I called up my dad for a refresher in his culinary vision, and hit Whole Foods to pick up the ingredients I was missing.  In true form, I did a few modifications (notably, RFCS instead of bullion), and whipped it up.

It truly blew me away, the richness of the sauce paired with the creamy texture and the complex, subtle flavor of the scallops was more than I could have hoped for.  My dad told me that when he first made this meal, he repeated it the night after, and the night after that.  If we didn’t have a whopping chicken brining for tomorrows dinner, we’d probably do the same.

A quick love note to RFCS (real freakin’ chicken stock):  I’ve spent a lot of my life really going for bullion.  It’s a great shortcut, and you can get far with it.  It is, however, a shortcut, and you miss out on two things.  The first one that you notice is the lack of the journey.  While more important to the cook than to the guests, this is key to me.  Watching everything I cook come together – from things I can imagine dangling from a tree or clucking merrily underneath one – is meaningful and satisfying.  I’m a ground-up kinda guy, so take it for what it’s worth.  The second thing is umami: proteiny-flavor.  There are two ways to get this flavor, MSG and actual protein.  Most bullion comes with MSG – which gives me the willies (and hives).  Even the ‘natural’ stuff comes with ‘yeast extract’, which is close to the same thing.  I have given up searching for a magic cube that gives a meal the same roundness and satisfying mouthfeel that comes from a well-prepared chicken stock.  Allright, allright, that’s enough.

Flat Leaf Parsley & Scallops

This meal is a composition of three parts.  The bottom is orzo (rice-shaped pasta).  Layered on top of that is a parsley-cream sauce.  Crown jewel: seared scallops.  Orzo is easy, follow directions (boil, drain, serve).  The parsley cream sauce goes as follows:

Take two big bunches of parsley (I did one flat-leaf and one curly-leaf), and chop them up finely.  While chopping, sizzle up some garlic in butter, being careful not to burn it.  Fry the parsley with the garlic for a while, and pour in a few cups of RFCS.  Let that simmer for a while, and add 3/4 cup cream to it.  Mix around and keep the heat going, and then thicken with a good mixture of flour and milk.  Mix the flour and milk together in a small jar, using a spring whisk or similar.  When adding to the sauce pass it through a sieve so that it doesn’t get clumpy.  Keep adding more until it’s the right consistency (I used around 1/2 cup of flour and 1 cup of milk).

Once the sauce is where you want it, get some butter hot in a pan and sear your scallops in it.  I used really nice scallops and so I let ‘em be a bit rare.  It doesn’t take much time to get these suckers done… better a bit underdone than a bit overdone.

Then, layer, serve, and enjoy.  Garnish with a sprig of parsley!

We had some chicken limbs left over from a chicken stock endeavor from last week. Tonight was the last night to cook ‘em, and we had been dreaming of hot wings. We poked around the web looking for recipes, and the resounding theme was surprising: Coke, as in Coca Cola. Neither of us is really into soda, but we decided, tonight is the night to go crazy. We simmered and grilled almost 5 lbs of meat over the course of an hour, cleaning up the kitchen from the weeks’ messes along the way. It turned out so juicy, delicious, and caveman-satisfying that we barely managed to save two legs for lunch!

This is a meal that anyone can cook, and it’s pretty near impossible to screw up. Here’s the basics, adapted from allrecipes.com (we didn’t have two cups of Louisiana-style hot sauce!):

Grab a cast-iron skillet that will fit most/all of your meat (we had ~5 lbs of wings, legs, thighs, etc.), and pour in enough coke to half-submerge everything (about 4 cups for us). Then pour in about half that amount of mixed hot sauces, orange juice, apple cider vinegar, a touch of orange zest, and some lemon juice. We had more hot sauces, and juices, less vinegar, but cooking isn’t exactly scientific in this household. We’ve got plenty of science and precision going on outside of the kitchen, no reason to bring it in!

Bring the slurry&meat to a gentle simmer on your stove, and move it out onto a warm gril (yes, put the skillet on the grill!). Keep the side the pan is on a bit hotter, and swap meat from the skillet onto the grill, rotating about every 10 minutes for a bit more than an hour. All of our meat didn’t quite fit into the skillet, so we had half on the grill, half in the pan, which worked out great.

Serving and eating was the other half of the fun: Erik and I ate off of newspaper, with a bowl of ’slop’ (the sauce) each. Don’t put out forks like we did, you won’t need them. Dive in, and never look back. Cleanup was a breeze!

yum!

