weeknight dinner: ahi tuna

Ahi is expensive, but extraordinarily easy to prepare. It also can produce leftovers for lunch salads, giving it real bang for the buck. ADDITIONALLY, if you are making ramen, you can create the soup base at the same time by microplaning some additional ginger. Nothing like doubling up on prep.

Here is a simple recipe:

For the marinade:

1 tbsp lime juice
1 inch ginger, sliced into rounds
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame seed oil

Mix the marinade ahead of time, allow to blend.

Marinade tuna steaks 15 minutes before cooking. Do not marinate longer than 15 minutes.

toast some sesame seeds. Shake them into a single layer on a small plate.

After marinating for fifteen minutes and preparing the vegetables, sear the tuna steaks on very high heat, in an oil that won't smoke like there is no tomorrow. I've tried olive oil (bad) and sesame seed oil (not much better), so now I'm going to try peanut oil or, probably better, grapeseed oil.

Sear for about 1 minute a side. Finish with a torch if necessary, but it shouldn't be.

Set the tuna steaks, one at a time, in the sesame seeds, to give it a crust. Thinly slice the steaks with a sharp sharp knife.

Possible sides:

sushi rice or steamed cauliflower or some kind of starchy vegetable
asparagus or broccoli fried with ginger and garlic. Blistered okra!

Weeknight Ramen

Ramen ought to be an easy meal. I'm not there yet. Here is where I am so far.




STEP 1: THE BROTH

2 quarts water
2 strips kelp
1/2 cup bonita flakes

Simmer the kelp in the water for ten minutes, then add the bonita flakes, simmer another five. Strain out the kelp and bonita flakes. Turn off heat and over.

STEP 2: PROTEINS

I used a sous vide preparation for soft boiled eggs at six minutes, 194 degrees followed by an iced water bath. Then I cracked the eggs and dunked them in warm water and peeled. It was a disaster. The eggs were almost formless. NEXT TIME: cook a touch longer then let them rest at room temperature.

UPDATE: skip the ice bath, and it works really, really well. Eggs were a little too firm, if anything, so maybe a warm water bath?

STEP 3: THE SOUP BASE

the base

2 tsp microplaned ginger
3 tsp microplaned garlic
2 tsp sesame seed oil
3 tbsp soy sauce (low sodium, as it happens)
2 tbsp mirin




Add the base to the broth and heat on low.
Then add: Shitake mushrooms

This is our broth.


STEP 4: FINISHING

Cook noodles (we tried cooking them in the broth and it predictably ate up lots of the broth.)

We added greens to make it a one pot meal.

chili escapade

So, when the weekly schedule backs up, and especially when it is helpful to have leftovers, there is always room for chili. I've been experimenting with several kinds of slow cooker chili, and can make a few recommendations for recipes.

1. Dried beans are fine to use, but you WILL need water to guarantee that they aren't crunchy. Most of my recipes involved using 12-15 oz. of beans. Provided the beans were covered with water, everything would work out fine. If not, I had to go back to the drawing board.

2. Use a mix of beans. My best mix was red beans, white beans, black eyed peas. The black eyed peas are the most tender, and really the best. Perhaps if I had soaked the kidney beans, they would have been better, as they turned out a touch crunchy.

3. Use a BIG can of chopped tomatoes. It makes the best broth. Don't be afraid to add country bacon.

4. spices are key. 1 tbsp ancho chili powder; 1 tsp. paprika; 1 tsp. salt; 1/2 tsp. cinnamon or allspice or something unexpected. 1/4 tsp. cayenne. (More if you don't have a freaking ten year old in the house.)

5. at least one green bell pepper. Green. And an onion and garlic.

Red Beans and Rice

Trying desperately to convert my wife and daughter to beans. Hoping this does the trick...

crockpot recipe. So, take down the crockpot.

2 cloves garlic
1 medium onion
1 green bell pepper
12 oz. andouille sausage

mince the garlic. chop everything else.

1 pound dried red beans, rinsed

throw it into the crockpot.

1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ancho chili powder
1/7 teaspoon cinnamon

 mix all these ingredients together.

7 cups water.

turn the crockpot on high, six hours.

Dish turned out quite well. Underspiced. Of course, the amount of spices you use must be tempered by the potency of the Andouille. Regardless, I would double the dry spices next time around.

sous vide escapades, vol. 3: pork roast

While it may seem like heresy to put a roast in a plastic bag and cook it in water, well... it is. But I did it any way.

The Joule chefstep instructions were fine, with one caveat. The pork squeezes as it cooks, so I believe it takes longer than stated. Because you have such a big window with the sous vide machine, I recommend overestimating the time in the pot.

Once done, I recommend the broiler to brown it. This will cook it to 145 degrees internally (assuming you come out of the oven at about 135) while giving you a beautiful brown crust.

sous vide escapes, vol. 2: duck breast

I have never cooked duck before. Finally tried it--duck breast. This seemed like a natural fit for sous vide.

