Dinner 2016 (Part 4)

[Thanks for the Crepes]

@Paul Bacino,

 

Your burgers looks very nice and are just my kind of burgers. Good beef needs no further embellishment than salt and pepper to me to be perfect. Ground chuck is also my favorite for burgers.

 

I bought a thick rib eye yesterday, and plan to cook it just that way over charcoal tonight.

[liuzhou]

A bit of a multicultural dinner tonight.

 

 

Steamed hake with garlic, ginger, lime zest and juice, soy sauce. Buttery new potatoes. Tonkin Jasmine.

[HungryChris]

Last night was steamed snow crab night, and a good night it was.

HC

 

 

 

 

Edited May 9, 2016 by HungryChris (log)

[dcarch]

We all know that in cooking timing and temperature will effect the outcome the most.

 

There is another factor which can drastically impact the end result; i.e. gravity!

 

What happened to my stewed pork shoulder 

 

dcarch

[huiray]

Shrimp w/ tomato sauce & stuff.

Large wild shrimp marinated w/ Shaohsing wine, corn starch, black pepper, salt, sugar, rice bran oil. Hot oil, shrimp sans marinade, fry briefly, remove & reserve. More oil into pan, sliced young garlic, sliced hot long/finger chillies, ketchup; reserved shrimp back in, toss, adjust seasoning, serve.

Eaten w/ white rice.

 

Trimmed young garlic:

[mgaretz]

Salmon, cooked SV to 130F then glazed with a mixture of honey, bourbon and garlic, then seared with a torch.  Served with fresh steamed and buttered green beans.

 

 

 

 

[rotuts]

@mgaretz  

 

your salmon looks spectacular  

 

as far as I can tell your tranche's look close to the head.  way to go.

 

the tail works too much and does not have the " Head fat "

 

congratulations

[chefmd]

Ribeye steak, rare, with pan seared button mushrooms and pan sauce.

[kayb]

Pulled pork (leftover from Sunday dinner), with potato salad, also left over; jail slaw and spring pickles. I made some vinegar based barbecue sauce to serve with it because it seemed more appropriate than the heavier tomato-based one I had on hand.

 

 

The meat is from a pork loin I sous vided at 150 degrees for 36 hours, and then smoked for about an hour. Some of the best pork I've ever cooked.

 

I know the idea of cooking pork loin that long, to that temp, horrifies many of you. While I love a rare steak, I just can't eat pork medium rare. Can't do it. Can't take pink in my pork. I guess it's all those years being told we had to cook pork to the point of incineration, lest we get trichinosis and die; must have conditioned me against less-than-medium-well pork. I actually SV'd this about 12 hours longer than I meant to, because I forgot it and left it overnight the second night. Then Sunday after I smoked it, I didn't let it rest long enough to slice; it pulled. That was awfully good, so I just pulled the rest of it and refrigerated it that way.

 

I'm thinking the rest of it may go into enchiladas later this week.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

36 hours does not sound very long.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I am still working without a dishwasher, but I do have hot running water in the kitchen again. The maintenance moron plugged the offshoot from the hot water supply and disconnected the hot water supply hose to the dishwasher. Said he knew nothing about the oven problems and I needed to call the overlords back.  Typical, but you know what? I was able to stop him from flooding my kitchen floor, which is the typical outcome when the morons are unsupervised on any sort of plumbing call. He asked where the hot water heater was, and thought that was the problem, that it had gone out. So much for communication with bureaucracy.

 

I'm so sick of not having a functioning kitchen! 

 

Tonight I had a really killer dinner though, and at least I could wash the dishes by hand without having to haul water from the bathtub upstairs or boil it on the stove.

 

I had a little over a one pound thick rib eye steak and cooked it over charcoal along with a seeded and cleaned green bell pepper, cooked a little charred and crisp tender. I sauteed button mushrooms and onions inside, seasoned at the end of cooking with soy sauce. I nuked a huge baked potato. This was served with a green leaf lettuce, cucumber and grape tomato salad. We split the steak and the potato, which was served with butter and Daisy sour cream.

 

At the start of prep, I capped and sliced some gorgeous large and ripe fresh California strawberries and sprinkled with a little sugar in  a ZipLock bag to macerate. They were served for dessert as strawberry shortcake over purchased angel food loaf cake slices with whipped "cream" from a can. Our desert was delicious, but I prefer very slightly sweetened biscuits warm from the oven that I typically use for the base of this dessert, but I was trying to minimize dish usage. Certainly, it wasn't bad though, by any standards.

 

I still missed my usual toasted marshmallow dessert, but there was no way I could eat anything more after all we had. We even have enough steak leftover to make the protein base of tomorrow's dinner. If you have enough deliciously prepared veggies, you really don't need that much meat, even when it's as good as this was.

