Kitchen Mis/Adventures? – Or Where I Attempt to Explain Asian Marinades Whilst Wine-Drunk

Oven-roasted broccoli and Roma tomatoes

 

 

Salmon filet
Asian glaze for both

I’m not quite sure if this salmon turned out overdone or just right.

The charring was limited to the skin and was obviously a result of the

glazing.  That was the point? 

And herein is where I attempt to explain my

marinade, or at least, what my wine-drunk mind imagines the definitions of the ingredients used to make it:

   
Mirin: It’s some kind of sweetened rice wine, perhaps fortified.  Syrupy.

 

   Not to be confused with…
Rice Wine: OK, so this is somehow different from mirin.  It’s definitely a cooking wine, though less sweet and thinner.

Soy Sauce: The ever-present salty swill somehow made from beans, which are occasionally a desert.

Siracha: I’m pretty sure this red “cock sauce” is actually made in Brooklyn and not Thai at all, but oh well.  Best paired with Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich.  Somehow fulfills my naive notion that spiciness = less fat. Don’t tell me if that’s not true.
Lemon: Because you need a little sour in every marinade.
Garlic and Onion Powder: Because sometimes it’s too hard to julienne.
Thai Basil: Which didn’t actually make it into this marinade, though I did chop it.  Or maybe I meant to chop it.  It’s totally growing in the Aerogarden, so I at least get credit for that.  What a better use for Thai basil would there be?  Exactly.
Sesame Oil: Serves the same purpose as olive oil, except it has like 100x the flavor, albeit in a somewhat already cooked way.  Not to be overused.
Olive Oil: Because you can’t overdo the sesame oil.

Salt & Pepper: Not to be confused with Salt-n-Pepa, rappers.

I sautéed the skin side first, as one should, and was disturbed by the blackness upon first flip.  Huzzah wuzzah?!  Not that I’m racist or anything.  When I flipped it once again onto the plate, I was met with this gorgeous and miraculous golden red color.  Success?

Kitchen Adventures: Roast Chicken Edition

Whole roast chickens are really not difficult at all.  I’m not sure why there is such a preoccupation with them, but maybe it has something to do with the perceived need to intricately dress and stuff them.  Literally the only stuffing ingredients for this chicken can be found on this cutting board.  A roughly chopped onion, some smashed garlic cloves, thyme sprigs, a few slices of butter, and salt & pepper.  I generally prepare all of these things first, and I make sure to put the salt and pepper in a separate bowl.  This is to keep the prep area as clean as possible.  Yes, after touching the raw chicken I touch the onion, garlic, thyme, and butter too; and yes, I’m going to wash the cutting board anyway.  I just find that when rubbing the skin and sprinkling the cavity of the bird with salt and pepper, it’s a lot easier and cleaner to not have to deal with salt and pepper shakers.  You’re basically going to be fondling the hell out of the bird, and you don’t want to have to stop to wash your hands every time you need to crank…the pepper mill. I personally don’t think it’s necessary to tie up a chicken this small (approximately 8 pounds) because there’s so little meat that there isn’t much concern for uneven cooking.  In other words, the dark meat is going to take roughly almost the same amount of time as the white meat.  When you’re cooking for 1-2 people, this is always going to be the case.  Lately, Eats Meats West has been testing out a new dual-probe digital thermometer, and tonight was no exception.  Generally, it has proven to be a useful tool mostly for the ability to measure the temperature over time rather than simply when the final temperature (180 degrees Fahrenheit) has been reached.  I’m more concerned with getting to 180 over 2-3 hours than I am with getting there as soon as possible.  In a gas oven [in a tiny NYC kitchen] it is not surprisingly very difficult to maintain a constant temperature of 350 (or even 325-375) regardless of how many times the door is opened to baste.  Speaking of basting, I try to limit the olive oil just because I’m going to be taking that out in the sauce anyway.  I prefer chicken stock, finely minced herbs (to give the skin a varied textural appearance), salt/pepper, and a little olive oil.  EMW’s general rule for foretelling “doneness” is to visually inspect the skin every 25 minutes, baste, and keep a mental note of the progression of the browning.   The breast meat should certainly brown first, but it should not brown in the first 30-60 minutes.  If that happens, then probably too much butter was put under the top layer of skin and/or the oven rack should be lowered.  One final note, and we’ll move on: if you aren’t going to eat the dark meat, use it for something else for crying out loud!  You may have noticed that this bird is missing its wings.  I waited until they were fully cooked before removing them and adding them to the burgeoning gravy on the stovetop.  In these frugal times one might be tempted to think that all meat should be saved and put to some explicit use, and that a sauce does not constitute a priority.  One should make chicken salad, right?  Yah, well, that involves a lot of picking at meat not to mention having to prepare an entirely separate set of ingredients later on for a chicken salad…that no one is going to finish anyway.   Instead, I say just chuck that unwanted meat into the gravy.  It may only last for this one meal, but on the other hand that gravy gonna be damn delish.  Let it stew with the rest of the flavorings (in this case shallots, garlic, thyme, and pan drippings) and eventually it will break apart (aside from the bones, obviously) and become part of the melange to be strained out at the end.  Moving on – no, those aren’t dismembered alien fingers.  They’re what I thought would be an appetizing veggie: baby zucchini.  I roasted them alongside the chicken, albeit in a segregated foil pocket.  Yah, so they weren’t that flavorful.  J actually ate more than I.  The toast points were topped with Pico (an aged goat) and some fresh basil.  J didn’t love those, but I was bout-it bout-it.    

