What are you Cooking the week of February 9, 2020?

[skeptic7]

I made split pea soup with carrots, celery, onions, garlic and a ham bone from a half -- shank end ham. I started cooking the peas then added the ham bone and cooked some more before adding the vegetables. The split peas have all dissolved into the soup. I'm going to let it cool overnight before removing the bone and cutting up the bits of meat that had clung to the bone.
I ate this with crackers and a store bought roll with butter. I think tomorrow I'll bake some corn bread to eat with the split pea soup.

[navlys]

I made grilled flank steak in my grill pan. I marinated that steak for 2 days,sliced it against the grain and it was still tough. The roasted potatoes and the baked delicata squash saved the meal. I have another flank steak in the freezer. Any ideas on how to make it less chewy?

[Mike Nolan]

Most types of marinade won't tenderize beef, unless they're pretty high in acid. (Think sauerbraten.) Also, the marinade isn't going to get very far into the meat, maybe a quarter inch.

Low slow cooking, preferably in liquid (ie, braising) is usually the best way to tenderize tough meats.

[Italiancook]

I used Melissa D'Arabian's (Food Network) recipe for skirt steak, and we all enjoyed it. I wasn't sure of the difference between skirt steak and flank steak, so I looked online. According to kitchen.com, there is a difference, but they can usually be used interchangeably in recipes. Below is the link to Melissa's recipe that I used, French Cut Steak. Maybe it would work with flank steak.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/melissa-darabian/french-cut-steak-recipe-1949683

[Mike Nolan]

Skirt steak comes from the short plate primal cut and consists of the diaphragm muscles of the animal. Flank comes from the flank primal cut which is just behind the short plate primal cut and in front of the round primal cut. Inner skirt steak meat is not quite as tough as the outer skirt meat, which often comes with the membrane still attached. It should be removed before cooking. Flank is not quite as tough as inner skirt steak, but still benefits from a low slow cooking method.

Both are often sold as fajita meat. Sometimes you'll see flank labeled as 'London Broil', but that's also how some portions of the Round primal (top round) are occasionally labeled, so it is hard to be sure.

[Mike Nolan]

You can tell you've been married for 47 years when your idea of a good Valentine's Day dinner is beans & weiners. 🙂

[BakerAunt]

Mike--You and your wife got dinner a lot more quickly than we did here!

Valentine’s dinner on Friday was “Pork Loin Roast with Barley, Butternut Squash, and Swiss Chard,” from Cook’s Illustrated. I’m still trying to figure out the correct timing, as I can’t get the 2.5 lb. roast to cook at 250F for 45 minutes. I finally raised the temperature to 300, cooked it another 15 minutes, then turned it over and cooked another 1-, and that did it. Cook’s Illustrated really needs to figure out this recipe, as it tastes wonderful—after it finally gets cooked through. Four of us have reviewed it, and we agree that the cooking time/temperature does not work. It was a nice dinner for a day with snow on the ground. It was -3F this morning and only got to 15F.

[Mike Nolan]

I looked at a number of recipes and none of them cook pork loin at 250F, the lowest temperature I found was 325F. I wonder if they meant 350?

At 325, the chart says 25 minutes per pound. It'd be a little faster at 350.

I've been trying to come up with a quiz question that deals with temperature/time adjustments, but the math on that is not very simple and other factors (like Maillard reaction and caramelization) can be affected by the cooking temperature.

If you sous vide something, you get almost no Maillard reaction, so a lot of the recipes for sous vide meat have you brown the outside in a hot pan for a few minutes before serving.

BTW, about 10 years ago the USDA finally accepted what chefs had known for a while and lowered the recommended target temperature for pork from 160F to 145F. Today's pork is a lot more lean than it was 40-50 years ago, so it doesn't do well when cooked to higher temperatures, it dries out and gets tough.

[BakerAunt]

CI said it contacted the recipe's author, who states that the time (35 min!) and temperature (250F) is correct. The recipe is a braise, as the browned roast sits in 4 cups of chicken broth, with 1 cup of barley. The covered heavy Dutch oven--in my case a 5 1/2 qt. Le Creuset--sits on the bottom rack of the oven. I think it's supposed to be a slow cooker approach. I let the roast sit out a bit before I began browning it. I boiled the broth before adding it, then brought it and the barley to a boil before adding the roast. I even put the piece of foil between the lid and the pan. After 45 minutes, I had a reading of only around 109. I was looking for 135F, as it will rise to 145 while sitting on a platter covered for 15 minutes.

I agree that the roasting temperature is just too low. When I make it again (the taste is wonderful), I will set the oven to 325F. I'd like to get the timing figured out, so that I can use it as a company dish with confidence that it will be done around the expected time.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Joan Simpson]

Tonight we had left over pork tenderloin which I chopped up added some BBQ sauce,we ate this over masheed potatoes and left over steamed cabbage.I made a chocolate cake for dessert.

Mike we love beans and wieners too!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by Joan Simpson.

[navlys]

I have never seen any low/slow recipes for flank steak. There is a point to be made about skirt steak. When Christopher Kimball (milk st.) uses it in his recipes he uses the more tender version. I have no idea where he purchases his meat because the skirt steak I have tried was as chewy as flank steak.

[Mike Nolan]

I don't think Kimball buys his meats at the grocery store, he may have a butcher on staff. And he's out east, isn't he, where they still have real butcher shops.

One of the local stores does a bulk meat sale twice a year, selling sub-primals in a bag, usually anywhere from 5 to 20+ pounds, like an entire chuck roll. I don't think I've ever seen short plate, though. I'll have to look for it next time. Usually it is boneless, so that may be why they don't do short plate. I don't own a meat saw and aside from some people who do butchering of deer, I don't know anyone who has one in their home, either.

If I wanted to make sure I was getting the inner skirt, I'd probably go to Fareway Meat and see if they had it. Most of the stores in town don't do a lot of meat-cutting on premises any more, though they may grind their own ground beef. Much of the meat sold in sealed packages come to the store that way. And the labeling might not be very precise. 'Beef for fajitas'. What cut is it? Doesn't say!

BTW, meat sold in sealed tubs packaged off-site may have been done in a facility that allows them to fill the package with nitrogen while they're sealing it, or even with with carbon monoxide, which makes meat stay red longer.

One of the things that has always fascinated me is that low-and-slow is one way to cook tough meats to soften them, and a very hot grill or broiler is the other. (You'll find more recipe for flank that use a broiler or are intended for grilling.) That doesn't seem like it should make sense, but it does.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making tuna salad tonight (and plan to have it on rye bread), though I'm not sure if it is just for me or for both of us, since I made some hard boiled eggs to go in it, and she just had two of them, still warm.

[chocomouse]

Mike, I have an egg thief at my house too! I did not feel like cooking tonight, did not even want to think about it. So I made a big green salad with tomatoes, cukes, onions, red peppers, mushrooms. Searched the freezer for some "emergency" food and found a few fish sticks - perfect for the occasion and exactly why I have them in there. Served with fresh bagels. Problem solved.

[Mike Nolan]

Oh, I made 6 eggs, though I was only planning on using 2 in the tuna salad. Most of the time that I make hard boiled eggs my wife will take two of them, it is one of her favorite simple meals. This gives me two left either for a quick snack or for Diane's lunch on Monday.

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