Tag: food

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Refrigerator Pickles: AKA, We Can Pickle That!

What do second stage ethanol fermentation and metabolic detoxification have in common?

Vinegar! Acetic acid. Good for excreting into the toilet and preserving produce. Except probably don’t use urine for the produce part. Too many other things in that for a good pickling medium.

Fortunately, it’s easier to just buy vinegar than to rely on the above in-home methods of production. And much easier than attempting the lactic acid route (though I’ll totally try that one day). But for now, it’s refrigerator pickles, sans-Orléan method. Standard grocery store vinegar for this one. Here’s the recipe I used:

  • 1 cup water
  • 1 1/3 cup white vinegar
  • 1/3 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 Tbsp. kosher salt

Seems a tad sweet, but I’ll give it a week to settle and adjust accordingly.

We have cucumbers (there’s an abundance from the garden right now and the kid wanted to make some after learning about it at summer camp), serrano peppers, and red onions. So far, the red onions are pretty good. One of the most ridiculously up-charged items to buy, by the way. More street tacos in the future!

We can, indeed pickle that.

–Simon

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Chicken-Fried Steak

Alton Brown had an amusing take on these flat meat diner foods in which he concluded that regional variances render this American staple undefinable. And if you were to try to find agreeable definitions, you would indeed be engaging in folly. Fortunately, I’m never too concerned with being agreeable here, so I’ll happily offer definitions.

Chicken-fried steak: flattened beef cutlet breaded with flour and deep-fried, then topped with sawmill gravy. Served with fries.

Country-fried steak: flattened beef cutlet breaded with flour and pan-fried, then topped with broth-based brown gravy. Served with fries.

Salisbury steak: cubed beef cutlet breaded with flour and pan-fried, topped with onions and braised in tomato sauce with broth. Served with mashed potatoes or vegetables.

There. I’ve managed to piss everyone off now.

But as for the nostalgia-based reason for this post: I miss chicken-fried steak, which was a staple of my west-Texas childhood. Every restaurant, diner, and cafeteria had it – usually as the first item on the kids’ menu. The Midwest, however, seems to favor country-fried steak. And I don’t remember ever seeing Salisbury steak outside TV dinners. And none of these variations are very common at all now, seeming only to occupy a niche in country home kitchen type restaurants like Bob Evans or Cracker Barrel (neither of which are very good, I’ll add).

But not being terribly culinary difficult, it can be easily made at home. Which I did.

Family reviews indicated that it was “not terrible”, and “not the worst thing I’ve ever had”. So I guess that’s why it doesn’t find its way onto many menus. It’s in actuality cheap food with minimal spices, relying on flavor through caloric addition.

But it did bring back memories.

–Simon

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Kurobuta Copa

I’d never had a copa roast. It’s apparently from the neck meat. Which means lots of connective tissue. Which means low and slow cooking…like in a crock pot!

Paired with mashed potatoes and an oniony brown sauce = yum.

–Simon

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Pawpaw Patch in the Making

We planted a pawpaw tree about 3 years or so ago, and now it’s finally bloomed! It does, however, require pollination from another tree, and I’m hoping the neighbor’s trees are close enough, and of a different genetic variety. We shall see, if a fruit appears.

The pawpaw is a bit of a culinary curiosity. Despite their prevalence in eastern North America, I’ve never seen them on menus, probably because the fruit seeds are poisonous and the fruits don’t ripen once picked. That makes commercial operations non-viable, relegating this native to local cuisine. They’re also a bit of an acquired taste, sort of like a mild mango. I used to pick them at the old farm and grandma would make them into pies. A unique slice of Americana.

–Simon