Gourmet corner (Full Version)

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Morante -> Gourmet corner (Aug. 10 2017 18:30:57)

Went to el Puerto de Santa María this morning to buy carne de toro from the corrida last Sunday.

Most meat smells, this meat does not. In fact, I have never tasted better meat, and I am a fish eater. The toro bravo is not full of hormones and antibioticos like commercial meat. Now we can look forward to impressive guisos and solomillo a la plancha[:D]

To top it all we were taken to a fine bodega (González Obregón) for a tapa of jamon de bellota y great cured cheese. The surprise was the Fino del Puerto, direct from the barrel. It is not fino de jerez nor manzanilla but I was sufficiently impressed to take a bottle home. At 3 euros the litre it is almost as cheap as water[:)]




edguerin -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 10 2017 21:11:22)

¡ Que suerte tienes !




mark indigo -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 10 2017 22:47:05)

quote:

The toro bravo is not full of hormones and antibioticos like commercial meat.


Where do you get meat from that is full of hormones and antibiotics?

The EU has the most stringent animal welfare and medication rules and regulations in the world that I am aware of. AFAIK hormones are not permitted.

Given the amount of paperwork required to raise and keep livestock, let alone move it anywhere, it is a miracle anyone bothers to rear animals for slaughter.




Stu -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 11 2017 7:10:28)

I don't get it.

Do you have a question about picado or counting buleria? Or are you just rubbing our non Spanish dwelling noses in it?[:D]




Morante -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 11 2017 10:56:57)

quote:

The EU has the most stringent animal welfare and medication rules and regulations in the world that I am aware of.


Ever heard of Angel Dust?: fattens up vacas really well. And how did horsemeat find its way into supermarket hamburgers? How are animals so badly treated in the abbatoir? How are chickens injected with water to plump them up? Regulations do not stop this abuse.

Regulations are regulations but the ser humano is a ser humano, who values money above everything.




estebanana -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 11 2017 12:43:45)

quote:

Most meat smells, this meat does not. In fact, I have never tasted better meat, and I am a fish eater.


Well there you go, compared to fish meat is not smelly. Unless you have Japanese fish.

Do not rub my nose in your Spanish culinary exploits! [:D]




Morante -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 11 2017 15:25:42)

quote:

Do not rub my nose in your Spanish culinary exploits!


Don´t complain, chiquillo[:D]

You have chosen to live in Japan. You could live in the west of Ireland, eat wild trout and salmon, oysters etc. Or you could live in Andalucía and eat gambalajillo and toro de lidia like the rest[;)]

Most places in the world have good things for people who know how to eat and drink. The other great pleasure of life is available everywhere.




Dudnote -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 11 2017 18:17:38)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Morante
I have never tasted better meat

Once in the Yili valley in Xinjiang we managed to buy about 2m of home made horse sausage from a nomadic Kazakh herding family. The horses spent their lives on the pastures of the TianShan mountains - you dont get more free range than that. The stuff smelt like a (well kept) stable of horses. It was so awesome eatting that stuff, the intensly overwelming horsiness of it all. I can't put that in to words. But you seen that animation Madagascar when the hungry lion starts hallucinating about eatting his zebra mate and goes mad because he sees zebra steaks everywhere he looks? Well we became like that. Each time we saw a horse we tripped out and saw sausage in it's place.

Great stuff horse meat. Can't understand why so many Europeans are so squeemish about it. Especially when the future of mankind, all 12 billion (projected estimate) of us, is to convert to insect protein.




Morante -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 11 2017 23:13:04)

quote:

Great stuff horse meat. Can't understand why so many Europeans are so squeemish about it.


Quite right. I remember having a steak of horse (caballo sounds much better) in Paris and it was fine.

However the horse meat in the English hamburgers was from meat classified as not fit for human consumption.




mark indigo -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 11 2017 23:33:57)

quote:

However the horse meat in the English hamburgers was from meat classified as not fit for human consumption.

and it was a big scandal and subject to criminal investigation. Another one is curry houses selling "lamb" curry that is actually not lamb but cheaper beef. Trading Standards go round and check and fine anyone they catch.




Leñador -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 12 2017 0:51:26)

quote:

Especially when the future of mankind, all 12 billion (projected estimate) of us, is to convert to insect protein.

Not opposed to this, theres a dutch scientist making a big push for it. I've had grasshoppers, ants, worms, scorpions, spiders, I could adjust if they were readily available.
Not opposed to horse either, I suppose cus I've never known one personally. [:D]




estebanana -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 12 2017 12:38:30)

I've eaten horse sashimi. I prefer chicken sashimi.




edguerin -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 12 2017 16:48:32)

quote:

I suppose cus I've never known one personally.

I believe that's the actual problem.
I knew a guy once who started a small farm with the idea of self-sufficiency.
He stopped when his kids started asking "Who's for dinner?"




