Thank you. This was my and my sister-in-law birthday dinner. I should have visually documented the process, but it was a significant part of the day both Saturday and Sunday in the making.

Spanish Beef Stew with Mushrooms and Sherry from Milk Street

Slight variation: thought I had beef stock, but only had chicken. Thought I had sweet paprika, only had smoked and half sharp (used some of each). Couldn't find Gran Riserva sherry vinegar, used merely "Aged".

Delicious, but wetter than I usually have a stew, boiling down the sauce would help. Good Fino Sherry makes for a lot of flavor. Lots of umami, without any boosters.

lougord99 wrote:Thank you. This was my and my sister-in-law birthday dinner. I should have visually documented the process, but it was a significant part of the day both Saturday and Sunday in the making.

Well, it looks like your hard work really paid off. That Wellington was gorgeous.

Wanted to take another swing at the parmesan crusted chicken that got away from me during a work call last week . . .


Marinade
Boneless, skinless chicken thighs in 3 parts buttermilk and 1part Frank's hot sauce. These marinated for about 4.5 hours.


Dredge
Parmigiano Reggiano, blanched almond flour, salt, black pepper, granulated onion & garlic and cayenne pepper. After the chicken came out of the marinade, I dried it off, dragged it through an egg wash and coated with the dredge. From there, it's a shallow fry in a 12" nonstick skillet, using a mixture of evoo and veg oil.

There was also side dishery. Needed to move some long beans . . .


Long Bean Mise En Place & Kanehide PS60 Gyuto, 210mm
Rice vinegar, veg oil, red pepper sauce, gochugaru, Tupelo honey, minced garlic, gochujang, long beans and dark/mushroom soy sauce. This was just a quick wok stir-fry, with some of the garlic going in early and some of it going in at the end.

Now, back to the chicken . . .


Parmesan Crusted Chicken
Not at all bad for a no-flour affair. The exterior was crusty and for the most part, it stayed adhered to the chicken.


Plated Up
With stir-fried long beans and leftover/reheated mantequilla beans from over the weekend. After all the chicken had cooked, there was some leftover egg wash and dredge, so I mixed them together, tossed in another egg and some leftover sauteed onions and mushrooms from who knows when and fried up a few pancakes. Forgot to get a shot of them but they turned out really well. I loved using everything up, especially in creating such a tasty, high-protein by-product.

Happy Monday!

=R=

Mostly leftovers tonight (chile verde, beans, parmesan chicken) but Makoto and I were busy with some veg. First, laid down another installment of the weekly slaw . . .


Green Cabbage, Carrot, Salt & Makoto AS Ryusei Gyuto, 210mm

But why stop there, right? With slaw set for the week, I was really in the mood for a green salad to accompany the leftover chile verde . . .


Green Salad & Makoto AS Ryusei Gyuto, 210mm
Iceberg lettuce, arugula and just about anything else that wasn't nailed down.


Plated Up
Greens & Veg salad with shallot-dijon vinaigrette.

=R=

Stir fry again tonight. Recently saw a beef and pepper variation at Babish's channel that interested me, so I decided to give it a go . . .


Mise En Place & Makoto AS Ryusei Gyuto, 210mm
Eggs (only used the whites), bell pepper strips, jalapenos, beef bouillon (recipe called for chicken but this was all I had), chicken stock, sliced garlic, corn starch, white pepper, veg oil, Shaoxing cooking wine, soy sauce, sesame seeds, flank steak strips and sesame oil. The recipe actually calls for hot peppers and while I love spicy, my family doesn't. So, I compromised by using bell peppers and including some seeded jalapenos, which I'd hoped would impart some heat. Unfortunately, they were quite mild and added zero heat.

Flank steak strips get marinated/velveted in egg whites, bouillon powder, white pepper, corn starch, Shaoxing, soy and sesame oil. Next, the peppers are fried briefly in hot oil until they just start to get soft. Then they're removed. Next, a bit more oil is added and the beef strips are fried until brown and crispy on the outside. They're removed and the sliced garlic is fried in the residual oil. Once it becomes fragrant, add back the beef and peppers. Give it all a toss, then drizzle in a slurry of 1:1 chicken stock and corn starch. When that starts to thicken, toss in the sesame seeds and finish with a light drizzle of sesame oil.


