Dateline: May 29, 2020 It's Friday, It's Fish Day

I know, that statement makes me seem to be a devote Catholic, but Friday is Fish Day because that's when my weekly delivery from FreshDirect arrives and I want to eat the fish that I ordered on the day that it is delivered!

I have 2 lovely center cut salmon fillets that I am going to grill.  I also thawed some Italian hot sausages that need to be cooked as well.  And to top that all off are the lovely asparagus.

Easy quick meal.  Fire up the grill, let it get hot, add a grill mat, salt and pepper fish and asparagus, add food, watch for a bit, kick the asparagus around the mat, flip sausages, but don't flip fish.  A pleasant surprise was that the fat from the sausages allowed the skin of the salmon to crisp up beautifully and release from the mat easily.

Just put on the grill

Off the grill, on the table

Note the salmon skin "crackers"  Bill was in heaven!

As per usual, I was panicking that there would not be enough "greenery" with the meal.  So I opted to core a head of cabbage and slice into quarters.  Oiled, salted, and peppered the quarters and put it on the grill after the fish, asparagus and sausages were done. 

After charring the cabbage, I shredded it and added some sweet onion along with sherry vinegar and olive oil to produce the salad below.

Dateline: May 28, 2020. Lamb Ragu in the Instant Pot

I had one pound of ground lamb that I needed to cook.  I could have made lamb burgers, or some other ground meat ball or patty, but that just did not do it for me today.  I wanted pasta.

So my trusty lamb ragu recipe came out.   This actually came out to be vegetable and lamb ragu.  Usually I will use 2 lbs of ground lamb.  

Lamb Ragu

1 lb ground lamb

olive oil

1/2 t baking soda

3 stalks celery, cut into bite sized chunks

2 carrots, cut into bite sized chunks

2 leeks, cut into bite sized chunks

1 onion, cut into bite sized chunks

4 cloves of garlic, peeled

handful of parsley

1 sprig of fresh rosemary

salt and pepper

2 28 oz cans of crushed or ground tomatoes

2 C chicken stock

2 bay leaves

pinch of red pepper flakes

red wine

Method

1.  Put the celery, carrots, leeks, onion, garlic, and parsley into a food processor or ninja.  Do not use a blender as you will get a puree, which is what you do not want.  You want the veggies broken down, but not liquified.  Stop and scrape down as needed.  This is your sofrito.

evaporating off the water from the meat

2.  Into the Instant Pot put the olive and set to saute.  When hot, add lamb, broken into about 5 chunks.  Sprinkle the lamb with 2 pinches of salt and pepper and 1/2 t of baking soda.  (The soda helps the meat retain water by changing it's pH).  Brown the meat thoroughly.  The meat should be well browned and scrap up the brown bits that form on the bottom of the pan periodically as there is your flavor.  You will be able to hear by ear when the water has evaporated and when the lamb is cooking in the olive oil and its own fat.  It's a very distinct sound.  At this point, pull the leaves off of the rosemary sprig and add them to the pot.  It should take about 20 minutes for the browning to happen fully.

meat cooking in the released fat

3.  Add in the sofrito after it is ground up.  You may be tempted to add more fat to the pan.  Resist at this point.    Keep stirring the sofrito around until it is well browned as well.  Add another 2 pinches of salt and a little more pepper.

This is about half way to browned

The sofrito will also take about 20 minutes to brown up fully.  Do not cheat on this, this is where the magic happens and your flavors at build up.

4.  At the bottom of the pot a brown layer will form, this is your fond.  This is culinary gold.  Push the stuff to the side of the pot and ddd 1-2 T of red wine at a time.  Adding a little bit at a time will not overwhelm the evaporation process the ragu is undergoing.  To much wine, and you have now set yourself back at a minimum 10 minutes of cooking time.

Scrape up the brown bits as you go along the bottom of the pan.  You may need to add 1 - 2 T of wine at various point along the bottom.  The wine will evaporate, and the loosened fond will come up easily after a while.  Do not give up!

5.  Add chicken stock, tomatoes, bay leaves, and red pepper flakes.  Taste, does it need salt, pepper, water, stock?  Adjust and then select pressure cook, low temp, 1.5 hours, stir well and close lid.  If you have the luck that I did, you will keep getting the burn message.  After twice getting that, I changed it to slow cook for 4 hours.  Seems to be doing alright at this moment.  Some pressure has built and I am sure it will be tasty.

