Monday, October 03, 2011
Beefy
It was the day of the cow (not being able to determine the status of a cow from its chop. Cows, kine, heifers, steers, steroids, bullocks and bulls all look the same to me. Calves, that is to say veals, I might notice) yesterday, so we celebrated with a two rib piece of fore rib from Manor Green Road. Who had taken proper note of the instructions about there being fat but no chining and the 9.5lb joint did indeed turn up with fat and without having been chined.
Tied it with two white strings and was pleased to find that it stood up; it seeming more proper to cook such a thing upright, but without really knowing whether it matters. Affectation rather than experience. Gave it three hours at 180C, something above the slow temperature cooking at 170C described in our trusty Radiation Cookbook, but more in line with the last recorded effort on 13th July. Rested for half an hour. Lost something between half a pint and a pint of fat during the cooking, which left the meat moist and loose, brown not pink. Very good it was too, with the key feature to my mind being loose. Carveries usually manage it but purveyors of hot salt beef usually do not. Served with rice, primo cabbage (which at 2 for £1 made growing bug infested versions on an allotment sound like hard work) and swede.
Preceded by crab salad: flaked white meat from claws, loosened with a touch of olive oil and tossed in a suitable lettuce. Spiced up with a little (out of season) spring onion.
Postceded by a cooked cheese cake. None of your digestive biscuits, jam and jello. But it remains a mystery why the biscuits, jam and jello variety dominate the market. Either the commercial caterers think that we like biscuits, jam and jello or there is some tricky food processing reason why the other sort does not fly in a caff.
Accompanied by one drop of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and another of Bergerac. This last having caused much self checkout self confusion by being on special and costing a modest £10 for two, less than half the price advertised. Clearly not properly alert to these nuances of shopping with Sainsbury. Recovered enough from the confusion to get four, a multiple of two if not a big multiple. But I was on my bicycle.
The whole being rounded off with an experimental Romeo y Julieta No. 2 from our local Waitrose. Smokable when damped up but unpleasantly dry out of the tube; it had clearly been in the shop for rather too long. I should have inspected the thing the day before and arranged for a more subtle damping. Better still, go to a proper fag shop from which the things arrive in better shape in the first place. Even if they do cost 25% more.
PS: this post suggests to Mr. G. that I need to be told about polytunnels for lambing sheep in. What?
# posted by Jim @ 1:24 AM 
