Man Broccoli

Men. Dorito Tacos. Yes they did!

Dorm students and artists working all hours of the night, REJOICE! Taco Bell has managed to elevate junk food with fast food to create fast junk food.

Jim felt an obligation to Man Meets Stove to conduct a scientific taste test. Okay, who am I kidding? I couldn't wait to get my hands on them. Geologists start out their field careers as professional fast food eaters. It's a thing.

So I pulled up to the Bell and ordered two Dorito Taco Loco Supremes and promptly took a bite of day-glo orange Dorito goodness. The taco is, well, Taco Bell. Whatever that meat is, it is not my 70/30 hamburger. That was the unnatural part. The Dorito taco shells though? THOSE are a natural. Natural fit that is. Anything that orangey delicious has to be good, right? The two tacos went down real well. Would I want to eat three? Maybe when I was 18. Okay maybe now, but not four. These are serious junk food folks.

If you cannot get to real mexican food at 2 am, this is just the thing for you.  This florescent orange power pellet and a 44 ounce diet cola will keep those brain batteries running.  Maybe not running WELL mind you, but running nevertheless. 

I give it a three out of four Twinkies.

How to Crack an Egg

PBJ's Grilled - Restaurant Review

In February, Thomas was up in Portland for the weekend and in need of something to do.  We found a walking food tour online that is put on by Forktown Tours, and bought tickets for that afternoon's tour. We strapped on our walking shoes and some warm layers and headed out on a culinary adventure, Stump Town style.

After walking around in the notorious Portland rain we ate savory and sweet wonders at fantastic restaurants, cafe's and bakeries. The highlight of the tour, without a doubt, was PBJ's Grilled, a food cart in the 900 block of 23rd street in the Alphabet district of Portland.

We had their Spicy Thai sandwhich: Challah bread, orange marmalade, sriacha “rooster” sauce, fresh basil, curry,  and PBJ's peanut butter. 

Grilled. 

This is a sweet and spicy Thai party in your mouth, rain be damned. Trust me, you forget about the rain after eating that.

Next we sampled the Hot Hood sandwich. Challah bread, black cherry jam, jalapeños, apple wood smoked bacon, and PBJ's peanut butter.   Grilled.  Of course.

The jalapeño makes the cheery pop in your mouth and then the cart-made peanut butter brings it all home with a mountain of creamy goodness and bacon.

I will be eating at this cart and at their upcoming cafe every chance I get. How could you pass up a menu whose extra's are:

Nutella

Banana

Jalapeño

Granola

White Chocolate Chips

Bread and butter pickles

Gina Maria cream cheese

and

Bacon (Apple wood smoked)

We really like places that have both bacon and Nutella as standard extras.  It’s like a blonde that comes complete with, well, what blondes come complete with…

Oh and we are looking for a reason to travel to Portland so we can have their Smokin Goat sandwich. You will have to follow the link for that one. 
www.pbjsgrilled.com

Common Cooking Mistakes

We saw this article on common cooking mistakes and were quite impressed with their recommendations so we thought we would share them here.  With our "special commentary":

1. Taste as you go.

 She will really appreciate it.

2. Read the entire recipe before you start cooking.

3. Don't make unwise substitutions in baking.

4. Don't boil when you should simmer.

 What can we say, women take longer to warm up.  Slow down sparky.

5. You overheat chocolate.

6. You over-soften butter.

7. You overheat low-fat milk products.

8. You don’t know your oven’s quirks and idiosyncrasies.

 Her quirks and idiosyncrasies are a feature, not a bug.

9. You’re too casual about measuring ingredients.

10. You overcrowd the pan.

 Hey, who are we to judge if you're into groups?

11. You mishandle egg whites.

12. You turn the food too often.

 Changing positions sometimes requires you let her know.  Just sayin'

13. You don’t get the pan hot enough before you add the food.

 We prefer a hot "pan" too.

14. You slice meat with?instead of against?the grain.

 Eeek. 

