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Another Cuban dish for Joe P: Dorado (mahi-mahi or dolphinfish) with black beans and rice and fried boniato slices. Freaking delicious perfect bite!
As usual start with fresh fish!
This particular cow netted 6 pounds of meat so she will fill lots of empty stomachs. She was full of roe which is disappointing but the roe will be eaten. Notice how big the roe is compared to the other fish.
And finally, time to eat. I enlisted the help of mom and dad since I spent the good part of the day fishing and cleaning fish. Mom made the black beans and rice. She taught me how to make black beans (or how she makes them as you can imagine there are a million variations) and the process is somewhat like this: in a pressure cooker put package of beans and fill halfway with water with a couple of garlic cloves, a whole medium onion or finely chopped if you wish, and let cook for about 10 minutes when the cooker gets to steaming. Then find the garlic cloves and whole onion and remove since they've done their job. Add a good bit of olive oil, bacon or lacon, some white vinegar, salt, and a couple of bay leaves. Reduce til it gets to coat a spoon nicely or to your liking, then add a little bit more olive oil and about a teaspoon of sugar and reduce for five more minutes. The fish was just dropped in a bag with flour, salt, and pepper and pan fried in butter. Meanwhile dad sliced up and deep fried the boniato which is the Cuban version of sweet potato for us. Fish also goes well with mashed boniato which I've made with stronger tasting fish like swordfish. Need to do that soon.
I was never a fan of bacalao but if I had to eat it, it would had to be served with boniato for sure. The saltiness and the sweet go extremely well together.
I think that Demosthenes put it best when he said "You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry. For whatever a man's actions are, such must be his spirit."
So I'm gonna cook some salmon.
To this end, of course, we obviously start with a half-pound of bacon; the thick, dry stuff from the butcher counter, baked on a rack for 30 minutes at 350°F.
I've got two pounds of mushrooms here, which I'm gonna wash, stem, and slice the larger ones in halves or quarters. That'd be 0.5ths or 0.25ers for the metric crowd.
Now, in a saucepan, melt 2 tbs of butter, and swirl quite a lot of minced garlic in it until fragrant and moderately brown. How much garlic? More than you think is reasonable. This is gonna get drowned in cream, and cream attenuates the flavor of garlic. 6 cloves, minimum. More if you experience frequent vampire problems.
Turn that to low, and add 1/2 cup white wine, or one of those 187ml airline-sized bottles, which is what I keep on hand for cooking purposes since I use it infrequently. Add 1 cup heavy cream, 1 tbs parsley, and 1 tsp thyme. Simmer until it thickens a bit. Salt & pepper to taste. Stir occasionally, maybe thicken with a touch of flour. But not too thick just yet.
Meanwhile, let's start making a glaze for the fish. 6 oz sour cream, 6 tbs strong mustard, a shallot finely minced (the julienne on the smallest setting, followed by the knife), some black pepper, and 3 tbs capers. I had some coarse-ground mustard on hand, so I added some of that as well, for texture.
Now the bacon is done. Pull it out, and raise the oven to 425°F. Chop the bacon and mix it in with the creamy stuff in the pot. Mix in the cheese(s) of your liking. Maybe a 5oz block of grated asiago.
Asiaaaaaaaagooooooooooh. I'm whispering it gently into your ear. You can feel the warmth of my breath. It arouses feelings which you've not experienced in years. Feelings which you fought mightily to suppress.
Saying it is almost as good as eating it. ASMR for foodies...
Anyway, mix that and the mushrooms together in a couple of cake pans, cover in foil, and toss into the oven. Let that sit for 10 minutes.
Slice the salmon into whatever size portions you desire. Place on a foil-lined baking tray skin side down, and coat with the glaze.
When the timer goes off, stick the salmon into the oven alongside the mushrooms for 10-15 minutes, adjusting in your mind according to the thickness of the fish. Call it 6 minutes per half inch.
Plate, and garnish with the love and affection which is normally reserved for that special bond between a king and his owl.
My first foray into Japanese curry last year was not a massive success. It was delicious, but I'd been attempting to exactly replicate the one specific Katsukarē which introduced me to the genre years ago at a little restaurant in Manhattan. And I failed in that respect.
Trying to precisely duplicate memories of the past is often a recipe for disappointment.
So I started reading more on the subject of Japanese curries in general. And one piece of advice which I kept encountering over and over again was "𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘶𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦-𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘑𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘰."
And so, a fairly low-effort Sunday. This one is a more traditional kaigun karē, literally translated as "navy curry."
