Dateline: September 16, 2020 Pork Puttanesca Sauce in the Instant Pot

 I had a pork shoulder defrosting on the counter.  Yes, it seems I always have a pork shoulder defrosting.  It was too large a hunk for the 2 of us, so I split it into two pieces.  One piece I ground to make hot italian sausages, and the other, I chunked up for this pork puttanesca recipe that I found on NYT Cooking site.

It came out better than I thought it would.  Comparing it to a long simmering ragu, it is not that.  But as a quick-ish nice sauce for pasta or polenta, it works.

What would I do differently next time?  I would use less tomato paste, it made the final product too sweet for my taste.  Comparing it to my regular puttanesca, I would give it an 8.  I really love my puttanesca sauce.  The olives and capers were lost as was the garlicky goodness.  I am supposing that that is a result of the pressure cooking.  So, next time, I would halve the tomato paste, halve the pork, double the garlic, olives, and capers, as well as the vinegar and sub another cup of wine for one of the 2 cups of water. 

As one of the comments stated, perhaps the dish would have benefited from searing the pork prior to cooking.  That may be another option going forward.  

Of course, I have no photos, naturally, because I had a margarita, and that was the end of thinking!  Photo on NYT site is exactly what it looked like, minus the polenta!  Took a picture the next day.  Horrors!  I was eating day old pasta!

Dateline: September 15, 2020 Lamb Keema and Roti

  

I had one pound of ground lamb that needed to be used in the fridge.  I was torn between lamb burgers or keema.  Keema won!  I decided to use Tejal Rao's recipe for roti.    I  happened to have the atta flour!  I know, I know, my pantry is not like many others.  I have tons of esoteric ingredients for the off chance that I want to make something Asian, or Mexican, or, Indian, or or or.... I am guessing that if you have whole wheat pastry flour that would work fine.  

I also used Tejal Rao's recipe for keema.  I used the lamb, mentioned above, but the recipe calls for ground beef.  I suppose you could use anything ground or minced up and it would still be delicious.  I used kashmiri red chili pepper instead of cayenne, and I could have easily used much more of it.  The dish did not have the zip that I wanted it to.  That's on me, not the recipe!

   

Onions waiting to get brown and crispy, and the blender waiting for tomatoes, ginger, and onions.

The sauce of tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, and hot pepper coming to the boil and waiting for the lamb to be added.

Lamb added and cooked until most of the sauce evaporates, and the oil comes to the surface.  I added peas, well, because it's customary, but the recipe does not call for them.  I also liked the added green.  I did use the mint and cilantro mix as well as a few chives from the garden.

The roti were fun and easy to make.  I used my tortilla press, I know, and made 16 balls instead of the suggested 12.  Why, because it was easier to create equal sized balls by dividing things in half over and over.  After the balls sat, I used pieces of parchment paper to sandwich them between the top and bottom of the press.  I found that the press made one section quite thin, so I rotated the pancake 1/4 turn and pressed it each rotation.  That way the edges were somewhat uniform.

As suggested in the recipe, I did lightly glaze one side with ghee, I know.  These were pretty darn good.  I think next time I will add a bit more salt to the dough and take it out of the bowl and knead it to create more layers.  They got somewhat puffy and when torn, showed the layers.  But, I want more layers!

Dateline: September 10, 2020 Shrimp and Scallop Kebabs, Kinda

FreshDirect delivered lovely shrimp and scallops that I wanted to grill.  The weather, was not on the same page as I was.  So out came the cast iron grill pan, which I used on the griddle side, and I set about skewering all of the items.  Green peppers, red onions, scallions, shrimp, scallops with lovely cherry tomato tops.  I just didn't think it through thoroughly.  I threaded everything onto 2 skewers to keep the twirling down, and failed to take into account that the skewers would not lie flat on the griddle because things were different depths.  Sigh.  Halfway through the grilling, I took everything off of the skewer and just seared them on the griddle pan.  The shrimp and scallops got a lovely sear and the veggies did eventually as well.

Let me back up, I marinaded the kebabs in a lovely sauce gotten from NYT Cooking  by David Tanis.  The sauce was excellent, and that is the crux of the dish.