Kitchen Adventures

Pumpkin Seed-Fried Shrimp & Snap Peas

 

Note to self: “Maine Shrimp” are red when raw, so when you see ‘em in the store and think you’re getting a ready to go shrimp cocktail, think again.  Won’t make that mistake twice!  In tonight’s Experimental Monday’s, we experimented with pastes, the logic of which being that a straight batter might be too overpowering for such a small shrimp, and yet a marinade might actually overcook the tiny shrimp (if it were acidic enough).  To me a paste is somewhere in between.  Well, that was the idea anyway, and there is some conceit to allowing bits of the paste to flake off; otherwise it’s just a chunky batter.  This paste was prepared mostly with pulverized dried pumpkin seeds, basil, sundried  tomatoes, and garlic.  The rest of the flavorings included [in small amounts] dried hot chilies, grated ginger, salt, pepper, and a little soy.  Holding all of that together was a bit of flour, an egg, and some milk.  Milk and soy?  Yes, I don’t know what we were thinking, but it was very little milk for what it’s worth.  If there were one standout problem with the paste, it wasn’t in the flavor department, or at least it wasn’t the paste’s fault.  With no peanut oil we were forced to break out the Crisco to mix with mostly olive oil.  These in combination don’t seem to have the same ability to hold heat [without burning] as peanut oil, so the resulting fried shrimp looked a little black.  They were actually not burnt, and there was no burnt tastes – just not appetizing.  The snap peas were first flash-boiled and then shocked in cold water.  Then they were stir-fried for about 10 minutes in butter, olive oil, chopped shallots, and some walnuts.  Stirring only every 4 minutes or so is best, which happens to be enough time to clean a few dishes, gives them a chance to brown yet also distribute the heat.

Kitchen Adventures: Meaty, Meaty Breakfast

 

Mmm; meaty, meaty breakfasts are the best!  The more meat the better.  The meat in question being turkey kielbasa, which yes, is a bit of a cop-out.  After last failing to watch a hash closely enough, we thought we’d give it another try here at EMW.  Plus, we’d received these nifty silicone poaching pouches for Christmas and needed an excuse to try them out.  Note to self: read directions first.  Apparently, you have to spray them with oil before cracking the egg, because otherwise it’s difficult to get the egg out.  Also, the oil possibly distributes the heat better.  I was a little scared to undercook these, and the tops looked so runny the whole time, that I actually overcooked them.  “Why is the hash in a ring formation in the pan,” you ask?  It’s definitely a neurosis, but some part of me believes the interior of the pan is just that much hotter than the rest.  You want the food to cook as evenly as is technically possible.  “Evenly” being the key word.  And yes, that is a cat hair.  They’re everywhere.  Get over it.

