What did you cook today?

[Jeff B]

Chicken of all varieties are a staple around here but it all gets done on the grill unless it's something like diced/cubed breast for stir-fry or fried rice.
Been a long time but I need to do a rotisserie chicken again.



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That's outrageously good looking, Jeff. That deep, rich color.

And beats the hell out of Costco too!

[ronnie_suburban]

And beats the hell out of Costco too!

LOL, um, yeah!

For us, end of the season corn, some nice steaks and a real treat on the mushroom front . . .


Maitakes & Kobayashi R2 Gyuto, 210mm
Got a hold of 3 pounds, and this is about half of them.


Saute-Pressed Maitakes
Started them hot in a bit of evoo to color them. After that, I put the bottom of a second pan on top of them and pressed them down. Once they started to soften up and emit some moisture, I added salt, a wee bit of soy sauce, big spoonful of 4x gelatinous pork stock, cracked black pepper and tiny bit of finely minced garlic. When they were suitably soft and the liquid had almost completely cooked away, I added a few tiny cubes of cold, unsalted butter and garnished them with chives.

Main event . . .


Grilling
After a few moments on directly over the coals (flipping 3 times), these were moved over to finish on the indirect side. Was shooting for about 117F internal.


Gratuitous Platter Shot
In addition to making dinner, I'm still trying to learn the ins and outs of my new camera.


Plated Up
Charcoal-grilled ribeye, maitake mushrooms and buttered corn on the cob.

[Jeff B]

That's a MAN meal there!

[Is That Blood?]

I don't know what's better lookin', the meal or the knife...

[ronnie_suburban]

That's a MAN meal there!

Ha! You're making me feel less guilty about bypassing the green veg. I had some zucchini teed up but when the maitakes arrived, they looked so great, I had no choice.

I don't know what's better lookin', the meal or the knife...

Yeah, it's definitely a stunning piece. Haven't used it much but with the recent chat about it, I'm motivated to spend some time with it.

[ronnie_suburban]

Kind of strange but successful, multi-cultural combination tonight. Wanted to get RID of some items and just didn't have the brain power to come up with a consistent theme. Started with a non-photogenic, overnight misoyaki marinade of some black cod (white miso, mirin, sake, sugar). Got home from work wanting to dispatch some green beans and eat more of our homegrown tomatoes. So, that's exactly what we did . . .


Green Bean Mise En Place & Kobayashi R2 Gyuto, 210mm
Veg oil, minced garlic, toasted sesame oil, green beans, shoyu and mirin. Just a quick stir fry. Held back the sesame oil until after I'd killed the heat.

Since I had no real plan and we're still enjoying our tomato bounty, I figured why not just take the obvious route . . .


Caprese Salad
Rally, Martha Washington, Yellow Brandywine, Green Zebra & Burrata.


Plated Up
Misoyaki black cod (marinated for 20 hours, broiled for 12 minutes), stir-fried green beans and jasmine rice, with caprese salad riding shotgun.

[Altadan]

That's just so eye-pleasing. Thanks, as always!

[Jeff B]

My Cod never looks THAT GOOD!

[gladius]

Nice presentation, good looking fish.

[ronnie_suburban]

Thanks guys. Less is more on the cod. One of the simplest preps there is. After the marinade, it's literally 10-15 minutes under the broiler, and it's done. You just have to decide the day before because unlike with many other kinds of fish, a short marinade isn't particularly effective. It definitely benefits from a longer soak. Because the cod is relatively oily, it holds up well in a longer marinade without curing, drying out or desiccating.

[Bob Z]

Easy Friday Night Tacos

Although these are kinda burrito size, so tasty. This is 85% burger browned, then some water added along with McCormack low sodium taco seasoning, along with some chili powder and a tsp of dehydrated onions. I usually add a dried California chili to the mix, and some water and let it slowly evaporate then towards the end add maybe 10 chocolate chips (dark) to melt in and give a nice smooth mouth feel to the beef.
Regular tortillas with std taco materials. So tasty!

Std taco guts courtesy of Toyama 180 Nakiri, and yes the cheese was precut packaged by Kraft

large size tortilla, quick sear over burner, spritz of water and in chef mike for a few seconds.

