The food thread

Couscous

So tonight I made couscous. First I put some chicken stock in a pot (store bought stock but decent stuff) with some flavours: sea salt, black peppercorns, bay leaf, fresh coriander, a couple of leftover morels that were drying out, a couple of allspice berries, some pieces of star anise, some slices of ginger, a couple of garlic cloves, a few strands of saffron, a couple blades of mace, a few green cardamom pods, some dried rose buds my daughter bought in a Chinese tea shop in Montreal a couple of years ago (I think when we flew there to see KT Tunstall). Simmered that for something over an hour.

Meanwhile sauteed some sliced onions in quite a bit of olive oil until quit golden brown, added finely diced carrot and celery and minced garlic, some S&P, some diced mushrooms and oil-packed sun dried tomatoes. Finally mixed in couscous, poured in chicken stock, added green onions, stirred, let sit off heat for 10 minutes. Amazing!
 
Pardon me , I haven't checked into this thread in a long time. Has anybody mentioned Brats. I'm talking good old fashioned "beer Brats". That's right , cast iron 15 1/2" grillin' pan , with about 16" ounces of PBR? Yea, I.m talkin' grillin' the beer with chopped onions , chopped or minced garlic and jalapenos ? Put in the brats and add PBR as needed . I'm talkin' on the barbie. And sometimes , all that grillin' makes you thirsty , so you know what to do about that. Any body knows any thing about Brats or I should say more authentic than this , please feel free.
 
Hmmm. I need to get a new SS Sausage Stuffer. I have a cast iron one but it is a lot of work cleaning etc. The pressure disk does not fit well in the well so lots of meat squeezes out the sides when operating it. An SS one would be the cats meow for making brats, andouille, etc.
 
Sounds good.

13 seasonings, really? I am on a new kick these days. See how few seasonings you can use and still achieve the desired result.

15 I forgot to mention 2 cloves and a little piece of cinnamon. 🙂

I take your point, but couscous is bland and makes flavours disappear. I really just reached for things and threw them in the pot. A piece of lemon zest would have been good.
 
Lunch, after Barcelona plant visit:
 

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The other day I made a nice veggie stir-fry dish. Pea pods, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, onions garlic, etc... My big saucepan is teflon, will use it until it degrades. I have burned two teflon pans in the past. Nasty. Will never purchase another. Hopefully I can find a nice deep ~10" cast iron some day.

This morning, some sauteed onions, then poured three eggs over them and mixed them about until done. My ~7" egg pan is cast iron, Lodge. They make them really porous so that the seasoning is easy. The surface on mine started flaking after ~8 years, so I recently stripped it in the self-cleaning electric oven. I roughly ground off the bottom to shiny metal and reseasoned. It now works better than ever and better than my teflon pans. a spritz of oil wets the whole surface rather than beading up like it does on teflon.

My new secret weapon is an infrared thermometer. I heat the pan to ~300F for sunnyside up eggs. Drop in the egg and shut off the burner and cover it. Let it sit for a couple minutes until the yolk area just starts to turn opaque. Set it on a nice piece of buttered toast and wipe up any leftover yolk with another.
 
(Brat means fry. Boiling a sausage, intended for frying. Only in America)

Sorry I don't care what you say, I'm from Milwaukee and pre-cooked brats stewing in beer are OK. I like emulsified meat brats 15% veal 85% pork the spice mix has to be just right mace, etc. served up just like ball park hot dogs. The pre-cook is usually on the grill but sitting in the beer they come off as steamed or boiled.
 
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