Plated Up
Over jasmine rice. There are a few things I'd do differently but overall, I liked this and would definitely make it again.

=R=

Tonight was a mostly-from-the-freezer meal.

It started with Foodsaver packs of 1) mackerel, 2) a mix of Russian Banana and All Blue potatoes with onions, and 3) multi-colored cauliflower. All were thawed in water in the refrigerator (thawing in water seems to work better/faster than just leaving the vacuumed stuff in the fridge on its own — the water conducts the heat away better than air does).

Since mackerel is a fairly strongly-flavored fish, I thought it could stand up to a marinade of tamarind, ginger and garlic, using boxed sauvignon blanc.

After marinating a couple of hours, I briefly pan-fried the mackerel, to help crisp up the skin. In the meantime, I added brown sugar, soy sauce, and (for no good reason) turmeric to the marinade, and boiled it down to a thick glaze.

I finished off the potatoes in the skillet I had used to crisp the mackerel. The thawed caulflower was microwaved. Then everything went into a slow oven, mostly to set the glaze on the fish.

Plated Turmeric-glazed Mackerel with limes, Potatoes and Cauliflower.
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I have had the last four days off as we have been in Phoenix for the last two days.

This pork and cabbage dish will be on the menu later this week:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SmfwpK ... K%C3%BCche

I do not understand in this recipe why the cook grills the cabbage in vegetable oil and then cooks the pork in the pan. When I make it, the pork will be sauteed first and then the cabbage in the pan drippings.

Also on the menu will be Buttermilk Barbecue Chicken from Food Wishes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW0qgxH ... FoodWishes

I am looking for a recipe that will use up all of the buttermilk in my refrigerator.

You can add 4-5 Tbs gochujang to the buttermilk brine.

Working through the last remnants of our most recent Costco delivery and that meant pork tenderloin . . .


Mise En Place & The Kurosaki Brothers (Makoto AS Gyuto, 210mm & Yu Kurosaki VG10 Fujin Petty, 120mm)
Minced garlic, lita squash, Manale spice blend, white wine, pork tenderloin, onions and evoo. Didn't do it intentionally but just happened to have these knives up at the same time. I really like the petty for trimming pork tenderloins and the Makoto has been up for the past few days.


Sear
Trimmed, trussed, oiled, seasoned and searing in evoo. After the tenderloins had seared on all sides, I removed them, then sauteed the onions and some garlic in the renderings, then added some white wine. When the onions had softened and all of it had reduced, I put the tenderloins back in and took it to the oven.


Roasted
After about 20 minutes convection-roasted at 400F, internal temperature ~135F.


Lita Squash
Quickly sauteed in evoo with a touch of minced garlic.


Plated Up
Not all bad for pork tenderloin which, due to how lean it is, can be a pretty unforgiving cut.

=R=

Another freezer-emptying night — found some sweetbreads (beef pancreas, not thymus).

First step was to soak them overnight in salted water.

Poached in milk, cooled, then peeled off as much of the membrane as I could.

Afterwards, I weighed down the sweetbreads with a heavy cast iron pan and two cans of tomatoes on top, in the refrigerator, to further firm them up.

I found a Pierre Franey recipe for Mushrooms in a Madeira sauce as an accompaniment for Sweetbreads. I had some Sulfur Shelf (aka Chicken of the Woods) mushrooms (originally from the oak tree in my front yard) in the freezer. (I’m not sure what Pierre would have thought about using Sulfur Shelf mushrooms in his recipe.) I thawed them out, chopped into chunks, added minced shallots, chicken bone broth, Madeira wine, and a bit of tomato paste.

Meanwhile, I cut up the sweetbreads into manageable pieces, dredged them in flour, and sautéed them to crisp up one side.

Then crisped up the other side.

I also found some green and wax beans in the freezer, which I then thawed and sautéed as a side. I sprinkled a bit of fresh parsley over the whole thing.

Flavors were good, but the mushrooms were so meaty, it was almost like having two different meats on the plate. Later, I realized I also had some frozen creminis, which might have worked better. But at least I got my full month's worth of cholesterol in a single meal.
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nr706 wrote:...
But at least I got my full month's worth of cholesterol in a single meal.

Gotta have goals!

Fine looking meal.

The only sweetbreads that I have ever had have been veal or lamb thymus. How does the beef pancreas differ?

