captbob's Profile
Anyone know what "basa" filet is?
It's an Asian catfish. It's not allowed to be called catfish because of the American catfish lobby. But it's usually imported from China or Vietnam. It's a fairly innocuous white fish good prepared in a variety of ways.
Help! I'm marrying a hunter...
You can treat them just like beef or lamb, with a few little tips.
Trim the fat/sinew very carefully. The thing that turns my wife off the most is a small piece of tendon that got past me. Secondly, it almost always (with the exception of a fresh -- and I mean fresh -- backstrap) tastes sweeter when marinated in a wine/vinegar based marinade. I typically will use half a bottle of red with about a half cup of apple cider vinegar, then add seasoning to taste. Believe it or not, the vinegar sweetens up the meat and removes any funkiness that may be lingering in the meat. Also, be careful you don't cook it for very long. Medium-rare is just about the perfect amount of cooking for venison or elk. Much more and you can easily turn a prime cut into dry leather. Gentle cooking gets rewarded.
Finally, a trick I learned last year: if your husband does his own butchering, don't have him cut the tenderloin out of the ribs/spine. Instead, get a jigsaw or skill saw and cut the ribs off next to the spine and keep the meat on the bone, just like a prime rib. Then cook it like a prime rib and slice it into single portions after it's done. It makes a HUGE difference in how well the meat cooks. Something about having the bone in there keeps the temperatures down in the middle of the loin while the outside browns/carmelizes quite nicely. It's easier than trying to filet out the tenderloin and it cooks better.
Wild Venison Suggestions???
The trick to clean tasting venison is quick cleaning, cooling and drying after the kill (and hopefully the deer didn't run). Finally, the both the gamey taste, and slight metallic tang, can be mitigated by adding vineagar to your marinade. We typically use a cheap Shiraz and add apple cider vineagar and marinate for 8 hrs minimum (you can let it sit in there for 48 hrs in the fridge without overpowering the deer with red wine/vineagar). It makes the meat very sweet. Also strongly recommend that it be served rare, even in stews. It takes a LONG time to break down in a stew if not. Finally, before I started hunting, I was told that mule deer is way stronger than whitetail. Wrong. I suspect the flavor has a mostly to do with how it's treated after it is killed.
Billings, Montana suggestions?
Tough call...check out the Montana Brewing Company pub for pretty good bar food and great beers. These others have been recommended by friends: Jake's (steakhouse), Q Cuisine (fusion), Enzo's (Mediteranean), The Rex (steakhouse).
PLEASE! A decent pancake mix?? [Moved from Home Cooking board]
Krusteaz is definitely the best. One tip: substitute fruit juice -- any kind -- for water in the mix.
Striped bass!
My quick n dirty grilling recipe is a) make sure there's wood smoke in your grill - anyway you can, and b) I use a mixture of mayonaise, mustard, a light sprinke of dill and paprika on top. Spread the mixture quite thick on top. Stick it on the grill, medium, smoky heat. The mayo semi-dissolves leaving a nice crust on top, moist but firm flesh, and best of all, easy easy easy. It ends up being so good I rarely look for other toppings (except sometimes when it's a vineagrette dressing used as a marinade with a little Marsala - or Pinot Grigio - dressed at the end with an herb butter heavy on the fresh tarragon).
Best meal you ever had in a truck stop?
Stuffed pork chop, mashed potatoes, apple pie and cherry pie at a diner just off the highway near Harpers Ferry, WVa on a motorcycle trip. Can't remember the name of the diner, but it's kind of tucked away, just off the highway.
What foods do you HAVE to mail order?
Certain products are great simply because they are hand made, or made in very small batches, and are affordable because they haven't been discovered. There are farms in Virginia and North Carolina that produce amazing hams, equal in quality to the finest produced in Italy or Spain, but aren't selling at $50-$100 a pound because they aren't known outside their local community. And I ain't tellin' neither ;-)
Split chicken on the grill- help
Oops...small addition: We tip the chicken on end using a beer-can chicken rack or asperagus rack (whichever is closest at hand). That way you don't get a gooey breast or back.
I'll have to hunt down our brining solution. It's pretty simple, basically water, kosher salt, a little sugar, herbs de provence and juniper berries. My wife measures, I just throw it in. But we do our brining in a ziploc during the summer, or in a 5-gallon bucket (with tight fitting lid) and keep it in our "potting shed" during the winter (it stays between 30 and 40 degrees all winter long, which here in Montana is from October 31st to June 1st, It's great for entertaining - like having a very large walk-in fridge for 7-8 months). And we like to brine for a minimum of 8 hrs, but when we are planning a party, we start brining as soon as we get the chicken or turkey from the Hutterites, (Anabaptist farming communities that prosper all over Montana that produce awesome poultry and produce).
