Calamari Salad

This wonderful dish was based off of a recipe from one of my back issues of gourmet magazine. It originally was for a Baby Octopus Salad. So the translation to calamari was in my mind inconsequential. The most important thing to remember is to avoid over cooking the squid. We are not looking for a salad of rubber bands here.  The premise is simple squid tossed with a dressing and lightly marinated.

So onward to the recipe then;
For the Dressing combine the following ingredients and set aside to allow the flavors to incorporate:
1tbl Lemon Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Vom Fass)
2tbl Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1clv Garlic minced
2sprigs fresh oregano
2sprigs fresh thyme
(Strip the leaves from the herbs and chop finely)
1tsp Hawaiian Black Sea Salt
1tsp Waldburg Balsam Honey Vinegar

While the dressing is resting in a 2qt pot combine the following ingredients
2 Bay Leaves
1tsp dried savory
1/2tsp dill seed
1tbl kosher salt
2tbl orange or lemon juice
3-4cups water
Place over high heat and bring to a boil. While you are waiting you should make sure that your squid is tentacles only and that they have been thawed(if necessary), washed, and the beaks removed.

Once the mixture reaches a full rolling boil wait two minutes then remove from the heat and immediately add 1 1/2cups of squid tentacles at room temperature. Wait 15 seconds and then pour the squid into a colander and rinse with cold water. After a quick lite rinse transfer them to the prepared dressing and stir well. Place this covered on the counter and stir occasionally (every 5-10 minutes) the squid is ready to serve after 15-20 minutes.

Veracruz Stuffed Peppers

"Cooking is both a skill and an art. The skill is in the technique, the art is in the flavor." -Jacob Schenk

I had made notes on meals previous to this, but I seem to have misplaced them, so this is my first contribution to this blog. Tonight's meal is Veracruz Stuffed Peppers.

Stuffing:

• Bell Peppers
• Black Beans
• Black Garlic
• Catfish bits
• Cilantro
• Cream Cheese
• Cumin
• Dried Chili (1)
• Habinaro Orange Sauce
• "Magic" Pepper
• Onion
• Peruvian Death Pepper (1)
• Pepper-jack Cheese
• Pineapple
• Preserved Lime (just a bit of one)
• Rice
• Salt
• Sundried Tomatoes
• Tamarin

Stuffed into Pablano peppers. Roasted (along with the side listed below) in the grill at 600 down to 400 degrees F for 20-25 minutes.
And for a side:

• Cabbage (thinly sliced, lightly salted)
• Cilantro Sauce (Cilantro, Pickled Thai Cucumber Salad [which was created before I stared taking food notes])
• Fish Sauce
• Leeks
• Onions (various)
• Mushrooms (Button, King Trumpets, and Beech)
• Pepper
• Salt
• Tequila
• Tomatoes

All rolled in a grilled flour tortilla.

Outcome:

Two of the stuffed peppers were really hot, according to the four people eating them. It wasn't completely subjective because the two people who didn't have the very spicy ones tried a spicy one and concurred that it was in fact noticeably/significantly more spicy. I tried the farce (stuffing) prior to it being grilled, and it tasted really good. After it was grilled, I unfortunately couldn't fully appreciate the flavour of all the ingredients because I got a super spicy one.

Post-consumption analysis discussion led to the conclusion that it was the temperature differentiation in the cooking. Two of them were cooked on a shelf above the other two in the grill, and we are thinking that cooking it at a temperature lower than the others and then putting it in higher temperature regions led to the Peruvian peppers reacting differently. Perhaps for your own personal tastes, you may want to omit the Peruvian pepper. Just sayin'.

However, the mushroom/cilantro tacos were amazing. The mushrooms were grilled with the peppers. Jacob put Apple Tree wood on the grill. The mushrooms absorbed the smoky flavour absolutely brilliantly. The cilantro sauce went perfect with it, and I personally am not a huge fan of cilantro. However, this dinner may have to make me reconsider belonging to the Ban Cilanro community. (This one.) It was that good.

- Veronica Odden

I got Mussels!!!

This is a simple post on a simple idea. We got this amazing new vinegar in at work right before Christmas. It was a fig and chili vinegar. "Hmmm  I don't know" I know that's what you're thinking. But trust me it was sweet! Well spicy actually. And that got me to thinking what could I whip up as a delectable treat to use this new flavor sensation? Well of course being French trained and preferring difficulty and accurate production over ease of use  the first thing to come to mind was an emulsified sauce of some sort.

Now a basic vinaigrette will just not do. Too passe. I mean don't I have better ideas than that like everyday? So maybe I should be looking to what I want the sauce to go with. Seafood seemed a natural choice for me this time. (BBQ recipe coming later). Scallops, mussels, yes shellfish. And what sauce is better with shellfish cooked to perfection than a creamy rich Hollendaise? So with the encouragement of a friend and a little ingenuity I present a sauce fit for any shellfish you find:

Sauce Johanna

2ea egg yolks
1tbl Waldburg Balsam Fig & Chili
1/2cup Clarified Butter
3tbl Chili Oil
1/2tsp Siracha

Whisk together the yolks, fig&chili vinegar, and siracha. Slowly drip in the chili oil while whisking. Make sure your clarified butter is hot/warm ~120f is good. Whisk in the butter a thin drizzle at a time until it is all incorporated.