Kitchen Adventures: Frying Take Two

When you have several liters of infused oil sitting around, you don’t waste it.  Eats Meats West believes in the power of boneless, skinless chicken thighs.  They’re juicy, hard to overcook, small, cheap, and of course flavorful.  A batter was made with equal parts beer and flour, which was

flavored with

some cumin, coriander, garlic, onion, salt, and pepper.  Beer batter is such a good standby for dinner, because it doesn’t require multiple

steps (flour –> egg –> more flour/other starch).  Sadly, J found these fried bits a little on the gamey side with a chewy texture, and even I won’t

disagree with that assessment.  I know the oil was the correct temperature, as a digital probe constantly monitored it.  And I don’t think they were over or undercooked, I just think there is a certain volumetric limit to

frying chicken.  Meaning, once the batter and surface are done you can’t keep going to fully cook the interior of the meat to the same level of doneness.  The result is certainly not pink nor undercooked; it’s just not that pleasant.  With that being said this still isn’t a “mis-adventure” because the flavor was spot-on.  I mean, it was fucking fantastic.  As such, Eats Meats West would repeat this dish in the form of popcorn-sized bits and/or breasts until it’s perfected.

Kitchen Adventures: Inaugural Meat Loaf

No, that’s not a mirage; a recipe was in fact followed, for Eats Meats West has actually never put together a loaf of meat! Perhaps not surprisingly, Epicurious lists this recipe in a group of simple healthy meals.  I was a bit skeptical about the side dish (roasted quartered tomatoes and shallots) since they mostly seem to just be along for the ride, but they were actually a great compliment.  Tomato [ketchup] is of course a traditional accompaniment to meat loaf, and I liked how this preparation didn’t try to fiddle with the basic flavor qualities of the fruit.  That’s a nice way of saying the fridge was dangerously low on ketchup, but in all seriousness the added bonus of using shallots and tomatoes in a deep roasting pan (the recipe calls for shallow for some odd reason) is that when it comes to the deglazing those brown bits left over aren’t wasted.  I’m not sure why the author of this recipe instructs the home chef to deglaze with water, and not wine or even stock for that matter.  I feel like that would be too thin.  Plus, surely, you would pair this dinner with a dry red wine (which we did).  And if you’re wondering where we found the ground bison, so were we!  Luckily, Staubitz carries bison burgers in its freezer of horrors. 

Kitchen Adventures: Don’t be afraid to bake your pans.

 

 

A certain someone has recently suggested that I might want to actually describe how I cook these dishes (the nerve!), and maybe even post recipes.  This presents a number of issues, not the least of which is the general rule that I don’t use recipes. 

 

I don’t use recipes. 

It’s sort of my thing. 

Wow that came out really douchey (which it is). 

 

It’s not at all to say that I’m a genius

 

cook who can come up with anything on the spot; on the contrary, in my mind I have a very limited repertoire and often make bad – if not inedible – dishes.  And not using a recipe isn’t for lack of confidence in other cooks, it’s more so the issue of experimentation.  Meaning, I cook for lots of reasons, but above all it’s the experimental quality of home cookery that draws me back time and again.

 

 

 

Moving on…tonight’s two dishes came from Epicurious.com, my go-to source.  I skimmed the recipes a few hours ago, made a shopping list, and then put it together in the kitchen from memory.  Certainly, this strategy doesn’t work with baking, and sure enough I’m not a great baker.   But I find it’s a proven strategy for meats; once you learn how to site the correct temperature, you can fiddle with the herbs and vegetables surrounding it.  “Site the correct temperature?”  Wow, that doesn’t make any sense, does it?  I’ll try to explain my method in more detail in later posts, and it’s perhaps a subject for a separate day anyway. 

 

 

 

In any case, despite my heavy investment in commercial-grade Calphalon pans, I’ve actually never shoved one in the oven.  This feature, being an unusual and major selling point for a nonstick pan, would surely have come up before – but no.  I decided to get over my fear that something dire would happen.  Perhaps the Teflon would sublimate into mustard gas.  Perhaps my face would melt off.  Who knows?  As long as you don’t go over the rated maximum temperature (in the case of Calphalon Contemporary, I think it’s 450 or maybe 500), there’s no problem, basically.  Of course, I’ve yet to clean this particular pan, but I’ll leave that up to the cats.

 

 

P.S. Pepitas (aka, pumpkin seeds) are SUPER RIDIC high in fat, yet they are commonly referred to as a healthy food.  This is perhaps for their high iron, protein, polyunsaturated fat, and blah blah other stuff content (which can be lessened when cooked).  Maybe someone could explain this to us.  I feel tricked.

