Country Fried Steak

I'm alive! more or less

I actually have been cooking, I've just been a bit lazy on the photo editing. And from looking through these photos, I guess I've been lazy on the shooting too...well, I'll try harder next time cough.

I don't know why, but I have somewhat of an obsession with southern food. Most likely due to being in the south for 3 weeks and eating a lot.

Ingredients:

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Been awhile, eh? I've been cooking, I've just been too lazy to edit and upload pics.

That said, here's a REALLY simple meal:

Chicken Cordon Bleu...kind of

I need some toothpicks. Or kitchen twine. And breadcrumbs.

Anyways, chicken cordon bleu is fairly simple--get some chicken breasts, cover one side with breadcrumbs (using the flour/eggwash/breadcrumb method), butterfly and pound to a uniform thin length, add ham and swiss, and roll it all up. Oh, and tie it up, or stick toothpicks through the seam so that it doesn't unroll on you.

Pork Ribs, Pt. III - Finishing up

Almost done! Once the ribs have been cooking in the slow cooker for about 8 hours, take them out, put a last brushing of barbecue sauce on them, and put them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes. Why do we finish in the oven? Because the dry heat of the oven helps caramelize that barbecue sauce into the meat--otherwise, you'll have ugly, soggy brown ribs.


Here they are, brushed with sauce and in the oven.

Pork Ribs, Pt. II - Preparation

Ribs, like any other somewhat tough meat, is best cooked low and slow. As in, use a low temperature, and cook for a really long time.

Ideally, I'd like to make barbecued ribs, but I don't really have access to a barbecue, nor do I have the ingredients or the experience. So I'm going to make "barbecue" ribs. Why the quotes? Cause I'm actually going to use a slow cooker and an oven.

But before we even start cooking, we have to do a bit of butchering. Spareribs are a huge cut of meat that can be broken down into 3 main parts, as you will see soon.

Pork Ribs, Pt. I - oh god what did i do

I couldn't resist. The weekly Albertsons paper said that pork spareribs were on sale for 99¢ a pound.

So I bought a whole rack of ribs. Yeah.


10 pounds of meaty goodness. Probably a bit less, since there are bones and all that.


I mean, come on, how often do you see prices like that? Unfortunately, I've never actually cooked ribs before, so we'll see how it all works out this weekend...

Beef with broccoli

It's not often that you see sirloin on sale for $2 a pound, so I had to take advantage of it. Sirloin is pretty tender as is, which means it's great for short and fast cooking--like stir-frying.

Recipe from Epicurious.

Ingredients: 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 pound sirloin, sliced against the grain 1/8 inch thick
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
10 ounces frozen broccoli florets, thawed
3 garlic cloves, chopped
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1/3 cup water


Ok, so I missed a bunch of pictures. Cut the sirloin as thin as you can (it's much easier to do this if you partially freeze the meat by throwing it into the freezer for about 30 minutes, since it'll hold its shape better while you're cutting it), then coat with cornstarch and add seasonings and stuff. And stuff.

Also, prep the broccoli and garlic.



Get the pan hot (like medium-high on the stove), and throw in the sliced sirloin. Let it sit for a bit so that you get that nice brown crust.


Once the sirloin is cooked, set it aside, add some more oil, then add the broccoli and garlic. Stir constantly, because a hot pan + garlic = burnt garlic, and burnt garlic = bad news. (so hot pan + garlic = bad news by transitivity?)


After about 2 minutes, add the sirloin back in, add the water and soy sauce to deglaze, scrape off all the good bits off the bottom of the pan, and let the liquids reduce to get a good sauce going.

Rather than water, I'm sure you could use something else. Vinegar? Shaohsing wine?


Serve over white rice.