In pursuit of the perfect corned beef

Most corned beef is cooked/boiled for 3 hours. When done, it’s dry and fatty. Other than making corned beef hash on day 2, or in a sandwich, it’s kind of gross.

There is a way to make corned beef that is tender and juicy.  All you need is a sous vide machine and 24 hours. I guarantee it will be perfect.

In my pursuit of cooking gadgets, I bought a Sous Vide Supreme a few months ago. This is an expensive water cooker that holds the temperature of food steady. You could try to do the same thing on a stovetop water bath; good luck with that, you’ll need it.

Steps to reach the perfect corned beef:

* Buy whatever corned beef is on sale. I bought Cooks corned beef for $2/pound. I also bought a Vienna for twice that much and there was no noticeable difference in the finished product.

*  Remove the corned beef from its package and threw out the spices. Then put the corned beef in a foodsaver bag and seal it. (Or you can just chuck the whole corned beef in its original packaging into the sous vide cooker, if the plastic looks durable).

*. Set the temperature to 176 degrees and cook for 24 hours. This, I got from Douglas Baldwin’s great Sous Vide work.

* When you take it out of the bag scrape off the fat, which will then be a gelatin-like substance. Slice it and serve.

I crammed 5 bags of corned beef into the Sous Vide Supreme or about 20 pounds total. Large flat cuts off over 4.5 pounds barely fit, so keep them under 4 pounds if possible.

First pork shoulder of the year

Pork shoulder (also known as pork butt or Boston butt) is an inexpensive, fatty cut of meat. But when it’s cooked right it becomes a thing of beauty. I bought some at Eurofresh in Palatine for $1.99 per pound this week.

Pork shoulder needs a rub applied to it. The rub I used was a mixture of Chinese Five Spice Powder and a curry powder that I had left over. I added some ground Szechuan pepper and some salt.

I’ve cooked pork shoulder many times. At first, I was freaked out by how long it takes. For the pork shoulder to turn out well, (i.e. falling off the bone so it can be “pulled”),  it has to be cooked to an internal temperature of about 190 degrees.  I first thought this could be done in a few hours, but after trial and error I found it takes the better part of 10 hours to make it right.

I use a Weber Smokey Mountain grill/smoker to cook the meat. You can use any grill with indirect heat and a cover. The smokey mountain is good because it holds a consistent heat level and does not require much tending. Over 10 hours, I checked it about 5 times to refill the water pan or put in more charcoal.

What tends to happen is that it reaches 170 internal pretty easily, but then it takes FOREVER to get to 190 degrees. Be patient and it will work out fine. You can always take it off of the grill, wrap it in foil and throw it in the oven. This seems to drain a lot of the juice out of the meat, but it will get up to 190 pretty easily in the oven.  It takes about 10 hours on the grill to cook to perfection.

Tracking the termperature of the grill is a waste of time. I used to track it with great precision. I have old time logs that track every rise and fall of the temp. But, it’s too time consuming. I would say the temperature averages about 250 during the 10 hours. It’s best to use an instant read thermometer to test the internal meat temperature after about 8 hours of cooking.

I add a few chunks of hickory wood and use regular Kingsford charcoal. Start with 1 chimney starter of charcoal and dump it in. Replenish the coals as needed.

The best source for recipes for pork shoulder is the weber smokey mountain web site.

Let the pork rest for an hour after it’s done and then shred it as best you can with two forks. It reheats well and can be used in fried rice and a million other dishes.

New carry-out Indian place in Palatine

There are Indian restaurants popping up all over. New India is a small, strictly carry-out and catering Indian place in Palatine at Quentin and Northwest Hwy. (The other new places are Indian Bistro in Palatine and Vishnu Vilas in Schaumburg in the old Sizzle India )

We have ordered from New India several times and the food is nicely spiced and reasonably priced. The owners must do quite a bit of catering, because when ordering they will suggest that a certain dish was made for catering that day and that it might be a good idea to order that dish. We had a nice okra dish that was suggested in this way.

Here is the partial menu. Give it a try.

Minced lamb for weeknights

My lamb experience, as a wee lad, was limited to one awful day per year. We were forced to eat lamb/mutton/some sort of smelly meat once a year on New Year’s Day at my aunt Glad’s 88-degree apartment in Oak Park in celebration of my Grandma‘s birthday. I think all of the adults were hung over and we kids were dehydrated from the summer-like indoor temps. This was in the days before chicken nuggets and mac and cheese at every meal for kids, so we had to try the lamb or starve.

The poor, leg of lamb was a burnt offering by the time dinner began, done to a “golden turn” as they say. This stuff tasted gamier than hell to my 10 year old palate and I hated it.

