I occasionally wet-age a steak. I enjoy the process and the result. Dry aging at home is a difficult task requiring a large cut of meat. But wet aging is easy to do with a single steak. When I buy a pack of two steaks, I typically eat one and put up the other for a few weeks.
All I do to age the steak is seal it in a vacuum bag and put it into the meat drawer of my refrigerator. I sealed the steak on December 30 for a total aging of about five weeks. When I opened it, the distinctive smell of aged meat came forward. It is a strong but not rotten meaty odor. The taste goes in the same direction---strong but not esoteric.
Here is the steak in the cast iron pan. I decided to prepare it as steak au poivre. In doing so, I placed a bet that the aging taste would come through over the cream sauce and pepper.
Here is the final result. The aged taste did come out but it wasn’t strong when compared to the pepper. I have cooked dry-aged steaks as-is and the taste is pleasantly distinct. Either way, a very enjoyable meal.
I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...



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