
All ya'lls should just ponder this picture for a moment. Cause brother (or sister), it isn't going go get much better than this (it's a ham, eh).
A few weeks ago, The Fatted Calf's email newsletter rolled in. Somewhere buried in the prose was a mention of two hams available for purchase after the following weekend. My knee-jerk response was to email to see if one was still available, it was. I was set. I remember standing there over my computer thinking what the HELL am I going to do with a 9 lb. ham in the middle of May for crissakes !?!? No birthdays, no holidays ... nada. Oh well, make the best of the situation, I say.
The week came and went, it was Saturday morning and time to leave for the farmer's market in Berkeley. My little 4 year old boy was along for this trip, which guaranteed me no time to hang out. It was going to be a quick trip, grab the meat, look in on Jan at The Blue Bottle Coffee stall and off we went. Really quite uneventful.
click the meat to really see
I've been sitting here in front of my keyboard attempting to find words to describe this chicken breast. I wasn't going to post it, mostly because there didn't seem to be anything here that I haven't done before and/or often. But it is so pretty. Look at it. The colors, the texture, the contrast of the skin and bacon curling up. All you have to do is just 'think' bacon and you can taste it from here.
This right here is a result of a Meat Alert, just in case you were wondering. As you're all aware of, last Tuesday MeatHenge Labs received an email from Fatted Calf announcing we had about 24 hours to put in our order for Agnello Ripieno. It's a lamb roast filled with Nicoise olives, orange zest and fresh pork sausage, yum. The tough part was waiting until Easter Sunday to roast it.
Turkey, as it turns out is meat too. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who buy ground turkey for low-fat dishes, but I just ain't hip to the flavor (or lack of). So when I see my butcher has carved one up so I can buy an actual piece and not have to take home a 25lb bird, I don't hesitate. I really like the flavor of turkey and I find it a shame that we usually only have it a few times a year. Welp, the end of March sounded like a good time.
This one had several layers of flavor ...
What's good for a pre-spring happy luscious meal? That's right, a pork loin roast! Normally I wouldn't have mentioned it (yeah right), but I hear so little about this cut. Heck, I don't even see it in the grocery store that often, if at all. Rick the butcher always has one on hand, which is why we love our butchers, don't we? Yessir.
It's been quite a few years since I bought a chicken piece. Back in the early 1980s I bought chicken pieces because I found the texture of raw chicken ... icky. With those nifty little packages all nice and clean, I was able to just dump them into a bowl for marinading purposes or directly onto the grill. There used to be a package called the "combo pack" which gave you a few more pieces than a whole chicken, I felt like I was getting over on the industry and usually walked out tall and proud. "Check me out, I have one package with more than a whole chicken!" Sounds awfully silly, today. But then, I was The Man.