15. You underbake cakes and breads.

16. You don’t use a meat thermometer.

17. Meat gets no chance to rest after cooking.

 HEY!  Sometimes you need a little nap afterwards, right?  Word. 

18. You try to rush the cooking of caramelized onions.

19. You overwork lower-fat dough.

 Getting a little personal aren't we? 

20. You neglect the nuts you’re toasting.

 We haven't neglected our nuts since the 8th grade.

21. You don’t shock vegetables when they’ve reached the desired texture.

22. You put all the salt in the marinade or breading.

23. You pop meat straight from the fridge into the oven or onto the grill.

24. You don’t know when to abandon ship and start over.

25. You use inferior ingredients.

26. Your poached eggs aren't pretty

27. Your gravy is lumpy

There’s a fiber joke in here somewhere.

28. Your mashed potatoes are gluey

29. You Burn the Brown Butter

30. Your bacon is burnt and crinkly
 

Only afterwards …

31. Your Green Veggies Turn Brown

32. Your Salad Goes Limp

 Nothing a little "dressing" won't cure. 

33. You Incinerate Chicken on the Grill

34. Your Hard-Cooked Eggs Are Icky

 Icky is a little harsh, dontcha think?  

35. Your Turkey Burgers Are Parched Pucks

36. Your Rice Gets Gummy

37. Your Caramel Meets a Burnt, Bitter End

38. The Turkey Hack Job

39. Your Cookies Gain Unwanted Holiday Width

 We work out when that happens.  Okay, we try.

40. Your Flapjacks Flame Out

41. Your Oven Fries Fizzle

New Website Design!

Well folks, we grew tired of the blogging platform we were on and switched to Squarespace.  They do NOT disappoint!  Stand by for MORE posts and thanks for following us! 

Thomas Kellers Mayonnaise Roasted Turkey Breast....

We know its not Thanksgiving any more, but Jim craves turkey year round and has dreams of smoked turkey floating around his head, all year long.  Yeah, it's weird, but then he's accepted that about himself.

He found this article in Esquire and had to repost it, as it doesn't involve a whole bird (difficult) and involves mayo (yummy) and turkey (awesome):

Thomas Keller's Mayonnaise-Roasted Turkey Breast

Use half turkey breasts, as the mayonnaise will not adhere properly to a full breast. The turkey is done when the meat thermometer registers 160 to 165 degrees.

• One 2-½- to 3-pound turkey breast

• 2 cups homemade or good-quality commercial mayonnaise

• 3/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

• 1/2 teaspoon paprika

• Liberal amounts of kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Place an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and top with a cooling rack. Rinse the breast and pat dry with paper towels. Trim away excess skin and fat.

Mix the mayonnaise with the remaining ingredients. Sprinkle the underside of the breast with salt and pepper and completely cover the skin side with the mayonnaise-nutmeg-clove-and-paprika mixture. Spread as evenly as possible. The coating should be about ½-inch thick. Place the breast, mayonnaise side up, on the rack and roast for 1 hour and 40 minutes or until the thickest part of the breast reaches 160 degrees. The coating will have turned black. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for a few minutes before carving.

Jim just left the building.  Muttered something about "Pillaging the grocery store for turkey breasts" as he ran out.

Man Meets Stove Kickstarter Project LAUNCHED!!!!

Yeah, yeah, we know, it's Christmas, but the good news is, you can pledge now, and pay in January!  How cool is THAT?


In exchange, we have very cool rewards for those that pledge, be sure to check out the video.


Click on the link below and spread the word if you like it!  Thanks for your support!

An Ode to the Spoon

This article in Bon Appetite on chefs and their spoons immediately captivated us.  "There's a connection between chefs and their spoons that most people who don't work in kitchens don't realize.  Chef's use spoons for practically every job, including basting, plating, saucing, tasting, flipping and turning meat, or simply stirring a pot".  Cory Lee of Benu in San Fransisco.

