Seared Scallops with Angel Hair Pasta

A few months ago, I had gone on my anniversay out to a French restaurant called Verjus.  I ordered their seafood dish that had scallops with pasta.  I'm normally not a fan of mixing seafood and pasta, but was really surprised at how delicious the dish was.   The overall dish seemed simple enough and found a suitable recipe.

What you'll need: (software)

• 1 cup of peas (I used frozen)
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 8 oz. angel hair pasta
• 3/4 pound scallops (remove that muscle if attached)
• 2 tbl. spoons unsalted butter
• 2 tbl. spoons water
• 1/2 cup white wine

Hardware I used:

• 3-4 quart pan to cook the pasta
• Le Creuset Frying pan (believe it or not, I can't find the link, maybe discontinued)
• Pyrex Prepware 2-Cup Measuring Cup, Clear with Red Measurements
• Measuring Spoons
• Global 8-Inch 20cm Cook's Knife

Start boiling some water with a dash of salt thrown in for the pasta. When the water is boiling, add the peas and pasta, (about 5 minutes if using fresh pasta).   Remove the pasta and peas and set aside.
Salt and Pepper the scallops  and in your other pan, melt the butter in the pan until it starts to sizzle and brown. Add the scallops and brown on both sides (about 2 minutes total).  Make sure you do not over cook the scallops!  They become tough and rubbery when you do!

Remove the scallops and put them with the pasta.  With the remaining liquid, add the wine and scrape up any bits that may have stuck to the bottom of the pan.  Let it deglaze for about a minute, then add the cream and water and add salt and pepper to taste.

Reduce the liquid for about 3 minutes more.  Remove from stove and pour over the scallops and pasta.  Bon Appetite!

Bring on the Meat ... and Metal!

Today was a great day. We had a nice visit to Chelsea's great grandmother and spent some time with my brother and sister. I can't honestly say I worked up an appetite to justify a nice steak but who needs to justify a nice homemade steak.

To save a couple of bucks I went to the local BJ's wholesale club to pick up an entire rib eye. I then went home to trim the fat and slice up 1 1/2 inch steaks and froze the unused portions.

For my steak I took one portion and kept it real simple, Meat and Metal.

Hardware:
Lodge Logic 12-Inch Pre-Seasoned Skillet
Oxo Good Grips 12-Inch Stainless-Steel Locking Tongs

Software:
 1 1/2 inch Rib Eye
SnP (Salt and Pepper)
Garlic butter (minced garlic nuked with unsalted butter)

I take the steak sprinkel it generously with salt and fresh cracked pepper and a drizzle of canola oil on each side. Let it sit out covered for an hour to get to room temperature.

Heat the cast iron skillet on your biggest burner for 5-7 minutes high. If you happen to have a cast iron grill you can use this as well.

Place steak on the pan for 4 minutes per side, rest 5 minutes and slice them up (For Medium Rare). If you want perfect grill marks place your steak and a 10 o'clock angle for 2 minutes then 2 o'clock angle for 2 minutes for nice cross hatches. Slice a dollop of garlic butter on top.

It's super important to let the steak rest for 5 minutes so once you cut into it the juices won't rush out of the meat and render your protein dry. The 5 minutes will let the internal juices settle and stay in place when you unleash the carnivore. Enjoy your meal it doesn't take a pimp to eat like one.

Yes "Masa" whateva you say.

Tonight I took it easy with a semi (probably less than semi) homemade meal. On today's menu. Store bought Ribs, Masa Bread, and Store bought Baked beans.

The recipes are listed below. I originally was going to make the ribs fresh but I took longer than expected at BJ's. I ended up buying the rack premade and started from there. I figured if I was doing ribs as the main star then I might as well make it a southern BBQ meal. I had baked beans ready to go in a can but now I feel guilty because nothing so far is homemade. Cornbread .. that' it!

I'll make cornbread! Okay its only a side but its something and that's real life cooking right? You don't always do what you set out to do. Today I got a bit lazy and cornmade was my homemade portion. Good thing Jen's baking a cake from scratch =).

So as I start on my cornbread I realize I dont have any cornmeal left. CRAP! Okay so what I do have it Masa for tamales. It's sorta the same thing but the grind size is much finer. I googled masa bread and found a great recipe.

To start on the masa bread you pre-heat the oven to 425 Degrees. You stick your Lodge Logic 12-Inch Pre-Seasoned Skillet in there with 2 Tablespoons of butter and let it melt. You then assemble the dry team, then the wet team, and pour it into the pan.

 

While the masa bread is cooking stick the ribs on a sheet pan or Pyrex baking dish to heat up. The baked beans I threw into a bowl, nuked them and voila! A semi-homemade meal!

