Thai Mussalman Beef Curry

This curry is made in the southern part of Thailand that is close to the border with Malaysia, and is obviously heavily Indian-inspired, the Thai twist here being the lemongrass, galangal and coconut milk.

The ingredient list looks daunting, but most of it can be bought at your friendly neighborhood Asian market. The actual cooking of this dish is incredibly easy and this is one of the most flavorful curries I've ever prepared.

Mussalman curry paste

Dry ingredients:
1 T coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
3 cloves
10 black peppercorns
2 dried red chilies

Wet ingredients:
1 1/2 T chopped fresh lemongrass
1 1/2 T grated galangal (easiest to do frozen, with a Microplane grater)
2 T minced garlic
1/2 cup minced shallots
6 Thai chilies, chopped finely (optional)
1 T salt

Method:

Dry fry the dry spices in a nonstick pan on medium heat until toasted but not burned. Grind to a powder in a coffee grinder reserved for spices. Combine with wet ingredients.

Main curry

1 cup shallots, chopped finely
4 T garlic, chopped finely
3 T coconut cream (comes in blocks)
3 T ground Spanish peanuts (with skin on)
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
2 T nam pla (Thai fish sauce)
3 T tamarind paste (comes in a plastic container in the consistency of ketchup)
3 T palm sugar (brown sugar may be substituted)
3 bay leaves
3 cups chicken broth
2 T Thai red curry paste
1 1/2 lbs. good quality top sirloin, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1 large russet potato, peeled and cubed
Cilantro
Ghee (clarified butter) or peanut oil

Method:

Brown beef in nonstick frypan with ghee (or oil) in two batches. Set aside. In more ghee/oil, sauté curry paste with shallots, garlic, and coconut cream until well combined and cream is melted.

Add meat back to pan. Add ground peanuts. Sauté 10 minutes uncovered, stirring often.

Add coconut milk, nam pla, tamarind paste, palm sugar, bay leaves, chicken broth and curry paste. Stir until well combined, simmer uncovered 15 minutes, stirring often.

Add potatoes and simmer on low, covered, 25 more minutes, or until potatoes are tender. Serve on coconut jasmine rice (see recipe below) with cilantro garnish and cucumber/red onion/tomato/ chile side salad.

Coconut Thai Rice

This subtly spiced rice will just hint of coconut — no need to overpower it.

2 cups Thai jasmine rice
2 tsp ghee or peanut oil

3 cloves
3 cardamom pods
2-inch stick cinammon
1 bay leaf

3 cloves garlic, minced
3 large shallots, finely chopped
1 tsp grated ginger (easiest to do with frozen ginger and a Microplane grater)
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 3/4 cups chicken broth

Method:

Wash rice several times until the water runs completely clear. Soak in cold water for 2 hours, or even overnight (past a certain point, the rice will no longer absorb any water.)

Drain rice in colander. In a large, nonstick frypan with a tight-fitting lid, sauté the cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaf and shallots in ghee or oil on medium for about five minutes. Add the rice, ginger and garlic, and sauté, stirring but making sure not to break the grains, for about five minutes more. Mix coconut milk and broth and heat in the microwave; add to the rice, stir to combine, reduce heat to minimum, cover tightly (you might want an aluminum foil assist) and steam for about 18 minutes. Turn off heat and wait ten minutes (or as long as you want after that.) Remove hard spices, fluff rice and serve.

Easy Spicy Dill Pickles

If you’re anything like me, you love dill pickles but the ones that come out of the grocery store are always too limp or too tame. Until I discovered this recipe, I too was resigned to this sorry state of affairs. I’d buy them, but the difference in taste from store-bought pickles to the pickles in this recipe is like Chef-Boy-ar-Dee to homemade spaghetti.

There will be those who are convinced that pickling is an arcane and potentially dangerous art (botulism!) and that mere home cooks shouldn’t attempt it, but nothing could be further from the truth. And the good thing about this recipe is that you don’t need any complicated equipment (just a couple of Mason jars) and you don’t need a pressure canner or any of that nonsense that keeps people from making their own preserves.

This is a very simple recipe that will create fantastic, crunchy dill pickles within a week that will be devoured by friends and family (I made this for my family in California and the entire jar was gone in one day.) It looks complicated at first glance, but should only take you a small part of a lazy afternoon, with the results lasting for months.

I’ve made this recipe several times and have fiddled with it, adjusting vinegar and salt quantities, but in general, it should definitely provide you with a memorable pickle and you need know nothing about canning or preserving to do it.