Left: just pan 2 Right: total mixture

Pan 1:

onions

garlic

mushrooms

eggplant

spices (pepper…. allspice…)

RFTS

milk

Cook these in this order (waiting after the garlic, spices, RFTS for timing).

Pan 2:

chicken

spinach

spices (nutmeg…)

Cook for 15 minutes with only the water of the spinach.

Place contents of pan 2 in pie crust, cover with contents of pan 1, and close crust.

Bake at 425 for 30 minutes.

]]> http://letsgetfat.net/2010/01/pot-pie/feed/ 0 http://letsgetfat.net/2009/12/lamb-cutlets-with-avocado-mint-sauce/ http://letsgetfat.net/2009/12/lamb-cutlets-with-avocado-mint-sauce/#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:10:49 +0000 Dan http://letsgetfat.net/?p=158

I recently returned from an adventure race in Abu Dhabi,  which was a blast.  Not only was the scenery and experience out-there and wild, they wined and dined us (well, at least dined) like royalty.  In fact, I believe some royalty may have been present at some of these events!  They did a lot of things right in the cooking department and it’ll take me a few more weeks of thinking to sort out some of the more elaborate dishes they had!

One that really struck me was a grilled lamb cutlet dish that was served with a bizarre mint sauce.  Checking my surroundings (terraformed desert in the middle-east) a few times just to be sure, there was definitely avocado in with the mint!  The little chunks of avocado probably came from a few block away from my house in Santa Barbara.  It was an inspired combination, one that I had to repeat.

So we did!

We started with about a one and a quarter pounds of lamb cutlets ($17.99/lb, really?).  I was certain I had to make this dish, so cost exited the picture rapidly.  Since Erik had such a great time braising meat for his Day-Off Stroganoff, I decided to try my hand at it.  First I rubbed salt and ground pepper onto the meat.  Then, I sauteed a shallot, some garlic, and a few bay leaves in bacon grease, and covered that with enough chicken stock to cover most of the meat (eyeball it, don’t add the meat yet!), we used 4 cups.  Then add a spash of red wine and bring it to a boil.  Remove from heat, and add in the meat.  Put it in an oven at about 250°F for 20-30 minutes.  We’re not trying to cook anything through, here, just trying to infuse some good flavors in the meat.

Braising in RFCS and Red Wine

While the meat is braising in the oven, get started on the avocado/mint sauce.  Erik (the Guaco-man of the house) used 3 large (unfortunately not-quite-ripe) avocados, a big bunch of mint, some green onions, and 2 jalapeños the juice of a lemon and a half.  Kinda like a minty guacamole.  Then I made it gooier with olive oil and extra lemon juice, the texture is pretty important here.  It should be more like a sauce, and less like a guacamole.

Caramelizing Onions

With the leftover braising juices, I made about two cups of quinoa, which I topped with caramelized onions.

More Seasoning!

Then we simply sliced the cutlets into singlets, and brushed on a mixture of olive oil, minced rosemary, salt, and pepper.  We grilled the singlets hard and fast.  We liked them pretty rare, and enjoyed the incredible quality of the meat.

Grilling the Cutlets

Yes, the $17.99/lb was worth every penny.

Yes! We got to eat that!

I think we did the grand cooks at the Park Rotana Hotel one better.

Funky Fungi

These funky fungi remind me of home; their earthy (Erik jokingly says manure-y) aromas fill the house and help to warm the frigid confines of our poorly insulated abode.  I bought 3 pounds, not really knowing what I was going to do with most of them (they’re great for breakfast with eggs, but I had to have them that night).  Rummaging around the house, I decided on polenta and bread as a double-hitter starch, because that’s what we had.  Also, because it’s delicious.

Frying Polenta

Polenta’s no problem, just slice and fry.  Chanterelles can be a bit tricksy.  Don’t get them wet; just blot them with a paper towel or brush to get the chunks of forest off of them.  I’ve never bought ones that were so contaminated that they had to be washed and meticulously dried, but you may have to go there.

I like to slice them length-wise, preserving their awesome shapes, but also allowing them to be a bit more bite-sized.

Slice 'em length-wise

Simmer the cleaned, sliced chanterelles slowly with some garlic, and serve with your choice of red wine and some kind of starch.  The polenta was amazing.

This one’s a simple one, but it’s just too good to leave it unwritten!

