A generous friend of mine recently gave me some beef to try, a Flannery filet tip (or tail, the narrow end of the filet). I wish I had taken a picture of the steak before cooking it; the beef had a deep red (almost burgundy) color, and evenly distributed thin lines of marbling. Even the aroma of the raw beef was rich and game-like.
I’m usually a medium-rare kinda of guy, but decided such high quality beef should not be abused. I seared it in a hot grill pan for two minutes a side, so it was just warm in the center.
What do you think? Is that too rare for you?
The flavor was amazing, if not intoxicating. A real treat. Mr. Bryan Flannery will be hearing from me soon. Damnit.
Served with split, cast iron roasted carrots and Logan Turnpike grits.
I mentioned in my recent Susis Taco Grill post that their amazing carnitas inspired me to make my own. In fact, it incited a whole Mexican feast with my brother and his wife and a few friends. We’ve spent quite a few Sunday evenings cooking at each other’s homes recently, a fun topic BG just covered well.
Our multi-course feasts are generally lengthy affairs, with too much food, and just the right amount of booze. Thomas kicked off this recent bacchanal with some chorizo and cheese stuffed, bacon wrapped (claro), grilled jalapenos.
We then moved on to grilled corn, which we dipped in crema and rolled in queso fresco. Cotija would have been preferable for this application, but queso was all that was available, or so my brother claimed.
I made a few salsas for the dinner. The pico de gallo is a simple uncooked mix of chopped tomatoes (seeds/flesh removed), jalapeno, serrano, onion, cilantro, and a splash or two of red wine vinegar.
The darker sauce is a cooked sauce of boiled whole tomato, onion, and serrano peppers, all simmered in the same pot for ten minutes or so. Then I added a handful of cilantro, some salt, then hit it with my immersion blender.
Finally the salsa verde is a tomatillo salsa, as specified in Kenji’s Serious Eats carnitas recipe. After the carnitas cook for hours and hours at a low heat, the fat is drained off and the pork liquid that remains becomes the base for the salsa. I’ve never had a “meaty” salsa, and if you didn’t know it was coming, the reticent pork flavor and creamy texture could be a little surprising, but it was really awesome.
Finally, there are the carnitas. Submerged in canola oil with orange, garlic, onion, and cinnamon, the pork was cooked at 275F for about four hours, when the pork was falling apart tender. I stored it in the fridge until that evening, when the carnitas were finished in the broiler to crisp up slightly before serving.
Served simply with corn tortillas, queso fresco, and quick pickled red onion (thin sliced with vinegar, Mexican oregano, cumin). A great meal.
I made my first visit to Tasty China since it’s been confirmed that Peter Chang is back in the kitchen. Various people on 285 Foodies have been discussing their meals over the last ten days, with very positive reports.
I started with the wontons in hot oil “soup”. I use the word soup lightly because you are not supposed to drink much of the broth. It’s horrible for you and is solely meant to provide flavor to the wontons, though this hot oil mix was lighter (making use of more stock, less oil) than in prior visits. Fuchsia Dunlop did a great blog post on the topic of Chinese food being categorized as greasy.
Of course we had the fried eggplant. Fluffy and lighter than ever, they were wonderful. Not overly ma la (hot and numbing).
One of the Peter Zhang’s blackboard specials was hot and numbing tofu skins. This cold dish was simply Sichuan peppercorns, cilantro, and these amazingly awesome thin and chewy ribbons of tofu covered in an red oil dressing. It’s like they stacked many layers of really tough tofu exterior on top of each other then cut these layers into strips which stayed together, for the most part. Very noodle like. The best part was that the tofu had obviously been prepared in a manner such that they took on a good deal of star anise and cinnamon flavor. I’m not sure if they simply soaked them or steamed them or what.
My favorite dish of the night was the fragrant duck special. Fragrant things (xiang liao) generally refers to cassia bark (similar to cinnamon), star anise, Sichuan pepper, cloves, and maybe cao guo (a dried fruit with a cardamom like flavor).
The duck itself is prepared by marinading a whole duck in these spices with some Shaoxing rice wine. The duck is steamed, cooled, then deep fried. This particular preparation was likely cut into serving pieces, then “fragrant fried” (tossed in a wok with oil to activate the spices), with a boat load of red chiles and Sichuan pepper, finally tossed with a lot of cilantro, mostly stems.
The large portion of whole duck was amazing, particulary the breast pieces – super crispy skin with a thick layer of duck fat that melted into the layer of tender duck beneath it with every bite. It wasn’t greasy, the ma la was in full effect, lots of heat from the chiles, but my mouth wasn’t on fire, partly thanks to the cooling effect from the cilantro.
It’s the best dish I’ve had at Tasty China.
