Corned Beast Recipe Death Pre Match

3:30 AM in Aqua, beast, corned, death, match, pre, recipe

Guess what!  St. Patricks Day is only two weeks away! That means if youre going to corn your own beast for reuben-making this year, its about time to get started.

Its definitely a tradition around here to corn venison ahead of St. Pattys Day, but weve done it a number of different ways over the years.  And, as much as we hate to admit it, the sad truth is that we dont do much meat corning outside of early March.  So, when we make a  batch and try to compare its flavor and texture to the previous batch, its a tall order for our meager brains.

How can we resolve this dilemma?  No problem.  Like we did with our french toast, well have a tasty corned beast recipe death match and settle the score once and for all.

The three techniques weve used to corn our venison are a vinegar-based brine, a whey-based brine, and a dry rub.  Those are the three that will be cage fighting in our kitchen this year.  Heres the basic recipe:

0.5 lb venison roast

1 Tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon brown sugar
0.5 teaspoon ground black pepper
0.5 teaspoon whole coriander seeds
0.5 teaspoon whole mustard seeds
0.25 teaspoon ground allspice
0.25 teaspoon ground cloves
1 bay leaf, crushed
1 clove garlic, sliced

Thats it for the dry rub.  For the whey recipe, we added 0.5 cups of whey from a 30 min mozzarella recipe (made with 2% milk).  For the vinegar recipe, we added 2 Tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, plus water to bring the volume up to 0.5 cups.

From left to right: dry rub, apple cider vinegar-based brine, whey-based brine.

We mixed all the solid ingredients together (except for the meat), then added the liquid (if any) to a plastic bag, then added the meat, too, and gave it a nice massage. We expelled all the air out of the bag, sealed it with a twisty-tie, and put it in a bowl as secondary containment (just in case the bag leaks!) in the fridge.  The recipes weve seen say to flip it once a day, but for us in the past, its been more like every other day (at best).  Its always still came out pretty tasty.  In any case, at least all three runs will get the same treatment! 

Dont forget to label the bags!

Whats your favorite technique for corning meat?  Have you corned meat other than venison (or beef)?

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French Toast Death Match

10:17 AM in Aqua, death, french, match, toast

Now that our hens are laying eggs at a pretty good clip, one thing weve been eating more (in an effort to keep up with the eggs) is french toast.  Weve been making regular french toast, stuffed french toast strata, and now, baked french toast (which is kind of a hybrid between the other two).  This morning, we had two of those recipes square off: it was a death match between the incumbent standard french toast and the newcomer baked french toast.  It was a good fight, but we both ended up preferring the baked version.  For the blow-by-blow recap, keep reading.

In one corner: the incumbent!  With a snazzy stove-top sizzle, lightning-fast cook time, and years spent perfecting the recipe, its Standard French Toast! [applause and cheering.]

And in the other corner: the challenger!  An upstart that boasts a slow-roasting, house-filling aroma and hands-free preparation with no standing over a hot stove or flipping individual slices, its Baked French Toast! [smattering of polite applause.]

Theyll face of here! The hallowed venue of The Homestead Laboratorys Dining Room Table! Theyve got the best accoutrements available, with homemade Marys (bloody or virgin), freshly-made, vanilla yogurt-glazed fruit salad, piping hot tea and real maple syrup!  Who will win? Its bound to be an epic battle!

In the end, we both thought that the baked french toast, even with its unoptimized recipe, was the better of the two.  The main thing was that the extra soaking time in the batter made the end product more custardy, which we liked.  Plus, while it was baking, we could make a fruit salad, steep some tea, and set the table without risking a burnt slice.  The process for making the baked version was just to dip the bread in the batter and lay it in a baking pan as shown in the picture above (we added some extra cinnamon, should remember to grease the pan first, and will do it in a bigger pan next time!). Same batter as the regular version.  Bake at 375 °F for 20-25 min covered, then 15-20 min uncovered.  We got the idea from Martha, but decided not to be as fancy.

And, just in case youre wondering, our standard batter recipe is approximately the following, all beaten together:
6 eggs
0.25 c. milk
2 Tablespoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Its usually enough to batter 8-10 slices of bread.

Whats your favorite french toast recipe?  Let us know in the comments section below!

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