The Yeah It's Another Steak

Steak is what's for dinner. I have always loved steak and have posted plenty here. Here's another simple favourite served with a baked potato and pickled jalapenos.

Giving it a nice quick sear in the cast iron skillet.

The final product, as always when I make steak, was perfect. I probably don't serve it cooked well enough for restaurant work, but it's got a great sear and very cool, very red centre.

Your soundtrack for this entry: Queens of the Stone Age - Make It Witchu. 

The Ciambotta

Ciambotta (or giambotta) is an Italian vegetable stew. Most of my personal Italian knowledge is of Northern Italian fare, so I've explored a lot of Southern Italian food in the last few years.

Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 2 celery ribs, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
- 3 carrots, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
- 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 1/4 pounds eggplant, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 (28-ounces) can whole tomatoes in juice, drained, juice reserved and tomatoes chopped, or 1 3/4 pounds fresh tomatoes, chopped
- 2 red bell peppers, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
- 3/4 pound green beans, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
- 1 1/4 pounds zucchini, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
- 3/4 pound boiling potatoes (about 2 medium), peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces


Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat until it shimmers. Add onions, celery, carrots, and garlic. Cook until tender (about ten minutes).


The eggplant comes next. Mix it in and cook for an additional ten minutes until tender. 


Add the tomatoes and bell peppers, reduce heat to low, and simmer uncovered for fifteen minutes. 


Finally, add the rest of the vegetables and simmer uncovered for thirty minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

Your soundtrack for this entry: The Soviettes - Ten. 

The Time I Cooked Lunch

My good friend Gianmichael departed Astoria today for his Great White North homeland. While I'll no doubt see him fairly regularly as he returns to the area on business, it's sad to see one of my favourite people I've met in the last few years depart. This entry's for you GM!

About a week ago I invited him over for lunch (with the Thrifty Sifter, too). Now, after reading this entry you might say I didn't quite cook breakfast and I didn't quite cook lunch, but I refuse to use the portmanteau which combines the two meals!

I forget who exactly clued me in to the wonderful stuffed and roasted tomato which was the centrepiece of this dish, but I modified a recipe from Poor Girl Eats Well. You should read deeper into her blog as she writes and photographs well. In addition to the tomato cups I created a potato and bell pepper hash along the lines of that which Mom Cooks Everything makes.

Baked Eggs, Duck Bacon, and Asparagus in Tomato Cups (recipe for one tomato cup)
1 large, vine-ripened tomato
1 large egg (brown because I said so)
2 slices of duck bacon cooked ahead of time and diced
2 tbsp of diced, sauteed asparagus
1/2 tsp salt
olive oil


Yes, you read that right. Duck bacon. Specifically, while heading over to my usual pork/bacon substitute of turkey bacon, I discovered the grocer's bacon section replete with a new denizen: D'Artagnan Uncured Smoked Duck Bacon. This, this was the product of my dreams and bringing it home it exceeded all expectations. Better than I remember bacon tasting and that verified by both of my pork-eating friends. I have likely found my Mastering the Art of French Cooking bacon substitute.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Cook the bacon up ahead of time, like you would normal bacon. Dice. No need to keep it hot. At the same time dice the fresh asparagus into 1/4 inch pieces and sautee in a tsp of olive oil.

There's no need to peel the tomatoes. Simply cut the stem out and then cut a hole around the wider edge of the top. Scoop out the insides, being careful not to puncture the bottom of the tomato.

Spread the salt around the insides of the tomato cup, then fill the tomato 75% of the way with a mixture of your duck bacon and asparagus and place in a cooking sheet, pie shell, or baking dish. Crack the egg into the tomato cup and bake for 20 - 25 minutes until the egg has reached the consistency you desire.

We went for a slightly hard yolk.

Potato and Bell Pepper Hash
1 large brown baking potato (diced, more or less)
1 small leek (sliced)
1 green bell pepper (diced)
1 red bell pepper (diced)
1 tsp fresh thyme (chopped)
salt
pepper
olive oil

Feel free to substitute vegetables in this dish. Hash, at least in my household and many others, is traditionally a dish in which you can use fresh leftovers and "ends of things."

Brown the ingredients in a large pan or pot over medium heat in olive oil. Add a cup or two of water or broth and simmer for about a half hour. The goal is to have a slightly stewy consistency to the dish at the end with all the flavours melded together.

Add the salt and pepper to taste toward the end.

While I was cooking I broke the wishbone from The Roast Chicken with Wasabi Sauce with the Thrifty Sifter. We ended up with ends that were the same length. What happens then!?

More hashy hash further along in its cooking. 

My new magnetic timer. I suspect it's a cheap piece of crap, but so far it's doing the job. 

And here I realized the hash was done before the tomato cups. The Thrifty Sifter was hungry!

Gianmichael relaxing on my couch while we wait for the main dish. 

Lunch is served!

As you can see, the tomato fell apart. This happened with all three tomatoes and I'm unsure why. 

Still, served with some ciabatta from the Gian & Piero Bakery (toasted for GM, not for me and the Thrifty Sifter), this was a fantastic meal. I got rave reviews from my guests!

Your soundtrack for this entry: Type O Negative - Love You to Death

The Steak and Hasselback Potatoes

...with a side of lime-jalapeno-spinach salad.

It's time for a new way to do taters and yea I hath found it: hasselback potatoes.

According to a user at AllRecipes (a top search result) this recipe originated in the Hasselbacken Restaurant in Stockholm, Sweden. I have no quibble with that assertion, though pass it on at your own peril. You may just run into a Steven Hasselback, a cyclopean giant of a man who lost his left eye inventing the dish in 1972.

