I was determined not to fail this time. My last attempt at deep-dish wasn't an absolute failure, but it was close. It was too soggy and messy , and had none of the glorious qualities that my favorite Chicago pizzeria, Pequods , displayed. I theorized about all kinds reasons for the failure, thinking it had something to do with the crust. Then I just gave up and asked you all...
Most of the recipes online are found on generic websites and just have a bunch of cut up vegetables mixed with olive oil, which I already knew was completely wrong. There needed to be some kind of acidic kick, something to balance the aggressive heat and the fair amount of oil.
I had my first breakthrough when I found this random video from the Food Network show "Unwrapped". They were visiti...
Or at least, that was my hunch. I searched for a long time and finally settled on this recipe from pizzamaking.com. Deep-dish dough is very different from its thin crust counterpart. The crust has a healthy dose of cornmeal, which gives it an interesting crunch and texture. All the elements seemed to be here. I tracked down some tomatoes, cheese, and even decided to add some spinach (a...
Short ribs and I don't have a good history. The first time I tried to make these with Blake we ended up with a collection of tough, greasy, hunks of impenetrable meat. The second time I solved the toughness factor by cooking them for ages, but forgot about the fat. Even after stashing the pot of short ribs in the fridge for a day so I could easily skim some off, I still felt like I h...
I think part of the reason I took a break from roast chicken was the rising absurdity of my preparations. A few years ago I had chased after juicy meat and crispy skin, by trying various combinations of slow roasting , extreme slow roasting , experiments with baking soda , and high, high heat . The results were often spectacular, if never quite practical. And somewhere alo...
If bread making scares you like it scares me, but the lure of authenticity is irresistible, then focaccia may be the place to begin.
The intoxicating smell of yeast; the wet stickiness between your fingers; the magical billowing quality of the dough when a warm spot trns it into a living thing. These are the pleasures of bread making. And these are the pleasures I am almost wholly unfam...
For the sausage novices, nothing could be quite so easy as this recipe from Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie. Because I was using it straight away I had no need to stuff it into casing only break them free a moment a latter. I essentially just mixed everything together, ground it on the small die of my meat grinder, and cooked it. It was about as time consuming as cutting up a bunch of vege...
Sauerbraten is a national dish of Germany, and there are many variations in its preparation, all hailing from different regions. However, I didn't have to look much further than Alton Brown for a good recipe--the reviews on the recipe's page at Food Network are almost exclusively raving. A combination of cider and red wine vinegar provide the recipe's twang, and all the traditional notes fo...
The other issue I had to face was how to cut the meat. As I remembered from my visit to Al's #1, the beef should be shaved as thinly as possible. Al's used an huge deli slicer, which I obviously didn't have. Saveur recommended just tossing the meat in the freezer for 2 hours before serving and then slicing it as thinly as possible with a chef's knife. Some recipes recommended taking th...
Diced instead of Ground Meat
I had stopped using ground beef a few years back, after watching a Good Eats episode. The reasoning makes sense. When ground beef is used, the fat either needs to be drained off immediately, or needs to be skimmed off the day after when all the fat has accumulated at the top. But if you use chunks a lot of the juices stay inside, leaving both the chili less...