Note first of all that the result cannot be put on a shelf in the kitchen; it has to be refrigerated. But who keeps dill pickles on the shelf anyway?

Okay, here we go:

You’ll need two Mason jars. These can be bought at any hardware store in the “Home” section. I recommend Bernardin. Mason jars consist of a glass jar with a wide mouth, a ring screw top and a central disc that fits in the ring to create a seal. If you can’t find these, use an empty jar of commercial spaghetti sauce (Prego etc.) that has been dishwashed with its top. Since we aren’t actually going through the whole boiling-water bath process, this should do fine, though it is definitely preferable to have the Mason jar with ring and sealer.

First, submerge one (or two, if you have the room) of the jars with their rings in a large pot and cover with hot water. Bring to a boil and continue on a rolling boil for ten minutes. This is to kill any possible bacteria lurking inside the jars (even though the pickles will be refrigerated, we don’t want to pack them in dirty jars.)

Sterilizing the Mason jar

Remove the jars and rings with tongs and set them upright on clean paper towels.

For the cucumbers, Kirby cucumbers are the best, although Mediterranean (or “Lebanese”) will do at a pinch. You definitely don’t want to use those behemoth cucumbers that we’re all used to seeing in the grocery store; they’ll turn to mush. They should be from 4 - 6 inches long, firm and green. About six fat ones should fill two jars once they’re cut. Prepare a large bowl with ice water, and after washing the cucumbers, submerge them in the ice water. This will make them crisper. This can be done hours ahead or even the day before.

Kirby cucumbers

Now you need to assemble your spices. These are all whole:

1T dill seeds
1T allspice
1T black peppercorns
3T yellow mustard seeds
3 dried chilies (optional or to taste; this amount will give the pickles a very slight burn, almost unnoticeable)

And you’ll need garlic cloves and fresh dill.

In a medium saucepan, mix 2 1/2 cups of white vinegar with 3 1/2 cups of water. Add 1/6 - 1/8 C kosher salt. Now add the spices. Bring to a boil and boil for three minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. This will take a couple of hours unless you put the pan in the refrigerator.

Boiling spices

Take the cucumbers and cut off both ends. I personally like dill spears (quartered lengthwise) but you can get creative; you could leave them whole (not recommended), cut them into chips (if you have a mandolin you could make ripple chips!) or cut them in half.

Quartered pickles

If you’re using garlic, peel approximately two large cloves per jar, halve them and crush them slightly with the blade of a knife so that they will release their flavor once in the jar. Cut a generous swath of fresh dill from the bunch and wash it.

Now put the pickles in the jars, interspersed with the fresh dill and garlic cloves.

Ready for the refrigerator

Fill the jars with the vinegar and spices, taking care to make sure that the chilies and various seeds get equally portioned to each jar. Leave about a half inch space between the vinegar and the lid, screw the lid on tight, and you’re done! Put the pickles in the refrigerator. They will be done in about a week and will last for at least three months. Incredibly crunchy (impossible with commercial product), they’ll definitely be the best spicy dill pickles you have ever had!

What I Ate (#1023 in a Series)

Chicken Fajita 3.0.2

I really don't know the difference between a fajita, a taco or a burrito, but sometimes these are just the most fantastic things to make. Mine has everything in it: hot, cold, crunchy, soft, spicy, veggie, meaty, cheesy, tomatoey, wheaty, toasty . . . can't say that about too many foods. And it's as easy and complex to whatever degree you're in the mood for. You could just slap one together with whatever's in the fridge, or you can lavish some care on it, which is what I did.

Nick's Spicy Niquita

Salsa

Ingredients
1 lb. cherry tomatoes (about 50 or so), halved
2 large jalapeños or serrano chilies, roughly chopped
4 large cloves garlic, diced
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Method

This is a my version of the Moroccan dish "Salade cuite," meaning "cooked salad." Possible additions would be chopped onions or cilantro to finish. Assemble all ingredients in a baking dish. Mix thoroughly, making sure everything's nicely coated with the olive oil. Salt liberally. Preheat the oven to about 350º and bake uncovered, stirring occasionally, for about an hour. Remove from the oven, cover and let stand until salsa comes to room temperature.

Filling

Ingredients
1 cup chicken, oven roasted and well seasoned

1/2 red pepper, cut into rings

1/2 large red onion, cut into rings

4 large cloves garlic, diced

Diced chilies to taste

Sauté the vegetables in a little olive oil until cooked through; a little char on them won't hurt. Just before filling your tortilla, add the chicken in to reheat.

Assembly

Warm a flour tortilla. I put a sheet of aluminum foil on my electric burner and heat the tortilla on medium until I get some char on both sides.

