Thursday, December 17, 2009

Turkey Confit...In a Rice Cooker!

I’m always looking for new ways to cook stuff, partly from curiosity, partly because my oven sucks. I was speaking with the chef at one of our restaurant accounts and got interested in confit. Confit, which is French so the “t” is silent for some reason (to get the pronunciation just right you should slur like you’ve just polished off a sixer of chu-hi), is an old-fashioned way to cook and preserve meat. Traditionally you salt the meat and then cook it in it’s own rendered fat, duck leg confit is a staple on the menu at most French restaurants.

Even though confit is cooking in oil, it’s different than frying, it is slow cooking at low temperatures for several hours. I’m not really good at doing anything that takes several hours, both my attention span and memory are so short that the last time I tried to make regular coffee as opposed to instant, the pot sat for two day before I remembered to turn it on. However, I am really good at chucking meat at a heat source and turning up later to see if it’s ready. It turns out that I have an appliance in my kitchen that is perfect for this sort of thing—the rice cooker!

The way a rice cooker works is that it does three basic things. First it brings the pot to a boil under pressure to capture the steam, next it holds that temperature for about 15 minutes to allow the rice to absorb the moisture, then it goes into a “warm” phase to keep it hot. So it quickly heats to 100°C, then drops down to around 50 or 60°C, hot enough to cook and kill any bacteria, but too cool to fry, perfect for confit.

I started with a nice little 7 pound turkey that I had laying around and a pulled out the timer and the plastic thing that holds the legs together, you don't want to cook these in oil.

My rice cooker is not so big so I cut it up into pieces, if you have a large enough cooker, you could do this with the whole bird, that would require a lot of oil. I broke the bird into the leg and thigh portions, wings, back, and breast. There is not much meat on the back so I threw that part into the soup pot along with one wing that wouldn’t fit.

Next I scored it so that the spice rub would penetrate into the meat, then I rubbed it all over with some of our Almighty Spice (oh so very mighty!). This bird was pre-brined so I didn't really need to do much more. If you are working with a bird that has not been brined, then you should generously rub some salt on it as well and let it sit for 10 or 20 minutes.

Pack it into the pot of the rice cooker and fill it full of olive oil. Theoretically you could use a differrent type of oil, but olive oil adds some flavor without greasiness and doesn't produce any bitter aftertastes.



Normally when cooking rice the cooker needs about 10 or 15 minutes to heat up, then it switches into warmer mode. Because I had the bowl totally filled with turkey and oil it took about an hour for it to heat up. I then got drunk, went to a nudie-bar, got kicked out, passed out on the sidewalk, got a lift home from a scooter-gang, and stumbled in to see that my rice cooker had been warming for 6 hours. You can do whatever you want while it cooks, you don't have to do what I did.


I had the munchies somethin' fierce so I pulled the turkey out of the cooker and let them rest on some racks for about 10 minutes. You need to let it rest because the turkey gets tired after all that cooking, and you should probably give yourself a little break as well. You deserve it!



After a little rest, just start carving. This bird came out perfectly done. The meat could be pulled off the bone but it wasn't flaky. It was not greasy or oily AT ALL! The herbs and spices really penetrated and the only way I could tell that it was cooked in olive oil is that the fruity flavor of the oil was infused throughout the meat. This was, by far, the best tasting turkey I've ever had! I recommend you give it a try.


Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The Meat Guy

Meat News!
Volume 16 - Merry Meaticus!



Standard
disclaimer and un-subscribe info:
This is
a newsletter that is being
sent to you because I thought you might be interested or because you
requested
a subscription. If you are not interested, the unsubscribe link at the
bottom
of the page will send us away forever. If
you are not interested, have told me so but are still receiving this
letter it
is because my faculties have become impaired due to excessive holiday
cheer. I'm fa la la sorry. If you read all the way to the
bottom there is something exciting going on...





Felicitations!




Merry Meaticus


Merry
Meaticas!




