Corduroy Orange

I got some beef ribs and some stuff called boiling beef that looks like ribs.  What the heck am I supposed to do with them?

Braise them and they’ll be beautiful.  Especially if you make a barbecue sauce to go on them and finish them on the grill.

First, season them.  I like a nice chili rub: salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, cumin, and paprika.  Throw in a couple more kinds of pepper if you have them on hand; just adjust the toal amount of pepper used to match your idea of how spicy they ought to be.  I like to mix my spices together and taste them alone before I add them to my meat, just to make sure I like the combination of flavors.  At that point, I adjust as necessary.

So, rub your ribs with the spices and sear them quickly in a very hot cast iron skillet.  Transfer the ribs to a pan with a rack and a vary tall lip, cover them, and put them in a 250F oven for about three hours.  I repeat: make sure the pan has a tall lip–these ribs will drip a whole bunch of fat as they cook, and you don’t want it to land on the floor of your oven.

I like to save this fat when the ribs are done cooking.  You can pour it off into a mason jar and store it in your fridge.  This’ll be really good lard to saute with.  Also, if you happen to make a beef pot pie, you can use it as the fat for the pie crust to really pull the flavors of all of the layers to pull together….

As soon as you take the ribs out of the pan— deglaze the skillet with a bottle of good, dark beer.  Be quick!  You don’t want the stuff that came off the ribs to burn!  Stir with a wooden spoon to gather the fond of the bottom of the pan.  Bring the beer to a b oil then reduce the heat to a simmer.  Let the beer cook down.  When it’s reduced by two-thirds, whisk in some ketchup, mustard, molasses, pure maple syrup, and the spices you rubbed the beef with (minus the salt).  Whisk smooth, taste, and adjust to your liking.

Once the ribs have finished braising, slather them with the barbecue sauce you made and hit them onto a hot charcoal grill right quick to caramelize the sauce on them.  Devour with gusto (and a cloth napkin handy).

Hey, Pittsburghers!  Pirates season is starting soon (the home opener is on April 13).  With the same team on the field as last year, I don’t think anyone really has expectations for better results than the bucs have been posting for the past fifteen seasons—but there’s a silver lining to that cloud of losering that hovers over our beloved hometown team: according to CNBC, the Pirates offer the lowest beer prices in the major leagues.

Not that anyone should interpret that as meaning ‘inexpensive;’ a 21-ounce beer (from a major brewery) will cost $4.75—almost $0.25 per ounce.  A call to the Pirates did not yield any word on what a beer from Penn Brewery will be going for at the park this season.

But, take heart—outfield grandstand seats are still just $9 a ticket, and, according to PNC Park policy, “Guests are permitted to bring bottled water and food that may fit into a 16″ X 16″ X 8″ soft-sided bag. Water bottles should not exceed 24 ounces in size, and must be clear, plastic, sealed and disposable.”–so except for a couple of beers, once you’re in the park, a fan on a budget need not purchase any other concessions to enjoy a meal at the game.

I recommend roasted vegetable salsa and a bag of tortilla chips as a tasty way to enjoy some nachos.

Or make some pulled pork barbecue (season, sear, and cook a pork shoulder at 300 F in a cast iron dutch oven for 3-4 hours, shred it, and toss with your favorite barbecue sauce) and pack the meat, cole slaw, and buns in separate containers to assemble your own barbecue sandwiches at your seat.

I’m not a big fan of luke-warm or cold- dogs; (in fact the only way I can really enjoy a hot dog is by smothering it with so much mustard that’s all that I taste), so packing frankfurters into the park doesn’t really make much sense.   But thinly sliced hot sopresatta would be a great ballpark snack.

If you’re looking for something a little more healthful, summer is a great time to enjoy a salad made with local greens.  Pine nuts, crumbled blue cheese, and a mix of dried cranberries and montmorency cherries creates a blend that goes great with a spritz of fresh lemon juice—thereby eliminating the need to carry a bottle of salad dressing or to wilt your lettuce by dressing it ahead of time—just cut a couple wedges of lemons and put them in the same container as the salad.

Cookies always make a great portable dessert.  And nothing makes you friends faster than passing around a tin of homemade chocolate chip cookies.  Unless it’s passing around a tin of homemade chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips—now there’s a tasty confection!  Plus, having at least one component of the meal that you can share will help alleviate the dirty looks you’ll get from your neighbors who are shelling out hard cash for food that’s not as good as what you packed in.

Tell you what—you buy the tickets (make sure you get one for Aurora, too—I’m sure she’d want to come) and I’ll make the food.  If you really want a game day feast, I recommend getting something in sections 9-13.  I’d cook a nice meal for tickets like that.