Preparation of the curry sauce is easy. Bring 5 cups of water to a low boil, add in the two rather unappetizing-looking but amazing-smelling bricks, and stir / whisk until you have a chunk-free pot of gravy-like liquid.
A pound and a half of cubed "beef for stew" (that tray of mystery meat found at most grocers, consisting of the lean, tough cuts), a half pound of chopped carrots, a pound and a half of chopped gold potatoes, and a whole red onion, cut into eighths.
All that into the slow cooker, and pour the gravy all over. 6 hours on low. Serve with rice.
This one worked really well. It's peasant food, but it ticks so many boxes.
I'm just looking forward to being back in a position where I can actually own an outdoor grill. You suburbanites make me jelly in this regard.
The above post aged well.
It's Memorial Day, when Americans honor those who have given their lives in defense of this nation by consuming beef and alcohol.
It is well-known that the ritual consumption of beef in remembrance of the fallen is originally an Italian custom. The practice is thought to have originated in the late 16th century in Palermo, where each year a day-long celebration known as La Notte della Mucca Vivente (The Night of the Living Cow) commemorates the Bovine Uprising of 1583, when cattle from a nearby farm, under the leadership of a pig which was rumored to walk upon its hind legs and speak fluent Latin*, stormed the Palazzo dei Normanni. Hundreds of Sicilians were gored before the cattle were finally put down by the townspeople, after which their meat was roasted in a feast which lasted for a whole week.
* = That the pig spoke Latin is fiercely contested by contemporary scholars, and this detail is generally considered to be apocryphal. This is not meant to be a Pig-Latin joke, as Latin was still the predominant language of governance and religion in 16th century Sicily.
It is interesting to note that only one person ever claimed to have actually witnessed the cattle rebellion first-hand; a young farmhand named Cosimo Bramante who, by his own admission, had consumed a rather generous quantity of wine on the night in question. Even more interesting is the fact that the farmer's wife would later claim to have witnessed Bramante in flagrante delicto with the very same cattle on that evening. However, the veracity of her testimony is questionable, as she was widely known to to be an opium-user with highly flirtations tendencies. As Bramante had, some days earlier, written in his diary that he had rebuked her amorous advances, many historians suspect that this claim was made falsely, a spiteful attempt to seek revenge against him.
Regardless of the slightly unverifiable nature of the facts, the people of southern Italy continue to celebrate Mucca Vivente each year in late May. And in honor of that glorious custom, I present... an ordinary goddamn hamburger and grilled corn:
Yeah. No high-falutin' haute cuisine tonight. Now that I have a house, in the sort of place where neighbors know one another and kids play in the yards, and I figured I needed to own a grill. So I bought one yesterday.
The flavor palette is deliberately simple here. A basic garlic aioli, colby-jack, and some roasted red pepper. Inspired by a hatch-chili burger I had last week on my way out of Moab, UT. Delish.
I'd forgotten how nice, and how relatively simple, cooking with charcoal can be.
Gotta construct a table to put it on. Thinking butcher block. It'll make a nice addition to the back yard.
That wonderful aroma, when the stars and your recipe have aligned, and you are right there at the physical edge of how much Jambalaya can be prepared in a single batch in this kitchen.
Start by dicing up two bell peppers and one medium onion. Get those into a pot and start them simmering to soften a tad.
2 lbs raw shrimp. Thaw if frozen, peel if shell & tail still on. Work that in a skillet for a few minutes in oil. I worked in three batches. They don’t need to be fully cooked at this point, just “mostly pink.” Toss into the pot.
Slice up 1 bunch of scallion, and into the pot. Ditto several cloves minced garlic and some grated ginger. (I’ve been cheating lately, I have freeze-dried ginger in a bottle.) Also 1 can of pineapple chunks, drained.
Dump in 1 cup of your favorite sweet chili sauce, 1/2 cup coconut milk, a few tbs of coconut aminos (or soy sauce), and about 1tbs cilantro (I used dried.) Mix that up, let it simmer on low heat for maybe 20 minutes. Add crushed red pepper to taste.
As I mentioned a few posts back, we took four lambs to slaughter a couple of weeks ago. Even though these lambs were of the same blood line as the one we had processed last year, I was a little apprehensive because these were raised on different pastures then last go around. We moved earlier this year and the pastures at our new place aren’t nearly as good as the old place…a lot more weeds, a lot less grass. I guess weeds can change the flavor of the meat (at least I’ve heard that about beef cows).
