Roast Beast! (standing rib roast)

     Oh yes! My favorite Christmas dish, Roast Beast!! The official term is Standing Rib roast, unless your cut of meat is prime grade, then its Prime Rib! The method of prep I do takes about 14 days for this, but sooooooo worth the wait. My wife and kids look forward to this dish the most out of all my other holiday dishes, even my BBQ. I know what your thinking, 14 days??? Its actually 15 days prep, but 14 days are spend dry aging the meat. Taking this step does 2 things. 1. Most whole packed meat is packed in water. Dry aging the beef will evaporate some of that water thus increasing the beefy flavor! 2. The cell structures inside the meat start to break down over time, making the meat more tender. Win win right?! Thats why I take this step! The down side is this beast will be taking up real estate in you fridge for the 15 days.

     What you will need is a nice prime rib or standing rib roast (bone in). These come in different sizes ranging from a small 2 bone roast to a large 7 bone roast. This here is a 7 bone. Rinse all the blood off the roast and pat dry with a paper towel.

     Place the roast fat side up in a large tray and loosely cover with aluminum foil. Foil must have enough space to allow air to flow through the meat to dry it. Place the roast in the fridge for 14 days. Its good to check on the roast every few days just to make sure there is no mold or anything that could spoil the meat. A funky smell and darkening of the meat is normal.

     Ok Mind you looking at the photo stamps this is only 10 days, But after aging, your roast should look something like this. It should have a nice hard crust covering most of it.

     The next step involves a sharp knife. Trim all around the roast to remove all the dry oxidized parts. Do not remove all the fat.

     When you have finished trimming, your roast should look like this! Beautiful right? The meat should be nice and firm, not flappy, and the cross sections should resemble something from a butchers ad.  Liberally season the outside with coarse sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, granulated garlic and onion powder, and some dried rosemary. If you cant to use a store bought rub instead? Go for it! just remember you still might need to rub some coarse sea salt on the out side. most rubs have fine ground salt and it won't penetrate the massive roast. After seasoning, place the roast for another day in the fridge for the rub to work its magic on the meat!

     Ok remove the roast from the fridge and pre heat your oven to 425F. Bake roast at 425F. for 30 mins. This will make a crust on the meat. Reduce heat to 325F. Roast until meat has an internal temp of 125F. Remove from oven and cover with aluminum foil. Allow meat to rest until internal temp is 135-140F. The roast should be a perfect medium rare. 

     While the roast is resting its time to make the red wine reduction sauce! Remove roast from roasting pan, drain fat and place roasting pan right on stove over medium high heat and deglaze with beef stock, about 32 oz. Make sure you get all the bits dissolved that were stuck to the pan. Poor in some red wine. about 1cup. Salt and pepper to taste. Crank the heat up to high and bring to a boil. when liquid has reduced by half, you have a nice red wine reduction to dip your meat in!

     Remove rib bones from roast, slice and serve!

Yorkshire Pudding!!!

   If you reserved that fat from the roasting pan you can make yorkshire pudding! The recipe is simple and its a nice light and fluffy bread to sop up meat juices!!!

     1 cup eggs (about 4)
     1 cup milk
     1 cup flour
     salt to taste
     1/2 tsp dried herbs for savory flavor

     Pre heat oven to 425F. In a muffin tin coat the bottoms of each tin with about 1tsp of fat from roast. Place muffin tin in the oven until the oil gets hot and starts to smoke (about 5 -10 mins). Mix all the above until smooth. Once the oil in the tins are starting to smoke poor mix in each tin 3/4 full and bake for 20-25 mins. The yorkshire pudding should be puffed up double in size and crispy brown. Enjoy!

Holidays Are Over!!!

     I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New years! Sorry for not posting anything on my blog these past few weeks. For those who know me. December is the busiest time of year for for my job. Plus trying to to all the holiday things like getting a Christmas tree, shopping, decorating, baking, not to mention i have to be a parent and a husband on top of all that!!! Something had to give... So I chose to put Bakers Meat Shack on the back burner until the holidays blow over. But, that doesn't mean I haven't spent any time in the kitchen through all that. Here's what I have been up to The past few weeks.

