So I was supposed to be doing a pulled pork sandwich as a special this week, but somehow wires got crossed and the pork butt never got delivered to the school

So instead I'm doing smoked chicken thighs, brined, dry rubbed, and tomorrow I'll bake a sauce onto them.

So I bought a smoker box for my propane grill. I have the other half of the brisket that we oven cooked the other week, got it thawed. Today I put some dry rub on it, I'm thinking I'll then put it in some bbq sauce tomorrow. Won't be smoking it until Friday, but I figure the vinegar in the sauce will keep the meat from spoiling in the fridge. Friday it'll smoke all day until we leave for our cabin weekend and take it with us. No pictures yet, stay tuned.

Man this brisket is cooking way faster than I thought. Soaked the chips at 8 am, put them on the grill to start smoking at 8:30, put the meat on the grill at about 8:45. It's now 10am and the brisket is already hitting 130 degrees in some places, ~120 in the center of the thickest part. I was planning on a 6-7 hour cook time, but it might well be done before I head out to my son's school at 11...



It's had the dry rub, then a sauce bath, now I'm mopping sauce on to it every half an hour or so.

Uh-oh. Got a lower setting on that thing?

I've got the burners turned down. It was at 145 when I had to leave for my son's school, so I killed the burners entirely, not wanting it to get over-done while I was out, then turned them back on when I came back. We'll see what happens. Smells great, though....

Forgot to put another update on the brisket, what with camping preparation, but it came out great! Moist, flavorful, and damn tasty! We still have a ton left over.

Another quarter has started for me, so get ready for a lot more pictures of food!

For the first half of this quarter I am taking International Cuisine. This is an exciting fast-paced class, one I've been looking forward to since I started the program. Every day we take a different country and do specialty dishes from that food culture. Today was our first day in the kitchen, and we did France.

Most anyone with a bit of food knowledge knows that the French basically invented modern high cuisine. From Escoffier to Careme, a hell of a lot of influence on the culinary world has come from France. Each region of France has it's own flavors, and we did a dish from most of them (we didn't have enough students to do them all haha).

Gratinee Lyonnaise, better known as French Onion Soup. Lyon is sometimes called the "gastronomical capitol" of France, and onions from the region are famous. This was the dish that I made.


Souffle au Citron, lemon souffle. Brittany has heavy Welsh influences, and is known for things like crepes and souffles. This one fell rather badly, so it doesn't look for great, but it sure tasted good.


Cotes De Porc Nomande, Braised pork chops with apples. Normandy is known for heavy meals involving seafood and dairy. They're also known for calvados, which is apple brandy used in almost everything. We didn't have any for use in this unfortunately, but a little cognac worked almost as well. This shit was so good!


Epinards a la Basque. Basically it's potatoes layered with spinach, cheese, and anchovies. Horrible picture, I know. But it was damn tasty. The Basque region has heavy Spanish influences, and was also historically poorer than most of the rest of the country, so you see a lot of "peasant food".



Coquilles St. Jacques a la Parisienne. Scallops and mushrooms in a white wine sauce (what's called a veloute) and topped with cheese. The Ile de France region includes Paris. Aside from that major city (which is sometimes listed as it's own region), the region is very rural. Soups are very common here, and it's also the birthplace of pomme frites, better known as french fries (The Belgians also lay claim to that, too, reports differ). This was also delicious.



Ratatouille. Not just a Disney-Pixar kids movie, but a simple vegetable dish. This one is mainly eggplant (which I hate) and zucchini (which I also hate). I didn't care for this one, needless to say.



Coq au vin. Literally translated "chicken and wine". The chicken is braised and the fat used with red wine to make a very heavy sauce. The Burgundy region of France is, unsurprisingly, known as the wine capitol of Europe (in fact the world, until California wines finally took that title from them in the 80s or 90s). Virtually all dishes from the region contain wine and/or cream. Escargot also originates here. This was good, but so rich it almost made me nauseous.



Tomorrow we're doing Italy. Stand by.

You had me at, "Scallops and mushrooms in a white wine sauce (what's called a veloute) and topped with cheese."

But seriously, that was a really interesting post. Thanks for the education that accompanies the photos!

