What's Cooking (Take Three!)

[Jenise]

Heinz, both dishes are absolutely incredible looking--your artistry is always so impressive but that mousse tarte is off the charts. What's the technique for getting the layers so perfect?

Thank you so much for your statement.
I'll explain the technique in my poor words, but I'm still working on it. So it will last one more day to be posted.

Thanks, will appreciate that very much.

[Jenise]

Dinner tonight: veal meatloaf on roasted zucchini mash, romaine salad with raw mushrooms.

To beat the heat, I tried two Sichuan cold chicken preparations from Fuschia Dunlop. Each calls for half of a pre-cooked chicken. In Sichuan they poach the chicken, but I used one of those rotisserie chickens from the supermarket.

The first preparation involves boning the chicken and cutting the meat into bite-size pieces. The sauce has scallions (also cut into bite-size pieces), fresh ginger, light soy sauce, Zhenjiang vinegar, sugar, hot oil (with residue), and sesame oil.

The second preparation is a cold version of fish-fragrant chicken (yu xiang ji si). The chicken is cut into slivers and the scallions (green parts only) crosswise into thin rounds. Also in the sauce are light soy sauce, Zhenjiang vinegar, pickled chile paste (I used sambal oelek), hot oil (no residue this time) ginger, garlic, and sugar.

In both cases all you do is put the chicken in a serving dish, mix up the rest of the ingredients, and pour the sauce over the chicken.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Paul, that sounds SO good. I'd forgotten about Chinese "Drunken" chicken which is similar if not the same by another name. What a perfect summer meal.

I've been quite busy on weeknights lately and travelling a lot on weekends, so I haven't been cooking nearly as much as I'd like. A couple of evenings ago, I knew my wife had had a rough day so I made meat loaf and mashed potatoes. (Pretty much her favorite comfort food apart from burgers at Jamie's Restaurant.) We happen to have a good supply of dried porcinis on hand, so I loaded the meat loaf up with them. Cooked it a little longer than ideal, but it still came out moist and flavorful. The next night I had a slice of meat loaf on an Acme hamburger bun with swiss cheese melted on top and Pepper Plant chipotle sauce. Last night, it was crumbled meat loaf in soft shell tacos with pickled onions and the Pepper Plant sauce. Tragically, the meat loaf is now gone and I'll have to find something else to eat tonight.

Using pears I'd found as windfalls under a tree in a roadside hedge -see thread Natures Bounty

I peeled then halved them. Some were bruised so I only used the half or quarters that weren't bruised. The pears were unripe with white seeds and very firm flesh.

I put them in a pan, covered with a bottle of red wine, bunged in a cinnamon stick and simmered over a low heat. When pears were tender I remove them, boiled down the wine and removed the cinnamon and used as a sauce

. Lovely.

Did a simple roast beef: I sliced the fat off a 2.5# center eye roast, sat the meat on a mirepoix to which I added fennel seed and bay leaf, rubbed the roast with garlic, s+p, balanced the fat on top (to auto-baste it), and then roasted. High temp (450*F) for 20 minutes then medium temp (375*F) until the interior reached 135*F on a quick-read thermometer (which took 70 minutes in my kinda slow oven). Then, out and rest a bit.

[Jenise]

I haven't posted to this thread in awhile. Reason is, in part, that I was away for almost two weeks--off to see the eclipse, followed by camping on and around Mt. Ranier National Park. We've lived here for 15 years and were a bit embarrassed that we'd never visited the park (but strangely, most Washingtonians haven't, it's just there--they see it from afar but never feel compelled somehow to get up close and personal with it).

Since we got back, I'm not sure what I've cooked. Carnitas tacos to go with the green chiles one night, green chile burgers another night, roasted salmon with fresh creamed corn last night, and leftovers another. But cooking at home is easy.

What I'd rather talk about is cooking on the road, in the tiny kitchen of my tiny house on wheels, whose name is Fritz, and with a tiny Coleman stove on a picnic table. I'm prouder of those meals than anything I do here. The majority of our camping trip was with one couple, Les and Barb, starting out in Corvallis, Oregon, from which we took a one-night break to meet up with Jim and Lee Ann in Battle Ground the evening of the eclipse. There I had promised to cook for them my "famous I-5 steak". Which is really only famous with Bob and I, one of those unplanned traditions that kind of made itself as the majority of our camping has occurred within shooting range of the I-5 corridor and the numerous trips we've made to Oregon and California in Fritz. Trips in which spur-of-the-moment meals have often been steaks, wherein which we've been lucky enough more often than not to find a couple Chuck Eye steaks in the meatcase of whatever market we shopped at. Luck is required because not all butchers separate that wonderful, tender cut from the Chuck, as fine as any rib-eye, and because each cow only produces a few. If you see them at all, you never see more than 2 or 3. But we seem to find them when camping, and I coat them with salt, sugar and ground coffee before grilling. The meat has just enough fat in it to bond with that coating and create a terrific crust that not only has a wonderful mouthfeel, the smell of caramelizing coffee during the cook is an amazing aroma in the great outdoors.

Another night while camping with the other couple at a beautiful riverside location called Ohanapecosh, I volunteered to do dinner. We'd set up camp early and I had time for some good cooking. Using only my little Coleman stove (one burner and an 11" square grill), I chopped and seared two clumps of maitakes I'd purchased in Salem with finely chopped onion and garlic, and then simmered/reduced them for an hour with white wine, chicken broth and cream to form a luxurious sauce to finish the ravioli and some fresh whole snap peas in. The only concession to circumstance is that fancy plating is gratuitous--though a salad course preceded the pasta, to serve the hot dish one just puts the whole pan in the middle of the table so that each person can help themselves.