If you’re making sloppy joes (or chili) (or anything else for that matter) and you’re using whole canned tomatoes but you don’t want them in their whole form because they would be too big that way and you decide to crush them with your hands to break them into smaller pieces, be careful!!  They’re apt to burst open like water balloons and spray juice all over the place, including all over your shirt.  So wear an apron.  Or, better yet, go ahead and put the whole tomatoes into the pot and then use your spoon to break them up as you stir them around.

I hate defrosting the freezer.  I never seem to have enough coolers to put everything into, and it’s just a pain to do–especially when your fingers start to sieze up because the gloves you wear inevitably get soaked and then frigid.  But, because some of your food is sitting out thawing, it’s imperative that you get through the process as quickly as possible so it can all go back in!

Anyone who lives around here knows that Pittsburgh has been going through a cold snap lately.  I decided to take advantage of the weather to defrost my freezer at a more liesurely pace.  I loaded the food all into boxes and lugged it out into the single-digit outdoors.  Then, knowing that it was stored safely, I let the heat from the pots of boiling water do most of the work of clearing the coils.  It helped that my basement floor drain is right next to the freezer, so I didn’t have to worry about where the melted ice would flow to.

because I had some extra time to consider the process, I realized that an inventory of what’s in the freezer would be invaluable to making sure I actually use up all of the stuff I’m preserving.  So, I made a list as I returned it to the cooler, the meat cuts organized by source animal; plus a list of fruits, vegetables, and other products.  Now, when I take something out or add something in, it’s easy to keep an accurate tally of what I have in stock.

If I were really on top of things, I’d type it all into a spreadsheet so that it’s easily updatable when many changes have been made.  Maybe I will when lots of the items have been scratched off and revised.  For the time being, though, even having a list seems like a huge leap forward, especially since I don’t have to prop the door open and plow through the inventory to figure out what I have and what I want to take out–I can do my browsing with the door closed and not have to worry about temperature fluctuations while I ponder my options.

Attention, all parents and well-meaning children: Santa is a very old man. With senescence comes a weakened immune system, meaning that he is a member of a high-risk category of food-borne illnesses. Please, let’s not have a repeat of what happened last year! Here are a few tips to help keep Santa healthy:

• Wash your hands!  Kids are germ factories (yes, even you!)  Don’t share your germs with Santa.  Wash your hands before making his plate of cookies.
• Milk should not be left at room temperature.  It’s a well-known fact that Santa doesn’t come until everybody in the house is asleep, which with excitement running high on Christmas eve, could take a while.  Therefore, if you opt to leave milk for Santa, leave it for him over an ice bath to help keep it cold until the old man arrives.
• Consider leaving an alternate snack for Santa.  After all, with so many houses to visit, there’s a limit to how many cookies and how much milk Santa can consume.  Perhaps you could leave him something to go?  Consider a bottle of a nice ale that Santa could crack open and enjoy on Christmas morning after all of his rounds are completed; or maybe a sandwich wrapped in wax paper that he could eat during one of his long commutes over a body of water (the Pacific Ocean, in particular, tends to be a bit boring for him, and he could really use something to do while he crosses it).
• If you do decide to make him a sandwich, keep in mind not to use perishable ingredients that could sprout unhealthy levels of bacteria while you’re asleep/ before he eats it.  Peanut butter and jelly, for instance, would be a good choice; cream cheese and lox would not be.

If you have any questions about whether your plan for Santa is going to be safe for his weakened immune system, consult your local department of health.  They have trained epidemiologists on staff who can answer any of your questions.

Dear Corduroy,
I am working with a cookie recipe that calls for 1 cup shortening and 1 cup butter.  I don’t have shortening, but I do have margarine.  I’ve heard margarine has lower fat content and more water than shortening, but I’ve also heard it’s ok to substitute margarine for shortening.  What do you recommend?

–Short-stuff

Dear Shorty:

I recommend you ignore the recipe’s suggestion to use half shortening and use nothing but butter.  If it’s a sugar cookie recipe, that will make it a bit harder to roll out and cut successfully, but the upside would be much better flavor.

If you’re wedded to the idea of using a substitute fat, margarine is somewhat better than shortening, i suppose, because at least it has flavor.  Though, the flavoring used in margarine are typically the same as is used in microwave popcorn; and that flavoring additive has been implicated in lung disease in workers at popcorn factories (read this for more info).

An interesting side note on margarine: though we think of it as a vegan option, when first introduced, margarine was decidedly not vegan or even vegetarian.  It was made from cooking cow udders down with beef fat to produce a butter-like flavor out of pieces of the animal that would otherwise have been discarded.

