One of the more brilliant things I discovered over the holidays is the magic of dry brining. I'm a somewhat fanatical advocate for dry brining turkey, and was severely remiss for not recommending it in my Thanksgiving post, but hadn't ever tried it for other meats.
Enter, the Tenderloin.
My MIL was cooking Christmas dinner for eight. This was a seven-pound hunk of meat, which she chose to dry brine. Basically, toss a bunch of salt on it, and leave it in the refrigerator, uncovered, for a few days. The meat turns from an opaque blood red to a (slightly creepy) translucent dark burgundy. The texture gets leathery and stiff, and you wonder if you've just mangled an $80 piece of cow. We were both terrified. But it roasted into an addictive, amazing meal. The dry outer layer browned more easily and became a little crispy, while the inside cooked normally to a nice medium rare.
Also in the magical MIL bag of cooking tips? Roasting shrimp.
Unless you're making me gambas al ajillo, I'm not a huge shrimp person. But these were pretty tasty. The olive oil + roasting gives them a nice texture and a more interesting flavor than most cocktail shrimp.
This is plum cake, from the cookbook-that-shall-not-be-named. Apparently, it's the most-requested recipe in the history of the New York Times. I baked it with pluots, because plums are quite out of season. It's delicious, and extremely easy to make. Best dessert I've ever had? Nope. But if we're doing a results:time ratio, it's pretty far up there.
Finally, there's this:
We were spending the night in Fayetteville, NC on the way home from Florida. Jon had found some barbecue place online that sounded reasonably tasty. So we were wandering around darkened streets, when we passed this sign. Fred. Chason's. Grandsons. Intriguing. We drove another two miles or so, and gave up on barbecue. Fred Chason's. It just sounded awesome.
We walked in, and immediately saw a guy with a handgun in his waistband. I knew then we'd made the right call. It was a buffet. Maybe $12 a person? But oh my god, the food.
Really good fried chicken. Really good. Also mac n' cheese, greens, cracklins (which I'd never had before), sausage, pretty much every part of a pig you can imagine, and reams of cobbler (multiple flavors). Oh, and sweet tea. Your stomach might explode, but it's definitely worth a detour.
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