Dateline: April 28, 2020 Indian food again! YEAH!

I do love Indian food, there are very few dishes that I don't like or wouldn't eat a second or third time.  Tonight's menu is Rasedar Jinga, or shrimp in dark sauce, from Madhur Jaffery's Indian Cooking.

I really like this recipe because it is tasty, first and foremost, but it is also easy and relatively quick to make.

To go with it, I am making jeera aloo, cauliflower with cabbage, and a relish/salad, with beets, yogurt and spices.  I had some frozen naan so that will stand in for some rice.

spices and ginger garlic paste browning

tomatoes and tumeric now in

finished with shrimp and cilantro

We had a zoom happy hour with some friends prior to dinner and in order to not over cook the shrimp, I let the sauce come to a boil, then added the shrimp and turned off the heat during the call. Worked great.  I just brought the pot up to a simmer before bringing to the table.

Little potatoes were steamed in the instant pot then spiced up in a cleaned inner pot and lightly fried.

finished taters

cauliflower cooking down

I cut the cauliflower up into tiny florets, sliced the cabbage into ribbons, and cut a jalapeno up into thin strips.  Into the pot went some ghee and cumin and mustard seeds and a pinch of asafetida.  When the seeds started popping, in when the veggies.  Stir around and then I added a cube of chicken stock and let them mingle until cooked

beets, ready to eat

The 2 beets were steamed in the instant pot as well and then after 25 min or so, the skins will slip right off when cool.  I cut into little cubes, added 1/4 c plain yogurt and a tsp of salt.  In a sauce pan, I heated up some ghee and added mustard seeds, cumin seeds and some asafetida and then poured it over beets. Mix and serve.

Note:  I think without the happy hour interruption, the sauce would have been thicker, but in the future, I would hold the shrimp for the duration of the hiatus while the sauce was left uncovered on simmer.  I'd add the shrimp and cook for an additional 5 minutes until cooked through.  I would have a clinging sauce and perfectly cooked shrimp

Dateline: April 26, 2020 Pastrami, yes please

I found this guy on youtube PressureLuck, who does pastrami in an instant pot, in a freakin' instant pot.  So I am going to try it out for myself.  I have a nice hunk of corned beef in the fridge that I will follow his recipe with.

Ingredients

2.5 - 5 lb store bought corned beef, flat or point

Rub

3 T ground black pepper

2 T ground coriander

1 T paprika, I used smoked dolce

1 T dark brown sugar, I used chopped up jaggery

1/2 T garlic powder

1/2 T onion powder

1 t rubbed sage

1/2 t mustard powder

Rinse the corned beef very, very well, for at least 1 minute under cold water.  In your instant pot, add 1 cup of water and a trivet with handles.  Position the beef with fat cap up into the instant pot and set to pressure cook on high for 1 hour.

When the hour is up, use a 15 minute natural release, then remove the meat and pat dry. Let the meat rest for approximately 10 minutes so that it is cool to the touch.

Put all rub ingredients into a bowl, jar, receptacle of some kind, and mix or shake to combine well.

Put the rub on a plate that is large enough to hold the whole piece of meat.

Place meat onto plate, fat cap down, and press into the rub.  Flip the meat over, and cover completely with the rub.  Get into any valleys or divots.  The rub is what provides the pastrami taste.  

Cut 2 pieces of aluminum foil.  Place the rub-covered meat into the center and wrap tightly.  Wrap a second time so that juices or spices do not escape.

Refrigerate for minimum of 12 hours or up to a maximum of 2 days.

An hour before you are going to cook the pastrami in the oven, remove it from the fridge and leave on the counter.  Set oven to 275° F with rack in the center, and a second rack with a drip pan below.  Remove outermost foil piece, and keep the meat on the other piece.  Using the foil around the meat, make a basket like structure to leave the top exposed, but there are foil sides to catch the drippings.  

Let cook at this temperature for 1 hour.  Remove from oven and place brisket on a cutting board and let rest for 10 minutes before cutting.  

Please slice against the grain into however thick or thin you want.  A very sharp knife is essential.

so much promise

slices

waiting for the bread to be done

So yummy.  You've got to try!


Note:  Next time I do this, I will hunt for a point corned brisket.  The extra fat will help keep everything really juicy. 

Dateline: April 24, 2020 Preserved Lemon Chicken..Redux

I have been thinking about this chicken and the wonderful stock the bones will make for a while now.  So, when I finally could get a whole chicken, it was numero uno on the list of what to do!

I am roasting the chicken at 300° F and have coated the skin with a crisping mixture of olive oil, 1/2 t salt, 1/2 t baking soda, 1/4 t black pepper, and about 1.5 T olive oil.  But we are at the end of the prep.  Let's start at the beginning.