Recipes:
Masa-Bread


Shopping List:

Masa-Cake:
1.5 Cup Tamale Masa
Butter
1 Tsp Sugar/Honey
2 Eggs
1/2 Cup Flour
1 Tsp Salt
2 Tsp Baking Powder

Take out Ribs
Canned Baked Beans

Ya need some more Iron in your diet.

So tonight I cooked a nice rib eye with roasted potatoes in duck fat and garlic broccoli. Of course I didn't take any pictures for this blog. UGH!! It did however make me think of one of my favorite tools in my kitchen, my Ironware.

 There is allot of hype these days around Aluminium and Copper but nothing has more sentimental value then my Ironware. I can tell you a story around each of my pans and the dishes I prepare with them are like none other. What I like most about Iron is that they are low maintenance, take a beating in the kitchen, and you can take them from stove top, to oven, to table top. Pros: Sturdy they will last a lifetime, even heating, temperature retention, little clean up required, versatile: Oven, Stove top and direct fire safe, gets better with age, and cheap.

Ironware falls into two categories; enameled (Le Creuset, Staub, Calphalon, Batali) and Exposed (Lodge).
I think both are great but when would you get one over the other?

Exposed Iron can cause a chemical reaction to some ingrediants and can impart of "off" taste (Tomatoes = Tinny taste) or at times discolor the ingrediant itself (Garlic = turns purplish blue). This is when you would use the enameled version. They tend to me more expensive but provide more of a non stick quality as well as allow you to use it as a server since most of them are pretty. Cons: possible chemical reaction to some ingrediants, and heavy)

You would use the exposed iron for pretty much everything else, campfires, steak, pancakes, cornbread, Hibachi style cooking, cracking heads open.  What I like about the exposed iron is that you can treat it pretty harsh and it just gets better. It can take the shock from very hot to very cold easily and clean up is minimal. Most of the time you just need to run it under hot water and scrub it without soap and dry thoroughly. As time goes on a patina will show on the iron and it will look much like the old seasoned Woks at a Chinese restaraunt. This patina makes the surface virtually non stick without all the crazy chemicals like in Teflon. You can buy most new ironware now preseasoned or you can season it yourself by heating it up in your oven at a high temperature for a few hours with a nice coat of peanut or vegetable oil.

Without a doubt my favorite cooking vessels in the kitchen are my Ironware and when Chelsea goes to school one day I can pass some of them down to her. Yeah I'll be a dorky dad.

Here is my Ironware must have list:

Happy Valentines Day!

It's valentines day and I cooked breakfast for everyone.  This was more of a creative endeavor.  I saw this in a magazine of 'things to do' and it looked simple enough.  My daugthers usually have eggs for breakfast, so this made perfect sense for valentines day. 

Seared Ahi Tuna Steaks

As with any dish, how well it tastes depends on the quality of the ingredients.  Fish is no exception, especially for this recipe.  Normally I like to buy sushi grade tuna for this type of recipe.  I was fortunate when living in London to have a Fish monger just a block away which always had amazing fish.  However, at the local supermarket, they had organic tuna on sale and it looked good.

What you'll need: (software)

• 
  
  Tuna steaks (cut 1" - 1 1/2" thick)
• Soy Sauce
• Ginger
• Scallions (I used an onion)
• Wasbai powder or paste
• Olive oil
• Potatoes
• sprig of parsley for presentation

Hardware that I used:

• 
  
  Matfer Mandoline 2000S
• 
  
  Global 7-Inch Hollow-Ground Santoku
• 
  
  Anolon Advanced 12-Inch Shallow Round Grill Pan
• 
  
  Cuisipro Silicone Locking Tongs 12 Inch, Red
• 
  
  Polder 510 Glass Candy/Deep Fry Thermometer
• 
  
  Kuhn Rikon Original 4-Inch Swiss Peeler, Blue
• 
  
  Regular 2 quart pot

 Start off by seasoning the tuna steaks with salt & pepper.  Put them aside.  Peel the skin off the potatoes.  (You could leave the skin on, but it's more about looks).  Using your mandolin, slice the potatoes

til they are paper thin (keep playing around with the adjustments til you get the right thickness).  The mandolin is such a unique tool for making julienne vegetables or waffle fries.  It's simply an amazing tool, but you need to be very careful with it!  It's very easy to lose a fingernail or get a deep gash on your fingers for the last slices.

Start heating up the oil where you're going to deep fry the potato slices.  Make sure the oil temperature gets to 350 before you add the potatoes.  If you don't have a thermometer, that's fine, just add a drop of water into the oil and if it splashes, it's hot enough. 

Put in enough slices, but don't crowd them.  You want the edges to get crispy but the centers still soft.  About 45 seconds is good.  If you leave them in too long, you end up with potato chip!  The idea behind the potatoes is to make a layer that the tuna will be resting on.

When that is done, mix about 1/2 cup of soysauce, diced onions/scallions, minced ginger, and the wasabi powder/paste together in a small bowl.  Mix well and add more wasabi to suit taste.  Put this aside.

