While doing my weekly sweep of the Whole Foods seafood case, my eyes wandered across a tray of glistening octopus that looked like it had come straight off the boat. I’d never seen fresh octopus in these parts, so I checked the label, and sure enough, it was “previously frozen”. It did look good though, and at less than five dollars a pound, I figured I had nothing to lose.
I’ve never cooked octopus before, so I figured it was worth looking up in my food Bible (a.k.a. On Food and Cooking). Because octopus meat is primarily muscle and connective tissue, it starts out chewy when lightly cooked, turns tough when moderately cooked, and goes on to become tender went cooked for a long time. Further research also revealed that frozen octopus tenderizes much faster than fresh octopus. Score! continue →
I’m often asked why this blog is called No Recipes, when I post recipes to almost everything I make. In case you were wondering the same thing, the title refers to my predilection to just wing it, using ingredients that I have in the fridge. Still, it’s always been my intention to help you break free of the oppressive rules of most cookbooks, enabling you to navigate the kitchen with your senses instead.
Cooking is about trusting your eyes, ears, tastebuds and nose. I try to go into the specifics about techniques and the thought process I put into creating a dish, to help bring some of the process to light. But fitting all this sensory information into a few photos and words is like folding egg whites into a delicate batter with a backhoe.
That’s why I’ve decided to kick my nerdy introversion to the curb and stick a bunch of lights and camera in front of my face, so you, my dear readers, can get a more complete picture… While I’m being ambitious, I’m also going to figure out how to transfer tastes and aromas over the Internet so you can enjoy the whole experience. Well… okay you may be waiting around for a while for that one, but I have you covered on the sight and sound for now.
For the first episode, I had a gorgeous piece of pork belly a nice man from Fleisher’s Grass-Fed & Organic Meats gave me for free. There was no name dropping, no puffery about unique visitors or link-backs. I was just some random guy off the street that was asking if they had any bigger pieces of pork belly left and he said “No… but you can have this one, on us”. That made me be happy… but not as happy as I was after my first bite of this perfectly marbled slab of meat after it had been braising for a few hours.
I could tell you more here, but that would spoil the video, so hit the jump and check it out for yourself. continue →
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