Dudnote -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 12 2017 18:48:53)

@mark Point taken about the tracebility issue in that scandal. The irony being that the junk-burgers the horse ended up in was deemed fit for human consumption in the first place. If you like your lamb curry (and don't mind substituting lamb for goat) then come to Guadeloupe and order Colombo de Cabri - best of the local dishes and a fine testament to the Indian heritage here.

There are a few insect cook books out there now. I've been meaning get one or two to test out recipes. I know there are some smallish insect farms now in the USA that are producing protein for animal feed. Would be great to have a local supplier of crickets - I hear fried they make an excellent snack to enjoy with a cold beer.




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 12 2017 22:40:20)

quote:

ORIGINAL: edguerin

quote:

I suppose cus I've never known one personally.

I believe that's the actual problem.
I knew a guy once who started a small farm with the idea of self-sufficiency.
He stopped when his kids started asking "Who's for dinner?"


Even after they retired and moved from the country to San Antonio, my grandfather would buy a turkey and fatten it for Thanksgiving, and another for Christmas. One of my younger cousins would develop an affection for the bird, though Grandfather repeatedly cautioned him against it.

My cousin would make a scene on the morning of the day, as the bird was hung by its feet to have its throat slit.

One Christmas at the dinner table my cousin fell to weeping unconsolably over the death of his "pet" and could not be comforted, no matter what was tried. It was then that Grandmother realized Grandfather had been slipping my cousin a few sips of wine all afternoon, and we had a slightly drunk six-year old at the dinner table.

Grandfather was in the doghouse for many days afterward.

RNJ




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 12 2017 22:59:12)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dudnote

There are a few insect cook books out there now. I've been meaning get one or two to test out recipes. I know there are some smallish insect farms now in the USA that are producing protein for animal feed. Would be great to have a local supplier of crickets - I hear fried they make an excellent snack to enjoy with a cold beer.


When we were in Mexico City last December many of the trendy upscale new places had chapulines (fried or roasted grasshoppers) on the menu. Another example of "lower class" dishes like fajitas and flautas making their way up the class ladder.

In a cow the fajita is the diaphragm, the toughest muscle in the entire animal. In the old days when a cow was butchered the fajita was given to the poorest people around, for them to try and figure out how to eat it. With typical Mexican ingenuity they devised a number of different tenderizing marinades. They sliced the fajita into thin strips, cooked it and served it on a toasted tortilla garnished with lettuce, tomato and maybe some frijoles refritos, nopalitos or chilis.

Flautas (a tortilla tightly rolled around a filling, then deep fried) used to be sold to 2nd class railroad passengers through the carriage windows when the train pulled in, by women who cooked them in 2-gallon galvanized buckets of lard boiling over charcoal braziers on the station platform.

I was a grown man before these dishes appeared in Tex-Mex places and middle class restaurants in Mexico.

I used to chuckle when I saw "chicken fajitas" on the menu, entertaining images of tiny bird sized diaphragm muscles on the toasted tortilla.

RNJ




Piwin -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 13 2017 17:01:38)

quote:

Would be great to have a local supplier of crickets


I've never tried an actual course of insects, i.e. cooked with some sort of tradition with a focus on making them taste good.
But I do admit grasshoppers come in handy, especially in "higher" altitudes when you want to ration your food and can't be bothered to hike down for half a day just to go shopping. It has the added benefit of making you feel like a kid again when you're trying to catch them.




mark indigo -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 14 2017 17:13:59)

quote:

come to Guadeloupe and order Colombo de Cabri - best of the local dishes and a fine testament to the Indian heritage here.


by strange coincidence I've got a gig coming up in a new café/restaurant opening with a chef from Guadeloupe - I will ask him about Colombo de Cabri. His jerk chicken wings are great![:)]




Dudnote -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 14 2017 18:47:58)

Jah mon!! Each day when you see him great him with "Kao fe ti mal?" (a bit like "how's it going Dude") - he'll like that.

You could also ask him to whip you up a few acras and a fricassée de lambis. Wash that down with several Ti Punch. And finish it all off with a sorbet coco drenched in vieux rhum from Marie Galante [;)]

Accompany all that with some GwoKa, either twaditionelle



ou modenn...

comme tu préfère.




Ruphus -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 15 2017 3:13:37)

I used to buy horse meat in Cologne. Weirdly much cheaper than anything cattle.
For my birthday barbecue there were heaps of horse steak.
Next morning my cousine remarked how delicious the grilled steaks were. When I told her why, she started screaming and beating on my back, hehe.

Since I had the chance of eating simply unbelievably yummy donkey salami in Albania, over 40 years ago, no other salami seems like real salami to me.

I do love horses and donkeys.
But those who make a difference must have never seen a cow or lamb from up close.

