Culinary Conversations

[Julianna]

I got chestnut mushrooms and chantarelles yesterday and cooked them today with some garlic butter chicken and steamed artichokes.

[worth1]

I just purchased my Christmas ham.
Ran across a regular vacuum packed Smithfield butt portion for 1.85 a pound and mine was $13 and some odd cents.
Not big but big enough for me and I beat the Christmas rush.
Not, I repeat, '(((NOT))), spiral sliced.
Rest assured I won't be baking the daylights out of it in a blast furnace where all the juice runs out.
I only eat ham about once a year so it'll be a treat.

[worth1]

The grocery store was packed yesterday.
I went in to get something and to my surprise they had jumbo white headless shrimp on sale for 5 something a pound from Ecuador.
So I got 2 pounds.
Not Texas gulf but they will do.
As for the checkout it was a breeze, in and out in a flash.

[worth1]

Found yet another use for my enameled Dutch oven.
My 7 pound ham is in it with the cover on in the oven at 200F.
No other things are in the kettle with the ham at this time.

[worth1]

Made a simple glaze from dark brown sugar and Steens cane syrup.
Added two caps of orange extract to the mix.
What a flavorful glaze it is.
To me these extracts are a lot easier to deal with than anything else you can do.
Always ready when you are.

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[Vanman]

Smoking a ham and a turkey and making home made rolls. The wife will cook everything else.

[worth1]

The ham is cooling off.
The first of the juices were removed with paper towels because I figured it was the most salty.

That's when I started basting it and I also added raisins and malt vinegar to the broth.

Once temperature was up to 140 by putting the oven on 300 I removed the ham and poured out the juices to do so.

Put ham on cooling rack and put juices back into the kettle.
Added water the remainder of the sugar syrup glaze and vermouth plus more raisins.

Added corn starch and put on low.
The sauce came out wonderfully.
Ham still cooling but I did a taste test.
On the side are gold potatoes and green beans finished in butter.

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[worth1]

Thank you everyone for looking at my pictures.

[worth1]

I must be doing something right.
I've been pre cooking my fries at around 250F or so the first cook.
Then the second cook at close to 350F.
Looking at a video on how a Belgium fry stand cooks their fries it's 125C the first fry and 175 the second fry.
125C equals 257F.
175C equals 347F.
By experimentation I found about the same thing to make a crispy fry that won't go soggy.
I remember the first thing I did when I set foot in Belgium was go to a fry stand.

[worth1]

I have a coworker that has laying hens.
He gave me I think a dozen large farm fresh brown eggs today.
Real free range not BS free range they sell in stores.
Picked up some bacon and will have the full works breakfast or something soon.
Including gravy and hot links.
Maybe a pancake too..
And toast with butter and strawberry preserves.

[Sue_CT]

Couple weeks ago I picked up a day and came in when I was supposed to be on vacation and my Manager brought me a dozen eggs from her hens. Delicious! More and more people are getting hens.

[Tormahto]

Real eggs!

I know someone in the know, about eggs at Big Y (MA and CT). They are already close to a month old when delivered to the store. That's why they are usually easy to peel when hard cooked (never boiled).

[Sue_CT]

Yup, you can read the date code on the carton and find out how old they really are. https://food.unl.edu/article/cracking-d ... uary%201st.

[karstopography]

@Sue_CT great guide on eggs in that link with understanding the codes on the cartons. I do the float test on eggs past the expiration dates and now realized I might have been throwing away some perfectly good eggs, although, if the eggs sort of barely float or hover just at the surface, I’ll usually keep them.

However, They lost me at hard and firm yolks, A runny or at least molten yolk is big part of the joy of eating fried, basted or poached eggs. I get the CYA angle of the article, but I’m going to keep on enjoying fried eggs over easy and luscious eggs benedict with warm molten yolks.

[Tormahto]

@Sue_CT great guide on eggs in that link with understanding the codes on the cartons. I do the float test on eggs past the expiration dates and now realized I might have been throwing away some perfectly good eggs, although, if the eggs sort of barely float or hover just at the surface, I’ll usually keep them.

However, They lost me at hard and firm yolks, A runny or at least molten yolk is big part of the joy of eating fried, basted or poached eggs. I get the CYA angle of the article, but I’m going to keep on enjoying fried eggs over easy and luscious eggs benedict with warm molten yolks.

Served with olives or coconut? Now I remember 3 foods I don't like, including runny yolks.

[karstopography]

Runny yolks, Olives, and Coconut are all near the top of the yummy list.

[worth1]

A hard yolk is an egg failure in my opinion.
Worthy of tossing and starting over.

[Sue_CT]

I have eaten hard yolks but I don't really like them unless I am making egg salad or deviled eggs. I agree, runny is the best. I put a cover over the frying pan so the top of the yolk just sets and gets white but the inside is still hot but runny. With buttered toast, THE BEST lol. Olives are a hard no. I make a mean coconut cream pie and few things are better than a homemade coconut layer cake.

[karstopography]

I never realized the aversion people have for Olives until fairly recently. One of my son’s friends thinks olives are from the devil. My daughter’s friend gagged when I brought out a tray of fancy artisan olives. How did I miss this olive aversion thing for so long I’ll never know.

In 1993, I went to Spain and a person cannot sit down at a bar or restaurant without being brought a bowl of olives. I can eat a dozen without blinking an eye. Black, green, stuffed. Castelvetrano Green Sicilian Olives are so sweet and buttery, yum, how could anyone not like those?

Coconut cream pie is one of the finest desserts a person can eat. Thai cooking utilizes coconut quite a bit and that’s one reason I tend to love it.

[worth1]

So far I'm very happy with my cheap enameled Dutch oven.
I had a scare in the beginning and burned some food on the bottom.
This stained the bottom and I was ticked.
The stain was removed after some non aggressive rubbing and letting sit in pure bleach for a little while.

There is no crazing of the enamel either because I've been slowly heating it up so as everything expands and shrinks together.
I also don't shock it by cooling it off fast in cold water.
Putting cast iron especially enameled cast iron or any metal or anything on the stove and putting the burner on high is about the worst thing you can do.