Get your meez on

Cajun shrimp with red beans and rice

Even though it was a tired fad for a long time, I've really liked cajun food since it became popular in the 80s. In fact, I used to love those cajun spice Ruffles potato chips. In college I would dip them in onion dip, put a ring of fresh jalapeno on the blob of dip, and then dribble Tobasco into the middle of the jalapeno, which formed a little bowl for the sauce. It hit pretty much every part of your palate with a sweet, creamy, crispy, spicy, hot, fresh, tart explosion.

About a month ago I came across Paul Prudhomme's first book for five dollars at a used bookstore and had to have it. This is a book I "grew up with," and the cajun shepherd's pie has always been a family favorite.

The first thing I remember about this food is that there is usually a lot of prep. It seems like most recipes call for diced something or other, so I spent the afternoon dicing my brains out.  I ended  up with (clockwise from top) colored peppers, celery, jalapeno, a fresh salsa, scallion white parts and scallion green parts.

I made the red beans and basic rice, which are both great. I wanted to do something on the grill and so got some shrimp and andouille (a kind of sausage used in cajun cooking) and grilled them on skewers, with some sliced summer squash and carrots grilled separately. The only bummer was that I was recently in between Penzey's orders and so had to rely on a store-bought cajun spice mix. It was one of Prudhomme's (Seafood Magic) and it actually wasn't too bad as long as you don't overuse it, because it is a little heavy on the garlic. I sprinkled it on the veg:

And mixed it with melted butter for the shrimp as a marinade and to brush on during grilling:

Veg on the grill:

 

The way I plated it, you can't see the rice. I made a quick salsa out of the "trinity" of cajun cooking, i.e. green pepper, onion, and celery. I made mine with jalapeno, celery, and green scallion seasoned with cider vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper, with a little celery seed thrown in. It provided a zippy little contrast to the rich beans, sausage, and butter.

I had some sausage and veg left over along with the beans and rice, so another night I made a kind of gumbo/jambalaya  thing. I started with a brown roux, added stock, the sausage, veg,  some corn, and the rest of the beans. I put the rice on top, and then topped that with a little sour cream and some diced peppers.

They were both really good. Everything was more separate and vibrant the first night, and it all melded together in a nice comforting way on the second.

Pounded and seared pork

Perhaps to make up for the tender, juicy, bland pork tenderloin, I cooked some pork but on the grill. This cut is usually associated with slow cooking methods like BBQ and braising, but I find that it really is tender enough to cook with high heat, and it has way more flavor than regular pork chops.

I like to cut medallion like pieces:

And then pound most of them thin:

Some I leave as is, and then I cook some fast and some I leave on longer in order to get a nice range between larger tender pieces and thinner crisp pieces; the full pork catastrophe. Here are some larger pieces on the grill:

And some thinner pieces:

I had also brined the pork, so it was seasoned throughout. 

We've had outstanding blueberries this summer, and pork plays nicely with fruit flavors, so I made a quick glaze out of blueberries, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, and five-spice powder:

The best way to make a sauce like this is to decide how many berries you want to part with and start adding the other things a little at a time. Then you just need to taste it. I was going for something that wasn't too sweet like a jam, but rather had a good acid kick to it to stand up to the pork and not taste like pancake syrup. I added a fair amount of balsamic and spice and let the thing reduce to a nice glaze.

Put with buttered and chived red potatoes, grilled scallion, and plenty of grilled corn.

Thai dinner from the almighty wok

I wanted to cook outside because of the heat, so I was looking at either the grill or the wok. I felt like Thai food and had summer squash, shrimp, and rice noodles laying around. Since I couldn't do the noodles on the grill, I went with doing everything in the wok.

The noodles. I used a pad thai style sauce: FLS and tamarind. The noodles had been soaking overnight in cold water in the frig, so I simply drained them , threw them into the hot oiled wok, let them caramelize a little, and then poured in the sauce, which bubbled, reduced, and was absorbed as the noodles cooked through. I finished them with cilantro and scallion.

The squash. Lately I don't make curries as curries, preferring instead to reduce them into a thicker and more intense sauce. I find I like the vegetables grilled or stir-fried with a curry sauce instead of a full-blown curry, so that both retain their separate flavors. And, I don't have to make as much. I finally used the last of that curry paste from a while back to make the sauce. (Once it turns cold I'll probably go the other way and make all my curries into soups.) I served the rest of the sauce separately, and it was nice on the shrimp, too.

The shrimp. These were easy: just sear them in a hot wok and then turn the heat way down and season with a little FLS. The searing gives them a nice flavor and the lower heat helps them warm through without becoming tough.

