What's Cooking (Take Three!)

I tried making Ma Po Tofu with grated chinese sausage (lap xoung) but that wasn't successful; the bits of sausage browned too quickly, and didn't really steam, so they were a bit chewy. Maybe I should have cooked them in the microwave.

The Trader Joe's salmon burgers are very good; tried having them with King's Sweet Hawaiian rolls and found that was a bit too much with the good fishy flavor.

Hit of the week was Snake River Farms Wagyu corned beef from Costco. $8/lb., but it was incredible in flavor and tenderness. I'm getting more today. My can't-fail method is to take a bottle of stout or porter and cook in the crockpot all day on low. So tender that I had to slice it thicker so it wouldn't fall apart.

IMG_4558.JPG

[Jenise]

OH MAN, Walt. I didn't see Wagyu corned beef at Costco but did see some at a local market. I wondered, but didn't bite. Now you've got me thinking I have to go back.

[Jenise]

Dinner tonight is going to be rack of lamb. I'm thinking of going with a Middle Eastern seasoned rub of cinnamon and cumin, and serving it on a rice that includes dried apricot bits and pine nuts. Bordeaux with that.

[Jenise]

So I went to the store to score some of that corned beef Walt is talking about. Same producer, Snake River Farms (though I note my packages are labeled Kobe not wagyu--same difference I realize.) Also found the first fresh Alaskan halibut I've seen, and I scored a chunk of belly filet.

MENU CHANGE: ahi poke for an amuse bouche, cold asparagus salad, then broiled halibut with lemon-dill rice.

We'll have the lamb tomorrow.

The daughter's headed back to college tomorrow now that her spring break is over, so I made something she likes - a frittata with bacon, leeks, mushrooms, and gruyere. Went well with an Elio Grasso dolcetto.

Boy, Mike, my son is a great age now but I wouldn't mind if he enjoyed me making him a frittata like that one.

Jenise, I got some as well; seems like they are not all quite as well marbled so I had to hunt a bit. Are you seeing local asparagus yet?

Made some rice pudding this morning, very easy and tasty.

[Robin Garr]

An easy and umami-loaded soup that works well in cool weather or warm: Korean-style black bean soup with onions, ginger, garlic and sesame flavors.

korean-blackbean-soup.jpg

RCP: Sauté chopped onion, garlic and fresh ginger, then stir in a can of black beans and a cup of water. Heat, add a splash of soy sauce. Blend fairly smooth, but we like to leave a little texture. In the bowl, add a drizzle of sesame oil and chopped scallions and cilantro.

One caution: because canned beans are salty, you have to work hard to keep the soup from being too salty. We drain and rinse the beans, use low-sodium soy sauce, and do not add salt. Taste as you go.

Also, a little Sriracha or Korean gochujang hot sauce might be nice, but it's very good with black pepper or without any extra spice. It's a great soup.

Last night's dinner was bunchi khichari--rice and mung dal with cashews, almonds, and raisins. Yamuna Devi's recipe from her cookbook "Lord Krishna's Cuisine".

-Paul W.

That black bean soup sounds and looks delicious. I intend to solve the salty bean problem by cooking up dried black beans myself.

-Paul W.

[Robin Garr]

I intend to solve the salty bean problem by cooking up dried black beans myself.

That would do th trick! The nice thing about this recipe, though, is that it makes an extremely quick dish. No disagreement about the quality of doing your own dry beans, though.

[Jenise]

That soup looks beautiful, Robin. Great idea.

Walt, here's the Kobe corned beef I bought. I have to admit I didn't look for extreme marble, and after I read your comment about that I kind of went "Duh, Jenise." I should have! I just looked for a nice chunk that didn't have a thick band of fat running through the center, and that had a good overall loaf-like 8"x4" rectangular shape that will cut well in the short direction against the grain. Here's what it looks like in the package:

CornedKobe.jpg

Should be fine. But now I want ANOTHER one.

Dinner tonight: fresh patrale sole, white asparagus, not sure what else.

[Jenise]

Cooked that corned beef last night. It was the best I've ever had. And not just texture, but flavor: perfectly spicy and much less salty than most commercially made corned beefs. Thanks, Walt!

Tonight, Chicken Paprikas. Thanks again to Ian H: http://forums.wineloverspage.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=27990#p241036

Tonight, Chicken Paprikas. Thanks again to Ian H:

Hope Ian is ok. Looked at link, other than recipes the pages aren't up- nothing for the Gite.
Most recent tripadvisor review is 2014.

[Jenise]

That paprikas thread's a fun read! I was newly interested in his point about the meat needing to be almost burnt, but when I clicked on the link I got lasagna.

That paprikas thread's a fun read! I was newly interested in his point about the meat needing to be almost burnt, but when I clicked on the link I got lasagna.

I saw that. You can click up to his page index and get it from there.

Tonight, Chicken Paprikas. Thanks again to Ian H:

Hope Ian is ok. Looked at link, other than recipes the pages aren't up- nothing for the Gite.
Most recent tripadvisor review is 2014.

Well, I found his current site: http://www.souvigne.com/en/home.htm

It has a 2017 calendar up so he's likely OK. The recipes have been copied over.

He's just moved on.

