Smashing Pork: A Journey to Create Fine Shreds of Meat

In an unconventional method, smashing pork using a rolling pin is employed to create finer, longer shreds of meat. This technique involves rolling and rerolling the pork five or six times, which stretches and spreads the meat fibers to their limits. The resulting shreds are then achieved by grabbing handfuls of pork and rubbing them between the palms of one's hands until fine wisps of pork are obtained. With a full pound and a half of pork, this method yields not only finer shreds but also an impressive forearm workout. By incorporating a thumb into the rubbing motion, the process is expedited.

The pork shreds are then combined with coconut oil in a wok over medium heat. The addition of 1/4 teaspoon of Chinese five spice powder and 1 to 2 teaspoons of dark soy sauce provides flavor to the dish. As the mixture cooks, it dries out, transforming into a crispy texture. This process showcases the versatility of pork as an ingredient, capable of being transformed from a coarse texture to a fine shred.

In a surprising twist, the author attempts to recreate this process with beef, using a pound and a half of lean ey round beef. Similar to the pork method, the beef is boiled, skimmed, scummed, and then seasoned with cinnamon, thyme, cumin, bay leaf, rosemary, and cloves to give it a Turkish vibe. The beef floss is created using the same rolling, smashing, and shredding technique as the pork, resulting in an identical texture but distinct flavor profile.

The author reflects on their decision to use beef instead of pork, considering its potential impact on Turkish cuisine. However, they successfully recreate the dish, demonstrating the adaptability of ingredients and techniques.

Cofta: A Turkish-Style Meat Skewer

With the beef floss ready, it's time to create cofta, a traditional Turkish meat skewer. The author prepares the grill by heating it to maximum temperature for 10 to 15 minutes or until terrifyingly hot. Once the grill is set up, they turn the burners down and season the grates with vegetable oil, shutting down the lid to prevent flare-ups.

The next step involves seasoning the cofta sticks with a mixture of vegetable oil and turning the burners back on one side of the grill. The author then places the meat directly over the flame, letting the stick hang over the cooler side of the grill. Flipping the meat every 2-3 minutes ensures even cooking.

After searing for 2 to 3 minutes per side, the cofta sticks are removed from the hot side of the grill and placed on the cooler side, where they cook slowly over indirect heat. This method not only prevents further flare-ups but also gently cooks the meat, requiring around 7-12 minutes to reach an internal temperature of 145°F.

The author notes that for bigger cofta sticks, a similar process is employed, with searing and finishing cooking taking longer, typically between 15 to 20 minutes. The result is a beautifully cooked and aromatic Turkish-style meat skewer.

Creating the Perfect Kofta

To complete the kofta, the author uses the beef floss, which brings an extra hit of spicy flavor to the dish. By rolling it around in the beef floss, the author achieves the desired look for their kofta, resembling cartoon foods but with a more realistic texture.

The final result is a delicious and unique creation that combines the flavors and textures of Turkish cuisine with American ingenuity. The combination of spices, cooking techniques, and creative presentation yields a dish that is both authentic to its roots and innovative in its approach.

Recreating Food from The Simpsons

As always, recreating food from The Simpsons is a fun and engaging experience. However, it requires attention to detail and a willingness to experiment with new ingredients and techniques. In this instance, the author successfully transformed pork into fine shreds of meat using an unconventional method.

Their decision to attempt to recreate the process with beef showcases their adaptability and creativity in the kitchen. The result is not only a delicious dish but also a testament to the versatility of ingredients and cooking techniques.

The BCU's Upcoming Adventure

As the author prepares for their upcoming adventure to Japan, they invite readers to share suggestions, ideas, and requests for future recipes. This call to action encourages readers to participate in the creative process, providing input on how to recreate iconic foods from The Simpsons or explore new flavors and ingredients.