As usual, I took liberties with the recipe, I added into the basil and parsley some chives and scallion tops.  I think it was the scallion tops that made the sauce a little bit bitter.  I didn't taste it before so if I had, I would have added a couple of drops of agave syrup.  

After the shrimp and scallops were finished cooking, I loaded up the griddle with some asparagus.  I grilled them until they were a little charry on the outside and a bit wobbly.  

Ingredients for the sauce, basil, parsley, garlic, chives, and scallion tops.  Veggies for kebabs

Grilled up shrimp, scallops, and veggies removed from sticks.  Grilling asparagus.

  

Finished sauce, which is FABULOUS on EVERYTHING.  Crunchy salad.

Dateline: September 9, 2020 Chicken, but which side of the road????

 I have a lovely whole chicken that I intend to either grill or rotisserie.  Which will be dependent on the weather.  Right now, it is clouding over and looking quite gray.  Last thing I want to be doing in a down pour is pulling a half cooked chicken off the grill.  It is not supposed to rain, but there is a 50% chance.  That has sealed it.  Rotisseried in the oven it is.  

I am thinking a reprieve of the preserved lemon rub and sliced taters below to roast along with the chicken drippings and lemony goodness.  I think I will also make some lemony wilted greens with garlic to finish off the plan.

Ingredients

Lemon Paste Marinade

1-2 preserved lemons

1/2 seeded jalapeno or calabrian hot pepper paste

1 garlic clove, peeled 

olive oil

Blitz everything together and if necessary, thin with more olive oil.  Reserve about 2 T for the greens, the rest can be schmeered all over the chicken and potatoes.

1 roasting chicken, rinsed, patted dry and rubbed inside and out with the lemon paste

5 or 6 small potatoes, cut in half or quarters, depending on size.  You want sort of uniform pieces

1/2 head of cabbage, sliced into thin ribbons

1 bunch tuscan kale, stripped and sliced into thin ribbons

1 small onion, chopped

lemon paste

olive oil

1/1 cup water or chicken stock

Method

1.  Rub the chicken inside and out with the lemon paste.  Set aside.  Save some to rub on the potatoes and about 2T for the greens.  Spit the chicken and truss if necessary to the spit.

2.   Prepare the potatoes by rubbing them with some of the lemon paste and a small douse of olive oil, pepper, and place in the bottom of a roasting pan that will sit under the rotating chicken to catch all of the goodness that drips from the chicken on to the taters.  

3.  Set oven to 325° F.  My rotisserie spit is difficult to work with and needs to be played with to make it fit into the particular slot it needs to be in.  This is why I am not preheating the oven.  I have spent too much time on my hands and knees in front of a hot oven, cursing the damn spit, to even recount.  Now I spit it, THEN heat the oven.  Roast for an hour, checking on everything to make sure that nothing is getting too dark or burned.  When chicken thighs have gotten to 175-180 and breast near the wing bone is about the same temp, AND the juices in the cavity are brown, THEN she is done.  Remove chicken to a cutting board and scrape up the taters into a serving bowl.  You can pour the chicken juices over the taters before carving it up into pieces.  Or use the chicken juice over the greens for some extra flavor.

4.  For the greens, heat a pan over medium heat and add olive oil and onions.  Saute until they soften a bit.   When fragrant, add the ribbons of greens.  Stir to coat liberally with the flavorful oil and lid the pan.  Turn the heat to low and let the greens steam for a while.  Check on the greens and if they are getting dry, add water or chicken stock about 1/4 c at a time.  Lid the pan again and continue checking in on the greens.  When they are wilted and almost tender, add the lemon paste and stir well.  Turn off the burner, cover the pan and let the greens hang out until the chicken is finished.

   

The potatoes were addictive, what's not to love about crusty potatoes!  The greens were quite good, even Bill took a second helping!  The chicken was quite moist and perfectly cooked.  The skin was not as crispy as I like, in fact, it wasn't crispy at all, just browned.  I think a blast at the beginning of 400-450° F heat for 15 minutes and then back it down to 325° would solve the problem.

Dateline: September 7, 2020 Boar Sweet Italian Sausage and Gazpacho

Today was the day that I am making boar sausage.  I used a conglomeration of recipes so I will provide links and details below.