I am using my preserved lemons, not Rich's, so there may be differences there as well.  Too many variables to be a "real" experiment.  I took one out of the jar and cut it into quarters, scraping the pulp from the rind.

I pulled out all pits and chopped the pulp finely, putting it into a small bowl.  And then cut each quarter peel in half. 

preserved pulp, chopped

single lonely clove of fermented garlic

To the bowl with the pulp, I added olive oil and a large fermented in honey garlic clove, smashed and finely chopped.  Mixed it vigorously and tasted it.  It needed salt, believe it or not.  I had tasted the lemons when removing the one from the jar and found it really salty.  I guess mixed with other things tames it a bit.

I also added with the salt some black pepper.  This was mixed again and used as a rub on cauliflower "steaks" that will roast with the chicken.  I had some brussel sprouts and I just used olive oil, salt and pepper along with 1/2 a red onion I had in the fridge.

cauliflower with pulp and garlic

purple sprouts with onion

preserved rinds, in eighths 

rubbed down and ready for sauna

Take chicken and run a finger under the skin of the breast from the neck as well as from the cavity.  Also loosen the skin around the drumsticks and thighs.  The peel eighths are now positioned under the skin.  4 on each side of the chicken.

Use the above mentioned at the top "crisping" rub on the skin of the chicken and pop it into a 300° F oven with convection on.

The chicken was in the oven for about 1.5 hrs, we were on a zoom video call with a bunch of former students, who at this point are our kids.  The chicken was succulent and juicy as well as well cooked.  It cut up like a dream, just the tip of the knife in a joint, and it came apart!

finished bird

finished cauliflower

finished sprouts

This is a keeper.  The entire meal was really delicious.  I love preserved lemon in savory dishes.  It even came through in the cauliflower.

This is going into the normal rotation.

The only point that I want to make is that the skin was not as crisp as I had hoped it to be.  I think, in the future, I will boost the oven temp up to a higher level, maybe 400° - 450° for the last 10-15 minutes in order to crisp up the skin to a satisfying level.  That said, the flavor of the lemons really came through.  I am repeating myself, but it was soooooo good.

Dateline: April 22, 2020 First Foray into Smoking this season

I had a big ol' hunk of pork shoulder that was waiting for the first warmish day so I could open up the smoker and figure out how it's doing this year.

Last night, I made a rub for the meat, 2 parts kosher salt, 2 parts ground black pepper, 1 part each picante smoked paprika, dolce smoked paprika, chipotle chili powder, ancho chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, coriander, and 1/2 part ground cinnamon.

I put the pork into a huge plastic bag and rubbed it down with worcestershire sauce and then covered it in the rub.  Wrapped it up in the plastic bag and put into the refrigerator over night.

At about 7:15 this morning, I went out to start up the smoker.  It started with such great promise, fantastic smoke, then nothing!  I thought perhaps I hadn't emptied the fire pot, so I did that and started the cycle again.  Same thing, beautiful smoke, then nothing.  It did heat up to 225° F, so I put the meat in around 7:40.

At 11:40, I put in the probe thermometer, and took this photo.  The internal temperature was 101°F.

In this photo, below, taken at 2:30, you can clearly see the bark developing, and the internal temperature is 145° F.  To the left of the pork is an experiment.  I am trying to see if smoking butternut squash is worth the effort!  There are 3 small organic butternut squashes cut in half and seeded in an aluminum pan.  Will report on the outcome of the experiment later.

Originally, I thought dinner would be around 7, that has now gone by the wayside.  If we are lucky, this will be up to 190°-195° F sometime around 9 or 10 pm.  This is partly due to high winds and it's freezing out there today.  The prediction of the temperature was to be in the 60's.  Ha, I'm luck if it is over 45°!  App indicates it is 49°, but I am not buying that at all.  The weather did get the sun correct.

When it hits the stall, I will make the decision to finish on the smoker, or wrap, and pull inside to finish in the oven.  That should be in a couple of hours.  Too cold to sit outside and watch the traffic go by.  So, I sit by the window and watch the wind cruelly tear the petals from my yellow tulips!

Thumbs twiddling, it's now 4 pm and the pork is at 157° F, getting closer.  And suddenly, as I am typing, we get smoke!  I can't figure this out.  I may have to, on another nice day, break it down and see what is causing the smoking issue.  From what I read on online, it is geared to produce smoke about every 10 minutes or so, as the pellets in the burn pot are replenished.  I'm not so sure that is my issue.  Maybe the auger is not running correctly and I've got to play with it!  Manual, we don't need no stinkin' manual!  Crash, oops, I think I just broke it.  Is my usual MO.  But wait, more smoke...could it be that the pellets in the hopper were old/damp/ and not burning right, and when the new pellets fell into place, since they were not outdoors all winter....nah, couldn't be that simple!  (But secretly, I think that was it.)

