Bathtub Brewery is live! Tell your friends!

Mel and I have been wanting to start a beer and brewing blog for a while now. I spent the last few weeks off from working on my Flash game to concentrate on putting a site together for us. By last Friday, it was all done, and we spent several hours on Sunday (after we got done bottling our first homebrew!) writing articles for it. Look for articles about homebrewing, craft beer, festivals, brewing how-tos, and even regular ol’ food recipes!

This does mean that I won’t be posting cooking articles on Hindrances anymore, which honestly makes me a little sad, but I haven’t done a cooking post in well over a year now, anyway. I do still cook, mind you. I just keep failing to get around to posting about it. But now that Mel and I are living together, I’ve got another foodie in arms reach to cook for and to have cook for me, so we both have a lot more energy for cooking now.

Anyway: happy face. Bathtub Brewery is fun and exciting!

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What you will read here today is the ultimate roast pork chop recipe. I just kind of improvised it this past weekend on a lark, and I was really surprised with how it came out.

Last time, we learned that modern pork tends to come out dry and flavorless, and so today’s pork recipes make attempts to compensate for that. The Cinnamon-Curry Pork recipe did so by loading the pork with flavors and slow cooking it in vinegar to keep it moist. This recipe does pretty much the same thing, going out of our way to keep the meat moist and yummalicious, only this time, we’ll be roasting some pork chops, which is dangerous and could result in disaster. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats, you know the quote.

As usual, I’m making a lot of food to keep me fed for the rest of the week, but what you’ll see here is a lot even by that mantra. Don’t feel ashamed if you want to cut the recipe back a bit.

Preheat the oven to 425°.

We’ll start with the potatoes. Cut a couple pounds of red potatoes to whatever size you’re comfortable with putting in your mouth. Toss them with salt, pepper, minced garlic, red pepper, onion powder, dried thyme, and olive oil, then place them into the bottom of a casserole dish large enough to fit all of your pork chops side by side. Put this in the oven while you work on the pork chops.

I used eight thick cut pork chops, about 10 - 12 oz each. Might have been overkill, but at least I don’t have to cook again until next weekend. Using a thin-bladed knife, cut a slit down one of the sides of each chop. I suggest the long side opposite the fat. You want to cut this in such a way that you can open the chop up like a manilla envelope with the flap cut off. It’ll look somewhat disgustingly like a big, fleshy Chinese teacup, or a disembodied vagina.

Important note: Don’t trim the fat off. It will help keep the meat moist. Also, we’re going to be roasting the pork chops on top of the potatoes, which means some of the fat will drip down onto the potatoes. More flavor for you.

Wash your hands. You have trichinosis right now. Symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, eye swelling, momentary nervous disruptions, and in severe cases, permanent death. Get rid of it.

The more you know.

For herbs, start with fresh rosemary, sage, and thyme. They have these 1 oz. packages of fresh herbs at my supermarket. They proved to be just enough for me. Chop those up, and mix them together with a few cloves of minced garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. You can also add some red pepper if that’s your style. While stirring, slowly add olive oil until the mixture is gooey but not as thick as pesto.

This is the magical part. Spoon some of the herb and oil mixture into each pork chop. As it cooks, the oil will baste it from the inside, which is my new favorite euphemism for sex, and it will bring the flavors from the herbs along with it into the meat.

Take the potatoes out of the oven and lay the stuffed chops on top of them. Brush or drizzle a little bit more oil on top of the chops, and put the whole thing back into the oven for a half-hour.

After the half-hour is up, baste the chops, turn the oven down to 325°, and go back to baking for another thirty minutes. After that, start checking the temperature of the meat every fifteen minutes or so, until an instant read thermometer reads 145° to 150°. It may already be at that point.

Here’s an important aside: You absolutely, positively must not undercook pork, or any meat for that matter. In the case of pork, you want to make sure you don’t ingest any living Trichinella. Some people insist on cooking their pork until it’s well done, but Trichinella dies at 137°, making this unnecessary. 145° is a nice, safe level of doneness that reliably kills the roundworm without turning the pork into cardboard. You may consider this to be gospel.

