Today I did something I love to do. Just visited a bunch of markets and bought a bunch of random ingredients for the week. Tonight was a fresh take on what I discovered. There is a great Vietnamese market just down the road where they had Golden Pompano on sale. A while ago a friend brought over Golden Pompano for a grill fest and it caught on fire. Probably the best dish of the night.
Our approach to tonight was simple, fresh and fun.
We made a chimichurri:
Cilantro
Italian parsley
Marjoram
Garlic
Rice wine vinegar
Olive oil
Red pepper flakes
Chop everything finely and mix it all up adjusting as you see fit.
For the Pompano:
Just make it simple and marinade with:
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Powder
Marinade for 30 minutes and then grill for about 10 minutes per side.
Served with Basmati rice and an Asian pear and cucumber salad
Getting back into documenting what we do in our house to try to make dinner a bit more interesting
Today we are talking about how our cooking has changed since I started documenting how I cook. For full disclosure, we have moved from DC to LA and are still figuring California out. Today it was to be 100 so we needed to cook outside to avoid the added AC stress. I have been working on my duck confit over the last few months and have built up quite a bit of duck fat. We combined the idea of duck confit with smoked duck breast into a couple of different aspects. Recipe is super simple.
First, butcher a duck and reserve everything on the carcass that has fat. Place the leg quarters and wings in a smoker proof tray. Add any fat from the carcass and any left over duck fat you have on hand to that tray. Start the smoker to 250F but do not preheat. Just place the tray in the smoker. Keep an eye on it for the next 5 hours. When it looks like it is starting to fall apart, season the duck breast and put fat/skin down on the hottest part of the smoker. Smoke at 250 for 1.5 hours.
We wanted a Chinese take as the meat resembles Peking duck without the crispy skin. Followed a random recipe for Chinese pancakes that was simply 2 C all purpose flour and 1 C. boiling water to kneed into a dough over about 10 minutes. Divide into 12 balls, smash two balls and put some canola oil between them and roll out to super thin. Cook in a dry pan over medium-high heat and flip once bubbly.
We served it with cucumber, green onion, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, and siracha. Added a salad pack for a bit more healthy. Limited work and was appreciated by all.
It was another one of those Fridays when we had something in the fridge but the planned meal wasn’t what we wanted. Since it is a Friday, we had a bit more time to make a ragu. What was supposed to be a lamb shawarma became a ragu with egg noodles. For the ragu:
1.5 lbs boneless lamb leg, diced into 1/8 inch pieces
1 red onion, finely diced
2 big carrots, grated
1/2 pint leftover cherry tomatoes
garlic powder
dried oregano
salt and pepper
2 big handfuls fresh basil
Glug olive oil
Throw everything into a dutch oven and cook over low heat until your family wants to eat but at least an hour. Reserve one of the handfuls of basil to top the final bowls.
Boil bag of extra wide egg noodles until mostly done. Add some (about 1 C.) of the water to the ragu to thin it out. Add mostly cooked noodles to ragu and cook and stir to coat. Serve with some sprinkles of basil and pecorino.
Pork belly was on sale and I really wanted to try to make it as most of my attempts have been fatty, oily messes. The meat and fat were good but the skin was hard to the point of being inedible. This one started with my new obsession of trying to better understand curing meat, even if only slightly. Since Bao is my current favorite food group, we served it that way in a nod to David Chang. For the pork belly:
1.5 lb pork belly
1/4 C. salt
1/4 C. sugar
1 tsp smoked paprika (for color and smoke flavor)
Mix the salt, sugar, and paprika together and coat the pork belly. Wrap in plastic wrap and put into a ziploc. Put in fridge overnight. This is one of those plan ahead dinners. In the morning, put in preheated 450 oven for about 1 hour. Turn down to 250 and cook another hour. Remove and cool then put in the fridge to solidify. Just before dinner, slice into 1/4 inch slices and saute over low heat to warm and crisp up the fat. We cut off the skin because it was like a rock.
