I’m having a meat-based dining revolution. I’ve long considered myself a good cook, and can prepare many tasty, interesting and balanced dishes from recipe or from scratch. My deep, dark secret, though, is that I’ve never really cooked much meat, and so have minimal experience in that regard. Bacon, sausage, salmon in the broiler, burgers on the grill, and chili/stews have really been my only experiences.
Until now. With some guidance from the SDMB, and initial inspiration from a farm share a few years ago that left me with a lot of pork and some chickens, I’ve now gained the confidence to play around with animals in my cooking. I’ve now added:
[ul]
[li]Roasted Chicken[/li][li]Roast pork loin[/li][li]stove-top grilled pork chops[/li][li]Pork ribs in the oven[/li][li]Steak tips on the grill[/li][li]Deep-fried quail (they had quail at the farmers’ market a few weeks ago, and they recommended that preparation)[/li][/ul]
. . . to the list of meats/preparations I’m now totally comfortable with, and can do on a moment’s notice. Mainly, I’m very good with the oven as a meat-cooking tool, the stove-top not quite as good, and I don’t own a grill.
I’m really enjoying adding meat to my meals on a somewhat regular basis, but could use some good ideas for recipes. I don’t mind things that take a little time or might be complicated. I’m cooking for one, so anything I do will likely involve left-overs for a few more meals.
Forget pork loin and ribs and chops; learn to cook the King of all Meats, pork shoulder. If I had to eschew all meat but one, it would be pork shoulder.
Here’s one of my go-to recipes. You can make a lot or a little, depending on how much pork shoulder you start with. I freeze the leftovers in individual bags so I can pull 'em out whenever I want.
Easy Pork Carnitas
Buy some pork shoulder, however much you want. Cut it into chunks about 1/2-1" square. Throw it in a pot, cover with water. Add some of the following:
crushed garlic cloves
dried chile peppers
beer or stock instead of/in addition to the water
onions
whatever else sounds good
the bone, if you didn’t buy boneless pork shoulder
Bring to a simmer, uncovered. Cook for a 2-3 hours until the pork shreds easily with a fork and the liquid is reduced. Remove the pork from the liquid. Add a can or two of salsa and boil the hell out of it until it’s mostly reduced. Add the pork back in and shred it and mix it up with the reduced liquid. Salt and pepper/salsa/hotsauce to taste.
Now take the whole mess and put it on a cookie sheet. I typically line the cookie sheet with tin foil to help with cleanup. Put under the broiler until the top gets crispy. Give it a good stir, crisp again. Just keep doing this until it’s crispy to taste.
Use to stuff burritos or tacos. Or toss it with scrambled eggs for breakfast burritos. Or add to beans for yummy beans. Or eat with a fork from the pot.
Roasting chicken is easy. Cut a bird in half lengthwise (or in half again, in quarters). Salt and pepper the meat, put the pieces in an oiled baking dish (“cavity” side down) and add some water and white wine (half of a small glass of each, for example). Place thin slices of garlic on the chicken, then do the same with tomato (very thin) and onion (not so thin, in rings). Sprinkle with a little salt, finely chopped parsley, part of a chicken bouillon cube (crumble between fingertips) and black pepper. Bake at medium heat about 45 minutes. It’s extraordinarily good when baked on a “bed” of very thinly sliced potato, but you might have to experiment to get everything done at the same time (thinly sliced, the potato will usually be cooked in less than 45 minutes).
[ul]
[li]Buy a whole fish, scaled and dressed. I like tilapia, myself; they’re tasty, the perfect size for one person, and fit in any pan, but any whole fish will do.[/li][li]Rinse it in cold water and pat dry.[/li][li]Make 3 diagonal slits on each side. I also like to deepen the cavity so I can fit more stuff in.[/li][li]Rub with salt and pepper, inside and out. Don’t be shy about it. I like to add some cayenne and a little ginger to the mix, but you can use whatever you like.[/li][li]Stuff the cavity with thin lemon and onion slices, maybe some minced garlic, and some basil leaves if you have any.[/li][li]Fill a pan with about 1/2 inch of oil, put over medium heat.[/li][li]When the oil is hot (dip the head of the fish in; if it sizzles, it’s hot enough), drop your fish in (gently!) and cook about 8 minutes per side. Aside from flipping it once, don’t touch it.[/li][/ul]
Serve with some rice pilaf and steamed vegetable of your choice.
Boy, howdy. Carnitas, pulled pork with slaw; it just doesn’t get much better. The variety of possible rubs for pork shoulder alone make it the king. The OP brushes by burgers, but burgers are best when fried in a pan or on a griddle, IMO. There are various methods for this, all covered in previous burger threads. Also, regarding salmon: I think it’s best when sauteed in a bit of butter. The flavor of salmon stands alone and it’s way too easy to overcook it under the broiler.
An excellent meat dish is a spaghetti meat sauce, also known as Sunday gravy. You can make a good-sized batch and nosh on it all week, either with pasta, or as a soup. I’ve posted this several times:
Salt and pepper
1 pound pork spareribs, neck bones or pork chops
1 pound beef chuck roast, blade steak or brisket
3 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup chopped onions
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 6-ounce can tomato paste
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 bay leaf
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes, preferably Italian
1 28-ounce can tomato sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, roughly chopped
4 small or 2 large pickled peperoncini
Cooked meatballs (see recipe)
1 pound dried spaghetti for serving
Grated Parmesan for serving.