[KnightKnightForever]

Snake River Farms pork chops with apples, vegetables, and a whole-grain mustard and apple-butter sauce.

[ronnie_suburban]

^Nice-looking meals and knives, Bob and KKF!

I used my lunch time (working from home) to package up my green 'sambal', after a 21-day ferment, with pretty good results . . .


Green 'Sambal'
It definitely lost a bit of brightness on the color front but it still looks pretty good and it tastes great. I'll keep the large jar and give away the rest.

Cooked dinner for some friends, who were bemused by my picture-taking (but also understanding and patient). It had been a few weeks and I'd never made it for my friends, so back to red curry chicken . . .


Mise En Place & Sakoda AS Gyuto, 210mm
Extra firm tofu, Thai basil, shallots, kaffir lime leaves & Thai birds eye chiles, Thai eggplant, zucchini, chicken thigh meat, fish sauce, coconut milk/bamboo shoots/curry paste/gapi, king oyster mushrooms, 4x gelatinous pork stock, Swiss chard and veg oil.

Maiden voyage for the Sakoda, which handled everything really well, and was a joy to use. Zucchini clung to the blade quite a bit but nothing else really did at all. I'm not sure yet about the profile, which is fairly santoku-like but I think it matches up well with my natural motion. Once I try it on some finer cuts, I'll be able to tell if that tip and I are going to get along. That said, as a push-cutter and chopper, I do really like the relatively long flat area, which extends from the heel to nearly the middle of the blade. And unlike a lot of Santokus, this blade is tall enough to avoid knuckle banging.


Plated Up
Red curry chicken with jasmine rice and stir-fried bok choy (homemade shrimp stock, garlic, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, Shaoxing wine and corn starch slurry)

[stevem627]

Ronnie that Sambal and food look fantastic.

It’s great seeing all your knives being used. Sometime you need to post a collection shot in the knife collection section. I’d love to see all your knives. I think it’s great to have lots of knives even when you aren’t cooking for a living, but I can’t justify having knives unless you actually use them…and you most certainly use yours A LOT!

[Is That Blood?]

Sometime you need to post a collection shot in the knife collection section. I’d love to see all your knives.

I would like to second this, if I can just find my dribble bib....

[ronnie_suburban]

Sometime you need to post a collection shot in the knife collection section. I’d love to see all your knives.

I would like to second this, if I can just find my dribble bib....

One of these days . . . At some point, I'm going to reorganize them and when I do, I'll get some shots.

It's funny. In my experience, pros seem to have the fewest knives. My chef friends typically own just a handful of knives each. It's we non-pros who seem to more often end up obsessed with them. And of course, we don't have to worry about them getting damaged or "walking away" during a service, either. I think that makes it easier to collect them.

[ronnie_suburban]

Some brunch items I made this morning. Just trying to keep everyone happy around the homestead . . .


BLT
Homemade bacon, homegrown tomatoes, homemade jalapeno/dill pickles and Route 11 Yukon Gold potato chips.

Still working with my No. 1, the 10" nonstick Scanpan, to keep the family fed and the fridge emptied . . .


Assorted Cheeses, Leftover Sauteed Mushrooms & Onions

Garnished with chives. Served with homegrown Rally tomatoes and some half-decent grocery store breakfast sausage. This was delicious but I feel like if I get any brown on the omelet, it's not a complete success.

Dinner prep started with some annoying but necessary grill maintenance . . .


Fender Washers
Owing largely to regular use and increasingly cheaper construction, my kettle is continuing to burn-in in spots. I could see daylight poking through in yet another spot, so I had to plug it up today. That's now 4 fender washers in use. Soon, I'll have to replace the bowl, which I've done 2 other times in the 25+ years I've owned it.

The goal today was to really get RID of some stuff that was occupying prime real estate in the back of the fridge. That's how we ended up having sausage at breakfast and at dinner. Apparently, sometime early during the lockdown, I panic stockpiled. After I discovered several packs of cryovacked sausage in the fridge this morning, I decided that today was the day to unwind. But before that, came side dish prep. . . .


Stir-Fry Mise En Place & Sakoda AS Gyuto, 210mm
Sakoda-shortened long beans, lobster stock (made by a chef friend), extra firm tofu, oyster sauce, soy sauce, minced garlic, veg oil and maitake mushrooms.