However, there is a nice bark developing.  The smoked butternuts look pretty good too.  I'll take them off in a little bit.

I made up my mind, at or just before sundown, I am going to wrap the shoulder and bring it and put it into the oven to work it's way through the stall.  I don't want to be baby sitting this through the predicted cold and possibly rainy weather this evening.

6 pm, 173° F.  Turned smoker to shutdown, and wrapped up the pork in her peach butchers paper and put her to bed in the oven at 220° F, no convection.

Oh, the anticipation of that porky goodness tomorrow.

It will be ordering out tonight!

It is now morning, and I woke up at 3 am with a start and checked the temp of the pork shoulder.  I don't know what the deal is/was, but it rode up to, but not quite hitting the 190° temp, and then slipped down to 182° and rose and fell all night, but never, ever hit the 190° mark.  Screw it!  I took it out and wrapped it in more butchers paper and towels and put it in a box on the deck.  This morning, around 11 am, I brought it in, removed the towels, and that sucker was still warm!  I put it into the fridge in a plastic bag so that grease didn't get all over everything, and we will eat it tonight with green beans, mashed smoked butternut squash and a salad.

I have taken the pork out of the fridge and sliced a bit for dinner.

in all its cold, barky goodness

I had a bit of bark on my finger and I tasted it.  Whew, it was spicy, but delicious.  I had a taste of a small piece of the meat with the bark, OMG, a little slice of heaven.  Notice that there is not much, if any, smoke ring.  I have to explore why that happened, in the meantime, it is too chilly outside today to be lying down and banging on a smoker. Tomorrow's another day!  (Back of hand to forehead.)

sliced

I have cut up the string beans, as well as some garlic, shallots, and dried orange rind.  These aromatics will be sauteed a bit and then the beans will go in with some chicken stock and perhaps some tomatoes.  Sauteed until tender.

The butternut squash needs to be cooked some more, so that can be popped into the microwave and then pureed.  I can add some chicken stock, as well some butter.

Celery, cukes, tomatoes, carrots, and red onion will round out the salad dressed with lemon juice and olive oil.  I'm salivating already.  

Dinner time

Note:  The smoked butternut squash was a wash.  A little smokey, but not what I had hoped for, not quite sure what it was that I was imagining, but what came out was not it.  The green beans were great and the pork was delicious, but a bit dry.  I think the "extra" oven time dried it out, even with the propitious fat cap, it was dry.  Now, I am ok with that, as I am not a slather on the sweet bbq sauce and then rave how delicious the meat is.  Who can tell with all that sugary crap on it?  Rant finished!

Dateline: April 20, 2020 Steak, Steak, baby

I asked Bill a question, a simple one, really, "What would you like for dinner?  Steak or Chicken?"
"STEAK" came back the reply in a nanosecond!

So out came the sous vide circulator, a plastic bin, 2 strip steaks from the freezer, and the propane torch.  All set for a post zoom call dinner.

I used the Joule app timing suggestions for strip steaks about 1.5 inches thick and cooked to 129°F.  Exactly 1.5 hours once the water had heated up.  That gave me time to season the steaks with salt, pepper, and garlic powder before vacuum sealing them.  I took the steaks out of the freezer earlier in the day and they were thawed when I put them into the water at around 5:00 pm.  It really doesn't matter, if they were frozen, you could still cook them sous vide but you would need about 2 hours.

I love cooking steaks sous vide.  There is no guessing about temperature, no unnecessary poking of the meat with a thermometer to check temperature, it's easy peasy and fool proof.  You can reverse sear them if you'd like.  You would do this especially if you didn't have a blow torch.  Come to think of it, you could do it even if you did have a torch.  I prefer to use a torch.  I get a nice brown coat on the exterior of the steak without the brown ring on the interior.  I have grown to hate that damn ring.

after torching

cut and you can see, no ring!

To round out the steak dinner, I made potatoes "baked" in the microwave, 5 mins in a brown paper bag, turn bag over, 5 more minutes, perfect baked potatoes! And I made asparagus and broccoli with onions, garlic, hot pepper flakes, chicken stock and a bit of pancetta and a few toasted pine nuts.  Finishing the meal with a salad of onions, tomatoes, celery and cucumbers dressed with sherry vinegar and Spanish olive oil

veggie

salad

Dinner was absolutely perfect.  The perfect amount of meat, Bill and I split one of the steaks about 1/3, 2/3 along with baked potato, veggies and salad....I will not eat until breakfast tomorrow!  Well, maybe some fruit later tonight!

If you have never cooked sous vide, I strongly suggest you visit Sous Vide Everything.  This YouTube channel is great.  It is 3 guys conducting experiments cooking various foods using the sous vide method.  Not only is it informative, it is hilarious.  These guys taught me not to fear sous vide and to relish the torch!  I have cooked lots of stuff using the sous vide method.  You do not need a vacuum sealer, you can use the water displacement method and everything will be fine.