PS:
Once the son of a hunter gave me a piece from boar. For lack of tools I fried it on a leveled can over a fire. Another candidate for specially tasty red meat. (Much better than deer for instance.)




Leñador -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 15 2017 5:24:29)

You guys really got me wanting to try horse now! Hahaha There's rumor that a Ukrainian restaurant on fairfax will serve it if you know how to ask, time to make a Ukrainian friend.....[:D]

For being a huge pig fan boar is not my favorite. We've got tons of em here so all the hipster restaurants serve it. I will take it over deer though. Worst red meat I ever had, moose! Terrible, a friend gave it to me, I ended up grinding it down mixing it with tons of butter and making burgers.




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 15 2017 6:01:20)

We lived in Alaska for a couple of years when I was in middle school. A dreaded sight wnen we arrived at school in the morning was a moose carcass hanging in the cafeteria.

The snow got really deep in the winter. Along the Alaska Railroad tracks the plowed snow would stack up ten or twelve feet high. If a moose fell in, it couldn't get back out. The trainmen's only choice was to run over them and kill them. I suppose they couldn't shoot them out of season. They would stop and load the carcass into the baggage car. By the time they got to Anchorage it was frozen, and they would donate it to whichever school had the misfortune to be next on the list.

The meat was terrible. It was dry and tough, and usually had bone fragments all through it from being run over by the train. Living was hard for the moose in the wintertime. No nice aquatic plants to graze on in the swamp ponds, they ate pine and spruce needles and tasted like it, with a strong dose of gaminess.

But if you got one at the end of summer, it could be fixed up pretty decently. Driving from Oklahoma City to Anchorage in July, 1949 we stopped for the night at a "road house" at Lesser Slave Lake, about 200 km north of Edmonton, Alberta. On Google Maps I see there is a little town there now. In 1949 there were just a couple of log buildings out in the big woods.

Dinner was a delicious moose meat pie, served by the French accented proprietor and chef, dressed in logger boots, "tin" pants, plaid wool shirt and knitted watch cap. He said he had shot the moose the day before.

RNJ




edguerin -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 15 2017 7:28:48)

Ok, so I'll chime in to the "who's eaten the worst/best/weirdest meat?"-thread:
Back in the late 60ies I ate elephant trunk which tasted somewhat like calf-tongue (albeit after about 3-4 hours in a pressure cooker). What put me off a bit, was that each slice of meat had two nostrils in the middle.




Schieper -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 15 2017 8:48:41)

Ha ha.. I can not compete with elephant trunk. Had dog once in China. On a stick with a dipper sauce. No clue what it was till I looked it up in the dictionary. Was nice. A bit like chicken.

And then the pigs feet, monkey brain and water cockroach. I all skipped those ;-)




estebanana -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 15 2017 9:41:37)

Chicken sashimi is better than horse.

You take the chicken breast and put a towel over it, then pour steaming hot water on the towel, turn the breast and do the other side. Only let the water stay for 20 30 seconds, scalding boiling water.

Take the breast and douse it in a bowl of ice water. Then put it in a sealed maranating bag with a bit of rice vinegar rubbed on it and slices of kombu. leave it overnight.

Slice it like sashimi and eat it with shoyu and wasabi.

If you wimp out and decide it's too much for you, then grill it.




Ruphus -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 15 2017 14:31:46)

Lenny, the boar experience could be bound to season / hormone level (as hinted by Richard´s moose) and gender.
The piece I tried had zero of strange game flavour and was tender as it gets. All I had at hand for spicing and side dish was salt and bread (don´t recall if there was some kind of fat like butter available). So, no buffering through things like onions, herbs, vine, vinegar, yoghurt thelikes, yet very yummy.
-

In regard of unwanted containments, we are having regular scandals in Germany, and I have mentioned before on the foro how not only the government likes to play down and cover spoiling companies, but how official channels of supervision have been shortcut correspondingly.

And here in Middel East where nothing is up to date, latest cutting tricks though will be there within blink of an eye. Meanwhile even keeping chicken sedated.
So now you can expect a broad cocktail with antibiotics, hormones and even sedativa in your poultry.

Consumers, thinking chemistry was only contained in the flabber, let the chicken be stripped, taking home merely breast, strips from the back and the thighs. All the rest and the whole of skin goes into the garbage bin.

BTW; don´t know who spread the saga of poultries tender white meat and specially breast throughout the world, but it makes for a vivid example how images get followed and senses / empirics neglected.
In truth poultry breasts make for the most dry and tasteless part of the animal, whereas dark parts (unlike with fish) and legs stand for the juicy, tender and flavoured parts.




mark indigo -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 15 2017 16:33:54)

quote:

For being a huge pig fan boar is not my favorite. We've got tons of em here so all the hipster restaurants serve it. I will take it over deer though. Worst red meat I ever had, moose! Terrible, a friend gave it to me, I ended up grinding it down mixing it with tons of butter and making burgers.


