What did I cook this weekend.....

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Beef birria from scratch and using some home grown/dried peppers. Normally it would be made from goat or beef shanks but im outta both. Classic birria would also use guajillo and cascabel (depending on the region) but im outta both. I subbed some home grown Numex Big Jims, Pasilla and Aji Panca. Flavor is amazingly close to the birria ive had. Heat level is spot on....mildish but huge pepper flavor.

This recipe is pretty close to authentic from what i can tell. Needs a little acid but otherwise the flavor seems to be correct sofar.
https://www.spicesinc.com/p-6394-birria-a-mexican-beef-stew.aspx

Ancho....Pasilla...Big Jim and Aji Panca
TEFZwZJ.jpg


Overcast day is forcing my camera to flash so color is off.
zBBb7W7.jpg


Bugs me so bad i took a minute to get it right before tossing it in the oven to slow cook for about 4 hours.
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Evilgrin said:
One of the "tricks" the Chinese use when doing pork like that is .....cornstarch. You mix it with the marinating meat a few minutes before cooking it. Then stir fry in a really freaking hot wok.
Mirin works for some stuff especially Korean dishes with pork. For Chinese its hard to beat good Chinese cooking wine. If the marinade calls for both sugar and rice wine....Yeah mirin will work. I get Lotte brand from Korea...its over 14% ABV. Pretty good and cheap.
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And the cornstarch thickens the sauce.
 
Evilgrin said:
Beef birria from scratch and using some home grown/dried peppers. Normally it would be made from goat or beef shanks but im outta both. Classic birria would also use guajillo and cascabel (depending on the region) but im outta both. I subbed some home grown Numex Big Jims, Pasilla and Aji Panca. Flavor is amazingly close to the birria ive had. Heat level is spot on....mildish but huge pepper flavor.

This recipe is pretty close to authentic from what i can tell. Needs a little acid but otherwise the flavor seems to be correct sofar.
https://www.spicesinc.com/p-6394-birria-a-mexican-beef-stew.aspx

Ancho....Pasilla...Big Jim and Aji Panca
TEFZwZJ.jpg


Overcast day is forcing my camera to flash so color is off.
zBBb7W7.jpg


Bugs me so bad i took a minute to get it right before tossing it in the oven to slow cook for about 4 hours.
sjAvCOP.jpg
Click to expand...

Wife's family owns a stand down in Michoacan, and it's quite tasty!!
 
We had a lengthy octopus discussion on the smoking thread. Apparently you have to cook the heck out of them to break down the collagen like a pork butt.
 
I can't do the octopus. Like eating Kraken. Bad optics. I was in a San Francisco restaurant once a long time ago and they brought a big basket of deep-fried squids - little ones, about the size of your hand. Not rings or tentatacles - looked like a bowl of wolf spiders. No no way man.

I grew up in small town Ohio and those kinds of foods just weren't around. When I saw my first tentacle on a table, all I could think about was a line drawing in my Jules Verne 100,000 Leagues Under the Sea book (Captain Nemo). Sea monster attacking his Nautilus. Sea monster on my plate. No sir, you can have mine.
 
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TwistedGray said:
Wife's family owns a stand down in Michoacan, and it's quite tasty!!
Click to expand...

We have a street a few miles from me with lots of Latino and Mexican places to eat and shop. NOT ONE offers birria and to me its one of the best classic Mexican dishes. A small place near my old house had it. That place is over a 20min drive now and the food/service seems to have gone down hill from the reviews ive seen.

"Little Mexico" though is wonderful. Great food and excellent service every time i go there. My one and only complaint is no stinking birria. :p
 
Evilgrin said:
We have a street a few miles from me with lots of Latino and Mexican places to eat and shop. NOT ONE offers birria and to me its one of the best classic Mexican dishes. A small place near my old house had it. That place is over a 20min drive now and the food/service seems to have gone down hill from the reviews ive seen.

"Little Mexico" though is wonderful. Great food and excellent service every time i go there. My one and only complaint is no stinking birria. :p
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It's tricky to cook traditional birria ... which in my opinion is always goat. You either do it well or you don't (re: greasy/oily). I've had plenty of bad birria which initially turned me off of eating birria again until I had the chance to eat it not in consume form (the only way I had it prior was consume).