In fact, the new 8 quart duo crisp instant pot has a sous vide function.  So you don't need a circulator either.  I have only used the instant pot to make yogurt using the sous vide function.  Most sous vide circulators now have an accompanying app to help you choose temperatures and time lengths that suit your tastes.  Chef Steps is a great app for figuring things out with this technique.

Be fearless and experiment!  What have you got to lose?  One iffy meal?  Small price to pay in order to expand your horizons!

Cheers.

Dateline: April 18, 2020 Jonesing for Chinese food

Unfortunately for us, there are no Chinese places doing take out near us... insert sad face here.  So I had to rummage through the freezer and found some baby back ribs.

I just finished rubbing the ribs with a bbq-type rub, chili powders, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and a touch of sugar.  I put them into the oven at 350° F with the convection on.  In an hour, I will check on them.  I glazed the ribs with a mix of oyster sauce, hoisin, and chili crisp all mixed together and smeared on the ribs before kicking the temp up to 500°F for 8 minutes.

To round out the rest of the meal, I foraged through the refrigerator and grabbed a bunch of veggies, kale, sweet peppers, scallions, broccoli, onions, garlic, ginger, and preserved tian jin vegetable.  Everything got chopped up and is waiting for the ribs to be almost done before I stir fry everything together.

scallion greens, onions, broccoli and peppers

tian jin vegetable, rinsed

ginger slivers, scallion whites, sliced garlic

kale, chopped

rice flakes

Before I oil my wok and start stir frying, I will need to soak the flakes for 5 minutes, then boil for a few minutes then add to the stir fry with veggies and condiments.

Frying the aromatics

Adding the veggies to the mix

The finished product with the rice flakes

As a salad to go with this is spicy cucumber, Chinese style.

cukes in their spicy bath

To flavor the dish, I will add a tablespoon or 2 of pixian paste, some chili oil, some lao gan ma chili crisp along with some chicken broth, a glug of shaoxing, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and a splash of black vinegar.  The rice flakes soaked up all of the lovely juices so there was little to no sauce left in the wok.

top, cut up ribs, middle stir fry, bottom cukes

The boxes are to hold our ipads as we have a zoom dinner/feast with a friend in a few minutes.

Dateline: April 16, 2020 What to do with all of the stock that I made last night

I made 2 batches of stock last night, chicken and then pork with veggies.  For the chicken, I put 1 quart into a large ice cube tray and froze over night.  Unmolded and put into a plastic bag in the freezer.  The other 1.5 quarts are in the fridge.  I use chicken stock all the time, so it will be gone soon. 

The pork and veggie stock was done in the instant pot slow cooker over night and turned into a bean, parmesan, veggie stew for dinner and eating over the next couple of days.

I used this slow cooker white-bean parmesan soup recipe.  It is easy, and smelled great all day long!
I also happened to have a fennel bulb, some leeks, and collards that needed cooking! The recipe is able to be modified easily.

I de-stemmed the greens and chopped into spoon-sized chunks, I sliced the fennel thinly after taking out the core, and cut up the light green and white part of the leeks into quarter rings.  This happens because I cleaned the leeks the Jacques Pepin way but dividing the whole leek into quarters without cutting thru the root end and running it under water to dislodge any of the silt/sand/dirt that may be there.  In addition, I used a vidalia onion cut in half through the root and then sliced perpendicular to the cut before cutting crosswise into smaller chunks.

fennel

onion chunks

mirepoix

collards

In addition, I also chopped up some garlic cloves.

I first needed to pay attention to the beans, I used Yellow Eye Lady Beans.  (Don't ask, because I don't know.)  Since I hadn't soaked them over night, I put them into the instant pot inner pot and covered with the pork/veg stock and pressure cooked for 10 minutes, enough time to soften them up a bit.  When they were done, I drained the stock back into the red bowl and left the beans to hang out until I was ready to put them back into the pot.  I cleaned out the instant pot and set it to saute on Hi to cook up the aromatics.

The recipe specified an order, I sort of followed it, did onions and fennel first, then leeks and celery and garlic, and lastly, the collards.

sauteing mirepoix

After collards had softened and wilted down, I added the beans, stock, rosemary, thyme branch, and parmesan rinds; setting the slow cooker for 7 hours on low heat.  Every once in a while, I would open the lid and taste and adjust seasoning.  The beans are soft and very creamy.

waiting for the lid to close

Nota Bene:  This was quite tasty, especially when topped with some grated romano cheese.  We also added into the bowls some mozzarella balls, the tiny pearls, which was another source of textural interest and protein.  A definite keeper when I have lots of stock and am struggling for uses.