I'm looking forward to Italy. Are you going to do any Asian foods as well?

Yessir. France today, Italy tomorrow. After that (in order) we'll do China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico/South America, Spain/Portugal, Mediterranean, the Middle East and finally India.

OH FUCK YES. THIS HAS BECOME MY NEW FAVORITE THREAD.

Cookin?

When we be eatin' with cap'n?!@!!

Is that an offer to pay me to cater?

Let us try 2-3 months of samples. Then we'll talk.

Day Two of International Cuisine: Italy

Italy has between 14 and 20 regional cuisines, depending on who you ask. These can almost all be placed into two larger categories, North and South, with Rome being the basic central divider.

The North part of Italy is historically more wealthy, much more industrialized, and heavily populated. They're also much more influenced by the rest of Europe. Here we see butter, cream, eggs, fresh pastas, as well as rice, polenta and gnocchi (potato and flour dumplings, not something we made today, unfortunately, as it takes a good 12 hours of prep).

The South is much more sparsely populated, historically (and still is to some extent) a much more agrarian society, as well as being poorer. A Greek influence is seen here, as well as (especially in Sicily) an Arab/Moorish influence. We see olive oil used in place of butter, dried pastas (much easier and cheaper to make, easier to store). Tomatoes and red sauces appear here (pizza had its origins in Naples). Hot peppers, especially in Sicily, are predominant as well.

I won't bore you with the breakdown of the major regions. Suffice to say, there's a lot of them. On to the pictures!!

Pasta E Fagioli, a pasta and bean soup. This is not really region specific, but rather an overall classic Italian soup. Nice smoky flavor to it.




Scarola Con Fagioli, Escarole Greens and Beans. This is a Southern Italian vegetable dish, and one I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed. Normally I disdain “rabbit food” but this had me considering a second helping.




Rigatoni Puttanesca, another Southern Italian dish, this one featuring pasta with a red sauce, a very simple and spicy dish. Excellent as well.




Tonno in Agrodolce, Tuna in Sweet and Sour Sauce. Most people think Chinese food when they think sweet and sour. However, Sicily has its own version that is very different. They also eat a lot of seafood, being an island. This picture doesn't look appetizing, I know, with the onions hiding the tuna steaks underneath. Let me assure you, however, that is was absolutely delicious. I wish I'd gotten a better picture.




Risotto Al Fungi, mushroom risotto with fresh saffron. I absolutely love risotto. I'd take it over rice any day. And with the fresh saffron and mushrooms, it was phenomenal.




Parmigiana di Melanzane. Eggplant Parmesan. As much as I love risotto, I loathe eggplant. That said, this dish, when properly prepared, is almost edible in my opinion. Some people love it.




Pollo Alla Cacciatora, Chicken Cacciatore, otherwise known as Hunter's Chicken. This is the one I made. I jumped at the chance to make a good meat dish after making glorified soup yesterday (as tasty as it was). The setup takes an hour of gathering, dicing, and mincing. The initial browning of the chicken takes about ten minutes of attempting to get the absolute perfect browning of the skin (made more difficult by the chef instructor breathing down your neck). After that, the lid goes on and you walk away for an hour. This was great, I wish I could have taken some home (all the food that we don't eat as part of our tasting/meal is given to the dishwashers and cafeteria food workers).





Panzanella. Bread salad. This is another one to file under “Wow, this actually tastes good!” Day old bread with cucumbers, tomatoes and a light vinaigrette dressing. I was highly skeptical of this, and had to be convinced to try a bite. It was surprisingly delicious.





Lastly, Zabaglione, a Masala flavored dessert. Essentially it's a dessert Hollandaise sauce. Egg yolks, sugar, and Marsala wine. Drizzled over fresh fruit, it's super rich, super sweet, and damn tasty.



Next week we start on the Asian cultures. Monday we'll be touring Uwajimaya in Bellevue, then Tuesday we'll start cooking with Japan.

Edit to add: I just noticed that this thread has broken 10k views.

Nice. These are all dishes we cook at home. Tasty. I was going to say a single month would not cover the Italian foods. But really you would need a year to catch all the fresh items. But still. Excellent!