Cue the Crickets – TKC 18

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Welcome! These are the show note for Episode 18 – Cue the Crickets

For all the commentary and my tips and thoughts on the topics, I recommend you listen to the full episode by clicking the “play” button above. Enjoy!

Cooking Steak Indoors

My first topic today comes from my friend Jairo over at the TruBromance Film Podcast. If you like fun and no-BS film commentary, then this is the show for you, Find them over on iTunes. He had a question about how to best cook a steak indoors using a broiler. I outline a couple of methods below:

Method 1: Cast Iron Skillet Method
1. Position your oven rack on the top level and preheat a cast iron skillet under the broiler for 20-30 minutes.
2. Let your steak come to room temperature for about 15-20 minutes. Prep your steak as you normally would, seasonings, etc.
3. Remove the skillet from the oven (be careful, it will be EXTREMELY hot), and add an oil with a high smoke point; safflower, peanut, grapeseed oil are good choices.
4. Carefull put your steak in the skillet and sear for 30 seconds. Turn the steak over and return skillet to the oven under the broiler elements.
5. Cook for five minutes, then turn the steak over for five more minutes. That should get you close to a medium steak, but your timing may vary due to oven temp differences, pan heat, etc.

Method 2: Straight Broiler Method
1. Position your oven rack on the top level and preheat the broiler for 20-30 minutes.
2. Let your steak come to room temperature for about 15-20 minutes. Prep your steak as you normally would, seasonings, etc.
3. Place the steak on a broiler pan and put in oven about 2-3 inches from the broiler elements.
4. Cook for five to six minutes, then turn the steak over for five more minutes. That should get you close to a medium steak, but your timing may vary due to oven temp differences, pan heat, etc.

Helpful tip: Your broiler elements will shut off if the oven gets hot enough. You don’t want this to happen because then you will essentially just be baking your steak. To help prevent this, keep your oven door slightly ajar during broiling to keep the overall temp down and broiler elements hot. If your oven door won’t stay slightly open, you can use a wooden spoon or a rolled up tinfoil tube to prop the door open.

The finger method to tell when a steak is ready!

Cue the Crickets

Much of the non-western world relies on eating insects and other…er…bugs…as an important source of protein. Here in the United States, not so much. I was able to try a product this week from a new company called Aspire Food Group. They raise crickets to be consumed by people. You can either get their product whole (yes, as in whole crickets) or finely ground into “cricket flour.” The latter is what I got ahold of to try. Why? Well I’m always interested in new foods and cooking, so after hearing about this on the Gastropod podcast recently I made a remark on Twitter that I liked their show, but I’ll pass on the crickets. Well, Aspire responded to me on Twitter and said “Don’t knock it til you try it.” So long story short, here I am to talk about my experience trying out cricket four.

Aspire Food Group on the web
Learn about the company that is working to bring cricket flour to the masses. You can also order cricket flour online.

The recipes I used for the show:
Tyler Florence’s Banana Nut Muffins – I used walnuts instead of pecans, and substituted 15% cricket flour in for regular all-purpose flour.

Apple Cheddar Quick Bread – This is a variation of a beer-cheese quick bread recipe. Again I substituted 15% cricket flour in instead of all-purpose flour. This is a much more savory application, and in this case I think the cricket flour was more noticeable in this recipe. I also made a regular 100% all-purpose flour loaf, and below are a couple of pictures that show the difference.

Apple Cheddar Breads – Bottom has 15% Cricket Flour