Steak Dinner

People are always asking me cooking questions: how much to make, how long to cook it, etc.  This is all well and good until they ask me about cooking meat. I may know a little more than the average person about cooking meat, but that is mostly because of a cooking-methods class I took (so many years ago by now!).  I almost never cook plain meat, like, for example, a steak.

As far as I can remember, I have eaten five beef steaks in my life.  There may have been one or two more, but I'm not positive.  The first was at a Girl Scout camp thing when I was maybe 10 or 11.  The second was when I was dating Evan, and we had surf and turf at a restaurant for a business Christmas party.  The third was a steak dinner I made for Evan when he visited me (that steak was way overcooked!).  The fourth was when Zach and I had a free meal/night at a hotel for a Christmas present from brother and sister-in-law.  And this brings us to the fifth and most recent.

We went to Zach's grandparents' "farm" (aka "cabin" (house) and tons of land), and they were getting ready to grill some steaks when it was time for us to leave.  They sent two frozen steaks along with us, and a few days later, we had our fancy dinner.

Medium-rare (let's be honest, they turned out to be medium) steak with mushrooms and onions, baked sweet potato with cinnamon butter, and roasted asparagus.  And a frond of dill for decoration.

Zach's brother has been learning the art of vinification and had given us two bottles of "amber red" recently.

Jeremiah wine!

One must (obviously) follow a steak dinner with dessert.  We had cheesecake and decaf coffee.

Served on our fancy Turkish tea set

 The cheesecake was far from homemade, alas.  Zach wanted cheesecake on our vacation, and the only spring-form pan I have is huge.  We realized it would be cheaper (and less caloric) to buy a small one instead of make a huge one.  We put homemade rhubarb preserves on top, so I guess it's slightly homemade.  And you can't ignore those amazing homemade chocolate swirls on the plate.  Nothing says fancy like chocolate swirls!

So, there's the story of our steak dinner.  I'm going to try to mix some new meals in with the old ones, so that I'm not always looking at ancient, blurry photos, trying to guess what we were eating back in the day (there are a lot of meals that involve whole wheat pasta and spinach salads.  A lot.).

Not Much to Say About This One

 Whole wheat linguini with yellow peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, and greens.  Tomato salad with onions, cucumbers, and balsamic.

Choose Your Own Adventure

This picture makes me crave iced tea.  It may also make me crave the other things in this picture, if only I could figure out what they are.

Whole wheat penne with:

a) chicken thigh with Cajun spices

b) chicken breast with Cajun spices

c) pork chop with Cajun spices

d) chicken thigh with generic Susannah spices (probably paprika, garlic, black pepper, salt, thyme)

e) chicken breast with generic Susannah spices

f) pork chop with generic Susannah spices

g) none of the above

I'm going to go with d or g.

Spinach salad with:

a) onions, gorgonzola, and dill

b) onions, feta, and dill

c) onions, weird pieces of apples or something, and dill

d) none of the above.

Probably a, perhaps in a lemon dressing.  I'm not sure why the dill is there; it throws me off a little and makes me wonder what I might have put with the chicken/pork/other.

All I know for sure, is that I probably should have added a soft-boiled egg somewhere.

Entering the Era of the Soft-Boiled Egg

Once upon a time, there was a couple who really liked to eat eggs.  In particular, ones with runny yolks.  One day, they realized that they had never soft boiled an egg, which seemed unbelievable at first, given their love for runny-yolked eggs.  Once they had tried the first one, they continued to have soft-boiled eggs added to many of their meals.  They took blurry pictures of these meals, and posted them to a blog months later, after they had pretty much forgotten what the meals were.

This is one such meal:

It appears to be a spinach salad with chick peas, tomatoes, and probably onions.  And a nice, glistening, soft egg on top.  Next to the egg, there appears to be a pale rectangle of some sort.  Feta?  Chicken?

And next to the salad, there is what is likely an Uzbek hot dog without the hot dog: chewy white bread warmed in the microwave, slathered in mayonnaise and spicy ketchup, and filled with Korean carrot salad (left over from the Russian party)  (<-- I made a link!).

Mmm, that "hot dog" was good.  The salad was also, though if I recall correctly, this egg was more medium-boiled.  It took a few tries to get the timing right.

Russian Dinner 2013

Every winter, I throw a Russian dinner party.  When Russians have dinner parties, they have LOTS of little salad plates all over the table with a large variety of "salads" (mostly mayonnaise based).  These are the 2013 Russian party salads (and other foods):

Cabbage salad with dill.  The only healthy salad.

