Dateline: November 13, 2020 Chickpea Stew

It is clean out the fridge night.  I found a great inspirational recipe on NYT Cooking by Melissa Clark,
Moroccan Chickpeas with Chard .  Of course, I made a few changes.  Why?  Because I didn't have a turnip, but I did have a kabocha squash.  I didn't have chard, but I had kale and a quarter head of cabbage.  I had chicken stock that I made and chickpeas and all of the spices necessary.  Oh, another trade out, I didn't have 2 T of tomato paste, so I used all I had and augmented with harissa.  I also didn't have 2 hours, so into the instant pot things went and we will see how it comes out.

This stew was excellent.  The flavor was fantastic.  It will be in the rotation!  I have been eating it once a day for several days now.  Still in love with it.  

I forgot to put in the preserved lemon and apricots...happens when you drink before eating anything.  So, I added some lemon juice.  It really made a difference.  That extra acid was perfect.  Didn't miss the apricots.

Dateline: November 10, 2020 Beef Jerky

I had wanted to try to make beef jerky for a while.  The idea was sparked by perusing the Modernist Pantry website and seeing vinegar powder and soy powder!  So I ordered some along with hot sauce powder.

Easy Teriyaki Jerky, I followed their weights and measures, but added 2 t of hot sauce powder to the mix. After marinating for the 8 hours, I put the flank steak slices into the dehydrator.

I set it to 160°, and let it go for the suggested 6-8 hours.  I did get up a couple of times during the night to check on it, and munch a little.  The first taste was quite spicy, but as the meat dried, it became less prominent.

In the morning, I packaged it up into containers!

Ended up trading one container for some koji spores.  A neighbor makes sake! And gave another container away to a friend.  That left one container to enjoy.  I will definitely make this again.  

What did I learn?  

I sliced the meat too thin.  I cut the flank steak against the grain on the bias, which made lovely, almost, paper thin slices, which when dehydrated, were less satisfying.  So next time, a little thicker.  I did like the bias cut.

The marinade in the recipe is quite good, not too salty.  When measuring things out, 60 g of soy powder looked to be a ridiculous amount, but it was perfect.  The white vinegar powder left no doubt about what it was.  It could be smelled across the room once the bag was opened.  This is perfect for adding tang but not hydration.  

Hot sauce powder is hotter than expected.  Will use judiciously going forward in other dishes.

Dateline: November 6, 2020 Fish Tacos!

Eugene came through with some unsolicited fish!  He dropped off 2 beautiful whole fish.  I believe he said they were black fish, but I could be wrong.  He did say that they are his favorite 

I fired up the grill, made some salsa and chipotle mayo yogurt sauce and we had dinner!

The tacos were delicious!  I was so happy, it was a warm day, and this made it feel like summer all over again!

For the salsa, I just chopped up some tomatoes, onion, tomatillos, cilantro, jalapenos, and added lime juice and a little of the sauce from the chipotle in adobo.

Fish was grilled with salt and pepper.  They were already skinned.

Dateline: November 7, 2020 Porchetta and Sweet Victory

Servet was finally finished with his quarantine after visiting Turkey for several months.  So, out of the freezer came the pork belly and the pork loin.  Porchetta!  I used Scott Rea's guidance here.  He has a wonderful step by step how to on YouTube.  

Firstly, I had to do a little bit of trimming up, there were some bone ends and chunks of cartilage that needed to be removed.  I then followed his recipe with my twist.  I did not want to butterfly this as I was rolling it around a pork loin.  

Before putting the herb mixture on top, I scored the skin side in a crosshatch pattern so that it would render and crisp up.  I topped the belly with the herb mixture and rolled it around the loin.  I tied it up with twine, rubbed salt into the skin and let it sit on a rack in the fridge over night.

Yesterday, it came out of the fridge and went into a hot oven to brown up before dropping the temp and slow roasting it until it was done.  

This is after the initial high heat.

Here is the final beast.

Carved and ready for devouring

Roasted delicata squash

Braised cabbage with bell peppers.

Dateline: November 1, 2020 Roast Pork Collar With Tomatoes and Shallots

I forgot about this one.... lots of photos too!

I needed to get into the freezer and make some space, out came the porcelet collar and onto the roasting pan it went.  Just coated with salt, pepper, and granulated garlic.  To the pan, I added the last of the tomato crop and a couple of sliced shallots.

The netting will come off after cooking.

I steamed some broccoli and made a salad, and ta dah!  Dinner was ready.

The tomatoes and shallots came out all jammy and really delicious.

