What are you eating?

[secondwind]

It's Spargel (asparagus) season in Germany. Mrs. Rock and I have already consumed 10 kilograms (8 white, 2 green). Here's a video on the production and consumption of the fabulous vegetable:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWsxFDiBSRY&feature=digest


Sarge

One year, my husband and I took a trip through Liechtenstein.  When we arrived, we saw signs all over town "Spargelfest!"  We were clueless until we went to a restaurant for dinner, and every item on the menu seemed to feature "spargel".  Watching the video made me both nostalgic and hungry!

[drogulus]

     I hope I'm not violating a Diner rule by making a pot roast and starting a thread about it while it's still cooking. It's been a few years since I made one and I don't really have a recipe. I'm just winging it.

     


     

[Holden]

I made one last  night in my pressure cooker.

Browned the roast thoroughly by adding butter and a dash of worcester sauce (soy also works)

Sauted chopped onions and garlic in the juices from the browning.

Added a little bit of beer to remove the leavings from the bottom of the pot.

Seasoned the roast with Italian herbs, pepper, salt.

Put about 400 mls of beer into the pot (along with carrot, celery and other veges).

Placed seasoned beef on a trivet.

Bought cooker up to pressure and cooked for 35 minutes.

Allowed pressure to release naturally. Rested roast for 15 minutes and added a bit of flour to the leavings to make a gravy.

Served with Veges.

[drogulus]

      Excellent! My technique is quite different. I use canned beef broth and water along with vegetable oil, browning the meat after dredging it in flour in the oil along with 3 cloves of garlic and half a large yellow onion I happened to have. After a thorough browning I add the broth and water and simmer on a low heat on the stove top for at least an hour, adding celery, coarse ground black pepper and a bay leaf for seasoning. Once the meat is tender I add new potatoes, little white onions and carrots, and continue cooking until the veggies are ready, then add flour and water to thicken, more pepper and some sea salt, remove the celery and waaah-lahh!

      Mine came out pretty well considering I'm operating on instinct. We'll be having it again on Tuesday, and I'll enjoy it more since my nerves are better when I'm just heating something up.

     So, how did yours go?

[Sergeant Rock]

     I hope I'm not violating a Diner rule by making a pot roast and starting a thread about it while it's still cooking.
   

I don't think you are violating any rules but you could have posted this in the What are you eating thread...even though you hadn't properly eaten it yet when you posted    Of course your pot roast might be so good, it deserves a separate thread 

Sarge, who hasn't made a pot roast in quite awhile primarily because whenever I did attempt it I was always disappointed it didn't taste like my mom's.

[drogulus]

I don't think you are violating any rules but you could have posted this in the What are you eating thread...even though you hadn't properly eaten it yet when you posted    Of course your pot roast might be so good, it deserves a separate thread 

Sarge, who hasn't made a pot roast in quite awhile primarily because whenever I did attempt it I was always disappointed it didn't taste like my mom's.

      Sarge, I forgot about the Eating thread or I would have used it. My experience with the "Sunbeam" thread led me to think I was on safe ground here in Diner Land. Besides, this is about so much more than just eating. This is about nothing less than......Life Itself.

      I learned most of what I know about cooking from my mother, and there's a family resemblance in the taste, though her Midwestern upbringing did not encompass 3 cloves of garlic.

[Holden]

      Excellent! My technique is quite different. I use canned beef broth and water along with vegetable oil, browning the meat after dredging it in flour in the oil along with 3 cloves of garlic and half a large yellow onion I happened to have. After a thorough browning I add the broth and water and simmer on a low heat on the stove top for at least an hour, adding celery, coarse ground black pepper and a bay leaf for seasoning. Once the meat is tender I add new potatoes, little white onions and carrots, and continue cooking until the veggies are ready, then add flour and water to thicken, more pepper and some sea salt, remove the celery and waaah-lahh!

      Mine came out pretty well considering I'm operating on instinct. We'll be having it again on Tuesday, and I'll enjoy it more since my nerves are better when I'm just heating something up.

     So, how did yours go?

Mine was great. I like the idea of adding the potatoes which I can throw in halfway through the process.

