Graham's Gastronomy - Personal Chef for the Week – Part 2

The next day brought us to Costco, where we procured a leg of lamb. Usually, my parents buy lamb chops, but in my opinion, the mini t-bones are more trouble than they are worth. After some butchering, we had about seven small steaks ready for the grill. I played around with the flavoring, making one standard steak seasoning, one greek (I may have cheated a bit on this one using a Greek seasoning mix and oregano), one rosemary and lemon, and one Moroccan, adding cinnamon, paprika, cumin, and mustard. The lamb could be dipped in a tzatziki sauce I made from Greek yogurt and cucumber, blended in the food processor with lemon, salt, pepper, onion and garlic power, and some fresh parsley. The lamb was paired with what I like to call “silver onions.” Sweet onions, preferably Vidalia, are peeled and cut into four sections. Place a small pat of butter in the center, along with coarse salt and ground pepper, then wrap in tin foil and twist the top. Place these on the grill as it is warming up. These will be the first on and last off, they can take a while. To round out the meal, I created a watermelon gazpacho. Chunks of watermelon went for a spin in the food processor, the soupy result poured into a large salad mixing bowl. Cucumber and sweet onion were given a similar treatment. I added white balsamic, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and a bit of ground mustard to the bowl and let the flavors mingle. There was some adjusting of spices, but the soup was served cold and topped with crumbled goat cheese, providing another slight tart flavor, but also sweetness and creaminess.

The next morning, I claimed one of those seven cuts for steak and eggs. Two sunny side up eggs ran their yolk all over the lamb. Pro tip: Don’t reheat the steak in the microwave, use the same pan you cooked your eggs, but get it hot first, add the steak and a tablespoon of water and cover. This prevents it from getting leathery and preserves the char from the sear.

Saturday night I made my signature dish, cioppino. There are a lot of similar, mixed seafood in a tomato-based broth dishes out there. Cioppino comes from an Italian word “to chop” and comes from the Italian fisherman community in California (despite its name, you will never find cioppino in Italy). It’s considered a “catch of the day” kind of soup. Bouillabaisse, the French version, is comparable, but is flavored with saffron and very like French cooking, cannot “technically” be made outside the province (in the same way Boudreaux or Port can’t). Seafood chowder is another analogous dish, but unlike former two, the crustaceans in chowder have had their shell removed. Finally, zuppo de pesce (Italian, literally “soup of fish,” this one you will find in Italy) is most like cioppino, especially in that there is no prescriptive recipe.

The fishmonger at the local grocer didn’t have mussels, so we substituted crawfish. We also procured clams, shrimp, bay scallops, and tilapia (though any whitefish would have done). Starting with sautéing onion and garlic in butter, I added the diced stewed tomatoes, white wine, lemon, and fresh parsley. The shrimp went first, as they had the longest cooking time. One by one the seafood dropped in, each adding their own dimension of flavor. A Caesar salad with a homemade dressing, a recipe my mother touts as the best she has ever had, a crisp pinot grigio, and warmed sourdough bread rounded out the meal. There were no leftovers.

Thank you mom and dad, for letting me have the run of the kitchen for the week. It was a great visit and I hope to coordinate cooking when I come home for Christmas.

Graham's Gastronomy - Personal Chef for the Week Part 1

My parents, who live in Eden Prairie MN, are remodeling the master bathroom. My father, who just turned 57 and is semi-retired, enlisted my help under the guise of “teaching me a life skill” to help with the endeavor. Added to all this, I was conscripted (or maybe volunteered) to be the personal chef of my parents for the week. To me, this meant that I had control over the menu, and got to cook delicious food for a captive audience with a skillful sous chef (my mother).

The meals began Monday night, with grilled swordfish that I coated in a pineapple habanero glaze. I painted strips of zucchini and yellow squash with a combination of olive oil, A-1, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper and grilled them, turning only once to get nicely defined grill marks. I also made a chop salad with romaine lettuce, tomatoes, shredded carrots, slivered onion, cucumber, edamame, and topped with blue cheese. A citrus vinaigrette with lemon and lime juice, with just a hint of mirin to mirror the lightness of the swordfish’s marinate topped the salad. All of this was paired with a French vouvray, light, fresh, with notes of lemon and apple.

