French Dip

after
Originally uploaded by embem30.

So, I finally got my hands on a perfect "French Dip" sandwich, which I first discovered at Harrison Road House in East Lansing. The secret is to serve cold, rare roast beef on decent bread, along with hot jus. After sampling a few restaurants over the years, I eventually realized that I had to make it myself.  (The road house doesn't even make it that way anymore, so sad.)

The Roast

Last Sunday I roasted a Beef Tenderloin. I covered it in a mixture of rosemary, thyme, minced garlic, and olive oil, and then wrapped it in domestic prosciutto. After roasting, I deglazed the pan with a cup each of red wine and water, reduced it, and finished with a pat of butter. I served it fairly simply with some green beens sautéed with oil and shallots and a dash of rice wine vinegar.

The recipe is modified from the one in Jamie Oliver's book, "The Naked Chef Takes Off".  His calls for a porcini/butter/herb mixture between the prosciutto and the beef, but, alas, Emily is alergic to mushrooms. The roast is still good without the mushrooms, it was quick to cook and enjoyed by everyone.

The Sandwich

For the sandwiches, I chilled the leftover meat, sliced it thinly, put it some bread and dipped in reheated pan sauce.

Sun Fat

Last night we had some striped bass with Jicama and a black bean sauce. It was based on a Food & Wine recipe and turned out really well. I ended up using a single wild striped bass for the four of us, so we ended up with 4-5oz half fillets each.

I was quite impressed with Sun Fat - the staff was helpful, the fish looked great, it smelled clean. (There was a slight sea smell, but nothing overtly fishy.) I wanted one of everything there, but I'll have to pace myself.

I also went to Drewes Brothers Meats last week. Bells was turning people away, so I figured I'd try it out. The meat was decent and reasonably priced. I'd thought that they closed at 6pm, so I didn't take much time to look around. Parking is fairly easy, as there are a bunch of one hour spots a block away.

small plates

small plates
Originally uploaded by embem30.

Last sunday I did a "Small Plates" meal, to use up some babyback ribs that I bought on impulse. (I didn't have enough for the four of us, and Emily suggested small plates.)

I made the usual Orange Soy Babyback ribs (which I plated poorly), Emily made a pizza margherita (with a frozen crust from a Jamie Oliver Recipe), and I dug up Slanted Door's "Shaking Beef" recipe.

The dinner was great, and I'll definitely make the shaking beef again.

We're famous

So, it turns out that the #5 destination in CNN's top 10 seafood markets is a few blocks from my house. I'll have to check them out. (I've been a little nervous about getting meat in the neighborhood after getting some really crappy stew beef from the butcher around the corner.)

Also today, I was catching up on my geeky news feeds and saw my house (indirectly) featured on O'Reilly and Associates Blog - they had linked to an article about the the railroad that ran past our house.

Cinco de Mayo

Yesterday  I made Mexican food for Cinco de Mayo.  I made some enchiladas with Chicken and a roasted tomato/jalapeño sauce from Rick Bayless' book.  I served it with a mexican red rice, canned black beans (cheater!), and some guacamole and pico de gallo that I threw together. (Guacamole really does need to be made fresh.)

These past two weekends, I've gotten into the habit of making my own chicken broth. Last weekend, I made some with the extra parts from my coq au vin chicken, to use for the tomato/jalapeño salsa, and yesterday I made some while I was cooking the chicken - I used it for the rice and will use the leftovers for thai food tonight.  Cooking is even more enjoyable now that I have a reasonable kitchen, and it's been nice to have a bunch of people to cook for, although cooking for other people does tend to limit my experimentation a bit.

I also ordered laundry machines today, they should arrive thursday.  It'll be nice to be able to do laundry in my own place again.  Dayla is installing tile in that room (it looks great, it's done except for grout), and Doc is fixing the windows, which were falling apart.

At Niman Ranch, the cows have no feet

Funny how none of the upscale butchers in town seem to have calf's feet. (In their defense, Golden Gate Meat Market did offer to special order it for me and said it'd take a couple of days to get it.)

Why a calf's foot? I'm making Beef Burgandy today (Boeuf à la Bourguignonne). The recipe calls for it, and I figured I'd give it a try (it's just for flavor and maybe gelatin or something). A lot of classic french food derives from peasant roots and use cheaper cuts of meat. I was hoping to go a little upscale and use beef that was well cared for (free range, fed with grass, rather than fed corn and antibiotics), but I guess it wasn't meant to be.

I've actually been cooking a bit in my new kitchen. In the last week, I've made:

• Larb Gai



• Panang Chicken (with a home-made curry paste)



• Lamb chops with a fennel relish



• A Roast Chicken with Prosciutto, butter, lemon zest, and thyme stuffed under the skin
  



• Rogan Josh, Khatte chhole (sour/spicy chickpea dish), and Rice pudding

In the week or so before that:

• Fusili Carbonara



• Rigatoni con Salsiccia



• Penne in Pumpkin Sauce



• Chile Verde



• the Panang chicken again

Lots of what have become old standbys.  (The chicken and beef are new dishes, though.)  I've got a bunch of recipes I want to try, but I've got to sort through them.  I am simultaneously working on the house and trying to develop software to keep track of them and present them on the web.  (Actually, I'm doing a bunch of semantic web related stuff, but that is one aspect of it.)

My other big problem is picking a direction to head in - I have done a lot of italian in the past, and was planning on learning more mexican stuff. I got Rick Bayless' book for christmas and figured a lot of ingredients would be available in the new neighborhood.  Then, I bought a Wok, which needs to be used more (to give it a good seasoning). And, finally, I'd like to gain a mastery of french sauces.

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Like many people in San Francisco, I tend to avoid fast food and chain resturants. The tends to happen because of the density of decent resturants, health consciousness, and ego. I am however interested in restaurant-related health issues and ran into some interesting research on McDonalds' ingredients:

At a New York City McDonald's, a large fries-and-chicken-nuggets combo was found to contain 10.2 grams of trans fat, compared with 0.33 grams in Denmark and about 3 grams in Spain, Russia and the Czech Republic.

(From the Seattle Times)

Yet another reason to avoid fast food restaurants. (Also, avoid the ice. :)

The other concern of mine is high fructose corn syrup, which is suspected as a contributor to the obesity problem in the US. It only seems to be used in the US, because corn subsidies push the price down. And, apparently, the corn thing is tied to the feeding of antibiotics to cattle. (They're fed corn, they can't digest corn properly, they get sick, and the are fed antibiotics.)