Slower, cheaper, less useful…
It’s that time of year! As far as I know, here on Oahu, this is the only time of the year when the ribeye prices go down to about $8.00/lb.
So, I’ve added a couple of ten-pound bone-in ribeye roasts to the collection. I’ll cut them up for steaks and seal them in a bit. Good fun.
It looks like I’ve got enough meat to last me for a few days at the very least.
Wow…I’ve been on a tear when it comes to acquiring meat.
At the top, there’s a dry-aging strip loin over a dry-aging ribeye subprimal. The latter will be ready on or about my birthday, the former a week or two later.
There’s butter in the drawer just over a dry-brining tri-tip. Also on that shelf are containers of homemade bone broth and a nice piece of skin-on pork belly (since eaten).
The eggs are mostly local, though that top pack isn’t. And finally, the last visible packs are locally raised, grass-fed, and finished packs of ground beef, one with heart and liver diced in.
That’s pretty much it besides the water!
Today, instead of eating up the rest of my dry-aged steak, I cooked up a brisket I’d had around for a bit. It was local beef, regeneratively raised, grass-fed, and finished.
Here’s an image of the pieces i had after browning and before cooking the up in my Instant Pot.
You can see I had to cut the whole brisket up a bit to get it all in the pot.
Because I don’t eat sugars or other carbs, I couldn’t find any BBQ seasonings that would work. Instead, I went with the spices I had in my kitchen; Middle Eastern Baharat in fact.
I started by cooking the meat for an hour at high pressure, but that was not enough. I added another thirty minutes, and it was really nice!
Yes, I was making more bone broth today, but the real score as a nice jar of tallow. This comes from the roasting stage of the cook. Again, first I blanch the bones in boiling water for few minutes to remove impurities like blood, bits of hair, and so on. Next comes the roasting. I use my air fryer on roast for about 25 minutes at 425 F. That generally gets them nice and golden brown. I also get a nice haul of pretty clean beef tallow. You’d think this makes the bone broth devoid of oils, but it isn’t so. There’s always enough for a good amount in the broth itself.
I love cooking with beef tallow. It’s a lot healthier than using seed oils. As I don’t cook a lot of pork, I don’t get a lot of cooking fats from that, but it’s wonderful as well.
Well…yes.
I’m quite pleased that I’ve now hit at least three batches in a row that have gelled properly. That’s pretty much all I wanted to say. I’ve got the proportion of water to bones down pretty well. Next up, work on the taste.
Mind you, this tastes very good already. Further, has it can be used as a base for other dishes, I don’t want to impart too specific a flavor profile to it, other than beef that is.
But I am still have a lovely sixteen ounce serving each morning as I recover from my recent COVID-19 illness, so making it a little more flavorful wouldn’t be out of the question. I do add some salt when I reheat it right now, as well as a pat or two of butter. Today, being out of my usual butter, I’m using a little goat butter!
All the best!
I made another batch h of bone broth today for my friend. Perhaps more properly, for his wife who can really use the nutrition. I seems to have the recipe down as this one looked good, had plenty of fat, and gelled nicely.
There was even an extra four ounces of tallow from the roasting to pass along.
I’ll be making another batch for myself either tomorrow or Wednesday. I have a few extra bones to toss in, something I didn’t do for today’s batch.
When you are waiting for the mail, it’s important to maintain your nutrition. It’s be a pure shame to have the mail arrive and not be able to do anything with it because you’ve neglected your metabolism.
That won’t happen here.
Yesterday, I went to Sam’s Club with the idea of getting a whole strip loin, as I did with my home aging project.
They didn’t have any in stock. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. It seems to be just the time of day.
But they did have a lot of already packaged NY Strip steaks and better, they were a dollar off their regular price per pound. To top off the deal, most of them looked really nice. I managed to score a couple of packs that were cut well and didn’t have a lot of sirloin mixed in.
But, as I said, it was time to eat.
Here’s the one I cooked just prior to cooking. I’ve coated it lightly in beef tallow and inserted my Ninja’s temperature probe. I put a ruler up next to the steak to show that this one is about an inch and a quarter thick. That’s pretty darn good for them.
And here’s the finished product.
It was delickous.
I’m sitting around waiting for the postal delivery of my new Valeton GP-200LT I’ve been lucky in finding accessories I already own including the expression pedal I wrote about yesterday. Today, I found my two control footswitch. That means I can use both on this wee beastie.
It turns out that besides the GP-200LT, I’ve got some guitar strings coming in as well. Yay! I did just restring my Squire Strat, but I’m due for some changes across the gamut of my guitars, including my classical.
And on top of the strings, or rather, let’s not hope directly on top of them, I’ve got more salt!
I love Redmond’s Cherry Smoked Salt.
They go out of their way to hook you by giving out a lot of “points” when you spend money. I’ve got two bags of this coming in and paid less than fifty percent of the cost after my last purchase. This stuff is the real deal though, and worth it without a discount. They do have other flavors of their smoked salt, this just happens to be my fave.
Omigosh, I’m almost out of bone broth.
I’ve been hitting the stuff rather hard lately, what with my COVID-19 and all. Feeling a bit better this morning, I headed out on my electric scooter for more bones. This time I went for about four pounds of bones. I found that in my last batch, using three and a half pounds, that I had more room and could make a few cups more.
The first image shows the bones I’m using, including those from my recent bone-in NY Strips! I decided to change pots though and that’s shown in the second image. That pot is actually the inside of Instant Pot (eight quart model). The third image shows the mess that rises when blanching the bones for a couple of minutes.
And finally, all the bones are layed out in my Ninja air crisper ready for a twenty-five roast browning before it’s time for the pressure cooker.
I got a nice jar of Beef Tallow from this step.
This jar will go in the fridge with a couple of others. I have a lot of tallow from my recent cooks. I may give this one away as I really have more than I need.
My Instant Pot is just about done and I’m hoping this batch turns out as well as the last which turned out just about perfect. I’ll know how it tastes shortly. I’ll know if it gels tomorrow morning.