With the completion of this cofta recipe, the author is ready to embark on their culinary journey to Japan, armed with the knowledge that their passion for recreating food from The Simpsons will continue to drive innovation and creativity in the kitchen.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey uh could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza no pizza only Clash oh sh all right all right give me one bowl no bowl stick stick oh jeez that's just awful hey what's up guys welcome back to binging with babish where this week we're taking a look at a real white whale of mine clav karash and crab juice from an iconic scene in the Simpsons as you can see I've scored a can of the crab juice right here so let's give this stuff a try and I got to say it's not bad especially when the only other option is Mountain Dew but if I'm being honest probably the only reason I like this is because it's just a can of polar toasted coconut Seltzer with a sticker on it but as a YouTuber I think I've done my job here I converted the logo to a Smart object I ordered special stickers and okay fine I will try real crab juice about the only source of which I could find is in a can of crab meat along with what I think is an upsettingly long piece of paper don't worry the crab is going to go to good use in next week's episode but for now it's precious juices are going in my mouth all right here we go come on Andy this is why they pay the big bucks and as you can imagine it's not great I've never just taken a shot of clam juice before but I imagine it's like that but with crab but in terms of beverages that got me thinking one of my favorite cocktails the michila famously utilizes clam juice in the form of Clamato so I'm going to make some crab MTO combining 1 oz of crab juice with 4 oz of tomato juice tiny whisk to combine give it a little sniff to make everybody uncomfortable and we're going to use it to build our cocktail over ice adding 4 oz of the crab MTO juice along with a few dashes of War Chester Shire sauce a few dashes of hot sauce preferably a Mexican one not Franks a tiny dash of soy sauce the juice of half of one lime and the whole thing gets topped off with a frosty light beer how much or how little depends on your taste and the size of your container give it a little mix and let's see how it tastes and now this is actually not bad pretty much tastes the exact same as a michila sort of like a bloody mary you could bring to the beach so that's our palatable crab juice what about the clav garash the vendor and written language appear to be vaguely Middle Eastern so I think the best bet here is cofa I'm starting by soaking my wood skewers for at least 30 minutes then finally mincing four cloves of garlic in two small shallots and I'm placing those in a cold pan Which I'm going to place over medium low heat adding about 2 tblspoon of olive oil and once it starts to Bubble cooking gently for 2 to 3 minutes much like with pasta ilolo this is going to ensure that the garlic and shallots do not burn but rather only turn a very light golden brown I'm going to strain it through a fine si hang on to that garlic and shallot oil for my next salad and allow to cool completely before building the CUA which I'm going to make from one pound of ground lamb or cooled shallot and garlic 2 tspoons of ground coriander and 1 and 1/2 taspo of ground cumin preferably toasted and freshly ground 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper one large egg white this is going to give the cuff this some structure and some fresh herbs 1 tbspoon finely minced fresh mint and 3 tbsp fresh parsley I'm also going to season with about a teaspoon each kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper now it's time to make paste and and I mean that quite literally you really want to massage the hell out of this stuff sort of the opposite of what you would do with a burger this is going to make the meat cook up firm and tight which is going to help it stick to the stick upon which we are now going to impale it shaping into a roughly 3 oz long narrow meatball shoving a stick in one of the business ends and by the tip of the tail smearing said meat onto the stick this too is going to help prevent the meat from falling off the stick these are more of the traditional CUA shape which I want to make both for demonstration and because they're going to be my dinner this week but I'm also going to make some big old lopsided ones to better resemble kadash once shaped these guys should hang out in the fridge for half an hour before grilling but one of the primary characteristics of kadash is that it looks gross and Kua looks famously beautiful I mean it's a grilled meatball so how do we match that aesthetic to me the kkash looked almost pery so I wanted to figure out how I could make hair in meat form the answer pork floss a kind of Chinese pork that's been shredded so finely and dried so thoroughly that it almost resembles cotton or sort of like a meaty drier lint it tastes relatively non-descript so I thought it'd be a good way to give our cloth cadash that nasty aesthetic but of course I wanted to try making it myself I've got 1 and2 lbs of pork tenderloin that I'm cutting into 1 in chunks dropping into some boiling water and gently cooking for about 5 minutes this is going to cause some impurities and scum to rise to the surface that we're going to skim off using our handy dandy scum skimmer discard that nasty looking stuff and then we're going