What's Cooking (Take Three!)

[Jenise]

Yesterday for lunch I made a fantastic tuna salad: shaved cabbage and fennel, chopped fresh cilantro, spanish peanuts and chopped green onions were combined with two cans of olive oil packed tuna. The dressing was the oil from one can, salt and vinegar. The oil from the other was added to a jar of vinaigrette that lives in my fridge and gets re-seasoned occasionally.

For dinner, I made chicken schnitzels. I had a single boneless/skinless breast, albeit a very large one that, pounded out, created two fairly huge schnitzels. They were coated with panko seasoned with herbs de Provence and served with broccolini on the side. Great with a good Volnay.

[Jenise]

No plan yet for tonight. There's a big pork chop thawing on the counter but I have no specific plan for it just yet. Hmmmmm....

Made a sort of pasta carbonara using the last slice of the pork loin roast (cubed, sizzled with diced garlic), grated parm and stravecchio, two eggs, and some bucatini. Not my best work, as the sauce never came together. Oh, well.

Tonight for dinner is a Greek Pasta Salad. I am using Conchiglie pasta, tri-color small tomatoes, English cuke, red bell pepper, red onion, Kalamata olives, feta cheese, fresh parsley. Dressing has olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, honey, dijon mustard, garlic dried oregano, fresh dill, salt, gr. black pepper.

[Jenise]

Made a sort of pasta carbonara using the last slice of the pork loin roast (cubed, sizzled with diced garlic), grated parm and stravecchio, two eggs, and some bucatini. Not my best work, as the sauce never came together. Oh, well.

Did the eggs curdle?

Made a sort of pasta carbonara using the last slice of the pork loin roast (cubed, sizzled with diced garlic), grated parm and stravecchio, two eggs, and some bucatini. Not my best work, as the sauce never came together. Oh, well.

Did the eggs curdle?

I don't think so. It wasn't scrambled-egg-y, just never emulsified so it was just a soup of eggs, a little pasta water, cheese bits, and black pepper.

Tonight, it is Caldo De Res, a soup I have heard about but never made. I picked up two nice beef shanks and marinated them in juice from a marinated asparagus that I bought a few weeks ago and loved. Trimmed them up this morning and browned well, in the slow cooker insert, on the cooktop. Set aside, then sauteed onion, leeks, and garlic. Put shanks back in, added about two cups of beef stock I had left in the fridge, put in water, and added Better Than Bouillon beef paste and Mexican Oregano. This will cook until the meat falls off the bone and marrow has melted into the juices. The bones will be removed, and in will go Muir Glen fire roasted diced tomatoes, chunks of unpeeled red and yellow potatoes, carrots, which will cook for a bit and finally, zucchini, cabbage and fresh corn on cob which has been cut into three hunks from two ears. At serving, one can add fresh cilantro, diced raw onion, sliced peppers if you wish. Lime drizzled over. This can be done in a large pan on the stove, but I like the slow-cooking method because I do not have to watch it and can go about my chores inside or out and not worry.

[Jenise]

Sounds delish, Karen. Nice that you find beef shanks down there. They're very rare up here for some reason.

Tonight: grilled spatchcocked whole chicken with salad.

Most of the beef up here comes from Harris Ranch, so it is readily available, no trouble getting anything beef. Getting my neighborhood gocery to see that is another story. Won't even carry flank steaks. Then there are all the ranchers who raise, beef, lambs, pigs, and sell at Farmer's Market, but they are very expensive, organic of course.

Saigon Market in Manchester NH has an extremely eclectic meat department. As one might expect from an East Asian market, one can get whole chickens with the head and feet on. They also have stewing hens. They have just about every part of the pig and cow anatomy one can think of. Beef shanks of course, but also beef trotters, tongue, and heart. And for those making silk purses, they have pig's ears.

-Paul W.

Just churned a honey ice cream. We'll see how this comes out.

I read that honey is not easy to make into ice cream:
1. It is slightly acidic so you can't let it near the eggs until they're tempered.
2. It lowers the freezing point of the custard mix so it just gets slushy instead of firm. To counteract this, recipes introduce more milk than is usual because that introduces more water than is usual which will help the whole mass go solid.

I used a typical 5-egg custard with some cream replaced by whole milk. I churned it for 30 minutes ; I usually do 22 minutes. It was finally getting thick so I am hopeful that an overnight sojourn in the freezer will finish the job.

I have also captured a honey gelato recipe -- cornstarch instead of eggs -- but that one has the reverse problem: water introduced by the honey disturbs the thickening power of the cornstarch so, unlike other gelato recipes, this one adds some cream at the end!

I further complicated things by adding 1/4 tsp of Fior di Sicilia to the mix. It's lovely but it is fighting with the honey flavor because I used a delicate honey. Next time I will get strong honey, chestnut or buckwheat, for this gig.

If there is a next time.