The way I like mine is to layer a heap of the chicken mixture on the bottom, followed by a liberal dose of salsa, then a liberal sprinkling of cilantro, then some grated cheese (Asiago is a particular favorite), a little chopped red onion and finally a handful of lettuce (baby lettuce mix would be good here).

Roll your creation up tightly and carefully and serve with a nice Pinot Grigio or Sauterne.

Summer Rolls (Gỏi cuốn)

This entry has been long promised. Brigitte and I both had a sudden lusting for these rolls, which are not-deep-fried spring rolls. I suppose you could deep fry them, but chances are they'd fall apart, and most of the ingredients are raw anyway. That's what's so good about them; they have a satisfying crunchiness that cannot be surpassed, at the same time tasting like you're eating a herb garden.

So here it is (click pics to embiggen):

Summer Rolls

Not perfect cylinders, but it'll come with practice

Ingredients
The "essential" ingredients, in other words the ones that should always be there are

Carrots, finely julienned
Bean sprouts, blanched for 20 seconds in boiling water and then plunged into an ice-water bath
Vietnamese rice noodles, any size or shape, soaked in hot water until soft, then plunged into an ice-water bath
Some form of meat filler, such as shrimp sautéed in garlic and sesame oil or shredden chicken
Mint, whole leaves
Cilantro, whole sprigs

You can go to town on the other stuff. Yesterday I put in:

Enoki mushrooms (they look almost like cooked spaghetti with little heads), lightly sautéed and rapidly cooled
Green onions, shredded
Cucumber, peeled and seeded, cut in julienne strips, then lightly salted for five minutes, then rinsed, with excess water removed
I added basil leaves to my green mixture, plus hearts of romaine lettuce for extra crunch.

And of course, the wrapper, which happens to be Vietnamese rice wrappers (see photo) which are made of liquid rice that is dried on bamboo lattices in the sun (hence the patterns on them).

Method
Get all your ingredients prepped completely first. I make a list of the order I'm going to layer them in. All the ingredients should be at room temperature or below. For shrimp, slice into thin strips or small pieces; whichever you prefer. My list is:

Shrimp
Mushrooms
Cucumbers
Noodles
Carrots
Green onions
Bean sprouts
Mint
Basil
Cilantro
Lettuce

To moisten the rice wrappers, I have a neat trick: using a three-ply paper towel (Bounty etc. -- don't do what I did yesterday and use a cheap supermarket brand -- they'll all fall apart), moisten with warm water and lay on a cutting board. Moisten another towel and have it ready. Put a rice wrapper on the bottom towel, then cover completely with the second one.

After about a minute, the wrapper will be completely soft. Roll the top towel up just over the halfway point of the wrapper, and start layering the ingredients in the middle, making sure not to put too much in, and leaving about a 1.5-inch space on either side. The last ingredients, the leaves and lettuce, will help bind the other ingredients together. Now, carefully roll the bottom of the rice wrapper over the ingredients, moving the top paper towel up as necessary. When the wrapper is completely over the ingredients, start to fold it underneath them, like you're rolling a cigar. At this point, fold the sides of the wrapper in like the sides of an envelope and continue rolling until it's (hopefully) a tight cylinder.

At this point, cover a plate or a plastic container with more moist paper towel and put the roll in. When you have two or more, take care that they don't touch, or they may stick together and rip.

Cover with more moist towels and voilà. They're best eaten right away, but they'll last about 12 hours in the refrigerator. Dip with a peanutty satay sauce or anything else you prefer. Like I said, I like mine with ghost pepper sauce.

The rice paper wrapper

The shrimp, sautéed, before cutting

The prep, including some vicious Thai chilies at the bottom (not for the faint of heart)

I think I overstuffed this one

Nickshrooms

Got an extreme urge to make stuffed mushrooms yesterday. I used to eat them at a sports bar after some heavy-duty games of racquetball with a nice glass of wine, and they were heavenly. Except those were only breaded and deep-fried; mine are stuffed.

Mind that you can pretty much stuff them with anything that you wish -- they're kind of like spring rolls or pizza. So just use this recipe as a guideline. I can imagine these stuffed with crab, shrimp, sausage, foie gras (well, maybe not foie gras -- yecch) but something that would need to stay the same in all is the chopped mushroom innards, some kind of cheese and preferably, lots of garlic.

