Dinner 2016 (Part 3)

[HungryChris]

8 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Ordered a 15 lb. bag of crawfish from Cajun Grocer.  Ohhhhhh soooooo gooooooooood.

 

 There is a local chain (ShopRite) that had fresh, live crawfish last year. I just yesterday, left my name and number with the fish guy there and pre ordered 10 lbs. I recently had some great ones in New Orleans and cannot wait to cook my own. It will be a first for me.

HC

[kayb]

Smoked pork tenderloin, jail slaw, potato salad. Minus the damn beans that didn't get done (see Rancho Gordo and Instant Pot threads). Very good, nevertheless, and as the beans are now done, after cooking all night on slow cook, we will repeat this one night this week (I have more tenderloin in the fridge).

 

[Okanagancook]

First attempt at Bebek Betutu, a recipe from The Food of Bali and is a common dish.  Don't know much about this regional cookery.  A paste is made with shallots, garlic, lemongrass, lime leaves, candlenuts, ginger root, galangal, black pepper, chile, coriander trasi, salt and oil.  Rub the paste inside and out of the duck.  Wrap in leaves, I had banana, and foil then roast, low and slow.  I used my Big Green Egg but had trouble getting the temperature to where I wanted it.  Anyways, 4.5 hours at 250F.  It was very, very nice.  Mild in flavours but a good complexity.

 

[BonVivant]

A cassoulet of sorts.

 

[ninagluck]

I dared to cook a recipe which was on my focus, pig tails ragout, salted, browned, put in the crockpot with garlic, onions, tomatos and red wine. simmered for abt 5h, cool down, take flesh off the bone, simmer further until desired consistency. one has to love the taste of pig ;-)

Edited April 10, 2016 by ninagluck (log)

[Anna N]

 

 I had one potato left.   It wasn't a russet and it wasn't very large but I could not resist trying @Okanagancook's  method for oven fries.  Fabulous.  A little dip on the side didn't hurt either.

[Okanagancook]

Nice.  They are so easy to make without much in the way of clean up.  Glad you liked them.  Try different spices on them too.

[HungryChris]

Heated up the ribs I smoked today in the oven on "keep warm", which is 170 F. The new lower salt rub is a winner, (see my post on fresh beef tongue buying and preparing). They were killer. I noticed that Deb seemed to agree.

I make a Piedmont style, vinegar based sauce for dipping on the side, which we both like. These baby  backs came from Aldi which has been my rib source of choice. They were excellent and I am sure that they will lock in a good supply of fresh eggs for the summer when the gift rack is delivered to Deb's BIL.

HC

 

.

Edited April 11, 2016 by HungryChris (log)

[ElsieD]

Chicken tacos.

[sartoric]

21 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 

No need to use that brand, although it is considered the best (if you can find it). Lee Kum Kee's is OK.

 

More important is how much you use. Fuchsia Dunlop suggests 2½ Tablespoons for 500g tofu. I might up that to 3!

Thanks @liuzhou.  It was Lee Kum Kee, but there was probably only a tablespoon left in the jar (thought I'd thrown it out, but the empty jar was in the dishwasher). Next time, much more chilli bean paste !

[JoNorvelleWalker]

13 hours ago, kayb said:

Smoked pork tenderloin, jail slaw, potato salad. Minus the damn beans that didn't get done (see Rancho Gordo and Instant Pot threads).

 

If I were you I would PM Steve and ask about the problem.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Whole, very fresh poached trout sous vide, plated on a bed of what seconds before had been growing watercress.  Baked potato.  Asparagus hollandaise.

 

Followed, just now, by a glass of Whistlepig.

 

[Shelby]

Turned 15 lbs of crawfish into a couple pounds in just 2 days lol.  We spent about an hour shelling the little guys.  Goes faster when you drink wine while shelling

 

 

Ronnie had gone fishing at the river and brought home a nice big drum so we had that along with some fried crawfish tails.  I can't make those very often.  They are addictive.  Like popcorn shrimp.  Only better.

 

 

[huiray]

Some meals.

 

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Itek Tim a.k.a. kiam chye ark th'ng (in Hokkien) (鹹菜鴨湯) (Nyonya-style "pickled mustard" duck soup).  Done in the style I usually do this in.

Water, duck legs (skin-on, fat-on; chopped up), pre-soaked cut-up wet pickled mustard ("harm choy"/kiam chye), sliced galangal, tamarind pulp (from a pressed block) slurried in a little water, wet/jellied sour-sweet preserved plums (instead of wet salted plums), garlic, some sea salt, some rock sugar. Simmered till done, seasoning adjusted.

 

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Kon Lo Ngap Meen (幹撈鴨麵) ("dry mixed" duck noodles), that night's version.

Cantonese roast duck [Asia mart]; skinny fresh wonton noodles (cooked) tossed w/ {(garlic in hot peanut oil) quenched w/ a mixture of (oyster sauce, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, dash of fish sauce, sesame oil, water, white pepper, rock sugar)}; Choy Sum (菜心) blanched in oiled simmering water; sliced scallions.

 

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Ngau Lam Meen (牛腩麵) (beef brisket noodles). That day's/night's version.

 

Cut-up brisket & some garlic.

 

Stuff being tossed around/"sautéed" in the pot.

