Parties, Herbs and Acid

wow what an incredible weekend.

We went to a rather risque birthday party for a friend of ours Saturday,

One of the added beauties of living in my town is at any time you can usually find fire spinners, fire eaters, erotic dance enthusiasts, Light show geeks, DJs, aspiring show/event producers and a plethora of the Austin wildlife all begging to be part of the scene

this was not one of those parties

This was a low key intimate affair with a 50/50 ratio of known to unknown people and held in a beautiful home that I couldn't even begin to afford. The liquor was piled high on the bar, glasses abandoned nearly everywhere. The dress was casual and became more so as the night continued. The heat was turned up encouraging even more clothing loss but it had troubles competing against the door to the outside cigarette smoking area.

Being the naturally hedonistic individual I am took complete advantage of this opportunity and promptly inspected the industrial stove/oven combo and the butcher block counters in the kitchen.......;-)


The holidays and my foodiness with the assistance of my sedentary job has finally pushed me to do the unthinkable, I joined the gym. I was one of those people who screamed, you don't need a treadmill or an elliptical machine, just go outside and run you elitist, money driven douches. Ladies and gentlemen, I am now by my own definition an elitist, money driven douche. I will no longer push myself to workout at 106F nor will I be miserable running around a red, sodden, muddy trail catching the occasional inconsiderate bicyclists rooster tail.

I have lost a piece of myself, my rant against gyms was one of my favorites. At least I still have golf courses, I have never played and, for now, feel completely justified in my anti-golf stance. If you wish to change my status, feel free to try, but it must be at least as entertaining as my anti-golf rantings.

The Sunday after we were recovering, the multiple hours of imbibing in all sorts of things guaranteed quite hazardous to health, and the traditional after party trip to Whataburger for a double w/ bacon(same category as the former), we signed up for Lifetime Fitness

If I'm going to the gym, I have to cut back on my red meat.

I'm too cheap for that much fish and freshness can be spotty when you need to compromise on price

That means chicken...dry white lifeless under flavored and typically overcooked chicken....fuck that.

Start by de-boning your chicken breast, it requires some practice but I can now do it in 30 seconds for each and you get to keep the skin on, its a major flavor component and moisture assistant. Its also cheaper and bones are left for stock.

3 chicken breasts with rib bones $2.54

Once de-boned (skin intact) we start the brine

DON'T GET CREATIVE WITH THE BRINE

Brine should be about 3 things salt, sugar and water. Flavors should be taken care of with a marinade and that comes later so don't get impatient.

I take 1 quart of water and dissolve 1/4 cup koshier salt and 1/8 cup molasses under heat.

Take 1 gallon baggie and fill with 1.25 quarts of ice

The moment the last bit of salt dissolves pour the hot brine over the cold ice and once the temp is down to fridge levels drop in the breasts and refrigerate for 1 hour

after one hour, remove the chicken and rinse the brine off under running water, and pat them dry

MAKE THE MARINADE

Marinades are all about the herbs and the acid......who doesn't like herbs and acid

There are perhaps hundreds of recipes out there that call for marinating in some kind of branded Italian salad dressing or Italian vinaigrette. Nothing makes instantaneous pain shoot through my spine more than ruining anything home made with something as un-homemade as bottled salad dressing. Blech

But they have a point.

The point is a vinaigrette. Vinaigrettes with a 3:1 oil to acid ratio combine for a near perfect flavor carrier(herbs and oil), browning enhancer (oil and acid) and taste stimulator (acid)

I decided to do a fresh southwest flavor with my marinade

This is what I wound up putting in my Rudy's drinking cup. (remember, it fits my stick blender)

1 fresh jalapeno
1/4 bunch of fresh cilantro
juice of 2 limes
zest of one lime
3 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons of Agave Syrup
pinch of salt
6 tablespoons of olive oil

Stick blend the crap out of it while pouring in the oil

Place this marinade in with the now brined, rinsed and dried chicken breasts and allow to sit for at least 1 hour but no longer then 4

For cooking.

