A
Avenal
Guest
Roasted Chicken
What's for Dinner?
- Thread starter Trainzman
- Start date
Grasharm
experienced newbie
Damn you all. I actually cooked... no pictures because I apparently can't use a camera on the phone properly and they came out as a shadowy mess.
Just so you guys know this is why I wan't able to get back on last night before work...
So basically is stepped up my game on the catfish I caught on the stringer out back the other day. I trimmed the dark meat out of the catfish and let it soak overnight is water with lemon and salt to draw out all the blood. Pulled it out rinsed and dried it then dropped it into a bowl of buttermilk with rosemary, thyme, sage, crushed white and black pepper, and agave nectar. Went and showered and shaved. Came back crushed a half a sleeve of Generic Ritz crackers into powder and used it to bread the fish. Fried it off. while it was draining in towels I made a chipotle aioli out of 4 or 5 egg yolks, some veggie oil, lemon, garlic, a generous squeeze of simple syrup, three spoonfuls of chipoltes in adobe from a can and, two drops of ghost pepper oil. Grabbed some romaine out of the fridge and some sandwich sliced butter pickles. laid down a couple of leafs of romaine put a layer pickles on top that, fried catfish on top of that, smothered in aioli and topped with another layer of romaine leafs. Skewered the resulting casserole with toothpicks (about 8 per fillet) as evenly spaced out as I could make them and cut the dish into chunks with my scaling knife as it was sharp and handy. I was damn if I wasn't going to use the whites as well so I cooked them off in the frying pain after whipping in some diced rosemary and thyme. took the resulting disk and rolled it around some Andouille sausage and dropped into a toasted roll with some blue cheese crumbles.
I liked it but then again I'm a little weird. I enjoy unusual foods which is how I ended up eating scorpions while I was in Saudi.
Just so you guys know this is why I wan't able to get back on last night before work...
So basically is stepped up my game on the catfish I caught on the stringer out back the other day. I trimmed the dark meat out of the catfish and let it soak overnight is water with lemon and salt to draw out all the blood. Pulled it out rinsed and dried it then dropped it into a bowl of buttermilk with rosemary, thyme, sage, crushed white and black pepper, and agave nectar. Went and showered and shaved. Came back crushed a half a sleeve of Generic Ritz crackers into powder and used it to bread the fish. Fried it off. while it was draining in towels I made a chipotle aioli out of 4 or 5 egg yolks, some veggie oil, lemon, garlic, a generous squeeze of simple syrup, three spoonfuls of chipoltes in adobe from a can and, two drops of ghost pepper oil. Grabbed some romaine out of the fridge and some sandwich sliced butter pickles. laid down a couple of leafs of romaine put a layer pickles on top that, fried catfish on top of that, smothered in aioli and topped with another layer of romaine leafs. Skewered the resulting casserole with toothpicks (about 8 per fillet) as evenly spaced out as I could make them and cut the dish into chunks with my scaling knife as it was sharp and handy. I was damn if I wasn't going to use the whites as well so I cooked them off in the frying pain after whipping in some diced rosemary and thyme. took the resulting disk and rolled it around some Andouille sausage and dropped into a toasted roll with some blue cheese crumbles.
I liked it but then again I'm a little weird. I enjoy unusual foods which is how I ended up eating scorpions while I was in Saudi.
Last edited:
A
Avenal
Guest
Darn you, Trainz!OK, time for this years first foodie pic and I bring to you Chicken Fajitas in Cornmeal wraps with Nachos and smoked paprika Potato wedges.
With love,
Lyric
Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk
Again, not quite dinner. Not even food. Yet.
