James Bond – Quantum of Solace [2008]
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Five Step Method for Preparing Sauces
Sauces As a home cook, one of the hardest things for me to accomplish when first starting out was making a rich velvety brown sauce to serve on steak, lamb, veal, pork, or even chicken for help visit www.bread-bakers-assistant.com. I could put together a pretty good pan sauce using the dripping after sautéing or roasting a piece of meat but it never quite had that incredible intensity that I experience when dining out at a great restaurant.
It wasn’t until I spent some time reading about sauce making and speaking with a few chef friends that I learned it isn’t so much the “how to” but the “ingredients” that make the difference. Using my 5-step method to making a great brown sauce is easy if you have all the necessary ingredients and I will give you some great resources for find them.
What is a Sauce?
According to Food Lover’s Companion, a sauce is “a thickened, flavored liquid designed to accompany food in order to enhance and bring out its flavor.” Now that can cover a lot of territory. It goes on to say, “In the days before refrigeration, however, sauces were more often used to smother the taste of foods that had begun to go bad.” I’m sure we have all had experiences that have proven this true even in the days of refrigeration……Think back to your high school cafeteria.
But in the 19th century, the French created an intricate process for making sauces that is still being taught in cooking schools all over the world for help visitwww.bread-machine-cookbook.com. This process involves numerous steps and if you have the time, I highly recommend James Peterson's, "Sauces" and Raymond Sokolov's "The Saucier's Apprentice". They are entirely devoted to just this subject.
sauces
Why is it so difficult to make great sauces at home?
As Chef Alton Brown says in his cookbook, I’m Just Here For The Food, “By and large, most home cooks don’t do sauce…and that’s too bad. Traditional sauces are indeed scary.”
The process just to prepare the key ingredients that go into a sauce takes a lot of time. It starts by making a stock with roasted beef and/or veal bones, reducing them for at least 12 hours, continuously skimming the pot,straining the liquid to remove the bones, reducing some more, adding a roux (a mixture of flour and butter used as a thickening agent) and you now have a nice brown sauce or sauce espagnole.
A professional chef will then reduce this brown sauce further to make a demi glace, the mother of all sauces. These guys spend a lot of time in cooking school learning how to do this and take great pride in the sauces they can make with it. These stock reductions are the foundation to hundreds of classic sauces being served in fine restaurants.
Why can’t I just use a bouillon cube?
Unless you want to ruin an expensive cut of meat by covering it with a salty, corn syrup reduction, I would stay away from bouillon cubes or any of those cheap packets of instant sauces you see in your local supermarket. Just look at the ingredients to see if what’s inside is real or simply processed. You can’t build a sound house without a strong foundation. The same is true when making sauces.
What’s a home cook to do?
Since making a great sauce at home depends of finding a good stock reduction or demi glace, I would like to offer you the following resources.
* Make it yourself. A great experience but one most of us will not take on.
* Make friends with the chef at your favorite upper end restaurant and see if he or she will share some of their brown gold with you. Be prepared to beg or pay through the nose to get them to part with this stuff. Not likely, but worth a try.
* Hire a personal chef to make it for you. You may end up having to subscribe to years worth of dinners, which isn’t all that bad, but you will have your demi.
* Buy it a high-end gourmet store. If you really search hard, you may be able to find stock reductions in the refrigerator section of some really high end stores. You won’t get much, but you don’t need a lot and it won’t be cheap.
* Williams-Sonoma is now selling their own stock reductions. I have not had that much experience with them but they usually sell high quality items.
* Find demi glace and stock reductions that are used in high-end restaurants and are available to home cooks. More Than Gourmet makes the best products I know of that fit that description.
My Quick & Easy 5 Step Method Quick Look
1. Sauté a shallot in butter
2. Deglaze pan with wine
3. Add demi glace
4. Reduce
5. Season with salt & pepper
More Details
1. Sauté a chopped shallot or small onion in one ounce of butter (1/4 stick) for 1-2 minutes until translucent.
2. Deglaze with 1/2-cup red wine and reduce to an essence (approximately one tablespoon of remaining liquid). Be sure to remove the pan from the heat before deglazing.
