What's Cooking (Take Three!)

I don't know the specifics of annelid sex, but it does involve intimate contact between the two worms. Cephalopods (squids, octopuses, nautilus) have a form of copulation where the male uses specialized tentacles to insert a spermatophore into the female's mantle cavity.

Do educated fleas do it any differently than untutored ones?

Tonight I'm making Thai chicken and galangal soup (tom kha gai). Next up after that will be pork lo mein, which I haven't made in a while.

-Paul W.

Do educated fleas do it any differently than untutored ones?

Dinner and a show first?

Not to mention the Finns.

[Jenise]

Last night I made a chanterelle risotto for dinner which followed a radicchio and avocado salad. A chianti went along with those quite well.

Last night was a skirt steak, marinated, then broiled. Came out so tender with charred edges, very nice. Served with a mushroom, sweet peppers, garlic, and broccoli. saute, and our favorite tomato and bread salad. Sadly, used my last tomatoes.

[Jenise]

I sure understand the "sadly" part. And I envy you being able to buy skirt steak whenever you want it. Hard to find up here; have to go to a Mexican butcher.

My brother and BIL are coming for dinner. I'm on the warpath to reduce my freezer contents--I buy too much and use too little--so without a trip to the store I'm making parmesan-coated shrimp on frisee for a first course and braised lamb shanks in a madeira-onion sauce for the main. Probably carrots for the vegetable, since I'm really long on carrots due to a shopping trip gone wrong a few weeks back.

I sure understand the "sadly" part. And I envy you being able to buy skirt steak whenever you want it. Hard to find up here; have to go to a Mexican butcher.

Wow. I can get skirt steak in lots of places around me but the price has jumped in recent years (prior to pandemic). I think the cut was "discovered" somehow.

...so without a trip to the store I'm making parmesan-coated shrimp on frisee...

Wow, you freeze frisee?

Skirt steak is always available here at R & R meats. I have mentioned them before, so anyone passing through Redding should stop and take a look at this amazing meat and seafood place we are so thankful to have here. Skirt steak is certainly an ugly cut of meat, the way they cut it anyway, long, thin, and then rolled up and tied. I cut it into serving pieces, marinate, grill, or broil, then cut it into thin slices. It has a very beefy taste which we like. Flat iron steak is also popular, and our neighborhood grocery just brought that in a few weeks ago. They still will not bring in flank steak, saying it does not sell. So weird.

Tonight we are having spaghetti and meatballs. I made a marinara sauce a couple of days ago, and always keep meatballs in the freezer ready to go. Picking some lettuce from my lettuce pot, multi-colored radish, thinly sliced, celery hearts diced, a few garbanzo beans, parsley, chives, with a champagne vinegar vinaigrette. A sourdough dough baguette for dipping into the marinara.

Wow. I can get skirt steak in lots of places around me but the price has jumped in recent years (prior to pandemic). I think the cut was "discovered" somehow.

The Spanish name for skirt steak is 'fajita'. That should tell you how that cut of meat was 'discovered'. Skirt steak is the animal's diaphragm. Flavorful, but tough and stringy unless you cut it into very thin strips across the grain. It, and flank steak (which has similar properties), used to be practically given away. The fajita fad drove prices way up for both cuts, but especially for skirt steak, which is the authentic cut for fajitas, plus there's only one per animal.

-Paul W.

Last night's dinner was chicken thighs, coated in barbecue rub and grilled. Accompanied by boiled potatoes garnished with Spicy Chili Crisp. Probably last hurrah for the gas grill for the season--it's getting too cold out there.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I see Flat Irons here, but they always come pre-packaged in their own individual plastic suit which turns me off, so I don't buy them. Does anyone know why this is necessary?

That's how most skirt steak and flank steak is marketed here, too. This form of vacuum-plastic packaging is called cryovac. Its advantage is longer shelf life, both for the market and the consumer. I have not seen any disadvantage to it compared to conventional packaging. I found at least one online free-range, grass-fed, etc. butcher who prefers to use cryovac packaging.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Yes, cryovac. I forgot the word. Like corned beef, which of course makes sense since they were brined and come with pickling spices. Why unseasoned, unbrined flat irons are cryovacced where nothing else makes me suspicious. (No, flank steak isn't cryovacced here either.)