Indeed. Jim found a particular spoon and loved it so much that he went back to Sur La Table and bought every one they still had.  Yes, it's not a glorious custom-made silver spoon with a certain bowl size, it's a lowly wooden spoon/spatula.  But it's his, and he LOVES it.  Jim says, "I use it for everything, just like it says in the article.  I have three of those spoons and when they die, I'm going to go on a hunt for more, and possibly have to have more made, if I can't find some like it.  I'm obssessed, I constantly reach for them in the kitchen".

"We use different styles and shapes of spoons depending on the task we are trying to acheive," says Thomas Keller of the French Laundry in London, "For shaping quenelles, we look for spoons with a deep and tapered head.  For saucing, we will use spoons that have a square or straight edge for maximum control."

So the next time your in the kitchen, consider the lowly spoon.  Do you have one you gravitate to?  Consider, and keep an eye on it, because someone may be hunting for YOUR special spoon.

Man Meets Stove Book Excerpt!!!!

Heart Attack Hollandaise

Soundtrack: Heartbeat of Rock ‘n roll by Huey Lewis and the News

3 Eggs

1 1/2 Tablespoons Water

One stick butter

3 to 4 Tablespoons Tarragon Vinegar

Salt and Pepper

Start by filling a sink (or a pot larger than the one you will be cooking in) partially with cool water.  You’ll use this water to rapidly cool the bottom of the pot later.

Melt butter in a pot over medium heat (or nuke it to melted).  Completely melt the butter, but not so it’s burning hot. Crack open the eggs and place them into a bowl.  Add water to the bowl and whisk the eggs and water together very well until they are one color throughout.

Now comes the hard part.  Turn the heat down on the butter pot.  If you look at the flame, you want it to be a 2 on a 5 scale, the 5 being full flame, 1 being almost no flame.  Low heat, but not too low.  If not sure, go lower, not hotter, until you get the hang of it, lower heat will simply take a little longer and your whisk arm may fall off.  If you go too hot, the eggs will become little bits in a butter mix, not a sauce.  You can recover this by blending the hell out of it.

Pour the egg mixture into the melted butter and start whisking the pot gently, or faster if you see visible egg bits starting to float around in the pot.  Do not stop whisking.  The goal is to keep the eggs from forming a thin omelet on the bottom of the pot.  You want to keep stirring until the eggs "go off" and thicken the mixture from a liquid to a gravy-like sauce.  When you see it turning into the desired thickness of a sauce, immediately pull the pot off the fire and put the pot bottom into the cold water in the sink so the bottom of the pot is immediately cooled off and stops cooking the sauce.  You may want to keep whisking a little bit while it cools.
Now here's the thing - we are told that people use lemon for Hollandaise Sauce.  Why?  We have no idea.  It tastes a bit like dessert that way.  We like tarragon vinegar and like it much.  Once you cool the pot a little, take it out, add two tablespoons of vinegar and taste the sauce.  If it is strong enough for you, excellent.  We usually add at least two more tablespoons of tarragon vinegar, or more, to taste.  Sometimes we make it light for guests and "Rip your face off strong" for ourselves in a separate small pitcher.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Sometimes people use just the egg yokes in the sauce.  The sauce will be really thick and tasty if you do it that way[1].

Now all of this involved process, we are told, can be avoided by the use of a double boiler to even the heat out and cook the sauce slowly, but that is cheating and we will not give you your Girl Scout chef merit badge if you do it.  Actually, we have never had a double boiler when we needed it, and see them as somewhat of a unitasker (bad) unless one makes candy a lot, so we do it our way.

You can also do much the same thing in a blender or a microwave.  How embarrassing.  Don’t talk to us.

We generally make 2 to 3 times this recipe and eat it on broccoli cooked al dente.  Please do NOT overcook the broccoli, American style.  Limp broccoli is a vile abomination unto the gods. 

---

[1] Screw your cholesterol.  This is cooking.