Out my back window

Anyhow, last night for dinner I made a simple avocado and smoked salmon dish.  There are two ways you can go about this.  I’d been reading a few online recipes where people baked their avocados with either bacon or eggs, and decided, well, I had smoked salmon, let’s try that.

But first, I’ll talk about the raw version, as that’s the one I photographed.

1 avocado (per person)  Or, if you use this as an appetizer, one half avo per person, and then this serves two…
1 ounce or so, smoked salmon (you can get really good quality, reasonably priced, wild-caught smoked salmon at Costco, or BJ’s)
1 or two slices of lime (or lemon, but I prefer lime with avocado)
Fresh dill
2 generous teaspoons rinsed capers
Fresh cilantro, optionally

Cut your avocado in half — basically run your sharp knife around the rim of the pit when you cut, then pull it apart, and remove the pit from the side that has it.

Squeeze lime (or lemon) juice on the avocado.  This will keep it from browning as fast, but frankly I wasn’t going to be waiting around for it to brown, before consuming.  However, I do like the tart flavor as a complement to the smoothness of the fruit.

Put in a layer of smoked salmon.  Add some dill, then some capers.

Then, top the whole thing with a layer of more salmon, and for a garnish, add a little cilantro  if you have (and like) it.

The finished treat, ready to eat! Grab a spoon and dig in.

Okay, that’s simple.  For baking the avocado, an experiment I tried earlier in the week, (and something that is essential if you say, want to cook an egg at the same time), I preheated the oven to 425 F.  I assembled the avocado the same, with the addition of a very thinly sliced piece of butter atop each side, to melt into this without things drying out. With this preparation, I baked the avocado for about 12-15 minutes (an egg would take longer).  Oh, and yes, in this case add any cilantro to the top after it comes out of the oven.

Both methods were very good, and I guess I’ve crossed off cooked avocado from my bucket list.   I can imagine that an avocado that turned out to be under ripe could become more palatable by baking it, but I haven’t tried doing that yet.

Have a happy Spring day!

]]> http://goatsandgreens.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/avocado-smoked-salmon-capers/feed/ 0 goatsandgreens Out my back window Avocado, Smoked Salmon Avocado, Smoked Salmon Avocado, Smoked Salmon, Capers http://goatsandgreens.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/poached-egg-mushroom-eggplant/ http://goatsandgreens.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/poached-egg-mushroom-eggplant/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 11:01:20 +0000 goatsandgreens http://goatsandgreens.wordpress.com/?p=3057 Continue reading →]]> The banana and the salmon slices need no introduction.  I do freeze my salmon for a minimum of three days before turning it into sashimi, as here.

The Poached Egg On Mushroom Cap with Stuffing, follows.  (Scale up to as many eggs as desired)

1 farmer’s market egg, shelled and held in reserve (yolk intact)
1 large portabella mushroom, de-stemmed
1/4 teaspoon olive oil
Eggplant mushroom stuffing, a tablespoon or two, depending on the size of your base portabello mushroom cap. 

The recipe for the eggplant mushroom stuffing is found:  HERE.  My previous recipe.

Pre-heat oven to 350 F.

Rub the outer area of the mushroom cap with olive oil, allowing a little into the center of the cap.  Place your eggplant mushroom stuffing in a general ring around that target center, as depicted below:

Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, prep and arrange any cold items of your meal, and when your mushroom cap is five or so minutes from being done, bring a pot of water almost to a boil.  Bubbles will be forming, but it won’t be boiling.  (You don’t need a great water depth in your pot — a good two inches will do fine.)  Some people add a dollop of vinegar to this water, to keep the egg whites more “together”, but I haven’t noticed significant difference.  Slide in your egg(s), and reduce heat to where it stays at a gentle simmer.

After two and a half minutes for a large egg, your poached egg should be ready (solid whites and a mostly liquid yolk).  Using a slotted spoon, gently transfer to a paper towel, to drain water. Remove your mushroom cap from the oven if you’ve not done so already, and gently edge your poached egg into its container.  Sprinkle with ground pepper and/or salt if desired.  Thin sliced pieces of scallion could serve as a great garnish for both this and the raw fish.  (I simply didn’t have any.)