I bake the chicken before grilling, this keeps the chicken juicy and dries the outside promoting better browning later (oven temp 350F)

once the chicken reached 115F internal temperature I move it from the oven to the red hot grill

3 minutes on each side and pull when the temp hits 150F, carryover gets it to 165F easily

I sliced it and put it over rice

It's Monday, back to work

Happy New Year and all that

Yep 2010

not bad, easy to remember, mathematically pleasing.

I should explain that last one

I have a nervous habit of using mathematical operations to reduce numbers and somehow in my twisted mind make them easier to remember. I remember telephone numbers the same way usually using something like the lowest common denominator. example 939-2424 = 313-1212(3,2). I realize this is more information than actually remembering the actual number but this is not about logic.

so 2010 works really well for me

Its been a while since I wrote anything so I will just throw down the highlights

New Years, 4 parties in 36 hours

Varying degrees of interesting

short work party, dropped off a bottle of wine
went to
a more interesting club like party for the count down
went to
a very nice house party in a very nice house (great kitchen)
went to
a total burner party at a dead end in westlake

4 days of recovery

All in all it took several days to get right after all that.

Party like you're 18 then feel like you're 80

4 days spent convalescing in the winter means comfort food galore.

The scale was not kind this holiday season.

Being the good foodie I am I explored how Padma Lakshmi stays fit,

No red meat...ok I think I can handle that

No alcohol...I'm out

OK Padma, I will go halvsies with you on this. I am a dude in a high stress job and I need booze more than you do.

Alright....no red meat...the freezer is red meat central, a veritable cornucopia...nay, alter to the blessed red meat. Costco had a good sale before Christmas.

what did I have? there might be some tuna way back in the fridge but the idea of spelunking through packed frozen cow bricks just to find a 4oz fish brick somewhere in the bottom did not appeal to me. I was already cold and late home due to car trouble so I needed to do something fast.

In the fridge I had some bone in chicken breasts...ok

A quick consultation of the flavor bible lead me to

carrots, yellow onions, scallions, 2 ribs of celery, meyer lemon, lemon zest, garlic and rosemary

I think all this looks like rosemary lemon garlic chicken.

Method, easy.....papillote

I took apart the chicken and discarded the skin...almost a sin really...and no time for brining

julianne the carrot
french the onion
bias slice the scallions
dice the celery small
mince half the garlic

toss with a tiny amount of olive oil salt and pepper

Position it in a pile on top of a large piece of silicon impregnated parchment

salt and pepper the chicken breast
zest a lemon
mince the rest of the garlic
mince the rosemary

combine together and apply it in a paste/rub to the top of the seasoned skinless chicken breast, tap any excess out over the top of the vegetable pile.

preheat oven to 400F

place chicken breast on top of the vegetable pile and place 2 pats of butter on top of the breast.

fold over the parchment and start crimping it, except for the very end bit.

pour in 2 tbs of vermouth and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice into this bit and crimp it tightly.

Insert probe thermometer into the chicken breast and insert package (on a cookie sheet people) into the oven.

Pull the papillote when the chicken hits 150 at the highest, carryover can go as high as 15 degrees.

open and enjoy (stupid warning, steam is hot, don't be stupid)

Have a good 2010

Truffles and Risotto

I hate making risotto.

It's not that I don't know how to make it or its painful (though the constant stirring kinda sucks) it just takes longer than almost every book I have on the subject says it should, 20 minutes and 5 cups of stock for 1.5 cups of rice

I heat 5 cups of stock on the stove
I put a heavy bottomed high sided pot on the stove
I heat 1.5 cups of arborio rice in the heavy bottomed high sided pot until they are translucent (for three to five minutes)

add ladle of stock and stir until most of the liquid is absorbed (repeat ad infinitum)

Stock is gone, rice is still hard in the center and i am on minute 25.

2 more cups of stock and another 10 minutes of constant stirring and its good, tastes perfect and has a great texture.

