What is your favorite thing to cook?

Darby_Crenshaw

nah.  the shiney egg wash probably made it look like ceramic.

YEMTrey

Darby_Crenshaw said:

@YEMTrey
that one with the table 'decorations' (or lack thereof) was for the wife and two boys, age 10 and 7 at the time.  no need for fancy schmancy.

this was also a time when the forum wasn't so hung up on photos, but rather the food in them. 

i don't bother with pics anymore.  no need for yet another rib roast pic, regardless how tarted up the place is (or isn't).

ate the second one by the fire, actually. anyone looking for silver and linens would be further disappointed. 

@Darby_Crenshaw , I was trying to follow @nolaegghead down the "tree rat" wormhole.  Was trying to trigger a little bit of that out of you!  That's a H.O.F. thread.  Cheers!

Griffin

I kinda thought I knew who Darby was, but now that I see those pics, I know for sure. Those pics bring back the ole days for me. I remember seeing them when they were first posted.

Chillin@5

family pizza night for sure

Jeremiah

To put this back on topic:
wings, or steak. 

SGH

Griffin said:

I kinda thought I knew who Darby was, but now that I see those pics, I know for sure. 

For those of us not in the know, did he use to use the name @Mike_Hauchertz

Darby_Crenshaw

Nope. 

I was @zippylip, until i realized i couldn't live like that any more. 

EggNorth

Steak, pizza, burger.  In that order.

GATraveller

Darby_Crenshaw said:

Nope. 

I was @zippylip, until i realized i couldn't live like that any more. 

So you were trolling yourself last month?  Ha!

Ozzie_Isaac

So I was using this thread for inspiration.  You all have definetely delivered!

I'm drooling.

nolaegghead

I was inspired.  I bought a 19.3 pound boneless ribeye roast last night and started the dry aging process in the manbearcave fridge.   Should be "ripe" around baby-Jesus's commercial birfday.

Ozzie_Isaac

nolaegghead said:

I was inspired.  I bought a 19.3 pound boneless ribeye roast last night and started the dry aging process in the manbearcave fridge.   Should be "ripe" around baby-Jesus's commercial birfday.

Do you dryage unwrapped or use those Umammi or Unagi bags or whatever they are called?

nolaegghead

@Ozzie_Isaac man, I'm going full commando like a real man.

nolaegghead

man

Ozzie_Isaac

nolaegghead said:

@Ozzie_Isaac man, I'm going full commando like a real man.

Cool!  I've wanted to try dry but have been chicken.

theyolksonyou

I'm so inspired by @nolaegghead inspiration, Imma buy a whole new fridge for the basement for like $150 so I can buy a $200 chunk o' meat and let it spoil(to my wife) and have a chunk of awesomeness. 

Off r to shop for cheap used fridges. 

Edit: I don't have enough jars of pickles to use the kitchen fridge. 

nolaegghead

Darby_Crenshaw

WALL-O-TEXT WARNING (turn back now)

when you get a fridge (beer fridge?) just unwrap the whole rib eye, rinse and pat dry.  trim off any little bits that might be hanging anywhere.

then on to a cooling rack (like for cookies), which you should put over a cookie sheet.

that will allow air under and around it, and the one or two drips you get the first day will be caught on the sheet.  you won't need any paper towels.

do NOT put towels over it.  this has become a 'thing' on the internet for some damn reason.  one guy on 'ask.com' eight years or so ago wrote up a home dry-aging post, and for some damn reason suggested laying a towel on the thing.  i think yet another voodoo talisman against the imaginary evil refrigerator demons.

after 24 hours your fat cap (bones down, fat up) will be tight as a drumhead, and waxy.  that's perfect. you are on your way.

then you just need to let it age as long as your manhood permits. 

at a week you get no real flavor or tenderness bump, but the roast would brown beautifully from the drying.  heck, if i am just cooking a cheapo eye of the round, i will let it go overnight.  the surface dries nicely. 