3. Add 8 ounces of demi-glace.
4. Reduce the sauce until it is thick enough to coat a spoon.
5. Season with freshly ground pepper to taste.
One last item that is optional but often used by professional chefs is a pat of butter. It adds a bit more flavor and shine to the finished sauce.
It wasn’t until I spent some time reading about sauce making and speaking with a few chef friends that I learned it isn’t so much the “how to” but the “ingredients” that make the difference. Using my 5-step method to making a great brown sauce is easy if you have all the necessary ingredients and I will give you some great resources for find them.
What is a Sauce?
According to Food Lover’s Companion, a sauce is “a thickened, flavored liquid designed to accompany food in order to enhance and bring out its flavor.” Now that can cover a lot of territory. It goes on to say, “In the days before refrigeration, however, sauces were more often used to smother the taste of foods that had begun to go bad.” I’m sure we have all had experiences that have proven this true even in the days of refrigeration……Think back to your high school cafeteria.
But in the 19th century, the French created an intricate process for making sauces that is still being taught in cooking schools all over the world for help visitwww.bread-machine-cookbook.com. This process involves numerous steps and if you have the time, I highly recommend James Peterson's, "Sauces" and Raymond Sokolov's "The Saucier's Apprentice". They are entirely devoted to just this subject.
sauces
Why is it so difficult to make great sauces at home?
As Chef Alton Brown says in his cookbook, I’m Just Here For The Food, “By and large, most home cooks don’t do sauce…and that’s too bad. Traditional sauces are indeed scary.”
The process just to prepare the key ingredients that go into a sauce takes a lot of time. It starts by making a stock with roasted beef and/or veal bones, reducing them for at least 12 hours, continuously skimming the pot,straining the liquid to remove the bones, reducing some more, adding a roux (a mixture of flour and butter used as a thickening agent) and you now have a nice brown sauce or sauce espagnole.
A professional chef will then reduce this brown sauce further to make a demi glace, the mother of all sauces. These guys spend a lot of time in cooking school learning how to do this and take great pride in the sauces they can make with it. These stock reductions are the foundation to hundreds of classic sauces being served in fine restaurants.
Why can’t I just use a bouillon cube?
Unless you want to ruin an expensive cut of meat by covering it with a salty, corn syrup reduction, I would stay away from bouillon cubes or any of those cheap packets of instant sauces you see in your local supermarket. Just look at the ingredients to see if what’s inside is real or simply processed. You can’t build a sound house without a strong foundation. The same is true when making sauces.
What’s a home cook to do?
Since making a great sauce at home depends of finding a good stock reduction or demi glace, I would like to offer you the following resources.
* Make it yourself. A great experience but one most of us will not take on.
* Make friends with the chef at your favorite upper end restaurant and see if he or she will share some of their brown gold with you. Be prepared to beg or pay through the nose to get them to part with this stuff. Not likely, but worth a try.
* Hire a personal chef to make it for you. You may end up having to subscribe to years worth of dinners, which isn’t all that bad, but you will have your demi.
* Buy it a high-end gourmet store. If you really search hard, you may be able to find stock reductions in the refrigerator section of some really high end stores. You won’t get much, but you don’t need a lot and it won’t be cheap.
* Williams-Sonoma is now selling their own stock reductions. I have not had that much experience with them but they usually sell high quality items.
* Find demi glace and stock reductions that are used in high-end restaurants and are available to home cooks. More Than Gourmet makes the best products I know of that fit that description.
My Quick & Easy 5 Step Method Quick Look
1. Sauté a shallot in butter
2. Deglaze pan with wine
3. Add demi glace
4. Reduce
5. Season with salt & pepper
More Details
1. Sauté a chopped shallot or small onion in one ounce of butter (1/4 stick) for 1-2 minutes until translucent.
2. Deglaze with 1/2-cup red wine and reduce to an essence (approximately one tablespoon of remaining liquid). Be sure to remove the pan from the heat before deglazing.
3. Add 8 ounces of demi-glace.
4. Reduce the sauce until it is thick enough to coat a spoon.
5. Season with freshly ground pepper to taste.
One last item that is optional but often used by professional chefs is a pat of butter. It adds a bit more flavor and shine to the finished sauce.
Simple Shredded Pork BBQ
Many call it BBQ shredded pork because it looks like shredded pork, but technically it is BBQ pulled pork. But, if you want call it shredded pork, nobody will care.