We have a place down the road (about 20-30min away) that does birria really well. We'll go there when we go out kayaking as it's on the way...in fact, I am sure we will stop there this weekend!
 
passedpawn said:
I can't do the octopus. Like eating Kraken. Bad optics. I was in a San Francisco restaurant once a long time ago and they brought a big basket of deep-fried squids - little ones, about the size of your hand. Not rings or tentatacles - looked like a bowl of wolf spiders. No no way man.

I grew up in small town Ohio and those kinds of foods just weren't around. When I saw my first tentacle on a table, all I could think about was a line drawing in my Jules Verne 100,000 Leagues Under the Sea book (Captain Nemo). Sea monster attacking his Nautilus. Sea monster on my plate. No sir, you can have mine.
Click to expand...

I can understand that...I spent the first 21 years of my life in West Virginia, and I eat more things now that you cannot even find at any supermarket in West Virginia. In fact, the closest "international" market to where my parents are is probably 45-60min away, and it's nothing to write home about. I never had a mango, guava, pitaya, passionfruit, tri tip, carnitas (not to be confused with pulled pork), or anything deemed remotely "international."

With that said, octopus is one of my favorite dishes!
 
applescrap said:
We had a lengthy octopus discussion on the smoking thread. Apparently you have to cook the heck out of them to break down the collagen like a pork butt.
Click to expand...

Several different ways to skin the cat, so to speak. My MIL does it one way, my FIL does it another, and I do it neither ... I will either sous vide (does a great job) or now pressure cook (works wonders ... just gotta nail down the timing).

Both my MIL and FIL do it how they learned in Mexico which is a long blanch, a long boil/simmer, and they argue about when to add this, that, or the other thing. I think they overcomplicate things simply because they did not have access to fancy new tools like a sous vide or pressure cooker.
 
Temptd2 said:
Got me a new Farberware toaster/air fryer oven. LOVE it. Here are tonight's hot wings.View attachment 602004 View attachment 602005
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@Temptd2 I had to track this post down again because I remember how incredible these looked! haha. My toaster oven broke last night so I'm going to pull the trigger on the Farberware air fryer toaster oven that you got. Are you still happy with it?

Edit: hopefully the answer is you are because I just bought it [emoji23] I’ll report back.
 
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treacheroustexan said:
@Temptd2 I had to track this post down again because I remember how incredible these looked! haha. My toaster oven broke last night so I'm going to pull the trigger on the Farberware air fryer toaster oven that you got. Are you still happy with it?

Edit: hopefully the answer is you are because I just bought it [emoji23] I’ll report back.
Click to expand...

LOL, yes, I still love it and use it often, it's as good as a secondary oven as it is as an air fryer. And it's lightweight enough to take it out on the patio to cook stuff when it's too hot inside to even think about it. Hope you love yours too!
 
Brussels and green beans started November 15th. Just jarred today, finally tender.

Last pick is from pickled peppers and fermented pepper paste from last summer's garden. I'm including the pic because the peppers finnished fermenting about November and I used that lacto-culture to kick-start this fermentation. No vinegar, but I would swear I used it. Has a delightfully sour flavor and sting from the peppers.
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Fun with fermentations! We have a bunch going right now. These were the "starters" we did a little over a month ago. Red/green cabbage kraut, one jar of pineapple chunks and one with pineapple rind. The last two will eventually become pineapple vinegar - they have to ferment first, then be strained out and the liquid put into a jar with a bit of our vinegar mother to turn into vinegar.

We probably have 8 different vinegar starts going, from our homebrewed ales to sake and wines. That's KOTC's domain. I have cucumber pickles, cauliflower, green beans, golden beets, and more all fermenting. We already ate a whole jar of the dilly garlic green beans, which are excellent! It really is fun and easy to ferment veggies and stuff and yep, they taste like you pickled them in vinegar but it's all just the lacto fermentation.

fermentation project 1.JPG
 

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