So here we go:

Ingredients
There are no set proportions here. Just use as much of each as you like, or leave it out altogether.
Medium-sized cremini mushrooms (I use them for a break on white mushrooms. Plus they have more shroominess).
Finely diced shallots
Finely diced garlic
Finely diced ham
Finely diced parsley
Finely diced basil
Finely diced jalapeños
Herbed cream cheese (I use Boursin)
Grated other hard or semi-hard cheese of your choice
Salt, pepper, and any other spice you like
Panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
Flour or tempura flour
Buttermilk or half-and-half

Method
With a sharp paring knife, cut off the hard end of the mushroom stems, then cut around the rims of the mushrooms. Twist the stems out and with a small spoon, try to get as much material as possible out of the cap. Chop the stems and mushroom insides finely.

In a small skillet, sauté the shallots, garlic, ham and jalapeños in a little olive or truffle oil until no longer raw; about five minutes. Let this mixture cool to room temperature. Mix in the cheeses, parsley and basil until thoroughly combined.

With a spoon, fill the mushroom caps generously with the mixture, making sure that they're thoroughly packed. You might have some mixture left over; eat it.

Pour the buttermilk or liquid of your choice into a shallow bowl. Pour some tempura flour onto a flat plate and repeat with another plate and the panko.

With your fingers, dip a filled mushroom cap first into the liquid, then cover with flour. Redip into the liquid, then cover with panko. Try to make sure each mushroom is evenly covered.

On a tray covered with aluminum foil, place your filled mushroom caps and put in the freezer for three hours.

Heat enough vegetable oil in a pan to cover the mushroom caps on medium until a drop of water sputters in the oil. Carefully lower the mushrooms into the oil. Do not go away. When the mushrooms have turned a rich blonde/brown, remove with a spider to a plate covered in paper towels. Let rest for five minutes. 

Serve with a Ranch-style dip and garnish with chopped parsley.

Ingredients

Stuffed caps

Caps after freezing

Nickshrooms

Nick’s Four-Cheese Pasta Gratin with Almond Crust

Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter

6 garlic cloves, finely chopped

4 large shallots, finely chopped

3 tablespoons all purpose flour

3 cups hot whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

2 cups extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated 

2 1/2 cups Old Amsterdam gouda, grated

1 cup gruyère cheese, grated

1 2/3 cups lightly packed grated Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

1/2 cup whole almonds

1/4 cup fine dry Italian-style breadcrumbs

1 pound short-tubed pasta

Parsley for garnish

Method

Melt butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and shallots; sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add flour; stir 3 minutes. Whisk in hot milk. Bring to simmer, stirring. Cover partially; simmer until sauce thickens slightly, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat. Add cheddar, gruyère and gouda cheese, 1 1/3 cups Parmesan cheese and hot pepper sauce. Whisk until sauce is smooth. Season with salt and pepper. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; chill. Whisk over medium heat to rewarm before using.)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Generously butter bottom and sides of 13x9x2-inch baking dish. Blend 1/3 cup Parmesan, almonds and breadcrumbs in processor until nuts are coarsely ground. Add 1/2 cup almond mixture to prepared dish. Tilt dish to coat bottom and sides. Return any loose almond mixture to processor. Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until tender. Drain well. Return pasta to pot. Add sauce; stir to coat. Transfer to prepared dish. Sprinkle remaining almond mixture over.

Bake until almond mixture is golden and crunchy and sauce bubbles, about 30 minutes. Cool on rack 5 minutes.

Garnish with Parsley. Serve with sliced spicy Toulouse sausages and hot mustard.

Duffalo Burgers!

I threatened it, and yesterday it came to pass. I bought a duck breast from the local butcher and some pre-ground bison at my local Metro. I wanted to grind the bison myself but they only had the pre-ground.

I wouldn't want to make a bison burger all by itself because it has not a fleck of fat in it -- it's probably 2% fat as opposed to the 20-odd percent we want. So the duck was a fantastic solution. Even then, I had to cut several ounces of fat off the duck before I saw fit to use it.

Ready for the grinder

You can see those massive bands of fat still on the duck; those would be the mortar to hold the bricks together, so to speak.

Ground Duckalo! Or is that Buffaluck?

I formed it into neat patties which unfortunately only yield 5 quarter-pounders.

Ready to grill!

I made a salsa to go with it, but I didn't want to make a Tex-Mex burger; just a nice spicy ketchup-type condiment. I roasted a few yellow cherry tomatoes, a few vine-ripened tomatoes, a few shallots, onions and garlic, then added cilantro and some vinegar.

Ready for a 450-degree oven

Done

Then I puréed it and added salt and pepper.