The plate. I plated these things with pickled carrots and cucumbers. The carrots were done with OJ, ginger, and cider vinegar; the cucumbers were in a plain brine. I also garnished with little purple basil buds, fried shallots, and (of course!) shredded chile.

Fish over a wood fire

Summer sometimes feels like a race to enjoy all of the great produce while it's here. We're lucky to have a farmer's market close to us, and we have cherry tomatoes and green beans growing in our little side-yard plot. A lot of meals lately have been very simple: lots of grilled zucchini, green beans, steamed red potatoes, and as much corn on the cob as possible, along with something like chicken or pork chops slapped on the grill without too much thought. Our little cherry tomatoes (about a dozen a day) never even make it off the counter.

Whole grilled fish. Cooking with wood is fun, and cooking whole fish is fun, and together you get sort of a grilling speedball.  I got some little red snappers from the Asian market because I have been thinking a lot about little grilled fish lately, particularly sardines and anchovies. Since we don't get those here, I had to settle for the snapper.

Started with the usual wood fire:

Laid the fish right on the hot grill after oiling both the grill and the fish:

When they were good and seared on the first side, I moved them away from the fire and closed the lid to finish them up. Since I'd oiled both the grill and the fish they lost a little skin but really didn't stick, and they held together pretty well:

 

The wood still smokes a fair amount, so while they cook they also take on a nice smoky flavor:

The sauce.  I made another summer salsa, this one Thai-inspired with diced hearts of lemongrass, radish, and a little chile, seasoned with FLS:

This dinner was definitely hands-on: we ate the fish with our hands, since I don't know how to get the little bones out any other way, and had plenty of corn on the cob to go with it.

I served the fish au naturel with basil, cilantro, and fried shallots. This  way to eat fish is definitely not for everyone, but the 5 year old thought that eating the head was the bomb, and my wife grew up on little fish that her brother and cousins had caught from local lakes, so this was old hat. And it is pretty fun to eat the meat off the little fish heads.

Grilled chicken with pea and mint risotto

I used the basic grill-roasted chicken technique for this chicken and flavored it simply with salt, pepper, thyme, and rosemary. The real star of this dinner was the fresh peas: they were young and quite sweet. Peas are great pals with mint, and I put them together with orzo and pine nuts. The orzo itself was seasoned very simply with salt, pepper, lemon juice, and olive oil. The accompanying salsa was diced red pepper and red onion with olive oil and red wine vinegar, approaching a vinaigrette.

Full frontal strawberries

It was recently strawberry season here, and they were outstanding. Not like the big red plastic toys from California that are available anytime; these were small, dark, and almost exotic in their flavor.  After we'd had our fill of fresh ones, I macerated some with sugar, balsamic vinegar, five spice powder, chile, and mint, and put them over store-bought pound cake.

By the way, can it possibly be worth making pound cake at home? The stuff from the supermarket was nice and moist; it's really just a vehicle for the berries. Maybe it could have used a healthy splash of rum or whatever spirits go with strawberries, to really take it home.

No picture of the plate, as I got carried away with the whipped cream.

Risotto pasta with summer salsa

Risotto-style pasta. I'm a little put out that this had never occurred to me. We are usually taught that pasta should be cooked in lots of boiling water until just done. I recently learned that you can also do pasta risotto-style, i.e. saute the dry pasta with garlic and onion, and add ladlefulls of stock and wine a little at a time while stirring it until each is absorbed. Like risotto, as you stir it the starch washes off and helps create a creamy sauce with the stock and the wine. It doesn't take that long to cook, and so it does not become too starchy. One nice thing about this technique is that you can do it at a fairly low temperature, which lets you hold the pasta while you do other things; just give it a stir from time to time while you make the rest of the dinner. Once the pasta is done but still firm, you can finish it with parmesan, maybe a little butter or cream, and herbs, just as you would a risotto. This technique is really great because the pasta absorbs all the flavor as it cooks.

Summer salsas. I make a lot of quick little salsas in the summer out of colored peppers. They are really somewhere between a salsa, a vinaigrette, and a quick pickle. The basic technique is to finely dice peppers and red onion, and then season them aggressively with salt, pepper, sugar, vinegar, and olive oil. Herbs are a great addition, too. Then, let it sit on the counter while you make dinner, so that some of the juices are released, providing a nice light pepper and onion flavor. Be sure to taste it before using it; because of the released juices, it may need a little extra seasoning.  The salsa can be quite different depending on how much vinegar and oil you use:

• For a simple salsa, the oil and vinegar act as seasonings, and you use enough to just coat the peppers.
• For fattier meat, like salmon or pork, you can omit all or most of the olive oil, and then you have something more like a quick pickle.
• For lean meat, like the chicken breast here, you can add more oil and vinegar, which becomes the sauce for the meat, essentially a chunky vinaigrette.