We followed the same recipe for the buns as in the Bao Char Sui recipe but shortcut the ferment to a normal 1 hour, divide into 15 pieces and let rise another hour, roll out into rounds and fold in half and let rise another 30 minutes. Steam about 10 minutes.
We served it with cucumber, carrot, green onion, cilantro, and radish. Here are the food stylings of my family:
Tonight was simple fish and vegetables. There were only really 6 ingredients to the whole dinner:
1 albacore tuna steak (small salmon filet for my son)
head cauliflower, trying to make steaks
2 zucchini mandolin thinly sliced
salt and pepper
Canola oil
Just a light coating of oil, salt, and pepper on everything and grilled. Took about 10 minutes total. Made pretty with some garden chives and quartered cherry tomatoes because they were hanging around. Awesome and healthy.
The iron steak was on sale this weekend. I have no idea what that was but we had to turn it into a taco. Two day marinade to get it tender, grill it on high heat and we have something to work with. It was good but not great but that was probably due to my skills at slicing meat rather than everything else. We bought a 1.5 lb iron steak and marinated it in
1/4 C. soy sauce
1/4 C. orange juice
1 lime, juiced
1/4 C canola oil
2 Tbsp garlic powder
Glug of mirin
big shake of oregano
Put everything in a gallon ziploc and let marinade for 2 days. Grill over medium high heat for about 5 minutes per side. Make sure to let it rest for at least 15 minutes.
For the other toppings:
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 green pepper
Grill the peppers over medium high heat.
To wrap it all up, make the tortillas I have previously made from seriouseats.com. They are good and we short cut it by using the stand mixer and not doing it by hand. Saves time and effort.
Tonight was an Indian night with a beige theme. It has been so nice since we got back that we did all we could on the grill. We tried a new naan recipe tonight because I forgot to buy an extra yogurt and used kefir and milk instead, this is going to stick. For our naan:
1/2 C. kefir
1/2 C. whole milk
1.5 tsp yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp Olive oil
2 C. flour
1 tsp salt
Mix the kefir and milk together and heat in microwave for about 1 minute to get it up to a decent temperature for the yeast. Add the next 3 ingredients and let proof for about 10-15 minutes. Mix in the flour and salt and knead for a few minutes. Put dough in oiled bowl and cover and let rise for 1.5 hours. Divide into about 10 pieces on floured counter top, cover, and let rise for another 30-45 minutes. Once nice and fluffy, roll out fairly thick all the pieces. Preheat a grill to high. Grill each naan for about 1-2 minutes per side making sure to keep your eye on everything.
Next dish was the chicken:
1.5 lbs chicken thighs
1 C. plain yogurt
1 Tbsp(ish) curry powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
Mix everything in a gallon ziploc and marinate overnight. Grill on medium-high heat about 5 minutes per side.
Next was a take on dahl:
1 C. green lentils
1 quart vegetable broth
couple shakes curry powder
1/2 onion, finely diced
4 cloves, garlic, finely minced
glug olive oil
glug cultured goat milk
Saute the garlic and onions in olive oil until soft. Add lentils, broth and curry powder and slowly simmer for about 30 minutes. At last minute add a glug of cultured goat milk to cream up and thicken.
Last was a potato and carrot curry.
4 red potatoes, diced
4 carrots, cut in coins about the same size as potatoes
glug olive oil
1/2 C. water
curry powder
Harissa
Saute the carrots and potatoes in olive oil for about 5 minutes to get some color making sure not to touch. Add the water to steam them. Wait about 5 minutes and add spices. Simmer over low heat until everything is cooked.
We have officially entered grilling season and one our favorites is grilled pizza. Our grill can get way hotter than our oven and it doesn’t heat up the house in the summer. Tonight, it was more about dodging the rain than heating up the house. We made four different pizzas tonight, one for my son, one for my wife, one for me, and the garbage pizza for all the other leftovers. We followed our usual Chris Bianco dough recipe and had some new additions to the toppings mix. For the dough
2 C. warm water (hot to the touch but you could keep it there all day, like a nice hot tub)
1 Tbsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
5ish C. flour
olive oil
salt
Proof the yeast in water and sugar for about 10 minutes so that it gets nice and bubbly. Add about half the flour and mix to a nice sticky dough. Put another 1ish cups on the counter and kneed in. You will need more but add it in 1/4-1/3 C. increments. Kneed for at least 10 minutes until a nice soft dough forms. Put in a oil coated bowl, cover, and let rise for about 1-2 hours. Divide into 4 balls and let rise for another 30-60 minutes. Once risen. Roll out into about 12 inch rounds. Over high preheated grill, grill on one side keeping an eye on it so that it doesn’t burn. Rotate as needed. It took about 3-5 minutes for each round. Only grill one side for right now.
