Of all of the e-mails I get about beef, requests for stew meat recipes are one of the most common. This is a standard beef stew that is quick and easy to throw together on a busy day.
If you need a change of pace, you can replace some of the beef stock with tomato juice or sauce. The vegetables can be omitted, reduced or changed as well, if you need it low carb. This recipe is very forgiving.
[Read more…] about Crock-Pot Beef Stew
We’ve fallen in love with this recipe and this is the only way I will make fries in the future. My kids inhale these and ask for more, no matter how many I make. They are just like I remember fast food fries to be- crisp on the outside, hot and soft on the inside. And since they’re fried in tallow, I feel good about my kids eating them.
When I developed this recipe, I’d been in a fermenting funk. I was having a hard time coming up with something creative. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sauerkraut and kefirs. But I needed something…. more. Different. Something my kids would love. One of my dear friends, Loztnausten, had a post about making shoestring french fries and one on fermenting fries. I had read it long ago, but I kept on having the ‘too much work’ mantra scroll in my head. Hand-cutting all of those fries…. I wanted a food processor with a blade that could do it for me, but it was out of my budget. If I wanted french fries, I would ask my husband to make them for me as a treat, when I was working a late night and he had some free time and was looking to dote on me by whipping up something special and junky in the kitchen for us to munch on while I slaved away on the computer. Last January my husband made some french fries, using the mandolin slicer I had recently acquired from a friend. He asked me to look up what temp to cook them at, as his last batch had turned out too oil-logged. We knew he needed a higher temperature, so I surfed over to Everything Free Eating to see how LZ does her fries and I again saw the fermented fries post.
A light bulb went off.
The Research
I did a little research. In this paper, fermentation with a lactic acid bacteria (LAB) resulted in a reduction of the acrylamide in french fries by as much as 90% after 15 minutes. Fermenting in an anaerobic environment is the best way to encourage the production of LAB at home so your can achieve this same result without needing a lab coat, a college degree and an industrial process to cook your diner.
Why do we want to reduce the acrylamide? It’s a carcinogen. Anything that browns while it cooks- bread, potatoes, chips, biscuits, pretty much any baked or fried good, forms acrylamide as it browns.
How does LAB fermentation work to reduce the acrylamide? A quote from Science Daily tells us
“Acrylamide is formed as a reaction between the amino acid asparagine and simple sugars such as glucose and fructose. Put simply, the lactic acid bacteria remove these compounds and inhibit the formation of acrylamide.”
If you’d like to read more about how LABs consume these simple sugars, this book is a good place to start studying. The paper mentioned above, Lactic acid fermentation reduces acrylamide formed during production of fried potato products, was published in the journal Aspects of Applied Biology. It says in its summary:
“Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) metabolise simple sugars rapidly, producing lactic acid which lowers pH and reduces the Maillard reactions initiated by heat. This method can be used in industries producing fried potato products to reduce their problems with acrylamide formation. Applying the LAB method to French fries shortly prior to the pre-frying step reduces acrylamide formation as much as 90%. Browning reactions consequently are reduced. Sensory analysis shows loss of colour and burnt smell and taste without affecting quality of final potato sticks. A fermentation time of approximately 15 minutes is needed given a dense LAB culture. The results from large scale industrial- batch as well as continuous experiments – indicate that LAB fermentation provides the best means for acrylamide mitigation in the production of fried potato products.”
The Application
So the research says that LAB thrives best in an anaerobic environment. Anaerobic means that oxygen is not present; aerobic means that oxygen is present. In order to get LABs to proliferate, I needed to provide an anaerobic environment that would encourage their growth while discouraging the growth of all non-beneficial species, especially the aerobic ones.
So, how can be get an anaerobic environment in home fermentation? That can only be accomplished with a seal that prevents oxygen from entering while an airlock allows carbon dioxide to escape. Without an anaerobic environment, the LABs will not flourish and the acrylamides will not greatly diminish. Open air fermentation will not reduce acrylamides to the same extent due to the lack of LABs. As the bacteria produce carbon dioxide and use up the oxygen, it reduces the population of undesirable, aerobic bacteria and allows the LAB to flourish in the oxygenless environment. The Pickl-It provides this type of environment, as it as an airtight seal and an airlock for the growing carbon dioxide to escape. An open bowl provides a continuous supply of oxygen, never increasing the amount of LAB present and giving an environment that is ideal for the undesirable, aerobic bacteria to flourish. A mason jar would not, either, as it has to be burped regularly to allow the building carbon dioxide to escape. Any time you burp a mason jar, it allows oxygen to rush into the vessel, starting the process all over again. Not burping the jar would cause explosions, as I have had happen in the past. An air-tight vessel with an air lock is the only way to see the LABs flourish and therefore reduce the acrylamide in the potatoes.
This makes sense to me. The examples of ancient fermentation crocks I have seen contained wooden lids and were buried while they ferment. A good example is Korean Kimchi. Ditto for the Icelanders and their fermented shark, called Hakarl, which sits in the ground for 6-12 weeks to ferment. You don’t get air circulation under the ground.
