meat.pro is meat you can’t beat

Filed under: Meat, Spring

By Alexis Korman

Is lamb replacing bacon as the go-to fetish object for meat lovers? Recipes for the succulent spring meat have recently popped up on Seriously Good, Bitten and Market Manila, but lamb is also making an appearance on the competitive cook-off circuit.

This weekend, lamb was the star of New York City’s Taste of Tribeca food festival, featured in an “Iron Chef“-style showdown between two well-known toques, “Top Chef” Season Five alum Leah Cohen (remembered not just for her cooking skills, but also for her scandalous make-out session with winner Hosea Rosenberg) and Austrian wunderkind Kurt Gutenbrunner of New Yorks Wallsé.

Read more about the heated competition after the jump.

Continue reading Taste of Tribeca’s Lamb Cook-Off - Mutton Wrong with Competition

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Snacks, Candy, North America, Meat, Feast Your Eyes

Pay no heed to those who thoughtlessly proclaim bacon-inflected desserts “so over,” or “so December 2008.”

Pictured is one of the reasons why. This delicacy, known as Pig Candy, is the genius of one Rhonda Kave of Roni-Sue’s Chocolates. What Kave has done is create a union as holy as that of peanut butter and chocolate or vodka and tonic: fried bacon, dipped in chocolate. And that’s it.

It’s a marriage that is astoundingly pure yet diabolically addictive and, thanks to the beauty of online retail, has inspired slavish devotion far beyond the Roni-Sue headquarters on New York City’s Lower East Side. This photo hints at the promise and madness contained in each salty-sweet nugget. While the shutterbug’s ability to restrain herself long enough to take the pic is admirable, the subject likely met its demise shortly after being immortalized for the enjoyment of drooling procrastinators everywhere.

[Via Flickr]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cheese, Recipes, Comfort Food, France, Meat, Sandwiches

One of the simplest French dishes is also among the most surefire crowd-pleasers — the croque monsieur. At a holiday dinner last year a room erupted into moans of pleasure when these were served. All for a ham and cheese sandwich!

The name of this crisp and creamy treat derives from the French verb “croquer,” which means “to crunch,” and the word “monsieur,” for “mister.” Together they make “Mr. Crunch,” which doesn’t sound nearly as appetizing as en Francais, in which seems an elegant name worthy of its flavor and Proustian roots. (The meal first popped up in literature in Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time.”)

Learn more about “Mr. Crunch” after the jump.

Continue reading Le Tantalizing Croque Monsieur

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Dessert, Poultry, Microwaving, America, Spices, Retro cookery, Meat

In the 1970s the handy little ovens we now use to reheat leftovers and frozen dinners experienced a brief golden age, with folks employing them for cooking everything from turkeys to cheesecake. This recipe dates from the glorious reign of microwaves.

Like many of Aunt Evie’s recipes, her microwaved sweet-and-sour chicken is easy, convenient and surprisingly flavorful. However, it relies on hard-to-find, annoyingly coarse-textured pickling spice and employs an unnecessary amount of margarine. For the modern incarnation we selected only certain pickling spices and ground them up, resulting in a far more evenly flavored and pleasantly textured dish.

This was an interesting experiment with the tiny oven: Microwaving, which essentially cooks meat from the inside out, didn’t really yield chicken that has fully absorbed its sauce (or its savory flavor). Consequently, this recipe yields meat that is tender but bland. With that in mind, stove-top directions are at the end of the recipe. Regardless of which cooking method you use, this is a fun, easy and surprisingly tasty dish. Go, Aunt Evie!

Continue reading Flashback to the ’70s - Sweet and Sour Chicken

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Meat, Feast Your Eyes, Spring

Fresh pasta: Every time we see it, it stops us short. Maybe it’s the familiar sight of noodles after a long haul of a day. Maybe it’s the swirl of tomatoes and poppy fresh fava beans, or the thought of irresistibly salty chopped sausage. Regardless, something about this Smitten Kitchen photo made us pause, mid-Web-surf, and for good reason: A quick investigation reveals that the smitten couple is actually moving and this is the last meal in their beloved old 80-square-foot kitchen. So click on over, bid them adieu as they settle into their new digs, or just sort of hang out and ponder the beauty of fresh pasta and tomatoes for a while. We won’t judge.

[Via Smitten Kitchen]

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Asia, Stores & Shopping, Bakeries, Sugar, Meat, Bread

Eating pork buns (cha siu baau) is an excellent way to get a taste of New York’s Chinatown. These warm buns — either steamed or baked — are full of savory barbecue meats, sometimes with scallions.

