. sous vide . fermentation . dry curing .
Dehydration or drying is one of those cool things one does in the kitchen without thinking about it too much. Like reducing a sauce for example. The whole point is not so much about thickening the liquid but to concentrate the flavor. You can thicken up a liquid by adding thickeners anyways. By means of dehydration, the […]
![Another one of those recipes that almost got left behind. I took the photos weeks ago and I even uploaded them to my site but never got around to write about it which is weird.. guess was distracted by trying not to destroy my blog while making changes to it. It's happened. I love pork chops but they can go wrong pretty easily. They overcook really quick. And you know what that's like.. yeah... rubber soles. Totally unattractive. If you have the time and the equipment go sous vide. No doubt about that. If you don't then sear them in a really hot pan a couple of minutes per side. Obviously we're dealing with pork and we need to make sure it is safe to eat. Trichinosis is a concern and pork should be cooked throughly. Cooking meat throughly doesn't mean overcooking it though. The parasite in question actually dies at fairly low temperatures which is great news. This excerpt from a USDA document is interesting: Cooking - Commercial preparation of pork products by cooking requires that meat be heated to internal temperatures which have been shown to inactivate trichinae. For example, Trichinella spiralis is killed in 47 minutes at 52° C (125.6° F), in 6 minutes at 55° C (131° F), and in < 1 minute at 60° C (140° F). It should be noted that these times and temperatures apply only when the product reaches and maintains temperatures evenly distributed throughout the meat. Alternative methods of heating, particularly the use of microwaves, have been shown to give different results, with parasites not completely inactivated when product was heated to reach a prescribed end-point temperature. The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations for processed pork products reflects experimental data, and requires pork to be cooked for 2 hours at 52.2° C (126° F), for 15 minutes at 55.6° C (132° F), and for 1 minute at 60° C (140° F). But how can one translate this into a recipe? If you're cooking the meat sous vide... it's a no brainer. Set the water bath to 125.6F and cook the meat until the core has spent 47 minutes at this temperature for example. Of course. bare in mind that depending on the thickness of the chop, the total cooking time will need to be calculated. It's usually a few hours for individual chops just like the paragraph above suggests. Now, if you're cooking the chops in a skillet... things get a bit trickier and experience plays a big role in getting the meat cooked through but not overcooked. The thicker the chop, the trickier it gets. The leaner the chop, the quicker it cooks... all these catches. I personally observe a few things while pan searing pork chops at home: Thickness... I stay at about a inch or less other wise, sous vide, grill or roast. I bring the meat to room temperature. I salt the meat way ahead of time. If I have time I brine the chops instead I use a thermometer. I sear the chops in a really hot skillet a couple of minutes per side. I check internal temperature at various points. I finish in the oven if needed otherwise... I cover the pan with a lid and remove from the heat until cooked through. This might take several minutes so I check with a thermometer periodically. Sounds like a pain in the ass and it is but some repetition helps. Done a few times it becomes second nature. To my advantage it's really hard not to kill this parasite. If I work above 130F for the internal temperature it's pretty safe and the chop should be pretty juicy still. Anyways, don't take my word for it. I'm not an expert in the field that's the sort of thing I keep in mind when I'm cooking pork. Same with game meats. So moving on! Here is the recipe: [yumprint-recipe id='9'] enjoy!](https://thatothercookingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/img_6621-1200x1200.jpg)
Another one of those recipes that almost got left behind during my transition to a self -hosted account. I took the photos weeks ago and I even uploaded them to my site but never got around to write about it which is weird.. guess was distracted by trying not to destroy my blog while making […]
I came REALLY late to this party but I will share this find anyways just in case anyone out there goes “what?!” Keeping delicate herbs fresh… and by fresh herbs I mean the ones you get at the store.. you know, those parsley or cilantro bunches held together by a plastic band or some wire? yeah, those. […]
I don’t have a kitchen of my own at the moment. I just left my old apartment, the rain and my job in Vancouver and decided to go back to LA, city in which I started my blog a few years ago. I won’t bore anyone with the details of the last 2 months of […]
Really quick post. Not really a recipe. I mean, the recipe is in the title if anything. Not much more to it other than mentioning that the golden brown crust came from flash frying the whole medallions in Ghee @ 450F for about 15 secs. I just wanted to log this to keep record since is probably the […]
On this blog I have a bunch of chicken recipes. Two reasons. It’s delicious but it’s also tricky, right? Anyone can overcook a chicken. I do it all the time. By proper standards the chicken above is overcooked. The only way to not overcook a chicken is to break it down and cook the different muscle […]
If you’re a bit OCD, you like chicken and you like to cook it yourself , this post might be of interest. I know I keep talking about chicken. I talk about chicken a LOT. Because I love chicken and I can recount the few times I have had a good chicken dish at a […]
Quite possibly the simplest recipe I’ve ever posted here. But if you have been cooking for some time, you know simplicity is usually a good thing. The ham I used on this recipe comes from an older post. I’m calling it ham, although ham usually involves a pink salt cure containing nitrites… so it’s […]
The weather finally turns cooler around here in BC, and the disposition to cook and write about food and cooking seems to be coming back (It was extremely hot!) but anyways, this is a recipe I prepared a around july, right at the beginning of the horrible hot weather season, which in turn offered some of […]
I’ve been MIA for a couple of weeks. I finally figured out how to log back into my account. I got locked out. My mobile phone died and that’s never good news when you have setup 2-step-authentication “protocol” and no backup codes in your wordpress settings…. sounds pretty fancy but it was kinda nightmarish instead… […]