And, breakfast is served!!!

Dinner this past Saturday night

This I consider a “weekend dish” as there are too many steps involved for a weekday night.

Eggplant:  One medium/small.  You won’t be stuffing with the whole thing (it would NEVER fit!), but stuffing is also excellent served on the side.

Someone told me there’s now GM eggplant, so I chose organic

Quail:  Two.  Partially de-boned (preferably by your butcher or your supplier.  I think if I de-boned mine myself, there wouldn’t be anything left!)

Garlic: about half a head.  Remove outer skin and cut off tips, and roast with the eggplant, see below.

Small tomato or kumato, diced.

1  half teaspoon each:  Ground pepper, ground cumin, ground coriander.  (I eyeballed these amounts).

Optional:  A little cheese, Fontina or similar.  

How to:  Remove ends on your eggplant, slice into 1/3 – 1/2 inch slices, put into a pan containing  cold water with salt and the juice from either a whole lime or half a lemon, weigh the slices down with a bowl or something, let soak for 30 minutes.  This keeps the eggplant sort of whitish, and draws out any bitterness.  (If you use Asian eggplants, you don’t need to worry about bitterness, and in that case, go leave out the salt, or at least most of the salt.)

Meanwhile:  Pre-heat your oven to 375 F.

Meanwhile:  Put your quail into a bowl and drop in about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and a tablespoon of coconut aminos (or a quality tamari/soy sauce, if you’d prefer.  This is QUAIL, I am going the extra mile…) .  Put back in the fridge to marinate.  Turn it occasionally.

Butcher-deboned quail. No WAY am I doing that!  Note:  Quail are quite small!

Meanwhile:  soak two wooden skewers in water.  I’m figuring this is going to be the best way to hold stuffing together inside a bird.  You don’t want wood catching fire.

When the eggplant has finished soaking, rinse quickly, then layer, wrap in foil, with garlic as mentioned above, and ground pepper and yes, the olive oil.  Mix with your hands before wrapping.  Place in oven for 40-45 minutes.  Keep the layers small, no more than two across.  Otherwise you will be here forever.  When done pull out of oven and allow to cool down to where you can handle them with your fingers.  Scoot roasted garlic cloves out of their shell, and remove skin from eggplant, especially if they are the regular English ones — Asian eggplants have thinner, and actually-tasty skin.  (You could have removed skin earlier, but it falls off fairly nicely now…)

Happily roasted eggplant

Turn heat in oven down to 350 F.

In a skillet, while eggplants and garlic are cooling:  Take mushrooms – you can use anything you like but I used a mix of portobello and shiitake.  Slice thin, then dice.  Saute with your preferred choice of oil or butter.  Add in one small tomato, chopped up – I used a kumato, which are a special brown tomato currently on sale locally around here.

Then:  Chop and or mash after the above skin removal, add to skillet with the mushrooms.  Add ground pepper, ground cumin, ground coriander, and mix on low heat for about five-ten minutes.

Bring out your quail and stuff them with the hot eggplant mix, using the skewer sticks – break them in half – to hold the flaps of bird together.  Place in the 350 degree oven and allow cook for 25-30 minutes.   If desired, for the last five minutes, add a slice of cheese over each stuffed breast.   Keep the leftover stuffing warm at a slow simmer, or alternatively, reserve some of it for future meals, as you will notice in my next post.

Serve hot, with a salad of your choice, more of the stuffing, and perhaps a dry white wine.  You’ll need to eat these using your fingers.  Very tender and flavorful.

Anyhow, in honor of our great spring weather in these parts, I decided to cook a meal using a lot of favorite ingredients, and came up with slow-cooked lamb shank with onions, fennel and shiitake mushrooms.

Tender and tasty

So.. here we go!  Serves two.  Add an additional lamb shank for one or two more servings, in which case five cups of water and 1/2 cup of balsamic (and all other ingredients doubled) will do fine.