That's a hard road you drive, with maitake mushrooms.

So, coffee grinds as a coating for steak?

[Jenise]

That's a hard road you drive, with maitake mushrooms.

So, coffee grinds as a coating for steak?

Yup. Thirds--sugar, salt and finely ground coffee (not previously used) and lots of flame.

[Jenise]

Say, I invented something wonderful this week. In anticipation of the big Chile Roast on Sunday, I bought a few things in case I needed to make breakfast the next day for the couple who was coming from south Whidbey Island. I had no plan, but grabbed a tube of Mexican pork chorizo--whose flavor I love--and a pound of pork thinking what I've never thought before--that mixing the two together might make a decent breakfast sausage. Maybe I'd add a little more seasoning. So I blended them and stored the mix in a little tub where two days later, the breakfast issue having come and gone without event, I asked myself what I'd do with it. Whatever I did, it needed to happen that day. Sausage patties? Meatballs? What?

So I went and stood in the pantry staring at stuff to see what volunteered. When I saw polenta, I knew what I wanted: why not see if this would make a sliceable loaf of tamale-flavored corn to pan fry like the corn meal "mush" of my childhood? Well, bang-on it did. Absolutely delicious, great texture and flavor. So I'm taking it to Bill Spohn's house this weekend and cooking it for breakfast on Sunday morning. (We often stay over because it's, timewise, a long drive.) If I ever wrote a cookbook, this dish would be in it.

That's a hard road you drive, with maitake mushrooms.

So, coffee grinds as a coating for steak?

Yup. Thirds--sugar, salt and finely ground coffee (not previously used) and lots of flame.

Sounds really interesting. I think of coffee grinds as, well, quintessential garbage.

Tonight was the catch-as-catch-can ragout: a tablespoon of sun-dried tomato oil, the mirepoix from under that recently-roasted beef, a cup of leftover sofrito, a cup of pureed tomato, dice of a fat carrot, two celery ribs, two big shrooms, two big garlic cloves, and the remnants of the aforementioned roast beast. Over penne. Grated parm on top, lots.

For an Italianate ragout, very full of smoky paprika.

But a bottle of Antoniolo Gattinara "Santa Chiara" from 1964 took it all in stride.

[Jenise]

That's a hard road you drive, with maitake mushrooms.

So, coffee grinds as a coating for steak?

Yup. Thirds--sugar, salt and finely ground coffee (not previously used) and lots of flame.

Sounds really interesting. I think of coffee grinds as, well, quintessential garbage.

They are--after you make coffee! Note that I specified unused ground coffee.

[Jenise]

But a bottle of Antoniolo Gattinara "Santa Chiara" from 1964 took it all in stride.

Sounds wonderful. So you just have a cellar full of '64s sitting around with nothing else to do? I need to be your neighbor!

[Jenise]

Not cooking at home today. Will be attending (and representing America) at the rib-off at Bill Spohn's today. Wish me luck!

[Robin Garr]

Not cooking at home today. Will be attending (and representing America) at the rib-off at Bill Spohn's today. Wish me luck!

Luck! Winner gets Justin Trudeau, loser has to take ... you know ...

[Jenise]

Not cooking at home today. Will be attending (and representing America) at the rib-off at Bill Spohn's today. Wish me luck!

Luck! Winner gets Justin Trudeau, loser has to take ... you know ...

LOL! If only. Trouble is, even conservative Canadians think Trump's a nutjob.

[Robin Garr]

LOL! If only. Trouble is, even conservative Canadians think Trump's a nutjob.

That'll give them an incentive not to lose.

[Jenise]

Dinner tonight: Dungeness crab--caught and cooked today!

Jenise, must be wonderful to catch crab on your doorstep. And have salmon leaping into your lap! LOL
How did the rib -off go? What did you cook?

[Jenise]

Barb, it really is fun to live in a place with a natural bounty. I've only lived here 15 years, and never knew anything like it before.

The rib-off was a blast! Everyone did well, and there were some really inventive takes I never would have thought of. One guy marinated his in all Italian seasonings for instance, and skipped the smoke. Loved those! I chose the St. Louis cut for my ribs (vs. babyback) and did an overnight cure of salt, sugar and madras curry powder for an intense through-flavor. I brushed them with maple syrup and did a three hour smoke with cherry wood. I then just set them in parchment paper in a protective cooler, warm, and ferried them up to Bill's house that way. When my turn came, I crisped them up on Bill's BBQ then minimalistically drizzled the cut pieces with a barely sweet chutneyish sauce of apricot and blood orange marmalade, mustard, lemon juice and more madras curry. My own invention and for this occasion in order to stand out as totally different. I brought two sides to share. Pickled corn on the cob with whole chipotle and aleppo peppers, guava leaf, juniper berries and whole peppercorns; and a very spicy "Adults Only, Triple X rated" potato salad chock full of celery and jalapeno peppers.

...One guy marinated his in all Italian seasonings for instance, and skipped the smoke. Loved those! ...

I did something similar at a NiagarCOOL Picnic about 10 years ago. I did not marinade, but using Joseph Carey's BBQ recipe as a guide, made a dry rub, I substituted Italian seasonings and a sauce based on Marinara, but thicker, and cooked them over slow burning charcoal.

[Jenise]

It has finally cooled down a bit. Or at least, today's about 15 degrees cooler than yesterday even if the sky is a smokey orange-gray.
It has been a very sad late summer here in the PNW--the best month and weather of the year blighted with smoke and sadness. So much has been lost.

Anyway, tonight I'm making spaghetti and meatballs. Comfort food.