The recipe came direct from Chefsteps and I did not vary it in any way.

There was a slightly elaborate preparation ritual that took place.

Score the skin.
Heat iron skillet, no oil.
Sear, skin side down, for three minutes.
Add garlic and thyme to iron skillet.
Sear, breast side, one minute.

Put duck and thyme and garlic into sous vide bag.
Cook at 136 degrees for about an hour (whatever the recipe says)

Reserve duck fat from pan.
Heat iron skillet. Very hot.
Sear, skin side down, for two minutes to three minutes, until brown and crispy.

It worked like a charm. I could have cooked at a lower temperature. The re-sear will cook the duck a hair more. But quite tasty.

sous vide escapades, vol. 1: poached eggs

My wife is skeptical of my sous vide stick. Perhaps not for the normal reasons (cooking in plastic? heating water?) but because it strikes her as grossly redundant. You want vegetables? Broil or saute them. You want beets? Boil them? Perfect steak? Warm the meet and then use your big green egg to work its magic.

It did not help that my first forays into sous vide land were utter disasters. I tried Broccoli, which would not sink. The result was mushy and tasteless. I cooked it too long. The beets I did not cook long enough. The asparagus turned out quite well. It was well cooked but retained some crunch. I finished it in oil flavored with lemon zest, salt, pepper, and garlic.

She was not impressed. It was missing the charred flavor that comes with broiling with olive oil and salt and pepper. "Well," I said, "you can always finish it in the pan to char it." But by then I had lost the argument--if you are going to finish with heat, why not start with it?

So today I tried eggs. This was roundly ridiculed. You need a $200 sous vide stick to boil an egg? Not boil--poach. I have tried and never succeeded at poaching eggs on the stove top. Now I had a chance to try something new.

I used the Chefsteps Sous Vide recipe, which was

147.1 degrees for 1 hour.
Dunk the eggs in cold water for a minute or two
crack them over a spoon on a plate, in order to separate the unset whites from the set whites.

The eggs slipped right out of the spoon. They picked up easily and could be served without a problem. They were also delicious and beautiful. Just like actual poached eggs.

It would be nice if the whites were a little more set--I felt like I lost a lot of the egg. There is a shorter cook time at higher heat that is supposed to achieve this:

167 degrees for 15 minutes.

I cooked a mess of eggs and left several in their shells in the fridge. I want to try them cold, and reheated, just to see if they work out either way.

Reheating should occur at:

140 degrees for 15 minutes to one hour.

So, eggs are my first big success. Next comes duck, so let's hope that one goes in the win column.

UPDATE:

Reheated the eggs and it worked just fine.

weekday salmon

perfected the weekday salmon recipe

one salmon side, skin on, 1 to 1.2 pounds. Cut into three fillets.
Salt, pepper, and lemon juice to taste.

(prepare sides while rice in cooker is ... cooking)

Prepare iron skillet at high heat. Pour in olive oil. Just enough to coat the pan.
Put salmon fillet side down into skillet. cook 1 and 1/2 minutes.
Flip fillets. Cook for 1 and 1/2 minutes
Add a half tablespoon of butter. Cook for 3 minutes.

If adjusting time, keep in mind that the butter will smoke, so only add it for the last three minutes, at the most.

Remove the salmon to a plate with a paper towel. Prepare plates and serve.

Thick salmon pieces will be medium rare, thin ones will be medium to medium well if cooked to these specs. You can always pull the thin end of the salmon off early.

Max Eastman Flip

Max Eastman Flip

1 oz. bourbon
3/4 ounce vermouth
3/4 ounce half and half
1/4 ounce sugar syrup
1 egg yolk.

shake stoutly. with ice. serve up in a champagne coupe and sprinkle with nutmeg.

A nice holiday drink. I used sugar syrup from my cocktail cherries, so it was a little cognac tinged.

Derived from the New York Flip recipe:

1 oz. bourbon
3/4 ounce tawny port
3/4 ounce cream
1/4 ounce sugar syrup
1 egg yolk

Spicy Tarts (Cardamom, Cinnamon Cognac Cherries)

So here's the recipe for the Spicy Tart

1 1/4 cup water
scant 1 cup sugar
(this sugar water hits the spot. A 1 to 1 ratio is too dense. This ratio produced a beautiful syrup, but my guess is that an even thinner syrup will do just as well)

Dissolve sugar in water. Add:

2 cinnamon sticks
5 green cardamom pods
3 cloves

bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Then, add

1/2 cup cognac (and a little more cognac...)

Stir in, turn off heat, let cool.

Prepare eight four ounce jars with dried tart cherries, leaving room for the cognac mixture. Then, pour into the jars.

UPDATE

New recipe features heavy use of spices.

  2 cinnamon sticks
12 green cardamom pods
  8 cloves

Will check back and see, but I think I nailed this one.