adventures in cooking

[piranha]

so, i am not a cook. i mean, i can cook foods that i find tasty, but while i am an enthusiast when it comes to eating, i am not one when it comes to cooking. so i mostly stay away from foodie newsgroups and communities because food porn just makes me hungry. :) when somebody on my flist posts a recipe, i might memorify it if it's for baked goods, and i'll ooh and aah over any pretty pictures, but that's pretty much it.

last week somebody (i think pat? or kathy -- had to be one of the two, since they're the most into non-veggie food.) posted a recipe for brining pork. i had vaguely heard of brining, enough to know what distinguishes it from marinating, but i didn't really know much about it; it wasn't taught in my home ec class nor did my family know of it, and that's pretty much whence my knowledge of cooking hails; very provincial. usually i skip right past food posts, but since i had some cheap pork chops in the fridge which are kinda tough when simply pan-fried, this post caught my attention and i went a-hunting for more information on brining.

am i ever glad i did. we just had the best pork chops ever.

of course i didn't follow any recipe i found -- it's not because i feel myself above it (as i said, i am no cook), but because my forays into experimental cooking usually happen outside of normal shopping hours, and i have to make do with what i have in the house.

this is what i cobbled together:

4 cups water
1/8 cup table salt
1/2 cup maple syrup
5 fat cloves garlic, crushed [*]
2 T peppercorns, freshly cracked
3 T fresh rosemary, chopped
2 tsp onion powder (approx -- i just emptied the old stuff left in the container)
1/2 tsp nutmeg (same as the onion powder -- must remember to buy new)
1 tsp ginger, ground

[*] edited to add that i like unusually large amounts of garlic. this did not turn out super-garlicky for me, but somebody who's not as much of a fan might want to use less.

i heated it all up to draw the good stuff out of the spices and herbs and into solution, then let it cool down while we went to get the door.

when i got back, i poured the mix into a bowl and layered the chops i had (6 big ones) into it. covered, and let sit in the fridge overnight. this morning i took them out of the brine, tossed the brine, and put the chops back in the fridge. tonight i pan-fried two of them, without any further spicing.

OMG. divine. savoury-sweet flavour through and through and ever so juicy.

we shall be doing this sort of thing a lot. and, being as the paramour isn't too fond of chicken breasts, complaining that it's their dryness that deters zir, i shall do it to them as well.

Comments

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Brining is an excellent invention. Thanks for the recipe!

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i should warn that i like unusually large amounts of garlic in my foodstuffs. :)

[kightp.livejournal.com]

That was me, yep, and I'm so glad to hear it worked for you. Do yourself a favor next time you're at the grocery store and invest in a box of kosher salt - it dissolves much quicker than table salt.

And yes, a great thing to do to chicken breasts, too.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

thanks for the well-timed inspiration! this will be a major boon to my meat cookery.

kosher salt is a tricky thing, and i don't trust it. :) with table salt i know extremely well how much makes what i cook how salty; i don't even really have to think about it. kosher salt comes in different grain sizes, and that makes measurements weird.

maybe some day all the world will switch to weights instead of these weirdo noram measurements. i do convert some recipes, namely bread (which i make a lot of), but not when i am trying out something new.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

The thing about brining is that the measurements don't have to be exact. I usually just throw in the salt by the handfuls, myself. I pretty much reserve it for making brines.

[(Anonymous)]

Brining was demonstrated in a cooking class I went to in early 2005, and I agree - it produces superbly juicy results. Glad you found out about it, and thanks for the recipe. I happen to have some chicken the could be brined, come to think of it. I got a big box of pickling salt in order not to use table salt. But I don't know the difference between that and Kosher salt in physical properties.

My latest jones is for quinoa. I've been bringing it to a boil in water 1:2 quinoa:water, then simmer for about 20 minutes until it's tender. Then I let it cool a little bit and mix in olive oil and lemon juice to taste with salt and pepper. Just that is plain good eats. But then I've taken to adding chopped red onion, olives, cubed tofu, or chick peas. Any of that in any order, with the lemon and olive oil being the basic flavor. I always just keep eating it for every meal until it's gone. It's ok chilled, but I also like it room temperature. mmm....I just had it for breakfast.

[lorres.livejournal.com]

errr...oooops, that was me

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i should probably extend the same warning i gave to jinian here about the recipe -- i like unusually large amounts of garlic in my foodstuffs. this did not turn up to be super garlicky for me, but somebody who's not a total garlic lover might want to use fewer cloves anyway.

quinoa is very yummy, yes. i discovered it when i was a member of a food co-op in champaign-urbana, and ate a lot of it then. i should get some and try it out on the paramour.

lately i've been a lot into couscous, because it is so damn fast to prepare. and tabouli remains one of my favourites for summer.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I've never tried brining, but I might have to give it a shot, between you and kightp. Noted about the garlic - I usually have to increase the amount in most recipes, so I guess I'm intermediate between you and the recipes.

brinerizing

[(Anonymous)]

Your best bet for brining most things:

water
salt (a lot)
sugar (for pork)

something like 1/4 cup table salt to 1 quart of water.
you're not going to get a whole lot of impact from other flavors during the brine--garlic, rosemary, pepper works best as part of a rub applied just before grill/fry/whatevering.

Pork seems to especially benefit from sweetness. This process is also excellent for roasted (or pan roasted, my favorite) chicken with just salt.

[bethzebra.livejournal.com]

Made these the other day and they were quite tasty!

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

So we actually tried something like this today (I forgot to prepare the brine last night, so they've only been brining since this morning) and it worked out rather nicely. I think I used about the same amount of garlic, and it wasn't a problem at all. Also, maple syrup is hard to come by, so I just used raw sugar.