What's Cooking (Take Three!)

Jenise, as always sounds great and I like the theme night idea. If you do make a sherry cocktail I’d be interested to hear about it.
I enjoy a sherry when the mood, or food stirs me that way. Although we now have to call it something else if it is a local product, and there are some very good wines of that style produced here.

Pork and beans

I’m making the third meal from the piece of pork belly (smallest bit on the supermarket shelf)
People living on their own will understand how problematic meat shopping can be with prepacked meat all that you can access easily.
So I’m roasting the pork and serving it with wilted greens tossed with blanched green beans and blistered cherry tomatoes.

[Jenise]

Not single now, Barb, but I do remember when I went from feeding an entire family to living on my own at age 18. Found it hard to learn to scale back and additionally ingredients like meats were packaged for families of five. So I made lots of the same thing and ate it all week.

Leftovers are great timesavers.

I hear you, but I’m really resistant to eating the same thing over again. Did that growing up and in early independence.
Time saving....hmmmm.... so I can go out and visit..hm.
Curious doings in the kitchen right now as I contemplate things to be used up before I broach a new protein etc. so it will probably be a !Mexixanish wrap using left over roast pork belly, I’ve just made some guacamole and have wraps etc.

Whilst thinking I invented the cheese spring roll. Curiously good, I’d accidentally bought cubes of cheddar and had some small spring roll, wrappers. Need to be sealed well, and be careful volcanic cheese!

Cajun tonight: chicken and andouille gumbo.

-Paul W.

Going to do something with Dover sole tonight.

Well, I sauteed the Dover sole in olive oil and butter. I dredged the fillets in paleo flour (almond flour, arrowroot starch, coconut flour, tapioca flour) seasoned with a little salt, South African lemon peri-peri seasoning, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Never tried paleo flour before, but it worked just fine with a bit of a different flavor profile. Even Edie liked it.

Also found some interesting crackers today from New Zealand: oat & cranberry and rye & caraway. Don't see much New Zealand foodstuffs here.

[Jenise]

The sole sounds great; I adore mild flounderish white fish.

Last night we had Swedish meat balls on Spaetzle after a romaine salad with warm mushroom vinaigrette. The main course item was purchased from a local restaurant to help the local economy. Arguably the best restaurant in town. Flavor was great, but the texture of the meatballs was denser than they had to be, and they didn't provide enough gravy (which was separate). I don't flood my food so it's not like it would have been enough for anyone else--only someone who wanted NO sauce would have been pleased. But oh well, I did my part. We ate about half of it, and I'll repurpose the other half--more gravy!

We opened a 2005 St. Innocent Shea VY pinot to go with it--gravy or no, anything I served with that wine would have tasted more special.

[Jenise]

Today I have a super fresh piece of Pacific Halibut; I'm so excited! I'm planning to prepare it in a potato crust and nest it on a puddle of a loose pea puree--frozen peas and sugar snap peas whizzed in the Vitamix with EVOO. It's a dish I had in a restaurant YEARS ago and loved. What I just described was my waiter's description of that sauce, and it makes sense to my mind that it would work just like that, though I would think an herb component were involved as well. Perhaps tarragon. But the sugar snap peas were a genius and important part of the whole because it watered down, in a good way, what would have been pasty/carb-y if it were classic peas all by themselves.

Now that grilling season is here, I'm making northern Thai sausage.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Bought a boneless leg of Aussie lamb a few weeks back for Easter dinner, which somehow never happened. Cut it in two today and vac'd them both with rosemary, sage salt and cloves. One's been floating sous vide all day and the other went into the freezer for later. Not sure how I'm going to plate it. Having some cat issues and don't the appetite for creativity.

[Jenise]

The lamb was awesome last night. I deliberately undercooked it (sous vide) to just rare, then unleashed it, studded it with fresh garlic, seared it and then roasted it for 20 minutes to true medium which is where we prefer lamb. Served slices, no sauce, over a tart lemon-dill rice. Really great.

Looking for something fun to do, tonight I'm considering a Plov. It's a dish cooked "all over Russia" per a lot of recipe-loaders on the internet, attributed to Uzbekistan mostly, but also adopted by Persian and Jewish cooks. It's a homey one-pot rice dish of beef, carrots, and onions seasoned with bay leaf, cumin and paprika. When done in the traditional way, the beef etc layer is prepared in the bottom of a Dutch oven and a rice layer goes over the top. The signature final step is to cut the root end off a whole bulb of garlic and partially bury it cut side down in the rice for the final steam.

