mis en possible

This is my second foray into attempting dishes using Asian flavors. As a base, I used this Ming Tsai sauce. More on this dish later.

At the aforementioned Whole Foods, I acquired the aforementioned grass-fed beef; two cuts to be exact: a rib eye and a “London Broil” which is odd, because a London Broil is what you do to certain types of steak. It was flank or something, pretty tough cut and about 12 oz worth, so I decided that I’d try a marinade:

1/2 Cup Mushroom-Flavored Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon rice-wine vinegar
2 ‘quarter-size’ pieces of ginger, finely-diced
2 cloves of garlic, finely diced
1 shallot, finely diced
1 Teaspoon kosher salt
1 Teaspoon dark sesame oil
1 tablespoon grapeseed oil

I let the marinade sit overnight and the next day poured it over the seasoned and trimmed steak and vacuum packed it. Into the refrigerator for 24 hours for a ‘get some flavor’ timeout.

Picking up on a recent article in Cook’s Illustrated, I liberated the steak from its packaging, gave it a quick bath and dried it off. Horizontally, I inserted a meat thermometer timed to go off at 115 degrees. I put it in a cold oven and turned it to 200 degrees. About 40 minutes later, out came the steak, out came the thermometer, and in it went into a bit of olive oil in a smoking hot pain — 3 minutes one side, 2 minutes the next. After letting it rest for 5 minutes, I sliced it about 1/4 inch thick across the grain and served it over the top of some mixed greens on top of jasmine rice, with a ginger, soy and lime vinaigrette.

The result? Pretty much perfect medium-rare and a ton of flavor. I was iffy on the dressing (as you’ll see, it’s not posted here), but the rest was really good. I don’t generally do a whole lot with Asian flavors, but this worked really, really well. The remainder of the beef I sliced paper-thin and it will be headed toward a sandwich very, very soon.

And thumbs up for the grass fed beef. It’s odd, but you can actually taste the difference. It’s no waygu, but it’s good.

I love easy, re-usable food and this time a year (if you’d not yet noticed), I love pasta. The tomato basil cream sauce from a few posts ago made its way into a plate of fideo pasta to which I added some pesto, basil oil, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and topped with a few leaves of fresh oregano. This was lunch for Zoe and I (she skipped the raw oregano leaves, but insisted on an extra pinch of cheese). Rich, warm, and comforting.

Fideos are a great pasta if you’re on a budget. They’re usually in the Mexican/South American section of the grocery store and a package is around $0.50 to $0.75, the yield of which will constitute a meal for 3 and some leftovers (unless someone’s really hungry, I suppose). The sauce — which is roughly detailed a few posts ago — will keep for a week or so and a quick warming brings it right up to snuff. The pesto was added cold and was purchased at Central Market where it’s made on site (though I’ve used a few good pestos that were jarred).

We got taken on a wild detour on Sunday due to the marathon that was blocking off half of the town. Instead of getting to Central Market like we normally do, we ended up downtown at Whole Foods, where a treasure of things were waiting — grass fed beef, edible flowers, spicy baby basil, and … and … and… white truffles!

Unfortunately not the kind from alba which would have broken our bank (they’re currently running around $3000/lb), but the new Oregon truffles which I have to say are not all that bad. The price is certainly better, but still pretty steep (They were around $40/oz) and we made off with enough for a dish or two if used sparingly.

So how to highlight the taste of white truffle? Non-invasive pasta? Check. Mild garlic/butter sauce with shallot? Check. Bit of a white win reduction in that? check. Truffle shaver? Crap, nope, have to rely on my knife skills (for whatever that’s worth; not much on the going market I’m afraid).

So simply — angel hair pasta, a white wine/garlic/butter reduction sauce, a bit of cheese and the basil, and then shavings of the white truffle. I savored every bite.

No, they’re not alba truffles, but they’re damn good and I’m going to keep buying them every time they have them. Call it a new addiction, but I likes me some fungus.

We’ve fallen in love with Perle pasta. It has all of the warmth and comforting depth of gnocchi but it cooks faster which is a wonderful trait when managing the timely demands of a 2-year old. It takes a mere minute and thirty seconds to cook and you can actually cheat and do it in a fairly small pan. They don’t turn out perfect but they’re perfectly edible in just a few minutes.