 

P.P.S. It don’t hurt to have a sharp knife, despite the omnipresent threat of cutting your finger off when cleaning it, when stuffing a chicken breast.  Surprisingly, you don’t really need to worry about “sealing” the chicken flesh with toothpicks or something because it’s 1) already pretty sticky and 2) has a substantial enough mass.  Forgot to mention that.

Kitchen Adventures: Holiday Food Porn Edition

 

 

There were just too many holiday meals to

recount individually in detail, and admittedly this is more of an experimental gallery showing off Eats Meats West’s new Canon T1i.  The dishes (some produced in-house, others provided graciously by family and friends) included fennel seed-encrusted pork loin, mustard roasted red potatoes, horseradish sauce, peppermint ice cream pie, chicken marsala, egg rolls, and strawberry cake.  So without further adieu, presenting the Eats Meats West Winter Holidays 2009 Food Porn Gallery:

  

Kitchen Adventures

Sometimes you wake up, and you get that calling.  A calling to immediately make breakfast, as if you had been dreaming about turkey bacon, scrambled cilantro eggs, fresh Asian pear, and hash.  Today was one of those days my friend, and no amount of shaving for too long and subsequently burning 80% of the hash would deter me.  Longingly looking on from the nearby windowsill was Artemis, who despite her meowing, could not deter me from my quest.  Maybe next time, kitty.

 

As a side note, Windows Live Writer is amazing.  I’m not normally one to endorse a Microsoft product, but Live Writer is free and takes all of the messiness out of Blogger’s interface.  I hope to make more improvements to Eats Meats West soon.

Kitchen Adventures: Jersey Shore

In commemoration (adoration?) of MTV's new and surely soon-to-be cult realty TV sensation, Jersey Shore, Eats Meats West is preparing what is plausibly its most straightforward dish yet: "sausage and peppers."  

As MTV seems to have yet post an official recipe (bitch), I can only glean the components and preparation.  Or perhaps these two are one in the same, and that's it. 

I can't recall if it was "The Situation," "Paulie," or one of the other two muscle dudes who cooked said dish, but whoever did certainly deserves credit.  I mean, I've personally never heard of it, but it's genius.  Is it a side?  They seem to share it communally as a full meal.  On the other hand, they also have a couch on the roof and contract pink eye in the second episode.

In my mind I kept saying to myself, "sure they added something other than just sausage and peppers," and with this assumption I've included the following:

garlic
olive oil
salt
pepper
cipollini onions
herbs de Provence

Granted, the spice mix is decidedly French, and the case probably didn't have cipollini onions available.  And, OK so I used chicken andouille sausage again, but let's not dwell on the authenticity of this.  A girl's got to clean her fridge somehow. 

But given the fact that the show is so trashy that not 1, not 2, but 10 catch phrases were generated in the course of only two episodes yet they were able to find fresh produce - I feel justified in taking a few liberties.

Kitchen Adventures

Funny Nurse and I experimented with green curry recently, and pictured here is the result.  I chose to go the shrimp route, whereas she opted for chicken and tofu.  Somewhere between claiming we didn't need recipes yet relying on the back of the curry paste bottle (precariously perched on my fridge door - uncapped, no less), we came up with what was ultimately pretty passably Thai. 

I realize my definition of Thai cuisine is based almost completely on shameless Lemongrass Grill delivery meals, but on the other hand you just know that crap is laden with butter and cream somehow (so it can't be that authentic either).  In any case, loves it. 

Update: Even better the second night.

Update 2: Turned to coconut sludge the third night.  Probably contracted SARS.

Update 3: Oh, also there were box brownies and more of the pumpkin whipped cream.

Kitchen Adventures: Thanksgiving Edition

Eats Meats West moved kitchens (OK...apartments) over the Thanksgiving break, resulting in a delayed feast.  The belated menu consisted of:

Roast Chicken (there were only 20 pound turkeys left)
Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Stuffing
Cranberry Sauce
Asparagus
Pumpkin Whoopee Pies

I'm experimenting with a new thermometer, which was a gift from a die-hard user, seeing as how I've learned to cook meats to the desired temperatures through sight alone.  This skill has mostly come in handy, but on occasion I've produced underdone turkey or overdone lamb.  As this was also the first use of the oven in the new kitchen (which had been used as storage by the previous tenant, New York City style), I was overly suspicious of the device.  It comes with a wireless receiver and two separate probes, so the gadget-lover in my wanted to like it, but the whole premise of stabbing your meat before it has even started cooking (thus robbing it of at least some of the juices) still doesn't sit well with me.

