On quality
Oct. 30th, 2012 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceLong ago someone said to me, "Good books are better" - and it's true.
It's a life-lesson, and it carries over into other realms than literature. As, for example, meat. Good meat? Is just better. More expensive, certainly, and harder to find - but worth all of that and more.
I bought a pound of grass-fed ground beef at the farmers' market, and even just turning it out into a hot pan you could see the difference. It's a much finer grind than I've found in the regular stores; it looks like it's been ground twice, like we used to ask the good butchers to do back home, only I didn't need to ask.
And it's neither oozing grease in the pan like cheap mince, nor is it neurotically and self-defeatingly lean like the "premium" grades in the supermarket; and even barely-cooked and entirely unflavoured, it tastes lovely. I've barely started, I have hours of fun ahead, and already I'm thoroughly happy to have this to work with.
(Since you ask? I'm making cottage pie for the yogi tonight. Mostly because it was grey and cold and damp this morning and Karen said it was too dark for me to take the bike out without lights, and we're halfway between the British and American clocks going into reverse, and I was a little shocked to realise there is no US word for "autumnal" - the adjective from "fall" is "fall", which, y'know: I was at least hoping for "fallen" - so yeah. Dishes that taste of firelight and dark smoky evenings, falling leaves and winter coats, the sound of Guy Fawkes' cold breath in the chimney. Having browned off the meat in a little bacon fat, I've set that aside and put veggies into the same pot to saute: onions and carrots and garlic and celery and mushrooms, so far. I'm going out into the garden to gather herbs - parsley sage rosemary and thyme, because why not? - and then there'll be tomatoes going in and beef stock and red wine. And then it just gets to cook for hours before I top it off with potato mashed through the ricer and beaten with cream and butter and I don't think I'll bother with an egg yolk. Stick that under the broiler - still in the same pot, for lo, I love my cast-iron wedding gift! - until crispy-brown and autumnal, and there you have it. Or rather, we do. Sorry 'bout that.)
[EtA: having said all of which, mark you, in a fine example of overkill, I just tasted it before the beef stock and the wine went in, and it was utterly gorgeous already - and then I added them anyway. Because enough is never, y'know, enough. What's the point of having a top, if you don't go over it...?]
It's a life-lesson, and it carries over into other realms than literature. As, for example, meat. Good meat? Is just better. More expensive, certainly, and harder to find - but worth all of that and more.
I bought a pound of grass-fed ground beef at the farmers' market, and even just turning it out into a hot pan you could see the difference. It's a much finer grind than I've found in the regular stores; it looks like it's been ground twice, like we used to ask the good butchers to do back home, only I didn't need to ask.
And it's neither oozing grease in the pan like cheap mince, nor is it neurotically and self-defeatingly lean like the "premium" grades in the supermarket; and even barely-cooked and entirely unflavoured, it tastes lovely. I've barely started, I have hours of fun ahead, and already I'm thoroughly happy to have this to work with.
(Since you ask? I'm making cottage pie for the yogi tonight. Mostly because it was grey and cold and damp this morning and Karen said it was too dark for me to take the bike out without lights, and we're halfway between the British and American clocks going into reverse, and I was a little shocked to realise there is no US word for "autumnal" - the adjective from "fall" is "fall", which, y'know: I was at least hoping for "fallen" - so yeah. Dishes that taste of firelight and dark smoky evenings, falling leaves and winter coats, the sound of Guy Fawkes' cold breath in the chimney. Having browned off the meat in a little bacon fat, I've set that aside and put veggies into the same pot to saute: onions and carrots and garlic and celery and mushrooms, so far. I'm going out into the garden to gather herbs - parsley sage rosemary and thyme, because why not? - and then there'll be tomatoes going in and beef stock and red wine. And then it just gets to cook for hours before I top it off with potato mashed through the ricer and beaten with cream and butter and I don't think I'll bother with an egg yolk. Stick that under the broiler - still in the same pot, for lo, I love my cast-iron wedding gift! - until crispy-brown and autumnal, and there you have it. Or rather, we do. Sorry 'bout that.)
[EtA: having said all of which, mark you, in a fine example of overkill, I just tasted it before the beef stock and the wine went in, and it was utterly gorgeous already - and then I added them anyway. Because enough is never, y'know, enough. What's the point of having a top, if you don't go over it...?]