I’ve been toying around with some really good canned chopped tomatoes we’ve started picking up at Costco of all places. I’m usually not a fan of canned chopped tomatoes, preferring to use whole peeled instead, but this stuff is great for making a quick sauce. I don’t have a recipe, but here’s the basic formula:

Half an onion, small dice. 4 Cloves of garlic, small dice. 1 Shallot, small dice. Saute the onion in bit of olive oil over medium heat until translucent. Add shallot and garlic and saute for about 2 more minutes. Add about a tablespoon of tomato paste and saute for another minute or two. Add in 1/4 cup dry white wine and let it reduce a bit (3-5 minutes). Drain the tomatoes and add only the solids. Let it simmer for 10 minutes or so. Add in 1 tablespoon dried parsley, 1 tablespoon dried oregano, and 2 tablespoons of dried basil. Let it simmer for another minute or two. Transfer to a blender and blend like crazy. While blending, carefully remove the top and add cream until desired flavor is reached. Naturally, season and re-season at just about every step.

The smoked gouda adds something to this combination of flavors that you just couldn’t get with Parmigiano-Reggiano (which would be my normal go-to flavor addition).

The grocery store had these little gems the other day: beta sweet carrots. I wasn’t sure what to make of them or what to do with them. When I’ve picked out odd looking carrots before, I’ve always been disappointed that once you peel them, they look just like normal carrots.

These, though, are not. Before I read a few pages about them, I’d already cooked them so I’d half figured they were part carrot part beet (yes, my hands are still blue). The purple exterior penetrated the carrot around an eighth of an inch or so. They were visually stunning, a quality that, unfortunately due to my negligence, didn’t make it into the final dish (I blanched them about 90 seconds too long, I think).

The result? They’re sweet, a bit earthy, and very carrot-y. I blanched them, shocked them, then used a light champagne and raspberry vinaigrette and garnished with chopped parsley and chive. Simple, good, and very interesting looking. What more could you want from a carrot?

I have to admit it… I totally Sandra-Lee our gnocchi. Why? It’s certainly not hard to make and not very time consuming either. But with a 3 minute cooking tim and a hungry 2-year-old, having this pre-packaged can be a blessing. Also, our grocery store carries a few “dried” organic brands and a couple brands that are made fresh every day. From my limited sampling, the quality is about 95% of what I can make at home and some of the ‘made fresh’ is actually better. Also, way expensive, but better.

So on to the carrot, one of the staple work-horses of the kitchen in place firmly behind the onion and the tomato. I’m constantly looking for new things to do with carrots because I love them so — raw, blanched, braised, roasted, mashed, marinated, stewed, you name it — and I thought that instead of making them play a background or foreground role, I’d try and feature them in a sauce.

As with all new recipes, however, I’m not quite done with this dish yet. It’s just not all ‘there’.

But the 4,000 foot view is pretty simple: Saute a diced shallot in a little butter in a small pot until translucent. Add 2 sliced garlic cloves and saute for another minute or so. Add 2 very large carrots, peeled, with a medium dice. Just cover the carrots with a mixture of 50% milk and 50% heavy cream. A bit of salt and white pepper, a bay leaf, about 4 sprigs of parsley (stems and leaves) and let it poach for 15 minutes or so or until the carrots are tender. Do not boil and, because it’s cream and milk, do watch it constantly.

After the carrots are tender, remove and discard the bay leaf. Put the whole mess through a blender and blend thoroughly. As with all hot things to be blended, do not fill the blender more than half full and hold a towel firmly over the lid when running, lest the walls be repainted with molten carrots. After it’s done blending, season to taste and add about 2 tablespoons of butter. The sauce should be very smooth and might, if the blender doesn’t do its job too well, need a bit of straining before being used.

The first results (pictured above) were pretty tasty. I liked them; the daughter loved them. I think the final dish will add black trumpet mushrooms and bacon as this was missing that ’something’ that makes it a whole dish rather than an experiment.

