Steak

I'm not  going to preface this post with a sort of witty intro because we've been over this more times than I care to admit, but on a whim I decided to try and spruce this one up with a recipe that I saw would be in my future after the first of the year.

 This steak is a bit different in that it had a sugar based crust on it.  The recipe called for brown sugar which I didn't have so I =used regular, worked out pretty well either way.  But here we have a new york strip, salt, pepper and sugar.

 I seasoned the steak before putting it into a cast iron skillet.

 The steak halfway through the searing process.  After I seared the steak it went into a 450 degree oven to finish.

This was the finished product.  I have some concern that my cast iron skillet might be toast due to the burnt caramel formed in the pan because of the sugar.  But I certainly can't complain about the results, a great looking steak that was cooked to a perfect medium rare.

 I made up some mashed potatoes as a side for this one, they were outstanding.

The final plate.

Rejuvenated

I know I've been pretty quiet here over the past 10 days or so.  I manged to do something that I didn't think about at all when I started this blog, I filled my free allotment of storage space.  I was all set to make some more posts when the message came up to tell me that if I wanted to keep posting I'd have to pony up some dough.  I took the time while I was making a decision (that ultimately wasn't that hard) to take a little bit of a break.  I kept cooking, but decided not to post anything last week.  But now I'm back in the grove and have what little muse I had before back. 

Last night a cooked from a recipe that I had seen plenty of versions of in various restaurants on tv but had never tried to make myself, oil poached fish.  It was a really nice change up from the standard fish preparations.

 All the stuff, oranges, lemons, onions, fennel, bay leaf, parsley, olive oil and chilean sea bass.  The recipe called for snapper, but my local store never carries it.  It's frustrating that they don't have it in their regular stash because it's a delicious fish.  I know of places to get it here in central Illinois but that would require a 45 minute drive each way to Peoria.  The cook in my wishes I still made my monthly trips over that way for work, but my job responsibilities just don't allow for it.

 The fennel, bay leaf and orange zest went into about 3/4 of a cup of olive oil to fry very gently to form the base of the fennel salad that was served with the dish and flavor the oil that would become a part of the vinaigrette.  The veggies poached/fryed in the oil for about 15 minutes.

After the vegetables were done, I seasoned the fish with salt and pepper.  I added a bit more oil to the pan and poached the filets in the oil for about 15 minutes.  The picture above is the finished result.  For my first time trying this method of cooking the fish managed to come out perfectly.  Flaky, yet velvety on the inside.  The only downside to this method is I felt the fish came out a bit greasy.  I actually couldn't finish all the fish because I got that nasty, too much grease feeling in my stomach before I finished.

 The onions, orange juice, lemon juice, parsley and the reserved and strained poaching oil went together to finish the vinaigrette.

The finished plate.  Included in the salad were some orange supremes that I cut before hand.  Again, this was a fantastic dish, despite the greasiness of the fish.  White fish and citrus is a classic combo and this one did not disappoint.

Alinea at Home: Trout Roe, Coconut, Licorice, Pineapple

Well third dish into this project and we have our first mediocre dish.  The fact that this dish isn't necessarily surprising to me, but ultimately disappointing.  Not surprising because coconut might be one of my least favorite flavors and disappointing because of how good the trout roe I was able to get and how much mail order stuff I had to get to pull this one off.  Unfortunately, for as high quality as the roe was supposed to be, thought its saltiness kind of overpowered the dish.

What I do like at least so far about a lot of these dishes is how make ahead a lot of components can be.  For this dish everything except assembly was basically done prior to this evening and all I had to do was basically was plate the dish. 

 The first step was to make the licorice syrup. Water, sugar, pepper corns, freeze dried licorice powder, star anise, molasses and sherry vinegar.

On the left I toasted of a small amount of peppercorns and star anise.  On the right I added the rest of the ingredients and brought it to a simmer.

The mixture then simmered until it was reduced by half.  At this point I put it in a squeeze bottle and held the mixture in the fridge until I was ready to use it.

 The second step was to prepared the coconut chunks that were to be the based of the dish.  The recipe called for a young coconut, which of course weren't available at the store so I went with what they had which was a mature coconut.  Ultimately that decision came back to bite me in the ass.  Oh well.  After figuring out how to crack into the coconut I peeled the flesh from the shell and reserved it in the coconut milk.

 Now time for the coconut pineapple "rocks", which of course I failed to put on the final plate.  I'm such an idiot sometimes.  The sum total of the ingredients were freeze dried pineapples and coconut milk powder.  I crushed the pineapples and then mixed it it with the powder and sealed it up in a vacuum bag.  Once compressed I broke the mixture into the rock shaped forms you see in the final picture.

 Now for one of the stars of the show, and note to self, especially after reading This lady's awesome blog I will used canned juices when the recipe calls for a unique juice from now on.  But in order to make the primary base of this dish I had more coconuts, sugar and salt.

 I dispatched of the hairy shells of the coconut and then put the flesh pieces into a food processor hoping to puree the crap out of them and be able to extract enough juice to make the base.  Not so fast my friend, I had to wet the mixture with left over coconut water.

