Carnage du Jour - 24 July 2014

This time I don't have to share credit with my normal flavour consultant.

Christian was over for dinner, and there were steaks in the fridge, so it only made sense to fire up the Weber and cook them.

As sides we had a mess of kale (fresh from the garden!) with bacon, shallots, and a few peppers, and then a nice pot of yellow rice with some caramelized onions.Both sides were excellent.
 
As to the steaks, they were nice thick strip steaks, so while the coals settled in, it gave them a nice dose of salt and pepper, seasoning the second side as the steaks hit the grill seasoned side down.
I'm not sure whence the inspiration, but I was thinking about oranges and lemons as they cooked. Well, there were a couple nice lemons in the basked, so I got my microplane and as the steaks finished up on the second side, that nicely seared first side received a dose of lemon zest. It smelled great, and the zest seemed to melt into the juices collecting on the steaks, so they didn't really look very different from any other steak.

However -
Both Heidi and Christian are likely to add some steak sauce when enjoying a steak, but both tasted first and then totally refrained - the steak needed no enhancement.

I still think I'd like to try this with orange zest, but the lemon was so delicious that I can heartily recommend this to any and all.

Enjoy!

Carnage du Jour - 23 Feb 2013

Chicken breasts. What to do with chicken breasts. Again.

Lemon chicken is pretty much always a winner ... aha! let's grab some artichoke hearts and capers and lemon ... chicken piccata sounds like a plan.

Oh. There are no artichokes. Ah, but there are fire roasted green chilis. Time for a modification.

Into a bit of cornmeal, I added the zest of a lemon and a teaspoon or so of minced garlic. That's going to become a crust, and some diced onion is needed as well.

One side of each breast got smeared with the lemon crusting, and into a pan of fairly hot canola oil they went. Once they were well browned on that side, and the crust wasn't going to stick to the pan, they got flipped, the onions added, and the juice of the zested lemon was squeezed in around the meat. A nice pour of Vermouth Bianco and a lid made for a nice, juicy piece of meat.

While the chicken finished, some chopped spinach was added to leftover rice as the side, and it all came together in a very tasty dish.

Give it a shot - it's not hard, and it's delicious.

Carnage du Jour - 19 August 2012

Hmm.
Grapes are on sale.
That makes me think that I should get a pork roast and do a rotisserie Rôti de Porc Véronique. And so I shall, or rather, so I did.

The roast (a rolled loin roast) first got my usual seasoning mix of beau monde, white pepper, and nutmeg, then it was loaded on the spit into the rotisserie.
Some vermouth bianco was put in the dripping pan, to mix with the juices coming from the roasting meat.
I also took a lemon, halved it, and put the juice all over the roast - cutting one half of the juiced carcass into quarters and placing them in the pan with the vermouth, and the other half getting impaled on the spit to release whatever it had left onto the top of the pork.

Oh, that's right, I hadn't mentioned that it's a vertical rotisserie, had I? Sorry about that.

At any rate, it was now time for the grapes. They were nice red seedless grapes, and after tossing a bunch in that drip pan, I also surrounded the top of the pork with more grapes.
Then it was simply plug it in and let it go for the recommended time (written on the side of the machine!) with the occasional stoppage for a bit of basting.

The lemon and pork and grapes and vermouth melded together into a wonderful sauce that wasn't actually necessary for flavour or moistness, but was welcome for both nonetheless.

"Was it good?" you ask.
A triumph, quite frankly. Highly recommended.