I'm no expert on boar, but i expect age and sex is a big factor. Male domestic livestock are either slaughtered before puberty or castrated. Pigs especially are prone to "taint" if this is not done. I have had boar in Spain though, "jabali", not much, but it was good.

With venison, for a start there are loads of different species. Here in the UK we have native species and introduced species, at least 5 in total. An old buck is gonna be really tough, and need marinating and long slow cooking. A young animal will be tender, but also there is the additional factor of cuts. You wouldn't cook shin of beef the same as you would fillet steak! But good venison takes some beating.

So, age, sex, species, cuts, and then there is the input of what the animal has fed on, and how much it has exercised! With domestic animals all these things can be controlled, but with wild meat there is no control, and often it is hard to know what the the life of the animal has been, so hard to know exactly how to cook accordingly. But if you live and hunt in one area you get to know these things.

I eat rabbit pretty often, sometimes I get given pheasant (the only thing weirder IMO than lining up to shoot them like a firing squad is not wanting to actually eat them), and occasionally acquire venison.... the only slightly unusual thing I have eaten is squirrel. It was good meat, a bit like rabbit, but it was really difficult to skin, and seemed like a lot of work for little reward.




BarkellWH -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 15 2017 18:18:50)

So far in this thread we have discussed insects, mammals, and poultry prepared in various ways. Permit me to introduce seafood into the discussion by reprising a comment I posted several years ago. My two favorites are sting ray, known in Malay as "ikan pari" (literally "ray fish") and tiger prawns. Sting ray is one of the culinary wonders of the world. I tasted sting ray for the first time in 1983, shortly after arriving on assignment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Previously, I had never thought of sting ray as edible, much less the delicacy it really is. It quickly became (and still is) my favorite sea food. I ate it frequently at sea food specialty restaurants in Malaysia and Singapore. Sting ray in Malaysia is cooked two different ways. The Malays grill it and the Chinese steam it. I much prefer the Malay style of grilled sting ray. The sting ray belongs to the shark family and has shark-like cartilage. The Malays grill the wings and serve them with chili sauce and other condiments. One just takes the beautiful white flesh of the wing off the cartilage and tastes the sweetest of sea foods.

When I was assigned to the American Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, twice I took leave for two weeks at a time to ramble about the Riau Archipelago, which begins just south of Singapore and runs more or less along the South China Sea side of Sumatra. I first went in 1997 and enjoyed it so much I went again in 1998. My Malay language ability was (and remains) very good, and the Malays of the Riau Archipelago are considered to speak the purest form of Malay, as they are the remnants of the Malays of Malacca, which in the 15th century was the main entrepot of the Eastern spice trade. In 1511 the Portuguese defeated them, and they retreated south to Johore, finally centering their court in the Riau Archipelago. I was anxious to hear what linguists consider a reasonably pure form of Malay.

I flew to Singapore and took a ferry to the island of Bintan, which begins the Riau Archipelago. After a few days in bintan, I paid Malay boatmen and fishermen to take me to several islands in their prahus. I spent a few days on Lingga and surrounding islands, finally ending up on Singkep, where I spent several days. In each place I got to know the owner of a kedai, an open air restaurant or stall (Riau lacks the modern restaurants of Singapore and Jakarta--for the most part one eats in what are known as "kedais," particularly in the southern part of the archipelago.)

In each place, I made a deal with the owner of the kedai that I would go to the fish market every morning to pick up the finest sting ray I could find from the catch that was brought in from the night's haul of fish, I would bring it to the kedai owner that morning, and he would prepare it for me when I showed up for dinner each evening at about 7:00 PM. I was in linguistic and culinary heaven, learning the Riau dialect of Malay and having Malay-style, grilled sting ray for dinner each evening. It doesn't get any better than that.

My other favorite is tiger prawns, found in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. One goes to an open-air restaurant, picks out the tiger prawns one wants for dinner, all of which are fresh and on a bed of ice, and has them grilled. Tiger prawns are huge and have a fair amount of meat in the tail. Three or four make a meal in itself. Nothing better than tiger prawns dipped in butter and lemon sauce, washed down with a Tiger, Anchor, or Singha beer.

Bill




Mark2 -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 15 2017 18:48:31)

Insects and horses? Guys, I'm trying to have lunch while reading the forum for god's sake.




Johnc -> RE: Gourmet corner (Aug. 15 2017 19:21:33)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
The sting ray belongs to the shark family and has shark-like cartilage. The Malays grill the wings and serve them with chili sauce and other condiments. One just takes the beautiful white flesh of the wing off the cartilage and tastes the sweetest of sea foods.


Ive never been fortunate enough to taste sting ray, but your description sounds much like the skate wings we get here in the uk (and im sure elsewhere). Are they similar? I guess they must be related.

John




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