Cookbooks Lie Experience Doesn’t

Have you ever wondered why when you cook a roast beef to exactly to the instruction in the cookbook, it doesn’t always turn out the way you want? Many cookbooks call for cooking a roast beef 130 to 140 degrees for medium rare. If you pull your roast out of the oven at 135 degrees, let it sit for 15 minutes (as recommended) you are guaranteed to have your roast cooked to medium well. The fact is that beef and other items will continue to cook after coming out of the oven, and cookbooks lie.

My kitchen Bible has always been the Joy of Cooking. Older editions, like mine, called for cooking your roast beef from 140 for rare to 170 degrees for well done. I have annotated my copy more than once. As you can see in the picture, I originally crossed off 140 and penciled in 130 for rare. Finally, I have written, “Cook to 120 to 125 degrees and let stand”. That pretty much says it all: Cookbooks lie, experience doesn’t.

(My notes on Roast Beef in the Joy Of Cooking)

My family has a tradition of over cooking the holiday roast. We all like our beef medium rare. We always used to wind up with beef at medium well. It wouldn’t be the holidays if the beef isn’t overcooked. The fact is that your roast will continue to cook and Mom’s roast beef pulled out of the oven at 140 degrees wound up at 150 degrees. That nasty grey color is just never good, unless you are one of the outliers that like their beef well done

I used to work with two great chefs that ran the top white tablecloth restaurant in Memphis. I asked them what percentage of their customers like their beef medium rare? They claim that 85% of customers at higher end restaurants like their beef medium rare. Of course there are those that grew up in households where their mom’s overcooked everything and medium well was the standard. I do believe people like what they grew up with, but I still have a problem killing a good piece of meat. I have a friend that likes his meat cooked well done. I will admit that I don’t invite him to a dinner knowing that it pains me to ruin a good piece of meat.

As we get into winter and the holiday season, there is not much better than a good roast beef. If you are planning a big dinner party, it is never a bad idea to have a test run with family or a few guests. Just remember Cookbooks and bloggers lie, experience doesn’t.

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Culinary Side Effects

Some dishes have side effects that impact different people differently. My last blog was about a wonderful ham and bean soup. My wife Susan reminded me that while she loves bean soup, it doesn’t love her. There is that wonderful rhyme from our youth:

Beans, Beans good for your heart, the more you eat the more you fart!

For Susan this is the truth, fortunately for me, not so much.

There is the wonderful campfire scene from the movie Blazing Saddles. The cowboys are sitting around the campfire eating their plate of beans for dinner and soon break out in a chorus…

Blazing Saddles Campfire Scene.

I was once driving from Frankfurt Germany to Paris with two business associates. One was from east Texas and the other, the South of France. It was a long drive and as we started to get sleepy. I decided to ask questions to keep the conversation flowing and keep me awake. I asked what were the standard meals that your mother made for you growing up? The Frenchman started out explaining that every day started with a croissant and confiture and he went on from there. The Texan countered with: “We were poor and we had beans for breakfast, beans for lunch and if we were lucky, beans for dinner”. All I could think of was the scene from Blazing Saddles. In the closed environment of that car, I was just glad the Texan’s dietary fare had evolved.

Beans are not the only cause of a certain unwanted culinary side effect. Back in the 1990’s the food industry went to great lengths to develop fat replacers. A few of these replacers had the same effect of those good old beans. Olestra was the branded sucrose polyester that the FDA required a warning on the label that said: “Olestra may cause abdominal cramping and or loose bowels”. It didn’t have the same marketing impact as the warning on Viagra.

At Kraft we had a friend that worked for a company in Germany that had developed a polyol based fat replacer. My friend had an array of baked goods made with his miracle fat replacer that we sampled during a morning session. That afternoon we had a meeting in the R&D lab. I noticed that one by one the Kraft people kept walking away from the meeting table. Again, it was like that scene from Blazing Saddles. I finally confronted my German friend telling him what the rest of the group was too polite to say. To which he responded: “You Americans are too sensitive, you need to be strong…” Strong or not, there certain culinary side effects that some of us need to avoid.

Leftovers Inspiration

It is the week after Thanksgiving and you have a gift: LEFTOVERS. There gets to be a point where you get a little tired of the goodies in their original form. What I usually do is get creative. My creations can make a great item for a Supper Club dinner party, or MORE LEFTOVERS!

One of the cornerstones of the Kenny family Thanksgiving is my Char Roasted Ham.. The original dish falls into the category of:

Looks Like Hell, Tastes Like Heaven.

I char roast the ham in a cast iron skillet on a gas grill. Some would say, the ham looks awful because a good coating of char. Scrape off the outside char bits and you get a wonderful char roasted flavor throughout the ham. I once made this ham at my sisters and my doubtful nephew kept coming up to me saying: Uncle Paul, your ham is burning. I kept explaining that it is supposed to cook that way and he kept coming back to me complaining that I was burning the ham. My fondest memories of that Thanksgiving was my nephew and his brother fighting over the leftover charred ham bits after the meal. Leftover Char Roasted Ham makes a wonderful starter for a bean soup. I use the ham bone and a healthy portion of chopped ham as the cornerstone of the dish.

My gold standard for bean soup goes back to the soup I had at Firestone Country Club in Akron Ohio. My buddy Len Lewin used to be a member there. A few years back, Len took a group of us to Akron to play the iconic golf courses. As we finished our first nine holes, Len asked me if I liked bean soup. I responded that I did, but that it wasn’t my favorite. He told me that I had to try the Firestone CC bean soup. He was right, it was better than any bean soup I have ever had and it has become the cornerstone of my bean soup recipe.

LEFTOVER HAM AND BEAN SOUP RECIPE

With the wonders of the Internet, I was able to find two recipes for Firestone CC bean soup. I have used these as a base with a few of my own variations. The biggest differences are that I use my leftover ham bone and a healthy portion of leftover char roasted ham. I also double up on the roux using a butter based roux (as called for in the FCC recipe) and a bacon fat based roux. This combination gives the soup added flavor and texture.

The recipe is great for 3 reasons:

It makes a wonderful first course or even a meal
It uses a lot of leftovers
It makes a dish with leftovers that can be re-gifted.

An item based in leftovers has to be pretty good to be re-gifted. Trust me, this one will be well received by the lucky beneficiary. The beauty of this leftover-based dish is that it is a real crowd pleaser and because you can give it away, there is no problem with additional leftovers.