I bought some smoked Gouda, on the advice of messrs. Chris "Zeke" Hand and his partner E.Coli of the Montreal Burger Report, and sautéed the burgers in a cast iron pan. They did not need fat, and required but three minutes per side.

I had previously buttered two onion rolls from Quality Kosher with garlic butter and had toasted them in the cast-iron pan. I smeared them with salsa on both sides, added the burgers (a double for my friend Daniel), added three slices of semi-crisp bacon, thin slices of vine-ripened tomatoes, smoked gouda and aged cheddar slices, and finely shredded onions coated in buttermilk and flour and deep fried in duck fat until crispy, topped it all off with hearts of romaine, served crispy oven fries alongside, and voilà.

Daniels' double burger! Click to enjoy!

The Duffaluck Burger. Daniel completely demolished his and I managed three-quarters. I deem it an unqualified success! It tasted smoky, lean, sassy, not at all gamy and I will make it again TONIGHT.

Nick’s Fiery Mahogany Baked Chicken with Stand-up Scalloped Potatoes with Bacon and 3 Cheeses

Made some of my favorite comfort food tonight. It's great for company because a lot of it is prep which can be prepped either the day before or some hours before guests come, and the great thing is that both dishes can be cooked in the same oven (albeit for different times). So you can basically sit around and drink wine with the guests while occasionally checking on the dishes.

On the chicken: you can up the ante with more chilies (I would normally use habaneros) but most people don't want a food challenge.

Click for more love

Nick’s Fiery Mahogany Baked Chicken

Ingredients

8 chicken legs, 4 chicken thighs, featherless, skin-on, bone in

1/2 cup ketchup

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup teriyaki sauce

1/2 cup Japanese sake

1/2 cup Mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine)

5 large cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/2 cup finely-chopped onion

1 Tbsp. Zesty Italian salad dressing

Two finely-chopped very hot chilies

1/2 Tsp. each chili, cayenne, garlic, onion powders

1/2 Tsp. garlic salt

Splash rice-wine vinegar

Method

Mix all marinade ingredients together well in large bowl. Add chicken pieces, coat well. Marinate, refrigerated, 1-24 hours. Preheat oven to 350º. Remove chicken from bowl and place in greased baking pan. Bake for about 50 minutes, turning occasionally and basting frequently with marinade. Cover and let rest 10 minutes. (If there is marinade left over, reduce it on medium in a small pan to avoid contaminating anything with raw chicken juices. It's great spooned over the served chicken.) Serve with basmati rice or Stand-up Scalloped Potatoes with Bacon and 5 Cheeses.

Before adding the final cheeses and topping

Nick's Stand-up Scalloped Potatoes with Bacon and 5 Cheeses

Ingredients

4 medium to large purple-skinned potatoes, peeled (if they are in exceptionally unscarred shape, omit peeling and just scrub and remove eyes or bruises)

1 cup each grated gruyère, old cheddar, aged gouda and mix-grated parmesan and romano (for topping)

1 medium onion, finely sliced

4 slices applewood-smoked bacon, thickly sliced and baked in a 500º toaster oven for about five minutes. Cut into two-inch lengths.

4 large cloves garlic, finely diced

Cracked pepper

1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley

Heavy cream

Bread crumbs

Method

Mandoline potatoes to approximately 1/8-inch thick slices. Soak in a bowl of ice water with 1/4 cup sugar for 20 minutes. Rinse, drain, and dry with paper towels.

Coat all sides of a rectangular baking dish with melted butter. Then carefully stand each slice of potato on its side (this is hard) and insert some onion slices between each slice until you have reached the other side of the dish and all are on their side. If you run out of onions, slice more. Continue standing slices up until the dish is filled. Insert bacon slices randomly until all the bacon is gone.

Mix all the cheeses except the parmesan/romano mix in a large bowl with the garlic, parsley and liberal amounts of cracked pepper. Combine thoroughly. Mix the parmesan and romano with some breadcrumbs and more cracked pepper.

Preheat oven to a solid 350º (use an oven thermometer like the one pictured).

Now sprinkle approximately half the gruyère mixture onto the potatoes, taking care to get it between the slices. Drizzle heavy cream up and down each row until well covered; perhaps 2/3 of a cup.

Place in oven, uncovered, for about thirty minutes. Remove, add the rest of the gruyère mixture evenly, then sprinkle with the parmesan/roman/bread crumb mixture. Bake, uncovered, an additional 30 minutes or so, taking care not to scorch.

Remove from oven and cover tightly with aluminum foil or baking pan lid if you have one. Bake another 30 minutes or so. Serve.

