If you don’t want to read the story, you can go straight to the recipe here.

Hello Reader,

I hope you’ve had a good week. For me, two loved ones experienced serious health problems. I expect one will make a full recovery and the other will hopefully see this experience as an opportunity for change.

I’m reminded of my own mortality when people I love are suddenly and unexpectedly affected by a serious health problem.

I was going to call this rubbish bin soup because the vegetables were all old and were about ready to throw away. They were limp and I had to look hard for mould. Given I was using a pressure cooker, I had no fears for the safety of the food. A pressure cooker is an autoclave by another name. So, I saved these vegetables from the rubbish bin and made soup! 😊

Recipe

Equipment

• Vacuum chamber
• Pressure cooker (Cook, McDaniel et al. 2021, Pore, Pore et al. 2021)
• Oven
• Stick blender

TOP

Ingredients

• Beef cheeks
• Barbecue sauce
• Worcestershire sauce
• Brown onions
• Potato
• Celery
• Carrot
• Shallots
• Daikon
• Rice bran oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Sugar
• Garlic
• Bay leaves

TOP

Instructions

1. Buy a pair of beef cheeks from the supermarket or butcher. [I bought these beef cheeks from the supermarket.]
2. Remove the meat from the plastic wrap and put the cheeks into a vacuum bag along with some barbecue sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Vacuum seal the bag and put the marinading meat into the refrigerator for about a day. The meat should absorb the spicy vinegary flavours of the sauces and get a hit of umami from the anchovies in the English version of fish sauce.
3. Dice the vegetables into cubes about 1 cm³.
4. Put the vegetables into a large bowl and pour in a little rice bran oil plus some salt. Massage the oil and salt onto the vegetables.
5. Put the vegetables onto a baking sheet and put into a hot oven until they start to caramelise on the cut edges.
6. When the vegetables were ready from the oven, put the beef cheeks and vegetables into the pressure cooker and put on the lid. For at pressure for one hour. This should ensure the meat would be tender and easy to tease apart.
7. Once the hour has passed, wait for the pressure in the vessel to equal the pressure outside the vessel and remove the lid.
8. Lift the meat from the vessel. Be careful, the meat will fall apart under the force of its own weight. Scoop a flat sieve under the meat and lift it so the cooking liquor drains off back into the cooking vessel and transfer the meat to a large bowl.
9. Pour the contents of the pressure cooker vessel into a large stainless-steel saucepan.
10. Tease apart the beef muscle and connective tissue fibres and lay them out on a baking sheet. Smear some barbecue sauce over the meat and put it into a gentle oven to partially dehydrate. The excess liquid will evaporate leaving sticky meat.
11. Turn on the hob for the saucepan and bring the broth to a gentle simmer so it can reduce a little.
12. Once you achieve a consistency you think is right, use a stick blender to process the broth into a soup.
13. Divide the soup into aliquots for freezing and keep one portion in the saucepan.
14. Add a dollop of sour cream to thicken the soup and pour it into a bowl.
15. Add some of the sticky pulled beef.
16. Give thanks to the Lord.
17. Eat with a spoon.

Thoughts of the meal

Not a bad meal. A bit of an odd concept I think others may say. Not to worry, I’m the one eating it.

I’ll have plenty of meat for this week and a few bowls of soup to keep for the freezer.

Final thoughts

• How do you feel when loved ones take ill?
• Have you ever made a rubbish bin meal?
• Do you like meaty soups?

References

Cook, R. K., et al. (2021). “Use of a Pressure Cooker to Achieve Sterilization for an Expeditionary Environment.” J Spec Oper Med 21(1): 37-39.

BACKGROUND: Sterilization of healthcare instruments in an expeditionary environment presents a myriad of challenges including portability, cost, and sufficient electrical power. Using pressure cookers to sterilize instruments presents a low-cost option for sterilization in prehospital settings. This project’s objective was to determine if sterility can be achieved using a commercially available pressure cooker. METHODS: Presto(R) 4-quart stainless steel pressure cookers were heated using Cuisinart(R) CB-30 cast-iron single burners. One 3M Attest 1292 Rapid Readout Biological Indicator and one 3M Comply SteriGage integrator strip were sealed in a Henry Schein(R) Sterilization Pouch and placed in a pressure cooker and brought to a pressure of 103.4kPa. Sterility was verified after 20 minutes at pressure. The Attest vials were incubated in a 3M Attest 290 Auto-Reader for 3 hours with a control vial. RESULTS: Sterility using the pressure cooker was achieved in all tested bags, integrator strips, and Attest vials (n = 128). The mean time to achieve the necessary 103.4kPa was 379 seconds (standard deviation (SD) = 77). Neither the ambient temperature nor humidity were found to affect the pressure cooker’s time to achieve adequate pressure, nor the achieved depth on the integrator strip (all p > .05). CONCLUSION: This study provides evidence that sterilization is possible with offthe- shelf pressure cookers. Though lacking US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, the use of this commercially available pressure cooker may provide a method of sterilization requiring minimal resources from providers working in expeditionary environments.

Pore, B. B., et al. (2021). “Pressure Cooker Nozzle Penetrated the Orbit – Globe Saved.” Asia Pac J Ophthalmol (Phila) 10(4): 418-419.

Photographs

Here is a gallery of photos of the meal. The pork loin was an extra piece that I needed to cook for later in the week.