When the chops are done, remove them from the casserole dish and set them aside to settle down. Put the potatoes back in and turn the heat back up to 425°. Let them brown. If you want, you can save some time by just using the broiler, which is what I did.

Serves a frat.

8 10-12 oz. thick-cut pork chops
2 lbs red potatoes
2 tbsp fresh, chopped rosemary
2 tbsp fresh, chopped sage
2 tbsp fresh, chopped thyme
1 tbsp dried thyme
Ground red pepper to taste
Garlic powder to taste
Onion powder to taste
Salt
Pepper
Minced garlic
3 tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 425°.

Cut red potatoes into bite sized pieces. Toss with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, dried thyme, and 1 tbsp olive oil. Place into large casserole dish. Roast while preparing the pork chops.

Using a thin bladed knife, slice a crevice into each pork chop. Cut longways on the side opposite the fat.

Stir together rosemary, sage, thyme, salt, pepper, garlic, and remaining olive oil. Spoon mixture into the pork chops.

Remove potatoes from the oven. Place pork chops on top of the potatoes. Roast for 30 minutes.

Baste the pork chops with the drippings. Lower heat to 325°. Roast for 30 minutes or until done.

Remove pork chops, return heat to 425°, and roast potatoes until brown. Optionally, brown potatoes under broiler.

Background music was The Shins - Wincing the Night Away

Microwavability: 3/5 - Stays reasonably moist, and retains almost all of its flavor. Show it off to people while it’s fresh, though.

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It’s really hard to make good pork these days. Long, long ago, pig meat was fatty and unhealthy, but it tasted so good. In today’s world, pigs are raised lean, which makes it almost impossible to cook a cut of pork without it coming out dry and flavorless, leading it to be called, contemporarily, The Other White Meat, alluding to the other dry, flavorless mainstream meat known as baby. To compensate for this modern difficiency, many pork recipes are now loaded with flavorful ingredients. This recipe, adapted from Mark Bittman’s Spicy Pork With Cinnamon, found in his sickly fantastic beginner’s cooking bible, How to Cook Everything, is about as loaded as I feel comfortable getting.

One of the really nice things about this dish is that it’s a “fire and forget” recipe. The time that you actually spend getting it going will amount to all of ten minutes. The rest is completely hands off. Very handy if you’ve got other work to do.

I’m not going to bother listing quantities for the ingredients here, because all of it will be relative to how much pork you’re making, and because the spices you’ll be using are all measured “to taste”, which is just a fancy way of saying, “However much you damn well please.”

Keep in mind that this dish is a curry. There is a genetic condition that causes cilantro, the North American name for coriander, whose seed is one of the main ingredients in most curries, to taste extremely bitter to certain individuals. If you have this reaction, then you will not like curry. It’s hereditary, you can’t help it, don’t fight it. You have been warned.

So, you’re going to need some pork. I used loin chops. Shoulder is also supposed to be a good choice. Spice-wise, you’ll use ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground cayenne pepper, ground coriander seed, ground cardamom, a few pinches of ground cloves, and salt and pepper, along with some minced garlic and ginger (I prefer to use fresh ginger, but that’s a pain, so the ground kind is usually just fine), and a finely diced shallot if you feel like it. I’m going to say use your own judgement on amounts for all of those, tending to go heavy on the cinnamon and easy on the cayenne, but if you absolutely must have numbers, you can always get them from the formal version of the recipe, below. Last thing: some mild vinegar. I suggest rice vinegar, which you can find in the international foods aisle. I’m thinking of trying it with rice wine next time — I’ll update you all on how that turns out. Oh, and you’re going to be serving this all over rice, so get your rice cooker ready. You do own a rice cooker, don’t you?

Trim the fat off of the pork and cut it into half-inch to one-inch cube-ish shapes. Set it aside. Wash your disgusting hands.