On the left is what I call Korean Potato Salad, with a caramelized onion and garlic vinaigrette.  On the right is a crab and rice salad with corn.

Piroshki, stuffed with pork and onions, are the star of the show whether I want them to be or not.

The salad on the left is Frantsuskiy ("French") Salad.  The sections on the outside are julienned carrots, cabbage, cucumbers, beets, shoestring french fries, and seasoned beef.  In the middle is a dollop (sounds better than "glob") of mayonnaise.  After it makes an appearance on the table, it gets mixed all together into a tasty purple salad with surprising bites of fry and warm beef.  It's a Fath family favorite.
The salad on the right is a Korean carrot salad.
 Obviously there would be at least two Korean salads at a Russian party. :o)

This is one of the weirder Russian salads.  It's called Mimosa Salad, named after the delicate yellow and white flower rather than the brunch beverage.  There is a layer of mashed tuna (it should be sardines) encased in a mount of potato/boiled egg white/onion mixture, and garnished with grated egg yolk.  This party was soon after that meteor hit Russia somewhere, so I used an extra egg yolk to look like a meteor (see the blurry little "craters?") and dill fronds to look like little trees bent over from the meteor.  Weirdos.

Another Fath favorite!  We call these "El Dorado Tomatoes," named after the restaurant where we had them.  Imagine this goodness: a thick slice of tomato, topped with a layer of garlicky mayo, topped with a layer of white cheese, topped with a single pea as a garnish.  Does it get any better than that?

The most classic Russian salad: Olivye.  Potatoes, eggs, carrots, pickles, dill, and, of course, mayonnaise. 

Layered honey cake (medovnik) for dessert!  Long ago I started a post on the making of this cake, but never finished it.  It will come eventually.

Look at those lovely layers!

In past years, I made an entree as well, but eventually learned that everyone really just wants to eat lots of salads and piroshki.  For the 2014 party, however, I am planning to unlearn that lesson and make borscht as well.  Is that how you spell borscht?

More posts coming!

My adoring fan base is demanding more posts! Stay tuned.....

Corn Tortillas

Every time I see a tortilla press somewhere (Mexican grocery stores, thrift stores, etc...), I want to buy it.  I am normally not a fan of one-use kitchen gadgets, but for some reason the tortilla press always calls my name.

At some point, I decided that if I ever started making corn tortillas regularly, I could justify having a press.  That was many years ago, and I never once made any tortillas.

Until now.

Connie, one of our interns this year, wanted to make some enchiladas for lunch.  She put corn tortillas on the grocery list, but I decided that the time had come for me to make them!

Instead of the tortillas, I bought this:

The recipe on the bag said 2 c. of the masa, 1/8 tsp. salt, and 1 1/4 c. water.  Mix together, divide it into 16 little balls.  Cover the yet unused balls with a damp cloth while you roll them out.

Normally you would use a tortilla press (http://www.amazon.com/IMUSA-VICTORIA-85008-Tortilla-Pre-Cured-8-Inch/dp/B00164T384/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361195884&sr=8-1&keywords=tortilla+press) and press the little balls into tortillas (between two sheets of plastic wrap).  I expiremented with a few different ways of properly flattening them, and decided this way worked the best for me:

 

Put the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap and flatten evenly with something heavy and flat-bottomed.  I used a frying pan.  This is how it ended up:

Too thick.  I then used a rolling pin to slowly press it out further.  I thought that starting with a rolling pin might also work, but it didn't.  The combination of the two pressing methods definitely worked the best for me.

You need to be gentle with this dough.  Unlike a wheat flour dough that stretches as you roll it out, this dough will just flatten into nothingness if you press to hard.  And if you roll too quickly, the edges of the dough ended up really ragged.  Slowly and gently, roll out the dough from all angles until the dough is very thin, somewhere between the thickness of a dime and a penny:

Next, cook them in a medium-hot, ungreased skillet.  It took about a minute on each side for me.  They turn a more opaque white when cooked.

They tasted soooo good.  And were simple enough that I might actually start making them regularly and will then be able to buy a press!

Note: I made three batches of dough.  The first batch was too dry, and the edges of the tortillas cracked a lot when I rolled them out.  The next to batches had more like 1 1/2 cups of water in them and worked a lot better.  Start with the 1 1/4 c. and try rolling out one ball.  If it seems too dry, a bit of water to the rest of the batch and try again.