August 3rd, 2009
When I read the Ruhlman post about Michael Symon’s Pickled chilis back in March I knew I had to try and make them. Not until this week did I actually get as far as buying a pound of fresh Jalapenos at the grocery store, and I couldn’t remember enough of the recipe so I assumed I had everything I needed. Not so. I had to make at least a few substitutions such as rice vinegar instead of sherry vinegar. It’s easy enough to click the link to get the original recipe, so I’ll only put down what I actually used here.
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup rice vinegar
- dash of french thyme
- 1 tsp aleppo pepper
- 1/2 tsp oregano
- 2 tbsp white pepper
- 1 1/3 tbsp salt
- 1 1/3 tbsp cane sugar
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 2 tbsp of coriander
- 2 bay leaves
- ~ 1 lb of fresh jalapenos
The peppers fit snug into a quart mason jar with just cutting the tops off. The remaining ingredients were put in a sauce pan and simmered on the stove for 10 minutes. Let cool just a little bit and poured over the peppers. They go in the fridge as soon as the jar is cool enough. I’ll see if I can keep my hands off of them for a week or so before sampling the first time. Hopefully my substitutions wont have made it horrible.
Tags: Herbs, Vegetables
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August 2nd, 2009
It was pretty good weather out yesterday so Nicholas and I were heading to the farmers market in St. Paul to get some chocolate milk from Crystal Ball Farm Diary out of Osceola, WI. I noticed that quite a few vendors had some good looking fresh sweet basil, so I decided that we should do some fresh basil pesto and use it to make a pasta salad for a Mead Day event later that day. After buying some pine nuts at the grocery store on the way home we made a pesto from the following ingredients:
- 2 heaping cups of fresh sweet basil
- heaping pile of grated romano/parmesan (using micro-plane grater medium ribbon)
- 2 chopped cloves of garlic
- 1/3 cup fresh toasted pine nuts
- salt + pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup olive oil
First the pine nuts went into the food processor with the garlic. After pulsing a few times I added all of the basil along with the cheese. After pulsing for a minute or two I slowly added the olive oil until the consistency was just right, pretty well blended and very small pieces. Then I seasoned with salt and pepper to taste. With the amount of cheese the pesto turned out on the salty side, so I would be a little more cautious with the salt next time.
For the pasta salad I cooked a pound of whole wheat penne. I pulled them off while they were still “al dente”. I cooled it immediately under running cold water and let it drain in a strainer for 10 minutes. While it was draining I diced 4 oz of pepperoni from Cossettas and added it to the bowl where I was going to make the salad in. I added the drained pasta and about 2/3rds of pesto from the recipe above, which was about right for the amount of pasta.
Today I used some of the remaining pesto in a few chicken and lettuce sandwiches which also turned out pretty good!
Tags: Herbs, Recipe
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August 2nd, 2009
I’m currently reading Seventh Daughter and after finishing the first chapter I had a craving to get some dumplings. I decided to whip up a batch for lunch yesterday. The book even recommended to just buy pot sticker wrappers, so I went to our local Cub and got some ground pork and pot sticker wrappers. I already had the remaining ingredients except for green onions which I decided to sub some regular chopped onion for.
- 1 lb ground pork
- 2 large handfuls shredded cabbage
- 1 small onion finely chopped
- 1 tsp minced ginger (I freeze mine and use a micro plane grater to grate as much as I need)
- 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
I mixed up the meat in a bowl and filled the pot-sticker wrappers with about a tablespoon of meat each. I used a little egg-wash to make the wrapper stick better together and then attempted to braid the sides with pretty decent results. Heat a non-stick skillet and spray the pan with oil. Add the pot-stickers and cook for 2-3 minutes or until the pot-stickers have some color underneath them. Add enough water to the pan to cover about 1/3 of the way up on the dumplings and let the pot-stickers steam under a lid until the water has evaporated and the pot-stickers are cooked all the way through. The pot-stickers turned out very good, although a little salty. So I would leave half a teaspoon of salt out next time. Serve with a soy/rice vinegar/chili oil dipping sauce.
Tags: Asian, Cravings
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June 20th, 2009
I managed to break my old baking stone about a month ago. It lasted quite a bit longer than I thought it would – about 4 years. I knew that the other 3 baking stones I’ve had died within a few months with the heat I put them through, so I decided I needed a new one of the same. I went back to Hockenbergs and sure enough they still had the same model. It was a mere $40 with tax, well worth it for the amount of pizza I had baked on the old one. Really thick and very durable (been on the grill too).
