nerditry

Lo siento mucho, no pictures this go round.

Last night, posse member Jimmy invited me and the lady to join the rest of the crew over for some grilling at theirs. He says it’s chill and he’s got some burgers ready to go on the grill and plenty of beers, whatever I can bring is just fine.

I’m not going to the store, I’m going freezer, fridge and pantry warrior and figuring out how to maintain my name and still bring something reputable. He’s got the turf handled with burgers, I think let’s surf with the shrimp being patient in the freezer for such an occasion. What else, what else?

Shrimp needs textural contrast, I just picked up some good looking apples at Costco, had some onions in the bullpen and the rest of the odds to make those ends.

Tools:
Cutting board
Knife
Mesh strainer or colander
Medium stockpot
Bowl of ice water
Spatula (bowl scraper)
Large serving bowl

Ingredients:
1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined (31-35 is about right on)
3 apples cored, peeled, halved

-I used really crisp Pink Lady apples, otherwise use Braeburn, Gala or Granny Smith (adjust the sweetness for Smiths)

1 medium sweet onion, halved on the width
1/2 bell pepper (any color), seeded, ribs removed
1 clove garlic, finely minced
3/4 cup mayonnaise (may need an extra tablespoon or two)
1/4 cup blue cheese dressing

-If you don’t have this, get some good, funky, crumbly cheese and 1/4 cup of full fat sour cream

1/8 cup prepared yellow mustard
1 tbs honey
1 tbs white sugar
1 tsp granulated garlic
1/2 tbs hot sauce

-Here’s the deal. I added some Texas Pete, wasn’t hot enough. Did the remainder with some semi-nuclear hot sauce from a Guyanese friend’s personal recipe.

Large pinch of ground black pepper
2 tbs white vinegar (for poaching liquid)
4 cups of water
1/2 fresh lemon or lime

Let’s Build:

1. Bring 4 cups of water and vinegar up to a fast simmer. Let this sit ready on the stove.

2. Combine mayo, mustard, blue cheese dressing, hot sauce, minced garlic, mustard, honey, white sugar, granulated garlic and black pepper. Let this chill out so the flavors can combine for 15-20 minutes.

3. Slice the onion into half moons as thinly as you possibly can. Sharp knives make your work easier and the kitchen safer. Place in the serving bowl.

4. Since the apples into half moons, 1/8″ thickness. Place in the serving bowl and squeeze the lemon/lime to keep them from oxidizing (turning brown).

5. Finely dice the bell pepper. You thought it wasn’t going in the bowl?

6. Add the shrimp to the poaching liquid, cook NO MORE THAN 45 SECONDS!

7. Immediately drain the shrimp and add to the ice water to halt their cooking.

8. Once the shrimp has cooled, add it to the apples, onions and peppers.

9. Add half of the dressing, gently…GENTLY! stir it through. If you’re hesitant about how to gently mix it, use your hands instead of the spatula.

10. Continue adding dressing until you like the consistency.

11. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least an hour.

So, this dish was very popular, infinitely gratifying for me as a cook since it all came off the top. Here’s some thoughts I had afterward on variations.

1. Use the sour cream, omit the blue cheese, add 1/2 tbs jamaican curry powder.

2. Toast and add halves of walnuts or pecans.

3. Omit hot sauce, add hot chiles diced as finely as possible to suit your own tastes.

4. Replace shrimp with poached bay scallops or poached and shredded chicken (dark meat).

Hope you have a chance to try this fantastic salad. Make sure you report back on the rave reviews!

I grew up hating spaghetti and tomato sauce. We never had any sauce which hadn’t originated in a jar and it was dressed up mostly with chopped up veg like mushrooms, green peppers and onions. Buuuuut, none of those were usually cooked prior to inclusion in the sauce, so they didn’t add much and were more of a klugey obstacle in a boring dish.

Also, I really have never dug the food served at Southern Italian restaurants which were some combination of mozzarella, red sauce and pasta. Same way that I’m generally not down with Mexican restaurants which (stolen from Jim Gaffigan) are any combination of beans, meat, tortilla, lettuce, tomato, shredded cheese and mebbe the orange-tinted rice (though I really like the way those places make fajitas since I can’t replicate them at home).