[drogulus]

     You have to get the meat tender before you add the veggies. Whenever I do this I end up guessing. Sometimes I get it a little bit wrong and the meat isn't tender enough and the onions and potatoes start to fall apart. This time it came out right.

     I only know how to make simple things like pot roast, chili, spare ribs, swiss steak (my mom made that one).

     I once made a sauerbraten but I wasn't entirely satisfied with the result. I'd like to try it again.

[Sergeant Rock]

Ate dinner at the Restaurant/Weinstube Honigsäckel in Ungstein (a Pfälzer wine village situated between the more famous towns of Kallstadt and Bad Dürkheim).

http://www.honigsaeckel.de/010honigsaeckel.html

I had Barramundi (Asian seabass) filets in a Riesling wine foam, with parsley potatoes and kohlrabi/carrot gratin (the vegetables sliced paper thin and layered, resulting in a mound that looked very like the gourmet ratatouille in Ratatouille). Mrs. Rock ate the disgusting Pfannkuchen (fried Blutwurst and onions wrapped in a pancake). The wine was excellent: a fresh, 2009 Grauburgunder (pinot gris) from Weingut Wolf, the winery associated with the restaurant.

Sarge

[jlaurson]

Euro-trash burgers [low-down version].

English Muffins, instead of buns.  (Rubbed with garlic)
Cucumber, instead of tomato. (With added alfalfa sprouts)
Horse, instead of beef. ('stretched' with couscous and select spices added)
Mayo, instead of ketchup. (Sparingly)

[Sergeant Rock]

Euro-trash burgers [low-down version].

English Muffins, instead of buns.  (Rubbed with garlic)
Cucumber, instead of tomato. (With added alfalfa sprouts)
Horse, instead of beef. ('stretched' with couscous and select spices added)
Mayo, instead of ketchup. (Sparingly)

Mrs. Rock and I are having a disagreement. I think your burger sounds...interesting, possibly even tasty    She read the recipe, said, Ugh, no...and fled the room 

Sarge

[SonicMan46]

Ate dinner at the Restaurant/Weinstube Honigsäckel in Ungstein (a Pfälzer wine village situated between the more famous towns of Kallstadt and Bad Dürkheim).

I had Barramundi (Asian seabass) filets in a Riesling wine foam, with parsley potatoes and kohlrabi/carrot gratin (the vegetables sliced paper thin and layered, resulting in a mound that looked very like the gourmet ratatouille in Ratatouille)........................

Sarge - believe that I would prefer your dish - in fact, I've had that fish several times!   

Euro-trash burgers [low-down version].

Horse, instead of beef. ('stretched' with couscous and select spices added).......

Jens - I've eaten a lot of meats in my time, but have never had horse - now, I've eaten venison (a LOT!), bison, antelope, elk, and caribou (no reindeer to date!), and assume that the taste would fall in there someplace?     Dave

[jlaurson]

Mrs. Rock and I are having a disagreement. I think your burger sounds...interesting, possibly even tasty    She read the recipe, said, Ugh, no...and fled the room 

I'm totally planning to serve it the violinist! We'll let her reaction be the judge. (If my willingness to risk it doesn't already speak to my conviction in my Euro-Trash burger. The question now is: tell her before, after, or never what kind of meat I used?  I think for the final product I'll use a "hack" that is 75% horse and 25% pork. The Washington DC original Euro-trash burger was 50/50 elk / beef.

[jlaurson]

Jens - I've eaten a lot of meats in my time, but have never had horse - now, I've eaten venison (a LOT!), bison, antelope, elk, and caribou (no reindeer to date!), and assume that the taste would fall in there someplace?     Dave

Pretty much. As stated above, horse is substituting for elk/beef... and while it lacks any 'gamieness' that elk can have it goes into that direction.
If someone had never eaten horse and didn't suspect having it served, I'm pretty sure I could smuggle horse onto someone's plate making them think it's beef. Part of the reason I like using it so much--apart from that 'touch' of taste that makes it a little different, a little more 'meaty', is the fact that the animals used for consumption are not bred to be fat (or food, for that matter), but riding horses that had to go, for some reason or another. The result is incredibly lean meat of a quality hard to get in other commercially 'farmed' animals.