1 lamb shank (about 1.5 lb)
1 large onion, peeled and cut in half
3 ounces shiitake mushrooms, remove stems (actually, I would on second thought, add MORE shiitake.  Six ounces sounds great!  …maybe more??
1/2 leek bulb (I also threw in the thickest of the stalks here)
1/2 heaping teaspoon fennel seeds
1/2 heaping teaspoons of peppercorns
1/2 heaping teaspoon of rosemary leaves (fresh would be best)
3 cups water (or so)
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

In the crock pot and ready to roll

Add all of the above to your crock pot, set on low, for 5.5 hours.  (I didn’t measure the above, but those amounts is what it looked like.)

After the above cooks:

Five and a half hours of slow cooking.

Now, add:

Ground pepper and salt to taste
Some fennel stalks and leaves, roughly chopped

Toss in a few things into this merry mix!

Allow to slow cook another 30 minutes, and serve.  The meat is tender, and falls off the bone.  Reserve the liquids and chill in refrigerator.  Once chilled, remove the fat layer and you have a nice seasoned broth of lamb (and shiitake flavorings, if you put in more than I did.), and I will leave the uses of that to your imagination.  The vinegar in the pot will have helped leach out nutrients, and if you have marrow, don’t forget to enjoy it.

This was excellent, but as noted, I’d do MORE shiitake next go round.  It was that half-container of what was available here.  Another worthy option would be fresh garlic, diced, to add for that last half hour of slow cookery.

And there’s more for tomorrow!

I am totally stunned by this egg that did not spew its innards all over the pot,  despite the severe eggshell crazing.  I am attributing this to the fact that it shattered its shell late in the boiling process.

How I keep eggs with weak shells from doing too much spewing-forth while cooking:  I add about a teaspoon of salt to the pot.  I start the eggs and the salt off at room temp, and the salt helps balance out the osmotic pressure, so a

Eggs, just pulled off the burner, with the cracked one happily intact

weak-shelled egg normally will not explode its guts into the water.  (A severely weak-shelled one will still do so, but not to the same extent as if there were just unsalted water in there.  THIS egg appears eggceptional!)  I  think it is simply because the shell that weakened let its cracks happen later on in the cooking process.

Anyhow… salt you add to the pot to help the eggs survive the boiling process will not flavor the eggs.

Note:  for hard-cooked eggs:  place in room temp water, bring to boil, reduce heat to medium high for about ten minutes, remove from range and rinse in COLD tap water.  I’ve never made eggs with “green” rims this way.

Good soft boiled eggs (whites solid but yolks liquid) will depend on the size of your eggs, how fast your water heats and stuff like that.  Experiment, and make sure you use some kitchen utensil to move the eggs around so that the yolk just doesn’t stick to a side somewhere.

A few days ago I suddenly felt in the spirit of the wearing of the green, and I figured, since I have a brisket in my freezer, perhaps making corned beef and cabbage would be appropriate.  Mind you, I’ve a distant past of wearing orange on the day, but my rebellious youth has mellowed out into a finer appreciation of things.   (Although right now I am wearing blue jeans and a black t-shirt.)

I’ve never had trouble going Mexican for Cinque de Mayo, but I guess I drew the line at Irish food — what I considered to be overcooked vegetables (when present) along with boiled meats, and too many tasteless and starchy potatoes.

But I’ve always loved cabbage, and I wanted to try my hand at making corned beef.  I reflected that I have indeed eaten great corned beef and cabbage, so I figured I’d start from scratch — ie, corning the beef myself.

So after a quick surf of the web, I learned:  the brisket needs to sit in its brine for 5 to 10 days.  That was going to put me post-St. Patrick’s day, so I figure I’ll reserve the brisket for some time when I want to corn it for Reuben sandwiches.

I considered going to a fairly reliable market and buying some previously corned beef, but I do try in my personal purchases to avoid feedlot beef, and besides I’m sure the stuff would have had more sugar (among other things) in the brine than I would have done.

Okay, corned beef and cabbage, minus the corn.  One good thing: the cooking time is far less.

The below recipe is vegetarian but not vegan, as it contains butter.