Once it’s cooked, the way it got its name is from using your hands, or a fork, to literally twist and pull the pork meat away from the fat, and to separate it from the bone.
The cut of meat ideal for pulled pork comes from the upper part of the shoulder from the front leg of a hog. It is called the Boston Butt, or pork shoulder.
At your favorite butcher shop, asked them for a bone-in, pork shoulder. The roast should weigh, ideally from four pounds up to eight pounds.
Before you barbecue, rinse thoroughly and pat dry. Trim as much excess fat off of it as you can. If you don’t get all the fat, not to worry, you can always remove more after it is cooked.
To get the most out of your cooking experience you will want to add a quality dry rub to the pork shoulder. Basically, what it does is tenderizes the meat and gives it a tantalizing BBQ taste.
You can go to the grocery store and purchase a pre-packaged dry rub. Most major grocery stores carry something that will work well with pork. Talk to the butcher at the store and get a recommendation.
However, I prefer to make my own dry rub and you can create your own, easily.
Get yourself a fairly good-size plastic marinating pan that has a lid. Don’t use aluminum foil or pans. Place the meat in the container and pour, or shake, a generous amount of dry rub on it. Repeat!
Next, pour a combination of plain yellow mustard and/or honey over the pork. You may have to heat the honey up to get it to spread properly. Use a brush and cover all the sides.
Once again, sprinkle dry rub on the meat, but this time don’t rub it in. Refrigerate overnight with the cover closed tightly on the marinating pan.
• Before you barbecue let the pork sit out for one hour
• Start the barbecue, whether gas grill, charcoal or conventional oven
• Temperature should be set at medium, 325 degrees for the oven
When barbecuing large cuts of meat, other than the oven, you need to use indirect heat. If you don’t, you will burn the outside. And, further the meat will dry out and not be cooked in the center.
For cooking on a gas grill, or the oven, you will need a small single cookie, or cooling rack to set the pork shoulder on, all placed over a shallow pan. Actually, a shallow oven roasting pan will work, too. You don’t want to have to clean up the mess if you don’t do this.
On the gas grill, you only need to light one side of the grill. When up to temperature, place the Boston Butt directly on the unlit side of the grill.
With a charcoal grill, place the lit briquets on one side of the unit. Place the roast directly on the unlit site of the grill, don’t use the cookie rack and pan. Don’t use cheap charcoal. This is a long, long cooking time.
Use proper airflow. Bottom vents open when pre-heating, open top vents when cooking on indirect heat.
Once you have everything setup, you want to keep the lids on the barbies, and oven closed. Don’t turn the pork shoulder while cooking.
You need to mop the pork shoulder to add flavor and moisture to it. The most convenient way is to use a spray bottle partially filled with fruit juice and apple cider vinegar.
A half cup of juice, apple or orange will probably suffice. Add a tablespoon of the vinegar.
Here we go with the cooking and the mopping sequence:
• Cook at 325 degrees gas grill, or oven for one hour, 250 for charcoal
• Open lid spray (mop) and lightly mist the on top of the roast
• Cook for another 2 hours and mop again
• Lower temperature to 300 and mop again after 3 hours
• Lower temperature to 250 and cook for another 2 hours
• Total eight hours
Charcoal grills will take longer, more like ten to 12 hours. You will need to add charcoal along the line.
You won’t be able to do this in the oven, but adding a smoker box to the gas grill will enhance the flavor and get you closer to a real BBQ taste.
Buy a cast iron one, they are the best. Most hardware, home improvement stores have them.
Along with the smoker box, purchase pre-packaged wood chips. They come in all kinds of flavors, but you might want to stick to fruit woods for the pulled pork.
Soak the wood chips for at least thirty minutes before putting them in the smoker box. While you are cooking the pork shoulder, place the box on the lit side of the grill.
With charcoal grill, simple add the pre-soaked wood chips to the coals.
After you have checked the roast for doneness with a meat temperature, take it off the grill and wrap in aluminum foil. Let it sit for a least a half hour to 45 minutes before serving.
Now, comes the shredded pork part of it. Pull apart the crust and remove the bone. Start separating the meat from the fat. You can do this by pulling it apart with a fork or using your fingers. It freezes well.
