Real Good Tacos

Lengua.  Tongue.  We've done pig.  We've done veal.  This is beef.  From Millgate.

For me, tacos de lengua are enjoyable, but definitely not my favorite.  All the times I've had them the tongue was in little chunks, kind of like this.  There's nothing wrong with that, it's just that given the choice I'll usually go with al pastor or carnitas if they're available.  So when I made these I simmered the tongue for a real long time, resulting in meat with a pulled/rillette texture.  Not by the book tacos de lengua, but it's preferable to me.

Everyone that tried these loved them.  It's like a really rich brisket taco.  And there's no funkiness--more muscle meat with no organ meat thing going on.

I loosely followed this recipe, but simmered for way longer than instructed.  I also watched this video (cute little couple right there), and this one (a little too earnest for my liking).  Toppings were onion, cilantro, and nice hecho en Mexico jarred salsa from Narrin's.

Great nose to tail eating with a super inexpensive cut of meat.  As for the grossness factor, I don't see how tongue is any grosser than any other part of the animal.  At least once the taste buds are peeled off.

Tortillas were from La Bamba Tortilleria.  I'd love to love them, but it's hard.  Starting with maseca isn't helping anyone.  Can we get some nixtamal going on?  Please?  In the meantime, they're better than what's in most grocery stores around here.

Chicken Under a Cast Iron Pan

Because I didn't have a foil covered brick handy.  Cast iron skillet on the stove with a cast iron chicken fryer weighing down the chicken from the top.  The skin over the breast shrunk back a bit on this half during cooking.  No big deal.

For the bird the back bone got cut out with decent sizzors.  Then the keel bone, wish bone, ribs, and wing to the first joint were removed (nice little tutorial here).  What was left was easily sliced in two halves and seasoned liberaly with Berbere seasoning, salt,and pepper before being cooked in lard with a bit of butter, and unpeeled garlic clove, and some thyme.  Short of 10 min skin side down under weight on the stove, then flipped and cooked until done in a 450 oven.

Potatoes sarladaise style.  Peeled, sliced, and rinsed Russets.  They got dried and cooked in lard that came about halfway up the slices until crispy.  After cooking they were seasoned with salt and a mixture of chopped thyme and garlic (not too much, as evidenced by the no trace of seasoning in the pix).  Really nice side.

Sauce is veal stock reduced in the chicken cooking pan with some more salt and a pat of butter.  Nice little gravy for the potatoes.

Pretty enjoyable meal.  Simple, rustic, and all that.  Chix from Plum Creek.

Wyngz

Hopefully that spelling isn't copyrighted.  And while that link is nice, what it addresses is pretty messed up.

Anyway, these are pretty much the same as the ones posted about here, but garnished with cilantro and enjoyed with a yogurt (Greek style)/lime juice/cilantro dipping sauce.  So easy, and so good.

One week later.

River Cottage style corned beef, French lentils, and baby bok choy.  German mustard off to the side.

There was this post.  Then a work trip.  Then a day of soaking post brine.  And in what seemed like no time at all, there was corned beef bubbling away on the stove.  Despite the kind of long cure, it was the three hours of poaching that felt like an eternity.

The sides are green lentils cooked in water, drained, and mixed with some sauteed carrot and onion, mustard, great local cider vinegar picked up at the Shaker Winter Market, and olive oil.  Also a side of baby bok choy braised for about 5 min in veal stock.  Good sub for cabbage.

Next to corn: tongue. 

And I got that mustard at Hansa Haus.  I'm really trying to look past the second world war, because that store is ridiculous.

Dayton (area) Dining

Rue Dumaine.  Classic brasserie in a strip mall.  Somehow it works, well.  Nice food, wine, and cocktails.  Picture above from their website.

Taqueria Mixteca.  Legit Mexican food.  Bathrooms located on the exterior of the restaurant.  What more can you ask for?

One Eyed Jacks.  Good beer list, on the cheap.  Pretty solid pub food.  Potentially loud music.  Not bad when stuck in Fairborn hotel land.

That's all to say, one can do worse than eating in the Dayton area.  And this didn't even include a side trip to the fabled Yellow Springs.

Sushi Bowl Sunday

 Just about a week late.  We were hard at work.  Check out the ass on the guy by the window.

Communal prep, plating, and eating table.  Non-fish ingredients included egg, daikon, carrot, cucumber, enoki mushrooms, cream cheese, avocado, sprouts, and seaweed.  Seafood was queen snapper, yellowfin tuna, and scallop.  Accoutrements included wasabi from powder, pickled ginger, Kentucky soy sauce, furikake, sriracha, and kewpie mayo.  Rice was white and brown (brown was arborio--it worked just okay) and seasoned the way sushi rice is seasoned.