Cabbage for St.  Paddy’s Day (for two)

1/2-3/4 onion, chopped.  (I used red, simply because the red one was telling me I had to eat it SOON, but yellow would be more traditional)
1 small potato (or large if you wish), scrubbed, bad spots picked out, but skin on, cut into rough chunks.  (I used Yukon gold, because I like them, but red potatoes appear to be traditional)
About 20 ounces shredded cabbage (two bags from Trader Joe’s).
1.5 teaspoon butter
2-3 bay leaves
Peppercorns (in lieu of not being able to find my peppercorns — seems everyone is selling peppercorns inside of grinders these days, will have to rectify this! — I used a pickling spice mix that includes peppercorns)
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
A generous teaspoonful of sea salt (to make up for not having the corned beef in there)

Saute the onion in butter in a pan that can double as the thing you cook the rest of the meal in.  (Why dirty extra pans?)  Get the onion translucent, mildly browned.  Remove onion to a small dish and reserve.  Don’t worry about any residual butter.

Add potatoes and cover them with water, bring to a boil, along with peppercorns and bay leaf and salt.

Reduce heat and simmer for about 15-20 minutes, or until potatoes just begin to get soft.

Add everything else.   Simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes.  If you use larger chunks of cabbage that you chopped up yourself you may need to cook longer, but for packaged shredded, don’t do this.

Drain off excess liquids, remove bay leaf, and serve.  I like a little Dijon-style mustard with my cabbage but that’s not necessary.  Alternatively, you can garnish with fresh parsley (which I wish I had for the photo), or add some butter.  I did, however, reserve the drained-off liquids for some as of yet unspecified dish.  (Maybe I’ll simply just drink it???  It’s that good.)

If you do cook this with corned beef, you can reduce or eliminate the salt.

A couple of sites of interest:  

http://www.food.com/recipe/n-y-c-corned-beef-and-cabbage-15846 – this one does a great job telling you how to shop for the right ingredients (perhaps a little overkill) but at the end discusses some of the symbology of the meal for those who are curious why one shouldn’t serve a pile of carrots on St. Paddy’s day (if one is Irish).

http://blog.junbelen.com/2010/03/15/how-to-make-corned-beef-brisket-nitrate-free-at-home/ – Apparently, a great recipe for corning beef brisket, for those who celebrate the day on a different calendar (or who are planning for next year).  It is also nitrate-free.  I will let you know when I actually try it.

The rub actually is very simple and basic, and would probably go well with flank steak or other steaks of that ilk.  (Flat iron, hangar, flap…)  Not everything needs to be complicated.

Skirt Steak

For the rub:

1 heaping tablespoon chili powder.  I used medium heat, but your miles may vary.
1 teaspoon cracked ground pepper.  I used Trader Joe’s Rainbow Peppercorn, currently my favorite.
1/2 teaspoon salt.  I used Himalayan pink salt, and I also used about a teaspoon, but frankly that turned out to be a lil too much.

For the rest of it:

0.75 pounds skirt steak, approximately.
2 fresh Roma tomatoes, in segments.
4 ounces button mushrooms, sliced.
2 cloves garlic, slivered
Maybe a tablespoon or such of toasted sesame oil (or whatever your favorite is, but I wanted that sesame flavor)

Skirt Steak Prep with Rub

I rinsed, then cut the piece of meat into about six sections, ran it through the rub, and let sit with the rub for about an hour.  Going longer is likely even better.  (It was after work, and I was hungry…)

Put the oil in the skillet, heat the skillet to a medium-medium high, and add the mushrooms, then the tomatoes.  Using a spatula, run them around together for a while, and when the mushrooms are getting a little moist-looking on both sides, add the meat and garlic.  Keep up the spatula action as needed.  If needed, reduce heat a little.

Skirt steak gets tough when overcooked.  I stop at medium rare.  This is likely going to be around five minutes, maybe even less.  Peoples’ ranges differ, and there is not really any good temperature terminology for range-top cookery.  If in doubt, remove a piece while cooking and slice it.