Oh, and a pastry chef I am not, so the whoopee pies were a bit of a disast.  They were singed in some areas, and I was combining two recipes, one of which I was halving.  Not the best plan.  Doubling the amount of pumpkin frosting solves anything, though.  Done.  We still have a tub of it in the fridge, though.

I guess what I'm most proud of is using my giant, commercial-strength Kitchenaide mixer at all.  I had to use it four times, in fact, to make the various elements of the whoopee pies.  Good thing I had two mixing bowls.  Does that justify my buying it at the Williams Sonoma in Columbus Circle a month after moving to New York, only to carry it through Whole Foods while I shopped for groceries as normal, and then proceeding to carry it (and the groceries) home on the subway, transferring to the B57 bus, of course?  Totes.

Kitchen Adventures

The subtitle for this post would be Recession Special / We're Moving, if I knew how to do that, because...well...both are the case.  You gots here your typical bottom-of-the-bag broccoli, chicken andouille, and scraps from three cheeses.  Fresh cipollini onions bring up the respectability factor...a bit.

Kitchen Adventures

Steaks (New York strip), with a red wine jus
Scallion and garlic sauteed shrimp
Parmesan and rosemary mashed potatoes
Three-cheese macaroni
Steamed asparagus

Eats Meats West teamed up with arch-rival blog, I'm all about the food, for a rare detente dinner - furiously but hastily thrown together in about two hours. 

What may come off as a somewhat expected list of dishes should still be commended if not simply because of the shear speed and efficiency with which it was accomplished.  The grocery bags were not even in the trunk before we started planning out the use of the limited counter space and four burners. 

Upon return to the kitchen I instinctively tossed aside every utensil and spice from the stove before realizing that normal kitchens (unlike those in NYC) actually have space for more than two tiny pans.  What luxury! 

The macaroni and cheese was actually a joke suggestion from J, but of course neither my mother nor I took it as such and proceeded to make it from scratch.  Though I'm not saying it's exotic, I would like to point out that it's not realistically the easiest thing to make 1) in a crowded kitchen, and 2) without a recipe. 

In fact, nothing was from a recipe.  Someone at the table asked me what was in and how I made the jus, but I honestly couldn't remember.  Wine?  Yes.  Butter?  Probably.  Also, I'm pretty sure there was a sweet potato thrown into the mash, which explains the color.

Great thanks goes out to J, who tirelessly cleaned everything, including stray baby bottles left in the sink before we got there.  Also worth noting was my mother's ability to "save" any dish.  I was in sauce mode - barely able to speak in coherent sentences - and just pointed to the shrimp and said "can you fix this?"  And so she did. 

Finally, a special apology goes out to you, stainless steel All-Clad pan, for my marring of your otherwise beautiful face with burnt olive oil.  My bad.  It wasn't the first time...and it won't be the last.

Kitchen Adventures

Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Baby Potatoes
Old Bay-Crusted Chicken Breast

The subtitle for my memoir is going to be "Brussels Sprouts, a Love Story."  We're finally at that part of the season when retailers will sell them still on the stalks.  Loves it.  Just throw them in with some potatoes (which are slightly smaller to even the cooking time), salt and pepper those bitches, roast at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then drop them down to 325 or 350 for about 40 more minutes.  The chicken breast is admittedly boring, but I'm trying out another recipe for Old Bay wings, which I'm blatantly stealing from The City Bakery.  More on that soon, hopefully.

Kitchen Adventures

OK so technically, J made this monkey bread, but that doesn't detract one bit from its glory!  Let's hope this becomes more than just a Halloween breakfast tradition.

Kitchen Adventures

Headaches lead to making fatty salty carb bombs.  Intending to make a shrimp appetizer the evening before, I instead stopped the dishes at three and threw the marinating (soy, mirin, miso, salt, pepper, honey, and shallots) shrimp in the fridge overnight.  I sauteed that with some fresh (OK, it was a little stale) corn and tossed it all with some spinach fettuccine. Also butter.