food awkwardness

[kindkit]

Last weekend I baked a beef and mushroom pie. It turned out basically fine, but I was disappointed. The smell of it was so delicious it drove me half crazy waiting for it to bake and cool, but the actual eating was only okay.

What I'm realizing, and this is immensely frustrating, is that I don't really like the taste of most braised meat. Chicken is fine, but beef in particular gets too sort of dank tasting, and I don't really like the soft texture either. (Before anyone asks, yes I do braise my meat correctly at a slow simmer, rather than boiling it and making it stringy. And I cut off all the visible fat.) Given my interest in pies and stews, this is fairly not good. *sigh*

There are a couple of things that help. If something is very highly spiced, like a curry, I'm fine with it (although I think it also helps that most curries aren't cooked as long as stews). And if the meat is ground, such as in a soup I made over the summer that had meatballs simmered in it or the chili I made a few weeks ago, that's also fine. But plainish braised/stewed red meat is somewhere between dull and slightly ooky to me. I had the same problem with a lamb stew recently--I had to add olives, lemon juice, and tons of smoked hot paprika before it was palatable.

It's frustrating because stews always sound so good. And I hate being picky; it makes me annoyed with myself.

Ah, well. The next plan is to try a pork pie with minced/ground pork, which I hope will turn out more to my taste. Or maybe something with ham, because the smoky flavor and firmer texture of ham should prevent the ookiness factor.


In other cooking, the oatmeal-cranberry-double chocolate cookies I made for the boss's going-away part last week were a big hit. I thought they were a hair too sweet, but everybody else liked them, and that's always gratifying.

And I've worked out why my bread has been having problems--I got carried away with the long rise thing and had cut down the amount of yeast too much, so that it wasn't rising enough even over 16+ hours. Especially now that it's turned cold here and my apartment is chilly, a bit more yeast improves things.


What have you been cooking/baking/eating? Or if you have any suggestions for the Braised Meat Problem, they're very welcome.

Comments

[legionseagle]

Could cutting off all the visible fat be part of the problem with the texture?

[st_aurafina]

Came here to say just that!

[kindkit]

I don't think so, because I have the same problem whether I do or I don't. Cutting off the fat just makes it taste less fatty, which to me is an improvement. There's something about the softness of the meat itself. I can't even really pinpoint it, much less put it into words, hence "ooky" in the post.

[lilacsigil]

Do you brown the meat (with or without flour) before stewing? It gives a stronger flavour. If the texture is bothering you, you could shred it with a fork after cooking which means you don't have lumps of meat.

[kindkit]

I always brown the meat for stews, but it doesn't make much of a difference in the end. I think it's something about the long moist cooking process itself that I don't like, because I've found I have the same slight aversion to pot roast, red meat stews, and now beef pie. It's only a slight aversion--I can eat them, but with a bit of reluctance and icky-feeling instead of the pleasure that one wants to feel after cooking a stew or a pie for hours.

Unfortunately I don't think shredding would help. I've had pulled pork, which is shredded, and while I liked the spicy flavor I didn't at all like the texture.

*sigh* I may just have to accept that this is an irrational aversion, and stick to curries and to stews etc. with chicken or with ground meat. I've suspected for a while that this is the case, but I kept thinking that if I just found the right recipe . . . and pie sounded so good!

[laurajv]

yeah, if you've tried it with and without the fat, and with and without browning, it's probably not something easily fixed. there are some particular meat textures I don't like, and somehow the texture can make the meat taste off even when I know it's not. (Like sirloin always tastes weirdly metallic, and the texture annoys my teeth.)

[kindkit]

*nods* I've been trying to ignore it/tell myself it's fixable, because I take a certain weird pride in not being a picky eater. But I've had the experience over and over again, with everything from pot roast to my beef and mushroom pie to a braised veal shank I had in a restaurant once, and the evidence is getting overwhelming.

Huh. Thinking about it is making me crave a steak or some fried chicken. Any kind of meat that is dry-cooked with a bit of a crust and not gooey.