Dateline: July 27, 2021 Grilled Chicken Thighs, Broccolini and Bean Salad

It was a lovely day, not too hot, not to windy, a perfect day for eating on the deck.  So grilling time!

I raided the freezer and found some skin on chicken thighs that I marinaded in a mix of spicy things, such as Calabrian Chilis, some vinegar, and some mexican hot sauce.

The bean salad was just a can each of chick peas and black beans along with chopped onion, red bell peppers, red finger pepper, garlic scapes, and perhaps a jalapeno.  Mix together, generously season with salt and pepper and dress with vinegar and olive oil.  Delish!

 

Dateline: July 14, 2021 Turkey Roulade Redux

Yeah! A day without heavy rain, a short light sprinkle just before firing up the grill was it.  We even ate outside and listened to Brazilian music played in front of the Library.

You know, sometimes I think I know what I am doing, and I just go on auto-pilot.  And sometimes I should really think while I am doing things.  In this roulade, for instance, I tied it up before wrapping in bacon...so the thing was trussed up everywhere.  I just tied the string on again around the bacon.  We had to eat carefully, lest we get a mouth of string!

Filling was sweated onions, garlic, red bell pepper, sage, and rosemary.  Generously salted and peppered.  I used a mixture of butter and olive oil for the fat.  I butterflied and pounded the turkey breast and filled it with the cooled stuffing mixture.

Tied it a million times! and then set up the grill and cooked it at 300° F for 45-60 minutes until internal temp measured in the thickest part of the roll and at the center of that part reached 165-170° F.

Carve, eat, drink, and be merry!

Just off the grill

Sliced up

A lovely rose

The meal was rounded out with a salad of mostly greens from the garden, onion, red bell pepper, and tomatoes.

The night was lovely, calm and clear, with the Brazilian music wafting over us, just wanted to samba all night!

 

Dateline: July 9, 2021 Rotisserie Chicken Indoors Because of The Rain

I so wanted to get out and grill this chicken....but Mother Nature was not having it.  July has been ridiculous in terms of the amount of rain that we have gotten.  The plants are mostly happy, but I am not of the same mind set.

I had a Cooks Venture chicken from Fresh Direct.  I love these chickens, they are slow grown, no hormones, and they are tasty.  What more could you ask for in a bird?

These chickens tend to be on the smaller side, about 3.5 - 4 pounds.  Perfect for us and with left overs for breakfast or lunch.

I was cooking just for me, as Bill was off doing good deeds up in The Bronx. So dinner was just salt and pepper on the chicken, roasted sweet potatoes, and a salad.

It tasted as good as it looks too!

I have been working on a different cocktail, sort of a hybrid mojito and margarita.

Ingredients

1 tsp sugar

3-4 mint leaves

2 slices of jalapeno pepper, seeded, if you are a weenie

2 rounds of cucumber, peeled if waxed

1 T lemon or lime juice

2 oz tequila

1 T triple sec

Method

1.  Muddle the sugar, pepper, mint, and cuke rounds well in the larger cup of a shaker.

2.  Add lemon or lime juice and muddle/stir until sugar is dissolved.

3.  Add handful of ice cubes, tequila, and triple sec.  Cap and shake vigorously.  Pour into a suitable glass and enjoy!

Dateline: July 8, 2021 Vichyssoise, Just Because

I had a couple of potatoes, a bunch of leeks, and half and half as well as garlic chives....what to make?  Bingo, vichyssoise and salad from the garden.

I had some a couple of weeks ago when out to dinner with Martha and Sal after Martha and I played flute duets.  We went to a french bistro around the corner from them and it was delicious.  SO, I am attempting to duplicate that experience.

 

 

First step, find a suitable recipe.  I found Tony Bourdain's recipe from Les Halles, and I riffed on it.  Didn't have heavy cream, and didn't have 8 leeks, but I muddled through.

Ingredients

3 leeks, white and light green parts, thoroughly cleaned

2 baking potatoes, peeled and cut into smallish cubes

2-3 T unsalted butter

1 quart chicken stock, divided 

1 pt half and half

salt and pepper

freshly grated nutmeg

chopped chives, or garlic chives for garnish

Method

1.  Steam the potatoes until they can be easily pierced with a knife or fork.  Drain and hold aside.

2.  In a pan large enough to hold all the ingredients,  melt the butter and gently saute the leeks.  You want to soften them, but not brown them.  Salt and pepper them as they cook.  When softened, add in the potato cubes and salt and pepper again.  Mix well in the pan and add 2 cups of the stock.  Bring to a gentle simmer and taste for seasoning.  Remember, if you are serving this cold, then season it highly.  If serving it hot, then season less so.