I ordered the boar from D'artagnan and got 2 shoulder roasts each about 3 lbs.  I cut them up into 1 inch cubes and I also added 1.5 lbs of salt pork for the fat.  This was an experiment in terms of using the salt pork rather than the fat back.  Why I wanted to save the fat back is a mystery to me at this moment!

I had 2 very fatty packages of salt pork and decided that they would be the best.  I soaked them for about an hour to cancel some of the salinity.  I cut a thin piece and fried it up to gauge the salt level, and it was about the same as bacon, maybe even less.  I cut the salt back by half until I tasted a patty.  It needed the rest of the salt.  In it went in the emulsifying stage, along with chopped parsley and sage.

Sweet Italian Sausage, from Hank Shaw, was the major recipe of choice, and I used a bit of cure #1 because I am going to smoke them.

My additions to his excellent recipe was the chopped sage leaves, 1 tsp instacure #1, only used a coarse grind, and about 1 cup of chilled white wine.

Here they are resting to dry the casings a bit.  The 5.5 lbs of meat and 1.5 lbs of fat yielded 24 nice sausages.

They smoked up beautifully.  They actually smell more like kielbasa than italian sweets!  They are on the menu tonight!

Grilled it up last night.  Delicious.  A wonderful cross pollination between kielbasa and sweet italian.  The texture was very coarse and crumbly.  I think that was because I didn't have enough fat, or didn't emulsify it long enough by hand.  The flavor was good, it was the texture that was ok, but was looking for something less crumbly.  It is a learning process.

Served it with crispy grilled okra and a fantastic gazpacho.  This is truly a fabulous recipe.  I did make some alterations, of course!  I used some bread soaked in the vinegar, as per a suggestion from another user, added a handful of mixed herbs, parsley, chives, basil, and did not strain.  Used the vitamix and the texture was like a mousse, velvety and smooth without a trace of any fibrous bits.  Garnished with some chopped veggies, a lovely end of summer slice of heaven this meal was.

Dateline: September 5, 2020 DERBY DAY Brisket and Juleps

Bill owns a race horse that is running in the Derby.  Authentic is its name and it is trained by Bob Baffert.  Now, before your head blows completely off your shoulders, he owns just a small piece of this said horse, in fact, 100,000th of it.  If you are horse curious, then visit www.myracehorse.com and see how you too can be a stake holder.

Nothing screams out on this Labor Day Weekend like a brisket.  I got one from D'Artagnan along with some boar, which will become sausages.  I got up at 3 am and prepped the meat.  Salt and pepper only a la Franklin BBQ in Austin.  My brain does not work very well at that hour, and I prepped the meat before lighting the smoker.  

I start the smoker, and it goes through its start up cycle and says it's at 69°F.  Ok, that seemed reasonable.  Again, let me remind you, it's 3:30 in the morning.  I go back into the house, clean up, finish packing up the brisket trimmings for sausages in the future and grab the meat and head back out to the deck.  WTF the smoker is still at 69°.  

The smoker wouldn't light.  It's 3:40 in the am, and pitch dark and I have to troubleshoot the f-ing smoker.  I know that you are on the edge of your seats trying to figure out was I successful at this.  The answer is yes.  I had to pull out the grates, the grease trays, the baffle and get down to the fire pot.  After rooting around in there for a while, I reset the smoker to go back to its start up cycle, and suddenly there was a ton of smoke pouring out.  Now I had to put it back together with smoke billowing out into my eyes!  I got it done, smelling of smoke I went back to bed around 4:15.

I got up again at 7:30 and took this picture:

The internal temp was about 149° with target temp in the mid 190's.  I will probably have to wrap this in butcher's paper to help it get through the stall.  I am spraying it down with white wine mixed with water.  Brisket temp at this moment 10:20 am is in the mid 150's.  

Mint has been cut, washed, and bagged for Juleps later on.

So, it was a very exciting day yesterday!  The brisket came out lovely, albeit, a bit too salty on the top, which can be scraped off, but it was tender and luscious.  It came off the smoker around 4 PM, which made the cook about 12 hours.  I wrapped it, and put it into a cooler until 7:30, when a friend came over for a socially distant dinner on the deck.