Some twenty years ago I was in Johannesburg for a job and got hooked on biltong. That's the South African version of jerky - cured and dried meat without heat. Inexistent in Sweden, difficult to get from awnywhere else in Europe, and bloody expensive. So I decided I'll be making my own:
50x40x40cm plastic box. Fan from an old broken laptop. Power supply from an old broken router. Air intake filtered through one half of a tea strainer. Hanging rack made from an old oven rack. Combined thermo- and hygrometer. Total cost: plastic box, hygrometer and tea strainer under 30 euro, everything else was scavenged. The hygrometer is not necessary (it's just me experimenting and estimating drying contiditions). I could have scavenged the tea strainer too, mind you.
It'll be cheap in production too. As the box doesn't need heating, power consuption is just the fan (or fans), 1-3 W/h. I don't know about times yet, but I'm counting on 12-48 hours depending on the thickness of the strips, and whether it'll be 'wet' or 'dry' biltong.
I'll be testing this for a couple of days. Eventually put in a larger fan, or another small one - there's a lot of broken down computers lying around - if drying is too slow or if I need to change the circulation pattern inside the box.
Some twenty years ago I was in Johannesburg for a job and got hooked on biltong. That's the South African version of jerky - cured and dried meat without heat. Inexistent in Sweden, difficult to get from awnywhere else in Europe, and bloody expensive. So I decided I'll be making my own:
50x40x40cm plastic box. Fan from an old broken laptop. Power supply from an old broken router. Air intake filtered through one half of a tea strainer. Hanging rack made from an old oven rack. Combined thermo- and hygrometer. Total cost: plastic box, hygrometer and tea strainer under 30 euro, everything else was scavenged. The hygrometer is not necessary (it's just me experimenting and estimating drying contiditions). I could have scavenged the tea strainer too, mind you.
It'll be cheap in production too. As the box doesn't need heating, power consuption is just the fan (or fans), 1-3 W/h. I don't know about times yet, but I'm counting on 12-48 hours depending on the thickness of the strips, and whether it'll be 'wet' or 'dry' biltong.
I'll be testing this for a couple of days. Eventually put in a larger fan, or another small one - there's a lot of broken down computers lying around - if drying is too slow or if I need to change the circulation pattern inside the box.
Possibly. Even probably. And if I get hold of another dead laptop I'll add a second fan whether it's needed or not (trying to do this on the cheap): there's reports of a better texture quality if the meat dries faster 
Still, the small fan is rated for a flow of 16,000 litres/hour, and the box is 80 litres. If I can direct the circulation inside the box so that no permanent eddies form where the meat is hanging, then it should dry. And humidity will still be driven by passive convection from higher concentration to lower. As long as there's flow in and out the box we should be on target -- normal air humidity indoors in Sweden, and specifically at the office which is where I'm doing the deed, is around 30-34%) After all 50 years ago in SA, they'd dry 5 cm thick slabs just hanging in a room, or a closet, without any air circulation to speak of.
If the experiment works well, I'm going to try for other non-heated variants (bresaola, cecina). And then, and then: sausages! (salami, saucisson, longaniza)
Still, the small fan is rated for a flow of 16,000 litres/hour, and the box is 80 litres. If I can direct the circulation inside the box so that no permanent eddies form where the meat is hanging, then it should dry. And humidity will still be driven by passive convection from higher concentration to lower. As long as there's flow in and out the box we should be on target -- normal air humidity indoors in Sweden, and specifically at the office which is where I'm doing the deed, is around 30-34%) After all 50 years ago in SA, they'd dry 5 cm thick slabs just hanging in a room, or a closet, without any air circulation to speak of.
If the experiment works well, I'm going to try for other non-heated variants (bresaola, cecina). And then, and then: sausages! (salami, saucisson, longaniza)
A small test batch, after 24 hrs drying: excellent wet biltong Jo'burg style (party strips with mainly toasted coriander and garam masala, and a few other things). A dash more salt and chili for the next batch. I'm letting this batch to dry another 18-24 more hours to get a drier, more crumbly texture.
JamesGoblin
LoMS Member
This thread makes me drool...I'll have to re-consider my plans for canned tuna tonight =)
