Recipe Concept: Seared Oranges with Vanilla Honey, Greek Yogurt, and Pistachios

This one came to me tonight as I was trying to fall asleep. I had been reading the NYT Dining section before bed and saw an article about "burnt oranges". I read it, but didn't pay much attention. I just remember skillet seared oranges and greek yogurt. After an hour or so, this one popped into my head. Maybe if I write it down I'll be able to fall asleep, finally.

Peel and section orange. add teaspoon of sugar and 1/2 tablespoon butter to skillet. Allow sugat to melt and brown with butter, add oranges and cook 1-2 minutes each side. The idea is to get a nice deep brown crust. Try not to blacken the butter or sugar, just deep brown. Remove oranges

Over very low heat, add 5-6 tablespoons of honey to the skillet, and the scraped seeds and empty pod of one vanilla bean. Allow to steep for 15 minutes. Remove seed pod. Add two tablespoons orange juice to thin the honey.

Plate with orange slices in a mound on top a few heaping teaspoons of Greek Yogurt. Drizzle enthusiastically with honey sauce.

Find crunchy, salty, and preferably extra green pistachios for texture, color and balance, and place them conservatively around the plate. Finish perhaps with just a sprinkle of orange zest.

Poached Pears

So short notice I found myself in need of a good poached pear recipe for a dinner party last week. After some web recipe browsing I came along this:

Poached Pears at Angela's food blog

I am an idiot and didn't think to take pictures of my own work, but I will write down some errors/issues with my execution, so if anyone else wants to try they can be wary of what might be obvious mistakes the first time around:

1. I was reading off my tiny iPhone screen, and thought the 1/2 cup of sugar was suppsoed to be 2 cups, and put in about 1.5 cups before I realized. I tried to compensate with extra lemon juice and 5 or 6 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. This ended up working quite well.

2. My friends house where the cooking was happening did not have a food processor or mixer, so I had to make whipped cream with a blender. It works, but keep an eye on it. Mine went from liquid to almost butter way faster than expected.

3. Omit the lavender if you don't have really fresh, high quality lavender available. Otherwise it just adds a weird musty flavor.

4. I reduced the poaching liquid just a little too much, it was think when it cooled on the plate, forcing people to really work to get it in each bite. My miscalculation may have been due in part to the excess sugar I mentioned above. If the amounts had been right upfront, it probably would have reduced more slowly than it did. Not a deal breaker, this was more just me being derelict in my duties for a smoke out on the stoop at a crucial point in the reduction.

5. Make sure your pears are ripe, but more importantly, if they aren't, keep the less ripe ones poaching longer. Tough pears aren't very good.

6. Finally, in regards to the original recipe, I found everything was delicious, clear, and well strained without constantly straining everything. In fact, for the reduction piece, I only strained the poaching liquid once, and that was right after the step where the original chef put in the pear cores for 5 minutes. After that I let it reduce without any particulates and it turned out just fine, Thomas Keller be damned.

This recipe really fantastically delicious. I never do dessert (one of my failings), and so I made a couple technical goofs (used to reducing stocks which are thickened by collagen, not carmelly sugar), but even my ineptitude at pastry couldn't screw what I think was a really wonderful dish. Kudos to the folks at Angela's food blog.

Recipe: Roasted Marrow: Mesclun Mix with Lemon, Cilantro, and Beef Fat Vinaigrette

I was at the local Safeway (Market St.) which I almost never buy meat at, but I was taken aback by the ginormous marrow bones they had available yesterday. I bought a pack, having been craving just that very thing.

When I got home I simply set the stove for 400F, and stood the mammoth pieces on end in a saute pan. I gave them a quick coat of olive oil and salt to flavor the delicious little scraps of meat left on the outside while they roasted.

It took about 30 minutes for them to roast completely, and once done I removed and sliced them for the salad.

For the vinaigrette I mixed 3/2 pan drippings from the roasted bones and lemon juice. A tablespoon of fresh oive oil smoothed it all out somewhat. Finally, I minced a bit of cilantro and threw it in for good measure. As pictured below, the end result was a delightful little salad. I'd order it in a restuarant in a heart beat.

Review: Rumiano Dry Monterey Jack Cheese

Monterey Jack is a working man's cheese. It's blue collar. It's how you class up tacos in middle class America when you invite other grown ups over to eat. To be fair, small dairies make some delicious local Jacks here in northern California. So when I saw "aged over 6 months" and "dry", it caught my attention. I've never heard of dry Monterey jack.

This cheese is very mild. That follows when you consider Jack's are mild cheeses to begin with. As you might expect, this cheese tastes like a stronger, more concentrated version of a jack. It's also drier (dug), but strangely not crumbly. It's almost like you'd imagine (or I would imagine) a dried out mozzarella to be like. This would be pretty good shaved over a salad I think. On it's own it's a little weak, but if you really honestly like the way Jack tastes, this will suit you fine.

Review: Cablanca Goats Milk Gouda

Figured I'd start my cheese reviews off with what I think is a real oddball: goats milk gouda. Why is that weird you ask? Well, gouda is not an uncommon cheese, and many people who would be inclined to read this blog have probably had it at one time or another. It's often smoked, but most people don't realize that gouda is not by definition smoked, it's just a common variety.

So this cheese tastes like normal, unsmoked gouda, but it also tastes like goat cheese. This is no big surprise since it's made out of goats milk. It also changes the texture to be more chevre-like. Whereas gouda feels like a slightly waxy and stretchy cheddar in consistency, this goats milk gouda is soft and less stretchy, its melts in the mouth like a regular chevre goat cheese.

I liked this cheese a lot. It didn't make my top 10 cheese list (I'm not even sure I have one), but I would buy it again. If nothing else it's a conversation piece for people interested in cheese, when served on a cheese plate. (The reason it looks so white in the picture is because it's really, bizarrely white. There isn't even a flash...)


Bought at: Market St. Safeway

Concept: Chicken Liver with Marcona Almonds and Grapes

Seared chicken livers, stuffed with a sweet grape softened in butter. marcona almond sliver speared through the grape. grape held into chicken liver with a ribbon of pancetta, also seared until crispy.

Concept: Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Ginger, Honey and Butter Icing

pumpkin rolled in the cinnamon roll with with the typical sugar/butter/cinnamon spread. Maybe the ginger comes out of the icing and gets cooked into the pumpkin fill?

Also, as a play on gingersnaps, maybe the cinnamon roll could be made with molasses and brown sugar, and maybe whole wheat flour? I am not a seasoned baker, so substituting whole wheat flour for bleached or unbleached white flour is not something I am particularly familiar with.