The pork came out wonderfully moist and tender!

Dateline: November 4, 2020 Steamed Fish with Thai Garlic Shallot Sauce

I had a couple of Black Cod fillets that needed to be cooked.  I wanted Thai and no coconut milk.  I saw a garlic shallot sauce in a cook book and decided that steamed fish would go well with it.

The bad news is that we were so hungry by the time we could eat dinner, I didn't take a snap of the food.  Didn't change the taste, thought!

Garlic Shallot Sauce  Ken Hom's recipe

5 dried red chilies

2 T vegetable oil

100 g peeled garlic, finely chopped

100 g shallots, finely chopped

1 T shrimp paste

2 T fish sauce

2 t sugar

4 T water

Method

1.  Soak chilies in warm water until softened, drain and chop finely

2.  Heat a wok and add oil.  When hot add chilies, garlic, shallots, and shrimp paste.

3.  Stir fry for 2 minutes and then add the fish sauce, sugar, and water.  

4.  Continue to cook until garlic and shallots are cooked through.  Hold aside

Steamed Fish

Any firm flaky fish will do

julienned ginger

sliced scallions

thai basil leaves

Method

1.  Bring pan of water to a boil.  On a rack place the fish, sprinkle ginger and scallions over and top with basil leaves.

2.  Put rack into pan of water, cover and let steam until it begins to flake at the thicker places.

3.  Serve 

I served this with steamed green beans and a salad.  We were both amazed at how delicious the sauce was.  It really popped on the fish.  Sorry there were no photos!  But here is a photo of Ken Hom's sauce!

Dateline: November 1, 2020 Moussaka and Roasted Cauliflower

Once again, I had something in the fridge that needed to be used.  Ground Lamb.  I had thought about Keema, or lamb burgers, but, then, I had an inspiration, Moussaka!  I had 2 eggplants, check.  Had lamb, check.  Had tomatoes, yogurt, onions, garlic, etc.  A done deal.

Ingredients 

2 Eggplants, sliced into 1 inch rounds

1 lb ground lamb

1 inch cinnamon stick

1/2 t marjoram

1 red onion, chunked

3 cloves garlic

salt and pepper to taste

1 T spicy turkish pepper paste

1 T tomato paste

1 t calabrian pepper paste

1 t Aleppo pepper

1 can diced tomatoes, divided

1/4 c dry red wine

1/4 c red wine vinegar

1 c chicken stock

1 c yogurt

1 whole egg

1/4 c crumbled feta cheese

about 6 slices low fat mozzarella cheese

fresh bread crumbs

Method

1.  Set oven to 400°.  Put eggplants on a silpat mat on a baking sheet pan and spray lightly with cooking spray and sprinkle just a bit of salt on them.  Roast for 30 minutes, then turn them over, turn oven off, and let sit for 10 minutes.

2.  Grind cinnamon stick and marjoram in a spice grinder until they become a fine powder.  Hold aside.

3.  Put onion and garlic into a food processor and pulse until finely ground.  

4.  Put large saucepan or skillet on high heat and add olive oil.  Add onions and cook until wilted and water is evaporating.  Do not brown.

5.  Add ground lamb, cinnamon and marjoram to the onions and garlic.  Break up lamb as it cooks.  When it loses its raw color, add 1 cup of the canned tomatoes, pepper pastes, Aleppo pepper, salt, black pepper, wine, vinegar and stock.  

6.  Bring to a boil, and lower to a steady simmer, you want to reduce it so the final product is not soupy.  Set the oven to 350°.

7.  Take the remaining part of the can of tomatoes, about 1/2 c, and grind in the food processor until it is homogeneous.

8.  In a mixing bowl, put yogurt, feta, about 3 slices of the mozzarella torn into bits, egg, salt, pepper, and the ground tomatoes.  Mix together well.  Add about 2-3 T of fresh bread crumbs and mix again.  Set aside.  It will thicken up as it sits.

9.  Coat a 8 x 12 pan with cooking spray and sprinkle about 2-3 T of bread crumbs on the bottom of the pan.  Layer about 1/3 of the eggplant slices on top of the crumbs, then cover with about 1/3 of the lamb sauce, and another layer of eggplant, then sauce, etc.

10.  On top of the last layer of sauce, add the thickened yogurt topping.  Spread to cover the entire casserole dish.  On top, add slices of mozzarella cheese and some bread crumbs.  Spray the top with cooking spray.  Set casserole pan on the silpat mat used for the eggplant and put the entire pan into the oven for 30 minutes.