Tags: Baking, Pizza
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June 6th, 2009
Chickens Mounted on Cans Before Cooking
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="100" caption="Moist and Juicy Cooked Chicken"]
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Skirt Steak Marinating in Lime/Bourbon/Garlic/Shallots/Oregano
Skirt Steak on The Grill
Skirt Steak Chopped Up
Not much time to upload pictures and write anything up! Skirt Steak was from the Mexican Supermercado on Payne Ave and it was damn tasty!
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June 6th, 2009
I have a few Global Knives and using the MinoSharp Water Knife Sharpener along with a diamond hone just wasn’t cutting it. So I recently ordered a few items to make my knives a tiny bit sharper – A 1000/6000 Grit Japanaese Waterstone, a Waterstone holder, and a set of Sharpening Guides. So far it has been quite a bit of a learning curve. First off, I thought getting a 1000 grit as the smallest grit was going to work okay, but in reality that is where I have spent the most time trying to get the starting edge on the knives. It would have made a lot more sense to get a smaller grit stone than spending almost an hour per knife getting the edge ground down. This is mostly an issue because of the edge on the Global knives. They are known for being a different angle than other knives.
After lots of hard work getting the edge ground down with the guides I was able to flip the stone to the fine grit side and polish the edges. The polishing went very smooth and the edge is super sharp on my knives now.
Ready To Sharpen
Knife Sharpened
Tags: Knives
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May 31st, 2009
I made some beer can chickens the other day (no post yet) and wanted to make a quick salad to go with it. I was not able to find anything other than some good looking romaine lettuce at the grocery store. So I had to come up with something else to make a quick salad.
- 1 head heart of romaine salad
- 1/2 cup microplane grated romano cheese
- 1 cup microplane grated asiago cheese
- 4 thick slices of salami
Rinse the individual romaine leaves and roughly chop it into rustic pieces. Die the salami into not too small and not too large pieces. Mix everything together and add some fresh crushed pepper. The remaining water on the lettuce makes the microplane grated cheese stick to it much like a caesar salad – but without the dressing. Very refreshing and good side for the beer can chickens.
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May 25th, 2009
I wanted to grill out again today, and I had a perfectly fine flank steak in the fridge that I took out from the freezer yesterday. I had just finished watching another episode of Bobby Flay’s “Grill It” where he marinated some beef in Creme de Cassis and Red wine. It certainly sounded good to me, so I knew what to do with the flank steak.
- 2 lb flank steak
- 2/3 cup red wine
- 1/2 cup creme de cassis
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- fresh ground pepper
- pinch of kosher salt
- oregano
Remove the sinew and extra fat on the flank steak. Cut in some 1/4″ deep cross marks on the flank steak and sprinkle generously with the kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, and oregano. Put the remaining ingredients in a zip lock bag and put the flank steak in the marinade. Refrigerate for an hour before letting it come to room temperature to get ready for the grill.
I also had a pork tenderloin in the fridge that I wanted to grill at the same time.
- 1.5 lb pork tenderloin
- sprig fresh thyme
- sprig fresh oregano
- 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
- 1 1/2 cup of fresh grated asiago & romano cheese
- 4 cloves chopped garlic
- fresh ground pepper
- kosher salt
Remove the fat, sinew, and silver skin from the pork tenderloin. Butterfly the tenderloin into a 1/2″ thick flat piece. Sprinkle the seasonings and cheese mix on top of the tenderloin and roll it up tightly. I used some butcher twine to keep the roll together for cooking. It’s fairly easy to tie a few butcher’s knots to keep it together.
The tenderloin needed a little longer cooking time than the flank steak. The flank steak had a nice char to it and was perfect medium rare in the thicker part. The Creme de Cassis really came through in the final product. The pork tenderloin was also perfectly done although a little on the dry side. Also had some nice grill marks on the outside. Next time the pork tenderloin should really have some kind of gravy to compliment it.
I wanted to grill some vegetables and had a roll of polenta from Trader Joe’s that I wanted to grill up too.
- Roll of organic polenta from Trader Joe’s
- 1 large sweet potato
- 1 cup fresh grated asiago & romano cheese
- oregano
- fresh ground pepper
- kosher salt
- 1 clove chopped garlic
- 2 tbsp olive oil
Peel the sweet potato and cut it into about 6 equal sized slices. Brush olive oil on each side and sprinkle with ground pepper and kosher salt. Open the roll of polenta and cut them into even sized slices (about 1/2″ thick). Brush both sides with olive oil and sprinkle fresh ground pepper and kosher salt on them. Mix the cheese with the chopped garlic, oregano, and fresh ground pepper.