Last weekend, a friend and I decided we would eat our way through Chinatown by trying pork buns at various bakeries. And, what started out as a “pork bun journey” turned into an exploration of both savory and sweet buns, ranging from pork to red bean.

Fay Da Bakery, at 83 Mott St., has a variety of buns that you can select yourself with tongs when you enter the shop. While being underwhelmed by their pork buns, we were blown away with their sweet topping red-bean bun. The outside of the red-bean bun is coated in a flaky layer of sugar that balances marvelously with the doughy bun and the creamy red-bean paste.

Head directly to the Golden Fung Wong Bakery, at 41 Mott St., to try some of the best pork buns in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Chunks of pork are flavored with a delicious mix of soy and oyster sauce. This bakery also sells an assortment of rice cakes and melon cakes that are worth trying.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: New Products, Meat

For those who love feeling April fresh and ever so slightly like hassenpfeffer, Archie McPhee debuts their savory new suite of Gravy Bath Salts.

“The only lump in this gravy is you! Rip open the package of Gravy Bath Salts and stir in the seasoning and it will turn your bath into a warm, thick, savory smelling pool of gravy and soap. You’ve never been this clean or felt this much like mashed potatoes.”

After your soak, towel (or ladle) off, and grab a loved one for a rousing round of Hot Dog Hideaway. Oh, we’re such fools for your meat-based antics, Archie. And yours, too, purveyors of Bacon Lube.

[via: Archie McPhee]

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Beef, Fish, Pork, Food Oddities, On the Blogs, Lists, Food Quest, Eggs, Shellfish, Meat

WC Fields once said “I love children … if they’re cooked properly.” As a dedicated meat eater, I tend to have similar feelings about vegans.

While some of my best friends deny themselves the joy of animal products, I simply can’t imagine completely divorcing myself from cheese, honey, milk and all the wonderful foods that come from animals. On some level, the idea of approaching life from a tofu haze seems almost suicidally self-abnegating.

In fact, while I have occasionally practiced vegetarianism, I am, at heart, a true carnivore. For health reasons, I try to limit my consumption, but I believe, both philosophically and sensually, that meat is an important part of my diet, if not everyone else’s.

But which meat is the best? For health reasons, I’d probably go with chicken or turkey, but if it came to richness, my answer might be duck or veal. In terms of flavor, the answer could be lamb or beef, but for extravagance, it’s hard to top a nice big buffalo filet mignon. Then again, in the summer, nothing beats a good grilled swordfish steak … except for maybe a piece of lightly seared tuna.

Vote for your favorite meat after the jump.

Continue reading Meat Madness: Vote for Your Favorite Meat!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Meat, Foodie Flicks

The day of all things green was upon us this week, so in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, I wanted to give you some Corned Beef Brisket foodie flick goodness, courtesy of Pioneer Living.

Corned beef is a brisket or similar cut of beef cured or pickled in brine before it is cooked. The “corn” title comes from the corn-sized salt that is used to cure it.

Unfortunately, there is no instant satisfaction for this recipe. The long, 3-week curing process means you might want to tackle it next year. But there is just enough time to whip this up for Easter, or any time you’re jonesing for beef prepared in a different way. The recipe requires minimum effort on your part, and even better, as Sarah points out, two briskets mean you can cure one for corn beef and one for pastrami (if you have the means to smoke it) at the same time.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Restaurants, Beef, Trends, Food Quest, America, Meat, Food News

I love a good steak, and have had more than my share, but there’s a point at which a finely-grilled, perfectly-seasoned slab of beef crosses the line separating cuisine and mortal combat. Such is the case with the increasingly popular trend toward steak challenges. Basically, it works like this: if a customer can eat the required amount of meat — generally between 48 and 72 ounces — in a pre-ordained period of time, he or she will get some sort of reward. Sometimes, this is merely bragging rights; more often, it involves prizes like a t-shirt or a free meal.

Consuming over three pounds of beef and sides in an hour or less takes a special kind of person. While I have to admire the determination, I’m not sure that I’m up for joining the club. While I think about my clear lack of manly meat-eating skills, however, I will reassure myself by Digital City’s gallery of America’s biggest steak challenges. One featured restaurant, Tampa’s Frontier Steakhouse Cattle Company challenges its customers to consume a full six pounds of beef, a potato, and a salad in under 75 minutes. Needless to say, I’m not worthy!

Permalink | Email this | Comments