In a large saute pan over medium heat, saute the garlic, shallot, and all of the spices in olive oil for a few minutes until you can smell it from upstairs. Carefully add in the pork chunks, browning each one on two sides.

Pour in enough vinegar to immerse all of the pork about halfway. Wait for it to come to a boil, then turn the heat down to low and put the lid on. Come back twenty minutes later. The vinegar will slow-cook the pork, infusing the meat with acetic goodness, making it nice and tender. Be careful that you don’t leave the pork cooking for too long. If you cut a piece in half, it should look greyish white with a little bit of juice dribbling out. Too much longer than that, and even the tenderizing services of the vinegar won’t save you from one of the driest meals you’ve ever had.

You now have perfectly cooked pork in a spicy, super flavorful sauce. Serve it over rice. You’ll probably run out of pork before you run out of sauce. Do not pour it down the drain — it’s fantastic by itself with rice. I’m betting it’ll also make a good salad dressing, but I just came up with that off the top of my head midway through the previous sentence.

1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
Ground red pepper to taste
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cardamom
2 - 3 pinches ground cloves
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 shallot, finely diced
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 tbsp olive oil
2 lbs boneless pork, loin or shoulder, trimmed of fat and cut into 1/2″ - 1″ chunks
1/2 c mild vinegar, preferably rice vinegar
Rice

Saute spices, garlic, ginger, and shallot in olive oil over medium heat until fragrant.

Add pork. Brown each piece on two sides.

Add vinegar and bring to a boil. Drop heat to low and allow to cook with the lid on for 20 minutes. Serve over rice.

Background music was Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3

Microwavability: 4/5 - Comes out surprisingly good. I’m usually a little skittish about microwaved pork, it always tastes a little off to me, but this one pops out of the microwave tasting just as good as it did yesterday. I’m thinking it’s because the taste sensation that sweeps your nation helps to conceal the nuked-porkiness.

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I meant to post this more than a week ago, but I got distracted by, well, laziness. Ha ha! Oops!

Any person who grows up in New Jersey is obligated to like tomatoes as soon as he or she has teeth. If there’s one thing - one good thing, I should say - that Jersey is famous for, it’s the tomatoes. Somehow, even despite the fact that my mother used to grow them in the back yard, I didn’t grow up liking tomatoes, which is probably why I was exiled at the age of twelve, forced to strike out as a nomad until I finished receiving my high school education from random hobos on trains, at which point I was allowed back in only after eating a dozen tomatoes while reciting Who’s On First set to Bruce Springsteen songs.

Making a good stuffed tomato can be difficult, because the tendency will be to end up with a mushy, sloppy mess that only barely resembles the dish’s constituent parts. I’ve taken quite a few tricks from Alton Brown’s stuffed tomato recipe that result in a firm, slightly crunchy tomato, and in fact plagiarized that recipe so blatantly that I actually feel a little guilty. So, thanks and kudos to Alton Brown.

I’m making a lot of tomatoes here. Remember that I usually cook enough food to keep myself fed for an entire week. Don’t feel bad if you can’t handle the magnitude.

So, start with eight large tomatoes. The ones that I had were about halfway between baseball and softball sized. You’ll also need 2 cups of finely chopped mushrooms; 2 finely diced medium yellow onions; a few finely diced cloves of garlic; about a pound of ground beef; five or six slices of bacon; some bleu cheese (I was using the leftover from the steak I had made a couple days before); grated mozzarella cheese; 1/2 cup of cheap whiskey (you can use 1 cup of red or white wine instead, if you want); and salt and pepper.

Start by microwaving the bacon on high until crunchy (that is, not just crispy). Every microwave is different, so the time this takes will vary. My microwave took about fifteen minutes. Just leave it running until you don’t hear any more popping. Don’t worry about it if you burn the bacon.

While the bacon cooks, slice off the top of and core each tomato. If you don’t have a really sharp knife, odds are good that the blade edge won’t catch on the tomato’s smooth, tough skin, and you’ll slip and cut yourself. To prevent this, use a bread knife.

