Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Things are cooking!

Today seems to be the day for cooking. I bought some london broil beef the other day & got around to working on it yesterday. London broil is also called Flank steak; it is from the under side of the cows stomach, near the back legs. http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/meats/beef/glossary3.asp#flank These folks have a nice picture of what comes from where.

Anyway, yesterday I cut up one piece of the steak for jerky. I marinate the jerky over night then today I put it on the dehydrator to dry. When done it is pretty tough but very spicy. Don't have any trouble getting rid of it!

The other piece of london broil I cut up into .5 inch (or 1 cm) chunks for chili. Brown it in olive oil then add a beer and a can of Rotel canned, spiced tomatoes and let it cook. About an hour later I figured out that I hadn't put any chili powder into it! Well, the meat would need more cooking anyway. Added a couple of tablespoons of chili powder (three centiliters - if that is the right measure) and a teaspoon (maybe three/fourths of a centiliter) of cayanne pepper. After another hour & a half, I added a can of red beans. Letting them warm while I cut up some onion & cheese for toppings. Opened the salsa and invited my wife to lunch. Yum!

Lots of leftover for the next few days. Hope you are having a good one. Be careful, it's dangerous out there!

2 comments:

Cinnamon said...

Hey Don! Been too long since I checked in with your life :) I'm curious about doing the jerky -without any sweetener? (brown sugar, honey, etc.) is that why you got a "tougher" jerky? Given that increased sugar content is what actually makes cake recipes "softer"... I'm just wondering if it extapolates out to meat-curing, especially with a quick-cure method in a dehydrator.

Yes, I'm such a geek.

Don said...

Hi Cinn, I don't use any sweetener at all. I basically make the jerky for my wife & she doesn't like the sweet stuff.

Toughness of jerky depends also on the amount of drying and the direction you cut the meat. I get it pretty dry; if I gave it half an hour less it would probably be more tender. I never worry about the direction I cut so that would make it tougher.

I'm going to ask Lee over at http://chemistkitchen.blogspot.com/
about the sweet-soft idea. Thanks for reading!