3.  Remove pan from the heat and allow to cool slightly.  Transfer contents of pan into a blender is small batches and blitz until smooth.  Do not over blend, you will end up with wall paper paste.  Pour blender contents into a container that can hold all of the ingredients.  

4.  Mix in the half and half, nutmeg, and any additional salt and pepper.  Thin with the remaining stock as needed.  Some potatoes are starchier than others so you may need all of the extra 2 cups of stock to get the consistency you want.

5.  Chill.  Ladle into bowls and garnish with chopped chives or chopped garlic chives.

Dateline: July 6, 2021 Birria de Res

I have made this on the stove top and it is excellent, today I did it in the instant pot because it was 97° and too hot to turn on the stove, plus it was raining off and on, so smoking the huge hunk of beef was not going to work either.

This is a recipe from NYTCooking, Birria de Res.  The only ingredients that may need a bit of a search are the dried pasilla peppers and the fresh poblano peppers. 

This dish is relatively easy but has a bit of labor involved, searing the peppers and removing the skins, blending the sauce in a high powered blender, and letting it cook until fork tender.  The recipe is clear and easily followed.  I used a HUGE boneless chuck roast, about 6 lbs.  

Adapting for the instant pot, I used only a 14 oz can of tomatoes and not all of the soaking liquid from the dried peppers.  I "cooked" them in the microwave on paper toweling for 30 seconds then put into hot water to soften.  That is a Kenji Lopez-Alt  trick, and it really works.  

The final product was good, but not as good as the stovetop version, I think it is the long slow cooking vs. the pressurized cooking that makes that so.  

I give this recipe a 2 opposable thumbs up in its original version, and 1 thumb up for the Instant Pot version.

Dateline: July 3, 2021 Freezer Diving and Gold is Struck

In another freezer dive, I found some duck breasts, yes, plural!  I had two different providers and decided to do a "taste off".   One breast was a lovely Magret from D'Artagnan, and the other was a whole breast (both halves) from Fresh Direct.  While the Magret breast was much thicker, they both had an equal layer of fat.  Fat is flavor!

I decided to sous vide the breast and then pan sear afterwards.  I crosshatched the skin on all of the breasts, and liberally salted and peppered.  They went into vacuum bags and into 130° F water for 1.5 hours.

After coming out of the lovely bath, I dried them well and put them in a COLD pan to crisp up.  The results were beautiful.  The skin became a lovely burnish bronze color and the added benefit was all of the rendered duck fat.  Yum.

Served with this was a mix of black rice, black quinoa, and black lentils and a salad of greens from the garden.

In the taste off, there was not that much difference in taste of the meat.  To me, there was a slight difference in the taste of the fat.  The Magret had better flavor there.  But the difference was again so slight it might not be worth the huge difference in price.

finished crisped up duck breasts

almost finished plate

I really like the mix of grains and lentils, it was called antioxidant blend....whatever that means.... look for it, it's really good.  My only suggestion is to make sure that you salt it as it is cooked, otherwise it is quite bland.

 

Dateline: June 28, 2021 Grilled Salmon, Broccolini, Corn, and Caprese Salad

Deciding what to pull out of the freezer is often a daunting task.  It means rooting down through the layers of animal bits saved for sausage making, the bag of kogi, diving under frozen rib racks and plumbing the depths of the very bottom of each freezer drawer.

Today's find was some lovely salmon steaks.  The weather was good, so the grill got fired up.  Just salt, pepper and olive oil on the salmon and broccoli.  Onto the hot grill went the corn first, followed by the broccolini and finally, the salmon.  A perfect dinner was had.  

The skin on the salmon was beautifully crisped and there were even grill marks on the flesh side to boot!

The caprese salad was using a lovely ripe beefsteak tomato and some fresh mozzarella with basil from the garden.  Summer is here!