As for coring, start by reaching a finger into each of the little chambers on the inside of the tomato and digging out all of the jelly inside. If there are any cuts on your finger that you aren’t yet aware of, this is where you’ll find out about them. That jelly is very acidic. I got a tiny cut on my left ring finger as I was cutting the tomatoes, and even that was torture. After you finish third-basing the tomato, use a grapefruit spoon to dig out the pink core, leaving only the red, outer wall of the tomato.

Sprinkle the inside of each tomato liberally with salt and place upside down on a rack in the sink to drain. The salt will draw the moisture out from the inside of the tomato meat. By getting all of that water out now, we prevent it from soaking into the stuffing later and making everything all sloppy and gross.

While the tomatoes drain, we can work on the stuffing. Saute the garlic and onions in olive oil on medium heat until the onions are softened and translucent. Add the mushrooms, salt them, and cook for a few more minutes until the liquid has boiled off. Add whiskey and cook until most of it is absorbed or evaporated. Few things smell as good as mushrooms cooking in whiskey. Finally, add the ground beef along with some salt and pepper, and cook until brown. Turn off the heat, crumble in the cooked bacon, and mix everything up.

Postscript to that: I felt like making the stuffing a little spicier this time, just for the hell of it. When I want to make something spicy, ground coriander seed (as opposed to coriander, which is actually known as cilantro in North America) is usually where I turn first. I find it to be nice and spicy, without causing flaming hell death like red pepper does, and I like the hint of citrus it has to it. It’s one of the main ingredients in many versions of curry, so if you don’t like curry, you won’t like coriander. In that case, just use a lot of pepper or maybe a diced jalapeno.

Preheat your broiler on high.

Stuff each tomato, and then top each one with a layer mozzarella, followed by a layer of bleu cheese. When stuffing the tomatoes, make sure to leave a little room at the top so you can add the cheese without it falling over the sides of the tomatoes. Also, don’t go too crazy with the bleu cheese, because bleu has a tendency to overpower everything.

Eat the leftover stuffing. It’s sooooo good.

Place the stuffed tomatoes on a baking sheet and place in the broiler for a few minutes, until the cheese is melted and golden brown. It should only take two or three minutes. Leave the door cracked open so you can keep an eye on the cheese, and so the broiler doesn’t turn off.

Let them sit for a few minutes so the heat in the stuffing and cheese can transfer into the tomatoes a little more evenly. They shouldn’t be too hot to touch, so you could probably get away with serving them as really messy finger food if you want. I’m sure it will be just fine so long as you’re outside or you have a dog.

Ingredients:
8 large tomatoes, cored and seeded
2 cups finely chopped mushrooms
2 medium yellow onions, finely diced
3 or 4 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 lb. ground beef
5 or 6 slices bacon
Grated mozarella cheese
Grated bleu cheese
1/2 cup whiskey (or 1 cup red or white wine)
1 tbsp. olive oil
Salt and pepper

Microwave bacon on high until crunchy.

Sprinkle the insides of the tomatoes with salt and place upside down to drain.

Saute garlic and onion in olive oil over medium heat until translucent. Add mushrooms and cook for five minutes. Add whiskey and cook until most of the liquid is gone. Add ground beef and cook until brown. Turn off the heat, crumble in the cooked bacon, and mix everything up.

Preheat broiler on high. Stuff the tomatoes, and then sprinkle with grated mozzarella, followed by bleu cheese.

Place tomatoes on a baking sheet and place under the broiler for 3 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and golden brown.

Background music was Led Zeppelin III and Foo Fighters’ In Your Honor, Disc 1. Tomatoes like to rock out, you see.

Microwavability: 3/5 - The flavor won’t be affected by the microwave at all, but there’s a good chance that the tomato will get squishy and leak juice everywhere, no matter how well you drained them before. I don’t mind it, personally, but if you do, just eat some rice with it to soak up the mess.