I made Robin's Korean-style black bean soup last night. No problem with excess salt because I started with dried black beans. I used some fresh galangal as well as ginger. The black beans are the rate-limiting step in the process (as we say in Biochemistry). If you have the cooked black beans on hand, you can throw this dish together in a matter of minutes. And the result is delicious.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Weekend food: Friday night was to be Bob's third and final birthday dinner, a throwback kind of meal to veal osso buco with risotto Milanese from my beloved old set of theTime-Life series of books. My mother had Italy and Provincial France, and I remember looking at the picture of this dish in particular and thinking "I'm going to make that when I grow up." But friends showed up out of nowhere with a basket of cheese and wine, so we did happy hour and then I invited them to stay for dinner. But I couldn't do the osso buco, and fortunately in the freezer I had two prime grade eye-of-rib-eyes, and I grilled those while making a skillet of potatoes with charred onions and a spicy mustardy green salad with fresh chives to follow. I commented to Bob as I cleaned up the grill the next morning how much I love that appliance; I will never EVER be without an indoor grill again.

So the osso buco got moved to Saturday night. If I do say so myself, it was excellent. But wow that's a lot of rich food, and where I love rich food and rarely balk at it, I don't think I'd choose that classic pairing again or if I did I'd halve the amount of veal. As it was, there were two stars on the plate and the presence of the other diminished rather than enhanced. I would prefer the risotto with seared halibut or grilled Lobster, and the osso buco with something plainer like a bit of buttered noodle or just a vegetable like rapini or spinach.

Then last night was going to be simple: tacos. There are very few dishes I repeat but tacos is something we probably have 2 or 3 times per year, though in fact I vary the fillings so it's not really the same dish. Anyway, last night was going to be tacos with a spicy ground turkey and rice filling. I bought the turkey at WFM last week and put it straight into the freezer when I got home. Yesterday I took it out and started cooking the filling before the meat was fully thawed. Correct handling on my end, then, but the meat smelled tainted. And so I started ramping up the seasoning to mask it and couldn't quite get there and finally I stood back and thought how stupid, trying to cover the taste of bad meat. "It's bad meat--don't eat it!" So that went in the trash and I pulled a pkg of ground beef out of the freezer and turned that into a taco filling. Then I got the tortillas out of the freezer--and some had blue mold. So those went into the trash too, and dinner became taco salads.

Jenise, you done good. There is absolutely no sense in eating bad food. I've had food poisoning a couple of times and it was no fun on any of them.

[Jenise]

Jenise, you done good. There is absolutely no sense in eating bad food. I've had food poisoning a couple of times and it was no fun on any of them.

I know! I was actually embarrassed to type that out but figured I might as well confess as maybe the embarrassment will be what I remember next time. [sheepish look]

Jenise, Jeff is right, you done good. And you have no need to be embarrassed at all.
I totally understand why you proceeded in the first inst, we all hate wasting food. And then there was no where to go other than the bin, you had to make the call. I have found that cryovacced meat has a smell when opened which I find off putting and I need to start the cook to determine how it will taste.
Your Bob is a very lucky man. Eating your food all the time and then 3, 3!! Birthday dinners.

Ahh , the indoor grill, sigh, that is the one and on,y thing I miss from my previous kitchen. That smokiness from the drips on the lava rock, so great for grilled veg,toast for bruschetta, even a holding hob on low. When we get the deck built I can do all that on the BBQ/grill just outside the kitchen.

[Jenise]

I have found that cryovacced meat has a smell when opened which I find off putting and I need to start the cook to determine how it will taste.

I'm so glad you said that; I've found the same. Chickens especially, which invariably turn out fine.

Ahh , the indoor grill, sigh, that is the one and on,y thing I miss from my previous kitchen. That smokiness from the drips on the lava rock, so great

It is, and even better than what I get from a barbecue. I deliberately keep my grill a little less than perfectly clean but a little grease helps flame-up and I want flame-up for that magic flavor. I find it amusing that American barbecues are purposefully built with little devices called, by various manufacturers, 'flavor shields'--the whole idea is to NOT have flame-ups. They are protecting the under-skilled from burning their food and blaming the manufacturer, instead of teaching them how to manage it properly for the best flavor. Spare me!

[Jenise]

Dinner Monday night was a do-over on the weekend's Risotto Milanese in order to enjoy it with seafood and prove (to myself) the point made here that the dish deserves something lighter than a slice of veal knuckle. I used shrimp, simply pan seared, and tossed some fresh tarragon into the risotto. Wonderful.

And last night I did a super-retro version of halibut. That is, I got to remembering the first time I ate halibut. I was about 9 years old and had gone on a train trip to the Grand Canyon with my grandmother and brother. I didn't like eggs, and I didn't like fish, and we were nowhere near salt water but somehow the restaurant in our little motel had "butterflied halibut" on the menu and grammy and Chris both ordered it the first night. It had been dipped in scrambled eggs and pan fried. It smelled wonderful, I tasted it, and the second night there all three of us ordered it. So I re-created that dish to serve with purple broccoli sprouts and nothing more than lemon juice and salt for condiments. We had a simple '15 Verget Chablis with that--a perfect match.

Oh, and I also went retro with the salad course. Another blast from the past, a "red, white and blue vinaigrette" that was a house standard at a good pizza joint I used to frequent in my 20's. Made in house, it was red wine vinegar based and had crumbled blue cheese in it. The process of mixing/shaking the dressing melts some of the blue cheese such that it becomes part of the flavor, but leaves some whole crumbs too. The red wine vinegar is essential--all of you probably know how well red wine and blue cheese play together, and it's just as true of this dressing. I'm long on four-year aged homemade red wine vinegar at the moment (I've been making more than I've been using), and some store-bought crumbled blue cheese so heck, good way to use both. For additional seasoning, I merely added a clove of smashed garlic and a few pinches of French basil. After eating that, Bob said "PULLEEZE do this again". Fortunate for him I mixed up a jar. Though I make most dressings in the bowl for precisely the combination of lettuces and other things I wish to eat, this dressing only gets better for being ahead.