Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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KitchenKatalog: Blog 204
Sunday, August 14, 2016, 08:49 PM
We weren't super hungry so lobster tail and vegetables made for a nice meal.
We based the Broccolini was based on last Saturday. The idea was pretty good, but I overcooked it. They were a bit charred.
We also had cabbage. It was leftover from lunch we were prepping. I put it in a foil packet and let it heat up on the grill. I then opened it up a bit. This worked ok. It was a bit of an experiment.
Finally, the lobster tail was just like last Thursday. I did it in the toaster oven which had a burner towards the top. Because of that, I think it looked more cooked than it was on the inside. I think it was fine, but next time I would let it go a bit more.
So in the end, the broccolini was overcooked and the lobster was undercooked. Oh well... Hopefully it would be better next time.
Friday, August 12, 2016, 09:00 AM
I had a friend over and we wanted to grill. We sometimes struggle to come up with different meal ideas but this sounded ok.
We made buffalo grilled chicken sandwiches. For the chicken, we marinated it for a while in Franks Red Hot. I then grilled the tenders as I normally would (and tried ot get a bit of a sear on them at the end). I then mixed some more Franks with some butter and tossed them at the end.
We also tried roasting some hatch green chiles. This was my first time trying to do anything with them. I know you usually roast them and peel them but I wanted to see if I could just cook them like I would a bell pepper. Unfortunately, the skin blistered and was also pretty tough. I had already cut them but it was kind of hard to peel them (but I did my best).
Finally, we also had some grilled eggplant because we like it and do it all the time.
Thursday, August 11, 2016, 12:00 AM
Meredith was craving seafood and getting a bit stir-crazy in the dessert so we had a seafood night of lobster tail and crab cakes (the latter was purchased pre-made from Sprouts).
For the lobster tail, we tried baking it instead of grilling it. We read a bunch of different things and ended up with the instructions from LobsterGram (Local 1), Actually the video really helped so I also copied that to the local page.
It was pretty easy and I recall seeing it done this way at some restaurants. We baked it for about 10 minutes (it needed more than the video called for). We put some melted butter on the top before baking it and then again after with chives (from the garden).
We also made sautéed zucchini with a little bit of butter and more fresh herbs from the garden (marjoram,thyme, chives) and also some (roasted) garlic powder and salt.
The crab cakes were pre made from the grocery store.
U: guest, P: name of my dog, all lower case ↩
Tuesday, August 09, 2016, 08:37 PM
This was a really easy and quick meal. We grilled shishitos for about 4-6 minutes on each side. I took the time to skewer them and that seemed to work really well. Some were hard to flip, but it felt like it was easier than the grill basket on 2016-07-24. I would do it that way again for sure.
I also wrapped some leftover brisket in aluminum foil and grilled it on the top rack of the grill.
Sunday, August 07, 2016, 09:00 PM
I made brisket using the Serious Eats Recipe (Local 1) originally in the Food Lab post (a copy also linked on the local page). The gist of it is that you do a combined method where you sous-vide for a while (24-72 hours depending on temperature) and then finish in the oven, grill, or smoker. Unlike the chicken we've done in the past where it just touched the grill, this is supposed to be like 3 hours under smoke. The recipe also includes a way to do it with liquid smoke and in the oven.
I started with the smallest piece of brisket Costco had at about 2.6 pounds. It also had a nice amount of fat but less than I've read about before. (you can see the fat on the sliced finished version).
I opted for the oven since I was running around all day and didn't want to deal with it too much. I did the sous-vide at 155 for about 25 hours (covered and insulated well. Hooked it to the Kill-a-Watt and read less than 3 kWh for then entire thing). I then ice-bathed it so I could put it in the fridge. I then cooked it for 2 hours or so in the oven.
The top photo is it being sliced after all of the cooking. It felt dry and was slightly but it was also kind of the texture you expect out of brisket. I would consider doing it with the lower temp next time. Flavor wise, it was pretty good but not very smokey (even with the liquid smoke). I certainly liked it but it wasn't super amazing. I would keep playing with this method and recipe since I like the ease of sous-vide over all day on the smoker.
I also wish it made more. You can see in some of the photos the amount of liquid that came right off the meat and in the bag in some photos. I was planning on cooking it down but ended up not doing it (or at least not yet). The final thing was 1.57 pounds (about 1 pound of liquid lost!)
Still, I was pretty happy with it (after cutting off the fat). It may not have been the most amazing, but it was a good first attempt. I will try with a bigger piece next time too. This was relatively small.
U: guest, P: name of my dog, lower case ↩
Saturday, August 06, 2016, 08:49 PM
Pretty simple meal but it worked well since we didn't want to spend a ton of time. We grilled 4 different types of sausage (listed below) with some broccolini (tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and crushed red pepper), and some Chinese eggplant (just salt and pepper)
The sausages were all from Whole Foods. Roughly in order of our favorite
We just grilled it all on medium and kind of winged it. I am sure I overcooked it a bit but they are fatty enough that it was fine. The broccolini was pretty good. Maybe a bit overcooked.
Thursday, August 04, 2016, 10:00 AM
We had friends over but also wanted to make a quick and easy meal. We also wanted to do something that could either be grilled or done inside. I really wanted to grill it but it was raining just too hard.
We baked an eggplant and two zucchinis in the oven at about 400 for 2-30 minutes. I did the cheese (marinated for a while in Frank's Red Hot) on the cast iron on the stove. (a bit too long on one side).
Meredith made Spring Peas as before with mint and prosciutto. It was good and made for a nice compliment to everything else.
Wednesday, August 03, 2016, 08:43 PM
We made the same BLT wraps as we've done before. We followed the recipe pretty closely except that I grilled and cut the corn earlier in the week.
I actually kind of just eyeballed all of the spices. I also decided to interpret "chili" powder as "chile" powder and used a direct dried-chile powder. Of course, I decided to try to use Ghost Pepper flakes. Even opening in the bag and putting them in the grinder made me nearly choke to death from coughing and sneezing. So I went very light on it. Between the little bit of Ghost Pepper and the (extra) smoked paprika, it had a kick. Oh, and we also put some Franks Red Hot in there.