Thanks, Will

I've never done a side-by-side comparison, but these were pretty meaty — not quite as light and creamy as others I've had, which I assume were thymus. Both are tasty.

For us, a big old pot of lentil soup today . . .


Mise En Place & Hitohira Tanaka / Kyuzo Migaki B#1 Gyuto, 240mm
Evoo, onion, chicken stock, split red lentils, kale, carrot, minced garlic, celery ribs, celery leaves, smoked kielbasa, salt, scallions and black pepper.

As glad as I was to find a use for the stock, which had been sitting around for a while, I immediately followed this up by preparing another batch of stock (in the instant pot). I guess my desire to get RID of stuff is only surpassed by my desire to keep the pantry stocked. Like a dog chasing its tail, it's a vicious cycle!


Plated Up
With toasted/buttered Polish rye bread. Garnished with celery leaves and scallion tops.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:As glad as I was to find a use for the stock, which had been sitting around for a while, I immediately followed this up by preparing another batch of stock (in the instant pot). I guess my desire to get RID of stuff is only surpassed by my desire to keep the pantry stocked. Like a dog chasing its tail, it's a vicious cycle!
=R=

I feel your pain. I am making tortellini in a marinara sauce as an attempt to get rid of some dried tortellini that has been in my pantry for a year or two and some boxed tomatoes. I guess that I am cleaning out some space for my next grocery run later this week.

My freezers and refrigerators are also both packed. In the past months, my deal chasing has outpaced my ability to use up what I have already purchased.

Today's deal was "pork fat" at Safeway for $0.99/lb. I have looked through the package and it appears to be 70% meat scraps, 20% pork neck bones and 10% fat. I guess that I will be making some more pork bone soup this week for the neighborhood. Or maybe some pork and kimchi stew as I have some fresh kimchi I picked up from H-Mart in Mesa.

One of the wonderful things about living in the Chicago metro area is the ability to easily get many things. Most of the Mexican groceries here ( I use Carnicerias Jimenez Wheeling) have rendered pork fat always available.

lougord99 wrote:One of the wonderful things about living in the Chicago metro area is the ability to easily get many things. Most of the Mexican groceries here ( I use Carnicerias Jimenez Wheeling) have rendered pork fat always available.

Yep. We're spoiled. When I want to make tamales, if I don't plan ahead far enough to make homemade lard, I usually hit Cermak, where they sell really nice house-made version by the quart.

Tonight, it was Meat & Potatoes time . . .


Ribless Roast
Trussed, oiled, seasoned and ready for a low and slow cook in the oven at 200F. This was actually half of an 8-pound roast. The other half is now safely vacuum-sealed and in the freezer.

Hadn't made them in years but the mood hit me for some twice-baked potatoes (and for RID'ing the fridge of a few items in the process) . . .


Mise En Place & Hitohira Tanaka / Kyuzo Migaki B#1 Gyuto, 240mm
Grated gruyere & 10-year cheddar, baked russets, Oaxacan crema, chive cheese, sour cream, unsalted butter, salt and black pepper. Just doing my best to get RID of stuff and happily saying goodbye to the chive cheese, crema and sour cream. Not much knifing needed here but I did eventually split the potatoes lengthwise. Needless to say, they were no match for the blade.


Roasted
This one took a while. Cooking at 200F, it took over 3.5 hours to go from 48F internal to 123F internal. Blasted it at the end for about 6 minutes at 450F convection.


Plated Up
Ribless roast, mushroom gravy, a blob of weekly slaw and twice-baked potato.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:

lougord99 wrote:One of the wonderful things about living in the Chicago metro area is the ability to easily get many things. Most of the Mexican groceries here ( I use Carnicerias Jimenez Wheeling) have rendered pork fat always available.

Yep. We're spoiled. When I want to make tamales, if I don't plan ahead far enough to make homemade lard, I usually hit Cermak, where they sell really nice house-made version by the quart.

Tonight, it was Meat & Potatoes time . . .


Ribless Roast
Trussed, oiled, seasoned and ready for a low and slow cook in the oven at 200F. This was actually half of an 8-pound roast. The other half is now safely vacuum-sealed and in the freezer.

Hadn't made them in years but the mood hit me for some twice-baked potatoes (and for RID'ing the fridge of a few items in the process) . . .


