Of a Culinary Nature

Just thought I'd throw up a few comments on some recent cooking and eating - two of my favorite activities.

I made this Irish beef stew for the third time a couple weekends back. It's great cold weather fare, and although it's not technically difficult, it does require a lot of prep work and time. It gets better and better each time I make it, and I added an extra step that, while tacking on yet more prep and overall time, vastly improves the dish.

The linked recipe is more or less accurate, although I used probably more than a cup of wine, a can of Guinness, an entire small can of tomato paste, and somewhere between 2.5-3lbs of stew meat. What I did this time was dredge the meat in seasoned flour (a dash each of salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, paprika mixed in) and brown it in the pan first. This created a tremendous amount of delicious crispy drippings from the fat and flour. I removed the meat and set it aside on a platter. Then I minced a medium shallot, tossed it in there along with the garlic, a little oil and butter, and then deglazed the drippings with the vino. From there I proceeded along the steps in the linked recipe, but the end result was a tremendous improvement. Thick, rich broth, layered with complexity of flavor. Truly incredible.

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Over the past few weekends I've been trying to perfect my glazed bacon. I've tried a few different variations on bacon of differing quality and type. Bottom line is better quality (thinner) bacon works best; baking it on a rack in the oven is key for even cooking, fat-rendering, and glazing; and high sugar content results in a candy-like glaze. Nothing ground-breaking here, folks.

I've mixed orange juice with brown sugar; I've used maple syrup (real and fake - real is far, far better); I've also mixed all three. There's a lot more out there to explore, but just recently I had some apple cider bacon glazed with maple syrup next to its bare counterpart - not only were the glazed strips uber-delicious, but they, er, outstripped their unadorned kin by a significant degree. Then again, it's hard to be objective when dealing with a piece of fatty, salty meat gilded with a solid coating of sweetness, is it not?

Next up: I'd like to use actual apple cider and and glaze some regular, high-quality meat.

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Tonight I made chicken parm using this recipe, with a couple minor changes. I used seasoned bread crumbs, an extra clove of garlic, and Pecorino-Romano cheese instead of Parmesan (defeating the purpose?) I baked 4 chicken breasts sliced lengthwise in half (~2 lbs.) for 10 min, then sprinkled that Sorrento Italian 6-cheese blend on top and popped them back into the oven for another 5 minutes or so.

The breasts came out buttery, crispy and delicious. I made spaghetti to accompany, and simply poured a bit of marinara on the breasts I ate. I've baked them in sauce before, and it comes out good, but not as crispy. A matter of taste. But a great, simple recipe.

Ruffino Chianti served as a nice compliment to the meal.

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On a related note, that Simply Recipes blog looks pretty nice. Check it out. Both the above stew and chicken parm recipes came from it.