STOLEN BY BITACLE Shredded Granny Pants from Cuba... via Italy (FINAL!).

STOLEN BY BITACLE - THE CRETINS

Joke posted this a while ago. I'll wait here while you go read it because nothing else will make sense until you do.


Are you back?

Excellent.

Now you know why I am showing you pictures of Shredded Cuban Granny Pants. Which, when I read Joke's post for the 17th time to check ingredients and technique, I realised was actually an Italian grandmother version of a Cuban recipe. Or something.

Whatever, after many work and ingredient related delays, I made it last night.

I used skirt steak, which Joke tells me is pricey over his way now because it is popular in Mexican recipes. Sounds like what happened here when lamb shanks became The Dinner Party dish and this basic off-cut started being charged out at around $20 a kilo (about two pounds).



Anyhoo, I paid about $10 a kilo for the skirt steak and they stripped it for me while I waited. (Which is butcher speak for removing the loooong fat from the loooong grained meat, and nothing kinky involved. Although: cute butcher. I could go a bit more of the stripping on that side of the counter. I'm just saying...)






As you see above, Joke's instructions for 'low and slow' poaching finally paid off. I put it on at midday and by about 8.00pm it had (finally) reached the stage you can see in this pic. The Cuban God of What Am I Feeding The Kids Tonight only knows how long it would have taken with thicker cuts - these steaks were about an inch thick.

The Le Creuset got too hot at the start and I had to keep the lid off for the rest of the cooking and top up the water as needed. Poaching settled at a point just below simmer - the water had some movement but no bubbles. Next time I might try a higher heat but I was worried that, at a simmer, the meat would first toughen and then start to crumble rather than shred.

And who wants crumbling Granny Pants for dinner? Eeww.




This way, it shredded like a freakin' dream. Bliss on two forks. Can I tell you how much fun it was?

Nope. You'll just have to try it for yourself.

It was getting late, the kids had eaten ham salads and gone to bed, and it's just possible that some of the shredding fun was engendered by my third large glass of red wine...





The black saucepan in the background has the tomato basil sauce, plopping away while I shredded.

I did cheat a tiny bit there and used a bottle of passata rather than tinned tomatoes. I had the tinned tomatoes but, quite frankly, the second half of Sharpe's Challenge was starting in 10 minutes and I wasn't going to let simmering tomatoes rob me of a single moment of Sean Bean in period costume.


At long last, with some hastily grated parmesan and even more hastily thrown together salad of red capsicum (bell pepper?) and baby spinach with balsamic vinegar.

Sorry. Should have paid more attention to the plating before I took the pic.

Did I mention I was gagging for some Sean Bean?





Australian readers may be alarmed to look at their clocks and calendars and realise that a) the NRL Grand Final was underway while I was prepping this dinner, and b) that it was still underway when Sharpe's Challenge started. They might wonder a) where my priorities were and b) whether I am still married to the ex-pro-footballer.

Answer a) is I could care less about the ugly league, and enjoyed the peace in the kitchen, listening to Crowded House with aforementioned buckets of red wine. Answer b) is the Prof could care less about Melbourne and Brisbane fighting it out for a Sydney-based prize and was quite happy to turn to Sharpe at the appropriate moment. Plus: he wanted to eat and pissing off his wife would not have put dinner on the table, now would it?


And at last, with the rebel Indian maharajah capably deposed by the Dishy Colonel Sharpe, and the nastly concubine meeting a nasty end (but not as nasty as the way Sean knocked off her murderer) the verdict on the Shredded Granny Pants can be seen below.

























Thanks Joke.


mtc
Bec

ps - the leftover potential is fantastic - just had some for lunch on a bread roll.

pps - this post accidentally published about three times before I was ready and I was recently told this can be vexing for people with Bloglines who may get lots of false starts before the final post is publised. As Maxwell Smart so beautifully puts it: sorry about that.