But why 35 minutes and 2 cups of stock more than expected?

When I figure it out I will tell you.

However I still needed to dress the risotto up a little.

I have truffles I would like to use, thats a no brainer
rather than add salt I added 1 cup shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano
the Parmigiano-Reggiano melted well but started to seize up the rice more than I liked, so I decided to break a cardinal rule and added 1/4 cup of cream and a pat of butter.

I prefer to never add cream to risotto as I feel its cheating and the rice itself should make the creaminess. This is special though since cream works so well with truffle and the cheese needed thinning a bit....stop looking at me that way.

I grabbed my new handy dandy micro-planer I got for Xmas from my wonderful wife, and whipped a fresh black truffle out of the rice bag in the fridge. I inhaled deeply that wonderful sweet earthy smell. I set the little black jewel in place and ran it across the brand new micro-planer. Once, twice, three times, four times this is easy and fast, far better than a grater SLICE..

So I'm looking into a Kevlar glove to keep the blood in my risotto to a minimum.

My wife wasn't happy that I felt the need to photograph the risotto before serving but she got over it rather quickly.

Laziness has already crept in

I made the pear Gorgonzola salad again, and other than getting a little heavy with the dressing on this one it was roughly the same as the last 2, this recipe (if you could call it that) is now solidified.

I tried to contemplate another recipe last night but failed. Not that I tried the recipe at all. My high aspirations of making a margarita chicken salad melted as I thought about deboning a chicken breast at 8:30pm. I just gave in to the laziness and made an old standby, tuna steak.

It was somewhat lucky I did I suppose as I forgot to buy cilantro, a substance margarita anything goes well with.

I started with a 3 dollar frozen HEB tuna steak, thawed and flecked it with a generous quantity of kosher salt. As the tuna got even closer to room temperature out on the counter I started heating up my handy dandy Emerilware™ Cast Iron Reversible Grill/Griddle. Don't judge me, I got it at Goodwill for $6.

Two things about me, I don't like most branded TV chefs or most of their branded stuff. If I see an ugly mug on some cookware of a TV cook I don't respect much, I generally discount it as crap. I also outfitted most of my kitchen from Goodwill and other thrift stores. Great cookware abounds at great prices, you just have to know how to recognize it.

So my emeril branded grill got up to temperature (smoking hot) and I tossed the fish on. 45 seconds and turn 45 degrees, 45 seconds and flip, 45seconds and turn 90 degrees, 45 seconds and off the grill onto an oven warmed plate.

Now for a sauce,
Something vinaigrette-like
I grabbed one of the Rudy's cups out of the cabinet.
Rudy's is a BBQ restaurant chain here in the Austin area. They make great Texas BBQ and are a great hometown success story. Their reusable cups also fit my stick blender perfectly.

Lets consult the flavor bible and see what works
I'm thinking fresh, green, spicy and tart for this beautiful fish, this is also my comfort zone (insert Bobby Flay reference ->I can properly pronounce chipotle)


Lets start with a seeded jalapeno (Major flavor resonator to tuna)
a clove of garlic (Major)
some cilantro(Major)....damn no cilantro
coriander seed (Major)
juice of 1 lime (Major)
some honey for sweetness (Minor)
some olive oil (Major)
salt+pepper
and I hit it with my stick blender till its liquid

Taste, the heat is there the freshness and tart is nice and well balanced but its missing the headiness the cilantro normally gives it

it's also a little thin

Hmm looking at the flavor bible I see wasabi is a major flavor. Seems wrong since I was moving in more of a southwest direction, but it is a dry absorbent powder that might work as a thickener too.

Added 2 teaspoons of dry wasabi powder
The sauce perfectly balanced out and while is remained slightly thinner than I liked it was far better.

I sliced the tuna thin and laid it out on a plate, setting the slices out in a pleasing fish like shape.

My lovely wife was slicing bright red garden fresh tomatoes for her nightly sandwich so knowing tomatoes go well with all of these flavors I rolled a slice into a resemblance of a tail and tucked it neatly under the last and smallest piece of fish on the plate.