We enjoyed with with romano or parmesan cheese.  The watermelon summer salad was a lovely counterpoint to the heaviness of the pasta and sauce.

Dateline: May 27, 2020. Cooking with Lucas Sin

My friend, Servet, sent me a link to a YouTube video live cooking demo presented by the Asian Society featuring Lucas Sin and Matt Gross.  I have watched this video at least 3 times and enjoyed it each time.

According to Chef Sin, you can MaPo anything, so I made MaPo Dried Tofu Skin, as I had no soft tofu in the house.

The recipe is at the end of the video and it is a very interesting change up from my normal MaPo 

recipe and had tried another MaPo recipe about 2-3 weeks ago. 

I will say, that Chef Sin's is a really delicious version.

My suggestion when using tofu skin is a) break up the dried sticks in at least 1/2 size, b) soak in cold water for at least 1 hour, c) boil in salted water a la the soft tofu, d) cut into bite sized pieces before adding to the pan.

Before the peas

The pork was cooked separately.  He strongly suggested that unless you have the jet engine providing the heat to your wok, cook in a regular saute pan on the stove top.  

Once the pork or beef is crisped and thoroughly browned up, remove from the pan and hold to the side.  In this same pan the aromatics (chopped garlic, chopped ginger, sliced scallions, soaked and chopped fermented black beans), were then cooked in the rendered pork fat and when softened, add in doubanjiang, chicken stock, shaoxing, mirin, and dark soy.  Taste, if too salty, add a bit of sugar, mine tasted just right, salty, spicy, and full of umami. Next add in the boiled tofu skins cut into bite sized pieces and let them simmer in the sauce for a bit.  Add the fried ground pork and mix carefully.

I followed his direction to apply the cornstarch slurry in 3 additions.  As the sauce slowly tightened up, I then added some chopped chives and raw English peas, and stirred around some more.  I served over rice and got ready to really enjoy dinner.

Final dish

This was an extremely satisfying MaPo Tofu Skins.  I was completely sorry that I only used 1/2 lb ground pork.  I wish that I had doubled the recipe and used the entire pound.  Next time I will know that this is delicious and needs to be doubled up.  Damn, it was really good.  So sorry I had just made enough for 2 people.  Coupled with the margarita, it was a delightful dinner over Zoom with Servet.

It was spicy, but not blow your head off spicy.  It was salty, as most Chinese food is, but it was  balanced in a good way.  I would love to try this with soft tofu.  This version was excellent and will remain the rotation.  A big shout out to Chef Lucas Sin for sharing his recipe.

Dateline: May 25, 2020. An Experiment that follows smoking burgers

After yesterday's epic success with the smoked burgers, I decided to try to see if the same success could be had with smoking steak.  I had 4 thin sirloin steaks from FreshDirect.  Why not experiment on these?  Grilling them would be a crap shoot and I can't remember why I ordered them in the first place!

I used the website Hey Grill, Hey as my jumping off point.  I prefer my steaks medium rare, so cooking to 140° F or more was not in the cards.  I felt that I could get the temp right with a couple of probes attached to my Smoke Temperature Control Center.  I had one probe at grill level and one in the smallest steak. 

When I had thin, what I really meant was also tiny.  These steaks were .3 and .4 of a pound, about 5 and 7 ounces.  Maybe 1/2 inch thick, maybe if they were wearing an overcoat. 

torched steak

watermelon salad

In contemplating what to do with the steak, I thought immediately of the burger rub from yesterday, but decided that I wanted to taste the steak, not the rub tonight.  So I went with salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder on an oiled steak.  Season both sides, please.

Based on the timings from Hey Grill, Hey, I figured about 30 minutes at 220° F.  It actually took about 40 minutes.  Ok, the steaks came off the grill at 130° F and I brought them inside and used my propane torch on them to brown and crisp them up.  The photo appears incinerated, but they were nicely brown.  They then went into a 120° oven to hold until dinner was served.

To accompany the steaks, I prepped earlier in the afternoon a salad of watermelon cubes, thinly sliced sweet onions, thinly sliced cucumbers, thinly sliced celery and halved cherry tomatoes on the vine.

