Gravy's Cooking Thread
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Joeboo
Molten Core Raider
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Take any generic chili recipe you find on line and make 3 small changes that increase the awesomeness about 1000%
- However much crushed/diced tomatos the recipe calls for, substitute ro-tel for half of the required amount(I like hot, but you can choose the spiciness of your liking)
- Instead of pure hamburger, use half hamburger and half italian sausage or chorizo
- The very first step should be to take some bacon(roughly 1/4-1/2 the weight of the recipe's hamburger, so if recipe calls for 2lbs of meat, use 1/2 - 1lb of bacon here) and chop it up into roughly 1-inch pieces, and cook it in the bottom of your chili pot before you do anything else. Fry that shit up and you'l end up with crispy bacon nubs and bacon grease. Only drain about half of the bacon grease and then throw your chopped veggies(onion, peppers, whatever) into the grease to sautee. Gives a real nice hint of bacon flavor throughout your entire chili with also some obviously awesome bacon chunks.
Other than those 3 things, proceed to follow any generic chili recipe and the result will be awesome when you throw in those changes.
- However much crushed/diced tomatos the recipe calls for, substitute ro-tel for half of the required amount(I like hot, but you can choose the spiciness of your liking)
- Instead of pure hamburger, use half hamburger and half italian sausage or chorizo
- The very first step should be to take some bacon(roughly 1/4-1/2 the weight of the recipe's hamburger, so if recipe calls for 2lbs of meat, use 1/2 - 1lb of bacon here) and chop it up into roughly 1-inch pieces, and cook it in the bottom of your chili pot before you do anything else. Fry that shit up and you'l end up with crispy bacon nubs and bacon grease. Only drain about half of the bacon grease and then throw your chopped veggies(onion, peppers, whatever) into the grease to sautee. Gives a real nice hint of bacon flavor throughout your entire chili with also some obviously awesome bacon chunks.
Other than those 3 things, proceed to follow any generic chili recipe and the result will be awesome when you throw in those changes.
Soygen
The Dirty Dozen For the Price of One
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Oh, I'm tempted to snag this as well. Is the 4.5 big enough for most normal home baking / cooking? The 5 qt ones are so much more expensive. Is 1/2 quart adding that much cost?!
The 5 qt is the professional model. There is a piece in the artisan made of plastic/nylon that is made of metal in the professional series. For normal work it makes zero difference, but with really stiff/heavy doughs or near capacity batches, it can break. Bear in mind the kitchen aid professional series, up the 7 qt, is very nearly the largest mixer you an buy without jumping to a floor model. Lots of actual boutique bakeries and etc., use them, so for them it is a no brainer for the extra cost. For most normal home cooks it won't make a difference. Also worth noting don't buy a used professional circa 2007-2009, there was a manufacturing defect that caused overheating. They tried to switch to a cheap part and it screwed them up pretty bad, fixed now.
Also Mother's Day sales are the best time to buy a Kitchen Aid. I bought my professional 6 qt for $200 four years ago. The discount comes straight from KA, so it is the same every year, pretty much the best deal you can get on them.
Gravy
Bronze Squire
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chaos
Buzzfeed Editor
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I have a 4.5 quart and haven't run into any issues yet, going on 3 years now. I think (hopefully) right after they phased out those defective models The Master mentioned. For normal home use, 4.5 is all you will need and then some. If it comes down to it, make two batches.
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It is possible to strip down and replace the part, but no, no official rebate from KA.
opiate82
Bronze Squire
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So I have one of these little $18 temperature controllers (Amazon Link) that I used to keep a consistent temperature for fermenting my beer in a little insulated chamber that I have. I realized last night that it could be used for another purpose. Combined with a crock-pot I can also use it for sous-vide cooking. Worked awesome for cooking a steak, going to try some salmon next. So if you have a crockpot you can turn it into a precisely controlled sous-vide cooker for around $25 total (controller+parts). One caveat is that you have to have a crockpot that doesn't turn itself off.
Yep.
Also works with cheap rice cookers. For optimal results, add in an aquarium pump to move the water around. Heating element+PID (thermometer/temp control thing)+acquarium pump+pot = sous vide cooker for like $50. Just put food in plastic bag, suck out as much air as you can. Modernist Cuisine has a portion where they go over the hardware of sous vide cookers and they built a bunch of ghetto ones, just as described. They performed identically to the $5000 industrial ones (which now sell for like $2000 and a couple of home versions are out for $500). Not worth the money at all.
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Is a steak cooked that way good? I think it would be lacking in texture and the particular flavour that comes from searing it.
opiate82
Bronze Squire
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You do sear it at the end. I get a small cast-iron skillet as hot as I can get it and sear it for about 30 seconds a side. I have also used the inferred searer on my BBQ as well. As far as flavor it actually comes out better because of the way the fats break down by slow cooking it. Many other advantages to cooking that way as well, Google it up.
opiate82
Bronze Squire
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Yeah pretty much. For my beer I just tape it to the outside of my fermenter with some insulation wrapped around it. The model I posted is actually dual stage, so it will either heat or cool depending on temp. For sous-vide purposes I only use the heating portion obviously. I believe there are only single stage versions of this controller that would work fine for sous-vide purposes. It is actually an aquarium temp controller if you are trying to find something similar.
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I did google it up. It's very intreguing to me. Lets say I was cooking three or four average size to small steaks, how long would they have to be in the water? And about what temperature water? I'm going to give this a try.
Rare/medium-rare. So 125-135 F. Takes about ~45 minutes, but you can leave them in there forever with a good temp control. They can't ever overcook (one of the high points of sous vide).
It can get more complicated, like poultry is cooked to 160 because at 160 everything just dies, but if hold poultry at 120 for six hours, everything is also dead. Lower temperatures take more time. This is how pasteurized in the shell eggs are made (held at 130 for like 20 minutes, whites cook at 140). But the meat tastes very different cooked at that temp. So much better imo.
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Thanks! I'd be afraid the poultry would have the texture of undercooked poultry. The flavour could be divine, and it could be as juicy as all get out, but it the texture comes off as uncooked poultry, I'm not sure I'd be able to eat it.
Does poultry held at 120 for six hours still have the rubbery texture of uncooked poultry, or does it firm up as it does with conventional cooking? I have seen someone send salmon back because it was cooked this way and the texture was that of raw fish. Even though they knew it was cooked, and was safe, they couldn't get past a life time of what the "norm" texture should be for safe to eat fish.
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Are you sure it's the fats breaking down, or the connective tissues? I just want to make sure there's some advantage of sous vide that I didn't know. Fats breaking down sounds like bad eats.