Chanterelles with Polenta and Fresh Bread

Who can’t warm-up to a holiday where we stuff food inside of food and celebrate? Even the bird gets fat before you consume it. This year we decided to put pig inside of pig as a light appetizer and drop a 13 pound bird into 4 gallons of peanut oil (for a crispy outside and tender loving goodness inside) as our main course accompanied by the usual suspects, mashers, sour-apple stuffing, cranberry sauce, and lots of friends. Big shout to all those who joined, we love having you at the Mesa (and Al you are always welcome to crash on the couch).

Inspired by some great American BBQ’ers over at BBQ addicts, I had to build my own Bacon Explosion. Besides, how does one top the BFTE? Last year’s pulled pork followed by a Turducken by Dominic and Joao was a two-day event complete with Dr. Furia’s from scratch Sweet Potato (“This must be where pies go when they die”) Pie, Dr. Hofheinz’s supra-dense sour dough bread, and an engagement announcement from our favorite expatriates Markus and Katya (now helping McKinsey take over the world and educating all those Germans on American Real Estate).

The Bacon Blast

I started in on the bacon lattice with some quality pig, 4 pounds (2lbs per Blast) of black forest bacon, then spread my favorite dry-rub spices (New Mexico red chile, garlic powder, S &P, brown sugar, cayenne pepper…) and topped all that with just over 3 pounds (1.5 per) of mild Italian sausage (ground by the butcher). Check out the weave!

After adding some crispy chunks of fried bacon, and pouring some spicy BBQ sauce it was time for the roll. Be sure to pay attention and keep the seam facing down so the bacon doesn’t blast out.

I pulled out the ruler to get some idea of how long to cook these duders…the BBQ addicts suggest 1 hour per inch (to reach an internal temp of 165 F).

After preparing two of these I had to go for run. My timing worked out well; I got back just as the Gents were assembling the Turkey Fryer and performing their volume and flame check.

With both bacon blasts on the grill (low indirect heat) Joao shot the turkey full of seasonings, coated with a an egg batter for some tasty crispy skin later, and slowly submerged it in 350 deg. F oil.

An hour later (excuse me, 45.5 minutes later -Thanks Joao for the arithmetic lesson 3.5 minutes per pound at 13 pounds is 45.5 minutes) we pulled the Turkey out of the liquid oven and gave the bacon blasts their final Maple Syrup glaze.

I lost count officially, but I think 17 err, maybe 18 of us managed to consume about 10 pounds of Turkey and 7 pounds of pig. Thanks everybody for a great time. Any ideas for next year?

My mom used to make this spectacularly showy and delicious dish as an appetizer for parties and such.  With sufficiently many, it made a great light (ha!) dinner along with some tabbouleh we made for lunches during the week.

This meal has an interesting mathematical property, there have to be more heads of garlic than heads to feed, or else there’s just not enough to go around.  I actually got comments the next day that I smelled like garlic…  We joke about this around the house, but apparently it actually happens.

The recipe couldn’t be simpler, fry some (1.5 heads per head) garlic (don’t burn it, please…) in peanut oil, coat the shrimp in corn starch and fry them.  Toss it all together with some salt, and enjoy the whole damn animal.  Yes, you eat the eyeballs, and the juicy, creamy gutsies.

Make sure you don’t get shot in the eye with the peanut oil!

We loved having Erin’s company, and it was cool to have someone dive into a big crunchy sea-creature with as little hesitation and as much enjoyment as Erik and I.  She also helped out with the final plate-up and photography.  Here’s her rendition:

The tabbouleh & hummus are something special as well, and we’ll get a full writeup of that later.

As far as quantities, we did the following:

• 3 heads garlic, chopped finely
• 1/3 cup peanut oil for frying
• 1 lb head-on shrimp with the pokey nose cut off
• A lot of corn starch
• 1 tablespoon salt

Fry garlic slowly separately, fry prawns coated in corn starch pretty hard in more oil, toss together with salt and garlic, EAT!

Alex first made this meal for me on a rough night in my love life, and it blew my mind.  It’s one of those non-guilty pleasures (I don’t believe in guilt) that I really want to make a few times a month.  I’ve made it myself just twice, and every time it gets better.  The flavor is so complex, intense, and round that I have no choice but to experience it fully in the moment.  It was a great choice on Alex’s part to clear my head. The key is having the mix of meat, still steaming, with chocolatey-spicy-sweet molé, and mellow beans.  Ideally, I’d love to make everything myself from scratch, but hey, I don’t really want to start growing corn and raising cattle!