Just before sitting down to eat, I dressed it with sherry vinegar and a good olive oil and crumbled about 3 oz. of feta cheese into the salad before tossing.

My thoughts:  the steak was very beefy, relatively tender, cooked perfectly, but left me kind of cold on the idea going forward.  I think that the biggest issue was the thinness of the steaks and the lack of intramuscular fat.  Next time I will try either a rib eye or a strip steak. 

perfect medium rare

The flavor was good, the tenderness was ok, not buttery like tenderloin, but pleasantly firm to the bite.  What came through was the beef flavor and the smoke.  I tried cutting my piece like a London Broil, (diagonal slices, against the grain) but it did not make it any tenderer.  Bill cut his up into small squares and happily ate them.  I do concur on the tiny square system of portioning the meat.

The salad was a perfect go with, juicy and satisfying, along with a bit of dessert as well.

Will I try this experiment again?  Yes, as mentioned earlier, with a fattier steak.  Conceptually, this should have been like the burgers, but because the steaks were only in the smoker for 40 minutes, there was not enough smokey flavor development.

Dateline: May 24, 2020 THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME BURGER EVER!

I have been browsing in my smoking/barbecuing/grilling cookbooks and came upon this recipe.  I made one or two slight modifications in ingredients, but technique and process was as written.

This particular book, "Smoke and Spice", by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison was one that has sat on my bookshelf for years.  This recipe spoke to me, hence I gave it a whirl.  Oh, man, oh, man, am I ever glad I did.  This had to be the BEST BURGER I have 1) ever made, 2) ever tasted!

I was unable to find a web page with the recipe, so I typed it up.  Apologies to the Jamison's.

Humdinger Hamburgers

This is the way to one-up uppity neighbors who brag about their grilled hamburgers.  Smoking make the ground meat taste like tenderloin.

Wild Willy's Number One-derful Rub 

3 T paprika, I used Hungarian

1 T ground black pepper

1 T smoked salt, (he called for just salt, I used alder smoked sea salt)

1 T brown sugar, (he called for just white sugar)

1.5 t chili powder, (I used chipotle)

1.5 t garlic powder

1.5 t onion powder

1/4 t cayenne, (I left it out because of the chipotle)

2 lb "cheapest grade" ground beef, (I used grass-fed 80-20 as it was all I could get, and used 1 lb for                the two of us)

1/2 medium onion, chopped fine

3 chopped roasted green chiles, (I used a can of Ortega chopped green chiles, 3 T)

1 t air dried shallots (my addition, not in his recipe)

Basic Beer Mop

6 oz beer

1/4 c cider vinegar

1/4 c water

2 T canola or corn oil

1/4 medium onion, chopped

1 garlic clove minced

1.5 t Worcestershire sauce

1.5 t Wild Willy's Rub from above

I did not use the mop, but in the interest of authenticity, I am including their recipe.

About 1 to 2 hours before you plan to barbecue, combine the rub ingredients in a small bowl.  In another bowl, mix together the hamburger, onion, peppers and shallots with your hands.  (Be very gentle with the meat, do not over work or your end product will be dry, my addition).  For the mixture into 4 thick patties and apply the dry rub thoroughly to all surfaces, reserving at least 1.5 t of the spice mixture for the mop.  Cover the patties with plastic and refrigerate them.

Prepare smoker for barbecuing, bringing the temperature to 200° F to 220° F.

Remove the patties from the refrigerator and let them sit at room temperature for 15 minutes.

If you plan to baste the meat, stir the mop ingredients together in a small saucepan and warm over low heat.  

Transfer the patties to the smoker and cook for about 1 hour, mopping every 20 in a wood-burning pit, or as appropriate for your style of smoker.  (I did not mop, used my pellet smoker.)

Serve the burgers on a toasted bun.  Try a bite before reaching for any optional toppings or condiments, all good but less than essential with the richly flavored meat.

(My change up, I seared the burgers in a frying pan when they reached the 135° F mark.)

I thought that this would be okay, enjoyable, but not life changing.  This really was the best burger I have ever eaten.  If you don't have a smoker, then create one and use it in your oven or buy a stovetop one.  You can thank me later!

