We read this recipe in the June issue of Food & Wine Magazine. Since Ellen and I were in New Jersey visiting my family, we knew we would be able to find good quality swordfish. Although the recipe said this was best over a wood fire, we opted to go with natural charcoal. Its just easier and offers nearly the same amount of wood smoke. My father is the grill expert of the house, so we let him grill the swordfish. Just about 4 minutes on each side was perfect over a nice and hot bed of coals.
Continue Reading August 21st, 2006
This cold spanish-style soup makes for a great sunday lunch. Its reasonably quick to make and requires no cooking. It’s perfect for a warm summer afternoon. Fill up your Nalgene bottle and bring it to the beach as a virgin bloody mary. I used yellow heirloom tomatoes, but any tomatoes would work great.
Continue Reading July 15th, 2006
When Auguste Escoffier reclassified Carême’s mother sauces, he replaced Allemande with egg-based emulsions and called them Hollandaise and Mayonnaise. In fact, this Mother Sauce encompasses all of the emulsified sauces such as Béarnaise, Russian salad dressing, and Aioli. An emulsion is a mixture of two unblendable substances. The emulsion sauces are mixtures of oil and water stabilized with egg yolk lecithin.
Continue Reading June 20th, 2006
We see so many sauces with dishes served today — tomato sauce, mushroom sauce, Béarnaise sauce, marsala sauce, and vin blanc sauce to name just a few. Some may even seem quite similar. For example, both Alfredo sauce and Mornay sauce are made by mixing a roux with warm cream or milk. Do these sauces all link up somewhere along the line? Of course they do, and we call them the Mother Sauces.
Continue Reading June 16th, 2006
Ever wonder how to achieve perfect cross hatched grill marks and still live within the cardinal rule of only turning meat once? Well, here’s how!
Imagine the grill is the face of a clock, with the back of the grill being 12 o’clock. Place the cold meat on the grill pointing to 10 o’clock. Let the meat sear, then rotate it, without flipping, to the 2 o’clock position. At this point, we’re done searing the meat on this side, and we’re just trying to achieve grill marks. With a 10 oz steak about 3/4″ thick, this would be about 2 minutes in each position.
Now we flip the meat to the other side, letting it sit facing 5 o’clock. After searing on this side, rotate it, without flipping, to the 7 o’clock position. Allow the meat to cook to your desired level of doneness. You now have perfect cross hatched grill marks, with ease!
June 15th, 2006
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