 

Oh, and I wanted to mention that this steak which was on sale for Mother's Day was the tenderest rib eye I have had in a long while. I regret not buying the other one I picked up to ask the husband his preference. Wonderful flavor as usual, but I've had some very tough rib eyes lately, so perhaps things are looking up in the beef department. *fingers crossed*

 

 

[liamsaunt]

@dcarch, at least the pot landed meat side up!  Still salvageable in my book, though I am sure the loss of the liquid was sad.

 

Yesterday's fish share was flounder and Faroe Island salmon.  I made the flounder into fish tacos. I would have preferred corn tortillas but the store only had flour ones yesterday.

 

[Shelby]

Super dry venison meatloaf.  At least we had gravy.

 

[kayb]

9 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

36 hours does not sound very long.

 

Not all that long, but the temp is higher than many people prefer. I usually do it 24 hours; then, when it's cool, it slices really well.

 

1 hour ago, rotuts said:

@kayb

 

try pork at 135 once, same amount of time or even a little longer and just don't look.

 

you will never go back to a higher temp, esp in a sandwich.  I do 131   24 - 36 or what ever works out on the longer side re day and night.

 

sliced thin in a sandwich its a taste of heaven :

 

 

I've done it. Sorry. Just don't like it. It's a texture thing, I think.

 

[gfweb]

3 hours ago, Shelby said:

Super dry venison meatloaf.  At least we had gravy.

 

 

 

I'm beginning to think that making meatloaf in particular involves some special chemical magic. I have a foolproof recipe that works so long as I don't stray from it. If I do...dry or bad textured loaf. Like the other day I added a half can of tomato paste (just to use it up) and got the densest most unpleasant texture. Who'd a thunk?

Edited May 10, 2016 by gfweb (log)

[scubadoo97]

Unlike ketchup which has more liquid, tomato paste is pretty low moisture and was hydrating itself with your meat juices it seems 

[BonVivant]

Salmon from Faroe Islands.

 

 

What gave the salmon its new taste: grated beetroots, lots of dill, juniper berries, whiskey, curing salt, sugar.

[ElainaA]

Red and yellow bell peppers plus a jalapeño sautéed with red onions and garlic then simmered with tomatoes. Over brown rice. This was intended to be a vegetarian meal but there was some very nice steak left over from the one we grilled on Saturday. So that went into a salad with pickled red onions, cucumber, tomato, endive, radicchio and romaine. With a sour cream horseradish dressing. And parmesan crisps.

 

 

 

[Anna N]

 

 Stretching the definition of fish and chips to the breaking point.   Frozen, breaded haddock, potato chips and kimchee.  

[HungryChris]

"Soupy" (soppressata) and pepper pizza.

HC

 

[Steve Irby]

A tasty morsel that I brought to a KY Derby party.  I munched quite a bit as I was prepping so it pretty much became my dinner. Homemade lox cured with a touch of World Spice Kashmir Curry blend served on a dinner plate size  Leksand rye crispbread round.

[huiray]

Young, tender kale [Nading Farm], just 3-4 inches long; fresh pick of the new season. Julienned, wilted into chicken broth and simmered barely a minute or two more.

 

Fried oysters [shucked fresh oysters from Caplinger's], with green cabbage & Lingham's Hot Sauce.

(Egg dip, then a seasoned panko coating, before deep-frying)

There were more.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

16 hours ago, Shelby said:

Super dry venison meatloaf.  At least we had gravy.

 

 

Did you add some beef or pork fat to your venison? I do love venison when I can get it, but it's extremely lean, and needs some help from another fat for sausage, burgers, or meatloaf. Why do you think it was dry this time, Shelby?

 

Oh, and your garden asparagus, mashed potatoes and brown gravy look killer.

[HungryChris]

I have been watching for fiddleheads and finally saw some in Whole Foods in Glastonbury, CT yesterday, but at $14.99 a pound I knew they wouldn't taste good to me.

HC

 

[huiray]

Pork cheeks stir-fried w/ angled loofah, purple asparagus, young garlic and stuff.

Eaten w/ white rice.

Pork cheeks [from Goose the Market], sliced somewhat thinly against the grain.

Medium-hot oil/pan, sliced young garlic (see here too), julienned ginger, chopped scallions - mostly the white parts; mixture fried for a bit till it just began to get golden. Sliced pork added, tossed/stirred around. A mixture of oyster sauce [LKK], fish sauce [Red Boat], dash of sesame oil [Dragonfly], ground white pepper, plus this-and-that added in. Stirred/tossed. Angled loofah (Luffa acutangula) [East Asia Market] de-ridged & sliced into sticks added in. Stirred. Splashes of water as needed. Sliced un-deseeded hot finger chillies [Patel Brothers] & sliced purple asparagus [Nading Farm] & the rest of the chopped scallions (mostly green parts) then went in, everything tossed around/covered/uncovered for a wee bit more. Served over rice w/ some of the sauce.

(The purple color of the asparagus fades quite quickly)

 

Pic of some of the ingredients.

(Ignore the white beech mushrooms - I decided to leave them out)

 

Edited May 11, 2016 by huiray (log)