Cooking With Testosterone: Bison Burgers

Sorry, don’t have a real post for you today.  So we’re going to have this fake post.  We’re getting into the time machine for this one, bringing back something I wrote in… 2012?  Bloody hell, I feel old.  Anyways, here’s some totally cheap content.  I hope you enjoy!

“Aether, you magnificent figure,” I hear you ask. “Why exactly should I care that you ate a hamburger?” Ordinarily, I’d agree with you. But this is no hamburger! These are bison burgers! These are at least three times as manly as your average hamburger!

“So what?” I hear you ask again. You’re really loud. I can hear you from all the way over here. “It’s still a burger. Absolutely simple to cook.” Well shut your mouth. I’m crippled. It’s the best I can do.

I don’t normally cook meat, because all the vegetarians I live with hate it when I make the house smell delicious and remind them that I’m higher up the food chain than they are. But I do like to break out the bison, once in a while. It can be used in pretty much all the same things beef is normally part of, and it’s leaner and less fattening. It retains its juices better if you cook it right, too, so you can end up with an even juicier patty if you’re awesome like I am.

Started with a cast iron pan. Cooking bison has to be done at a lower temperature for a longer period of time than beef, which is really difficult to manage properly on my screwy stove, but I’m an expert, so I can handle it. I used my traditional burger recipe, mixing in egg to make it juicier and oats to help it stick together better, but it’s juicy enough the egg might be overkill. Then, just cook it like you would a regular hamburger.

As with everything else in life, it’s a lot better with some nice buns. The cheap ones aren’t really going to cut it. The meat’s stronger and gamier then regular hamburger meat, so you’d want to match it with some more prominent flavors. Use a sharp chedder, strong onions, dark lettuce, and top it off with a nice dark ale. Of course, you’ll have to be equally strong to match the bison flavors. Obviously, I had no problem, but you might want to do some serious soul searching before attempting this dish on your own.

I cooked it almost perfectly, if I do say so myself. The only problem was that I went with the cheap store brand onion rings. A bison burger of this caliber deserves the top shelve onion rings. As a result, I’m only able to award myself 49 out of 5 points. I know, I know, I’m ashamed, but I’ve still got one more meal to redeem myself. Stay tuned!

Cooking with Testosterone: Steak and Sprouts

My family cajoled me into writing a dumb thing about cooking again.  I thought there’s a slim possibility someone other than them would enjoy it, so what the hell, let’s share it here.

So what we’re looking at today is steak and sprouts, a meal that became a classic the instant it emerged from my head. You might remember brussel sprouts as those vegetables you haven’t seen ever since you got your own home because your parents always made you eat them because they were ‘good for you’ even though they both looked and tasted like green cow poop. As it turns out, it’s not only possible to make them taste good, it’s easy, you just have to get over that parental idea that only bad things are good for you.

If you’re lucky enough to have one of those moms who loves you, then you might have no idea what brussel sprouts look like. You can see them in the picture here. I used frozen brussel sprouts for this dish. Fresh brussel sprouts would almost certainly be better, but that’s a risky proposition, as the chances of you eating them before they go bad is almost nil on account of the fact that they’re brussel sprouts. Our first step is to cut them into chunks. Then we bake them. We do this first, because brussel sprouts take a long while to cook. That means that not only did your mom make torture you with her lame, disgusting sprouts, she put a lot of work into her torment too.

After that, it’s time to prep the steak. We’ll rub Worcestershire sauce, salt, and fresh black pepper into both sides. Keep in mind that Worcestershire sauce uses sardines as an ingredient, so if you’re making this steak for your vegetarian friends, maybe find a substitute sauce. Then we’ll let that sit for a while.

In order to get our sprouts tasting good, we need to add something that counteracts both their bitterness and their healthiness. So we fight the brussel sprouts with another superfood, and mix pomegranate juice with maple syrup. We’re going to boil this concoction down until it’s thicker than the maple syrup in consistency.

As our brussel sprouts are starting to get crispy, we’re going to break out the manliest of cookware, the cast-iron pan. Requiring regular care and upkeep, with a passionate fandom behind it, and heavy and sturdy enough that you can use it to fight of the horde when they show up at the door, this pan fits every uber-male stereotype I care to think of at the moment. We’re going to drop some oil in it, get it good and hot, and sear one side of our steak. Once that’s done, we flip the steak over, and immediately pop it in the oven, pan and all, for a good bake.

Sprouts are done once they’ve crisped up and are starting to brown in the core. The syrup’s done when it’s a syrup. I’m sure you know what to do then.

And that’s how it all comes out. So how good is it? Well, I’d tell you, but I wouldn’t want to make you all jealous that I got to eat this and you didn’t.

Cooking with Testosterone: The Kentucky Whiskey Cake

So here’s a post that has nothing to do with anything you’ve likely ever visited my blog for. I mentioned a while ago that one of the things that pushed me towards starting this blog was a series of cooking posts I did on Facebook.  Well, I recently did another such post, and figured I’d share it here.  So I hope you enjoy my joining the world’s hipsters and writing about my food.

Just a bit of background info, I’m a meat eater sharing a house with two vegetarians. I often get people asking me how I deal with it. I can understand their concern. I’m pretty much half-man, half-beast as is, and all the most awesome beasts are obligate carnivores. They’re just concerned for my health. Thing is, being the only meat eater in the house, it’s actually pretty freakin’ awesome. Want to have some delicious food and don’t feel like sharing? Just cook up something with meat in it, and the herbivores can’t even touch it.

However, there’s a limit to the amount of things you can wrap bacon around and still have them be good. Desserts in particular are problematically meat-free. And that leaves me with one specific issue. How am I going to make myself delicious cakes while still being the greedy SOB that I am? I’ve struggled with this for years, before I recently came up with the perfect answer. Just like much else in life, this is a problem that can easily be solved with proper application of hard liquor. See, I’m the only real drinker in the house, meaning that if I can work a good drink into my cake, everyone else should have no interest in it.

(Yes, I know cooking removes most of the alcohol from the liquor, but shhhh……)

 

Which brings us to today’s little delight: my Kentucky Whiskey Cake. This was supposed to be an Irish Whiskey Cake, but I changed the titular ingredient to bourbon for two reasons. The first is that I didn’t actually have Irish whiskey, whereas I did have plenty of bourbon. The second is USA! USA!

This is actually a pretty fruity cake, with both raisins and lemons playing pretty prominent roles. So this post is both educational as well as entertaining, let’s take a break to list a couple of fun facts about lemons.

• Did you know that lemon juice has been used for centuries to discover small nicks and cuts in your skin? Try it yourself, and see how it works!
• Did you know that lemon rinds are a pain to properly grate?
• Did you know that if you’re grating a lemon rind, and you brush a knuckle against the grater, you’ll magically learn several new swear words?

Anyways, you grate a full lemon rind, get a bunch of raisins, and soak them in your best whiskey overnight, then puree them and mix with a bit of cloves, brown sugar, and generic cake batter. Well, technically the recipe doesn’t call for a puree, but I don’t play by your rules so I just went ahead and did it anyway. After baking, and icing of lemon juice and sugar tops the concoction off well.

 

It turned out pretty well, I’d say. The whiskey taste is present, while understated, with the raisins and cloves providing the strongest flavors of the mix. Sure, there are a few things I could do better, but in all, I’d have to say this is a desert worthy of a champion. Namely, me. I can’t give any higher praise than that.