I’ve made it with a variety of different molé bases, but the most recent one took the cake.  It’s a paste sold (exclusively?) at Santa Cruz market in Santa Barbara, but you can probably find it most anywhere.  What you’re looking for is a consistent, thick, black paste that reeks of chocolate and chili.  If it’s covered in oil, or has a chalky, chunky texture, you’re headed for mixing and flavor disaster.  Eventually, I’ll make my own.  Until then, I’ll stick to it.

The sauce is super simple, start with (1 or 2) caramelized onions (duh), and add the molé paste (1 cup).  Slowly add RFCS and water until it’s a good consistency (probably 2-3 cups or more).  Throw in a few handfuls of sultanas and let the whole thing simmer for a while.  At the very end, slice up some corn tortillas, and throw those in.  I made my own, and they were absolutely wonderful, but that’s another story.  Sprinkle some cilantro on top for garnish and a friendly fresh flavor.

Marinate the meat in 1 part lime/lemon juice, 2 parts hard alcohol (I used bacardi rum), and 4 cloves crushed garlic for every lemon.  Let it sit for at least an hour in the fridge.  Grill it nice and hot, so it’s still rare, but has a smokey, good-natured grill texture to it.

The beans are, well, cooked pintos.  Do ‘em from a can, or do ‘em for real.  I un-canned them, this time!  I like to throw in some caramelized celery for good measure.

This one I can barely stop eating…

With Dan out Adventure Racing the world in “NorCal”, and me plowing through my Green Chile Stock pile at home I was on a mission for some culinary inspiration… I tried tapping my sister, Sheila, Executive chef at Jax Fish House. Unfortunately, the chef was busy so I ventured into cookbook land. I remembered reading an LA times article reviewing Thomas Keller’s new cookbook, so I cruised on over to Chaucer’s Bookstore (my local stand-in for the Tattered Cover) and threw down. The book is super dope, and in pretty plain language serves up serious doses of humble-pie. It took me 3 days to execute the Braised Beef Stroganoff. A day convincing my butcher to cut me some boneless beef chuck (as recommended by T. Keller) and in the end I bought the bone-in short ribs, another day braising my beef and forgetting to start culturing my Creme Fraiche, and another day cutting parchment paper lids and cheesecloth sachets. A sense of satisfaction flowed over me as we enjoyed this meal, but I still feel like I have a lot to learn.

Braising Sauce:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 yellow onion (sliced)
• 1 Bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon (Twin Fin Cab for like 7 bucks)
• Handful of baby carrots sliced
• 1 Large Leek (only use the white and the partially green)
• 4 shallots sliced thin
• White mushrooms ~1/2 lb (wiped and sliced)
• 3 Thyme sprigs (fresh)
• 6 Parsley sprigs (fresh)
• 2-3 Bay leaves
• Black pepper
• 3 large cloves of Garlic

Combine all of these ingredients in a pot and reduce the wine to a glimmer~20min.

The Beef Braise:

You basically need to double the volume of your braising sauce, so here goes:

• the other 1/2 of the yellow onion (sliced)
• your other handful of baby carrots (sliced)
• 1 Large Leek (still only using the white and partially green portions)
• 2-3 Garlic cloves smashed (you can leave the skin on)
• 3 Thyme Sprigs
• 2 Bay Leaves
• 5-6 cups of RF Beef Stock (I used RF Lamb Stock a bit milder in flavor…Next time I’ll use RFBS)
• Cheese Cloth (cut to fit easily over your pot)
• Parchment paper for -you guessed it- a parchment paper lid (I can’t say I am a true believer yet, but it is meant to strike a balance between a full lid locking in moisture and a lid-off drying the shit out of your meat)
• Flour, enough to generously cover the meat
• 3-4 lbs of Beef Short ribs
• Canola Oil
• S & P

Heat up the oil and brown the beef, 3-5 min per side. You don’t need to “cook” the beef at this step, it is going to see some heat later on. Add the vegis to your wine reduction and toss. Dampen and ring-out the cheese cloth and lay it over the vegi base to make a bed for the beef (this is totally not necessary, but I dig executing these over-the-top-methods) to keep the vegis from sticking to the beef. Add your RF Beef Stock such that the beef is just covered by the liquid. Put on your partchment lid and stick the whole thing in the oven at 325 deg. for ~2 hours.