Peanut oil, generous garlic, lots of sliced ginger, sliced shallots, several whole star anise, couple pieces of cassia bark, dried orange peel pieces, crushed white peppercorns, dried bay leaves, brisket pieces, dried Angular Solomon's Seal rhizome slices (玉竹), dried Chinese liquorice root slices (甘草片), some sea salt.

 

Tossed around. Several cubes of white fermented beancurd (白腐乳) smooshed & slurried w/ water added in.  A good pour of good Shaohsing wine. Water. Simmer slowly. Korean radish (peeled) cut into quarter-rounds added in later, simmering continued till done. Probably about 3 hours in all. Left to "meld" & deepen in taste for several hours.

 

Fresh noodles [New Yung Ky Noodles, Inc.], a cluster loosened up.

Cooked in the usual way.

 

Assembled bowl of Ngau Lam Meen, w/ some chopped scallions.

 

Plus ong choy (蕹菜) (Water spinach, water morning glory, Ipomoea aquatica, etc) simply stir-fried w/ garlic & salt.

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2016 by huiray
grammar, phrasing, etc. (log)

[huiray]

7 hours ago, huiray said:

Peanut oil, generous garlic, lots of sliced ginger, sliced shallots, several whole star anise, couple pieces of cassia bark, dried orange peel pieces, crushed white peppercorns, dried bay leaves, brisket pieces, dried Angular Solomon's Seal rhizome slices (玉竹), dried Chinese liquorice root slices (甘草片), some sea salt.

 

BTW, it might be useful to remind folks that oftentimes CASSIA is the stuff to use, when "cinnamon" is a listed ingredient. This dish I posted about above, for example (like many others from the E/SE Asian repertoire), is better served with cassia. True cinnamon (Ceylonese-type, for example) tends to get overwhelmed in strongly flavored dishes such as this one. Western culinary aesthetes and others might think reflexively that "true cinnamon" *must* be a better ingredient over cassia whenever a recipe calls for "cinnamon" but that is not true.

[Norm Matthews]

Well this was a real chore. I made a garlic sausage recipe that I wanted to try and it took almost all day. In fact they are still an hour away to being done and it is 6:30 pm right now. I used a KitchenAid meat grinder and stuffing tube and they are almost like toys compared to a dedicated sausage equipment. I will definitely invest in the proper equipment if i ever think about trying this again. 

I saved the beef trimmings from the last 3 briskets I smoked and was going to add them to the pork trimmings from the ribs i did the other day but when I went to the freezer to get them, they were gone and the freezer is half full with tamale stuff. I wonder what happened?  I got a pork shoulder to round out the meat. The sausage tube was too small for the bigger diameter sausage so it was really hard and time consuming to stuff those casings, especially by myself. Oh well, when I fried up a small batch to taste for seasoning, it tasted really good. Hope the smoking will make them even better. I decided to smoke them instead of just plain cooking like the regular recipe. The recipe is from Anne Burrell.

 

Edited April 11, 2016 by Norm Matthews (log)

[Shelby]

Norm, those are gorgeous!  

 

A long time ago when we lived in an apartment we tried to make sausage using a very cheap stuffer.  It was an awful experience.  What we got into the casing was good but we had busted casings and sausage strung all over the place.

 

 

[Norm Matthews]

34 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Norm, those are gorgeous!  

 

A long time ago when we lived in an apartment we tried to make sausage using a very cheap stuffer.  It was an awful experience.  What we got into the casing was good but we had busted casings and sausage strung all over the place.

 

 

 

I appreciate what you're saying. I had a iot of busted casing too. I probably threw away as much casing as I used, and clean-up was a chore.

 

Edit, here they are out of the smoker (after 2 hours at 225º)

 

Edited April 12, 2016 by Norm Matthews (log)

[sartoric]

A few lamb loin chops pan fried with sage and rosemary.

Served with mash potatoes, spicy fresh tomato sauce and peas and lettuce sautéed with speck.

 

[Anna N]

 

Found another small chuckeye in my freezer yesterday. 24 hours at 55°C and perfect beef to top my salad. 

[scubadoo97]

Fish tacos tonight.  Mahi pan seared and cubed.  Onions fried in a film of oil and charred with a torch on one side.  Mini variety  tomatoes sautéed and mixed with the onions.  A crema made from lebneh.  Corn tortillas of course.  Only missing cilantro

 

[kayb]

I had a granola bar.

 

One should never have a granola bar for dinner and then read the dinner thread. Take it from me.

[btbyrd]

Shrimp and grits. Proliferation of superfluous adjectives:
Anson Mills organic, field ripened, sweet native heirloom blue corn grits; wild caught tiger shrimp confit sous vide in bacon fat; Father's country bacon lardon; D'Artagnan pasture raised, heritage pork andouille sausage sautéed with the cajun trinity and mushrooms; spicy shrimp gravy.

[kayb]

2 minutes ago, btbyrd said:

Shrimp and grits. Proliferation of superfluous adjectives:
Anson Mills organic, field ripened, sweet native heirloom blue corn grits; wild caught tiger shrimp confit sous vide in bacon fat; Father's country bacon lardon; D'Artagnan pasture raised, heritage pork andouille sausage sautéed with the cajun trinity and mushrooms; spicy shrimp gravy.

Lord have mercy. I am on my way to your house.

 

Wait....where do you live?

 

[Ann_T]

Baked a couple of baguettes tonight.  Used a little of the dough to make a small pizza.