wagyu fajitas

So now we've finally got a picture of the fajitas, one of our regular dishes. I saw the wagyu skirt steak at the grocery store and decided to make some fajitas with it. The marinade I use is lime juice, soy sauce, chili powder, rice wine, and a bit of sugar. I roast and slice poblanos, slice some onions, then use a stir fry method to make the fajitas.  It's not entirely traditional, but it works.

 

The Usual Suspects

I was looking through Emily's flickr images and thought I'd throw together an overview of the dishes that are currently in our regular rotation.

Fusilli Carbonara

Our Fusilli Carbonara comes from the book Italian Easy. Their recipe substitutes fusilli for the traditional spaghetti and prosciutto for the traditional guanciale or pancetta. The smaller pasta is easier to eat and the sauce sticks to it nicely. Recently, we've been using Boccalone pancetta in lieu of the prosciutto.

Chile Verde

We usually serve Chile Verde when we have company, especially for mexican-themed holidays. It's a pork chili with tomatillos and roasted poblanos. It started as my attempt to reproduce a dish from a mexican restaurant in Vegas.  I've posted a version of the recipe is posted on recipezaar.

Chicken Roulade

The chicken roulade is a Gordon Ramsay recipe that I adapted to our tastes. It is a boned out chicken leg and thigh wrapped with prosciutto and stuffed with sausage, currants, and shallots. I serve it with a cheesy risotto. It's a regular dish, but I'm still tweaking the sauce.

Onglet Bordelaise

Steak Frites is another regular at our house. We make it almost weekly. The recipe is loosely based on the steak frites in the book Bouchon. My changes are to make the sauce à la minute, scale back on the butter a little, and add some more shallots. I like to use onglet for this, but occasionally use skirt steak. (The original called for bavette.)

Sushi

We have sushi at home once a week. Typically it's salmon rolls and sashimi, california rolls, and oysters. I'm still looking for a good source for sushi quality hamachi nearby.

Pizza Margherita

We usually have pizza margherita for lunch on the weekends.  We have a couple of basil plants that we harvest and use a local buffalo milk mozzarella. It's much better in the summer, when the tomatoes are in season, but I have a source for local hot-house tomatoes in the off season. 

Rigatoni con Salsiccia

A few years ago, I found the recipe for rigatoni with sausage in Tastes of Italia magazine, and it's been in our regular rotation since. The rigatoni is served with arugula and a simple sauce of tomatoes, garlic, sausage, and balsamic vinegar. (I don't have an Emily photo of this, so I included an old one that I took in Vegas.)

Steak Fajitas

Steak Fajitas is another regular dish, but we don't have photos of it.  I typically use skirt steak, marinated with lime, soy, chili powder, and some sake or sugar water. I stir fry it with onions, roasted poblanos, and serve with tortillas,  black beans, and crema.

Pumpkin Penne

The pumpkin penne recipe originally came from Rachael Ray. It's penne served with a sausage and pumpkin sauce. We've had bad luck with Rachael's recipes in the past, but we like this one.

Lemongrass Sea Bass

A couple of weeks ago I made a Joël Robuchon recipe that I've had on my to-do list for well over a year.   The recipe originally caught my attention because of the amount of lemongrass involved. I halved the recipe, so about 5 stalks went into it. 

I sautéed striped bass in lemongrass oil and served it with a lemongrass cream sauce, roasted tomatoes, blanched green garlic, and fried, julienned leeks. (I substituted green garlic for scallions because I had some on hand.)

It turned out well, we'll definitely make it again. The sauce was very good, the lemongrass came through nicely. I also liked this method for cooking tomatoes, quartered and baked with some olive oil and herbs.  They were sweet and had a nice, concentrated tomato flavor. I made them again the next day to serve with a roasted game hen and potatoes.

Bacon-wrapped Salmon

On monday we had bacon-wrapped salmon. We used a recipe that Chef Daniel Boulud presented on an episode of Martha Stewart's show. It was accompanied with a red wine sauce and celeriac purée.

The celeriac was cooked in milk with some thyme and garlic and mashed with some of the cooking liquid and some browned butter. It turned out well, although I might up the butter a little bit. (Or at least add some more milk solids to the butter before browning it.)  I left out the salsify because I couldn't find any. 

I considered not making the red wine sauce. I wasn't sure how well it'd go with the salmon, but Emily suggested I give the recipe a try as-is. It worked out well, although I wish I had reduced it bit more and left the shallots in the sauce. (I didn't read the recipe carefully enough and strained them out.) It's somewhat hard to see the sauce in the photo - I think it would have photographed better on a white plate, but my corelware plates don't have the thermal mass to keep the fish warm.  (We put some nicer plates on our wedding registry.)

Because the bacon was doubled on one side of the fish, the inside layer didn't crisp up to my liking, and I think the thickness kept the salmon from browning on the end.  I will make sure the doubled bacon is not on the presentation side next time.