The 5-gallon bucket works for turkeys too, which we cook the same way, just a little longer. I think the brining solution is from a NY Times article or Craig Claiborne.
Greatest innovation since the food processor?
Vacuum pumps and nitrogen replacement systems to preserve an opened bottle of wine and wireless speakers to pump music into the kitchen. Oh, and sealed burners.
Is 14,000 BTU enough?
14000BTU is not enough for a full range of cooking, especially if you want good results cooking for a lot of people using a wok or pan-searing ahi or doing a blackend-X dish for more than just yourself. You need high heat to repeat good results.
Minimum for good results with a wok or fast searing is around 25000 BTUs. But I couldn't find this in a consumer stove. We ended up with a Bosch with one 17000BTU burner, but I have to do my high heat work on a modified propane-fired camp stove outside for parties and "real" cooking.
what knife is best for you
Most of my knives are Henkel 4-Star's - big chef, little chef, big carve, little carve, 3 paring knives, boning knife, filet knife, and carving fork. I like the 4-Star handles and balance the best. Have owned other French, German, Swiss and US made brands, but have slowly distributed them to college students getting their first off-campus appartments. My wife found an excellent, no-name butcher knife at a Chinese grocery store on Clement St in San Francisco: it's incredibly sharp, has great balance, and has a knobby, metal handle that doesn't get too slippery when you're in the middle of cutting up a lot of meat.
Sharpening is incredibly important. I was given a Chef's Pro electric sharpener about 17 years ago, and while it mars the finish of the knives, once you've gone through the process of re-shaping the cutting profile of the stock Henkels, it works really well and is relatively fast (which is important if you sharpen your knives every 2-3 weeks and you have a lot of them). The trick though, is to be patient over time: the Chef's Pro sharpens the edges at 3 different angles, none of which came with your stock knife. It just takes time to reshape the edge. But once it's done, no problems. I strongly recommend learning how to sharpen knives yourself, especially if you do any kind of serious work with your knives. Last winter, between friends and myself, we butchered 3 mule deer and an elk over a weekend (then promptly became vegetarians -- at least for the next month), and were sharpening every 4 hours. Had we done the sharpening by hand, or sent it out, we'd have been well into the week by the time we had finished our work.
Aluminum Fry Pan and Sauce Pan
Pitting can be avoided with regular scouring with a copper pad and/or SOS pads. The scouring produces a finish on the pan that is virtually non-stick when coated with a tiny tiny amount of butter or/and olive oil.
I love my aluminum saute pans. No one can convince me that those stainless steel monstrosities work any better. If you're cooking a lot, the weight differential alone saves your wrist for more important pursuits, like being able to control your martini glass.
Dishwasher madness
We got a Bosch last year, it's got a "quick wash" cycle for quick turnarounds. Very quiet, very water efficient (we can take a shower while it's running -- our house was plumbed in 1910 -- can't shower when someone is hand washing dishes).
My only complaint is that the lid above where you put the dishwasher detergent makes a fingernails on chalkboard squeek EVERYTIME you close it.
wild boar/pig recipes
Lucky you! I saw this piece a while back, and it has a recipe that I'd like to try:
http://www.jackboulware.com/writing/wild-boar-hunting
Bozeman Montana
Head over to Livingston to eat a Chatam's Livingston Bar and Grill -- a sure bet. Make reservations though. MT Ale Works is ok for bar food, but great beer selection -- try the Montana locals: Blackfoot River (all of them), Lang (Tri-Motor), Bayern (most of them), and there's one out of Billings that's awesome. I'm not much of a fan of the local Bozeman brews though.
MacKenzie River is merely edible. If you're into "real" pizza, find something else to eat. A fun place to eat is the Mint Bar in Belgrade -- a real Montana atmosphere. I find Bozeman a little bit pretentious and the food generally not that spectacular. But, have to second Looies as a nice place to eat. If you're willing to travel, there are a few places in Livingston that are really delightful places to eat. If you're willing to travel a bit farther, try Chico Hot Springs in Paradise Valley: really good food, good service, and a nice place to stay.
What do I do with to much zuccini
Excellent ideas here: we have to try the "pasta" idea. In our neighborhood, chutney's, pies and preserves (e.g. zucchini/rhubarb/strawberry) are popular methods of storing, then disposing (party/thank you gifts to friends) of excess zucchini.