Sprinkle salt and pepper all over pork and beef. Place large pot over medium-high heat; when hot, add olive oil and brown meat. (Or cook meat in same pot used for meatballs, browning in the leftover fat.) Remove meat to a platter. Turning heat under pot to medium, add onions, and cook 3 minutes, stirring. Add garlic, and cook 2 minutes longer. Add tomato paste, and stir: cook until it absorbs fat in pan. Add oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, kosher salt and bay leaf, stirring to combine.
Add cans of tomatoes and tomato sauce, then 4 1/2 cups water. Stir in sugar, parsley and peperoncini. Return meats to pot with their juices. Bring sauce to a gentle boil. Turn heat down to a simmer, partly cover and leave sauce to simmer 21/2 hours or more, stirring regularly.
About 20 minutes before serving, add meatballs to pot. Boil spaghetti according to package directions. Drain, return spaghetti to pan and add 3 cups sauce. Toss pasta in pan for a minute to coat with sauce, and place on a large platter. Pour 2 more cups sauce over pasta. Place meat and meatballs on pasta, slicing large pieces. Serve with bowls of remaining sauce and Parmesan.
Pork shoulder in the crock pot; use whatever amounts and ratios feel right:
Pork shoulder or similar cut.
Sliced apples, or canned apple sauce, with cinnamon.
Cook 8-12 hours, until falling apart.
Salt to taste in last hour of cooking.
Lots of applications. I like this as is with a hefty dose of hot sauce and some melted cheese, paleo-style.
Also, bacon. You must discover bacon!
Also ras el hanout and similar spice blends for chicken thighs and pork chops.
Like you, l cooked very little meat for years. Decades, actually. I think l went about 20 years without eating bacon, ever. Or steak. I have rediscovered meat in the last couple of years and it makes me happy.
Great suggestions everyone! I’m going to try all of them. Some questions:
So a “whole fish, scaled and dressed” is like a fish naked from the neck down (ie, the head is still the whole head)? I want to have a visual idea of what I’d be asking for at the seafood counter.
After a quick attempt at finding methods in other threads . . . what’s the secret!? I did burgers on the pan the night before I started this thread (was part of the inspiration), and while they came out tasty and cooked to my preferred degree of doneness (medium rare), I ended up with a plate full of burger “juice” and had to eat them very carefully so as to not end up with liquid all over myself.
Wow! What was your reason? While I rarely cooked meat at home aside from a few simple, foolproof things, I certainly ate meat when dining out. Are/were you vegetarian, or was it just a matter of circumstance?
It’s a whole fish, head included, minus the scales and guts. It will look something like this (sometimes they come with the fins clipped off, but you don’t need to worry about the fins either way).
Fried, it should look something like this. And don’t be afraid of the head, there’s good meat in there. And of course with any whole fish, just be careful about bones. Tilapia don’t have any really tiny bones, they’ll generally be pretty obvious, but meat along the spine will have a row of about a dozen, thin 3/4" bones, but once you find one, you’ll know where to look for the others.
That pretty much describes a medium-rare burger, to me. Without the juices, it’s a hockey puck. The real secret to perfectly cooked meats is an instant-read thermometer, and any cook worth his/her salt should have one at the ready to avoid over- or under cooking meats. Amateur barbecuers typically overcook burgers and undercook sausages and chicken. Guessing at the internal temp of meat is a recipe for food poisoning, at worst, or a bad meal at best. I finally bought a Thermapen, after coveting it for several years. Factory calibrated, splash resistant, but a bit pricey. There are cheaper options out there, of course.
Start with a chuck roast 3 pounds or so.
A pot with a lid. Slightly bigger than the roast, you need room for the veggies.
A liquid to Braise in, beef stock and / or wine, even onion soup mix & water.
Season the roast with salt & pepper or your favorite spice mixture. Put it in the pot and add the liquid till it comes half way up the roast. You could brown the meat but the portion above the liquid will brown in the pot as it cooks, you just need to flip it to brown both sides.
Put the covered pot into a 300ºF oven for 2 ½ to 3 hours. Keep an eye on the level of the liquid, add water when necessary. Flip the roast when the top is looking browned about 1/2 way through.
Add your favorite vegetables to the pot for the last hour of cooking. mushrooms potatoes, carrots, any root vegetable. Especially radishes, yes radishes. Braised radishes are fantastic!
This is the roast chicken recipe I swear by.. Once you learn to truss the chicken, which is really pretty easy, it’s a super-simple recipe: dry the bird, salt it all over, truss it, roast it really hot and dry. The advantage it has over wet roasting methods is that the skin comes out indescribably delicious, all crispy and crunchy like the world’s best potato chip.
After you scarf down the chicken, throw the carcass in a pot with a bunch of water, some salt, garlic, carrots, and celery, and gently simmer for a couple of hours, and presto, you’ve got amazing chicken broth. Throw in some of the leftover meat along with some onions, celery, carrots, and egg noodles, and chicken noodle soup to die for.
Raised primarily vegetarian (after family had extensive experience raising poultry for meat and income in the 1960s and 1970s and then decided not to.) We including us kids, killed and processed the meat birds so l feel like l came by it honestly. Then for ethical reasons the parental units quit all meat so l followed suit.
Mainly l didn’t love meat based dishes and was not raised eating that way, and eating vegetarian dishes came more naturally. But in the last few years l have come to realize, l do like meat, very much! Not every day, and not in huge quantities, but…bacon. And pork. And the occasional rib eye steak.