Tuesday was a dinner out at Rodizio Grille, lots of meat, and a place restaurant I have written about before.

Wednesday was a practice run for my entry for a grill off competition next week. I thawed ahi tuna, then let it marinade it in half soy sauce and half honey for ten minutes. I rolled the steaks in black and white sesame seeds and seared them on the grill (my father’s grill has an infrared back burned that lets the grill get to 600-700 degrees). The seeds burned a bit, so I may have to reconsider coating before searing. Further, the tuna could have marinated for a bit longer as the marinade flavor didn’t really come through. I paired the fish with grilled eggplant that I drizzled with the remainder of the marinade sauce. The honey caramelized and burned a bit, giving a tasty outer char. Lastly, I tossed some orange and yellow peppers in a ponzu sauce with just a little fresh ground sea salt and gave them a char on the grill as well.

Day three of my willful culinary servitude was 15/30 tiger shrimp, peeled, and marinated in pesto with a little extra salt, lemon, and olive oil and were grilled (sensing a theme yet?). I would have also grilled the asparagus that was one of the sides, but the stalks were a bit thin and I didn’t want them to burn, so they were steamed and topped with a bit of butter and truffle salt. Reminiscing to my time in Nashville, I made grits, but 1/3 of the cooking liquid was a rendered turkey dripping I found in the fridge, just asking to be used. I also added a Colby jack cheese, making the grits creamier but also providing a bright orange coloration.

I’m a sucker for leftovers. In fact, I usually cook enough to have the meal for at least lunch the next day. That said, the leftover asparagus was chopped along with some of the bone honey ham and I sautéed both of those, adding beaten egg and Dubliner cheese (my parents get it in a huge block from Cosco) and I had a delicious omelet. Paired with pineapple, mango, and toasted coconut over plain greek yogurt with some PG Tips English tea, and that’s what I call breakfast.

Nosh Out - Iftar

We are in the season of Ramadan, “the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting to commemorate the first revelation of the Quran to Muhammad according to Islamic belief.” Fasting is undertaken from sunrise to sunset, and ends with Iftar, the evening meal. Because the Islamic calendar is based on the moon, Ramadan moves around the seasons. Summer, having the longest days, means long periods of refraining from food and water. On Tuesday, that fast started at around 3am and ended at 8:37pm.

A nearby Turkish Cultural Center that often does community outreach programs. I have attended cooking classes and celebrations among other things. I recently received an email inviting me and a guest to break the fast with a local family, in their home. Needless to say, I excitedly accepted. We arrived about 30 minutes before sundown, and as the door opened, we were welcomed with smiles, open arms, and a perfume of Turkish spices. Our hostess had been cooking all afternoon, unable to consume any of the food she was preparing. We sat in the living room, making rounds of introductions and small talk. Our hosts were bright and talkative, more than I could say for myself if I hadn’t eaten since 3am the night before. As official sunset passed, we sat down to a feast. Regretfully, I didn’t write down the Turkish names of all the amazing food we had, but everything was homemade, from scratch, and delicious.

We started with a single date, a chewy and sweet way to begin the meal. A bowl of bright orange lentil soup was laid before us, earthy and mildly spiced, it was warm and pureed smooth. Upon mopping the bowl clean with bread, the array of main dishes was passed around. Green beans were sautéed with tomato, garlic, and onion, creating a rich sauce with aromatic spices, the beans soft and pliant. The chopped salad, composed of freshly cut romaine lettuce was adorned with tomato, cucumber, onion, and a bright lemon dressing, a refreshing counterpoint to the heady spices of the other dishes. My personal favorite sat prominently in the middle of the table. The clay crock contained cuts of beef, potatoes, tomato, onions, and what I think was sumac, allspice, and cumin. The meat perfectly browned and the vegetables created a broth as they cooked down. The stuffed pepper also featured meat mixed in with rice. I am used to green bell peppers, but the (what I believe to be) wax peppers were mild, not giving off the vegetative grassy notes that bell peppers can. Last, but not least, was the eggplant salad, with chunks of tomato and onion. The eggplant was roasted and the salad was served cold, all of the vegetables blending their flavors. It may have been a dressing, or a marinade, but the salad sat in a pool of slightly sour liquid, bright lemon and parsley flavors coming through.