Enough with the salads already, let’s get on to a really ugly root vegetable: celeriac (celery root). The extent of my use of this little gem had been primarily as a flavor component to mashed potatoes or just by itself in a puree as a sauce. It played a background or an addition to a dish

After the wife made a surprisingly good cabbage soup (I say this only because I’ve never been impressed a cabbage soup recipe, not to critique her soup making skills which are often better than mine), I decided to take the celery root and give it front and center stage for a soup. On top of that, I decided to forgo relying on a canned vegetable stock (we’ve run out of our frozen batch) and just use water (as suggested, rather sternly, by Mr. Ruhlman). The absence of the stock, which tends to tint things a bit as I use stock with some tomato in it, gave the soup a very bright white appearance which I found visually appealing. I had to dig out my non-white dishes, though!

A bit of white wine, onion, potato, the aforementioned star, some cream cheese, cream, bay leaf, thyme, carraway seeds, truffle oil and micro-greens later, the result is… not finished yet. It was good, but not perfect. A bit too rich and missing something, though I’m not sure what. I enjoyed it. The daughter enjoyed it. My wife took a batch to work for lunch. It’s just not ready for a recipe yet.

Tricks to try when preparing celeriac:

• use a super-sharp knife to trim the skin, or a serrated knife
• Don’t cut the tops off; use them as a handle if they’re healthy enough (cut and discard before cooking)
• have a water bath with a touch of acid ready; very few, if any vegetables oxidize faster than this one
• slice in thin slices rather than cubes; I’ve found these cook more evenly

Bon appetit!

Our weekend shopping trip yielded something I’ve been after for quite a while. I’d seen them on TV and I’d read articles about them, and finally, there they were in the produce isle: watermelon radishes.

Watermelon radishes have a flavor that’s not harsh like many other varieties, and a distinct sweetness in the center. As I’ve read up on these, I realized that we had younger plants so I expected a bit of a bite on the end of them and was pleasantly surprised; they did indeed have a bite, but it was smooth yet peppery, and you could definitely get the hints of sweet if you didn’t eat the outer edges. It was a flavor that deserved to stand on its own a bit in a dish so the vehicle I chose for it was a simple salad.

I’d made a batch of dressing the other day to test the blender’s ability to emulsify vinaigrettes without the aid of any emulsifiers such as mustard. It used a raspberry vinegar and a touch of agave nectar for a bit of sweet and shallot for the depth of flavor.

I brought out the mandoline and sliced the radish into 1/16th inch-thick disks and let them marinate a bit in the vinaigrette, and then topped it with a bit of soft goat cheese, sprinkled it with a rough mince of chives and gave the final plating a thick pinch of fleur de sel.

The verdict? This was good. Plate licking good. It had a perfect balance of salt, sweet, bitter, bite and depth. It was a good illustration of not having to fuss too much with the food — simple flavors, tasting like themselves, blending into something that reaches beyond the individual ingredients.

And fortunately, I have two more of these little guys to slice up!

Watermelon Radish and Goat Cheese Salad
Raspberry Vinaigrette and Chive

4-6 Servings

Ingredients:

2 Small Watermelon Radishes, sliced 1/16th inch rounds
1 package of soft goat cheese (4oz)
minced chives
Fleur de Sel
Raspberry Vinaigrette (recipe below)

Directions:

Take the slices of radish and marinate them for 15-20 minutes in a thin coating of the vinaigrette.

Divide radish slices between plates evenly. Add small dollops of the soft goat cheese (hint: cut a corner of the little package and ’squeeze’ it out, cutting off bits with a knife or pinching them off) across the radishes. Sprinkle liberally with minced chives and, if desired, add a splash more of the vinaigrette. Before serving, dust with a medium (two-finger) pinch of fleur de sel.

Dressing: Raspberry Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

1/3rd cup raspberry vinegar
1 small shallot, diced
1 1/2 tablespoons dark agave nectar or honey
1 cups grapeseed oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, whisk together vinegar, shallot, honey (or agave nectar), a pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper. Continue whisking briskly while pouring the oil in a steady stream. Once the dressing is emulsified, set aside and let flavors come together. Re-season as necessary.

Options and notes:

This dressing is best made a day ahead of time and will keep for around a week. The amount of oil can be adjusted to your liking; the above represents the usual 3-to-1 vinaigrette ratio though I prefer my dressings closer to broken. A mild extra virgin olive oil or vegetable oil could be used in place of the grapeseed oil.