My challenge is often to see how good of a meal I can make in the time in between getting home from work (30-45 minute drive) and when I’m out of patience to do anything other than eat. So I look not for shortcuts, but alternate methods of quality cooking in a condensed period of time. A pressure cooker mentality applied to other methods and techniques. From that, I turned my desire to make an excellent, long simmered red sauce into a 30 minute, chunky tomato sauce that turns the switch on a regular pasta dinner.

Roasted Tomato and Red Cubanelle Sauce

Tools:
Knife
Broiler pan covered tightly with aluminum foil
Spatula (not pancake turner)
Cutting Board
Food Processor (Or a blender)

Ingredients:
1 large red Cubanelle pepper, seeded, cut in half lengthwise
4 medium tomatoes, ripe, quartered, seeded
4 fresh garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tbs dried oregano
1/2 tbs dried thyme
1 tsp dried red chili flakes
3 whole black peppercorns
Olive oil

1. Preheat broiler and place rack on 2nd highest row.

2. Combine last six ingredients in mortar and pestle, grind into a paste. Marinate tomatoes and peppers for 15 minutes.

3. Place vegetables on broiler pan with enough space so they aren’t touching.

4. Roast until skins start to char.

5. Turn vegetables over to opposite side until lightly charred.

6. Place hot vegetables and marinade in food processor, pulse until halfway to desired consistency.

7. Add salt and more olive oil to taste, pulse to desired consistency.

8. Serve hot over hot pasta or let cool to room temperature.

This will keep in your fridge for a day or so. I don’t anticipate it lasting that long.

These are what I had available the first time I devised the recipe. If you happen to have onions available, use a small one or half a medium cut into quarters before roasting. If you’ve got fresh herbs, add some of those when it goes into the food processor.

Leftover wings went for lunch today and I managed to abstain from decorating my shirt with it. So continuing my tour of Asia, we look farther East to Thailand on the map and farther back in my pantry for ingredients.

Tools:
Large sautee pan with lid, high sides preferred.
Knife
Can opener
Stirring spoon

Ingredients:
114g Can of Maesri Masaman Curry Paste
1/2 to 1 lb peeled, deveined shrimp
14 oz can of coconut milk
1″ fresh ginger, sliced into 4 pieces then smashed
5 small green chilis, stem removed and smashed
1/2 lb potatoes, .25″ dice
1/2 cup warm water
2 tbs cooking oil

1. Add cooking oil to cold pan and heat medium low.

2. Add curry paste and stir for 2 minutes to evenly coat the bottom of the pan.

3. Add half the can of coconut milk, ginger & chilis and slowly stir through curry paste to evenly combine.

4. Heat until lightly simmering, add potatoes, remaining coconut milk, water and potatoes. Stir to combine.

5. Cover and simmer 15 minutes.

6. Add shrimp, stir through to coat with curry and cover again for 5 minutes.

Serve with bread or rice.

Makhani Butter Chicken Wings Closeup

Wings have gotten expensive. $2.59/lb at Publix including a $.20/lb discount is pretty high. These prices seem like nearly double what I was paying a couple of years ago. At that time, I was trying to do wings in the oven which is really good when you don’t want the grease and mess of deep frying.

Tonight’s recipe starts with a packet of Shan’s Butter Chicken mix (if you were inclined to buy online from MyEthnicGrocer). Instead of using the instructions, I took the leftover uncooked wings over their option of bite size pieces of chopped chicken and reworked the recipe a touch.

Ingredients:
1-1.5 lb separated chicken wings
1 box Shan Butter Chicken mix
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup melted butter
1 large onion, halved lengthwise and sliced about .25″
2 cups of pureed tomatoes, no skins or seeds, passed through a sieve once more.
Cooking oil (I used olive)

Tools:
Large saute pan with lid or dutch oven with lid
Tongs
Wooden spoon
Knife

1. Marinate the chicken in a large ziploc bag using the entirety of the spice packet, with a tablespoon each of oil and water. Seal the bag and mix until all of the chicken is coated. Marinate overnight in fridge.

