Err, well...

No post this week.  I didn't get a meal worth talking about until Thursday which wouldn't give me enough time to write about it, check it, think about it and what not.  On the plus side I did get two good meals in a row so I'll have one in the hopper should this happen again.

Cheeks So Good I could Kiss 'em

Wherein Mr Ullman forgot to do his usual titchy Wherein Statement 

I really love cod and halibut cheeks. 

The problem is that they are

expensive -- $20+ a pound isn't unusual or outrageous. When I do cook them it is usually to impress someone. Since they are so expensive I use a tried and true recipe. I don't experiment here.

But I got lucky the other day. A fisherman who uses our software was

significantly grateful to give me a pound of halibut cheeks. I

decided to take a half pound and see what could be done. The other

half pound is being reserved to impress someone.

I bread and fry when I cook cheeks. I use a chickpea flour. So I

decided to use different flours and breading. Since I had them around

I used TVP, oat flour, masa harina (a corn flour used to make

tortillas), and cousous.

Putting aside the choice of flours, this is how I usually cook cheeks.

I put the fish on a cookie sheet and liberally salt both sides. Then

the cheeks are dredged through the flour making sure the cheeks are

will covered.

I cook some pasta-- usually Capellini ,Capelli d'angelo or Pillus.

Heat a cast iron skillet to high. Once the skillet heats up reduce to

medium and add enough oil to cover the bottom of the skillet. Cook

the cheeks for five minutes flipping as necessary.

Take a sweet onion and cut off two fairly thin slices. Take a mild

chard, I use green chard, remove the green leaf from the white stem.

Put the chard and onions into the blender and hit the chop button.

Put the veggies in a bowl with the pasta and toss.

At this point the fish should be cooked. Reduce heat to low. Squeeze

a half a lemon over the cheeks. Add the pasta to the skillet and

squeeze the other half of the lemon on the mix. Cover and let the

mixture warm for a couple of minutes.

So what conclusions did I come to? The oat flour was great, when I

cook the rest of the cheeks for a friend I am going to do a ½ oat

flour, ½ chickpea flour mix for the breading.

The masa harina was surprising tasty but needs a sauce of some sort.

If I were going to use the cheeks as an appetizer with a white sauce

dip I would consider using the masa harina again.

The couscous was fine but not worth repeating and the TVP (Textured

Vegetable Protein – a trademarked product that is clearly in need of a

skilled marketing professional) was pointless since it didn't adhere

to the fish well.

An update:

When I cooked the rest of the halibut cheeks for a friend I managed to screw up the pasta. Rummaging through her pantry I found some basmati rice, an aromatic rice from India. This turned out to be a winner. In fact, I plan to replace the pasta with basmati rice in my tried and true recipe.

Finally, a friend of mine has a blog about weight loss, exercise and related items.  She interviewed me which was fun. 

See her blog (and the interview with me) by clicking here

Macaroni and Cheese: A dish that is usually only ok when I make it.

Wherein Mr. Ullman cooks a meal that is not on his "A" list and has to take it seriously this time

Mac and Cheese is something that I am usually not going to write about. My Mac and Cheese, like its lowlife (mine anyway) brother known as stir-fry, is not something you should mention in polite company. In my extreme youth I knew a woman that did a damn good casserole. However, my stir-fry and Mac and Cheese are made for the same reason my mother made casseroles: It is hardy, somewhat tasty and, frankly, easy.

The other day I looked into my fridge and discovered very little in the way of supper. All meat and fish was frozen. Mac and Cheese was it for want of anything else.

So not being toasty, worse from drink or tired meant taking this seriously. There were veggies of various types available, one plain and one tasty pasta, garlic of course and various spices. Two types of cheese (actually three).Macaroni and Cheese

First I started the good pasta. It takes 18 minutes to finish so it had to be started first. While I was waiting for the long pasta to cook I finely chopped up two cloves of garlic, two stalks of celery, cilantro and Italian parsley with stems.  Added some apple cider vinegar for some zestiness. I mixed them all together and placed them in a Ziploc bowl and shook vigorously.

By this time the long cooking pasta was long enough along that I added the plain pasta and continued to boil. I sat down and had a beer.

Once the beer was complete I drained the pasta and put it into a mixing bowl. I then added the mixed stuff from the Ziploc bowl and tossed. Since I still had some pine nuts around I added them. I folded in some olive oil mayo I made earlier in the week for some tuna salad. I added two squirts of a mild horseradish sauce.

The two major cheeses were a mass market cheddar and a mass market Swiss. Both are tasty but nothing to write home about. I used my cheese grater to add some cheese to the bowl, tossed, added some more cheese and tossed again. Added a bit of dried Rosemary and a bit of dried Thyme. Put in some pepper oil a friend made for me and tossed again.

I turned the oven to 350 degrees and let it heat up. I put the mixed concoction into my Pyrex, grated some more cheese on top and, after noticing that I had a small bit of goat cheese, crumbed it on top. Put it in the oven and thirty minutes later I had a very tasty supper.

Serve with nothing. However, consider replacing the noodles with a baked potato.

Knives

I recently purchased a ceramic knife. A friend was praising these to heaven and, since I needed a paring knife, went ceramic. I am a believer and this same friend got me a larger ceramic knife for Christmas. These knives are terrificly sharp and keep their edge. Put a tomato on your counter for a day or two until it is soft. A ceramic knife will still go through it like butter and you can get extremely fine slices.