Sounds very interesting Jeff, I know what you mean about honey. Have not used it in ice cream but use a lot of it in vinaigrettes. I usually need to heat it up a bit to get it emulsified into the other dressing ingredients. Now you have me wondering where my ice cream maker is. Have not made any for so long, might just be a fun thing to do this week.

[Jenise]

Last night: first Copper River sockeye of the season. I rubbed it with sesame oil then rolled it in grated fresh ginger and coarse black pepper. Baked it 18 minutes at 250, and served it with asparagus. No salad this time, but a bowl of fresh strawberries after.

Last night I made chicken with shiitake mushrooms and bean thread noodles in a seasoned broth. This is a Thai take on an Eastern Chinese classic. Chicken stock is simmered for 20 minutes with star anise, black peppercorns, cinnamon, ginger, and tangerine peel. The broth is strained and shredded pre-soaked shiitakes are added (I ran out of dried shiitake so I used some fresh ones as well) along with fish sauce, soy sauce, and sugar. When the mushrooms are done, bean thread noodles are added along with sliced chicken breast. When the noodles are soft it's ready to be served with a garnish of thinly sliced scallions, strips of ginger and salt-and-Sichuan-pepper.

The recipe calls for poached boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Instead I used meat from one of those wonderful Costco rotisserie chickens.

-Paul W.

I further complicated things by adding 1/4 tsp of Fior di Sicilia to the mix. It's lovely but it is fighting with the honey flavor because I used a delicate honey. Next time I will get strong honey, chestnut or buckwheat, for this gig..

I'm a fan of buckwheat honey. Every time I visit PA, I bring back a jar. Never tried chestnut.

Last night: first Copper River sockeye of the season. I rubbed it with sesame oil then rolled it in grated fresh ginger and coarse black pepper.

I like the sound of that seasoning.

[Jenise]

Jeff, it's a great combination I picked up from Wolfgang Puck many years ago.

Yesterday no dinner at home, we were still stuffed from lunch which was at Bill Spohn's house with Dale and Betsy Williams and several couples in our wine lunch group. I provided a large platter of room temperature grilled steak salad. I debated how to get the best result considering that everything I did had to be prepared at home and transported to Vancouver. I had originally thought to do it turkey platter sized but decided to downsize in case the dishes got passed instead of presented on buffet, and in fact that's what happened so good thinking. I put the salad greens in one large wide and shallow bowl and drizzled the dressing over with a few of the mushrooms. The dressing was the red wine vinegar/tarragon/garlic/salt/oil marinade for 2 lbs of mushrooms that were sliced/browned/marinated the day before. The mushrooms themselves were scooped over the steak slices on a separate platter. Made two pretty plates and didn't crush the lettuces. I also provided a bowl of golden beets in a lime and olive oil dressing with horseradish and chopped fresh sage. My sage plant's in bloom right now and the purple flowers were a great contrast.

Betsy commented about appreciating the vegetables--"most of these wine things we go to are all meat and cheese". I can relate, and that's why I can always be counted on to bring the vegetables.

Great idea Jenise and usually appreciated by many.

By the way, do you eat the puple sage flowers? Do they taste like sage... I have a plant in full bloom right now.

[Jenise]

No, not like sage. Just sweet and a little spicy. Really nice especially where you have the impact of color contrast, like against those yellow beets.

It was finally getting thick so I am hopeful that an overnight sojourn in the freezer will finish the job.

After a day in the freezer, the honey ice cream was firm enough to scoop but still slightly melty. Good enough. And I agree with my flavor assessment from before the churning: a stronger honey would work better but this is still pleasant.

Overall, a good plain backing for fresh fruit, jam, chocolate sauce, etc. It'll go wherever Vanilla goes.

I oxidized some charcoal into ashes yesterday. While that happened, I grilled a 1.5# chunk of lamb, a 2# chunk of turkey breast, and a pile of meatballs and sausages that later went into a pot of sauce... and, later yet, served with bucatini.

Grilled meatballs are excellent! I can't imagine why I've never done them before.

Grilled meatballs (kebabs) are a common and popular Indian tandoori dish.

-Paul W.

It was finally getting thick so I am hopeful that an overnight sojourn in the freezer will finish the job.

After a day in the freezer, the honey ice cream was firm enough to scoop but still slightly melty.

After two days in the freezer, the honey ice cream is finally firm. It has a texture close to ice milk, which is likely my fault as I went overboard on the milk:cream ratio. Lesson learned to take that very seriously.

It still gets melty pretty quickly and is still luscious then so I'll eat it. (Yeah, that was a tough call. )

[Jenise]

I'd forgotten ice milk ever existed. When I was a child, my grandfather loved/preferred it. Or maybe, since he had had a heart attack, maybe it was what he ate in self-defense. Don't know, but he would get up in the middle of the night and eat half of one of those rectangular blocks. I actually kind of liked it for the crystalization.