21 days is what you will hear in a restaurant usually. if they DON'T say how long it's been aged, it's usually just a coupleweeks, which is almost a waste of time.  a roast will have a nice surface after that time, and sure there is some dring, but you won't have any real aged flavor.  the enzymes won't have much time to break down the flavorless proteins.  denser beefy flavor yes (from the water loss), but not NEW flavors from aging. this allows them to advertise aged beef, but still sell something with more conventioanl expectaion (juice on the plate, still bright red, not much rind).

if it is 21 days, that's probably a good start for a newbie, because the family may be eyeballing the thing and wondering if it is safe to it.  so you chicken out, and then cook it.  you may not notice a difference compared to the MEMEORY of a fresh steak.  but you'd probably notice a diff side by side.

but when you get to 45 days, you're in the money.

the first place fishlessman and i used to get our steaks did 45 days as a rule, and never trimmed.  soon the yuppie housewives were buying the meat for their hubbies, and feeling good about it, but then started the guys on trimming the damn things into oblivion because it didn't look like a pretty 'fresh' steak.  eventually that's how they sold them.  they gave up and trimmed.  and then they went bankrupt. hahaha

again 45 days (ask RRP if you doan believe me) is where it really pays off.  nice weight loss (flavorless water is GONE).  means the beef is more flavorful just from being condensed.  but you also have 45 days worth of enzymes (call it decomposition if you really wanna, that's what it is).  long flavorless proteins break down into flavorful amino acids.  fat loses water and becomes buttery (what's butter but beef fat with water removed, sorta).  good stuff

if you do not trim the rind from the steak (and I don't and no butcher that ever sold me any ever trimmed either), you may be concerned by appearance and apparent dryness.  YES, it will be dry and hard to the touch.  but in the cooking, the cell damage  from cooking will release some water, that will soften the ridn.  further, the fat itself will melt (there's little water in it, the fat will not be soft and floppy), and that will literally fry the exterior.  hands down it is (to me) the finest part of the steak.  crispy (due to the fat), deeply beefy (most of the drying occurs here, it's the most beef flavor in the whole steak).

you'll just need to get past the expectation of a pretty red photogenic steak.  your great grand father didn't buy pretty red steaks.

this is the steak i got from The Meat House in NH before they closed. (ignore the wine)


at 60-75 days, you'll start seeing a more pronounced metallic tingle on the side of your tongue.  the meat may be getting a bit too dry for some (a juicey steak is a watery steak after all.  juice is over rated.  it's water, fat, and myoglobin). the steak will be very well aged. prosciutto notes (meat protein, aged). your football buddy will be the only one willing to try it, and he will nod politely but probably decline another. 

at a hundred days, it will be you alone eating this.  the steak will have some oxidation (rancidity), but that never hurt anyone.  this is the point where it's a totally different thing than a steak.  it's more of an experiment.

regardless how long you go, when you reach the decision day, just lop off thin slices from the ends, like the heel of a loaf.  this is edible, but it is jerky.  i slice out carpaccio from this, as a cook's treat.

then chunk off a roast of a few bones, and slice the rest into steaks maybe.

you can always cut the whole thing in half for two big roasts, with four ends.

nolaegghead

nolaegghead

SGH

@nolaegghead
Is that a buzzard

nolaegghead

nolaegghead

theyolksonyou

Where're the fork police when you need em?

nolaegghead

Very moist, good salt, spicy.  Easy to do.  Did one in the morning for work then one in the evening for dinner.  Threw a yard bird in there, haven't tried it yet.

nolaegghead

@Darby_Crenshaw I didn't trim anything, did put it on a wire rack and put a paper towel under the rack on @DMW's recommendation (to catch the drippings from the first few days then to remove and have a sparkle clean baking sheet). 

I haven't done this before....should I go back and trim any loose stuff off?

Darby_Crenshaw

here's that 45 day steak from a butcher.  damn forum foolishness won't let me edit it into the original post

Dobie

Darby_Crenshaw

@nolaegghead no need to trim.  it won't go bad, just any hangy bits will just be reduced to a jerky tag by the time it dries.  i only mean to trim off any poorly butchered stuff, or sometimes you get the membrane sliding around on top of the thing.  i take that off.  and i rinse offthe loose fats bits that are always in the cryo bag, and rinse off the 'blood' (it ain't blood, just myoglobin and water).  that'll help it dry clean and quickly

i had a much more intensive write up, from an old forum post, that was step by step.  ca 2007 maybe.  with pics.  dunno where it went.  anyway, it is much less about the actual 'doing' of it than it is trusting yourself to do it.

and of course those guys who have to run everything by their wife forst.  you'll have to convince her. hahaha  and if you can't explain what why how, she'll probably raise an eyebrow, and you'll flinch, and then welcome to drybag city.

nolaegghead

I'll try to post a daily shot as a record of progression.  No worries with SWMBO, she doesn't open this fridge very often, only when she's grabbing a beer and only then when she's doing yard work and the cool front's retarded growth.  And if she doesn't want any....(unlikely), well, then more for me