This one. The chicken was grilled chicken breast, nothing special. The salsa was orange pepper with red onion and parsley, in the vinaigrette style. I finished the pasta with fried shallots. This was a nice light and tasty summer dinner.

Thai-flavored ribs

During the summer we have more informal, quick, and sporadic meals, usually in the form of a frig full potato salad, cole slaw, pickles, and sloppy joe meat, or as they call it where my wife is from, "Tavern" (or, less appetizingly and less fortunately, "loose meats"). So dinners are quick and light, with usually some kind of light supper later on, often more of the same. I had a small rack of ribs left from the weekend that I had intended to smoke, so I made some Thai-flavored ribs.

I braised them in about equal amounts of fish sauce, sherry, and palm sugar (maybe 1/4C each), and then added enough water to come up the ribs halfway. I covered the glass baking pan with foil, and braised them for about an hour and a half at 250, or whatever the real oven temp is. I then removed the foil and let the liquid reduce. After it was syrupy, I put them under the broiler and basted them with the bubbly glaze every few minutes.

Dayum.

My wife liked them, without knowing that fish sauce was one of the primary seasonings. Served with a side garnish of mint and chile, with crunchy fried almonds on top for textural contrast, and a lime to counteract the sweetness and saltiness. As usual, mint completely elevates it. There is just something about the combination of fish sauce with mint, or with Thai basil, or both: something Righteous and Good. And Right.

Chicken legs in Thai underpants

Here is my trusty Weber grill that I bought for $10 at a yard sale in 1998. I've grown tired of it lately, and so I leave it out in the elements, but it refuses to die. I have a mix of contempt and sneaking admiration for this thing.

One of my favorite things in summer is grill-roasted chicken. I love the bacon-like crisp skin. The meat is nice too, but it is really about the skin. I rarely do a whole chicken, because no one here likes white meat. I like legs about once or twice a month and whole birds about once or twice a season.

To set up for grill-roasting, I fill a chimney starter with charcoal, let them burn down, and then put them on each side of the grill. I have the Weber charcoal holders, but they are not absolutely necessary. You can also add wood chunks for smoke flavor. I don't bother soaking the wood, and I'm not sure why people do that; the water does not penetrate the wood, and burns off quickly anyway, leaving you with...dry wood. I leave all the vents open, partially because the bottom vent covers have all fallen off.

Another great use for all that curry paste we put away: stuff it under the skin of chicken leg quarters, along with salt and whole mint leaves. After trying the infamous Zuni roast chicken, I am a real believer in tucking flavorful things under the skin and letting them perfume the meat for up to three days in the frig. It really does add a lot of flavor, and the salt seasons the meat throughout. In this case, the paste is mostly aromatic vegetables (garlic, shallot, lemongrass, ginger), all of which work beautifully with chicken. But then again, what doesn't work beautifully with chicken?

I put the legs down the center of the grill and cover for about an hour to an hour and twenty minutes. The internal temp is usually around 400 degrees. An hour and twenty minutes is usually about right for very crispy brown skin, but they usually come up to temperature within an hour or less. Dark meat can take being overcooked, and the flavorings and the skin make up for the lack of totally juicy and succulent meat, although I should say that this meat is still really good so the tradeoff is more than fair.

Pork tenderloin

I was at the market recently trying to think of something new to cook, and I realized I had never cooked a pork tenderloin.

The fire. On weeknights I'm always using a Weber Genesis B gas grill, which is adequate for skewers and chicken breasts, but not for steaks, because it does not get hot enough to really sear it without overcooking it. You need charcoal for a good hot fire, and on weekends I'll sometimes build a wood fire, which does get nice and hot and is just a lot of fun. When I first tried this I didn't think that a wood fire would actually add any smoke flavor, but it really does.

Meat prep. As far as I could tell, the loins had not been treated with a solution of any kind, so I brined them in a typical solution of 1/4C kosher salt to 1q of water, with a few tablespoons of sugar. I let these go overnight, which might have been a little long, but not really; they were nicely seasoned throughout. I also coated them with a dry rub I had kicking around in the cupboard.

Cooking. I seared them on the hot side until they were pretty browned all over:

And then moved them to the opposite side, away from the fire:

I closed the lid for a few minutes so that they would be surrounded by the smoke from the fire and have a chance to pick up a little more of its flavor. Since the fire is so hot, you should only do this for a few minutes, as it is better to let meat cook slower than faster. I pulled them when they where 145 degrees in the center, so that carry-over cooking would take them to 150.

Plated. The tenderloin was just as I expected: tender, juicy, and...unremarkable. There's just not much flavor in that meat. But, the family liked it, and I made do with A1, lime, and serrano chiles to help it out a little.