Cilantro. It does not taste like soap!

Wherein Mr Ullman attempts to remove the soap slander from the leafy green while Mr Broman panders to the "soapy"  intelligentsia.

Cilantro is apparently unloved mostly. I got some with my last organic box and, as is my habit, searched the web to see how to use it. The first hit was an NYT story about how it tasted like soap. The next three hits made the same observation. A search of Recipe Cilantro wasn't much more of help. So I posted on facebook.

A friend had some suggestions. While I didn't use any of the specific recipes I did get enough clues to wing it. So this is what I did.

First, boil a good pasta. In this case I used large Orzo pasta, specificity ARHEON pasta from 100% pure semolina. It is tasty but its real charm is in its cooking instructions: “In plenty of salted and boiling water add pasta and stirring occasionally.

Boil it for 18 minutes, drain it and serve.” Be prepared to have to scrape a fair amount of it out of pan when it is time to clean up.

The next step is to toast some pine nuts. Cast iron is your friend here. Put the pine nuts in a skillet, nude, no oil. Set the burner to low, you are toasting and it real easy to burn them rather then toasting them.

Once the pine nuts are toasted add the following to the skillet in this order:

1. Shrimp
2. Finely chopped green onions
3. Some snow peas
4. Chopped cilantro.
5. A chopped red radish.
6. Garlic, smashed
7. A bit of tomato
8. The pasta.
   
   
   

Add a small amount of oil and saute briefly. Move the skillet to an unheated part of the stove and let it sit ,covered, for a couple of minutes. Add a couple of squirts of lemon juice, mix and let sit for for another minute.

Serve with a good bread

This is one of those recipes that is quite tasty but not quite good enough. Should any of my readers (including the two spam bots from the EU) improve on it please let me know. 

P.S.  I haven't a clue what is up with the "Add a small amount of oil and saute briefly" section.  Tried to fix it twice and it didn't fix. Odd.

Stuffed Chicken and Chicken Salad

Wherein Mr. Ullman discusses the limitations of a whole fowl and Mr Broman draws a zombie chicken.

Fowl lends itself well to stuffing.  If you doubt this I suggest you
think about Thanksgiving.  While I do cook myself the occasional
Cornish hen this usually means a chicken breast.

The problem with a full bird is that it is very difficult not to waste a lot of it.  While you can use it both for dinner and lunch you have to devote your week to it. I rarely want to do this  so a chicken
breast it is-- two actually since I got a good deal and purchased four.  The second two were about to get freezer burn so you get a recipe and half here – the half being lunch over the next couple of
days.

Like two weeks ago this recipe includes Italian parsley.  I really cannot get enough of this stuff. It does not include kale which might be something of a relief to my six readers (Carl, my sister, maybe my
brother's wife, two unsuccessful spammers from the EU and myself.
There is a good reason why you don't see ads here.).

Ok, lets work the veggies and greens.  I took a half of tomato, a
goodly amount of the Italian parsley leaves and a shallot clove.
Roughly chop them all individually.  Put them all in the center of
your cutting board.  Vigorously chop them into finer bits so that they
mix up well.

Take the chicken breast you are going to eat tonight and slice it
through the center as described in my first post (a la chicken book).
Sprinkle some apple cider vinegar onto both sides. Put as much of the chopped veggies into the chicken as possible.  Close the book.

Take a  Pryex dish of suitable size and put some oil (dull vegetable
oil is fine here ) on the bottom of the dish.   Add a bit more of the
cider vinegar to the oil.  Note the word bit here.  If I were a
professional I would say “to taste” and it would still be a cop out.

Put the oven on broil and let it heat up.  Put both breasts into the
Pryex and use half whatever is leftover from the stuffing and put it
on the chicken breast you didn't stuff.  Cook for 15 minutes.

When the timer calls flip the chicken breasts over sprinkle a bit more
of the cider vinegar on the top (put the rest of the leftover stuffing
on the unstuffed breast).  Cook for ten more minutes and reduce the
heat to 350 while you spend five minutes steaming the asparagus and
making the salad (at 48 roughage isn't as amusing as it was when in
college).   Serve to yourself until you learn how to properly handle
apple cider vinegar.

By the way, the residue oil, chicken broth and cider can be used for a
great gravy but we will deal with this later.

So what to do with the second chicken breast?  Chicken salad for sandwiches!

Cut the chicken breast into strips and pull it apart.  It is usually a
good idea to do this the next day after the chicken has been cooked so
it has had time dry a bit in the frig.    Get a couple kosher dills
(vlasic stackers are my favorite) and chop to a desired thickness.
Cut up so celery and carrots!  Maybe a bit of fresh shredded garlic!
Hell, throw in a some of raisins!  Put this all into a mixing bowl,
add a squirt of a mild horseradish sauce and spoon in a tasty mild
mayo and fold, stir and worry until you have the desired consistency.
If you over do it add some cabbage to bring it back.

Place in the frig at least overnight, put on bread with a bit of
lettuce.  Make fun of your co-workers who went to Subway by noting
that anyone can be a foodie at lunch.  Lunch isn't something that you
share for Christ's sake.  It is simply about making something you
like.  How hard is that?  Be smug.  Share a bite if necessary.

More then you need to know about Pryex.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrex  I offer this simply to prove that
Corning Glass was once as interesting at 3M was in the 1960's.

Btw, Every time I get a box of veggies I search for how to properly store them. I am thinking about starting a page devoted to links to proper storage.