bad metaphor

Yesterday, because I like to cook and I like punned / themed food, I decided to celebrate the Year of the Ox, by cooking an ox related dish! …Only I decided to work with buffalo, cause I couldn’t get ox, and then I finally settled on bison because that’s what they had at the fancy hippie mart. Come to think of it, if I had been smart I would have gone to the cheapo grocery store to pick up some oxtail. But my roommates would have been less likely to eat it, so maybe this compromise ended up being better anyways.

I had to do a LOT of compromises – like for instance, I balked at paying $1.25 for a wimpy bundle of green onions at the fancy hippie mart, so I just used yellow onions instead. Plus I totally forgot to get a bundle of mint, but I did have wilting cilantro so I threw that in instead. If I had to do this over again, I would have just skipped hippie mart altogether, in favor of the cheapo grocery store (which actually does have a good selection of meats, in addition to the cheapo Smithfield / Tyson crap).

Anyway, who cares! Here’s the recipe, as I would do it under ideal non-airhead circumstances:

NEW YEARS BISON BALLS (yeah, okay, I’ll come up with a fancier title later):
Ingredients:
1 lb of ground bison
1 egg
1 package vermicelli noodles
1 bunch green onions, finely chopped
2 cans coconut milk
1 cup cilantro, chopped roughly
1 bundle of fresh mint, plucked
(optional) crushed peanuts

Spices and things:
4 tbsps Chinese five spice
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp sugar
soy sauce
canola or vegetable oil

- In a mixing bowl, mash up the ground bison with the five spice, the garlic and onion powder, and the egg (cracked of course, unless you like bits of shell in your bison balls). Get your hands dirty and really mix this up! Of course you could use technology, like a food processor maybe, or a spoon – but in the spirit of the Ox you should really do the tough stuff yourself.
- Turn the oven on to broil, 500 degrees. Shape the meat mix into individual balls, arrange on a greased baking pan, place in oven. I think it took 10 – 15 minutes or so for these to cook thoroughly, but definitely keep an eye on these. You want the bison balls to be seared but not charred and on fire!
- While these are broiling, saute the green onions in oil, a tbsp of soy sauce, and the sugar. Cook the onions till they are caramelized (brown and sweet).
- While the onions are caramelizing and the bison is broiling, boil some water for the vermicelli noodles! Follow the directions on the package – usually you’re directed to bring the water to boiling, turn the water off and soak the noodles for 3 minutes, but this varies according to brand and noodle type.
- While all that other stuff is going on (hm, this dish involves a lot of multi-tasking) , heat the coconut milk in a separate pan just enough to warm it, but not so that it starts simmering or boiling. Mix in a pinch of salt.
- Now, when everything is done – combine it all! Mix the caramelized onions into the noodles, throw in the bison balls and pour the heated coconut milk over it. Pile the chopped cilantro, mint, and peanuts on top. Enjoy the fruits of your hard labor, you Ox!

Crossposting from Facebook, because I am lazy. If you’re reading this and you have a blog – tag, you’re it! Now you have to think of twenty-five dumb things to write about yourself!