For our toppings:
Tomato puree
1 lb bacon
16 clams
2 cloves garlic, minced
small handful basil, finely sliced
mushrooms, sauteed
onion jam (slow cooked yellow onions, with balsamic added for the last 15 minutes)
arugula
pecorino Romano
grated mozzarella
creamy goat cheese
The top picture is the garbage pizza. For my son’s pizza, he just wanted bacon and basil.
For my wife’s pizza, we grilled some clams and topped with olive oil, garlic, mushrooms, pecorino, and goat cheese. After it was done, we topped with arugula.
For mine, I was feeling vegetarian so did a tomato puree, basil, mushroom, onion jam, garlic, and mozzarella.
To make them on the grill, have 2 sides of direct heat and indirect. Put toppings on the pre-grilled side so that the raw side is facing down. Grill on the direct heat to get the crust done. Then move to indirect to melt the cheese and get all the toppings warm. If you haven’t tried grilled pizza, give it a try.
We made it back from vacation where we ate way too many tacos and way too much raw fish. Our trip to San Diego was a success while enjoying relaxing, nature, and food; the only things that matter in life. We manage to hike, kayak, swim, eat, and see super cool stuff. If you ever have the chance, rent a houseboat on airbnb. Made the trip even better as we were able to cook on those days when we just did too much to go out.
Trying to get into the Passover/Easter weekend while remaining healthy from our SoCal week, we made lamb burgers with quinoa salad. There were three big components: burgers, sauce, and salad. For the burgers:
1.25 lb ground lamb
handful dill, finely chopped
1 green onion, thinly sliced
garlic powder
salt and pepper
There was enough fat in the ground lamb that we bought that we didn’t need to add an egg. Just mix it all and divide into about 6 burgers. We grilled them over medium high heat for about 5 minutes per side. For the sauce:
1 cup sheep yogurt
handful dill
1/2 English cucumber, grated
garlic powder
salt and pepper
Mix it all up making sure to drain the cucumber so it isn’t super watery.
For the salad:
1 C. quinoa
1/2 English cucumber, seeded, diced
1 carrot, finely diced
handful dill, finely chopped
2 green onion, finely sliced
4 radish, thinly sliced
handful cilantro, finely chopped
1 lemon, juiced
salt and pepper
garlic powder
handful cherry tomatoes, quartered
olive oil
Just mix everything together and season to taste.
For the other toppings, we made some quick pickles:
1/3 cucumber, thinly sliced
rice vinegar
mirin
pepper corns
salt
Mix it all up with equal vinegar and mirin to cover cucumber.
We have no pictures. We made dinner and ate it. It was good. Sorry.
I worked from home today and at lunch made some ribs in the oven at 225. The basic idea was that I would make the long part of dinner while I worked and then finish with some beans and slaw. For the rib rub, we put together:
brown sugar
salt
chili powder
garlic powder
onion powder
fenugreek powder
coriander powder
cumin
Sprinkle the ribs with the mixture and let sit on counter for about an hour. Put in a 225 degree oven for 3 hours. Turn off let sit for another hour. When ready to finish, coat with your favorite BBQ sauce over low coals for about 30 minutes flipping constantly and saucing as you go. Our favorite is Stubs.
For the baked beans:
2 cans prepared baked beans
1 giant green onion
2 small sweet red peppers
handful brown sugar
3 Tbsp butter
Saute, over super low heat, the butter, onions, and pepper. Once nice and soft, add everything else. Simmer for about 30 minutes.
Working Dad Cooks 