What I would rather be doing...

This was another one of those nights.

Some friends stop by with some serious, premium-quality ingredients and a whole lot of beer.

They know I cannot resist the ingredients. I will drink, they will drink, and I will stand in the kitchen for 6 hours strait pumping out one dish after another until we are all fat and retarded.

Here is a brief photo tour of the food I threw down last night.

This is a simple seared scallop with a warm bacon/lemon dressing. The scallop is being lifted off of a pool of bacon fat by a platform of crispy bacon. Then it's topped with more bacon, lemon zest and parsley. This was basically a starter.

FOOD PORN PASTA

Perhaps you saw Eric Ripert make this pasta dish on Bourdain's "FOOD PORN" special recently. I basically tried to re-create this dish. Actually I did... I just didn't have quite as much Osetra Caviar... But we did have SOME.. and we did have uni... So this is how it went.

I started by pushing the urchin through a fine mesh strainer along with a stick of room-temp butter.

Scraping this mixture off the bottom of the strainer, I lumped it together into a bowl and put it in the fridge to cool down just a little. Meanwhile I heated a couple of tablespoons of water in a sauce pan until it was boiling. I turned the heat down and a few tablespoons at a time, whisked in the uni/butter mixture until I had a smooth emulsified sauce.

This was tossed with some noodles and parm. Seasoned with salt and pepper and plated. A portion of Osetra was placed on top of each pasta nest and the dish was done. It was not quite as saucy as Ripert's version but we called this the "economy version"... even though we agreed that this small portion could easily go for $30 in a restaurant.

Clams n' Pork

These were a couple of different kinds of clams. I know there were littlenecks but I do not remember the name of the larger brown/yellow shelled clams we had here. I did eat one of them raw and it was salty, fresh and delicious.

This was a fatty, naughty dish made from a ton of Genoa salami and sausage which were rendered until crispy and then tossed with clams which were cooked in garlic, butter and beer. This was a simple, flavorful bounty to be picked at and mopped up with a lot of crusty bread.

Much beer was consumed during the eating of this course.

Very Fresh Mackerel

We had a single whole mackerel with which I was not sure what to do at first. It was a pretty small fish and I was feeding 8 people so I decided to do a little 1-bite amuse kind of thing with it. I just portioned it into pieces like the one seen above and cooked them skin side down in grape seed oil until they were very crispy. I then added butter to the pan and basted only a little over the 'still raw' topside until it was just barely cooked. I plated these crispy little bites crispy-side up on top of a lemon and then sprinkled the entire plate with Szechuan peppercorns.

It was just one lemony bite of sexy, rare, crispy fish.

Tandoori Paste Braised Chicken

Here we have some chicken which was rubbed with tandoori paste and allowed to marinate for several hours. I then pan seared the individual pieces until the skin was crispy and the paste was charred onto the outside. I allowed this to simmer in a broth of more tandoori paste, San Marzano tomatoes and water for a couple of hours and then finished it with some cream. Simple, but good flavor combo for sure. This was yet another dish that went well with bread.

EAT THESE EYEBALLS
(we did anyway)

These guys were stuffed with garlic, ginger, lemon and lime leaves, rubbed with Tom Yum Paste and set into this very hot pan... Then thrown under the broiler and ignored until they were done.
When they came out, their little fins were standing strait up as if to say "Over here!!!.. We are done!!!... Pop our eyeballs out and eat them!!!"

So I sprinkled them with black vinegar and Sriracha and we all just stood around them pulling off pieces of the skin and meat for consumption...

The eyeball I got had a crunchy center. Not sure if I liked it. But that was a small disappointment given the glorious nature of the rest of this evening.

Let's do it again next week shall we?

Pastrami Reuben!

Pastrami Reuben with imported Swiss, Sharp Provolone, Sauerkraut and Horseradish Thousand Island.

I like to broil this open-faced until the cheese is bubbling and then add the Sauerkraut and press the two halves together for about 10 minutes between sheet pans before cutting and eating. It's hard to explain why... It's just so yummy that way.

Short Ribs 2 Ways, 2 Nights.

I recently picked up some super-large, thick cut beef short ribs from my local butcher. I knew when he was putting them on the scale that I had ordered too much but there is never a time when I can't be inspired to cook these things so I decided to split them up over 2 evenings for dinner.

This first pic is just meat and taters. I did my usual "reverse braise" for these ribs. They cooked, unseared in red wine, with mirepoix, tomatoes, anchovy paste, tomato paste, garlic and thyme for about 6 hours at 225 degrees. I typically start my braises on the stove top and put them in a low oven for the majority of the cook time. I find that oven braising is the most balanced and delicate way to get the job done.
After the meat is VERY tender and the rib bones slip effortlessly off of them, I place them in a terrine and cover them with some of the braising liquid. I let this cool in the fridge until the meat is cold all the way through. While the short ribs are cooling I strain and reduce the braising liquid. I let it cool in the fridge as well so that all of the fat in it can be easily skimmed off the top. This makes a clean, non-greasy kind of sauce that is super flavorful and thickened only by reduction.
When I am ready to serve this, I pull the cold, firm chunks of short rib from their terrine and sear the crap out of them on all 6 sides in a HOT cast iron skillet. By the time they are seared on all sides, they are warmed through, beautifully dark and crispy on the outside and tender enough to eat with a spoon. (Not that I would serve them with a spoon)... Some truffle and Pecorino mashed potatoes on the side, and I finished this plate with a generous drizzle of the reduction sauce.

(and in case you were wondering... that's a picture of Burt Reynolds on the wall in the background. A sense of humor is required to appreciate that one)

These are short rib raviolis! Easy and very tasty. I did a traditional braise for these ribs that was done almost exactly like I described above, except I seared the meat at the beginning rather than the end. I was going to shred this to make a filling for the ravs so I was not concerned with getting a nice sear on the outside just before serving. My filling was basically, shredded short rib meat, a little of the braising liquid, some satueed, chopped mushroom and a little parsnip which I allowed to cook along with the meat and then passed through a food mill. I mixed all this with a bunch of parm, fresh thyme and parsley and 1 egg. After this mixture cooled, I made raviolis out of it, and fished them in brown butter. A little arugula and grape tomato went down on the plate, then the ravs.. then the extra brown butter. The butter wilted the arugula and really tied the dish together.

Not unlike a rug.. which really ties a room together...

If ya know what I mean.

Chimichurri!

Last night's dinner was a little nod to chimichurri. It's such a simple and diverse sauce that I find works well to compliment a number of different proteins. Here we have a trio of skirt steak, lobster and squid steak.

I made the chimichurri earlier in the day so that I could use some of it as a marinade for both the beef and the squid. I just put 2 bunches of parsley into my food processor along with some garlic, shallots, basil, olive oil, lemon juice, 30 year balsamic vinegar (just a tiny bit) and red chili flake. I pulsed this until it reached the consistency you see here and seasoned it to taste with salt. Some times I make a much more oily version of this sauce but I was running low on olive oil last night so it was a little thicker.

The steak was grilled.
The squid was pan seared in cast iron and then deglazed with white wine.
The lobster was par-boiled from a live state and then satueed in butter.

We ate this with some garlic bread... also good for mopping up some of the extra sauce that we didn't use. It was all very tasty and it was kind of nice to have the variety of proteins all tied together by the same condiment.