Text 35595, 65 rader
Skriven 2010-03-08 20:43:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Recent tastes
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So, last time I went shopping I bought two new things. On the
upscale side a bottle of truffle oil and on the downscale side a
bucket of Newfy cured navel beef.

The truffle oil was from Drogheria & Alimentari and labelled
"Quintessence Truffles and Porcini mushrooms infused oil" and the
ingredients read: sunflower oil, olive oil, porcini mushrooms (0.5%)
and truffle flavour. 80 ml for just $8.

Huge disappointment. The truffle aroma was fugitive and the taste
altogether non-existent. For that matter there was so much sunflower
oil that I couldn't even taste olive. The puny little porcini chip
in the bottom of the bottle added nothing. I've been ripped off! So
now do I gamble $29 on the more expensive brand, knowing I am going
to get at best a one dimensional fake truffle aroma or give up on
it?

The first meal I made was brined pork chops with assorted roasted
veggies and a side of truffled lima beans. The chops were most
excellent. I had brined a half loin's worth (using Dave's pork spice
and sugar) and cooked most of them the second day, then kind of
forgot about them. I fished out the last two on day number 7 and
they were extraordinarily well seasoned and moist. I plan to find
out if going past 7 days makes them even better in a series of
experiments when I buy my next loin.

The truffle oil merely made the lima beans oily!

We had a bottle of Les Ormeaux Sauvion Muscadet with the pork
thinking that if it stood up against the saltiness of oysters, it
would do well with my chops. It did.

For the second meal I opened up the bucket of salty beef bits. The
tub weighed 12 pounds and the label said 7 pounds net, which seemed
about right when I opened it. The brine was an unappetizing dark red
as it had leeched blood out of the meat. But I forged on and fished
out a few pieces which tended to be about 1 inch thick, 1 inch wide
and about 4-5 inches long and found hunks of both plate and also
bone-in rib cross sections. They were a lovely bright red just like
corned brisket. So off I went to make a Jigg's dinner, which is sort
of like a New England boiled dinner (recipe available if anyone
wants it). I should have re-read my own recipe because the whole
mess turned out incredibly salty as I neglected to soak the meat
overnight in at least two changes of water. We couldn't eat it.
Tonight I shredded a bit of the meat and chopped up some the of the
vegetables, about a cup's worth altogether, added another cup of
fresh vegetables and added them to a cup of rice and two cups of
water. The resulting rice dish was still quite salty, but edible. I
still look forward to the rest of the bucket though as I know what I
did wrong and how to fix it. Mmmm, corned short ribs. Yum.

The bucket was $14 or $2 per pound for the meat net of the brine.



Cheers

YK Jim


... Available at Potage's Cauldron Shop

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