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Tag: Beef

Ron Eade: Have we all lost our minds?

Ron Eade’s weekly Supermarket Specials post has him ranting a bit, and I love him for it:

No, the real harbinger of warm weather, I say, are grocery stores beating their chests about convenience foods for the barbecue that are both overpriced and salty.

Really, how difficult is it to cut meat into cubes and impale them on a bamboo stick?

How challenged are we that we can no longer chop cabbage to make our own cole slaw?

(In one flyer, I see the claim that a chain store’s magical pork is “moisture enhanced to ensure you get a juicy and flavourful roast or rib every time.”

(My translation: We’ve added salt and bumped up the weight so you can pay meat prices for water.)

Even more galling, I notice in the fine print on flyers this week that some super-duper beef barbecue specials with oh-so-catchy brand names are “cut from Canada AAA grade beef or USDA Choice.”

Say what? American beef while our own Canadian farmers are struggling to stay in business?

Have we all lost our minds?

REWARD: Pan Seared Beef Tenderloin and Fingerling Potatoes

Originally posted on FineDiners.ca

Pan Seared Beef Tenderloin and Fingerling Potatoes

So FineDiner Eric came over the other night and we butchered three Chickens and two whole Beef Tenderloins (which were on sale at Costco – instructional coming soon!).  As a reward for all our hard work, we fired up a chunk of the tenderloin and some fingerling potatoes and had ourselves an amazing late-night meal!

In The Kitchen – Wine Marinated Braised Beef Short Ribs

Originally posted on FineDiners.ca

Wine Marinated Braised Beef Shortribs (aka Dave's HAMMERED Beef Shortribs)

Second Time’s a charm?
So this is my second go-around with braised beef short ribs – I LOVE this dish.  Last time was great, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the ways I could improve on my first attempt, now that I had a bit of experience with braising and in particular with this cut of meat.

This time around, I had spent quite a bit more time reading up on braising and different recipes, plus I’d gotten a few more tips and tricks from FineDiner Eric, and I felt I was ready to jump back in and see if I couldn’t hit this one out of the park.

Butchery 101 – Strip Loin

Originally posted on FineDiners.ca by Eric Rochon

The Money Shot
mmmm… steak

Busy night in the Kitchen – I was supposed to make Veal Stock.  When I was working for Biagio’s they used to dispose of the VEAL bones, so I took some home one night and froze them.  The freezer was full so I decided to make Veal stock – to my surprise, one of the two bags I pulled from the freezer was full of Chicken carcasses.  So I ended up making chicken stock – I guess I’ll post about the Veal stock another time.

Anyways, onto the butchery.  I love Costco’s meats.  Today during my shopping I purchased a Strip Loin. The Costco meat section offers Canada AAA grade beef. When purchasing the strip, I always look for good marbling. It’s sometime hard to see through the Cryovac, but if you look closely at the ends you can see the content. The strip is one of my favorite parts of the “beef”.  It’s fatty, flavourful and tender. I almost prefer this over the tenderloin. You can prepare it in several different fashions. In this article I cut NY style strip steaks and I also cut “Faux Fillets”.

In The Kitchen – Braised Beef Short Ribs

Originally posted on FineDiners.ca

I’m not super-experienced in the kitchen, but I’m hoping that in starting this site it’ll help encourage me to get better and try new recipes and experiment in the kitchen and that I’ll learn a few things along the way.  So this weekend I tried out one of the recipes I linked to in my first Recipe Box post last week:  Braised Beef Short Ribs.  This was my first time braising, and I know it’s not like it’s a complicated method of cooking or anything, but I was really looking forward to trying it out – it just sounds delicious!

Braised Beef Short Ribs
Braised Beef Short Ribs

Making this dish wasn’t really time-consuming (excluding the cooking time), but it tastes like it was slaved over!  I served the ribs over Yukon Gold mashed, with some roasted carrots and small white potatoes (and a glass of Chianti of course!)  This was also the first time I’ve tried plating something I’ve cooked and tried to make it look good enough to photograph… clearly I need more work in that department, but hey – it tasted great!

Recipe Box for January 15 2009

The Recipe Box feature on FineDiners.ca features recently found recipes that have caught our eye from around the web.  Some we’ve tried, some we hope to try soon.