I had pretzel buns.  Next time I will use potato rolls that are squishier.  It was really tough getting it into our mouths.  The burger is a perfect medium rare all the way through.  It was really juicy and amazingly flavorful.  It had a bit of a spice kick, and that made me happy.  I did put dijon mustard on the bun and nothing else.  Followed it up with a tomato and onion salad.  The recipe made 2 SUBSTANTIAL burgers, one just over 8 oz, and the second just over 10 oz.  You really didn't need anything other than the salad.

This is a true revelation and a keeper of a recipe.  It is fairly easy, but not quick.  Luckily, one can read, power wash the deck, have a drink, or sit in the sun, (perhaps all four).  Let me know via the comments at the end if you tried this and did it ruin all other burger experiences for you!

Dateline: May 23, 2020 Meat Glue and How Delicious You Are!

While my husband and I had a zoom call happy hour with friends, (hello Beth and Rich), I had a chicken on the rotisserie in the oven.  Underneath the chicken was a mix of white and sweet potatoes.

When the call was finished, I checked the temp, the chicken was certainly done, the taters were soft, so it was dinner time.

I cut the chicken up into 8 parts, usually I do 10, but it was a small bird and one breast completely fell apart when I cut it up.  That was sort of 10 parts!

The best part of the meal was the meat glue on my fingers from eating the wings.  OMG, that is some amazing shit.  I made sure to tell Bill to NOT THROW THAT STUFF AWAY BUT STORE IT SEPARATELY FROM THE BONES.

The taters were amazing.  Bill had to move them away from me, or I would still be at the table saying to myself, "just one more and then I will stop."  I rounded out the meal with the left over frenched string beans from last night that never got eaten.  Along with some left over Chianti, I was a happy puppy.

Meat Glue Glossed

Cut up Chicken

String Beans

This meal made me remember why rotisserie chicken is so popular.  It was awesome.  The chicken virtually cut itself apart, and the deliciousness that stuck to my fingers was soooooo good.  Already trying to figure out how to utilize that culinary gold.  You can see my reflection in the spoon!  Hilarious!

Dateline: May 22, 2020 A shrimp walks into a bar and asks the snapper....

Cleaned and dusted with Flour and Cornmeal

First batch frying up

for the snapper, Chettinad Fish Fry

There was an error in the Shrimp recipe that I will tell you about.  After frying the garlic,  draining it, you add the white pepper, black pepper, lime zest, AND SALT.  Proceed as written after that.

Here is the fried garlic, peppers, salt, and lime zest

second batch frying along with celery, garlic and scallions

cilantro, scallions, and celery

Finished product

The tasting came while we were on a zoom phone call with two friends, (Hi Lizzie and Ben).  The flavor was very much spot on, the shrimp were crispy, but not shatteringly so.  I think this was because I was making the snapper and the shrimp had to hang out in the oven for about 20 minutes.

It turned out that the shrimp was plenty for dinner, we each had 6.  Neither of us reaching for the fish, rice or green beans!

I am never quite sure if FreshDirect will provide all the things that I have ordered.  Many times, I get a notice that something was not available.  Last week it was a whole red snapper.  So to cover my bases, I ordered a pound of shrimp in case the snapper went by the wayside.  

Both arrived this morning.  Now I had 2 items that needed to be cooked ASAP.

My friend Jennifer, when I asked her if she had any requests, suggested shrimp or fish.  This was the genesis for the whole fish and shrimp in the order.

For the shrimp I chose to make Typhoon Shelter Shrimp and   

The fish was a bit more complicated.  First you had to create the masala paste, then score the fish and rub with a little bit of salt

The masala paste

Scored and smeared fish

After scoring the fish, smear the paste into all the slits and all over the skin of the fish.  Don't forget getting it into the cavity.  

Starting the fry

the flip 

Finished Product

I can't comment on the fish as we didn't even nibble on it!  I tasted the masala paste at the outset, and discovered that it was on the bitter side.  I added about 2 t agave syrup and 1/2 T of salt.  It tasted much better, still spicy, but more rounded and integrated.  These additions are for 4 times the amount of masala in the attached recipe.