Mise En Place & Hitohira Tanaka / Kyuzo Migaki B#1 Gyuto, 240mm
Grated gruyere & 10-year cheddar, baked russets, Oaxacan crema, chive cheese, sour cream, unsalted butter, salt and black pepper. Just doing my best to get RID of stuff and happily saying goodbye to the chive cheese, crema and sour cream. Not much knifing needed here but I did eventually split the potatoes lengthwise. Needless to say, they were no match for the blade.


Roasted
This one took a while. Cooking at 200F, it took over 3.5 hours to go from 48F internal to 123F internal. Blasted it at the end for about 6 minutes at 450F convection.


Plated Up
Ribless roast, mushroom gravy, a blob of weekly slaw and twice-baked potato.

=R=

The limited gray on the outside is very impressive! Bravo

WhyBeeSea wrote:The limited gray on the outside is very impressive! Bravo

Thanks. All I did was use a method I learned somewhere along the way. Cooking at 200F allows for even doneness from edge to edge. It's been so long, I can't even remember where picked it up. Maybe it was Alton Brown? I'm really not sure, though.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:

WhyBeeSea wrote:The limited gray on the outside is very impressive! Bravo

Thanks. All I did was use a method I learned somewhere along the way. Cooking at 200F allows for even doneness from edge to edge. It's been so long, I can't even remember where picked it up. Maybe it was Alton Brown? I'm really not sure, though.

=R=

Yep. Low roasting temp with a thermometer is nearly foolproof

lougord99 wrote:One of the wonderful things about living in the Chicago metro area is the ability to easily get many things. Most of the Mexican groceries here ( I use Carnicerias Jimenez Wheeling) have rendered pork fat always available.

I was not looking for pork fat which is readily available in Arizona. I was looking for deals. When I head into Safeway, I am always looking at the discount bin in the meat department. I have found that Safeway will sell miscellaneous pork scraps as "Pork neck bones" or "pork fat." These scraps make a great posole or soup at about half price of a pork roast.

Actually, I was in the store to collect a free pound of butter for a friend who does not shop at Safeway and a free 10# bag of potatoes for a "Just for U" that I was sent.

Not tonight, but last night: Paneer Butter Masala

Was in the mood for this, and thought I'd try a different recipe (I usually browse Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking). This recipe makes it clear it isn't a makhani recipe, and there's a number of interesting variations from a lot of other Indian dishes: spices aren't bloomed in the oil or just the browned onions; fenugreek (methi) is added at the end (my fingers still smell of maple-ish), less butter and cream than I'd use in makhani but some pureed nuts offset that (I used pistachios having no cashews in the house -- hey, it rhymes, and it's likely a better fit than pecan or walnut), no tumeric.

Delicious, I'd make this again. Only negative is pureeing the onion/tomato/nut/spice mix after cooking instead of before -- always hazardous trying to blend something steaming. Made enough for two for dinner, and a hearty lunch.

Tonight, it was back to chicken thighs. Too lazy to shovel a path through the snow to the grill, so I put a 'sear & simmer' job on these . . .


Mise En Place & Hitohira Tanaka / Kyuzo Migaki B#1 Gyuto, 240mm
Green cabbage, parsley fronds, bay leaves, chicken thighs, tomato paste, evoo, white wine, scallion bottoms, scallion tops, smashed garlic cloves, yellow bell pepper, milk, Manale spice mix for the thighs (black pepper, cayenne pepper, sweet paprika, salt, thyme, oregano, basil), salt, red onion and black pepper.


Sear
10-quart rondeau. I thought it might possibly be a bit more pan than I needed but in the end, it was just the right amount of surface area for 10 thighs. After the sear, these came out for a while. Next, I briefly toasted the tomato paste, then deglazed the fond with the veggies and the wine. From there, the thighs went back in for a covered, low simmer until they were just FOB. After that, I removed the thighs and reduced the contents of the rondeau until it was thick and saucey.


Plated Up
With a side of weekly beans, garnished with cotija.

Happy Monday!

=R=

A friend sent me an assortment of tinned fish from Nova Scotia. Mackerel was delicious. Strong fish aroma on open, dissipated quickly. Firm, meaty, little dry, very tasty. Can’t wait to try the others.

click to enlarge



Sardines, count me a Fan!

