Monday, January 18, 2010

I love you butcher/love you Broad Street

All the meat in my latest recipe was purchased from Lebanon Valley Meat Products at Broad Street Market, Harrisburg PA. If you're in the area and around on market days, you can call in orders to 717-236-2518.

They have something I'd never seen before - beef bacon. It's smoked thin-sliced beef with a ribbon of fat down the middle. Cooks up just like bacon, and is distinctly bacony, but in a beefy way. (Description of the year and it's only mid-January)

Always know your butcher - when she saw I was interested in the beef bacon and asking other customers about it, the woman helping me not was not only very helpful but showed me a strip up close - then wrapped and gave it to me to taste. You cook it like regular bacon.

The other butcher at Broad Street has some too. An African-American man at LVMP's counter told me he goes for the beef bacon because he chooses not to eat pork. I'm thinking a religous adaptation might figure into its popularity.


I deboned my loverly dish and spooned up a bowl. It's really fucking good. I didn't spice the main mix at all, so it's just individual flavors bringing their gusto. The multireduction was a great idea that I will continue to refine and make even more ridiculous.

Next time, larger oxtails, cause I love the chewy meat on them. And a beef shank.

I won't be buying lunch at work for a while.

Shoutouts are in order for the whtie onions to Brandt Farms and for the garlic, shallots, and red onions to Shady Nook. Shady Nook first knew me as "mojito guy" then as "beef stew guy" and now they're getting used to "guy with very, very specific needs cause he's on blood thinners but refuses to stop cooking."

Other details that escaped me initially - I used Kitchen Essentials veg and chicken stocks (because I know their flavor profiles) and Emeril's beef stock. Yes, I know. He's the antithesis to all things that are good and culinary. So fucking what? His stock reduces wonderfully.

The onions for this dish are added last and left on top for as long as possible, with mild stirring every half hour so they don't burn. This is because I filled my pot full tot he brim and had to cook down the onions before adding the beans.

This amount of ingredients in this recipe is enoguh to fill a seven-quart pot to the brim. it'll get lower once you pull the bones out. Make sure to separate the nastiness and bone of the short ribs from their luscious flesh.

A good dose of salt is essential in the flour mix. more updates as events warrant.

What does the end result taste like? Like oxtail soup met beef stew at the bar, then took it home to meet chili, who ended up calling french onion soup to really get into it.

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