The more exciting news was that Bill's horse in the Derby won the race!!!!!  That means he is going to be in the stud fee pool and will make back his investment and a little bit more, God willing, over the course of the horse's, ahem, ability to perform.

Dinner also included a farro and vegetable salad and a crunchy salad.  I definitely decided that I am not a fan of diet juleps.  The after taste of the diet soda is just terrible.  I made a mint simple syrup, and then forgot to put it into my julep.  Sort of describes how yesterday afternoon into the evening went.  

Dateline: September 4, 2020 Pasta Norma, Sorta

I had 3 big eggplants that needed to be cooked.  I didn't want babaganoush, or curry, I wanted pasta.  I checked out a couple of recipes on NYT Cooking website, and combined the best aspects of 2 or 3 and came up with a very satisfying dish.

Ingredients

3 eggplants, cut into about 3/4 to 1 inch crosswise slices

1 onion, minced

3 sprigs of thyme

a HUGE mess of cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 jalapeno, seeded and minced

olive oil

salt and pepper

3 cloves of garlic, smashed

4 oz pancetta

1 14 oz can diced tomatoes, drained and juice reserved

1 T calabrian pepper paste, optional

1 lb pasta of your choice, I used farfalle

Large handfuls of mixed herbage, I used basil, parsley, mint and chives

1/4 lb ricotta salata, cut into small cubes

Method

1.  Light a grill and let it get quite hot.

2.  Heat the oven to 300°F and on a sheet pan pile the onions.  Coat with a bit of olive oil, top with salt and pepper and the thyme sprigs.  On top of that pile the halved cherry tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper and if necessary add a little olive oil.  Into the oven they go for about 1 hour.  Check on them, you want them to start to shrivel and give up some of their juices.  Adjust temp accordingly.

3.  While grill is heating, brush, or use your fingers, the eggplant slices with some olive oil.  Hold until grill is hot.

4.  Grill the eggplant until the slices are deep brown on both sides.  Cool them for a bit and then dice into 1/2 cubes and hold.  

5.  In a pan large enough to hold the tomatoes and eggplant comfortable, heat some olive oil and add pancetta.  Saute until the pancetta gives up most of its fat and is just starting to brown.  Add drained cubed tomatoes, pepper paste, and garlic.

6.  Set up a big pot of salted water for the pasta.  Bring to a boil and cook pasta when sauce is just about finished for the recommended al dente time.

7.  When tomatoes have shriveled and the edges browning a bit, dump the entire sheet pan of stuff into the pan with the pancetta.  If more liquid is needed add some, or all, of the reserved tomato juices.

8.  Chop the herbs and hold.

9.  In a bowl large enough to the pasta and the sauce, put 1/2 the sauce, 1/2 the herbs, and 1/2 the ricotta salata, top with the pasta, on top of the pasta add the balance of the sauce, herbs, and diced cheese.

10.  Serve immediately

Of course, guess who forgot to take a photo of the finished product, this gal!  This was very tasty.  The grilling of the eggplant added a nice flavor profile, and the pepper paste a necessary kick.  The layering in the serving bowl works well because this is not a "saucy" dish.  All things are about the same size and blend together nicely.  You could use cubed mozzarella, or grated romano cheese, but the ricotta salata was perfect in its saltiness.  

Even Bill, who really does not like eggplant, enjoyed it and grew to like the contrast of the charred thicker skin on the eggplant cubes.  It was given 2 thumbs up!

Dateline: September 3, 2020 Fresh Yellowfin Tuna

As luck is running these days, there was a knock at the door last night just after we finished dinner.  At the door was Eugene with a BEAUTIFUL loin of yellowfin tuna which he caught the night before.  It never fails, I order swordfish and Eugene will show up with a big hunk of tuna either that day or the next.  It's a beautiful thing.

I decided to grill it and put it on a nicoise salad of sorts.