Split chicken on the grill- help
Brining (kashering) is critical. We do it in ziploc bags, basically with recipe above but add 5-6 juniper berries. 8-48 hrs works. Rinse when getting ready to cook.
Low and slow is critical: we plan for 2.5- 3 hrs. cooking on medium sized gas grill. Start it hot, clean the grate, turn one burner off, the other on the lowest it can go. Put your chicken in a cast iron pan (any type). Initial high heat sears the outside, low and slow self-bastes the chicken from the inside. We usually use whole chickens and stuff them with a lemon that's been poked with a knife twice, and onion quarters. Stick the whole thing on the grill, close the lid and forget about it for a couple hours, (temp should be no more than 225-250). Add wood chips for the last 20 minutes. Remove the lemon and onions and serve.
This doesn't work as well without the kashering. You can probably reduce the cookng time with a split chicken, but I'd probably try to reassemble it around a lemon/onion to get the best flavors.
Be gentle cutting this beast: it falls apart.
Drinks for BBQ - besides beer...
Modified juleps work the best: Take a 5-gallon gatorade container, add a block of ice, pour in 1/2 gallon of bourbon, about a pint of Rose's Lime (to taste -- or equivalent amount of fresh squeezed lime juice), add club soda, a huge bunch if mint that you've twisted up with your hands (1/2 soccer ball size). Add sugar (should be moderately sweet). Then when serving, have at hand club soda on the side, fill the glass/cup with ice, 3/4 fill of the mix, top off with club soda. Garnish with mint. When served, it should be pretty watered down, the color of a weak iced tea. It will cut the grease in BBQ, compliment the sauce, and surprise people who aren't bourbon drinkers.
How to prepare octopus?
Prep tip: Depending on the size of the beast, you may want to tenderize with a meat hammer to break it down some. You sometimes really need to work on it to make large pieces tender enough to enjoy with mouthful sized bites. Marinate/baste it in the vineagrette of your choice. Soaking it in sherry or marsala also adds a nice flavor.
Cooking tip: Don't over do it. If it was frozen/thawed correctly, you can barely undercook it. If overcooked, it tends to dry out (hence the reason so many Greek restaurants pour massive amounts of oil over it). I like to cook it over wood to give it a little smoke.
How to prepare octopus?
These are a perfect addition to a "Fra Diavolo" red sauce; they work great on top of pizza's with anchovies, capers, black olives; as ceviche, or pickled with vineagar and lemon for an antipasto. If fresh, they work very well as sushi (fisherman bringing in the local catch in southern Italy used to torment my mom by demostrating how delicious they were by taking a handfull from their catch and eating them straight up, accompanied by the morning portion of grappa or sip of wine). Depending on size, these can also be substituted for fried calamari.
Preparation depends on the size. If small/young enough, the beaks are quite edible and ink not too distracting. If I'm preparing for my wife, I usually cut the beaks out as she doesn't like to eat things that look back at her. My boys (now 6 and 8) on the other hand, love it au natural.
Mmm...baby octopus
What foods do you HAVE to mail order?
This is kind of like asking people where their favorite fishing hole is...not sure it benefits the audience to participate. But I'll throw in: a special brand of Virginia ham and low-gluten pizza flour.
A surfeit of jalapenos. What to do!?
I've made a few batches of my own hot sauces from mixes of jalapeno, seranno and habaneros. It's pretty easy to do. I slice the jalapenos / peppers into 1/4" rounds (keep the seeds in), throw them in a pot of boiling water 4X the height of the peppers then bring them down to a simmer until about 1/2 the water is gone. Then, cool the mess down, throw it in the food processor and puree. Strain through a strainer (to let the finer pulp through), then you've got your pepper base to work with.
My best batch has involved fresh grapefruit, lime, mango, honey, ginger, tumeric (for color), and a tiny bit of champagne vineagar. (It's pretty easy to find good, commercial peppery/vinegary sauces, much harder to find sweeter, fruit based sauces that aren't too sweet, that provide a neutral/floral heat to use in Thai, Chinese, island recipes, to say nothing of being great on omlettes).
I usually store it the batch in a spare growler (gallon beer bottle) and age it in the fridge (or outside if it's winter) for a little bit before using. I've had batches that have kept for a couple years and still tasted good. My sauces are still on the thin side (haven't quite figure out the trick for adding body without using corn starch or other thickeners. I'm going to try okra with the next batch to see if it will make it thicken up).