Lemon-dill rice... anything more than lemon juice and chopped fresh dill?

Plov sounds like my kind of thing. I'll have to look it up. Thanks!

So there is an eye fillet, half a sheet of puff pastry, 1 mushroom (who knows) and some foie gras, just hanging out in the fridge. Let’s get them together and have beef Wellington
Still thinking about veg. Weather is so wet and windy I’m not getting salad from the garden right now!

[Jenise]

Lemon-dill rice... anything more than lemon juice and chopped fresh dill?

Plov sounds like my kind of thing. I'll have to look it up. Thanks!

Plov, p-lov--that's the origins of the word we know as pilaf. I looked at a dozen different recipes and ended up going with Joan Nathan's in the NYT. Her's had more steps, more complex layering (which Jenise the Builder loves). Compared to hers, many versions were little more than Rice-a-Roni with meat. I didn't have barberries so added paprika which was standard to all the other recipes I looked at, but liked that she specified whole cumin seed vs. the ground cumin common to all other versions I'd looked at. Cumin seed cooked whole has a whole different end flavor than ground, and it's absolutely a difference worth going for. In fact, I think it's the magic flavor of the dish, it has an exoticism where ground cumin just ends up tasting like Mexican food (to me). We loved it.

But I think the genius moment of my meal was the starter. Just in time I remembered spending a week in Moscow back in--well, long time ago!--and not a beet liker at all when I got there, they kind of grew on me as they were served rather constantly. I have some pretty pink chiogga beets I pickled, so I sliced a few and tossed them in EVOO with some chopped endive and spread those across a bed of bufala mozzarella. A Russian caprese, you could call it--and it was WONDERFUL.

Plov, p-lov--that's the origins of the word we know as pilaf.

Ah!

Cumin seed cooked whole has a whole different end flavor than ground, and it's absolutely a difference worth going for. In fact, I think it's the magic flavor of the dish, it has an exoticism where ground cumin just ends up tasting like Mexican food (to me).

I have some whole fenugreek seed that I bought for an Armenian dish that never got made. Do those taste similarly?

I have some pretty pink chiogga beets I pickled, so I sliced a few and tossed them in EVOO with some chopped endive and spread those across a bed of bufala mozzarella. A Russian caprese, you could call it--and it was WONDERFUL.

Sounds excellent. And possibly even mesmerizing if you get the concentric circles to come out nice and even.

[Jenise]

I've never cooked whole fenugreek, Jeff, only used ground and leaf form so can't testify.

The beets were cut into crescents for the original pickling so no circles. But I laughed at your comment!

A lot of Indian dishes that call for fenugreek start by frying the whole seeds either dry or in a bit of oil, usually along with whole other whole spices such as cumin, coriander, fennel or dried red chiles. But the spice mixture ends up being ground to a powder before it's added to the dish.

As with coriander, fenugreek leaves are used as well as the seeds. Fresh fenugreek leaves have a very different flavor profile from fenugreek seeds, just as cilantro is quite different from coriander seeds.

-Paul W.

Beef short ribs tonight. Peppered, and with a good heavy sear, then 3 hours in the oven with a mix of vegetables (fennel, carrot, mushroom, tomato), seasoning (sugar, vinegar, wine, salt, cloves, garlic) and stock. Unctuous and dense. Served with rice balls.

Last night I had grilled Thai sausage patties. Tonight I'm making yu xiang qie zi (eggplant).

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Today I'm making stuffed artichokes, which we probably won't eat until tomorrow, a caprese salad for lunch and chicken vindaloo for dinner.

[Jenise]

Tonight I'm making a cacio de pepe with truffle pasta.

Lamb chops, broiled hot and fast (for me, longer for Pumpkin). Hard to go wrong there but I was really pleased with the accompaniments I made: a well-judged pesto (thrown over sauteed vegetables) and a wild/Basmati rice mix that came out just perfectly. I used a ratio of 2.5 to 1, the wild got 25 minutes by itself then added the Basmati for another 20-25. Only water and EVOO until the last 5 minutes when I added a bit of tarragon and a 'bouquet garni' mix. Next time I will put a bay leaf in it to start. But I got nice chew, distinct grains, very pleased.

[Jenise]

Distinct grains--that's the essence of rice for me. I usually cook basmati only 12-15, but we've discussed all that.

Digressing a moment, I remember fondly the Chinese restaurant rice of my childhood--pre rice cookers! Sticky, starchy, clumpy--I LOVED THAT.