11.  After 30 minutes, check on its browning.  If it needs more, then rotate the pan 180° and put it back in for 10 more minutes.  Remove and let sit for about 20 minutes before slicing and serving.

Nota Bene:

This tasted very good.  I was a little skeptical, but am a believer now.  Even Bill liked it, mostly because it was not "eggplanty".  I liked the interplay between sour, heat, and lusciousness.  A Definite keeper.  I served it with roasted cauliflower which was a good choice as it did not compete with the moussaka.

The addition of the pepper pastes really gave depth to the lamb so that it could carry the blandness of the eggplants and the vinegar added just the right touch of tartness.  Thank God there are leftovers.... yumminess during the week too!

Dateline: October 29, 2020 Egyptian Kebabs and Cranberry Beans with Butternut Squash

I had to cook the kebabs.  They are a prepared product from FD and they are fabulous.  Redolent with cinnamon and spices, they do evoke our trip to Egypt.

I made the bean recipe from a couple of days ago again, except using cranberry beans and butternut squash to stand in for the escarole.  As the beans were larger than the white beans I used the other day, I opted to set the Instant Pot for 33 minutes rather than 30.  Still using the natural release.  They outcome was good, but not as slam-bang delish as with the white beans.  More than likely that was because I RAN OUT OF GARLIC...no kidding, I only had granulated.  So, that I was I used.  The squash did not provide the sweetness of the carrots in the early rendition, but did add a lovely color interest.

I used a leek for the onion and as I usually do, doctored the sauted veggies with some of the pesto I made the previous day.  

The leek sweated nicely and when it was mostly melting onto itself, I added in the thinly sliced butternut squash that didn't get added to the beans. 

As it cooked down, I realized that it would benefit from some additional flavors, so I drizzled in some of the pesto from the previous day and a touch of the calabrian pepper paste.  

I browsed through the fridge and found a couple of slices of cooked red cabbage from the other night and chopped those and dumped them in.

Here is melange that will be added to the beans after they finish cooking and are drained.  The final product did need salt, but was still quite tasty.

There was one catastrophe.  I cooked the kebabs on a plancha on the stove.  Except there was not a deep enough rim to catch the grease.  Consequently, much of the fat ran off the plancha onto the stove top.  No fire, but annoying.  Didn't effect the taste of the resulting kebabs.  

Dateline: October 30, 2020 Indonesian Beef Rendang

There were several Indonesian recipes in the NYTimes Food section on Weds.  The Beef Rendang caught my eye.  I ordered some beef chuck cubes from FD and some lemongrass.  Everything else was in house, or so I thought.  I didn't have enough of the long red hot peppers, so I did a little fast substituting and used some drying sishito peppers, a couple of serrano, 2 reddening poblanos and a single red bell pepper for color. Just enough to make the 4 oz. amount called for in the recipe.

Everything got ground up in the ninja and ended up looking like this.

I did use a pinch of citric acid to keep the color and provide a bit more sour than the lemongrass.

Here are the rest of the ingredients ready for the pot.

On the left is the coconut milk.  I had 1 can of milk and 1 six oz can of cream.  I figured that would suffice.  I wanted to break up the cream into the milk.

On the right are the aromatics, bay leaves, lemongrass stalks, lime leaves, and beef.  All of this plus the spice paste went into the coconut milk.

Everybody into the pool.  I had tasted the sauce, and it had a bitter overtone, so I added some agave syrup to try to balance it out.  It needed a bit more after cooking for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, the beef was tender and it had reduced a little bit.  The lemongrass has given its all as have the bay and lime leaves.  

The pooling fat is very visible.  Haven't decided if I will get most of it out, or wait until after things have browned. It will be easier to spoon off the fat once the sauce has been absorbed into the meat and the meat fries in the remaining fat.

Just thinking about eating this later tonight makes my mouth water.

October 28, 2020 Roasted Buttermilk Chicken

I had a quart of buttermilk that needed to be used.  I don't remember why I ordered it, but there it was!  I saw on NTYCooking a roasted buttermilk recipe from Samin Nosrat and jumped at it.   

I doctored the brine a little with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, granulated onion and garlic, and a couple of rosemary sprigs.  It has been in the fridge for almost 36 hrs.....

This was a wonderful recipe!  

Bill exclaimed at the first bite, "this is wonderful, soooo moist".  He is a white meat guy, so this meant a lot.  

I did wipe off the top of the bird after it was in a pan.  This allowed it to brown up fabulously.  When I make it again, I will put the chicken on a bed of veggies so that the back can get delicious as well.  Dead easy and sooo delicious.