After the two hours are up, the meet needs to cool with the braising sauce. Remove the beef, and strain the sauce to get rid of the vegis. Pour the strained sauce back over the meat and let everything cool off before sticking it in the fridge for the next day.

Creme Fraiche

Start your creme now or at least a day before you want to make the sauce.

• 1 Tbl Cultured Buttermilk
• 1 cup Heavy Cream
• 1 bowl
• 1 room at 70 deg F
• 12-18 hours

Combine buttermilk and heavy milk in a bowl. Place bowl in warm room to let the culture grow. Grow for 12-18 hours. Or if you forget to prepare your Creme Fraiche the day before you need it, run on over to TJ’s and pick some up, here is what to look for.

The Big Day: Cream Sauce

Ingredients:

• 2 lb Crimini Mushrooms (Finely process 1 lb and keep the other for the finishing touches below)
• 2 Tbl Butter
• 1/2 Yellow onion (sliced)
• 3 Cups Heavy Cream
• 1 Sachet
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 3 thyme sprigs
  • 10 black pepper corns
  • 1 garlic clove smashed and peeled
• 1 Cup Creme Fraiche

Process the boomers. Melt butter and saute onions until they are translucent ~10 min. Add processed boomers and cook until the liquid is gone ~15 min. Pour in the heavy cream and throw in the sachet. Simmer for 20-30 min.Discard the sachet. Purey the sauce in a blender and return the mixture into the pan. Pour in the creme fraiche and stir. The suace will be thick. You can set aside on low heat while you boil the pasta, saute another pound of boomers, chop some parsley and finish off the meat.

Finishing touches + the meat

Cook up your favorite pasta to your desired texture. Keep a cup of the cooked pasta water in case you want to thin the sauce a little. Slice up the other pound of boomers. Heat up some canola oil and butter. Brown the boomers each side for ~5 min. Set aside. Pull the meat out of the fridge. I chose to liberate the meat from the bone and save the bones for another reduction/braising. I think it would also be cool to serve the dish with the bones, but it is your call. heat up some more butter and add a little of the braising sauce, then caramelize the beef chunks. Toss the beef chunks in the oven ~250 deg. for ~10min to warm them throuh. Chop up some fresh parsley for garnishing and plate it up. I hope you enjoy!

Lassi + Wild Rice + Chili Lamb + Pumpkin

Lots of the folks around here have mixed feeling about lamb.  The main complaint appears to be the smell.  Lamb has a distinct smell; but with fresh, good lamb, this is not a turn-off.  Leave lamb (even cooked!) out for a while and you’ll get more than you bargained for.

Indian lamb is cooked slow, in a flavorful sauce.  Any hint of the lamb smell is absent in the tender morsels of juicy meat.  The key to tenderness is to do the initial cooking very, very slowly.  Turn the heat down so the whole mix is barely bubbling, and don’t rush it!  You can tell it’s done by slicing a big chunk open, but pay attention mostly to the consistency of the meat.  Poke it routinely to get a feeling for the different levels of doneness.

This lamb dish (adapted from the Best Ever Indian cookbook) is marinated in a yogurt+spice mixture, then sautéed with onions, and garnished with red & green chilis, and cilantro/coriander.  We like it spicy!

We also made a pineapple-banana lassi (yogurt-shake) to cool off from the dish.

The rice is a family secret, for now…

Chili Lamb

The Lamb:

• Tender lamb, sliced along the grain in longish slivers
• Yogurt
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp ground cardamom
• Crushed garlic & grated ginger (I forgot the ginger tonight…)
• 3 big onions
• Some water/lamb stock

Get the lamb marinating while you get the onions golden brown.  Add the lamb to the onions and let it simmer hot for a bit, to get the lamb warm (but not cooked).  Add some water, only enough to get most of the lamb covered.  Cover, let simmer on very low for 10 minutes or so.  Uncover and turn up the heat to start reducing.  We separated most of liquid into a separate pan and fiercely reduced that.

Demi

The Rice:

Hah!  We’ll teach this when you’re good and ready!  For now, don’t undercook the wild rice, and don’t overcook the basmati.  Add peas if you like.

Wild Rice

The Lassi:

Lassis are really easy and satisfying.  Add lots of yogurt (full fat, of course), some fruit, sugar if necessary, water or milk if you used thick yogurt.

Also, martinis make a dandy cooking buddy.

Strong Drink