Slow Cooker Recipes: Pork Shoulder Recipes: Slow Cooker Pork Shoulder Roast

Hi guys! This week it's back to some slow cooker recipes! This week it's going to be slow cooker recipes and it's going to be one of my pork shoulder recipes. It seems to me that I get a lot of requests from England lately. About two months ago one of my Youtube viewers asked me how I would cook a blade in pork shoulder in a slow cooker. Seems this chap uses a slow cooker on a regular basis.

So I could not get to his request as quickly as I wanted to because I had other requests but this week it's slow cooker recipes and I am going to make one of my favorite pork shoulder recipes for my Youtube viewer. This week I am making slow cooker pork shoulder in a white wine and dijon mustard sauce. I's going to be delicious!

I love slow cooker recipes! It's just one of those things that is set and forget. When I got this request to do pork shoulder recipes I really had to put some thought as to how I wanted to approach this. So I thought about the many slow cooker recipes that I know and that fact that I do not know a lot of pork shoulder recipes and I decided to cook the pork shoulder much in the same manner as I cook my beef when I did my beef bourguignon recipe not to long ago.

When it comes to slow cooker recipes I cooked the beef bourguignon in a red wine sauce and I thought that with pork shoulder recipes I could cook the pork shoulder in a white wine sauce much as I did the beef. I worked on it for a week and come up with the ideal way to make one of the best slow cooker recipes that I have had in a long time.

Pork shoulder recipes are not easy to make. You just can't throw a pork shoulder in the oven and baste it and hope that it comes out tender because it won't! It will come out like you are eating an old wallet! There is a lot of connective tissue in pork shoulder so I decided to cook the shoulder in a slow cooker with white wine, dijon mustard, andouille sausage, potatoes and vegetables!

As with many slow cooker recipes this dish will take upwards of eight hours to come to completion. Whether it's beef slow cooker recipes or pork shoulder recipes, when it comes to meat that is a bit on the tough side with lots of tissue that needs to be broken down then the best way is in the slow cooker. The slow cooker will take an average, not so tasty piece of meat and turn it into a meal fit for a king.

One of the keys to an excellent slow cooker dish like pork shoulder recipes is to pre-cook or brown many if not all of the constituent parts of the meal to put flavor into them before using them for your slow cooker recipes! In most cases to just throw your ingredients into a slow cooker or crockpot and just add some herbs and spices and let it cook away just makes for a soggy somewhat flavorless mess! This is why with my slow cooker recipes I always brown up all the constituent parts before they go into the slow cooker!
[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:37]

Sweetbreads: Sweetbread Recipes: Sweetbreads With Bacon Mushroom Shallot And Garlic

Sweetbreads: Sweetbread Recipes

 



 

 

 

 

This week guys I am making sweetbreads! What are sweetbreads you ask? Well to quote my favorite chef Jacques Pepin  sweetbreads are part of a cooking set known as "essential offal." I was just a young boy the first time I had sweetbreads. I must have been 16yrs old if that and my mom was dating a real Arizona cowboy at the time and he was the one who introduced me to sweetbreads! This man whose name was Howard is also the man responsible for my initial interest in knives of all kinds and it's because of this introduction to knives that is responsible for my current skill set with knives and not just kitchen knives. The sweetbreads that Howard made were soaked in salt water overnight and then poached in water for a few minutes and then cooked in butter until they were caramelized and nut brown a bit crispy and delicious indeed! it's hard to describe how sweetbreads taste but suffice to say besides the bit of crunch from the caramelizing they were so tender you just can't believe it! They were meaty indeed with a slight sweetness flavor that I had never experienced before. I have been eating sweetbreads since then in many different ways.

So for those of you that have never had the pleasure of eating sweetbreads you may ask what are sweetbreads? Sweetbreads are the pancreas and thymus glands and calf, veal, lamb and pork! Some chefs and people call the thymus the throat sweetbread or in French cooking the thymus is referred to as a "gorge." Also in French the pancreas is referred to as the "noix." The "noix" sweetbread is from the stomach or heart and the "gorge" sweetbread comes from the animals throat.

There are of course with all things different levels of quality in sweetbreads just as there is different levels of quality in just about anything you buy. The absolute best quality sweetbreads are considered to come from veal or calves that are milk fed and the sweetbreads from lamb are highly prized as well. The best part is that sweetbreads are delicious and they are very affordable whether they come from the pig, calf, veal or lamb. In my humble opinion I think you my readers should try them all ASAP! Personally I like to consider sweetbreads as what I refer to as quite posh! Sweetbreads are made all over the world and in many different ways and I doubt that I will every get to try them all but, I will try to!

Personally, I don't find sweetbreads to be very popular where I live or anyplace that I have ever lived. A lot of people I know don't know what a sweetbread is or they have never tried them before. Sweetbreads are not the easiest dish to prepare because you have to dicker around with them a bit before you get to the point of cooking them but the dickering is well worth it. The issue with preparing sweetbreads is that they have a rather thick membrane surrounding them and the cook needs to get the membranes off the sweetbread before cooking them. The trick is to keep just enough of the membrane on the sweetbreads to keep them in one piece and discard the rest. It's a bit tricky but even if you take off all the the membrane and the sweetbreads to not remain intact you can still cook them and totally enjoy them.