 This is the completed base.

From there I put the base in a NO2 canister and aerified it a bit before putting it into the freezer.

These two pics are the start of the pineapple foam.  Pineapple juice, sugar, salt, xanthan gum, citric acid, soy lecithin.  All ingredients were combined into a single mixture and reserved until I was ready to froth it.

 Now that I was ready to plate I took an immersion blender to the pineapple juice mixture and created to foam.  Thanks science and soy lecithin for our ability to create stuff like this.

And the final plate.  Yes that is a gratuitous amount of trout roe on top.  Again, for whatever reason the combination just didn't work for me. 

Oh well, onward and upward.  Another interesting dish coming up next month, shrimp and yuba.

Manicotti

This is actually the second version of manicotti that I've made over the past few weeks.  Surprisingly enough, this more vegetarian version was my favorite of the two.  The first version was a chicken and sausage manicotti. 

 The first step was to make the bechamel.  The mise, butter, flour, milk, white pepper, cayenne pepper, nutmeg and salt.

 The butter and flour went into a pan to form a roux.

After the roux had formed and cooked for a bit I added the milk and brought the mixture to a boil.

 The roux did its work and thickened the mixture and that is when I put the seasonings in.

 Second step was to make the filling.  This is the stuff for the cheese portion of the filling.  Ricotta, egg, parmesan and gruyere.

 The cheeses all mixed together.

 Now for the cooked portion of the filling.  Salt, pepper, chard, sage, butternut squash, leeks, red pepper flakes, vegetable stock and sugar.

 I chopped up the leeks and squash and sautted them off in some butter for a little bit.

 Then the chicken broth and sugar went in and I covered the pan until the liquid had evaporated and the squash was soft.  The entire process took about 5 minutes.

 Next the chard and the red pepper flakes went in.  and cooked until the chard and wilted, which can be seen in the picture below.

 Once the vegetable portion of the filling had cooled I combined it with the cheese and stuffed it inside of some cooked flat lasagna sheets, which I didn't get a picture of because I assume you know what cooking past looks like.  I rolled up the pasta sheets and put them into a miniture casserole dish which had the bottom covered in a bit of the bechamel.  Once the pasta was in the pan I topped it with a bit more of the bechamel and some grated gruyere cheese.

 The mixture went into a 425 degree oven for about 20 minutes and this was the result.

The side dish for the evening was a balsamic walnut salad.  As I was putting this together I wished I had some blue cheese to put in here as well.  The cheese would have made this salad about 10 million times better.  Here I've got shallots, grape seed oil, balsamic vinegar, white wine vinegar, dijon mustard, salt, pepper, walnuts and a green mix that has spinach, frisee, arugula, radicchio and all kinds of other greens in it.

The final plating.

Pork with asian flavors

For as much as I love beef, pork has to be a close second.  This is a great recipe for those busy nights where you don't have much time to cook.  Literally, this dish took about 20 minutes start to finish.

 Everything you need for the entire dish.  Pork tenderloin, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, chicken broth, oranges, green onions.

 Now the dish didn't call for this but I decided to put a flour crust on the pork.  Just a basic breading of egg and flour.  The picture above is the pork halfway through the searing process.

 After I finished searing off the pork I threw some shallots in the pan.

 After the shallots cooked a bit then a mixture of the hoisin, orange juice and chicken broth went in.

 After reducing the sesame oil and green onions went in.

The completed plate.  Note, in order to finish the pork I put them in a 300 degree oven for about five minutes.

Stuffed Steak Part 2

I know, I can't get off of these steak dinners, oh well, I love beef.  This version is a stuffed steak with a blue cheese and spinach.

 The stuff for the steak.  Again, simple, just salt pepper and olive oil.  The steak was seasoned with everything and then seared off for a few minutes on each side.

 The stuff for the blue cheese spinach dressing.  Bacon, thyme, sherry, salt, pepper, garlic, blue cheese, and spinach.

 To start the stuffing, I seared off the bacon and then I added the spinach, garlic and sherry.  The whole mixture reduced down for a bit. 

 In the bowl I put the blue cheese, salt, pepper and thyme.  After the spinach mixture was done I mixed the two together.  This was the finished result.  A little more liquid in there than I had hoped, but still pretty delicious.

 I cut an x in the steak and put the stuffing in.  The steak was then topped with a bit of parmesan and went into a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

Here's all the stuff for the roasted vegetable salad.  On the left is the ingredients for the dressing, salt, pepper, horseradish, honey, red wine vinegar, shallots, olive oil and parsley.  On the right the veggies that were roasted off.  Asparagus, tomatoes, mushrooms, salt, pepper and olive oil.

 In order to make the dressing all of the ingredients were mixed together in a bowl until emulsified.

These are the completed vegetables after spending about 10 minutes in the oven.

This is what the steak looked like after finishing in the oven. 

And the final plate.  On the whole, not nearly as successful and the first stuffed steak I did.  But still pretty delicious.