I drizzled on my vibrant green jalapeno garlic coriander lime wasabe vinaigrette lengthwise over the fish.

Sometimes lazy works.

I picked up a new book and a new salad

I got a new book from my wonderful wife for Xmas. The Flavor Bible by Keren Page and Andrew Dornenburg has culinarily opened my eyes. After years of experimenting and attempting to mimic the greats of cooking, These two authors have condensed hundreds of years of food pairings and flavor knowledge of the greats into an elegant, perfect flavor reference.

I found a simple pear with bleu cheese salad and started to add anything I could that referenced well in The Flavor Bible. Ultimately this is what I came up with

Pear Gorgonzola salad with toasted walnuts and port soaked raisins and a honey Dijon vinaigrette

Contents of salad and reference flavor to pear
1. Pears cored and sliced into quarters and each quarter mandolin sliced to 1.3mm thick

2. Port soaked raisins (Raisins and Port both major flavor resonators) *if you don't have any sweet red wine to soak the raisins sweeten a dry wine (red or white but red is better) with sugar, the raisins must be soaked else they are like little rocks in the salad

3. Walnuts toasted with a touch of oil, a slight browning at the contact points is expected(Walnuts are a major flavor resonator)

4. Crumbled Gorgonzola (all bleu cheese are major flavor resonators to pear so any bleu will do) *crumble the cheese finely else the footieness gets overpowering

5. A lite spring mix of lettuce, keep the green mix light like an HEB baby spring lettuce mix, nothing with strong flavors


honey Dijon recipe
1 tbs Dijon mustard (Minor)
2 tsp honey (Major)
juice of 1 lemon (strained) (Major)
salt
pepper
1/4c olive oil (Minor)
stick-blend the crap out of it


Almost every flavor used references pears to some degree and even reference each other if you start researching the individual ingredients. Together these make a wonderful combination of tart, sweet, saltiness, creaminess and texture. This book will forever be my flavor sanity check. If I am making something new from my own creative juices or a recipe I found somewhere this book will always be at my right hand.

Lobster Bisque

Butter Poached Lobster Bisque
Serves	Cook Time	Prep time
2	20 minutes	5 minutes
qty	unit	item	condition	substitute	Pause point
2		lobsters tails + claws*	butter poach meat		Not time sensitive
4		lobster knuckles	butter poach meat		Time sensitive
2	cups	lobster stock **
2	tbs	butter
1/2	cups	Shallots	Diced	white onion
3	tbs	flour
2	tsp	salt
1	cups	heavy cream
3/4	cups	dry sherry	reserve 2 tbs for the end
Initial Procedure
Step #
1	melt butter and sauté shallots
2	deglaze using most of the sherry (careful of fire)
3	sprinkle flour over pan and whisk
4	add lobster stock and bring to a boil on high
5	lower heat to medium low and add heavy cream slowly
6	add remainder dry sherry and lobster knuckle meat
7	puree in a blender until somewhat smooth
8	serve in a low bowl with a butter poached tail and claw centered in bisque
*	See Butter Poached Lobster Recipe
**	See Lobster Stock Recipe

Lobster Stock

Lobster Stock
Serves	Cook Time	Prep time
2	90 minutes	15 minutes
qty	unit	item	condition	substitute	Pause point
2		lobster bodies and shells			Not time sensitive
2	Quarts	chicken stock	low sodium if possible	water	Time sensitive
2		carrots	chopped
2		white onions	chopped
4		celery stalks	chopped
1		stock sock		pillow case
3		bay leaves
3		thyme sprigs
20		peppercorns
Initial Procedure
Step #
1	remove sand sack and gills from lobster bodies and discard reserve all shells
2	place all contents into stock sock
3	place full stock sock into large pot and cover with chicken stock or water
4	boil for 90 minutes
5	remove stock sock and throw away contents
6	further stain or filter stock further if necessary