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This first entry in Watch Ray Cook A Thing is an original. This was its maiden voyage, in fact. I call it Bleu Cheese and Tomato Steak, because it’s a steak with tomatoes and bleu cheese on it.

Bleu cheese is tricky to work with, because it is positively mighty when it comes to flavor. It’s easy to wind up with something that tastes like bleu cheese with some other unrecognizable miscellany under it. Awesome cheese, but treat it with respect, like you would with a Japanese sword.

Start out with a steak. Yep. Sirloin is probably the way to go; I imagine flank would work, too. I wouldn’t waste a filet on this, though. It’s too mild, so you wouldn’t taste it through the cheese. Sizewise, whatever you like. Doesn’t even have to be just one, either, in fact. As a general rule, for every additional steak that you want to make, you’re going to need another steak.

I used a 1″ thick, 15 ounce sirloin. It was a little unevenly cut, and it had a big ligament near one end, but it served the purpose.

Salt and pepper both sides of your steak. You won’t need much salt, because bleu cheese is a pretty salty cheese. On the other hand, you might want to use more pepper than usual, just because of how overpowering bleu can be.

Slice up a tomato into about 3/4 to 1 centimeter slices. You’ll need enough slices to cover the steak.

Same thing with the bleu cheese, only thinner slices. I found a nice, big wedge of bleu in the produce section at the supermarket. I had enough cheese to cover the steak, with plenty left over for the stuffed tomatoes that I made the next day (today, actually - I made this steak yesterday).

I use a Weber Go-Anywhere charcoal grill. It was all of $40, and I’m quite fond of it. I’ll probably get the propane version eventually, but I’m really not in any hurry.

Anyway, build your fire, or turn your dials and press your button if you’re on propane. You’ll want it screaming hot on one side (you shouldn’t be able to hold your hand over it for more than a second or two), and just off on the other. I figure this is simply classic steak etiquette: you sear it mercilessly for a couple minutes on the hot side, and then you move it over to the cool side and put the cover on so it can cook through.

Steak on the hot side. Flip it once a minute until evenly seared. Flameups are good. When it’s nice and brown, move it over to the cool side. I think this took five or six minutes for me, because my fire didn’t come out as hot as I wanted it to. It should only take about four minutes.

Put the tomato slices on top, and then the bleu cheese slices. Put the cover on the grill, and let it cook for about 7 - 10 minutes for a medium-rare steak (it was fifteen for me this time, again because of the cool fire). The internal temperature should be about 130°F.

Remove the steak from the grill and wrap it in aluminum foil for 5 minutes. Try not to let the foil touch the cheese, or it might stick. Again, wrapping a steak up after grilling is common etiquette. Be kind to your steak.

As expected, my steak was a little unevenly cooked because of the uneven thickness, but it wasn’t cooked past medium-well anywhere, which actually surprised me. The thick portions were right about medium, so maybe my fire was hotter than I had thought.

I ate it with a Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA - when you gotta have hops, you can’t beat a good double IPA.

Ingredients:
16 oz. sirloin or flank steak
1 tomato, sliced into 1 cm slices, enough to cover the steak
Bleu cheese, sliced thin, enough to cover the steak
Salt and pepper to taste

Build a hot fire, with half of the grill hot, and the other cool. Sear both sides of the steak for four minutes on the hot side (flip once every minute), and then move to the cool side.

Place tomato slices on the steak, followed by cheese slices. Cover the grill, and let cook until the interior temperature is 130°F, about 8 - 10 minutes for medium-rare.

Remove from heat and cover with foil for 5 minutes.

Background music was Game 4 of the Carolina-New Jersey series, in which my Devils somehow managed to win 5-1 and prevent a sweep. I wasn’t extremely surprised when they lost Game 5 a few minutes ago.

Microwavability: 2/5 - It’s perfectly legal to microwave it if you absolutely cannot avoid leftovers, but steak just does not nuke well. Make only what you can eat.

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