Next Up On the Learning Curve: Meat

The lady is gone for the weekend, off to Kansas with the girls to go see some concert or other, so there isn’t a lot of cooking going on this weekend. I spent Saturday night hanging out with all the boys left out of the Kansas trip and our host grilled us a lovely pork roast. My contribution was, of course, several loaves of bread from my pre-made stash of dough in the fridge. Despite my concerns that I should be able make bread on a higher level than the five-minute-a-day recipe, I can’t help but admit that it certainly is worth it from a convenience factor.

So since I have been essentially on my own the rest of the weekend I have been doing oddjobs around the apartment while listening to The Splendid Table podcasts and trying to decide how I should direct my cooking education. I have decided that learning about meat should be the next thing I work on.

I do, in fact, know how to cook a steak. As long as it is a filet that has been prepared by the market (pre-cut to size), and the meat is of a fine enough quality that I can cook it simply in pan and serve with maybe some mashed potatoes and a salad. Unless I burn it. Or it gets too dry. Or I choose a bland filet or pick up something that isn’t a filet at all. Or I just go to my local brasserie and have them make me one.

Fine, the only meat that I really know how to cook well is store bought italian sausage (which I poach in water until cooked through, then brown in a heavy pan). Sausage is tasty and lovely in all sorts of dishes but isn’t exactly the most difficult thing in the world to do. Clearly a meat education is in order. On my agenda: learn how to identify meat, how to purchase meat (which includes finding a good local butcher) and of course how to cook meat (and photograph it). My immediate thoughts go to pork roasts and beef strews, and the research is under way. Also, I dug out my kitchen torch, so I think there is some creme brulee on the horizon!