The sauce was then gentle poured of our melange of fine bivalves as shown below. Please note that the plate also shows Miataki Mushrooms with Quince Glaze, and The shelfish are Mussels with Sorrel and Peppers.

Cleaning things up

Ok some beer posts removed. They will return, I'm going to put together a new blog solely for beer and beer ideas. Allowing me to bring this blog to what I originally wanted it to be. And that is notes for what I would do in a restaurant. That's it. Updates to be shorter and more frequent in the future.

Welcome to the surface of the moon....... Care for some Pizza?

Purple pizza No seriously Purple pizza. Not my fault really she made me. Well that's my story anyway. But this really is a good time to post this recipe. Being as it was made recently ie in the last weekish. And it is a modification of the crust from the Lamb en Croute. I would cut and paste the recipe but that would seem to be a tad bit redundant so instead I recommend just substituting 1/3rd of the chickpea flour with purple rice flour.


Now the baking on this does take a twist. In that you want to spread it out into a round on well greased  parchment paper and bake first at 450f until it looks like the surface of the moon. Then, and this is the step I forgot (DOH!!) turn the heat down to 300f and bake until totally dry, about 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature before topping.

But now the interesting part the purple sauce!!! This is so simple and yet the flavors will floor you. Start with 1cup red wine reduce it over medium high heat until you have 1/4cup then remove from the heat and work in 1/2cup fresh goat cheese and black pepper to taste.

I know I didn't format that out nice but when it is only two ingredients I don't really think of it as a recipe. So after you spread our fine purple sauce on the surface of the moon, you can then top it ny way you like. So in keeping with the purple theme.....

Temporary segway here when I was younger every thing I made was green. You can ask my parents, green paint, green mud, green cake, green ... So odd how now it is purple.... but I'm sure the next thing I post will not be purple.

Ok so back to the pizza. Eggplant!! the perfect purple vegetable. Oven roasted of course, peeled and seeded. Which by the way allowed for interesting comparisons to filleting fish. It was kind of like skinning sardines. Hold at one end , bring the blade of the knife though the flesh to the skin turn the blade horizontal and pull back on the skin. I will demo this at some point. Now lay your fine fillet of roast eggplant on the pizza. Add some shaved parm and cook until lightly browned.

Lamb En Croute

Have I mentioned that lamb is one of my favorite meats? So tasty and rich, the bold flavors let you do almost any thing to it. And of course I know you have all taken the time to check out my turduchen right? Right? so it should come as no surprise that I would take lamb make it North African spicy and hide it under a chickpea crust. I mean totally normal.

So let us start with the recipe for my
Lamb Mousse

3/4# ground lamb
4tbl quinoa (cooked)
2tbl roasted walnuts
1ea egg
2tsp orange liqueur
1 dried pepper
2tsp oregano
1tsp rosemary
1tsp salt
1tbl ground red lentils
1/2tsp cumin

For the dried pepper I used an ancho but you are welcome to play with what ever peppers you have (even minced fresh peppers won't hurt). Now the filling for this recipe is more like a mousse than a ground meat so we will be using the food processor. Place the lamb and spices into the food processor and turn it on (for the sake of this recipe the ground lentils are a spice.). Add  the egg, orange liquor, and walnuts puree until smooth remove the mixture and fold in the quinoa.Now cover the mixture set aside in a cool place and proceed to make the yummy crust.

Now about this fine crust, speaking of fine be sure to sift your chickpea flour, we don't want chunks here. OK so the crust developed out of my thought of making cream puffs. But I wanted to be gluten free so that a certain someone could eat these yummy treats. So this is a simple Pate Choux dough only we will be tagging in Chickpea flour.

Chickpea Pate Choux

1cup water
2tbl butter
1tbl coconut milk
3/4cup chickpea flour
1tsp zatar
1tsp curry powder
1tsp garam masala
4 eggs

To start place the first four ingredients in a pan on the stove and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and quickly whisk in the flour (you remembered to sift that right?). Keep stirring until it gets thick and goopy. Now place the thick mixture in a stand mixer and add the spices. (side note here after making this and tasting it I would use 2tbl of anyone of the spices instead of 1tsp of each.) While the mixer is running. on high of course, add the eggs one at a time. Let each egg be fully incorporated be fore adding the next.  We now have our dough.

To prepare the Lamb in Croute is now fairly  simple and straight forward. First though I would highly recommend a silicone muffin pan for this. Even my well greased non-stick muffin tin did not approve of  non-sticking. So preheat your oven to 425f. Place enough of the dough mixture into each muffin cup to just fill the bottom. Cook these for about 5-10 minutes or until lightly golden brown on top. Now take your meat mousse mixture and place a ball a little smaller than a golf ball in the center of each muffin. Then add a small amount of the chickpea batter over each. just enough to cover. Place these back in the oven and cook until golden brown.

These are wonderful topped with a sauce of roasted red bell peppers and eggplant. The saucy recipe will be occurring over here ----->>>