Place the meat on a cutting board and chop it up with a knife. Serve on Texas Toast or eat it by itself with, or without a dipping sauce. Hope you like this simple shredded pork recipe.
Once it’s cooked, the way it got its name is from using your hands, or a fork, to literally twist and pull the pork meat away from the fat, and to separate it from the bone.
The cut of meat ideal for pulled pork comes from the upper part of the shoulder from the front leg of a hog. It is called the Boston Butt, or pork shoulder.
At your favorite butcher shop, asked them for a bone-in, pork shoulder. The roast should weigh, ideally from four pounds up to eight pounds.
Before you barbecue, rinse thoroughly and pat dry. Trim as much excess fat off of it as you can. If you don’t get all the fat, not to worry, you can always remove more after it is cooked.
To get the most out of your cooking experience you will want to add a quality dry rub to the pork shoulder. Basically, what it does is tenderizes the meat and gives it a tantalizing BBQ taste.
You can go to the grocery store and purchase a pre-packaged dry rub. Most major grocery stores carry something that will work well with pork. Talk to the butcher at the store and get a recommendation.
However, I prefer to make my own dry rub and you can create your own, easily.
Get yourself a fairly good-size plastic marinating pan that has a lid. Don’t use aluminum foil or pans. Place the meat in the container and pour, or shake, a generous amount of dry rub on it. Repeat!
Next, pour a combination of plain yellow mustard and/or honey over the pork. You may have to heat the honey up to get it to spread properly. Use a brush and cover all the sides.
Once again, sprinkle dry rub on the meat, but this time don’t rub it in. Refrigerate overnight with the cover closed tightly on the marinating pan.
• Before you barbecue let the pork sit out for one hour
• Start the barbecue, whether gas grill, charcoal or conventional oven
• Temperature should be set at medium, 325 degrees for the oven
When barbecuing large cuts of meat, other than the oven, you need to use indirect heat. If you don’t, you will burn the outside. And, further the meat will dry out and not be cooked in the center.
For cooking on a gas grill, or the oven, you will need a small single cookie, or cooling rack to set the pork shoulder on, all placed over a shallow pan. Actually, a shallow oven roasting pan will work, too. You don’t want to have to clean up the mess if you don’t do this.
On the gas grill, you only need to light one side of the grill. When up to temperature, place the Boston Butt directly on the unlit side of the grill.
With a charcoal grill, place the lit briquets on one side of the unit. Place the roast directly on the unlit site of the grill, don’t use the cookie rack and pan. Don’t use cheap charcoal. This is a long, long cooking time.
Use proper airflow. Bottom vents open when pre-heating, open top vents when cooking on indirect heat.
Once you have everything setup, you want to keep the lids on the barbies, and oven closed. Don’t turn the pork shoulder while cooking.
You need to mop the pork shoulder to add flavor and moisture to it. The most convenient way is to use a spray bottle partially filled with fruit juice and apple cider vinegar.
A half cup of juice, apple or orange will probably suffice. Add a tablespoon of the vinegar.
Here we go with the cooking and the mopping sequence:
• Cook at 325 degrees gas grill, or oven for one hour, 250 for charcoal
• Open lid spray (mop) and lightly mist the on top of the roast
• Cook for another 2 hours and mop again
• Lower temperature to 300 and mop again after 3 hours
• Lower temperature to 250 and cook for another 2 hours
• Total eight hours
Charcoal grills will take longer, more like ten to 12 hours. You will need to add charcoal along the line.
You won’t be able to do this in the oven, but adding a smoker box to the gas grill will enhance the flavor and get you closer to a real BBQ taste.
Buy a cast iron one, they are the best. Most hardware, home improvement stores have them.
Along with the smoker box, purchase pre-packaged wood chips. They come in all kinds of flavors, but you might want to stick to fruit woods for the pulled pork.
Soak the wood chips for at least thirty minutes before putting them in the smoker box. While you are cooking the pork shoulder, place the box on the lit side of the grill.
With charcoal grill, simple add the pre-soaked wood chips to the coals.
After you have checked the roast for doneness with a meat temperature, take it off the grill and wrap in aluminum foil. Let it sit for a least a half hour to 45 minutes before serving.
Now, comes the shredded pork part of it. Pull apart the crust and remove the bone. Start separating the meat from the fat. You can do this by pulling it apart with a fork or using your fingers. It freezes well.