   

     The sauerkraut was a complete success!!! I was a bit skeptical because the cabbage kept creeping above the brine, my plastic baggie with water wasn't weighing it down enough. Every few days I had to go and press that sucker right back down! Pushing the cabbage below the brine, causing my fingers to smell like fermented cabbage. Yummy right? So I was worried that this would affect the outcome of the sauerkraut.

     Here you can definitely see that some of the brine had evaporated , but it most defiantly smells like sauerkraut!! So I had to taste it just to be sure my 3 weeks were not in vain.

     

     The flavor was spot on! The cabbage retained a lot of its crunch too!! Plus the caraway seeds were a nice addition. If any of you out there have store bought sauerkraut, I find there are 2 kinds. 1 being the stuff labeled sauerkraut, which to me is your everyday run of the mill stuff that you get at any supermarket, hotdog stand, or ball park. 2 if you go to some specialty market or any german deli, you can find German sauerkraut. This stuff tastes like the german kind!!! So if you ask me was it worth the 3 weeks fermentation? YES! My only regret is that I should of made more, since my family managed to eat it all with in a weeks time.

     I also smoked some ribs for some of my coworkers as a surprise! For the month of December some employees were bringing food to work for the fellow coworkers. So I thought What the heck, Ill make ribs on a sunday, then reheat them monday morning and bring them in to work! 

     I also made some gingerbread. I friggen love gingerbread! Just an FYI, I did frost them, I just was too busy eating them to take a pic! The thing I regret not doing was make a gingerbread house. My youngest daughter and I made one last year and we had lots of fun doing it. But I had been so busy as stated above, I elected not to do it.

     And let us not forget about the Roast Beast!! Every Christmas I make standing rib roast (prime rib). Sadly this pic doesn't do it any justice. It looks Medium well, but trust me, it was very much Pink and juicy in the center! In my next post I will show step be step on how I dry age and cook this beast! Until then, I will try to be more regular on posting to my blog.

Maple Bourbon Bacon Jam

     Yep! You read correctly... Maple Bourbon Bacon Jam! A jam with NO fruit what-so-ever, just MEAT!!! I found this recipe while surfing the internet. I couldn't resist, I had to try it! My wife gave me the craziest look when I told here what I was making. But when we tried the finished product. WHOLY S#!T!!!! It was that good!!! I like it as a sandwich spread, but it has several applications. I even put a spoon of it in some barbecue sauce I had made.  Just remember it is a meat product and it requires refrigeration for storage, unless you can it. If you are going to can it. Pressure can it at 10lbs. for 75 mins. Refrigerate after opening.

Maple Bourbon Bacon Jam:

     1lbs thick cut bacon cut into 1inch slices

     1 large onion sliced

     4 cloves garlic chopped

     1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

     3/4 cup strong brewed coffee

     1/4 cup packed brown sugar

     1/4 cup maple syrup

     1/4 cup bourbon

     1-2 arbol chili pods more if you like it hotter

     1/2 tsp cumin

     In a heavy sauce pan over medium heat cook the bacon till it starts to brown, do not crisp. Remove bacon and set aside. Drain all but 2 tbs of bacon fat from pan. Add onion to sauce pan cook in reserved bacon fat till tender. Add garlic, sauté till fragrant. Add apple cider vinegar to deglaze. Return bacon to pan with remaining ingredients reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours stirring on occasion. When mixture is thick and syrupy, transfer to a food processor. Process bacon jam until smooth or desired consistency. Serve warm. Enjoy!

Turkey Soup!

Turkey Soup Stock:

     leftover bones from 2 turkeys with some meat still attached
     3 carrots
     3 ribs celery
     1 large onion peeled and quartered
     3 cloves garlic peeled
     1/4 cup kosher or sea salt
     1 1/2 tsp pepper corns
     1 1/2 tsp thyme or 1-2 fresh sprigs if you have them

     Fill a large stock pot 2/3 full of water, bring to boil. Add salt and stir until salt has completely dissolved. Add turkey bones. Was and break carrots and celery into thirds, add them to pot. Add the onion, garlic, pepper corns, and thyme. Reduce heat and simmer for two hours. Strain stock and discard solids.

