Cassoulet

A few weeks ago, during some really dreary, rainy weather I decided to take a crack at a cassoulet. I chose a Thomas Keller recipe and modified it to make less cassoulet and to cook on the stovetop rather than in a slow cooker.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 2 lb. boneless pork shoulder, cut into 8 pieces and trimmed of excess fat
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• lamb meat stew chunks - I used a few you can use as much or little as you like this was me improvising
• 1 Tbs. canola oil
• 1/2 cup panko
• 2-4 oz. thick-cut bacon, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch strips
• 2 cups coarsely chopped yellow onions (about 3 medium onions)
• 1 cup dry white wine, such as Sauvignon Blanc
• 1/8 cup tomato paste
• About 1/2 can (35 oz.) peeled Italian plum tomatoes, drained and
    coarsely chopped
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 6 cups cooked Great Northern beans or other small white
    beans, drained
• 2-3 fully cooked or smoked chorizo or garlic sausage links,
    about 1 1/2 lb. total, each halved on the diagonal
• 1 garlic head, halved crosswise
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, plus more for garnish
• 1 lb. baguette, cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices
• Extra-virgin olive oil

Directions:

• Season your pork with kosher salt and pepper and set it aside.
• Heat up a thick bottomed pan or dutch oven on medium-high heat and combine the canola and panko. Toast the panko up stirring occasionally until golden. Move panko to a baking sheet and season with salt and pepper. Set this aside until later.
• Cook the bacon until crisp. Save the bacon pieces on a paper towel lined plate for later. Leave the bacon fat in the pan. (yum)
• Brown the pork and lamb pieces in batches. Transfer browned pieces to a plate for now. Take care not to let the pan get too cold by browning too much meat at once. 
• Add the onions and some kosher salt to the pan and cook until they are golden brown and soft, approx. 7 minutes. Add the wine to deglaze the pan and simmer, reducing it by about half. Stir in the tomato paste, tomatoes, and broth. Let this heat a minute or so and add the garlic, pork, lamb and chorizo to the pot.
• Skim off the fat, and remove and discard the garlic. Fold in the panko and the parsley. Adjust the seasonings with salt and pepper.
• Now you wait as it stews for at least 5 or 6 hours, maybe more. You really want the meat tender and falling apart.
• Next put a rack in the bottom 1/3 of your oven and preheat the broiler.
• Brush the slices of baguette with the olive oil and arrange them on top of your cassoulet.
• Broil for about 4-5 minutes until the bread toasts up nicely.
• Let the cassoulet stand for about 30 minutes at room temperature prior to serving. Garnish with some more of the parsley and the bacon you cooked up earlier.

Now in my opinion the chorizo didn’t fit in with the other ingredients here, most likely because I didn’t use the same quality of sausage that Chef Keller would have available to him. The spiciness of it stuck out compared to the savory flavors of the rest of the stew. Next time I’m going to try with a merguez sausage to match the other flavors a little better.

The final result of this recipe was probably the best overall dish I have ever cooked. I even ate the leftovers for a week without getting sick of it which is very rare for me. Can’t wait to make this one again.

Boeuf Bourguignon

I am FrenchAF. My father was born there, most of his family has moved back there or never left in the first place. My favorite type of food to cook is classic French food, but with my limited skills I only attempt serious French cooking every so often. A couple of weeks ago as winter was starting to show up in my area I decided to try Boeuf Bourguignon for the first time. Here’s how I did it using an Anthony Bourdain recipe that was modified a bit.

Ingredients:

my ingredients including one sloppy bouquet garni

First thing’s first season the meat with salt and pepper and brown it on high in your dutch oven or stock pot. I used a stock pot and it worked just fine. Sear the steak in small batches so that the pot and and the oil don’t cool down too much. As the meat browns set it aside on a plate.

small batches!

Once all the meat has been browned add the onions to the pot and reduce the heat and sauté until they are golden brown.  Add the flour and cook for another 5 minutes or so before adding the wine. Deglaze the pot getting all the good bits up off the bottom and bring the wine to a boil.

Return the meat to the pot and add the carrots, garlic and bouquet garni. Add enough water to cover the meat, adding enough that it will still be a nice stew consistency when it cooks down. Bring this to a boil then reduce to a simmer for about 2 hours until the meat is fork tender.