to drain the pork thoroughly wash out the pot refill it with water and thoroughly rinse the pork these excess proteins could cause issues down the line and removing them ensures that we're going to have pork that we could floss with not literally but you know what I mean add the rinsed pork back to 6 cups of clean boiling water walk away then realize that there are two pieces still in the colander dump those out and now we're going to gently simmer the pork with some aromatics four slices of fresh ginger one cinnamon stick and one star anise pod the greens of two roughly chopped green onions and 1 tbspoon each dark soy sauce and for some reason light soy sauce cover this guy up and maintain a bare simmer for 45 to 60 minutes until the pork is relatively tender considering how lean it is and the thickest part of the thickest pieces registered 205° f as you can see the pork is dry but it falls apart easily so now we're going to pick out the pork pieces and put them on a plate discard the other stuff and then we're going to let these dried out little nuggets cool completely before engaging in rather an interesting procedure about a dozen nuggets at a time we're going to smash this pork using a rolling pin I know right seems odd but it actually ends up being very necessary after rolling and rerolling five or six times the meat fibers get stretched and spread to their very limits allowing us to create finer longer shreds of pork which we're going to achieve by grabbing a handful at a time and rubbing it between the palms of our hands repeating until little wisps of pork are as fine as possible after doing this with a full pound and a half of pork which yielded a better forearm workout than any I've ever done on purpose I found that incorporating a thumb into the rubbing motion really got things across the Finish Line faster and why are you laughing once all our pork is shredded as finely as can be we're going to drop it into a walk along with a tablespoon of coconut oil where we're going to gently toast it over medium medum low heat this stuff is pretty pale and mildly flavored so we're going to combine 1/4 teaspoon of Chinese five spice powder with 1 to two teaspoons dark soy sauce drizzle that over top and gently cook drying out the pork over medium low heat for 10 to 15 minutes now this is the exact moment when I realized that I was combining pork with Turkish Cuisine which felt a bit insensitive considering its very large Muslim population so I wanted to see could I make meat floss from meat other than pork I have here a pound and a half of similarly lean ey round beef which going to give the same treatment boiling skimming scumming this time in addition to the soy sauce flavoring with cinnamon thyme cumin bay leaf Rosemary and cloves to bring a slightly more Turkish Vibe same roll Smash and Shred technique some now extremely tired forearms and back to the walk for the same low temperature drying method still adding soy sauce for a bit of color 10 to 15 minutes later and there you have it beef floss I'm going to spread the stuff out evenly on a large rimmed baking sheet while it's still hot so that any remaining moisture evaporates all right there's our hair made for meat while that cools and dries it's time to make some cofta outside I've got all four burners on my grill heating to Max for 10 to 15 minutes or until terrifyingly hot then I'm going to turn the burners all the way down and season the grates using vegetable oil shut down the lid grank the burners back up and let things cure for about 10 minutes then I'm turning the burners down on one side of the grill placing the cofa on the hot side of the grill and Searing for 2 to 3 minutes per side turns out even if you soak your sticks they can still definitely catch on fire so try to place the meat directly over the flame and let the stick hang over the the cooler side of the grill I'm giving these guys a flip and repositioning them so they don't continue to be on fire I'm going to give those another 2 to 3 minutes until I get some good grill marks and then we're scooting things over to the cooler side of the grill where these guys are going to come up to Temp over indirect heat not only is this going to prevent further flare ups it's going to more gently cook the meat taking anywhere from 7 to 12 minutes to reach an internal temperature of 145° f remove from the grill and let rest for 5 to 10 minutes before digging in and what we have here are some very delicious meatballs on a stick and if I know anything about meat and sticks it's the bigger the better so I'm going to do the same procedure here searing the big boys and moving them off the heat to finish cooking this time for more like 15 to 20 minutes that's our completed kofta so now it's time to complete the look rolling it around in our beef floss covering it in what appears to be hair and as far as real life iterations of cartoon foods go I think that we got pretty close it's got the same almost unidentifiable form factor a little sort of dollop on the top the only deeply inaccurate aspect of it is that it actually tastes really really good the beef floss is bring much to the table texture-wise but it's definitely bringing an extra hit of meaty spicy flavor and while it can definitely use some bracing acidic sauce it and about two other of the small ones became my dinner for the evening and became a member of the clean stick Club a club of which I believe your mom is a founding member sorry anyway as always recreating