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| Grilled shark with bok choy and skillet potatoes |
Next time: maybe try a different veggie, and go with smaller portions of fish
Me: 9/10
SO: 10/10
SSO: n/a
Sunday, 27 September 2015
Grilled Shark with bok choy and skillet potatoes
There isn't really a recipe for this, I just wanted to remember the meal since it was so tasty. And unusual, I suppose. On Saturday, SO went out downtown with a friend and ended up browsing Whole Foods. It's a pretty cool place to look around, if not actually buy anything since it is so expensive. But you can get some products that are hard to find, and arguably the price is worth it to get whole grain, organic, no pesticides, free-range blah blah blah products. That's how we ended up with two gigantic shark steaks.
We've been killing it lately with the cast iron skillet, it's just great for so many things. But potatoes it especially excels at. Golden brown, just plain yummy. The shark and bok choy we both did on the bbq. The fish was oiled up just a tiny bit and lots of freshly ground salt and pepper. The bok choy was tossed with a bit of oil and I sprinkled a random Epicure spice on it. One of those spice blends with a strange name - maybe it was "Canadian" or something like that. Then it was into a cooking basket. The shark was done slightly more than medium, and the veggies were grilled al dente with a bit of char. The steaks were so huge, we both only ate half of our portion, so the rest we ended up putting in a fish soup the next day. That was also just great!
Next time: maybe try a different veggie, and go with smaller portions of fish
Me: 9/10
SO: 10/10
SSO: n/a
Next time: maybe try a different veggie, and go with smaller portions of fish
Me: 9/10
SO: 10/10
SSO: n/a
Thursday, 27 August 2015
Sausage, Fennel, and Chili Pasta
I love an interesting pasta dish. I'm not an overly big fan of tomato sauce, or maybe I'm just tired of it. I like it when it is not overly "saucy", which is opposite to how SO likes it. Anyway. This dish started when some friends came over and brought some fresh hot chilies from their garden. Yea! The perfect way to spice up a dish.
There are quite a few recipes out there that mix sausage and fennel, I wanted to try that. Plus any excuse to use a kitchen gadget....in this case, the mortar and pestle. So will just add the chilies, and for good measure some fresh herbs like parsley and green onions. And pickle, it needs pickle.
Grinding up the chilies and fennel worked out much better than I anticipated. Apart from watering eyes, it worked really well with the browned sausage.I didn't taste the pickle much honestly, not sure if there just wasn't enough or if it was a dumb idea. Will try more next time.
Next Time: either more pickle, or eliminate it.
Me: 9/10
SO: 6/10 (a bit too spicy)
SSO: n/a
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| Sausage, Fennel, and Chili Pasta |
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| Some of the fresh ingredients |
Grinding up the chilies and fennel worked out much better than I anticipated. Apart from watering eyes, it worked really well with the browned sausage.I didn't taste the pickle much honestly, not sure if there just wasn't enough or if it was a dumb idea. Will try more next time.
Next Time: either more pickle, or eliminate it.
Me: 9/10
SO: 6/10 (a bit too spicy)
SSO: n/a
Sunday, 26 July 2015
Fajitas and Mexican Pasta Salad
It's summertime, hot and humid. Guests were coming over for a bbq, there would be a camp fire, marshmallows, and some fun and games with the kids. Who's not tired of hot dogs and hamburgers. Chicken is getting old, pork chops are for week nights, and ribs are a bit of a production and not for a large group. Our family idea person a.k.a. SO, thought we should do a Mexican theme with fajitas and a cold salad. Perfect!
I had also made a batch of fresh Pico de Gallo. It sounds strange, but it was a good addition to the salad. The salad was quite tasty, but just a tad dry. It wasn't really dry, but it was missing some texture. In any case, a dollop of the fresh condiment on top was a surprisingly good match. I didn't think of it at the time, but it might benefit from a bit of crunch as well, maybe crumbled tortilla chips.
The fajitas turned out particularly good. Unfortunately I didn't think to snap a picture of the fajitas, but everyone knows what they look like. The most interesting part of this whole endeavour was trying to find skirt steak. The history is quite interesting. The name is a Spanish nickname dating back to the 1930's in West Texas where the throwaway meat trimmings (including skirt steak) was given as payment to the Mexican vaqueros. In any case, skirt steak isn't all that common anymore - and there's quite a back story to the whole thing. I went to two grocery stores and neither carry it at all. So I used flank instead. In the end, I think the two most important key points are the marinade, and slicing across the grain. Well a good sear helps as well.
Next Time: will try to find skirt steak, and will try to crumble some tortilla chips on the salad
Me: 9/10
SO: 9/10
SSO: 6/10
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| Mexican Pasta Salad with Pico de Gallo |
The fajitas turned out particularly good. Unfortunately I didn't think to snap a picture of the fajitas, but everyone knows what they look like. The most interesting part of this whole endeavour was trying to find skirt steak. The history is quite interesting. The name is a Spanish nickname dating back to the 1930's in West Texas where the throwaway meat trimmings (including skirt steak) was given as payment to the Mexican vaqueros. In any case, skirt steak isn't all that common anymore - and there's quite a back story to the whole thing. I went to two grocery stores and neither carry it at all. So I used flank instead. In the end, I think the two most important key points are the marinade, and slicing across the grain. Well a good sear helps as well.
Next Time: will try to find skirt steak, and will try to crumble some tortilla chips on the salad
Me: 9/10
SO: 9/10
SSO: 6/10
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