Gravy's Cooking Thread

freezing fish makes a huge difference (ruins it)*, meat, not so much in my experience.

*Octopus is the exception you have to freeze it to break the muscles down, or it is like chewing rubberbands.

I catch most of my fish fresh from the sea. I have a live well on the boat and the fish is still alive and kicking when it goes in the freezer. If you flash freeze it and do not skin/filet or wash it with cold water, the fish quality is much better. In my experience, the fish can last up to 1 month in the freezer with hardly any ill effect on the taste/texture. I run it under cold water in a plastic bag to defrost.

There is a huge difference in taste between wild fish and farm raised fish, because of what they feed the fish. For animals, in my experience, free range does make a difference in taste/texture, while organic is meaningless.

BrutulTM_sl said:

The "flash" freezing is important. The faster something freezes, the smaller the ice crystals that form are and larger ice crystals puncture cells in the food which does damage the texture. There is a Good Eats episode where he flash freezes fresh strawberries using dry ice to demonstrate the effect.

If you buy fish at the supermarket seafood counter, it has almost certainly been frozen. I found this out once when I asked about the cod that they had in the display case but they didn't have as much as I needed. He pointed me to the frozen seafood case and said that they stuff they had for display was actually the exact same product, they had just taken it out of the bags and defrosted it to put it in the display case.

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Yeah, flash freezing is important, and yeah, it's bloody hard to get non-frozen fish in most of the country. I wish I lived on the coast sometimes. Then I remember property prices on the coast, and I like where I live.

Relevant:



Bonus to vid: People look like assholes and there are tits!

No hate though, some people have a better time at telling the difference between that type of thing. Only thing I buy organic is celery, because for some reason safeway demolishes the non organic celery and I have to toss half the stalks anyways. Buy organic and at least everything is usable.

Although I bought some "organic" nectarines the other day at a farmer's market, and no lie, they were the best god damn nectarines I've ever had. Juicy, tender, sweet, and tart. Though in reality, it probably had more to do with it being a farmer's market, and not produce mass grown for the grocery store. Either way, fucking amazing nectarines. I've eaten one a day since I discovered them.

Anyone here had pink lady apples btw? May be called different things, but there's always "pink" in the name. If you haven't, I highly recommend them. They are slightly sweeter like a golden delicious, but the flesh is firm, more like a granny smith. I like apples, but I love these things.

I'm on a big fruit kick, although I find it funny that I buy bananas, they are at peak deliciousness for two days, and then I just let them over ripen so I can make banana bread out of them. Every.single.time.

I agree with Brutal TM, Sriracha is low on the scale of hotness. I am on my 2nd big bottle of it on the year. I put that shit on Everything.

Pressure cookers are amazing. Browned some beef, threw a bunch of veggies in, 5 minutes later, beef stew.

BrutulTM_sl said:

Peaches and Nectarines are the best type of fruit to get at a farmer's market if you live in CA or GA or someplace that they grow them. The reason is that they are so delicate when they're ripe, so if they're going to survive trucking across the country they have to be picked totally green and hard and you hope they ripen by the time they hit the supermarket, but they don't and ripening in a truck is NOT the same as ripening on the vine. I just don't eat peaches or nectarines anymore since I moved away from California. The farmer's market guys can pick them ripe the day of the market and handle them carefully, which makes them awesome. Ditto for tomatoes. Science has yet to create a tomato that can both survive trucking and not taste like shit.

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Yea, we live in san fran - I love both of those fruits but so rarely buy them from grocery stores because they can be hit or miss. But man, the ones from the market were fantastic.

Pears are my kryptonite. I make tons of shit with them. Helps that Oregon is basically king in them.

Plain, or with a bit of sharp cheddar. Slice them thick and pop them on the grill and serve them over pork chops. Broil them with a little butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Dice and stew them with honey and vanilla and serve over ice cream. Pear and blueberry cream cheese pie is awesome. I fucking love pears. I'm the Bubba Gump of pears.

When I saute pineapple to top ice cream, I usually just put it straight into a pan with cinnamon and salt to bring out the juice for a sauce. I'll have to try it with some rum.

BrutulTM_sl said:

Hot fruit on ice cream is the greatest dessert ever. Sometimes I grill fresh pineapple and then put equal parts brown sugar and rum (like half a cup of each) into a pan and let it melt the sugar and boil out the alcohol (if you want you can light it on fire while it's boiling for dramatic effect). Once it starts to thicken a bit like syrup, give the pineapple a dip in the glaze while it's all still as hot as possible, drop it on a bowl of ice cream, sprinkle a little cinnamon on top, and serve it as quickly as you can because while the pineapple is still hot and the ice cream is still cold it's like there's a party in your mouth and everyone's coming. Awesome.

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you should try the classic,bananas foster, restaurant I worked at did it table side, damn good stuff.

BrutulTM_sl said:

Yeah, that was the inspiration for my pineapple thing. I bet having some butter in the sauce would improve it.

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yup the butter (you are building a simple caramel) and the flavored liquors really bump it up to epic level yummy.

Merkins4Brazil_sl said:

yup the butter (you are building a simple caramel) and the flavored liquors really bump it up to epic level yummy.

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What are your favourite liquours to use when building a caramel? Do you use Rum? I know others who don't use Rum at all, which seems impossible. I like a bit of Frangelico added.