This afternoon (after teaching a couple of riveting kindergarten classes....) I became a "student" rather than a teacher and took part in a group that is starting to think about creating something new using local ingredients. Fortunately for us this town is known for its beef so we were able to use that as our base (we don't eat much meat at our house usually).
Unfortunately for us this town is known for its beef and therefore the price is usually way out of our budget. Fortunately for us the group had some funding and therefore the whole program was free for participants. Unfortunately for me the beef was the top quality beef, which is so marbled that I can only ever eat a couple of bites without feeling like a layer of fat has stuck on my stomach lining. Anyway, we made 4 different dishes - the most interesting being a slab of beef that was
cooked inside a salt and egg white "oven". Basically the beef was seasoned then tied tightly into a layer of cooking paper and then coated very thickly in a casing of salt with egg white that has been kneaded till it is very soft and fluffy. The salt casing doesn't add any flavor, but prevents all the flavour leaving the beef and I must admit it was pretty good. The casing becomes so hard that you basically need a hammer to break it! Traditionally this style of cooking is used for fish, but it seemed to work fine for b
eef too. Too much meat for me though.... I ended up having toast with peanut butter and jam for tea!
This afternoon (after teaching a couple of riveting kindergarten classes....) I became a "student" rather than a teacher and took part in a group that is starting to think about creating something new using local ingredients. Fortunately for us this town is known for its beef so we were able to use that as our base (we don't eat much meat at our house usually). 
Unfortunately for us this town is known for its beef and therefore the price is usually way out of our budget. Fortunately for us the group had some funding and therefore the whole program was free for participants. Unfortunately for me the beef was the top quality beef, which is so marbled that I can only ever eat a couple of bites without feeling like a layer of fat has stuck on my stomach lining. Anyway, we made 4 different dishes - the most interesting being a slab of beef that was
cooked inside a salt and egg white "oven". Basically the beef was seasoned then tied tightly into a layer of cooking paper and then coated very thickly in a casing of salt with egg white that has been kneaded till it is very soft and fluffy. The salt casing doesn't add any flavor, but prevents all the flavour leaving the beef and I must admit it was pretty good. The casing becomes so hard that you basically need a hammer to break it! Traditionally this style of cooking is used for fish, but it seemed to work fine for b
eef too. Too much meat for me though.... I ended up having toast with peanut butter and jam for tea!
What a great experience, atleast you didn't have to use natto or some fermented fish!! I love beef and would eat it evryday if I could but like you I can't tolerate the marbled beef. The entombed beef looks interesting!
ReplyDeleteI've seen fish cooked this way, and it looks as though the beef turned out great - it looks really juicy!
ReplyDeleteWe don't eat much meat either but that looks very tasty!
ReplyDelete