Now as I have stated the sweetbreads themselves can be cooked in many different ways and are an extremely affordable and versatile food. No matter how you finally decide to cook your sweetbreads the fact of the matter is that no matter what kind of sweetbreads you are going to make either from veal, lamb, pork, beef they will all be prepared the same way initially! The first step in preparing sweetbreads is the soaking process. The sweetbreads must be soaked in cold water. It's best to have your cold water "acidulated" That sounds complicated but it's not. Acidulated water is just water that has an acid content in it from lemon juice, lime juice, vinegar or white wine. Basically this acidulated water step is no different than brining. When I brine or acidulate something I like to do it for at least 24hrs. In this case the acidulated water is designed to get impurities out of the sweetbreads. The term for this part of the sweetbreads preparation is called "degorging". Make sure that you change the acidulated water at least once every six to eight hours before moving on to the next step in the sweetbreads preparation.

The next step in the sweetbreads initial preparation is to poach or blanch the sweetbreads in cold water taht is brought up to a slow boil. There are a couple of ways to perform the poaching or blanching of the sweetbreads. The first is the cold water or you may opt to poach/blanch the sweetbreads in some kind of stock of which any will do or you can make something called a "court bouillon". A court bouillon is basically a stock of your own making using your chosen herbs and spices to poach/blanch your sweetbreads in. Basically a court bouillon is an aromatic soup of your making and in general terms a court bouillon is used in the poaching of fish and shellfish but it great for poaching your sweetbreads. After the sweetbreads have been blanched your take them from the hot liquid of your choice and put them in ice cold water to shock them. This blanching and shocking step helps to get rid of more impurities that might still be in your sweetbreads. The blanching process can take anywhere from 2 to 15 minutes depending on your needs. I usually blanch for about 10 minutes.

The third step in the sweetbreads initial preparation is to remove that membrane I was talking about earlier in this post. Just use your hands and remove the membrane/veins and do it gently. The fourth and final step of your initial preparation is a judgement call on your part depending on how you want your sweetbreads to come out or how you are going to use them in any particular dish. The optional last step is pressing your sweetbreads before cooking them. This is done by taking a plate or baking dish and lining it with a clean towel and then laying your sweetbreads on top of the towel then put another towel on top of the sweetbreads and put another plate or baking dish on top and then find some canned food and put a couple of pounds of weight on top of the sweetbreads to press them. It is best to get 5 to 10 lbs of weight on the sweetbreads to press them. Put the sweetbreads in your refrigerator for between 4 to 24 hours to get the excess water out of the sweetbreads. You want the sweetbreads to be pressed to about 3/4 of an inch. This makes the sweetbreads a bit denser and meatier. I love to press my sweetbreads because of the consistency that I get out of them this way. Remember! This is an optional step. You don't have to press your sweetbreads and they will still be delicious!

Now all the initial preparation has paid off and it's time to cook up some sweetbreads! There are tons of ways to cook sweetbreads. You can saute sweetbreads in a red or white wine or you can deep fry your sweetbreads by either battering them or dredging them the southern fried way. You can put sweet bread on the grill or cedar plank cook them. Here's one for you....Put your sweetbreads in the wood smoker for awhile and they will be yummy! You can braise them, roast them, poach sweetbreads! The ways to cook sweetbreads is endless if you really want to think about it. I would have to say that sweetbreads are my favorite form of essential offal as Jacques Pepin would say. I will be serving these sweetbreads with a side of pan seared pearl onions and artichoke hearts! Watch the video and enjoy!


[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:36]

 

Seeds: Celery Seed

 

 

Hi everyone! I know it's been a long time since I have done a post about any herbs or spices but, I have been so busy cooking and taking requests for recipes that I forgot about doing informational posts on the things we use in our cooking endeavors and that being things like herbs and spice. So today I am going to do this little post about the venerable celery seed! It's something that I use in baking many times and I thought talking about the celery seed would be a great place to pick up on my informational posts. The venerable celery seed is not a vegetable even though many people buy celery as a vegetable and hence think that the celery seed is the seed of the vegetable. Well, it is! But the celery seed is not a vegetable, it's a fruit! It's the fruit of a plant known as the Apium Graviolens! The celery seed is a member of the parsley family which I thought was an interesting fact in itself! For those of you that have gardens and grow herb and spices the celery seed is a biennial. The celery seed is the same species of seed used to grow standard table celery. The celery seed is very small measuring in at 1/16th of an inch and is oval/ovoid and is light brownish in it's coloring.

As with many of the herbs and spice we use in this country the venerable celery seed comes to us from another country, that being India! I just love my Indian herbs and spices!
Besides being used in cooking endeavors the celery seed has been used as medicine since the time of the ancient Greeks. Around the 19th century celery seeds were being used as a vegetable in food and in other food uses such as pickling. The celery seed tastes like celery and when crushed to be used in recipes is very aromatic and slightly bitter. You would be very surprised to find out that the celery seed is used in more places than you think! Ever use Old Bay seasoning in your cooking? Guess what? Old Bay makes use of celery seeds for their aromatic qualities. Do you like to have a Bloody Mary on occasion? Of course you do! The best Bloody Mary's are made using celery salt which comes from the celery seed! If you come from New York as I do then you have had a New York hot dog I am sure over at Nathans Famous in Coney Island. Remember how it tasted? Now have you ever been to Chicago? The famous Varsity Hot Dogs of Chicago! The Chicago hot dog tastes different than a New York hot dog because the Chicago dog used celery seed in the recipe! Some other uses for celery seeds are in soups and dressings. I love chicken soup don't you? I always add dill weed to my chicken soup and then I add some crushed up celery seeds for a great taste
and an extra boost to the soups aroma! Celery seed is fantastic in coleslaw and potpies and in some countries celery seed is used in making alcoholic drinks!

So as you can see the venerable celery seed is quite a versatile spice in the kitchen. I have given you some general information about the celery seed and some recipes and foods that the celery seed is used it. Now it's your turn to explore how you can use the celery seed in your cooking endeavors. I would like to hear what you come up with! Until next time thanks for reading!







Photo Courtesy Of Howcheng