A Fine Friday

The storms were moving in during the evening, so I needed to grill early today.  To make a long story short, I just made it by an hour.  As I type this, it is raining outside.  The Bride wanted salad with blue cheese and some pork as the entree.  What can I say?  She's The Bride, so I obliged.  Specifically, she requested pork tenderloin, but I have already burned through all of Weber's recipes for that cut.  To alleviate that problem, I used a marinade recipe that I had left, the Tequila Orange Marinade on page 50.

The recipe for this is simple.  Put all of the ingredients in a food processor and go to town.  To be honest, I abhor cleaning my food processor, so I went for my stick blender instead.  Cleaning this is a breeze compared to the hulk and bulk of the food processor.

Here is everything put into the neat and easy to clean container.

WHIRRRR!

I acquired a nice pork tenderloin from Findlay Market, and it only needed a little trimming before I put everything into a Ziploc bag for flavor inducing.

For the salad portion of the evening, I chose the Confetti Salad on page 358.  The Bride always likes blue cheese nuggets in her salad (but doesn't really like blue cheese dressing...go figure) and this recipe called for salted ricotta, for which I substituted Danish Blue.

This was my setup:  In the bowl on the left I have my salad.   The large metallic bowl on the right was my compost bowl, as I would have plenty of vegetable matter left over from my prep.

CHOP!  CHOP!  CHOP!

So, you've got a whole lot of salad that needs tossing, and you want to do it quickly and without making too much of a mess?  Here's my solution:  Use another large bowl and make a shaker, like if you were making a cocktail shaker on a large scale.

SHAKE!  SHAKE!  SHAKE!

 

There wasn't anything terribly complicated about the dressing.  I did, however, save the whisking for right before I served dinner.

The tenderloin was on the grill, so I added the blue cheese goodness to the salad.

So much left over marinade...what to do with it?  Make a sauce!  The first thing you will need to do is boil it for several minutes.  This stuff was touching raw pork for a few hours, so you need to ensure that no little single-celled bad guys are hanging around.

After you boil it for a few minutes, remove from the heat, and immediately start stirring in thin pats of butter.  Let the residual heat melt the butter, whisking the whole time.  Taste often, and keep adding the slivers of butter one at a time until you can just barely taste the butter.

The tenderloin looked simply beautiful!  I grilled over direct inferno heat for two minutes per side, and them moved it to indirect heat until the internal temperature reached 155.

While the tenderloin was resting, I whisked the dressing.

As you can see, the marinade, even after four hours, barely penetrated the meat.  I was happy with my decision to make a sauce.

I plated, and The Bride and I dined!

I can sum up my impressions with this fact: I had two full plates of what you see above.  DELICIOUS!  The marinade/sauce was amazing.  The Bride likened it to a mint chimichurri sauce.  As a marinade it is flavorful, but takes quite a bit of time to impart its work.  As a sauce, however, let's just say that it will be repeated in the Bogdan household, and it may even be seen by company once fully modified.  The salad, though, will not be repeated.  It was good, but it wasn't to The Bride's standards.  She severely dislikes raw bell pepper, of which this salad had two cups worth.  Personally, I liked the dressing, as I found it especially bright due to the fresh lemon juice, which I like.  My only problem with this salad is the sheer volume.  This is a wasteful recipe if cooking for two.  Still, overall, this was a pleasant evening.

Multiple Substitutions

This time of year is difficult for me, this year especially so.  I am physically, mentally, and emotionally wiped out from the school year, and so my motivation has plummeted.  Cooking is not often on my radar, so when the weather is like what was today, I feel compelled to force myself cook.  I sent The Bride a text offering up three options, and she selected the Thai Albacore With Soy-Ginger Butter on page 305.

For those astute viewers out there, you are correct.  The picture above does not contain albacore tuna, but rather swordfish.  I've only ever seen albacore tuna (fresh, not canned) at a fishmonger in Cincinnati once, so I wasn't highly optimistic as I headed to Hyde Park Fish Market.  Sure enough, the only tuna there was Ahi tuna, which is sushi grade.  The fishmonger explained to me (I love this place) that ahi tuna would not be a great replacement because I would be spending far too much money to overcook it, based on what Weber was going to have me do.  For this recipe, he suggested swordfish as a better (and cheaper) replacement.  

The next stop was Kroger, where I would learn that they didn't have another ingredient, the Thai red curry paste.  The closest I could find was Thai garlic chili paste.  I did have the ability to run around to multiple stores looking for the real deal, but what I did not have was the desire.  Remember, I'm exhausted in more ways than one.

Finally, in examining the recipe, I made one last change.  Weber calls for you to melt the butter in a saute pan, and then stir in the soy and ginger.  This didn't really sit too well with me, especially with butter's tendency to break.  Instead, I opted to create a compound butter, using a technique I learned from the French.  First, I had to measure out four tablespoons of butter, which at fourteen grams per tablespoon equaled fifty-six grams.

While the butter was softening to room temperature, I created the marinade.

The best part of the ginger is directly underneath the skin, so use your peeler, but tread lightly.  Digging too deep will result in loss of flavor.

Ginger can be chewy, stringy, and grainy if not cut fine enough.  A microplaner will work wonders for you.

Meanwhile, the swordfish was getting acquainted with the marinade, and the butter was almost ready.

One of my wiser purchases in the last couple of years was a paddle attachment for my stand mixer that has rubber extensions that scrape the sides of the bowl as it it turns.  This is perfect for making a compound butter.

Let it run for a few minutes (yes, minutes).  This will seem too long, but you are waiting for the butter to reach a "creamy" stage.  This will allow the butter to better receive the flavors of your added ingredients.

Once creamy, add in what you need.

Let it run until it becomes homogenous.

A cool trick is to use your paddle to scrape out the bowl.

The swordfish came off the grill with beautiful markings.

I made sauteed zucchini with garlic and ginger for a side, and plated the meal.

The compound butter was dolloped on right before serving, which in my opinion is much nicer than pouring over melted butter.  It offers up more control for the diner.

The marinade did its job admirably.  I thoroughly enjoy Thai flavors, and this used the major ones.  First of all, NEVER smell fish sauce.  It imparts amazing flavor, but is absolutely horrendous.  Garlic and chiles are personal favorites of mine, and the lime really seems to balance and complement them all.  The swordfish displayed all of these flavors impeccably, while still maintaining its independence as the entree part of the meal.   The soy-ginger butter was a lot of fun, and was a reminder to me that I should make these more often, for many different dishes.

Misnamed Sauce

I was headed down to Findlay Market after school today, and sent The Bride a text inquiring what she may have a hankering for; she responded "obnoxiously large steak."  This meant a visit to Mackie Meats where I would acquire two monster porterhouses.  I then headed home and perused The Guide for something that I could use.  I discovered that I still had a steak sauce recipe to prepare, and actually had everything I needed for the Siren Steak Sauce on page 48.

There really isn't too much to say about making a steak sauce.  So let's get to it.  The only cool thing I did was figure out a cool way to let the molasses drip out of the measuring cup.   I suspended the cup over the saucepan using the handles while I gathered the rest of the ingredients.

Simmer, simmer, simmer until it is reduced!

I made Provencal green beans, and a nice potato gratin for the sides, and The Bride prepared her famous (should be) blue cheese sauce.

The Bride desired obnoxiously large steaks, and I believe I delivered.

I'll just say this...the Siren Steak Sauce is a good sauce.  It's just misnamed.  This is a good barbecue sauce.  In fact, it probably would be downright fantastic for chicken wings.  It just is a terrible sauce for steak, especially porterhouse.