That just rolls of the tongue, doesn’t it!?! And it should,
because I have declared that Meaticas in the new, greatest,
holiday-of-the-season, and everyone should take a moment and observe
it. This time of year is getting crowded with holidays, and
we are way overdue for some consolidation in the celebration
industry. That is where Meaticas steps in with the power to
unite the lesser holidays with its one, all encompassing
tenet—outrageous, guilt-free, consumerism!(with an emphasis on the
over-consumption of meat)



Too often we hear how the spirit of the season has been hijacked by
commercial interests, it causes us to lose site of the one thing that
truly unites everyone; buying useless crap that we don’t need, makes us
feel good. Sure this may seem shallow and fleeting, but,
other than a tequila hangover, what isn’t fleeting? At least
during the 15 days of Meaticas (that’s right, Meaticas is the longest
consumption-fest ever), every time the feel-good buzz from another
purchase of a case of barbecue
sauce
wears off, you can just buy
something else, that’s personal enrichment I tell ya.



Those of us here at the Meaticas Promotion Foundation are working hard
to make Meaticus a fully government funded holiday. That
means we can all stroke our feelings of entitlement while spending to
our hearts’ consent. It will work just like a stimulus
package, a stimulus for the soul. The Scrooges among us may
say that such a plan would only condemn our children to pay for our
excess through higher taxes. As an owner of two small
children myself, I know that if I could somehow get a case of whiskey
delivered to my door once a week now, with the bill sent to my kids in
15
years, I’d take it in a heart-beat.
I’m sure both of
us deserve it. It will teach our children a valuable
lesson in fiscal responsibility fostering a “pay it backwards” feeling
of good will to their elders. There are a lot of governments
to win over before this dream of ours becomes a reality, so we are
starting with Turkmenistan, we figure any country that once renamed
bread in
honor of the ruler’s mother should be an easy place to pitch
Meaticas. Once we get them on board, the rest should fall,
like meaty dominoes.



You can start celebrating Meaticus today, all you need to get into the
spirit is an order for way more meat than you could ever possibly
need. And that, my fellow celebrants, is just what we
provide!










12-14
Pound Turkey














Turkey


The
standard from America, this turkey is pre-brined, all you have to do is
thaw and roast.
Dimensions(about):.................32X22X18cm
Contains
giblets:
.......................Yes
Pop-up
timer:
.............................Yes
Aprox.Thaw
Time:
.....................3.5days
Aprox.Roast
Time:
....................4hrs
Feeds:.........................................15-17




Frozen






















Product ID T013

Size about
6 kg
Cost

5,480
Yen







Pumpkin
Pie














pumpkin pie


A
little piece of BIG flavor - homemade pumpkin pie! I've had a lot of
pumpkin pie, most of them churned out by little blue-haired old ladies
who could bake up a storm, but this is really one of the best I've had.
It's all-natural and perfectly balanced. This is a full-sized pie,
uncut, you can get anywhere from 2 to 10 slices.
If swamp-rat really did taste like this, people would be lining up
around the block to try it!
Frozen






















Product
ID
SW025

Size about
800gm
Cost

3,060
Yen









Pardy
Hardy Set













Pardy Hardy Set


If
you are not really so good at cooking but want to impress this set is
for you! You get heaps of good stuff, none of them requiring more
effort than thawing and warming but they will make your party hot, hot,
hot!
Smoked Turkey Drumsticks................4 sticks
Margaritta Pizza......................................1 pizza
Vili's Meat Pies(160gm)........................2 pies
Triple Chocolate Brownies...................4 pc
Gooood times.........................................
.lots!
Frozen --- Free Shipping!




















Product ID SET006

Size NA
Cost

4,950
Yen











Awesome 12 Hour Sale!! 12/15 22:00 to 12/16
10:00

For twelve hours only we are giving away the
proverbial farm, just our way of saying Happy Meaticas!











grill 38,000
Yen!

33% Off!

You save

18,800 Yen!








small grill 9,900 Yen!

47% Off!

You save

8,900 Yen!







FREE TURKEY
DRUMSTICKS WITH ANY PURCHASE! JUST WRITE "MEATICAS
FELICIATAS" IN THE COMMENTS SECTION WHEN YOU CHECKOUT AND WE'LL GIVE
YOU A PACK OF SMOKED DRUMSTICKS FOR FREE! NO STRINGS! ONE PER CUSTOMER
PLEASE!

drumsticks!

Simply judging by the number of explanation marks, these must be some
great deals
!


More Meat Guy:










facebook



twitter