This Maverick thermometer in highly recommended. It measures the actual temperature of the inside of your oven, not your food, with a wire that leads to a sensor placed in the oven. Invaluable, since most ovens lie.

Nick's Turbo-charged BLT

If I had my way, the BLT would be about six letters longer. I always love to stuff as many things as I can into an ordinary BLT. I love to mess with the concept. Therefore, no two of my BLTs will ever be the same. Even with the basic ingredients, there are half a million ways you can vary the composition. In this version, the odd man out is the cucumber; but it packs a welcome, crispy crunch. Next time I might do it with some sautéed shiitake mushrooms. The secret to a good BLT is the contrasts of the cold and the hot, the soft and the crunchy, the sweet and the salty. Only your imagination sets the limits. And though it might seem like a heart attack on a plate, indulge. Don't skimp on the fats. You're only going to be having one of these once in a blue moon.

Tonight's was a good one. Let's see what was done.

Waiting for lettuce

One hell of a good sandwich

Ingredients
Country bread (pain à campagne), unsliced
6 slices thick-sliced applewood-smoked bacon
1/2 medium red onion, sliced thinly
4 slices thinly-sliced 6-year aged cheddar cheese (from the edge of a block)
1 slice Emmenthal cheese
4 slices thinly-sliced Italian tomato
4 thin slices English cucumber
1 cup chopped romaine lettuce, heart section preferred
Japanese mayonnaise, or a mixture of Hellman's and a little dijon mustard

Method
Cut two slices of the bread, at least 1/2 an inch thick. Set aside.

In a small nonstick skillet, sauté the onions on medium heat in some butter until brown and almost getting crisp; about 15 minutes.

Prepare a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Lay out the bacon. Bake at 500 degrees either in a toaster oven or a regular oven, about 7 minutes or to your desired doneness (I like mine still somewhat soft, not hard and brittle). Place in a bowl lined with paper towels.

Toast the bread until just showing some color; spread mayonnaise on both slices. On one slice, place the cheeses. Toast in a toaster oven until the cheese has melted.

Assemble the sandwich: layer the bacon first, then the the cucumber, then the caramelised onions, then the tomato, then a hefty bunch of lettuce.

Cut in half. Serve with a glass of Barolo.

Jumbo Shrimp II

I have to admit, I don't like peeling shrimp. But not for the reasons you might expect. Tonight, as I peeled these delicious monsters, I couldn't help thinking about them grazing across the ocean floor, going home at night after a hard days' work finding plankton, greeting their jumbo-shrimp wives and children, only to be plucked suddenly from their tranquil lives by an illegal Russian purse-seine operation.

Flash frozen! The sheer horror. And then to be brined in salt and sugar -- as if they needed more salt -- and peeled, headless and forever wriggle-less, in my kitchen sink. I gave them names as I peeled them . . . "Goodbye, Harvey . . . goodbye, Adolphus, goodbye Margaret and especially goodbye, Troy. You will be missed, and I promise to say a special prayer to the Shrimp God, Scuttillus Maximus, on your behalf, so you go to shrimp heaven."

And shrimp heaven it was tonight!

Check it out! If you look closely you can just see that extra-pink spot on Adolphus (third from left)!

It it Quacks . . .

And then there was light at the end of the tunnel.

Doing a magret de canard is childishly simple. You simply can't ruin it unless you cook it into shoe leather, which I do NOT advise. Duck should be eaten rare, or at most, medium rare. It is not like chicken. It is not like turkey. It is strikingly similar in taste and texture to a very tender filet mignon of beef.

I brined mine in a salt and sugar solution overnight, but it appears not to have really affected the taste, as it would chicken breasts.

So:
Magret de Canard Wrapped in Bacon
Ingredients
1 large duck breast, about 1-inch thick, including fat
3 strips thick-cut bacon
Salt
Pepper

Method
With a very sharp knife, score the fat of the duck breast without cutting all the way through in a criss-cross fashion. Salt and pepper both sides. Wrap the breast with the bacon slices.

In a non-stick frying pan preheated to medium, set the duck, fat-side down. Don't move it around. Cook about 8 minutes, occasionally draining the duck fat (or saving it to fry some potatoes!). Turn the breast over and cook approximately six to eight minutes for rare. It's always better to cook it less than you think, because you can't uncook it if it's too well done.

Remove from pan and let rest on a warm plate tented in aluminum foil. If not eating soon, put in a 100-degree oven.

Serve sliced thinly. I removed the fat from the slices but it's not necessary, unless you're watching your waistline, in which case you wouldn't be eating duck.