Dateline: May 21, 2020 Turkey Tenderloins, Coated and Grilled

I needed to cook up the last of last week's Fresh Direct order.  That left just the turkey tenderloins.  Instead of smoking them, I am going to grill them.  They have been bagged up with the rub awaiting time to cook.

The Rub

1 T Hungarian paprika

1.5 t mustard powder

1 T brown sugar

1 t Galena Street rub for Chicken from Penzey's

1 t granulated shallots

1 t toasted szechwan pepper corns

1/2 t Hungarian Rib Rub

1 t black pepper

Dry the tenderloins off and coat with some oil.  Mix the ingredients of the rub together and break up any clumps of sugar.  Sprinkle liberally over the tenderloins on all sides and place turkey into a plastic bag in the fridge until ready to grill.

Asparagus grilled as well.

Dressed up awaiting  show time

Jumbled all together

spread out and getting cooked

Beautifully browned turkey

cut and ready for the plate

dessert:  grilled pineapple, yum

I made an additional salad of tomatoes, sweet onion, and red bell pepper dressed with sherry vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper.  It was really delicious!  The pineapple was spectacular, sweet and caramelized slightly, and just softened up a bit.  In a word, yum.

The tenderloins had a lovely crust to them.  The rub also caramelized a bit and the interplay of sweet and spicy was a nice flavor combo with the bland turkey.  The asparagus were dressed with oil, salt, and pepper, before getting up on the grill.  They were delicious as well.

This was a good back pocket recipe.  I will keep the rub and supplement with a bit more salt next time.  I liked the sweet coupled with the spice.  Salt would add an additional layer of savory into that mix.

Dateline: May 20, 2020 Ribs With Rub-A-Dub-Dub

I had ordered a single rack of St. Louis style ribs from FreshDirect, and that is what arrived.  A rack that was maybe as large as a baby back order.  No worries, I was going to rub and smoke today.

The Rub

1 T Hungarian Paprika

1 t chipotle chili powder

1 t ancho chili powder

1 t Galena Street rub from Penzey's

1 t salt

1 T brown sugar

2 t onion powder

2 t garlic powder

1 t black pepper

1 t mustard powder

1 t lemon pepper

Mix together well, especially to blend in the brown sugar.  Hold to the side

The Ribs

Remove the membrane from the back of the ribs.  Rub the rack all over with worcestershire sauce both front and back.  Coat and rub in the rub on both sides and set aside while you start up the smoker.  By the time the smoker is up to temp, the ribs will have developed a wetness to them as the meat absorbs the spices.

Set up your initial temperature to be between 225° and 250° F.  When the smoker is up to temp, add the ribs and close the lid.  Leave it alone for a couple of hours.  Keep in mind the old adage:  If you are looking, you are not cooking.  Monitor the temp to be sure that the smoker doesn't go wacky and shoot up to 300° F.  After about 4.5 hours, flip the orientation of the ribs.  Meaning move the right side to the left, or if you are using a rib rack, top to bottom.  

At about 6 hours, use an instant read thermometer to check that 1) the temp is around 185 - 200° F, along with 2) the bone ends are starting to poke through, 3) when you grab 2 adjacent bones and pull in opposite directions, the meat tears, 4) holding the rack in the center using tongs, it flops in half, threatening to tear in half.  Any 2 of the 4 can indicate cook time is done.

Remove from the smoker and cut into individual ribs.

Sit down and eat!

Check out the smoke ring....corn was smoked too!A

The ribs had a nice chew to them.  The end ribs were a little more done, and had a pleasant crispiness to their edges.  The rub had a wonderful, well, to me, smokey-sweetness to it that was addictive.  I ate more of them than I really needed to!  Followed up with a lovely salad and tonight was a little slice of heaven on earth!

Beet, feta, onion, red bell pepper, tomatoes, and lettuce salad

Dateline: May 17, 2020 Pit Beef and When Will It Be Ready?

Alabama cleaned up.  

Yesterday I pulled my smoking/barbecuing cookbooks down and scrolled through them.  I had a large piece of chuck, between 6 and 7 lbs, that needed cooking and I wanted to smoke it.  The issue was with what flavor profile.  Most of what I saw was meh.  So I decided to check around on the web and found a Serious Eats treatise on smoked chuck roast.