As it cooks foam might bubble up at the top, scrape this off with a spoon or ladle. Stir the stew occasionally to make sure the beef isn’t sticking to the bottom. 

Remove the bouquet garni and add the chopped parsley before serving. I served it just by itself the day I made it but the next day reheated as leftovers it was AMAZING over some egg noodles.

don’t use Beaujolais Nouveau to cook this, but do drink it with it

Steak with Mushroom Sauce

All day today I was craving a good steak dinner. Since I had some baby ‘bella mushrooms leftover from my macaroni and cheese from earlier this week I figured I’d take a crack at making a good mushroom sauce for the steak.

You’ll need:

• Mushrooms - I used about 7 baby portabellas chopped into small pieces
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 or 2 shallots, chopped
• 5 tbsp cognac or brandy
• 1 cup heavy cream or milk - I used whole milk because I already had it around
• Steak - I used a NY Strip
• Salt and Pepper - duh.

Prep the steak by letting it get to room temperature and coating it with salt and pepper on all sides. Get your mushrooms and shallots chopped and measure out your cognac and milk/cream. Melt the butter in a skillet or sauté pan and let it get good and hot but don’t let it burn or smoke too much. Pat the steak dry with a paper towel and add it to the pan. Let it get a nice sear on one side for about 3 minutes then flip it over. Cook to your preferred level of doneness then remove the steak from the pan, set it on a plate and cover it with foil.

Next prepare the sauce by throwing your shallots and mushrooms into the buttery/fatty goodness left in the pan. Sauté for a minute or 2 and then add the cognac or brandy to the pan and deglaze it, scraping all the bits of buttery steaky goodness off the pan. Keep stirring and allow the cognac to reduce until it gets nice and thick like this:

Next add about half of the milk or cream to the pan and continue to stir. I added the whole cup at once and it was a bit much and took a while to thicken up. You can probably do this recipe with just a half cup of milk and it would work out fine. Continue stirring for a few minutes until the sauce reduces and thickens up add some salt and pepper, then pour it over your steak and serve!

Finished product:

This sauce came out so tasty! The steak did sit a little bit too long as I didn’t work fast enough on the sauce and because I added too much milk it took too long to thicken up. Next time I will remedy that so my steak is hotter when I get to eating it. Now as you can see I also made some sweet potato fries with my steak but they didn’t come out as good as I’d hoped so I didn’t write them up this time. One of these days I’ll be sure to practice those again and do a write up for it.

Why I don’t cook at home

oatmeal:

Read the rest here

The Oatmeal hits the nail on the head!

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Iceland

Macaroni and Cheese

So I’ve never attempted a real mac and cheese on my own, this was my first try at the classic dish and overall it was delicious but could have been cheesier.

I Started off with this recipe
http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/how-to-make-a-bchamel-sauce-white-sauce—132035

I followed this pretty much step by step, it was easy. I had to go heavier than the recommended 3.5 tbsp of flour though since I was scooping not measuring weight and it didn’t clump up at first the way the recipe says it should.

After I had the thick béchamel done I added a block of manchego cheese grated on the big holes of a grater. The block I had was about .4 lb before I cut off the rind and grated it. Definitely could have used more in my opinion.
Also added:
about 1/3 cup grated pecorino Romano, which adds great saltiness without adding a ton of salt,
some freshly ground pepper (I used tellicherry pepper but black will work Obvs)
Tiny pinch of kosher salt (if needed)
3-4 chopped baby bella mushrooms (or more if you want)

Stirred all this in with the heat on medium then reduced to low and continued to stir while cooking the pasta. (I made 1lb of elbow macaroni)

Before you drain the pasta keep about a half cup of the pasta water. I forgot to do this but if the sauce is too pasty when you add it to the pasta this can help make it smoother/creamier again.

Drain the pasta and then return it to the pot. Add the sauce and mix it all up. Add the pasta water if it’s too thick or pasty and not creamy enough.

That’s it! Enjoy! Next time I may try to melt the manchego with the milk before adding it to the roux or just using more milk to make it creamier.

return of the son of tumblr

I am going to start this tumblr back up again, only planning to use it for food related posts. Remember how I used to suck at cooking/hate cooking as evidenced in old posts? Well I tackled that and now I love to cook! I am not the best or anything but I can make some pretty awesome stuff sometimes. I’ll document some recipes and great dishes here as well as track progress as I shoot to perfect my technique on some dishes.