After dinner, our gracious hostess served Turkish tea in fluted glassware. Round, thick, honey sweet cookies paired perfectly with the strong, and slightly bitter tea. The cookies, crunchy and crusty on the outside, were soft on the inside, with the bottoms slightly oozing the syrup that had topped them. In the center, a hazelnut, slightly toasted from the baking, gave the cookie a distinct crunch.

The feast was wonderful, and I cannot thank our hosts and the Turkish Cultural Center enough for opening up their homes and hearts and sharing a religious and gastronomic experience with us.

Graham's Gastronomy - Charcoal and Firework Smoke

The June semester is over, my roommate and I are finally in the new apartment and we are mostly unpacked. My kitchen gadgetry is put away and I can finally enjoy the stainless steel appliances and granite countertops that enticed me to the apartment in the first place. With the Fourth of July falling on a Saturday, everyone got Friday off. The three day weekend was a welcomed retreat from the super-packed June I had, largely accounting for the lack of blog posting recently.

As my weekends usually do, some friends and I stopped in at Pig’s Eye for happy hour. Unfortunately, because of the holiday, the bar was dead and there was no food like usual. Oh well, quick plan change, we are going to get pizza toppings and cook pizza at home (I balked at the idea of ordering cheap pizza). After we all arrived at the apartment, we did the first logical thing for a three day weekend, celebratory shot. Dough was flung about the kitchen as we topped three pizzas with variations on pineapple, ham, bacon, sausage, and extra cheese. The pies came out thin and crispy, largely thanks to a perforated pizza pan the host had. The rest of the night was full of inebriated debauchery, and yes, we all crashed there. I created a mixed drink of pineapple vodka, watermelon pucker, limeade, lemon juice and a splash of white rum. I didn’t have the presence of mind to name it at the time, but in retrospect, I think I will call it a Pimermelon Splash.

With the crazy Friday night, Saturday was more relaxed. We hit the grocery store to pick up the fixings for grilling. I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to buns on hamburgers and hot dogs. I will readily eat them bun-less if the bread isn’t something worth eating on its own. Unfortunately, we were non-plussed by the bun selection, so we ate them with knife and fork. The charcoal grill was in full swing by the time I added Worcestershire sauce, soy, liquid smoke, steak seasonings, and freshly chopped onion and garlic to the beef, formed patties, and stuffed them with sharp cheddar and blue cheese. Those went on the grill as I shredded green and purple cabbage with carrot, and added plain Greek yogurt, lemon, salt and pepper, ginger, white balsamic vinegar, diced apple, dried cranberries and golden raisins, and chopped almonds to a big mixing bowl for the slaw. I tend to stray away from pre-made coleslaw dressings as they are usually full of oils and high fructose corn syrup. We cheated a bit with the corn though. Did you know you can steam corn in the husk in the microwave? We did, peeled back the husk, and ringed the burgers in cobs of corn to give them just a little smokey flavor and a touch of char. Burgers came off medium rare and juicy and we ate on my new back patio.

Dessert was strawberry cake. A recipe a gleaned and modified from my mother, it uses a box of yellow cake mix as a base, and builds on it with sliced frozen and thawed strawberries, jello, and a topped with a glaze of butter, powdered sugar, and more strawberries, which is poured over the perforated cake as it is still warm. The cake is set to cool, but is served re-warmed with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. Very moist, not too sweet, perfect for summer.

After the meal, we hopped in the car to find fireworks, the charcoal smoke still lingering on my shirt wafted to my nose, but it was now accompanied by the heady aroma of fireworks as well. Couldn’t ask for a better Independence Day.