Lamb Breast: What I Ate Last Night

This was made for me last night.  It was rather good, but whatever you do, forgo a second helping.   Its far, far too rich and fatty.  I asked for some mint tea to go with it.  Its probably what saved me.  Excellent, delicious meat though.

The Story of Borscht

The above article is an interesting one. The recipes that are discussed are interesting as are the people divulging them. My wife's family has their own absolutely delicious recipe. It's radically different than any above. I'll post it some time, but not tonight. Too much to do. Suffice to say, you start with no sweet beets. ick. Sweet borscht is not to my taste at all. However, like the above recipes, it takes a loooong time to make.

Pork Done Right

I don't post cooking recipes that often. I have talked about my salsa tech tree before as well as other salsas. I have also mumbled about Lyuda's family's variant of okroska (which we have a huge pot full of at home right now). However, I really enjoy cooking and have for some time. Experimenting is something I've always had fun doing in the kitchen. Finally, I think I have come across something worth sharing. Now some of you that know something about cooking meat probably are going to say, "Geez, Will, Didn't you know how to do that already?"

Actually, the recipe is very simple. I took a pork butt roast that I had in the freezer, defrosted it in the refrigerator[1] over a couple days. Then I took it out around lunch time and rubbed it aggressively with some salt and then let it sit for a couple hours. After that, I rubbed in a lot of garlic and black pepper. I left it to sit again. Finally, I basted the whole roast with lemon juice...and let it sit some more. I then put it on a broiler pan and rubbed some more salt into it and put the roast into the oven to broil fat side up for ten minutes. I then flipped the roast over and broiled for another five minutes. At THAT point I took the roast out...and filled the bottom of the broiler pan with water and covered over the meat and pan with aluminum foil after flipped the fat side back up again. I turned down the oven to 325 F (162 C). Then I let it sit in there "steaming" for 1 1/2 hours.

When I took out the meat and served it up, it all but melted in our mouths. Lyuda ate waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than she planned on. She declared I had made excellent pork. She'd not had better: that is high praise indeed from her. She liked it more than the Hawaiian BBQ we had.

Some quick notes. First, this does NOT work with beef. I have tried...and ruined some good roasts. Alternately, a very fatty pork roast is best for this. Also you can obviously use different spices. One other combination I like to use is to rub dried NMican chile powder in instead of black pepper and use lime juice instead of lemon.



1. While I use microwave defrosting in a pinch, I try to plan well enough ahead that I don't have to.

Twice Fried Soup

My wife and daughter love soups. They love them a lot more than I do. Don't get me wrong, I like a good soup as much as the next guy, but my tastes tend to be rather simple compared to theirs. I like a good tomato soup (maybe with rice) or a cream of mushroom or a good, good cheddar soup. There are a few exceptions and they are the product of my wife: borscht and rosolnik, frex. However, the other members of my immediate household completely disagree. They like something that's an affair to make! Lots of love, passion, energy, and angst. A good example is Avrora's Soup. Another was what I ended up cooking up this weekend.

This one is actually a two stage soup that breaks in the middle into two different soups for different tastes. The Twice Fried label was really for the soup I made for my wife.

8 chicken thighs, washed with bone in.
1/4 poblano pepper
1/4 habenero pepper
1 yellow onion
3 garlic cloves, fresh
fresh cilantro
garlic powder (to taste)
black pepper (to taste)
salt (to taste)
butter
2 lemons
1 1/2 cups rice
2 cups frozen corn

First fill very large kettle with water and set to boil with chicken thighs. Add garlic powder, black pepper, salt, diced fresh cilantro (to taste) and a pat of butter. Boil until meat all but falls off the bones. Remove chicken from soup, debone, shred meat and turn to kettle which ought to be reduced to lightly boiling now.

Take poblano and dice finely. Take half onion and likewise dice. Place a frying pan on burner and heat. No oil or butter. When frying pan is very hot, turn on fan (!!!), and drop poblano on. Actively stir. When slightly blackened, add onion, caramelize that. Then crush two garlic cloves into the mix. When nicely fried, squeeze two lemons over the concoction. Then add a pat of butter and fry a bit more. Then ladle in twice broth from the soup. Pour back into the kettle.

Remove 1/3 of broth and 1/3 of chicken thigh meat. Place in separate pot. Bring to a simmer. In original kettle, add rice and corn. Let simmer until rice is cooked. Then turn to low.

Dice habenaro pepper very finely. Dice rest of onion. Heat frying pan again. Drop in habenaro pieces after having turned back on the fan and this time to high. Blacken slightly. Add onion. Caramelize. Add rest of garlic cloves crushed. Fry some more. Squeeze lemon over frying bits. Add butter after lemon juice has evaporated. Ladle in broth from smaller pot. Pour into smaller pot and bring to a hard boil. If you want, add a little more lemon juice here. Let cool and serve.

All of this takes time, hours actually, so don't think you can just jump in and do this quickly. This is Plan Ahead Food.