This would be a meal for two.  After taking the finished photo, I cut the large chunks of meat against the grain into thin slivers (for increased tenderness) , and this was indeed a taste treat.  This cut of meat is embodied with a lot of happy flavor.

Serve with a tossed salad comprising a variety of colors.

I eat eggs regularly, and ever since I’ve done grain reduction my blood-work has simply just improved.  Triglycerides are low as is LDL, with the HDL nicely up there, making for a nice ratio.  (Cholesterol itself is about normal, or the high-end of what is listed as being normal, but there seems to be some growing awareness that cholesterol is not the problem.)

I would suggest buying pastured eggs as much as possible, locally.  I’ve seen prices per dozen range from $2.50 to $5.50, which can seem a lot, but for those who do the fast food drive-by for their eggs, or rely on short order cooks at diners and the like — you still save.  And if you look into the practices of your individual local farmers, you can choose from really healthy, nutritionally sound eggs.  Do they get to go outside and perhaps eat some worms or bugs, along with some grass or weeds?  (“Always vegetarian fed” is okay if you can’t find ones that get a little protein on their own, but the latter is preferable.  I do look for “certified humanely raised” if in a pinch in the supermarket.)

Baked eggs with kale, broccolini and goat cheese

Anyhow, I decided to increase my breakfast egg repetoire.

Baked Eggs

2 large chicken eggs per person
Broccolini tips, chopped
Baby kale, or other cookable leafy green, chopped
Goat cheese
A little oil (for greasing muffin tins)
A dash of hot sauce (optional)

For the above veggies, I did not need to pre-cook them.  If you are using the whole stalk of broccolini, or older kale leaves, you may want to blanch to soften them further than they will soften while cooking.

Pre-heat oven to 325 F

Lightly oil the spaces on the muffin pan you plan to use.

Mix the veggies together.    Press into each muffin hole you plan to use, compressing them so that they fill just about over half the size of a  hole.  Indent in the middle.

Break an egg into a small bowl, one by one.  Once you have an egg in a bowl (and its yolk did not break) slide it on top of each pile of veggies, centering the egg yolk as much as possible.  Repeat process until done, reserving broken-yolked eggs for something else.

Add goat cheese, perhaps a tablespoon  for each baked egg, around the outside of the yolk.  (Here you can use the cheese to rectify any stubborn yolks that have rolled over to touch the edges of the muffin hole.)

Top with a dash of hot sauce if you wish, or a little cracked pepper.

Bake for 15-20 minutes in the pre-heated oven.  Eggs will come out soft-ish, but not runny.

Poached Poultry Hearts and Kale

A side, or perhaps, with a cup of coffee or tea, a breakfast.

One of the poultry breeders around here sells ducks, quail, and chickens, from whom I occasionally buy a duck or something. They’re GOOD (that’s where the duck came from I’ve written about before).

He knows I use the entire bird with the exception of the quack, so he handed me a bag, no charge, of leftover hearts, livers and necks (from both ducks and chickens, but mostly chicken).

The livers I am freezing to accumulate for a future pate, and the necks were frozen to add to the pot when I render down the carcass from the duck itself. The hearts I simply poached this morning for breakfast, along with kale.

Growing up, the parents would buy whole chickens, and the giblets would always be inside, and they would always cook them along with the rest of the bird. I wasn’t too eager for the liver then, but I’d nail the heart every time I could. I didn’t mind the gizzard, either, but the heart made my own soar. Nowadays in the supermarket, everyone seems to buy “parts”, and boneless “parts” at that, so that when you do see a whole chicken, seldom are there any giblets inside. I guess they all become pet food or something.

The recipe is easy — the below serves one person as a side:

6 Poultry hearts (chicken or duck) — six is what he gave me. 12 would have made a second side…
1.5 ounces kale, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, roughly chopped
salt and ground pepper to taste

Set the hearts into water, you don’t need to fill the pot especially if you wish to concentrate the flavors in the liquid and perhaps reserve for your future duck stock-making venture. Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to a rapid simmer — medium hot — and allow to cook about 15 minutes, turning the hearts occasionally if the water isn’t covering them.