It was great to have the rich lobster stock, which really elevated this dish. My friend dropped off 3 pints, so, I have a couple left in reserve. Also, had to get rid of one small slab of tofu that was leftover from Friday night's curry. Mission accomplished!


Stir-Fried Maitakes & Long Beans
Because of the lobster stock, the leftovers will make for some nice lunches on their own this week.

In addition to the cache of sausages I found, there were also a few boneless skinless chicken thighs to use up. Even though I generally try to avoid grilling them, this time around I figured why not toss them on the grill and get them cooked . . .


Grilling
All snuggled together on the indirect side of the grill (where they cooked covered).


On The Platter
Boneless skinless chicken thighs, Bende Hot Smoked Sausage (left), Framani Salt & Pepper sausage (top, middle) and Jalapeno-Cheddar sausage (right).


Plated Up
With homemade green 'sambal.'

[ronnie_suburban]

Quick Monday night, after-work/before more work dinner prep . . .


Cabbage Mise En Place & Kohetsu Blue #2 Addict, 240mm
Apple cider vinegar, rendered bacon fat (reclaimed after Sunday BLTs), caraway seeds, finely minced garlic, red onion and shredded napa and arrowhead cabbages.

It felt very good to just go at the cabbages with The Addict. Knife therapy!


Tomato Salad
Approaching the end of our homegrowns. These are Rally, Green Zebra and maybe a Better Boy. Dressed with evoo, balsamic, chives, basil leaves, salt and black pepper.


Charcoal-Grilled Pork Tenderloin
All three were trimmed, trussed, oiled and dry-rubbed. While they were grilling, I decided to baste one with some leftover Korean-style glaze from some eggplant I made last week.


Plated Up
Tenderloin over braised cabbage with tomato salad. Dinner done. Now, back to a bit more work.

Happy Monday!

[Is That Blood?]

This is from yesterday starting at about 6am and was wrapped up, finally, at 4:15pm.

4lbs short ribs, light coating of olive oil, 50/50 salt/black pepper, mesquite wood, smoked @ ~215F for 4hrs. Wrapped and finished in the oven (Texas Crutch)@ 325F to 202F internal temp. Rested until internal temp was 140F.

~16lbs of these other ribs, I don't know the cut, but same treatment as above, but smoked @ ~215F for 5hrs. Texas Crutched to 202 and 204F internal (2 probes).

After that was ~ 20lbs chicken same treatment as above, smoked at ~200F for 2 1/2hrs, mesquite, internal temp in breast held at about 155F, increased chamber temp to 250F to finish, for a total of ~3hr 15min smoke, finish temp was 168 and 165F in breasts.

Oven roasted cauliflower-

Fresh cut cauliflower, coated in olive oil, add salt/pepper cook in oven for about 30min. Oven at 425F convect. Add more salt, pepper, olive oil to taste when finished. We cook exclusively on stoneware, so YMMV on other choices. Even new unseasoned stoneware will cook differently vs seasoned stuff. I guess it has to do with the darker colors radiating heat into the food more efficiently.

Volunteer Sweet Potatoes. These grew in our compost pile, and then the damn deer came through one night and ate the leaves off. Their naked stems reaching for the sky looked like the bones of a just unearthed dinosaur skeleton protruding from a excavation site.

Washed, pricked with forked, light coating of olive oil, wrapped in foil, cooked at 425F ~40mins.

Apple Crisp (if someone wants the recipe, let me know, I'll find the txt file).

Homemade Vanilla Ice cream

A Gemma Stafford recipe, No Machine Ice Cream, her 2 ingredient ice cream base (at the very top) to which I add 1/2T of vanilla extract. This is great to make with kiddos as long as they can wait for it to set up in the freezer overnight or for at least 8hrs. One thing on her recipe, refrigerate the sweetened condensed milk for at least 24 hrs before use.

https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/home ... eam-party/



BBQ Sauce

Meh, its okay. We don't add the Worcestershire or the brown sugar for health reasons. So we are doing a disservice to the original recipe...

https://ethnicspoon.com/sweet-and-spicy ... bbq-sauce/

That's it! You folks have a good day!

[Is That Blood?]