2. Brown the chicken wings in between medium-medium high till crispy on each side, probably in two batches.

3. Remove the wings and add the onions, saute momentarily until soft.

4. Add the milk, melted butter and tomato puree and bring to a light boil.

5. Add the wings back in, lower to medium and cover.

6. After 10 minutes, spoon the sauce on top of the wings, cover 15 more minutes.

7. Serve with potatoes or rice and spicy naan.

Makhani Butter Chicken Wings with Potatoes and Spicy Naan

from what was in the pantry came a real meal. total cost = $4.50. total meals = 3.

[click for larger image]

country spare ribs (+1 lb) : 1″ dice
2 medium russet potatoes : 1″ dice
1/4 large red onion : medium slice
4 cloves of garlic : 2 minced, 2 smashed
garlic/ginger paste : 1 heap tbs
fish sauce : 5-6 drops
jamaican habanero sauce : 3 splashes
coconut milk : 1 can

i went with indian spices for the curry

amchur powder (citrus flavor) : 1 tbs
turmeric : 1 tbs
salt : 1 tbs
pepper : 1 tbs
chili powder : 1 tsp

Mixed all ingredients besides the coconut milk in a casserole, poured the milk on top. Tight foil seal and in the oven @ 375 till the meat is fork tender.

Fat camp letter to mom. I love Gordon Ramsey’s shows (editor’s note, “Nullus, of course,” is now shortened to (nuc)).

Kitchen Nightmare’s is back and I’m dreading the American version because Fox sucks at shooting anything live action besides car chases. Tonight, it was turnaround time at the Fenwick Arms, a pub in name and architecture only. Biggest message of the show was to get it simple and serve what a pub is supposed to.

Brief history (n. Steve Hawking) of a pub. It’s short for Public House. The extension of one’s home in which they can relax and have a restaurant quality home cooked meal. Been around forever in England and are the cornerstone of their food changes in recent history. Pubs have been improving the food with more locally sourced ingredients, updating the recipes and pushing for change to drag their country from epicurean derision. Ooooooh big word comboooo.

Tra la la things work out from there, not before the codger who co-owns the place Brian let his ocd have a few moments in the sun.

What sparked their local resurgence was duo-fold :

1. Getting the food right and the place running smooth.

2. The Campaign for Real Gravy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I support gravy. Always have and always will. It was best made at home and I never really liked the thin brown stuff at school lunch which begat more thin brown stuff later as Abraham begat Isaac who begat Jacob who begat Jews moving out West to enjoy a dry heat. I’m down with gravy on the roast beef, about the Thanksgiving turkey, on the open faced sandwich, on fries, on fries with either curds or cheese like the Canadians and infrequently on biscuits. The English have it down pat with roast beef, gravy and Yorkshire Pudding (Gordon Ramsay’s recipe) as each one shares common flavors with the other.

Roast beef cooks in the pan, gravy is made from veg and what’s left on the pan and the pudding can be made with beef fat in with the oil. It’s a recipe that can easily lead to more than one potential downfall on each of the components as there aren’t too many ingredients or steps in any of them. These folks knocked it out, especially Karen whose puddings seemed to come out flawless each time in a batch.

Support the Fenwick’s march forward in just saying NO! to gravy powder, granules, bases, and brown bullion bombs. Don’t be a snitch on your tastebuds.

Fenwick Arms Pub

i’ve got the ingredients and the hunger and the tough part is to figure out how to make part 1 = part 2. plenty of cookbooks and recipe printouts, ideas from tv shows floating around my head, but none of these let me maximize the limited amount of prep goods available.

check the pantry and this will be exhibit b to the four pork chops

combine one can of paste and 1 lb of pork chops. the plan was to marinate for two days after marinating a different chop last week for two days in soy and black pepper.

side note: awesome flavors, really intense pepper/salt combination and cooked it slowwww after a good sear of both sides and the surrounding fat.

silly me, i forgot to take them out thurs night and found myself starting at the chops yesterday afternoon. these were “preserved” in the marinating process since the paste is pretty thick. one can covered them pretty well and i think you could easy do an entire family’s worth of chops with it. cheap, and far easier than doing a curry stew or stir fry.

like the hedleys, it was time to get to work.

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