Place the meat on a cutting board and chop it up with a knife. Serve on Texas Toast or eat it by itself with, or without a dipping sauce. Hope you like this simple shredded pork recipe.
Hamburger Steaks with Brown Gravy Recipes
A hamburger steak is a perfect comfort food, and hardly even requires poring through recipes. At its most basic, it’s just ground beef, after all, maybe with a little bit of salt and pepper or garlic powder mixed in. But that makes for a pretty bland meal, doesn’t it? A hamburger steak with brown gravy recipe, however -- now that’s what you need to turn a simple meal into a perfect dinner.
When I make hamburger steaks with brown gravy, my recipe calls for Rawleigh Steak and Hamburger Seasoning Mix, as well as Rawleigh Onion Flakes -- they are well worth mail ordering for, as nothing in ordinary grocery stores is comparable. A pinch of kosher salt, a touch of Worcestershire sauce, and the patties are ready to be cooked; in the winter, you have to resort to frying or broiling, but in summer you definitely want to grill!
The brown gravy for my hamburger steak, too, must have Rawleigh’s Brown Gravy Mix -- no other mix can compare. You can make it according to the package directions (and isn’t that a great jar, by the way, rather than those packets that spill powder everywhere when you tear them open?): 2/3 cup gravy mix combined with 1 cup cold water, then whisked into 3 cups boiling water until thickened. But I like to tinker a bit, so here’s how my hamburger steak with brown gravy recipe looks:
2 pounds ground beef
3 tablespoons Rawleigh Steak and Hamburger Seasoning Mix
2 tablespoons Rawleigh Onion Flakes
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Combine ingredients, divide into 6 patties, and cook to desired doneness.
1 tablespoon butter
8 ounces sliced mushrooms
1/3 cup red wine (one that’s worth drinking!)
2/3 cup cold water
2/3 cup Rawleigh Brown Gravy Mix
3 cups boiling water
Heat butter in a skillet, and add mushrooms; sauté until golden brown. Meanwhile, combine wine and cold water; stir in gravy mix. Whisk mixture into boiling water and cook until thickened. Stir mushrooms into brown gravy. Place hamburger steaks onto a serving platter and top with the brown gravy. Serve hot to a hungry family!
This is easy enough to make for a quick weeknight dinner, but also sophisticated enough to be served at a dinner party. My hamburger steak with brown gravy recipe is an all-purpose hit!
When I make hamburger steaks with brown gravy, my recipe calls for Rawleigh Steak and Hamburger Seasoning Mix, as well as Rawleigh Onion Flakes -- they are well worth mail ordering for, as nothing in ordinary grocery stores is comparable. A pinch of kosher salt, a touch of Worcestershire sauce, and the patties are ready to be cooked; in the winter, you have to resort to frying or broiling, but in summer you definitely want to grill!
The brown gravy for my hamburger steak, too, must have Rawleigh’s Brown Gravy Mix -- no other mix can compare. You can make it according to the package directions (and isn’t that a great jar, by the way, rather than those packets that spill powder everywhere when you tear them open?): 2/3 cup gravy mix combined with 1 cup cold water, then whisked into 3 cups boiling water until thickened. But I like to tinker a bit, so here’s how my hamburger steak with brown gravy recipe looks:
2 pounds ground beef
3 tablespoons Rawleigh Steak and Hamburger Seasoning Mix
2 tablespoons Rawleigh Onion Flakes
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Combine ingredients, divide into 6 patties, and cook to desired doneness.
1 tablespoon butter
8 ounces sliced mushrooms
1/3 cup red wine (one that’s worth drinking!)
2/3 cup cold water
2/3 cup Rawleigh Brown Gravy Mix
3 cups boiling water
Heat butter in a skillet, and add mushrooms; sauté until golden brown. Meanwhile, combine wine and cold water; stir in gravy mix. Whisk mixture into boiling water and cook until thickened. Stir mushrooms into brown gravy. Place hamburger steaks onto a serving platter and top with the brown gravy. Serve hot to a hungry family!
This is easy enough to make for a quick weeknight dinner, but also sophisticated enough to be served at a dinner party. My hamburger steak with brown gravy recipe is an all-purpose hit!
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