Serve with scalloped potatoes and superfine green beans with a nice Sauvignon Blanc.

Duck breast, scored and seasoned

Duck breast, wrapped in bacon

Magret de Canard with scalloped potatoes, green beans and shiitake-pleurot sauce

A Better Duck I have Yet to Eat

It all came together like a symphony orchestra after a long tuning. Frankly, I don't know what I was agonizing about. The duck itself was the easiest thing out of everything to make. I literally had to cool my heels most of the afternoon, because making it ahead was not an option.

As I mentioned before, the sauce was fantastic, after the addition of some wild honey and mustard:

Sauce for Magret de Canard
Ingredients
2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 lb. Shiitake mushrooms (about six large ones) stemmed and sliced
1/2 lb. Pleurot mushrooms (about 2 large ones) stemmed and sliced
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon flour
Handful Italian parsley, chopped
Handful fresh tarragon, chopped
1 cup good white wine
1 ½ cups veal or chicken stock
1 teaspoon wildflower honey
1 tablespoon piment espelette mustard (any dijon-style will do)
3/4 cup heavy cream (35%)
Salt and pepper to taste
Love

Method
Sauté the mushrooms in butter on medium heat until browned and have lost their liquid. Set aside. Sauté onions and garlic in butter until done; approximately 8 minutes.

Add wine and reduce to approximately half; add broth and reduce further, maybe 15-20 minutes all together. Add back the onion mixture, parsley and tarragon, cook a couple of minutes further. Purée everything with a hand blender and return to pan.

Tastes a lot better than it looks

When ready to finish the sauce, reheat on medium. Add honey and mustard and combine well. Add back mushrooms. Add cream and reduce on medium low heat, about 7 minutes. Adjust for seasonings. Serve!

Holy Indigenous Varietals, Batman!

I'm Blooking! Yes, blogging while I'm cooking. I can't believe the mess I'm in (wasn't there a rock song about that? Something to do with Doctor, Doctor, Please) but at least the first mess is behind me.

I'd drive you nuts if I posted three recipes in one shot, so let me do it post-by-post.

Twelve-Cheese Scalloped Potatoes with Bacon and Heavy Cream

Okay, I lost count of how many cheeses there are in this dish. Let's just say "lots." Right click to save and print for the attending cardiologist when you check in to ER.


Step one: The Mandoline

The "Ripple Cutter." If it seems to be grinning, it is.

See, you need a mandoline for this dish. Anything else and it will be a Fail, unless you're an expert potato slicer with an extremely sharp knife. So get one, a quality one. I have a Matfer.

Ingredients

2-3 large Idaho potatoes (don't use new or waxy Yukon Gold-type potatoes) depending on how many people you are going to serve

1 mid-sized red onion, very thinly sliced
4 slices thick bacon, preferably applewood-smoked, briefly broiled in the toaster oven and cut into one-inch slabs

Internal cheese
1 cup grated Gruyère cheese
1/2 cup aged cheddar
1/2 cup good goat cheese, sliced into rounds
1/2 cup Provolone cheese, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped garlic, mixed into the cheese
Parsley

Topping
1/2 cup Pecorino Romano cheese, grated, mixed into 1 cup crushed Italian-style croutons
3/4 cup heavy (35%) cream

Method
Ripple-cut the potatoes at about 1/8" thick. If not using immediately, immerse in cold water. Mix the garlic and parsley with the grated cheese

When ready to assemble dish, preheat oven to 350º (an oven thermometer is very handy).

Dry potato slices thoroughly with paper towels.

In a large cast iron pan, or baking dish, layer in the following order:

Potatoes to completely cover the bottom of the pan/dish
Bacon
Onions
Internal cheese, generously sprinkled
Cream, generously applied
REPEAT in same order

After the last layer of potatoes, sprinkle the remaining soft cheese mixture. Then  sprinkle thoroughly with Romano/bread crumb mixture.

Bake, uncovered, at about 250-300 degrees for half an hour. Check every ten minutes to make sure the top is not getting burned.

Cover pan/dish with lid or aluminum foil and bake one hour longer. Let rest. Serve.

Mandolined potatoes

The Suspects

The first layer

Ready to go into the oven

Eh voilà, your ticket to bump up to the head of the line to see Reza Pahlavi, your new cardiologist

A Lonely Task

Tai-chan has been a bit unreliable in the sleep-cycle world and we've only managed to get him back to going to bed at around 6 in the evening, so he was only able to light the chimney starter today before he ran out of smoke. The rest was up to me.

So Daddy had to make the four ribeyes, two filets and four burgers by myself.