Then, drop the garlic and the kale in, stirring to wilt down the kale.

Cook another 3-4 minutes, and either retrieve everything with a slotted spoon, or drain through a sieve.

Serve and enjoy.

Frankly, if you think you are intimidated by the heart, give it a test drive anyway. It’s a good solid muscle meat, and from a healthy animal, it is definitely nutritious.

And if you luck into turkey or goose hearts — just cook them longer (or better yet, cut them in half).

Another option is to poach them in a nutritious broth (veggie or chicken) instead of water.

It is a large fish, so it is a mercury accumulator, so do keep that in mind.  Also, once it is caught, its flesh turns rapidly into production of ammonia (as does shark and a couple other fishes I can think of).  So cook the day you buy, and make sure you buy it FRESH or don’t bother.

Swordfish with pear, cucumber, onion topping

The main focus of this recipe is the topping, and that it interplayed nicely with the fish. It turned out well, I think.

And so, the recipe below would work with a variety of other firm or solid-fleshed fishes, I think.  Cod, for instance.  Probably even shark, although I am so turned off from bad ammonia experiences with shark that I am unlikely to buy that ever again.

Thinking of the fruit in this, I was reminded of chutney, and so I dipped into my Indian spices to supplement the topping for the fish.  This isn’t exactly going to be a chutney, but I bow my head in that direction.

Three or four servings, depending on your sides.  (May I suggest steamed broccolini?)

For the fish:

Extremely fresh swordfish, the star of the show. (Does anyone eat this as sashimi???)

Approximately 1 pound swordfish (or other)
1 tablespoon or so of either:  coconut aminos, soy aminos or soy sauce (I’d opt for gluten-free)
Ground pepper to taste (I used the Trader Joe’s Rainbow peppercorns, which comes in its own nifty grinder).

For the topping:

The ingredients for the topping, minus the dry spices (and the ghee)

About 1/2 teaspoon ghee (or butter, or olive oil).
1 shallot or very small onion, peeled and diced.
1/2 to a whole Asian (apple) pear.  Cored.  If you want to peel it, fine, but I did not.   (I was going to use a whole pear but there was at least a quarter I cut out due to a big bad spot).  Coarsely chop.  You can always sub in an apple or another variety of pear, of course.
1/2 standard cucumber, peeled and diced.  
1/4 -1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 slice (or more!) of lemon (that’s what I had to hand without slicing into a fresh lemon)
Fresh dill, the more the merrier.
1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
Ground pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 350 F.

In a skillet:

Melt the ghee at medium heat, add the onion and ginger.  Let the onion carmelize a little, using a spatula to keep anything from burning.  Once carmelized add all the topping ingredients except the lemon and the dill.

While mixing these around, put the fish in a baking pan (along with the aminos and pepper) and place in the aforementioned oven.

The fish will need between 15 – 20 minutes of cooking time (assuming it is swordfish, which is fairly dense) depending on thickness.  The topping will need about 20 minutes at medium-low heat — and you will need to be attentive to stir it so it cooks through.  Adjust temperature as needed for the consistency you want.

When you think the fish is about ready, load the dill into the topping, and mix some more.  Over-cooking fresh dill can sometimes dilute its effect.

To serve:  pull out the fish, squeeze the lemon over it, let it rest a moment or two, then top it with the topping material!

Cooked fish awaiting the topping whilst patiently dealing with the photo-op thing.

I came up with the Indian seasonings for this due to the fact that the pear sounded almost like this could turn into a chutney, and I did have an Asian pear that was crying out to be used; or else re-fused into the compost pile, if I didn’t attend to it soonest.  The topping  does turn out chutney-like, but if you want to make it a more true chutney, you should probably start cooking it earlier on than I did.  Maybe let it cook about 40 minutes.  But that being said, I liked the mildly-soft, mildly-almost-crunchy results of the final preparation, and so I am posting it as I did this.

As a note, this preparation would overwhelm a truly delicately flavored fish.  And I think the seasonings for something like salmon would go off into entirely different directions.