Fast forward 40 years. For my 50th birthday, I got an interesting cookbook titled “Healthy Indian Cooking” from our good friends Ritu and Shailu This is a great cookbook of Indian recipes that dispenses with the heavy butter and cream that some Indian recipes contain. There were several recipes that called for “minced lamb.” Basically, minced lamb is just ground leg of lamb. Using that cookbook as inspiration, I bought a 4 pound boneless leg of lamb at Costco for about $14. Then I ran in through my trusty meat grinder that hooks on as an attachment to the Kitchenaid mixer. Add salt, pepper and ground fennel seed and form it into 1/3 pound patties and they freeze well. I did not cut off any of the fat.

I made the following recipe from the minced lamb and I have gone back to it many times and now include in the weeknight rotation because it’s so easy to defrost a few patties and make a main lamb dish.

Sauce

3T hoisin sauce
1T sesame oil
4T soy sauce

Ingredients

2 Patties of minced lamb defrosted
Salt and pepper to taste
Large handful of spinach leaves
Large handful of cherry tomatoes
Two cloves of garlic, large knob of ginger, both chopped and combined with a little olive oil using an immersion blender to make a rough liquid

Brown lamb in non stick frying pan. Add garlic and ginger mixture when lamb is starting to brown.

When lamb is nicely browned, add sauce and cook for about 1 minutes

Add spinach, cherry tomatoes and any other vegetable.

Serve over rice.

Tasty Japanese food in Elk Grove

Kurumaya is a great casual Japanese restaurant in Elk Grove Village. We went there again last night for dinner. Here’s a prior review on Kurumaya. I really like this place because it has reasonably priced sushi, tempura and other traditional Japanese dishes.

We had two sets of maki rolls as an appetizer, one of which had cilantro, jalapeno and avocado.  Then we ordered a third appetizer, fried oysters that were served with a Japanese hot mustard. The oysters were lightly breaded, but moist and flavorful inside. Really good. For entrees we had udon noodles and soba noodles in a flavorful broth along with some tempura ($11). It was not too crowded on a Saturday night, maybe half full. This place continues to be one of my favorites.

New Schaumburg Indian restaurant Vishnu Vilas

Vishnu Foods opened in 2002 in Schaumburg near Motorola. They sell Indian food ingredients and prepared foods like samosasdosas.

Recently, the owners of  Vishnu Foods opened a restaurant next door to their retail store in the space formerly occupied by “Sizzle India.” I stopped in to Vishnu Foods a few weeks ago and the owner said they were thinking of opening up a restaurant to serve good Southern Indian food with “some healthier options,” but he added that he was afraid of the economy (wise man) . He forged ahead and Vishnu Villas is now open. Review will be forthcoming.

Vodka lite=Korean soju

The wonders of Korean Soju are explored in this post

At 21% alcohol, it’s good straight or in cocktails.

Hard to find, but it’s available at Mitsuwa in Arlington Heights.

Quickee kalbi: Costco-style Korean short ribs

 

Last summer, we went to New Seoul Korean BBQ in Mt. Prospect  and had a wonderful dinner that included kalbi grilled over a small, but mighty charcoal grill that kicked off  more smoke than a homecoming bonfire.  I’ve been obsessed with Korean short ribs ever since. So when I saw this short video on the Chicago Magazine site, in which Bill Kim of Urban Belly makes some killer-looking short ribs, it really caught my attention.

 I didn’t have 24 hours to marinate the beef, and I had some Costco short ribs on hand, so I modified the recipe to marinate for 20 minutes and used the Costco shorties.

(Serves 2)

Use 2 boneless short ribs from Costco ($14 for a package.  A package contains about 8 short ribs that are about 6 inches long and 2 inches thick. 1 short rib will serve 1 person)

1. Slice each short rib with a knife lengthwise. You can do this once to make two pieces or twice to make three pieces. In the video, Bill Kim’s ribs are about ¾ inch thick, so you would cut the Costco rib once.  I like them thinner, so I cut them twice.

 2. Put each piece between two pieces of plastic wrap. Using a heavy object, or the flat end of a meat tenderizer flatten each piece so it’s the thickness that you want. I made them about 1/8 inch thick.

 3. Salt and pepper both sides of each flattened rib.

 4. Make the following marinade:

 ½ cup soy sauce

1 T chopped ginger

½ or 1 t Sriracha chile sauce

2 T of sesame oil

1 T honey

1T Rice wine vinegar or any vinegar

 5. Pour the marinade over the ribs and make sure they are all covered. Kim marinates the ribs for 24 hours. I marinated the ribs for 20 minutes and they tasted great.  Store in frig until you need them.

6. Using a cast iron skillet or any other heavy-ish pan that holds heat, put the flame on high until the skillet is very hot.

7. Add 2 T oil to skillet. Take ribs out of marinade and put them carefully in skillet. Don’t crowd the skillet. Saute for 3 minutes on each side.

 8. Top with some toasted sesame seeds

Serve over rice or with lettuce wraps as an appetizer or main course.

 

Best Thai in NW suburbs

Thai House in Hoffman Estates has the freshest Thai food around. I was getting tired of the other Thai places nearby my house.

It is a little hard to get into and out of since it’s on the east side of Roselle, between Higgins and Golf, but definitely worth it.