Gifted a couple of chickens from Herbert's Cajun for the holidays. Pictured broccoli cheese rice, tasty. One more to go. Same gift last year, very nice of the sister in-law.

click to enlarge




Chicken, count me a Fan!

This is what I am preparing for tonight. Pork Chops roasted on a bed of cabbage, topped with tomatoes and cheese.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SmfwpK ... K%C3%BCche

What does not make sense in this video is that they saute the cabbage BEFORE cooking the pork. I will be doing the exact opposite. I will cook the pork first and then teh cabbage in the same pan so that the cabbage picks up more of the pork fat flavor.

jlawrence01 wrote:What does not make sense in this video is that they saute the cabbage BEFORE cooking the pork. I will be doing the exact opposite. I will cook the pork first and then teh cabbage in the same pan so that the cabbage picks up more of the pork fat flavor.

Agreed. I tend to always start with the meat first, unless there's some specifically inherent attribute of the final dish that requires different handling.

For us, it was back to the wok again tonight . . .


Mise En Place & Nigara SG2 Damascus Sujihiki, 240mm
Sliced shiitake mushrooms, marinated hanger steak (soy, dark soy, Shaoxing, salt, corn starch and a dash of the shallot oil), steamed gai lan (aka Chinese broccoli), corn starch, minced garlic, oyster sauce, soy sauce, dark/mushroom soy sauce, Shoaxing cooking wine, fried shallot oil, 4x gelatinous beef stock and very oxidized grated ginger.

A few random thoughts . . . really wanted to leave the broccoli whole but that's not easy in a stir-fry since the leaves cook so much faster than the stems. For that reason, I decided to steam it first, which left the leaves intact and the stems just tender enough. My new favorite thing to do with shiitakes in stir-fry is buy them fresh and let them partially dry for a few days. After that, they're still tender enough to cook conventionally but they develop a funky, pungent aroma. I've become a big fan of that. Lastly, because it's pricey, I'd kind of sworn off using hanger in stir-fries. But it was really great last time and this was some fairly old freezer stock that I figured would be better here than on the grill. But in the end, not so much. Looked pretty, though . . .


Hanger Steak Stir Fry
With shiitakes and gai lan.


Plated Up
With jasmine rice. Garnished with scallions and homemade chile oil.

=R=

Craving Chinese, with a leek in the fridge and tofu in the pantry, it was time to break out my mapo tofu recipe.

Inspired by Santander's 2010 version, I used four slices of thick-cut bacon instead of ground meat. The only other change from my usual is half a minced serrano instead of sambal (in addition to pixian douban jiang).

Man, it was perfect. The bacon gives only a little smoke, but a great chew.

Reading the mapo thread, someone asked whether there was vinegar - definitely not, but the sourness comes a bit from leek, a bit from the wine, but mainly the douban jiang. Rich from the pork fat, sweet from leek, and a whole mess of savory and salty things... What a great dish.

Scallops, in kind of a Japanese-inspired configuration. Started out at lunch time by auditioning two spice coatings on a couple of scallops, the porcini option inspired by a suggestion from Jazzfood . . .


Scallop Searing Trial
Porcini spice rub on the left and ground koji powder spice rub on the right. In the end, I decided to combine the two, along with a few other components . . .


Scallop Mise En Place
Sea scallops, koji (later ground to a powder), porcini spice rub (received a while back as a gift), salt (not needed, didn't use), sichimi togarashi and fried shallot oil for the actual searing.


Spinach Mise En Place & Konosuke Sanjo YS, Gyuto, 240mm
Shiro miso, pork stock, spinach, ginger, mirin, shirodashi and veg oil. I created a simmering broth, threw in the ginger coins, which I banged up with the spine of the knife, and wilted the spinach down in it.


Cauliflower Mise En Place
Sesame oil, sesame seeds, veg oil, furikake, salt and fioretto-style cauliflower. Tossed the fioretto in the oil and salt, then roasted it in the oven for about an hour. With about 10 minutes to go, I added the sesame seeds. When it came out of the oven, I tossed in the furikake and a light drizzle of the sesame oil.


Plated Up
Seared scallops, spinach-miso-ginger broth, sesame-roasted cauliflower. Leftover/reheated jasmine rice.

=R=

What’s up? Chicken soup. That’s what’s up!
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Chicken soup, count me a Fan