Turkey Soup

     turkey soup stock
     3 carrots peeled and chopped
     3 ribs celery chopped
     1 large onion chopped
     1 cooked turkey breast cubed
     1 cup uncooked rice
     cornstarch solution (optional)

     Bring soup stock to a boil. Add carrots, celery, and onions. reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. add turkey meat and simmer for 30 minutes. Add rice and simmer another 30 mins, stirring so rice doesn't stick to bottom of pot. Optional, add cornstarch solution for a thicker soup and simmer for 10 minutes. Enjoy!

Turkey Turkey Turkey!!!

     Hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving! I had spent mine with my wifes family. It was pretty awesome!! I got to enjoy great food and great company! The best part... I didn't have to cook!!! But when I got back home, it was back to business in the kitchen. At my job, some coworkers deep fried some turkeys for the employees. Im not a big deep fried turkey kinda guy, but these were pretty damn GOOD! Any ways the guys frying the turkeys were going to just toss the leftover necks and bones.... Thats a no-no in my kitchen. So they were kind enough to give them to me to bring home to make some soup stock out of them. So as a return thank you for them cooking, I decided to make and can some turkey soup!

     Also the end of November was the when my kosher dill pickles were done! To be honest I liked them. The only thing that I would of done different was to cut back on the pickling spice. My family didn't care for them as much, oh well you can't win them all I guess. Un fortunately not all the pickles survived the fermentation process. As a rule, use the smallest and most firm cucumbers for pickling. Some of my cucumbers were not so small or firm due to the poor selection at the market. So as a result about half of the pickles were mushy. The rest pickled quite nicely!

     My sauerkraut is coming along nicely! At Thanksgiving someone had brought some homemade sauerkraut similar to the recipe Im using. Was better than any store bought sauerkraut I had ever had! So Im excited to see the end result of mine! But for now Im playing the waiting game.

Steak Chili!!!

     Ok heres my recipe for Steak Chili with Beans!

     Steak Chili with Beans:

large stock pot
4 anaheim chilies cored and chopped
4 pasilla chilies cored and chopped
9 yellow chilies cored and chopped
1 large onion chopped
5 cloves garlic chopped
4 lbs beef shoulder or chuck, trimmed and cubed
1 lbs andouille or hot link sliced
4 heaping tbs chili powder or your favorite chili seasoning
2 heaping tbs cumin
2 15oz cans diced tomatoes
3 12oz beers
1 29oz can of each black, kidney, and pinto beans drained and rinsed
1/2 cup flour (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

     If you want thick or watery chili is where the flour comes in. If thick is what you want then flour, salt and pepper the beef. Coat the bottom of a large stock pot with oil of choice, I used olive oil, brown andouille to render fat. Then add beef and brown over medium heat.

     Once meat is browned add onion, garlic, and chilies.

 Cook until tender then add tomatoes, chili power, and cumin. Simmer for 5 minutes.

     Add beer, stir and simmer on a medium low heat for 2 hours or until beef is tender and fully cooked. Taste to see if additional seasoning is needed.
   

     Then add beans, simmer and stir for another 30 minutes and serve. Enjoy!!

Sauerkraut Project!

     Now that my Kosher dill pickles have finished! I can now try my had at making sauerkraut! Yep, its another 3 week long fermentation project...Again.... But the family and I love the stuff and its, set aside the 3 week fermentation, quite easy to make!

     Sauerkraut:

2 large heads cabbage

3 tbs pickling or kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp. caraway seeds (optional)

1 large glass jar or crock

     Wash and core cabbage. Quarter cabbage and thinly slice it. Place sliced cabbage in a large pot or bowl. Add salt and caraway seeds, mix with hands, kneading and squeezing cabbage to release water and wilt cabbage.

     Once cabbage starts to release its water let it rest for 20 minutes. The cabbage should be thoroughly wet at and wilted at this point. Pack cabbage firmly in a large clean glass jar or crock.

    Now you need a weight to keep all the cabbage submerged. I used a ziplock baggie filled with water. Once weight is added cover jar with a paper towel so gasses can escape and nothing can fall in. keep at room temperature for 3 weeks.

     Wish me luck!