Shrimp Stock

Posted on by July 7, 2018

7/7/2018 – Boiled heads from 7 lbs. of mixed shrimp from Kemah and added spices inspired by Kit Whol’s recipe on page 83 of our copy of her book titled New Orleans Classic Seafood.

Ingredients

  • Heads from 7 lbs of mixed shrimp
  • 2 green onions corsley chopped
  • Center small stalks and leaves of celery
  • 1 large bay leaf
  • about 1t of dried thyme
  • Our black pepper; about six hard shakes

Brought to a boil and simmer for about 2 hours

Prime Steak Reverse Sear

Posted on by August 12, 2018

7/2/2018 – Dry-brined a 1-1/2″ thick Prime Steak from HEB 48 hours ago. This reverse sear turned out great largely due to a good Prime steak.

  1. Pulled from refer an hour ahead to warm a bit and to add a good layer of fresh coarse ground black pepper.
  2. Put it into the Weber Kettle with the Slow-N-Sear with about 10 Kingsword charcoals and a piece of pecan for smoke.
  3. Monitored the IT with the ChefWorks and when it reached about 100 added maybe 20 burning charcoals.
  4. Seared it flipping twice until the IT was 130.
  5. Wrapped in foil and let rest for maybe 10 minutes.

Mary said it was very good. Medium rare with good grill flavor on the outside and moist pink middle and no grey areas between the inside and outside.

Creole Chicken & Sausage on the Carport

Posted on by June 19, 2018

6/18/2018 – Made gumbo on the two-burner propane stove on the carport as we were staying in the TT while the house was being remodeled. Somewhat followed the recipe in Poppy Tooker’s Tujaques’ cookbook for Chicken Creole on page 113 of our personalized copy. Despite a lot of improvising it turned out good and made us realize the true simplicity of creole cooking despite what appears to be complex recipes. Continue reading →

Sauerkraut test for Mary

Posted on by August 19, 2018

6/7/2018 – As Mary has faithfully begun eating the last Kraut I made I must make a large batch to ferment while we are on one of our last trips to Mobile before moving there. The recipe is:

2 white cabbages from Hong Kong Market that weighted 6.02 lbs. Discarded the outer leaves and used everything else. Forgot to weight the SS bowl so decided to base salt etal on 6 lbs. or 2,721 gm that was a little less than the store weight.

6 gm caraway seed – 0.2%
15 gm yellow mustard – 0.5%
25 juniper berries that weighted 2 gm – 0.07%
38.7 gm canning salt or 1.4%

Ground the seeds in the coffee grinder to avoid the medical problem of diverticulitis.

7/3/2018 – We have enjoyed this ferment for the past weeks and today divided what was left in the 1/2 gallon jar into a full quart jar (that went into the refer) and a partial quart jar and both went into the refer. When the last is done of those jars I want to compare it to that 2nd 1/2 gallon.

8/12/2018 – This was a good recipe that we have enjoyed almost daily.

8/19/2018 – Made a second batch to have enough to last through the move and until a new batch has fermented in late September.  The large cabbage from Hong Kong Market, when the outer leaves were removed, weighted 1797 gm. So, weights of the spices and salt were in the table below created in Excel with the file in DropBox/Cooking.

Cabbage 1797
0.2% caraway seed = 3.6
0.5% yellow mustard = 9.0
0.7% juniper berries = 1.3
1.4% canning salt = 25.158

Brisket Flat & Beef Roast Smoked

Posted on by June 5, 2018

6/3/2018, Sunday – Both pieces of meat turned out good. The meat was moist likely due to the long dry brining. The combo rub of Jeff’s Texas Rub and 5POGS–different on each–added good flavor. Added more Jeff’s between the smoke and the braising in the oven. This system has now worked well several times on beef. Continue reading →

Shrimp Creole ToTry

Posted on by June 2, 2018

Shrimp Creole like JUSTIN DEVILLIER inspired by his recipe here.

Ingredients
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium yellow onions, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 rib celery, diced
1/2 jalapeno, minced
1 C white wine
Kosher salt
ground white pepper
3 C tomato purée
2 lb American wild shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 lemon
3 Tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped
2 Tbsp Chives, minced
Cooked long-grain white rice, to serve

  1. In a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions and garlic and sweat until tender and very aromatic, about 5 minutes.
  2. Add to the pot the red pepper, celery, and jalapeño and continue to cook until tender. As soon as you notice the vegetables starting to caramelize, add white wine to deglaze. Lightly season with salt and white pepper. Reduce the white wine until it has almost completely evaporated; then add the tomato purée and stir to combine.
  3. Lower the temperature as much as you can, and add the shrimp. Keeping the heat on low, continue gently stirring to poach the shrimp in the sauce, scraping the sides of the pot to keep them clean. (The low-and-slow cooking will keep them tender.)
  4. Once the shrimp are cooked through and opaque, add the juice of one lemon, chives, and parsley; stir to combine. Season to taste with more salt and white pepper and serve over hot rice.

5/1/2018 – I chopped and Mary cooked. She saute the veggies per the recipe and they had some crunch where served and event the next morning cold from the refer. We made changes as follows due to lack of ingredients.

  1. only put in one pound of shrimp along with one large pattie of Chorizo and a handful of chopped ham.
  2. used diced canned tomatoes rather than puree.
  3. Instead of a jalapeno, we added 1/2 of a fresh serrano without the seeds. Those serranos were very hot but it was not even noticeable.

It was good but since the tomatoes were in small chunks and not a sauce it did not have the overall red color and the tomato taste was not the same.