Tired Daddy: a testament in pictures.

The burgers for tomorrow

The Filets; not sure what's to be done with them

No helper= great fatigue

Tandoori Chicken and Seekh Kebab

Well, I went and done it. With my son Taishi's help, we made tandoori chicken, seekh kebab and grilled naan on our tiny balcony barbecue last night. It went swimmingly! Taishi has become an expert little helper. Recipes to follow. Click on pictures for larger versions.

My pathetic balcony grill setup

Taishi tending the chimney starter; observe awed expression

We started with our trusty chimney starter. We have emergency equipment (a plant spray bottle) standing by just in case and a plan in place for a total breakdown of operations (run away) but we seem to have gotten it down to a science by now.

When the coals are white hot, Taishi stands by with the the spray bottle while I dump them into the grill (a few coals always spill out and he extinguishes them with maximum efficiency) and then I arrange them and put on the grill, which I clean and oil with paper towels.

Then we put on the seekh kebab.

The kebabs raw. You turn them with tongs, not the skewer.

 I turned them once every five minutes or so and they turned out fantastically. Then it was the chicken's turn.

Chicken in its marinade

In this case it was chicken thighs, not breasts, which tend to dry out too much.

Chicken on its first side; watch for flareups

Just leave it alone for ten minutes, but give a quarter turn to the grate every 3 minutes or so to ensure even cooking.

The grillmaster inspects his birds

The grillmaster's assistant assesses doneness

And the whole grilling process took about twenty minutes, with ten minutes on each side.

And the chicken is done.

And then the store-bought naan, just to give it some smoky flavour.

You just want to do these for about three minutes on each side.

 Eh voilà! Except, as I said, last night we ate stroganoff. Tonight the tandoori chicken will be transformed into Butter Chicken!

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Tandoori Chicken
 This recipe is a combination of several recipes from my Indian library. I improvised on some amounts, omitted some, and added others.

The ingredient list looks daunting, and obviously you need to have the spices at hand, but it's worth it. But if you do, it will take at most an hour to assemble everything.

Ingredients
12 boneless, skinless, featherless chicken thighs, brined

Marinade
6 large cloves garlic, crushed with a garlic crusher
1 tablespoon grated ginger
4 teaspoons ground coriander
1½ teaspoons ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon ground fennel
4 teaspoons tandoori spice (available from Penzey's spices)
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon Sri Lankan spice blend (I make my own)
½ teaspoon ground cinammon
2 teaspoons salt
¾ cup yogurt
¾ cup crème fraîche
Juice of 2 lemons
6 drops red food coloring (optional)

Method
Mix all ingredients and marinate chicken for 24 hours.
Soak 2 cups of wood chips (hickory, mesquite etc.) for 30 minutes prior to grilling. Drain. Prepare grill with chimney starter and use wood charcoal, not charcoal briquets. When the coals in the chimney starter are ready, empty into grill with all coals at same level, with wood chips.

When tops of coals turn into white ash, place chicken evenly. Grill ten minutes without turning chicken, but turn the grate a quarter turn every three minutes or so to ensure even grilling. Use spray bottle to control flareups.

Turn chicken and repeat for ten more minutes. Finish with lemon juice. Serve immediately or save for butter chicken.

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Seekh Kebab
 This recipe is also a combination of several recipes from my Indian library. Again, I improvised on some amounts, omitted some, and added others.

This is basically an Indian-spiced ground beef recipe that is skewered and grilled.

Ingredients
1 lb. very lean, high quality ground beef (ask your butcher to grind some top sirloin for you so you know what's in it).

1 medium onion, very finely minced
4 cloves garlic, very finely minced
2 tablespoons cilantro, finely chopped
2 tablespoons ginger, grated (I find it easy to freeze the ginger and grate with a Microplane grater)
1 - 2 red serrano chilies, very finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon ground cinammon
1 teaspoon salt
2 small eggs

Wet ingredients

Dry ingredients + wet ingredients

Method
Combine the spice mixture with the beef. Add the eggs and mix thoroughly. Press a cylinder of meat about the size of a small hot dog around a flat-bladed skewer (metal is best). Repeat with remaining meat mixture.

Heat grill with wood chips on a one-level fire. Be sure to oil the grate with a paper towel so the skewers don't stick. Place the skewers perpendicular to the grate, not touching. Leave for five minutes, turn to opposite side (I find a metal spatula helps lift them from the grate) with tongs. If you try to turn with the skewers they will just spin around inside the meat. Repeat with five minutes on all sides.

Serve on lettuce leaves with cucumber raita (recipe to follow).