[Sergeant Rock]

Sarge - believe that I would prefer your dish - in fact, I've had that fish several times!

I think you would have liked the wine too, Dave. The best Grauburgunder I've had in several years: not too alcoholic (only 13.5%  ) and tasting fresh and relatively light with the typical Pfälzer explosion of tropical fruit.

I've eaten a lot of meats in my time, but have never had horse

I haven't either. But there is a local Italian restaurant that offers horse every Monday if you preorder. They serve it in a variety of ways, including a burger. Jens may have given me the incentive to finally try it.

Sarge

[SonicMan46]

..... a little more 'meaty', is the fact that the animals used for consumption are not bred to be fat (or food, for that matter), but riding horses that had to go, for some reason or another. The result is incredibly lean meat of a quality hard to get in other commercially 'farmed' animals.

I'm pretty much on a lean 'red' meat quest these days (of course, to go w/ my red wines, esp. pinot noir), although I eat more seafood (and fowl) than any other protein options (although a 'sucker' for veal!) - I probably have venison twice a month at our local mountain bistro up the road; and Susan orders bison filet mignon on the web (comes from out west USA) - cooks the meat very briefly, medium rare (or less) - just no fat!  The other 'red' meat that I've eaten out & at home is ostrich, yes a bird but really lean & red - need to cook the bird quickly or have a recipe that might soften the meat - all are tasty to me!  Dave 

[Sergeant Rock]

I'm totally planning to serve it the violinist! We'll let her reaction be the judge.

Brave man!   But that will be a good indicator of the type of woman she is: adventurous and fun...or not. If you plan on telling her that is. Before doing that I would first assertain if she wanted a pony when she was girl 

Sarge

[Sergeant Rock]

I'm pretty much on a lean 'red' meat quest these days (of course, to go w/ my red wines, esp. pinot noir), although I eat more seafood (and fowl) than any other protein options (although a 'sucker' for veal!)

Speaking of veal, I had an excellent Wienerschnitzel earlier this week at another Pfälzer restaurant. With Spargel and Hollandaise sauce. The veal was so tender I merely had to bring my knife close to the perfectly golden crust...threaten it with violence rather than apply it...in order to slice it   

Sarge

[SonicMan46]

I haven't either. But there is a local Italian restaurant that offers horse every Monday if you preorder. They serve it in a variety of ways, including a burger. Jens may have given me the incentive to finally try it.

Horse would not be a problem for me, but we've taken up horse back riding - might feel like playing w/ your dog in the morning, then eating it at night! 

Speaking of veal, I had an excellent Wienerschnitzel earlier this week at another Pfälzer restaurant. With Spargel and Hollandaise sauce. The veal was so tender I merely had to bring my knife close to the perfectly golden crust...threaten it with violence rather than apply it...in order to slice it   

Just love 'tender' veal which can be variable w/ the scallopini cut - I have veal often and invariably order the veal piccata at our local Italian bistro - last time was extremely tender; their lemon reduction sauce w/ a LOT of capers is just irresistible to me; we go twice a month so the severs always know 'what' I want!    Dave 

[Sergeant Rock]

Horse would not be a problem for me, but we've taken up horse back riding - might feel like playing w/ your dog in the morning, then eating it at night! 

I rode in my youth. Nearly every horse I knew tried to kill me, either inadvertently (my first horse--rode her every week my first quarter at Ohio U--was incredibly clumsy, always tripping  ) or on purpose. I recall a very bad tempered stallion I rode in Amish country that repeatedly tried to throw me. The first time my wife rode him, she couldn't control him; he bolted, galloped into town and ran several red lights with her hanging on for dear life. She survived but barely. Anyway, I will have no trouble eating horse 

Just love 'tender' veal which can be variable w/ the scallopini cut - I have veal often and invariably order the veal piccata at our local Italian bistro - last time was extremely tender; their lemon reduction sauce w/ a LOT of capers is just irresistible to me; we go twice a month so the severs always know 'what' I want!    Dave

I dislike capers but give me anything with a lemon sauce and I'm one happy camper.

Sarge