1. I didn’t start cooking until I was 18, and I didn’t start cooking things that weren’t out of a box mix until I was 23
2. From first grade through fourth I rarely spoke at school, and when I did it I used a fake voice.
3. I have knit more sweaters for cats than for people.
4. 80% of my theological knowledge comes from a Jehovah’s witness children’s picture bible.
5. I learned how to ride a bike when I was 22
6. When possible I avoid walking directly on grated surfaces.
7. I hate lists like these and this is the first time I have responded to one.
8. I did not care one iota for politics at all, beyond watching the Daily Show occasionally, before last year.
9. The only animal I have ever killed with my car was a kitten, at 10th and Mississippi
10. Once I got hit in the face during volleyball in gym class, and a boy I had a crush on laughed at me, and so I cried. I did not want to admit to my friend that I was crying over a boy, so instead I told her I was crying because it was Vietnam Veteran’s day (it wasn’t).
11. I spent years addicted to text-based MUDs. If you have no idea what these are, then you are a MUCH cooler person than I will ever be.
12. Once I poured liquid dishwashing soap instead of detergent in the dishwasher, and my kitchen flooded with bubble water like something out of an episode of “I Love Lucy”
13. Re: #4, I thought that merely “lying down next to” someone else would get me sent to hell. Sleepovers were traumatic until I discovered euphemisms.
14. I live in a house with no central heat, in the midst of a terrible Kansas winter, and sometimes I feel like I’m Laura Ingalls Wilder. Especially when I’m rooting around in my neighbors’ yards for kindling.
15. I ended up having what I -thought- was my new pet duck for dinner, and didn’t realize this until ten years later.
16. I evidently like to overshare.
17. I’m embarrassed that after two years I’m still working at the same place I worked while I was an undergraduate student.
18. I’m embarrassed that I am embarrassed about having a secure source of income with benefits, while others are getting laid off or are endlessly searching for jobs right now.
19. I’m mortally jealous of my friends who are currently globe trotting and having way more interesting lives than me. They keep posting photos and accounts of their adventures, which come up on my Facebook feed. Jerks.
20. In the two years since I’ve graduated with my creative writing degree, I have not written any fiction.
21. I know just enough Vietnamese to say “Hi,” “What’s your name” and maybe enough to order food in a restaurant, rudely.
22. I do a lot of Internet-surfing and list-posting at work.
23. I am a terrible klutz – two weekends ago I spilled two drinks in succession, one of which belonged to the bouncer at the Taproom, and I am kind of scared of going back there again.
24. Sometimes I worry that my sewing machine will eat me!
25. A number of these items are bullshit, guess which ones and how many and you get a gold star.

A previous episode saw me lured into attempting sous vide by only the best chef in America, Grant Achatz, making this method of food preparation look as easy as…well, dunking plastic bags in water. The first attempt didn’t pan out so well, probably because I wasn’t really that on top of making sure the temperature was constant. I had been a little nervous about whether or not 140 degrees was hot enough to cook the beef, and with the temperature gauge obscured by steam, I’d definitely left the steak too hot for too long!

This time I decided to work with some salmon left over from sushi night, deeming it easier to work with since I wouldn’t be nervous about undercooking it (hey, I already ate this raw). I loaded up a Ziploc bag with a filet of salmon rubbed in salt, chunks of butter (can’t skimp on this), orange slices, tarragon and basil. Squeezed all the air out of it, sealed it and tossed it in the pot:

Most sous-vide-at-home guides I have read on the Internet insist that you need at least a fancy thousand-plus-dollar water circulator to get this right. To them I say “bah,” me, my 25 cent potato masher, and a bowl of ice cubes at the ready can do more or less the same thing:

Okay, so maybe the fancy water circulator owners don’t have to hover over the pot, constantly potato-mashing the water, and frantically toss in ice cubes when the temperature gauge rises above 113 (stupid electric ranges). But it’s not such a big deal when cooking salmon, which only takes twenty minutes. I don’t think I would have the patience to do a turkey this way, much as I really wanted to try this last Thanksgiving!

Pulled out of the bath, like this blogger had reported, the salmon didn’t really look that much different from when I started. Good thing I am not squeamish about seafood! I dumped it unceremoniously onto a plate, and I confess it didn’t look too pretty – I definitely squished the fish a bit in my efforts to squeeze every bit of oxygen out of the bag:

Quark loves assisting me with sous vide experiments!

The salmon turned out lovely, much better than my first attempt at sous vide! Texturally it was like smoked salmon, but much more tender. The tarragon and basil butter flavor infused throughout the flesh. I was disappointed that the citrus flavor from the orange slices didn’t really come through, but I was using an out of season and not very fresh orange (as you can kind of tell from the photos).

All in all, a success and I hope to try this again with red meat, to equal effect!