So with a little trepidation I quickly cooked up some of the lamb chops to give the new lamb a test drive.
I didn’t really follow a recipe with these. It’s a simple preparation that is really just salt, pepper and garlic. We had some fresh Rosemary so that made an appearance as well. I sautéed some garlic in butter and olive oil while the skillet was getting stinking hot. The lamb was cooked just a couple minutes per side (these cuts were pretty small). After cooking the lamb, the chops were set aside to rest. I then added more butter and garlic to the pan and sautéed fresh green beans in the drippings. After the beans were done, I splashed some red wine into what was left in the pan and reduced to make a bit of a sauce.
I’m happy to say, this years lamb was every bit as delicious as before. Stonkin good
Thanks little buddy…
@Efini~FC3S, I want to take moment here to reflect upon this specific post, and the various ways in which I truly respect and appreciate it.
I'm a city-boy. Wasn't raised that way, but it's what I have become.
As such, I lack access to things such as land. I do own my home, and the ground which it sits upon, but the size of my lot is about equal to the footprint of a typical ranch-style suburban house. Thus, while I have plenty of squirrels and rabbits and rats, the likelihood that I will ever rear goats (or any other livestock) is vanishingly small.
There was a homeless guy living in the mostly-enclosed space under the front porch when I bought the place, but he's... gone now. Very gone.
The point which I am approaching in a very long and meandering fashion, as though I were a 19th century author who insists upon the use of needlessly florid language which is prolix and didactic in the extreme, to describe even the most ordinary and commonplace subjects, is this:
You raised your own meat.
That is worthy of recognition, praise, and admiration. I will likely never achieve this, and I bow to you, sir.
Peel 1 lb raw shrimp. Set aside on some paper towels to dry.
In a large pot, start with 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth. Raise to a boil, and add 1.5 cups grits. Stir, wait until it comes back to a low boil, then cover and turn off heat.
Put the shrimp into a bowl, sprinkle liberally with Cajun seasoning, toss to coat.
Mix up equal parts honey and dijon mustard. About 1/3 cup total. I put it into a small glass bowl, then set that inside a larger bowl full of hot water, to make it more easily workable.
Once the grits have firmed up a tad, mix in 1 cup buttermilk (I keep powdered buttermilk in the cupboard) and turn the heat to low. Stir. It should be a tad runny at this point. If not, add warm water just a little bit at a time. Toss in 8oz shredded sharp cheddar cheese, and a few ounces of parmesan (it's ok to use the dry powdered stuff in a bottle here) and stir some more.
Put 4oz of butter into a large skillet, and heat on medium. Once it's fully melted and just starting to bubble, toss in the shrimp, arranging them so that they're all flat and touching the skillet. Crank the heat up to high for just a bit until it starts to bubble again, then back down to medium. Cook 3 minutes, flip, and 3 minutes more. Then turn the heat down a bit, and add in the mustard & honey mixture. I also tossed in some chopped fresh parsley. Stir, let simmer for a minute or two, and then plate.
The only thing I'd do differently next time is to start with 2 lbs of shrimp.
Finally did a re-visit of the Pad Thai from earlier this year. Made sure to actually have all of the right ingredients on hand this time.
Used avocado oil for the stir-fry portion in the regular skillet, brought everything together in the large soup pot at the end.
This is a dish where the mise is important, as once the first ingredients hit the pan, it moves quickly. About 60 seconds on high heat in oil for the powdered shrimp, then another 60 for the garlic and pickled daikon, then the bean sprouts and chopped onions.
Toss all that into the pot with the noodles which have previously been drained, then tossed with a mix of tamarind concentrate, fish sauce, soy sauce, and a bit of sugar. Prepare that sauce separately in a small pan so that it all blends together nicely.
Sear the raw shrimp in the skillet, then transfer them as well.
This one worked really well. The daikon, while a bit of a divergence from the proper recipe (it's Korean), worked fabulously, contributing a nice bit of sourness and also some texture.
Getting a jump on the most important holiday of the year, I did a turkey last night. It's a simple fact that legs and breasts cook at different rates and have different ideal donenesses. For the first time in many decades, I cut up the bird rather than cooking it whole. This gave me complete control over the two distinctly different sections. I started with a 20.4# Diestel. The wings were done separately because they're really not welcomed in this event, so I'll cook those later and run them through a meat grinder with the liver, some onions and pickles. The carcass, wing tips, giblets (minus liver), neck, and tail all went into a stock pot the night before for the gravy (the true hero).
04-16-2022, 10:52 AM
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