A bit of random cookery

[pecunium]

tenacious_snail and I had a party. It was a swell party, if not so heavily attended. This meant we had more than enough munchies, and no one complained of a lack of nommies.

I did some cooking.

A week, or so, ago tenacious_snail sent me a recipe. I filed it away for something to make before I leave on, The Trip and a party seemed a good reason to make something which would generate 3-4 cups of stuff.

I did deviate from the recipe; I forgot the cilantro, and added lime juice. I didn't measure the pepitas, nor did I count the tomatoes. It was, barring a complaint about it not being smooth enough, texturally, it was praised by one and all. Even the complaint wasn't about the flavor. The worry I had was the habeñero peppers, even deseeded they have some punch. It was fine. There was the lovely flavor of them (they are very sweet) but the heat was moderated by the pepitas, and it built.

I kept referring to it as, Mexican hummus.

In the course of shopping for it my food plans changed, and then again.

We had the grill. I decided I wanted a steak, but the meat at Tj's was looking sort of pekid, and I decided I wanted some retsina. Since the only peppers Tj's had were jalpeños, and I dislike the flavor of them, I needed to go somewhere else in any case, so I put the meat aside (because Draeger's, where I decided to go has a very nice butcher).

I asked for a couple of bratwurst, and then realised I could get lamb, as they have quite the selection, and I got a decently sized steak. No other interesting peppers, so I got the habeñeros, the retsina, and headed to the Menlo Park farmers' market, where the peppers were not yet in season. One grower had any, and they were cubanelles, which are tasty, and roast well, but aren't hot. I bought two, so as to roast them.

When I got home I realised I didn't need to mess with marinating the meat (I was going to dress it in lemon and oregano, dust it with salt and rub it with a bit of pepper), I could, instead, mince it, add some onions, oregano (I have a nice plant, and could use the fresh; since I don't have any dried yet), and rosemary. I could also roast one of the peppers and add that, before stuffing the other pepper with the mix.

So I took out my new knife, and gave it a spin. I'd not really tested it yet (it was a lagniappe from Henkels, for attending a training session. They wanted feedback, and to convince us what a swell knife it is), and this seemed a good test.

As easily as it went through the cukes I pickled last week (which was helped by being a french profile, which makes point work easier than a german chef, or a santoku), it sliced the lamb, and then minced it, and then turned it into lamb tartare.

I like it, but as I expected, the edge (with an included angle of 9°-12° wasn't completely happy with the wiggles required to do the mincing. A touch on one of my finer steels (I have five, from, "standard" to "satin"), and it looks pretty good, but I suspect this may be the first knife I sharpen to a slightly more dull edge than it came to me from the factory, but that's a small complaint. I'd say the total chopping time, to reduce 2 oz of meat to mush, was about 3 minutes.

I took the mix, stuffed it into the pepper, rolled it up in a long strip of foil, and set to to cook. With the remainder I made a keftide and shared that out with people. It was very good, and I am tempted to make more for myself when I deal with the rest of the lamb.

The stuffed pepper was better, and the texture of the lamb was so much better than having it ground in a machine. My only complaint was that I didn't plan this, so I got a leaner steak than this wanted (because the "lambiness" is in the fat).

Since lady_mondegreen can't eat nightshades, I may prepare something similar for her, when I am visiting, using grape leaves, or perhaps as stuffed cabbage, with a cumin and tomato sauce around them, to make up for the lack of peppers.

Comments

[mama_kestrel]

That sounds fabulous! Tomatoes are also nightshades, though. (I'm allergic to bell peppers, if less so to tomatoes, so I've had to learn.) The cumin sounds fabulous. Maybe a lemon-cumin vinaigrette? That's what I use to make tabbouleh, which I often make to go with lamb.

And having thought of it, I believe I shall go make veal in a lemon-ginger sauce. :)

And yes, this is Alisa/ Kestrels_nest

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Being (mildly) allergic to all but a tiny hint of capsicum, I shudder -- but the rest of your description sounds like swell food. And yup, hand-chopped meat is much better than machine-ground (even when I do it with a rather dull knife or cleaver).

LJ Not Happy!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

LiveJournal isn't happy with some lj user tags, so it's thrown the entry into text.

Re: LJ Not Happy!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Specifically, the "LJ User" tag should be lj user="name" - lj space user, not lj:user

Re: LJ Not Happy!

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

And it's a function of using Dreamwidth to crosspost. They take an Lj user tag, and create a DW usertag, which is only useful if the user has a DW linked account.

I actually made three edits to the post, each of which overwrote the previous, and the last time I didn't do the local edit of the lj tags for tenacious properly.

Mea Culpa.

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

Since lady_mondegreen can't eat nightshades, I may prepare something similar for her, when I am visiting, using grape leaves, or perhaps as stuffed cabbage, with a cumin and tomato sauce around them, to make up for the lack of peppers.

I'm sure you know this already - tomato is a nightshade too, so make sure you serve that sauce on the side.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

ack... I do know, and would end up not using tomatoes; but the brain has habit, and cabbage rolls take tomato sauce. I'd have stopped myself when shopping.

Hrmn... how should I sauce cabbage rolls, absent tomatoes? I think it's much more likely to become dolmas

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

That is a good question. I like the grape leaves idea, does that work sans tomato?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does.

They get lemon and oil, or a mayonnaise, or any various sorts of mildly acidic saucing.

I had a thought, immediately discarded, about the cabbage rolls, but a cream sauce doesn't work either. I shall have to ponder this.

Getting Peppers other than the ones at TJs

[billstewart.livejournal.com]

Hi, Terry - I assume you've probably found them already, but around the corner from the San Antonio Rd. TJ's are two much better places to get produce
- Milk Pail Market, which has fresh veggies, lots of cheeses, and breads - on California St. near the corner.
- Fiesta (or some name about like that) - veggies aren't quite as good, but lots of them, and also a lot of Russian, Middle Eastern, and Mexican groceries.
(Actually, even Safeway generally has better peppers than TJs, though I buy greens at TJs.)

Re: Getting Peppers other than the ones at TJs

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I know of them. I was at the Palo Alto Tj's, which has the Village Cheese House.

If you go down San Antonio a bit there is... damn I forget the name... good produce place.

Re: Getting Peppers other than the ones at TJs

[billstewart.livejournal.com]

That's right, I don't get by Embarcadero enough to remember there's a TJ's there. I also forget the name of the produce place on San Antonio near Los Altos, but it's pretty good.

Re: Getting Peppers other than the ones at TJs

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

To be fair, it only opened in November last.