You will notice in the study, that the concentration of LABs used to reduce the acrylamide by 90% was a 1% solution. In order to reach a concentration of 1% in your own kitchen, you need your potatoes to be in an environment where oxygen can not enter for 3-6 days, according to the Handbook of Fermented Functional Foods. If you preview this book on Amazon using their Look Inside! feature, you can read about it on page 402 of this wonderful and very detailed book. Other parts of this book are available on Google Books, if you’d like to read the beginning of the book.
The Recipe
Mmmmm… crispy outside, soft inside, and just the right amount of salt!
[Read more…] about Fermentation Friday: Fermented French Fries
This is one of my go-to meals when I am in a great hurry time-wise when I had planned to cook dinner. You know those evenings, where you have some meat thawed and a meal planned, but something comes up that needs your attention instead? I use it when I have time for the oven to do all of the work but I don’t have the time to stand there.
The chicken takes me about 10 minutes to get it in the oven. If I don’t have any leftover rice in the fridge, have one of the kids scrub some potatoes, poke them with a fork, rub with oil and salt them. I place them in a baking dish and put them in the oven when I begin pre-heating it, before I put in the chicken. Check them when the chicken is done, as they might need a few extra minutes.
Then I pull out some leftover veggies or 10 minutes before the chicken comes out of the oven, I saute up some pre-prepared kale and I have a quick meal on the table in less than 20 minutes of hands-on time. Prepare your greens when you get home from the store. Wash them, cut them, dry them thoroughly and roll it all up in some paper towels, sealing it in a ziplock bag. You have a quick side dish whenever you need it.
Recently on the Facebook CTF page, someone mentioned a new dairy-free cheese on the market that melts and strings like real cheese. Since I’ve been working on developing a variety of pizza crusts, I decided to look into it. [Read more…] about Review- Daiya Dairy-Free Cheese
Mornings are a noisy affair at the Foster household. Luckily, my kids sleep through it.
When we drove up to this house for the first time, I smiled. The neighbors had free-range chickens. Then I took a look at the house.
Our first night here, we both bolted upright at first pre-dawn crow. I didn’t realize that roosters started in so early and could be SO loud. Commercials showed them starting in at dawn, but our neighbors lighted their chickens so they always sounded-off extra early. After a few days, we slept through the noise and didn’t even notice it unless we were already awake.
Once we got settled, we ordered chicks. We set about building a well-insulated, nice and quiet coop, right outside our bedroom window. I would lay in the dark and smile, able to tell who is crowing by the distinct differences in muffled sound through the thickly insulated walls. The teen crowers, with their characteristic hoarse warble, got the biggest smiles. I loved the quiet crows.
Now winter is here, and it is hard for our fids to get enough to eat free-ranging, so we throw out some grain for them. The neighbor’s chickens, whom I don’t believe are ever fed by the people they own, quickly realized the free grocery buffet on the opposite side of the road. It wasn’t a hard find, as we’re the only house on the road with a clear front yard, so we’re a popular congregating spot for bug-watching.
Well, naturally all animals want to be near their food source. So the neighbor’s chickens moved in. They sleep in the uninsulated trees. Right next to our bedroom window.
And now you know why the chicken crossed the road… to get to the neighbor’s feed!
That’s enough about chickens. How about a beef recipe?
The Back to Basics series is going quite well. So far, we have covered nine weeks of basic recipes, including:
Family Favorite main dishes- apple and maple chicken, BBQ sauerkraut meatballs, chicken fajitas, pot pie, burrito beans, fish sticks, chicken fingers, French chicken, sweet and sour chicken and more
Family Favorite breakfasts- sweet sausage, fried oatmeal, puff pancakes, oven bacon and more
Family Favorite desserts- peanut butter cups, blondies, brownies, various puddings and custards, baked goods with hidden vegetables, ice cream, impossible pie
Family Favorite side dishes- mashed potatoes, sauteed greens, french fries from butternut squash and more
How to make spaghetti sauce and chili loaded with veggies
How to broil and grill a steak
How to prepare batches of meat for the freezer that will marinate as they thaw
How to make beef stew, stroganoff and beef roast in the oven and the crock-pot
How to make meatballs
How to make falafel and tahini salad dressing
How to roast a chicken in the oven and the crock-pot and make rubber chicken meals- stretching a roasted chicken into multiple meals
Hiding sauerkraut and liver in ground meat dishes
How to bake the side dish in with the main dish to save time and electricity
How to make meatloaf with hidden veggies and without using breadcrumbs
How to cook soaked beans with non-acidic seasonings to make a meal instead of pre-cooking them
How to make sauerkraut
How to soak grains and flour
How to make latkas and hash
How to cook dry beans in the crock-pot
How to make taco meat and taco seasoning mix
How to make a tamale pie with any filling
How to make pesto
How to make juicy, pan-seared chicken thighs and breasts
How to make cream of ____ soup, also called white sauce
And much, much more!
This series runs until New Years. If you would like to join us, you can purchase the back issues and subscribe at the Menu Mailer website.
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KerryAnn Foster runs Cooking Traditional Foods, the longest running Traditional Foods Menu Mailer on the internet. KerryAnn has over nine years of traditional foods experience and is a former Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader. Founded in 2005, CTF helps you feed your family nourishing foods they will love. Each mailer contains one soup, five dinners, one breakfast, on dessert and extras. You can learn more about our Menu Mailers at the CTF website. For a free sample Menu Mailer, join our mailing list. You can also join our forum to chat with other traditional foodists and learn more.