Put the all the slices over a medium hot fire. The polenta will stick pretty bad even with the olive oil. Leave them for a few minutes – enough to get some grill marks. Once you flip them over sprinkle with the cheese and herb mixture on top – it will lightly melt as the residual radiates up to through the cheese. Even with the sticking it turned the polenta turned out pretty tasty and almost creamy. The salty cheese mixture on top worked well with it too.
Tags: BBQ, Beef, Cooking, Food, Grill, Grilling, Herbs, Outdoor, Pork, Recipe, Vegetables
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May 24th, 2009
One of the things I occasionally miss from Denmark, are the pizza sandwiches that are made by your local Turkish-family owned pizza joints all over Denmark. They’re essentially calzone pizzas that are light on sauce. Cooked at high heat the outter shell is much like a large pita bread that is cut open and filled with shredded lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and yogurt dressing. I wanted tomake some similar to this as Nicholas had requested pizza for dinner.
The bread part of this I’ve posted multiple times so I’ll just post the ingredients and no method around it.
- 4 1/2 cups bread flour
- 3/4 cup of graham wholewheat flour
- 1/2 cup gluten
- 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp yeast
- ~2 cups warmwater
I didn’t want to attempt making the tangy yogurt dressing today, so I decided to make a tomato salsa that would add a little of the dressing feel.
- 4 seeded and then chopped roma tomatoes
- 1 large shallot finely diced
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1`handfull cilantro leaves chopped
- juice of 1 lime
- pinch of kosher salt
- pinch of fresh ground pepper
- 2 tbsp olive oil
Mix all the ingredients together in a large enough container and put it in the fridge for an hour to allow the flavors to develop.
Split the pizza dough into 6-7 pieces and round them out. Roll them out flat and try to be a little consistent with the shape so it is easier to form the calzone. Once the dough is rolled out put your toppings on. I went very simple and only added some salami and shredded mozzarella cheese. Only fill one side of the dough where it will make the most uniform folded over piece. Once you fold over the dough you could use a fork to make the edges come together – I braided the sides by folding over the dough a little bit at a time. Was quite easy to do.
The calzones went on the grill for about 2 minutes on each side until they were browned but hopefully not burnt. Once cool enough to touch cut them open at the folded edge and fill. Our fillings were shredded lettuce and the tomato salsa. Below are a few progression pictures.
If I had to make the yogurt dressing I would try to get some greek yogurt (non-sweetened, no vanilla). I’d add lime juice, chopped garlic, salt, pepper, and fresh chopped oregano to it. Maybe a little buttermilk to get the consistency more like a dressing.
Tags: Baking, Bread, Cravings, Grill, Grilling, Outdoor, Pizza, Recipe
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May 22nd, 2009
Probably one of my favorite recipes taken directly from a book is the Chicken Satay recipe in Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia by James Oseland. I’ve adapted the recipe to use weight instead of the relatively low-key “piece of” measurements in the recipe. Of course the measurements really depends on the potency of the individual ingredients, but I think it’s alittle more accurate way to get to a consistent result. The original recipe calls for ground turmeric, but I was able to get some fresh turmeric from Dragon Star market in St. Paul.
- 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tbsp whole coriander seed
- 1 tbsp whole fennel seed
Use a mortar and pestle to pound this into a fine powder.
- 1 oz fresh galangal sliced
- 2 oz fresh ginger sliced
- 2 oz shallots (little less than original recipe calls for)
- 3 cleaned and chopped stalks of lemongrass (hard outer leaves removed and top half cut off)
- 3 cloves of garlic sliced
- .5 oz of fresh turmeric
- 3 oz palm sugar – finely sliced
- Peanut oil
Put the spice powder into a food processor and add the sliced galangal, ginger, garlic, lemongrass, shallots, and turmeric. Grind for a minute, then scrape down sides and grind for another minute. Scrape down sides again and add 2 tbsp peanut oil and grind for another minute. Now add the palm sugar and scrape down again before letting the mixture grind a final time. Adjust the oil to make the consistency right – it shouldn’t be liquid and it shouldn’t be too thick either.
The marinade is plenty to marinate over 3 lbs of chicken thighs (no breasts please – for both flavor and juicyness). The diced chicken thighs marinate anywhere from an hour to 4 hours. It freezes really well too – so I made a triple batch today. It is fairly labor intensive to do the marinade with slicing and cleaning of the ingredients – took me about 2 hours from start to finish. No pictures for now as I’m not actually making the satay until tomorrow.
Tags: Asian, Cravings
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