food from The Simpsons is a lot of fun but the BCU is headed to Japan in a couple weeks and we are all ears for your suggestions ideas and requestshey uh could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza no pizza only Clash oh sh all right all right give me one bowl no bowl stick stick oh jeez that's just awful hey what's up guys welcome back to binging with babish where this week we're taking a look at a real white whale of mine clav karash and crab juice from an iconic scene in the Simpsons as you can see I've scored a can of the crab juice right here so let's give this stuff a try and I got to say it's not bad especially when the only other option is Mountain Dew but if I'm being honest probably the only reason I like this is because it's just a can of polar toasted coconut Seltzer with a sticker on it but as a YouTuber I think I've done my job here I converted the logo to a Smart object I ordered special stickers and okay fine I will try real crab juice about the only source of which I could find is in a can of crab meat along with what I think is an upsettingly long piece of paper don't worry the crab is going to go to good use in next week's episode but for now it's precious juices are going in my mouth all right here we go come on Andy this is why they pay the big bucks and as you can imagine it's not great I've never just taken a shot of clam juice before but I imagine it's like that but with crab but in terms of beverages that got me thinking one of my favorite cocktails the michila famously utilizes clam juice in the form of Clamato so I'm going to make some crab MTO combining 1 oz of crab juice with 4 oz of tomato juice tiny whisk to combine give it a little sniff to make everybody uncomfortable and we're going to use it to build our cocktail over ice adding 4 oz of the crab MTO juice along with a few dashes of War Chester Shire sauce a few dashes of hot sauce preferably a Mexican one not Franks a tiny dash of soy sauce the juice of half of one lime and the whole thing gets topped off with a frosty light beer how much or how little depends on your taste and the size of your container give it a little mix and let's see how it tastes and now this is actually not bad pretty much tastes the exact same as a michila sort of like a bloody mary you could bring to the beach so that's our palatable crab juice what about the clav garash the vendor and written language appear to be vaguely Middle Eastern so I think the best bet here is cofa I'm starting by soaking my wood skewers for at least 30 minutes then finally mincing four cloves of garlic in two small shallots and I'm placing those in a cold pan Which I'm going to place over medium low heat adding about 2 tblspoon of olive oil and once it starts to Bubble cooking gently for 2 to 3 minutes much like with pasta ilolo this is going to ensure that the garlic and shallots do not burn but rather only turn a very light golden brown I'm going to strain it through a fine si hang on to that garlic and shallot oil for my next salad and allow to cool completely before building the CUA which I'm going to make from one pound of ground lamb or cooled shallot and garlic 2 tspoons of ground coriander and 1 and 1/2 taspo of ground cumin preferably toasted and freshly ground 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper one large egg white this is going to give the cuff this some structure and some fresh herbs 1 tbspoon finely minced fresh mint and 3 tbsp fresh parsley I'm also going to season with about a teaspoon each kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper now it's time to make paste and and I mean that quite literally you really want to massage the hell out of this stuff sort of the opposite of what you would do with a burger this is going to make the meat cook up firm and tight which is going to help it stick to the stick upon which we are now going to impale it shaping into a roughly 3 oz long narrow meatball shoving a stick in one of the business ends and by the tip of the tail smearing said meat onto the stick this too is going to help prevent the meat from falling off the stick these are more of the traditional CUA shape which I want to make both for demonstration and because they're going to be my dinner this week but I'm also going to make some big old lopsided ones to better resemble kadash once shaped these guys should hang out in the fridge for half an hour before grilling but one of the primary characteristics of kadash is that it looks gross and Kua looks famously beautiful I mean it's a grilled meatball so how do we match that aesthetic to me the kkash looked almost pery so I wanted to figure out how I could make hair in meat form the answer pork floss a kind of Chinese pork that's been shredded so finely and dried so thoroughly that it almost resembles cotton or sort of like a meaty drier lint it tastes relatively non-descript so I thought it'd be a good way to give our cloth cadash that nasty aesthetic but of course I wanted to try making it myself I've got 1 and2 lbs of pork tenderloin that I'm cutting into 1 in chunks dropping into some boiling water and gently cooking for about 5 minutes this is going to cause some impurities and scum to rise to the surface that we're going to skim off using our handy dandy scum skimmer discard that nasty looking stuff and then we're going to drain the pork thoroughly wash out the pot refill it with water and thoroughly rinse the pork these excess proteins could cause issues down the line