Slice Onions a Specific Way to Affect Their Flavor and Intensity

Another Great Post from Lifehacker

by Melanie Pinola

Sometimes you want full-on onion flavor and odor, sometimes you want to tone that intensity down (like when you’re adding onions to a salad). Cook’s Illustrated, via Cool Tools, says with scientific authority the way you cut an onion can control that intensity.

Cool Tools excerpts this part of Cook’s Illustrated’s Science of Good Cooking book:

The way you cut an onion affects its flavor. To prove the point, we took eight onions and cut each two different ways: pole to pole (with the grain) and parallel to the equator (against the grain). We then smelled and tasted pieces from each onion cut each way. The onions sliced pole to pole were clearly less pungent in taste and odor than those cut along the equator.

So cut with the grain if you don’t want the onion to overwhelm your dish. If you need chopped onions, an alternative is to either soak onions in water before cutting or de-flame them with boiling water.

The Science of Good Cooking | Cool Tools

Note; This is true for celery also.  Cut on a deep diagonal and it tastes milder.  Cut it straight across and it has a peppery taste.

Chicken Fried Steak with Gravy- Gluten and Dairy Free!

What a fun day!  I went to our local Riverside Arts Market today to buy grass fed meat and shank bones today.  I got some grass fed cube steaks today.  I grew up eating it and something I had forgotten about until a few years ago.  Many people consider it an inferior cut of beef, but I can tell you when it is cooked right it is a heavenly flavored dish! I feel the same about flank steak.  Both cuts of meat are amazing when cooked right, wonderful flavor!

If you still have reservations about chicken-fried steak, consider these words from the late Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Jerry Flemmons: “As splendid and noble as barbecue and Tex-Mex are, both pale before that Great God Beef dish, chicken-fried steak. No single food better defines the Texas character; it has, in fact, become a kind of nutritive metaphor for the romanticized, prairie-hardened personality of Texans.” High praise, indeed!

Chicken-Fried Steak

1 1/2 pounds top-round steak or cube steak
2 cups sweet rice flour flour
3 large eggs
1/2 cup coconut milk
2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 cups sweet rice flour
1 large Vidalia onion, cut in half moons

Place flour in a large bowl and season with salt and pepper. Mix eggs in another large bowl with coconut milk.  Dip the cube steak to coat in flour.  Dip coated beef into egg mixture and then dip back into flour again. 

Heat the pan until medium hot or a little higher. Then add the butter and add steaks when the butter is hot and bubbly.

Heat on medium enough butter to fill halfway up the sides of a of each steak, using a cast-iron skillet.  Take the coated beef and place it in the skillet. When the blood starts bubbling out of the top of the steak (about 3 to 4 minutes) gently turn it over with a long fork as using a spatula can cause the oil to splash out of the skillet. Cook another 5 minutes and then take the chicken-fried steak out of the pan and place on a plate in the oven to stay warm. 

Sauté the onions in the pan with the butter until soft and golden brown.

Add two or three Tablespoons of sweet rice flour and stir quickly, keep stirring until flour is cooked and browned a bit.  You may need to add some more butter.  Deglaze the pan with reduced beef stock (Demi Glace) and scrape the bottom of the pan. Stir until thickened.  Pour over steaks and serve.

Homemade BBQ sauce with Nutritious Beef Broth

Another Great Post from Holistic Squid!  

Nutrient Dense BBQ Dipping Sauce Ingredients

• 1-finely diced white onion
• 1 ½ heads of garlic, shredded
• 4 cups beef bone broth – learn how to make beef bone broth here
• ½ cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 cups molasses
• ½ teaspoons allspice
• 2 tablespoons celery salt
• 3 cups tomato paste
• ¾ cup spicy mustard
• 3 teaspoons horse radish

Nutrient Dense BBQ Dipping Sauce Method

1. Heat onions & garlic in 4 cups bone broth on medium stove heat.
2. Turn stove heat down to low.
3. Add all other ingredients, and combine completely by stirring.
4. All sauce to cook for 45 minutes – 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
5. At this point, test the thickness of your sauce. When you’re happy with the consistency, remove it from the heat.
6. If you want a thicker sauce continue to cook down with occasional stirring.
7. If you want a thinner sauce, add ¼ cup bone broth or water at a time until you reach the desired consistency.

Yields: 3 quarts

Almond Shortbread Cookies

1/2 cup cold butter
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup sweet rice flour
2 Tablespoons Potato Starch
2 Tablespoons arrowroot powder
2/3 cup sliced almonds

Combine butter, sugar and vanilla in food processor until just blended, add all dry ingredients and leave processor running until it all forms a ball.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

I use a pizza stone or clay pie plate to bake the cookies.  If using a pizza stone or clay, butter it and place it in the freezer while making the dough.

Place the dough on the stone, top with parchment paper and use a rolling pin to flatten it to about 1/3 of inch in thickness.  If using a pie plate or shortbread pan, press the dough in very quickly with your fingers, avoiding letting the butter melt. 

Press the almonds into the dough evenly.

Place them in the freezer for about 10 minutes.

Bake until golden brown, about 22 to 27 minutes.

Carefully cut hot shortbread into pieces and then cool completely on the stone.

Store in a container with a tight fitting lid.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 stick butter
• 1/4 very strong coffee
• 6 whole eggs, beaten until frothed

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Butter the bottom and sides of a 8 inch spring form pan/

Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the bottom of the pan.

Using a double boiler, combine the chocolate chips, butter, coffee and melt, whisking often.  Heat over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes, until the chocolate and butter are melted, stirring.

Remove from the heat and stir in the eggs until the mixture is smooth.  Pour into the parchment paper-lined pan.  Bake for 22 minutes; the cake will not be completely set in the middle.  Cool, cover loosely, then chill for 6 to 8 hours, or overnight.

When ready to serve, remove the cake from the refrigerator and allow to sit for 10 minutes. 

I serve it with raspberries on the top.