 

 

 

 

Dateline: June 23, 2021 Grilled Lamb Chops and Veg

I was hoping that the day would be clear and bright so that I could grill comfortably.  My wish came true.

I fired up the grill and grilled the veggies first, then the chops.  It was so pleasant outside, we dined al fresco as well.

Nothing special here, just salt and pepper and olive oil. 

 

 

Dateline: June 21, 2021 Grilled Veggie Bowl

 

I felt a definite need for something other than meat and veg for dinner tonight.  I wanted the veg, but not the meat.  So I thought about this, and came up with this veggie bowl.  I raided the fridge and pulled out things that could easily be grilled and were flavorful. 

The fire was lit, the black rice, black quinoa, black lentil mix package was opened and I followed the directions for the stovetop.  The rice mixture cooked while the veg grilled.  

It was a delightful dinner.  The grain mix was hearty and the veggies offered a lovely contrast in texture and taste.  A good one to have in the rotation.

Dateline: June 15, 2021 Turkey Breast Roulade

I had 2.5 lb turkey breast in the fridge that needed to be cooked.  I didn't want to put the oven on, so I am trying roasting it on the grill.

Ingredients

2.5 - 3 lb turkey breast, skinless

1 onion, minced

5 cloves of garlic, minced

1 sprig of rosemary

5-6 sprigs thyme

handful of fresh sage leaves, whole

5-6 sage leaves, chopped

1 T calabrian pepper paste

1 T chopped fennel fronds

1 t fennel seeds, ground

1 T chopped parsley

2 collard leaves, stripped, blanched, and halved lengthwise

6 slices of bacon

salt and pepper

olive oil

butter

butchers twine

Method

1.  Put the turkey breast on a cutting board presentation side down.  Butterfly the turkey breast so that you can lay it out flat and pound it to a relatively uniform thickness.  

2.  In a small pan, bring some water to a boil and blanch the collard leaves, shock in cold water and then half lengthwise.

3.  In a small frying pan, heat some olive oil and butter and sautee the onions, when softened, add in the garlic, chopped sage leaves, and parsley.  Heat them through and continue to soften the onion and garlic, but do not brown.  Set aside to cool.

4.  In a spice grinder, grinder the fennel seeds with the fronds a little pinch of coarse salt, and add in the rosemary.  Grind to a paste, empty into a small bowl, add olive oil and the pepper paste.  Mix well.

5.  Set the cut turkey breast so that one of the long sides is nearest to you.  Salt and pepper the cut side.  

Smear on the fennel frond/seed mixture all over the cut side.  Next layer sage leaves all over that paste in a way that will enable each slice of the finished product to  have a ring of sage.  Then, over the sage leaves spread the onion/garlic mixture.  Over the onion mixture, place the collard leaves so that they over lap and cover the entire surface of the turkey breast.

6.  Starting from one long side, start to roll the breast onto itself, like a jelly roll and set on the cutting board seam side down.  Lay 4 slices of bacon down starting at one end of the roulade and then with the remaining 2 slices, cut them in half crosswise and finish the laying down to completely cover the top of the turkey roll.

7.  Using 5-6 lengths of butchers twine, tie up the roulade into a tight package.  

8.  Lay 2 lengths of plastic wrap out on the counter so that they over lap along their long sides.  Place the roulade near the long side edge that is closest to you and tightly roll up the roulade in the plastic.  Squeeze out the air, and twist the ends tightly and tie closed or use a twist tie.  Put on a sheet pan and place in the fridge until ready to cook.

9.  Remove plastic wrap when grill is heated to 350°F.  I was very impressed with mine, it held 350° on the nose for the entire cook time.  I have learned to build a fire that suits this particular grill!  Place roulade on the cooler part of the grill and close lid.  Check the temp at the thickest part after 45 minutes.  Rotate the roulade to ensure even cooking if necessary.  My roulade had a thicker end and a thinner end.  After 45 minutes, I rotated it to thicker end towards hotter part of the grill.  When roulade hits 170° in the absolute center of the roll, I considered it done.  I took the temp from both ends straight down the middle and then again from the outside into the middle only going 1/2 way and all three temps were in the done range.

10.  Remove to a plate and tent with foil.  Let rest 15 minutes.  Then carve into 1 inch rounds taking care to remove the strings!

steamed green beans and peas

slices of the roulade.