Dear Corduroy Orange -

A friend of mine is interested in buying Beaver from his local Farmer’s Market and cooking it up, since it’s not a meat you often see for sale.  This also means he’s not sure how to prepare it.  He’s been looking at various receipes, but based on your knowledge, are there better ways to prepare this type of meat?

Thanks,
Curious in STL

I thought you could go to jail for trying to buy beaver on the street.  Wait, no, that’s for trying to rent it.

Seriously, though, I didn’t even realize that beaver was a meat that could be purchased, so I’d be interested in how it tastes.  I have absolutely zero experience with beaver preparation, so I don’t know that I’d trust my expertise in this area.  I do know, however, that it is a rodent; and I’m pretty sure it has some healthy musk glands that i assume the butcher responsible for dressing the carcass will have removed.

In general, though, I anticipate that it would have a somewhat strong flavor, and that the best results could probably be achieved by braising it (such as a stew or a pot roast).  As such, my recommendation is to season the beaver with salt and pepper, sear the beaver in a large cast iron pot, browning both sides.  Remove the beaver from the dish, and add a chopped onion, about a half dozen whole cloves of garlic, a handful of dried shiitake mushrooms, a bit of diced butternut squash, and perhaps some diced, peeled apple (season the vegetables with some salt and pepper as well).  Return the beaver atop this bed of vegetables.  Add enough vegetable stock (I’d hesitate to use beef or chicken stock because you don’t want to interfere with the taste of the beaver itself.  On the other hand, using plain water would likely dilute the flavor of the finished product) to cover the vegetables and go about halfway up the meat.  Bring the stock to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer, cover, and let cook for three hours.  Serve with an accompaniment of mashed potatoes if desired.

Please let me know how your friend prepares his beaver, and how it comes out in the end.

I made a chicken breast with a citrus glaze and it was too sweet what can I do to cut the sweetness? I thought rice vinegar and something along those lines. Any help would be appreciated.

Without seeing the exact recipe, I’m not sure I can offer specific advice: much of what I could tell you would have to do with specific ingredients being used, and the exact application of the glaze (is it applied at the beginning or the end of cooking; is the glaze also being used as a sauce at the table?) If you happened to have an electronic copy of the recipe that you could forward to me, I could take a look at it and see what I might suggest.

In general, though, I’m a bit wary of relying on sourness or bitterness to cut sweetness. If you get the proportions wrong, it can backfire on you. Also, it could interfere with how the glaze sets up on the chicken. If you’re using leftover glaze as a table sauce, I’d actually recommend cutting the sweetness in those circumstances with some fat, whether in the form of butter or cream. Even if not using the glaze as a sauce, fat might be the answer: serve the glazed chicken with a rich cream sauce and that will cut through the sweetness a bit. I’m a big fan of blue cheese, and I’m thinking citrus glazed chicken with a little Gorgonzola sauce might be nice.

Another answer might just be to cut back on the amount of sugar used in the recipe—but again, if you can provide me with a copy of the recipe, I can give you some more specific advice.

If you have a culinary question, email me and I’ll try my darndest to get you a worthwhile answer.

My experience with popovers is minimal, I must admit.  I make them maybe once a year  The first time i tried making them, I didn’t realize how many factors are at play and did a shoot-from-the-hip chocolate filled popover that was spectacular.  I melted some baking chocolate down with a touch of butter and some brown sugar, let it cool, and divided it into chunks.  I filled the muffin cups halfway, added a chunk to each, then finished filling them.  I had the idea to make it again, and then fill the cavity of the finished popover with pastry cream for an even more decadent dessert, but I could not replicate the original effort.

Since then, I’ve made basic popovers no more than a couple of times, and each time they’ve come out differently.  I could never quite explain why, but I stumbled across a website that provides a very thorough and well written list of tips and tricks that should help get you on your way to making the perfect popover in your own kitchen.

A Watched Pot Never Boils… Because It’s Not Supposed To.

It’s an exhortation, not a caution. Cooks, keep track of your stock (or sauce or soup or eggs or what have you) and make certain that they’re not being subjected to unnecessary heat. Bring it down to a simmer; it doesn’t need to boil.

(The exception that disproves the rule, of course, is pasta)

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As I was getting my lunch out of the fridge this morning, it crossed my mind that some of the goat cheese we got from our CSA last week might add in well with my salad. Then I thought, maybe I should wait to share it with Aurora. After all, she likes chevre, too.

An image of the cheese in its tub with a green film atop it occurred to me, and I decided…

If You Never Eat Your Cake, it’s Gonna Go Stale.