OT: My Culinary Education

Jellybeans...??!

Whole (cut up) chicken was on sale the other day, so I marinated and grilled most of that, tossing the off-cuts and bones in the stock pot. Then I strained the broth, added beans, and let that simmer for a while longer. Finish with carrots, and sausage seared with onions and garlic.

The soup's kind of odd-ball. Made it once out of suboptimal fridge contents, turns out it's a pretty good way to make a soup.

What about the gizzards? Saved the best for last. Going to make cheese sauce with them tonight, over pasta.

And besides that, I have the chicken for sandwiches the next week or two.

Also, cherries are exceptional right now. From WA I think.

Tim

-- Seven Transistor Labs Electrical Engineering Consultation Website:

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Key to good soup or beans, and a lot of other good things, is home-made chicken stock. The canned stuff is awful, chicken and MSG flavored salt water.

We get a rotisserie chicken, make a meal from that, and then stock. Carcass and lots of meat chopped fine, a big onion, celery, a carrot or two maybe, half a dozen peppercorns, simmer for a few hours.

We go that one better... we take a whole chicken and simmer it until the meat falls off the bones. Skim the fat off the broth and save the broth. Meat gets saved for various functions... salads, whatever. ...Jim Thompson

Sorry to hear that.

However I think the best cooks are Men. From what I've seen, usually Men ar e much better at cooking meat. With fire. In fact charcoal. I'll use propan e for some things, brats, sausage, chicken, all that. But when it comes to steaks, it is charcoal.

I could throw you a recipe for chicken paprikash that is beyond world class . It takes four hours to make with just one chicken, and more of them do no t add much more time. It onlt adds prep time because after the frying in bu tter with imported paprika all over it, it is only boiled for 50 minutes. A ny more then it tends to fall apart. And you have to debone it. the ffrying adds time unles you use ten frying pans, andthe deboning adds the most tim e. The thing is though, you are making one hell of a mess, so make alot.

What you do is to NOT put the sour cream in the portion you intend to freez e for later. It makes the reheating go much better. oyu cna just nuke it an d add new sourcream. If the sourcream is in it you gotta use a pan at low h eat for a long time to get it to reheat right. That might cook it moe, whic h you do not want.

Another thing is stroganoff. I make it the right way with rare filet mignon .

And then, my fasmily has a kickass spaghetti sauce, but I have to get speci al permission to reveal the recipe until a couple of more people die.

By the time my broth is done, the meat is inedible. All the protein has been extracted.

My wife does something she pronounces "lew", but I don't know the true spelling... it's obviously some French technique... my wife is of Dutch/French ancestry. ...Jim Thompson

I haven't had sweet and sour in quite some time. I'm curious, how much sugar is added or is all the sweetness from the fruit?

No sugar at all. ...Jim Thompson

What do you use to make the sauce thicken?

veggies and onions, then added the sauce... once heated through I poured it out into the serving dish and sprinkled the pineapple bits and tomatoes on top last to avoid wilting them. ...Jim Thompson

Oh, then the sauce likely has plenty of sugar in it. No?

Likely arrowroot. ...Jim Thompson

Did you look at the ingredients? "Likely"???

Arrowroot is a common thickener. If it were corn starch I'd know, since I'm allergic to it. And the sauce itself was _not_ sweet. ...Jim Thompson

so it was just sour pork?

The pineapple, bell peppers and tomatoes provided the contrast. ...Jim Thompson

Here's something most people won't like but I do. Sour pork. I do not like sweet unless i ts an apple or something. I don't even like most BBQ sauce. Certain brands of soy sauce. But the olman liked it that way...

You take pieces or pork or pork chops and haard fry them fast. You do not c ok them through. then you bury them in a pot of sourkraut that is UNDRAINED . Ater about an hour you add potatoes, lima or some kind of beans, some car away seed. the caraway seed kills some of the acidity of the kraut. You can also use dumplings in it. I would not use dumplings AND potatoes but you c ould. Just don't put in too much because that is carbs and this is well eat en with bread and butter, or better yet, since you got the oven open some n ice fresh rolls.

Once you fry up the pork and throw it in the kraut, put in a cut up onion o r two depending on size, and a couple cloves of garlic. No other spices are really right for this.

Most of that brine boils off actually. The flavor of it does dilute, aand i n doing so could take a piece of shoe leather and make it as tender as file t mignon. Well kinda. That acid really breaks down that fiber that makes me at tough.

You can make the cheapo pork steaks like a tenderloin, and if you use he go od cuts, well, just try it.

Have done it with sausage, kielbasa, but not beef. Never tried beef. Never tried chicken. Never tried fish. Just seems like it only should work for po rk. Beef ? Maybe. Venison ? now that is a good question. We may have hit on the optimum way to cook them critters. Fryem in some bacon grease and then into the slosh with the kraut.