and removing them ensures that we're going to have pork that we could floss with not literally but you know what I mean add the rinsed pork back to 6 cups of clean boiling water walk away then realize that there are two pieces still in the colander dump those out and now we're going to gently simmer the pork with some aromatics four slices of fresh ginger one cinnamon stick and one star anise pod the greens of two roughly chopped green onions and 1 tbspoon each dark soy sauce and for some reason light soy sauce cover this guy up and maintain a bare simmer for 45 to 60 minutes until the pork is relatively tender considering how lean it is and the thickest part of the thickest pieces registered 205° f as you can see the pork is dry but it falls apart easily so now we're going to pick out the pork pieces and put them on a plate discard the other stuff and then we're going to let these dried out little nuggets cool completely before engaging in rather an interesting procedure about a dozen nuggets at a time we're going to smash this pork using a rolling pin I know right seems odd but it actually ends up being very necessary after rolling and rerolling five or six times the meat fibers get stretched and spread to their very limits allowing us to create finer longer shreds of pork which we're going to achieve by grabbing a handful at a time and rubbing it between the palms of our hands repeating until little wisps of pork are as fine as possible after doing this with a full pound and a half of pork which yielded a better forearm workout than any I've ever done on purpose I found that incorporating a thumb into the rubbing motion really got things across the Finish Line faster and why are you laughing once all our pork is shredded as finely as can be we're going to drop it into a walk along with a tablespoon of coconut oil where we're going to gently toast it over medium medum low heat this stuff is pretty pale and mildly flavored so we're going to combine 1/4 teaspoon of Chinese five spice powder with 1 to two teaspoons dark soy sauce drizzle that over top and gently cook drying out the pork over medium low heat for 10 to 15 minutes now this is the exact moment when I realized that I was combining pork with Turkish Cuisine which felt a bit insensitive considering its very large Muslim population so I wanted to see could I make meat floss from meat other than pork I have here a pound and a half of similarly lean ey round beef which going to give the same treatment boiling skimming scumming this time in addition to the soy sauce flavoring with cinnamon thyme cumin bay leaf Rosemary and cloves to bring a slightly more Turkish Vibe same roll Smash and Shred technique some now extremely tired forearms and back to the walk for the same low temperature drying method still adding soy sauce for a bit of color 10 to 15 minutes later and there you have it beef floss I'm going to spread the stuff out evenly on a large rimmed baking sheet while it's still hot so that any remaining moisture evaporates all right there's our hair made for meat while that cools and dries it's time to make some cofta outside I've got all four burners on my grill heating to Max for 10 to 15 minutes or until terrifyingly hot then I'm going to turn the burners all the way down and season the grates using vegetable oil shut down the lid grank the burners back up and let things cure for about 10 minutes then I'm turning the burners down on one side of the grill placing the cofa on the hot side of the grill and Searing for 2 to 3 minutes per side turns out even if you soak your sticks they can still definitely catch on fire so try to place the meat directly over the flame and let the stick hang over the the cooler side of the grill I'm giving these guys a flip and repositioning them so they don't continue to be on fire I'm going to give those another 2 to 3 minutes until I get some good grill marks and then we're scooting things over to the cooler side of the grill where these guys are going to come up to Temp over indirect heat not only is this going to prevent further flare ups it's going to more gently cook the meat taking anywhere from 7 to 12 minutes to reach an internal temperature of 145° f remove from the grill and let rest for 5 to 10 minutes before digging in and what we have here are some very delicious meatballs on a stick and if I know anything about meat and sticks it's the bigger the better so I'm going to do the same procedure here searing the big boys and moving them off the heat to finish cooking this time for more like 15 to 20 minutes that's our completed kofta so now it's time to complete the look rolling it around in our beef floss covering it in what appears to be hair and as far as real life iterations of cartoon foods go I think that we got pretty close it's got the same almost unidentifiable form factor a little sort of dollop on the top the only deeply inaccurate aspect of it is that it actually tastes really really good the beef floss is bring much to the table texture-wise but it's definitely bringing an extra hit of meaty spicy flavor and while it can definitely use some bracing acidic sauce it and about two other of the small ones became my dinner for the evening and became a member of the clean stick Club a club of which I believe your mom is a founding member sorry anyway as always recreating food from The Simpsons is a lot of fun but the BCU is headed to Japan in a couple weeks and we are all ears for your suggestions ideas and requests\n"