Add about a tablespoon of olive oil to the Grill Pan and let it heat up.  Before the oil starts to smoke, add the tuna steaks and grill each side about 30 seconds.  The idea is just to sear the surface of the steaks.  You want the insides to still be raw.

For the sides, you may need to hold the steaks upright while the sides are cooking.

Next, lay out the pototates in a small semi-circle on each plate and place a tuna steak on top.  Another thing that can be done is to slice the tuna and lay the strips out.  Spoon some of the soy sauce mixture on top, then add the sprig of parsley!

Sweet Crepeness!!

Okay so as promised I'm working on a sweet crepe. Now if you still have some batter left from previous recipe that should work. It will stay good for up to 48 hours in a sealed container in the fridge. Please shake before you pour.

What you'll have to make is the chocolate sauce instead of the bechamel and banannas and caramel for the stuffing.

Ingredients (Software):

Stuffing: 3 bananas, peeled and sliced
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Sauce: 2 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted with a pat of butter

Tools (Hardware):
12 inch non stick
Silicone Spatula
For the chocolate sauce shred up the chocolate with a serrated nice and nuke it for 1 mins with a pat of butter. If you want to get all culinary you can set it on a double boiler until melted. Dude, just nuke it.

For the stuffing heat 1 teaspoon butter in skillet add bananas and brown sugar. Make sure the sugar is completely melted into a caramel. It should look and smell amazing.
 
 

 
Fold crepes however way way you want and top with the banannas and sauce. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if you want to get all gourmet.
 
 

 
Just in time for Valentines day. Hope this crepe gets you some nookie.
 

Who are you calling a Crepe?

Helllo everyone! It's been a couple of weeks for me since my initial entry. Thank god for Bernie covering my butt while I had and unexpected visit from the Stork. Yes, our baby girl Chelsea arrived a month early and completely caught me off guard. The last thing that's been on my mind has been cooking since our "bun" has come out of the "oven." However, it's been two weeks and she's finally home with us now so I've got to get back on a regular schedule which means cooking nutrious meals for my growing family. It's been a week of take out and fast food quickies. Certainly not the ideal meal.

Inspirations for meals come from practicality and flash of inspiration. I don't to make it sound so magical it really isn't. Today's "Lunch" was inspired by an DVRed episode of Everyday Food, Vol. 1 - Fast, Family-Friendly Ideas. It was a direct recipe from one of the episodes along with my recipe based on what's in the fridge. Here's what you'll need:

Tools (hardware):
All-Clad Stainless 11-Inch French Skillet
All-Clad Stainless 11-Inch Nonstick French Skillet
All-Clad Stainless 1-Quart Saucier Pan
Orka All-Purpose Silicone Spatula, Black
Shun Classic 7-Inch Santoku Knife

Ingrediants (software):

Crepe:
1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)

2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups reduced-fat (2 percent) milk
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon melted unsalted butter, plus more for skillet

Bechamel:
1 cup of any cheese you have left over diced
3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups hot milk
S n' P (Salt and Pepper)

Stuffing:
1/2 cup Any proteins you have left over. I used sliced deli ham
2 cups of any veggies you have left over. I used 1 zucchini diced, 4 mushrooms quartered, 1 scallion sliced greens for garnish and whites for stuffing, and 1/2 onion diced.
1 Clove of garlic minced
1 Tablespoon of butter or "OO" (Olive Oil)

You start with the bechamel sauce. Heat up your saucee pan with the butter and once melted stir in the flour. This is the beginning of a roux. Stir on medium heat to cook the flour for about 3 mins. Once cooked, stir in the hot milk and continue stirring until you do not see any more lumps. Now stir in the chopped cheese, smashed garlic, and "S n' P" to taste and set aside to cool.

Now for the stuffing. Heat up the olive oil or butter and garlic into your 12 inch skillet. Once the garlic becomes fragrant 3 -4 minutes start mixing in the densest ingredients first at 2 minute intervals, Onions, Zucchinni, Mushrooms then finally the ham or protein. "S n' P" to your taste and set aside.

Okay for the crepes. Mix all of the ingrediants into a bowl and stir until lump free. Be forwarned if you are new to this you might want to have a couple of practice runs at this before showing off to your friends and family. Heat up a non stick pan on medium heat with a tablespoon of butter. Pour 1/2 cup of the batter into the pan and whirl the pan until evenly coated. Once you see the sides start to brown (like a pancake) use the rubber spatula to lift and flip. The next side will only need 60 seconds to cook. Gently slide onto a plate. Work quickly.

To assemble lay your crepe on a plate and line your stuffing down the middle. Fold each side over and top with your cheese sauce. Voila! You have a crepe! Enjoy the recipe. Later this week we'll use the same crepe recipe for a sweet crepe. Until then. "Bon Soir!"