Not bad on those queen snapper nigiri pieces.  Tuna could use some work.  The rolls were hit or miss, but mostly pretty good.  Note for future: use discretion with rice.  There were many rice bombs.

Mmmm . . . tamago.  Also some spicy scallop up there (scallop + kewpie + sriracha).  The scallop nigiri can use improvement--bigger scallops does not equal better sushi.

All the fish was from Kate's and we couldn't have asked for better.  Purchased on Sat, on Sun everything was still great.  The queen snapper was super mild and had good texture.  Tuna was what you'd expect.

Not pictured is a bbq eel picked up in Asiatown.  After thawing I forgot about it in the oven.  The resulting charred eel wasn't pretty, which is a shame because it smelled great and we had eel sauce and everything.  All in all, washed down with some Sapporos, these were quality super bowl eats.

And then we wait . . . .

One raw chunk of brisket from Millgate (waiting on a tongue too).

One batch of brine River Cottage style.  Only sub was 1 tbs of pink salt instead of 3 of saltpeter and some white sugar when I ran out of brown.  It takes a while to cool.  Frigid outdoor temps provide unlimited cooling space.

Tucked away in the fridge for a few days and I'll see it again soon.  I heart corned beef.

Schnitzn'

Veal schnitzel with a yogurt, mustard, lemon juice, paprika, and parsley sauce. 

The sauce was thinned with water.  It could have used a little bit more, but was fine with the tartar sauce like consistency.  Still a step up from the usual squeeze of lemon juice, although that's not bad either.

For the schintz it was veal scaloppine from Plum Creek.  The thin veal was seasoned with salt and pepper and dredged in flour, then egg, and then fresh whole wheat breadcrumbs.  They chilled for little bit and then were fried up in some lard.

Real winter fare. (and sorry for the noise in the photo--as has been said here many times, this isn't a photo blog)

A Light Winter Meal

Tilefish, parsnip, and lettuce.  Pretty simple, and pretty bright due to a bunch of olive oil and citrus.

For the tilefish it was just salt and pepper on both sides of a fillet with some coarsely ground coriander added on the flesh side.  Sauteed skin side down until the skin was crispy, then on the flesh side until it got some color.  To finish the cooking, the saute pan with the fillets still in them went into a 450 oven for a minute or two just to even everything out.  It got dressed with the clementine vinaigrette that was also used on the salad.  Nice fresh fish from Kate's.  Sustainable best as I can tell.

Parsnip puree.  Just peeled and boiled parsnips flavored with salt, pepper, and a generous amount of olive oil.  It was tempting to dairy up the parsnips while smashing them, but in the end the dairy wasn't missed.

And the standard bibb lettuce salad, here dressed with clementine segments and a vinaigrette made of honey, clementine juice, rice vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper.  The dressing was just as good on the salad as it was on the fish.

Olive oil and orange.  A bright note in an otherwise blustery winter week.

Respect the Cockles

From New Zealand.  Pretty simple prep.  Shallot sauteed in a generous pat of butter, the addition of a healthy pour of beer, and when the beer was boiling in the went the cockles and a cover went on the pan.  A little shake or two and in around 3 minutes they opened.  Every single one.

Really, really good.  Better than any clams I've ever had.  Not exactly harvested on the shores of Lake Erie, but what are you going to do?

If I had my head on straight I would have sauteed up some chorizo that's hanging in the basement along with the shallot.  Still, at around $7 a pound at Kate's, these things are hard to beat.

And the winner from that contest a few days back:

True Random Number Generator

Min: 1


Max: 13


Result: 12

Ben, that's you.  I think I have your e-mail and will be in touch.  Congratulations.

There were a lot of comments about rice cookers.  I'm not a gadget freak, but for me it was $30 well spent.  Bittman says otherwise, but, without looking for a cite, I'm pretty sure these are the most owned kitchen applicances in the world (NYT always be hatin').  The man formerly known as The Minimalist says only if you cook rice 2X a day.  I say why's it gotta be rice--this thing is good for all sorts of stuff?  And yes, the stove works.  But the stove doesn't have hot and absolutely perfect steel cut oats ready for me when I wake up.  Plus minimal cleanup polenta, no brainer rice and quinoa that can be held for hours, and who knows what else.  Definitely not absolutly necessary by any means, but there are plenty of worse ways to spend money in the kitchen.