Ingredients

Tuna steaks

olive oil

salt and pepper

Handful of yellow pear tomatoes, halved

2 yellow beefsteak tomatoes, cubed

jicama, cubed

1/2 sweet onion sliced thinly

3 waxy potatoes, steamed and sliced

green beans, steamed and cut into pieces

1/2 jalapeno pepper, minced

1/4 fresno pepper, minced

1/2 orange sweet bell pepper, cubed

herbage, I used parsley, basil, mint, chives, and thyme, chopped finely

sherry vinegar

olive oil

Method

1.  Prep tuna, lightly oil both sides and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.  Set aside.

2.  Light grill get really roaring.  When it reaches a temp of about 400°F, damp down vents, and clean grates.

3.  Assemble salad douse liberally with sherry vinegar and mix well.

3.  Grill tuna 2 minutes on a side.  No more!  If you have thin steaks, then only 1.5 minutes.  You can always heat them up more, but once they are toast, they are done!

4.   Slice enough tuna for the salad and reserve any remaining steaks.  Add olive oil to salad, as well as salt and pepper.  Toss well.  Add tuna sliced on top and serve.

Dateline: September 2, 2020 Swordfish, Farro, Cauliflower and Salad

 I ordered FreshDirect Swordfish, again.  When they rate something 5 stars, don't think about it, just order it.  It will be fabulous, unless, of course, you don't like that food to begin with!

I wanted to keep it relatively simple, as it was raining, so I would have to cook it indoors.  

Into the InstantPot went the 1 cup of farro, rinsed well, and 1.25 cups of water, along with a nice glug of leftover white wine.  Shut it up, and hit pressure, high, for 12 minutes.  Perfect!

For the cauliflower, I cleaned up the head, and sliced it into thick steaks.  Then I oiled them with olive oil and a nice coating of salt and pepper and into a 450°F oven they went.  I reduced the oven to 400°F after they went in.

Salad was beautiful yellow beefsteak tomatoes, cored and chopped into 1/2 dice, sliced onion, diced jicama, a few cherry tomatoes for color, and cucumber.  Sherry vinegar and olive oil finished it out.

For the garnishing the fish, I finely minced the other half of onion, diced a yellow bell pepper, a bit of hot pepper, 3 cloves of garlic, smashed and mashed with a bit of salt for grit.  Now I collected some herbs from the garden, basil, parsley, thyme, mint, and chives.  These all got minced up as well.

In a frying pan large enough to hold the fish in one layer, heat up some oil.  Pat the fish dry, and coat with a little bit of oil and salt and pepper it to taste.  When the pan is hot, add the fish.  You want to cook it only long enough to get a nice brown crust on the bottom side, so don't play with the fish, let it sit in the pan and just wait!

Turn the fish, and brown the other side.  These were very thick steaks, so I also checked with a thermometer and the fish was at about 125-135°F when I removed it to a waiting plate.  Into the pan went the onions, peppers, and garlic.  These were sauteed until they softened.  The minced herbs went in, along with a bit more oil and the remnants of the preserved lemon marinade from the other night and the juice of 1/2 a lime.  Combine together and add the fish back in, brownest side up, along with any juices that have accumulated.  Lid the pan and turn the heat to simmer.  Depending on how done you like your swordfish, you may just turn the heat off and lid the pan.

When the cauliflower has browned up a bit and can be easily pierced with the tip of a knife, it is dinner time.

Dateline: September 1, 2020 Chicken Thighs and Greens

I had a hankering for lemon, preserved lemon, and decided to take one out of the jar in the fridge and blitz it with 3 big cloves of garlic and a bit of a hot pepper that was in the brine.  After it was ground up, I added some olive oil and blitzed again.  A chunky luscious puree was the result.

   

This puree was then the marinade on chicken thighs and added to collards and kale cut into ribbons with 1/4 an onion thinly sliced, plus some olive oil and hot pepper flakes.  Oh my, this was tasty.

I grilled the thighs over a hot fire and they got beautifully browned and crisped edges.  These were naked thighs so I had to be careful about letting them cook too long.  Stringy thighs might work on 

models, but not on a dinner plate.

Speaking of dinner plates, I ate on Uncle Ho's face!  Not to disrespect him, but his face is everywhere on the set of commemorative plates we bought in Hanoi.

This dinner turned out fabulously.  Bill, who really does not see lemon as an essential ingredient, found the greens to be wonderful...had multiple servings!  That's my indicator on the like or no like meter.  I even got him to put some of the surplus marinade on the crunchy salad.  I thought it was an exquisite addition with that extra hit of salt and tart.