Hasselback Potato Ingredients (for two)
- 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter or Smart Balance Organic Buttery Spread (I used the latter)
- 1 cup panko bread crumbs
- two tablespoons cilantro (roughly chopped)
- salt
- two medium baker potatoes (peeled and kept in a bowl of cool water to prevent browning)

Some versions of this dish include cheese during the final stage. I do not.

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees and prepare a baking sheet or pie pan with parchment paper on the bottom.

Over low heat, slowly melt the butter. Once it starts giving you a bit of bubble, add the cilantro and cover. Cook another minute or two and remove from heat.

This is the part where you get to create the signature look of this dish. There are a couple of methods of creating this.

1. You can slice a bit off the bottom of the potato to ensure it sits flat, then create slices about 1/8 of an inch apart across the potato, taking care not to cut all the way through.

2. There's also a method where you sit the potato in a large spoon and make the same slices mentioned above. The rim of the spoon keeps your knife going all the way through.

I chose:

3. Take a thin slice off of the bottom as in 1 above. Then place a chop stick to either long side of the potato. Make 1/8 inch slices.

Spread the slices a bit with a paring knife. Then place the potatoes in the baking sheet or pie tin and brush with the cilantro butter mixture.

Make sure some gets in between the slices. Then bake for approximately 45 minutes.

Pull the potatoes out of the oven and pre-heat the broiler. Brush the potatoes with the remaining cilantro-butter mixture, then spread the panko over-top.

Place about 5 inches from broiler for 2 - 3 minutes.
 

Now, should you choose to make the same dishes as I did together, you should season the steak first and let it sit out a room temperature while you take care of the potatoes. While the steaks are actually cooking you should prepare the spinach salad (it's quick).

These were seasoned with salt, pepper, and a bit of coriander (I'm on a kick lately). Pass on the coriander here as it didn't add anything to the dish. I pre-heat my iron skillet and place the meat directly on.

As I've mentioned before that I like my steak rare, it should come as no surprise that I basically sear it for 2 - 3 minutes a side and that's it. And if you read that previous entry, yes, my skillet is finally properly seasoned. The Thrifty Sifter, for whom I created this wonderful meal, prefers hers medium rare, so she got the five minute treatment.

I forgot to take a good shot of the salad which accompanied dinner, but it's very easy.

Baby Spinach and Jalapeno Salad with Lime Vinagrette
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- the juice of 1 lime
- salt
- pepper
- baby spinach greens (use as much or as little as you want)
- 1 jalapeno (seeded, and roughly chopped)

Once you have all the above ingredients, mix them up in a bowl and enjoy.

This meal was Thrifty Sifter approved.

 Not even that spinach leaf was left.

 Served with a bottle of Carchelo red wine. It's a blend and Spanish.

Your soundtrack for this entry: Veruca Salt - 25

Jeremy Fails Dinner: The Salmon

I don't intend to record only the best or the good here. However, I'm not going to record every failure. I don't even record every success. That said, this is my first abject failure on the blog.

It started with the best of intentions. My girlfriend bought me a mandolin, which I wanted for a while.

I spread it out this evening and decided I wanted to make my own french fries. And so, I bought salmon, a potato, and artichokes. 

Getting the artichoke to the point where I could cook it took a while. First you need to cut off all the tips of the leaves. 

Then you need to go through three knives before you can cut off the top inch or so. The serrated knife ended up doing the trick. 

Then you get caught up in Stargate Universe. 

Whilst your artichoke is boiling instead of simmering. 

Hey, there's some creepy shit on the ship!

And your artichoke is still boiling, getting close to burning the bottom of the pot. 

So you make some fries with your new mandolin. 

And conveniently hide the ruined pot in the background. 

Meanwhile you cut your salmon filet in half 

And you fry it up in a bit of oil. 

And even though the artichoke was a fail, and the fries didn't cook up that well, and the salmon was rather ordinary, you take a picture and soldier on. 

Your soundtrack for this entry: REM - Everybody Hurts

The Sun Dried Tomato Steak

Let me preface this entry by saying this recipe is not for everyone, least of all steak purists. Certainly almost every steak I make is seasoned with salt and pepper and that's it. However, over time I hope to share the five or six other ways I prepare steak.

This is one of them.

Start with:

• a nice rib eye angus steak (bone in)
• a can of sun dried tomatoes in olive oil
• hot paprika
• dried sage
• 6 cloves of fresh garlic
• olive oil
• salt
• fresh ground pepper

So far I haven't seen this particular combination in many recipes, but I think sage and paprika are great compliments. The relaxed heat of paprika settles in with the late afternoon smell of sage in a way that makes the back of my tongue light up and my nostrils flare.

For the baked potato, I pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees, put the potato on foil, lightly coat with olive oil, and punch a few holes in it with a fork. Then it's into the oven for an hour. 


While that's cooking up, spread paprika, sage, salt, and pepper on both sides of the steak. I like to let the spices sink in for a half hour to 45 minutes.

Slice the garlic cloves crosswise so you get some thin ovals. I often forget to do this, but you should preheat a cast iron skillet while you're slicing the onions. It takes a while longer for them to heat up to the right heat.

Once you've got it going, coat the bottom in olive oil and heat until it shimmers. Then add the garlic. While that's cooking up, slice up a handful of the sun dried tomatoes, then drop them in with the garlic.


Give this five to ten minutes, then push the garlic and sun dried tomatoes out to the edges of the skillet. It's time to cook up the steak! I like mine rare, so I only kept it on heat for about three minutes one side and three the other.

Pop out the potato, open it, and pour the sun dried tomatoes and garlic over the steak and potato. You're done!

Of course you don't want to have your steak without some nice red wine. With this I had a Simone International Selection Carmenère from the Henriquez Hermanos Winery. Carménère comes from a rather rare grape varietal once thought lost!

Your soundtrack for this entry: Iron Maiden - Can I Play with Madness