I generously seasoned the roast with salt and pepper and it sits in the smoker at this moment, 9 am, Sunday morning.  I am having the same smoke issues as previously noted, and am trying to solve the problem.  These are dry pellets.

Barely 45 minutes in

smoking tube 

It's now time for yoga so playing with this will have to wait until after that.  

At 11:30

At noon

This is an exciting documentation for me.  I am watching the smoke cover the meat and soon the bark will start to develop.  I put a probe into the meat and it was registering around 140° at 1 pm.  That is 4.5 hours in.  Not a bad place to be.

At 1:00

Little puffer doing ok

I am happy with the smoke production, not sure if it is the smoking tube or the pellets.  In the scope of things, it doesn't really matter!

I will need to prep the potatoes that I am going to smoke and make some cole slaw or some other salad-y accompaniment.  Possibly smoking it too!

Sun dappled and taters.  At 2:40

The meat has been hanging out at 155° for the last 2 hours.  A little too cool for the stall to hit.  I want a nice bark on it and it is starting to develop slowly.

I have been very productive today.  Not only did the meat go into the smoker at 8:15 am, but I planted all the bulbs I had remaining, found a leak in the irrigation system, repackaged the kim chee into mason jars and put into the fridge, and made a margarita base which is chilling in the fridge as well primed for a 5 pm zoom call!  I'm ready for that 'rita now!

I was going to put soil and mulch down today, but with the break in the line, I wanted to be able to find the break easily.  So mulching and soil will have to wait until after the line gets repaired.

At 3:20

At 3:30

At 4:50

At 9:40

Somewhere around 4:50, I wrapped the roast in butcher's paper, and took the potatoes off.  It was clear it was not going to be ready for dinner!  We ordered Indian from a local place, happy to support them in these crazy times.

About 7, I took the roast off the grill, shut the grill down and brought the roast into the apartment.  The oven had been preheating at 220°F and into the oven it went.  At 9:40, I stuck a fork into the meat, it offered no resistance so I removed the paper wrap but the beef on a new sheet pan and put it back into the oven for about 30 minutes to crisp the bark up.  

Looking at the latest 9:40 photo, you can clearly see the grain running up and down.  J. Kenji Lopez-Alt suggests bisecting the roast parallel to the grain and then flip each piece cut side down and slice against the grain for the tenderest meat.  It will certainly be easier doing that than slicing the whole roast against the grain.

There was plenty of juice and fatty drippings all over the removed paper.  That means that the roast is moist and not over cooked.  The last smoking I did, pork shoulder, I went by internal temp and not by tenderness.  Consequently, the meat was a bit dry.  I don't think that will happen here.  The internal temp when unwrapped was 187°F.  

I will rewrap the roast and let it come down to about 140°F before putting it to bed in the fridge.  Tomorrow will be a delicious day.

The meat cooked for 14 hours!  And it smells great!

It's tomorrow!  Yeah, we're going to have smoked meat, we're going to have smoked meat, yeah us, yeah, us!

I can't wait for dinner time.  In fact, I was so excited about dinner, I forgot to eat brekkies! And, it was close to 2 when I realized I hadn't eaten anything yet.  Left over Indian baigan bharta and jeera rice.  Delicious!

I have the components for the smoked potato salad ready.  Chopped green and red things, cucumbers, blanched green beans, cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper, red onion, parsley, and rosemary, in one bag, and in another bag are the smoked taters that have been salted and doused with vinegar.  I will combine into a single entity with some mayo that has been spiced with chipotle and smoked paprika.  My mouth is watering already, and dinner is hours away!

Here is the mixed veggies and salted smoked potato salad

The dressing consists of a couple of tablespoons of mayo, a tablespoon of dijon mustard, 2 teaspoons of the adobo sauce from canned chipotle peppers, 2 big pinches of kosher salt, lots of ground pepper, a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar, and half a lemon worth of juice.  Stir together, should be thin in consistency, and pour over salad and mix well to coat everything.

The beef is in the oven I am hoping to warm and crisp it up some.

All warmed up to 140°

Yum

Check out that smoke ring!

This was really good.  The outside barky pieces were chewy, but not too tough.  The inner slices were nice and tender and had enough chew to make it interesting.  Coupled with the potato veggie salad, a meal that is memorable.

Two opposable thumbs up!