(Yes, these vinaigrette recipes will all look the same, pretty much!)

Bon appetit!

We signed up for a local deliver-to-your-door food thing here in Austin (Greenling) but so far the results have been mixed. We ordered parsley but we got curly parsley (who uses curly parsley?). One week we ordered baby greens and we got beautiful mesclun greens. The next week, with the same order, we got pre-packaged baby lettuce. The potatoes have been small but good and their ’surprise’ items have run the gamut.

But this week, I was in for quite a surprise.

I have a thing for microgreens and I’ve no idea why — they’re elegant, delicate, they can add color and a touch of flavor without making the dish into a salad. So being as I use them mostly as a garnish and the packages to which I have access are few, when preparing our New Year’s Eve dinner, I had to separate, by hand, the bright Bull’s Blood Beet microgreens from a package of Mediterranean greens. It took over an hour. Ick. I looked on the website of the grower and I was saddened to find out that many varieties are only available to the consumer through blended packs like the one I’d sorted through.

I arrive home and the wife tells me that I’ll be happy with the surprise. Sure enough, an entire package of Bull’s Blood Beet microgreens!

I love these because they’re a great color and they add just a hint of sweet beet flavor to a dish. I know there are contingents of people who don’t like beets, but this isn’t an overpowering beet taste, just a touch along with a bit of pepper and a bit of ‘fresh’ from the greens themselves.

So before they go bad, I had to do something with them. The result is the following recipe (which I will warn, doesn’t have the usual number of exact measurements):

Bull’s Blood Beet, Watercress and Warm Prosciutto Salad

Ingredients:

Watercress, leaves only (enough to cover the bottom of 4 medium sized salad plates completely)
4 semi-thick slices of prosciutto (about 1/16th of an inch thick or so)
grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (enough to sprinkle lightly on the greens and a bit heavier on the bacon)
1 small package Bull’s Blood Beet microgreens
Dressing (recipe to follow)

Directions:

Slice prosciutto into small planks and saute them on medium heat until desired done-ness (I prefer slightly crispy). A bit of oil can be used but it is not necessary. Set aside and let cool a bit though not completely. If necessary, remove excess oil by placing bacon on a paper towel.

Gently toss the watercress leaves in around 4-6 tablespoons of the dressing or until minimally coated. You want the flavor and the knowledge that the dressing is there, but not be overwhelmed. There will be leftover dressing and a lot of it. Enjoy.

To plate:

Cover the bottom of a salad plate with one layer of the dressed watercress. In the center, pile the slices from one piece of prosciutto. Lightly dust the watercress with the cheese and cover the bacon with a bit more liberal dose. Pile a good helping of the beet greens, undressed, on top of the bacon.

Options and notes:

Prosciutto is not for everyone and it might be hard to find sliced a bit thicker — it can be replaced in this recipe by regular bacon cooked however you like or, if pig is not your fancy, I’ve tried a similar recipe with bresaola (air dried beef). I also do not salt the greens in this dish as the bacon and Parmigiano will provide ample seasoning. If you work quickly, the bacon will slightly wilt the watercress. If there are any left over bacon drippings, those can be poured on as well.

Dressing: Sherry-Yuzu Agave and Dijon Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

1/4th cup sherry vinegar
1/4th cup yuzu vinegar
1/2 tablespoon dijon mustard
1 small shallot, diced
1 1/2 tablespoons dark agave nectar or honey
1 1/2 cups grapeseed oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, whisk together vinegars, mustard, shallot, honey (or agave nectar), a pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper. Continue whisking briskly while pouring the oil in a steady stream. Once the dressing is emulsified, set aside and let flavors come together. Re-season as necessary.

Options and notes:

This dressing is best made a day ahead of time and will keep for around a week. The amount of oil can be adjusted to your liking; the above represents the usual 3-to-1 vinaigrette ratio though I prefer my dressings closer to broken. A mild extra virgin olive oil or vegetable oil could be used in place of the grapeseed oil. Yuzu has a lemon-ish flavor and lemon flavored vinegars might work as a substitute but taste as you go as I’ve not tried them!

Bon appetit!