I see Flat Irons here, but they always come pre-packaged in their own individual plastic suit which turns me off, so I don't buy them. Does anyone know why this is necessary?

Here is an excerpt from an article I read: The other difference is the way that our steaks are kept fresh. We use a method called Flash Freezing. Almost all the meat you eat has to be frozen for shipment and storage. ... After the Prime Selections have been flash frozen they are packed into an air-tight cryovac package which keeps them safe for travel and storage.

Jenise, around here most flank steak is cryovaced. The supermarket meat department occasionally has flank steaks that they packaged themselves using the usual packaging--styrofoam tray and cling wrap. But usually it's just the cryovac for flank steak. I've never seen them offer skirt steak except in cryovac.

-Paul W.

Thanks, Karen. The flash-freezing is probably where the 'cryo' in 'cryovac' comes from.

-Paul

[Jenise]

Here is an excerpt from an article I read: The other difference is the way that our steaks are kept fresh. We use a method called Flash Freezing. Almost all the meat you eat has to be frozen for shipment and storage. ... After the Prime Selections have been flash frozen they are packed into an air-tight cryovac package which keeps them safe for travel and storage.

This I understand but those are primals. Huge pieces packaged by the slaughter houses or processing plants that have replaced sending whole on-the-hoof animals to instore butchers. But the flat iron isn't a primal nor is it brined and pre-seasoned. That's what I don't understand.

I think the meat wholesalers cut the flank and skirt out of the primals in much the way that these days the "tenders" are cut out of boneless skinless chicken breasts. There's enough of a specialty market (fajitas) for flank and skirt to warrant packaging it separately at the wholesale level. Brisket gets a similar treatment. Originally brisket was shipped in a form called "packer trim"--both layers of meat and the intervening layer of fat as one piece. At least since the 1990s the two layers are separated and the fat layer trimmed off at the wholesale level. Back in the 1990s I wanted to attempt Texas-style barbecued brisket, which is best done with the packer trim. I had to special-order it from the local high-end butcher shop (run by an ex-Texan, who was very enthusiastic about my project, and who made me describe the rub and procedure I'd be using before he'd take my order).

-Paul W.

Great story, Paul.

I think the only cryovac'ed cuts on supermarket shelves around here are corned beef and the occasional ham.

Paul is correct that the fajita craze caused the interest (and run up) of skirt, but now it's driven mostly by rarity- one inside and one outside per cow, a few pounds total.

I'll never forget special ordering the outside skirt from a cow coming in to my (former) local "nose to tail" butcher, marinating (kind of bulgogi ish ), grilling, leaving inside to rest at a big party, coming inside to find a "helpful" guest had cut up whole thing, right on grain. Good, but damn chewy!

As to cryovac, I'm all for it, My local markets are mostly the usual tray and wrap (meaning they did it there), but the more premium choices (prime and grassfed), plus the more specialty cuts (lamb racks, whole filets, sometimes hanger or skirt) are cryovacs. Because it's a lot better at keeping fresh. Basically vacuum packed, with better plastic. I think pretty much every non-local premium meat purveyor I've dealt with (Flannery, Lobels, D'Artagnan, Porter Road, etc) used cryovac or similar. BTW, has anyone tried Wild Fork?
'

Sheet Pan Saturday: Spicy Chili Crisp Chicken...thighs, legs, and wings. A Jasmine rice with mustard seeds, lemon, and Tumeric as a side dish and another sheet pan with roasted carrots, brussels sprouts, and a medley of the last of the sweet peppers.

I just di my grocery shopping and found a nice filet of salmon. The store also had some chanterelles. I think I am going to grill the salmon tonight and make a chicken with chanterelles dish tomorrow.

Almond bark.
Eggnog (for NYE).
Clam chowder.
I messed up the Pumpkin Hand Pie filling, so it's sitting in a bowl in the fridge, dusted with leftover crispy almond bits from the first recipe, and becoming custard. Kinda. I have enough to try again so may yet do that later.

ETA: I made it again and I did it right this time (drove off some of the water from the pumpkin goo before adding the egg):

2021-11-07 22.41.01.jpg

Nice and I love the happy faces.