Starting at around 4 pm and going late into the evening, we were regaled with Etienne's always-impressive and increasingly sophisticated home-brews, Angelique's special hommous with its lemony, toasty, sesame-seed goodness, and some toothsome treats from the grill: pork tenderloin cooked to perfection with three different marinades, and Etienne's roast potatoes with caramelized onions done in foil pouches on the grill. A huge shout-out to Etienne on this one -- in the wrong hands, thick chunks of pork loin can come off the grill dry, chewy and flavorless. But Melissa and I agreed that his were some of the very best pieces of grilled pork we had ever tasted; juicy and tender with nicely browned edges and just the slightest suggestion of color inside. Perfect.
Melissa decided to put together a few of our weekday meals this week into this posting, because they have an interesting thread of ingredients running though them. She is in a very experimental mood in the kitchen these days, and that always means good things to eat...
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Monday: Saag lentils with radish-fennel cole slaw and cucumber-cilantro salsa
I had some cabbage. I meant to make coleslaw for a recent Happy Hour we had at work, but somewhere between marinating the chicken thighs, grilling the sweet Italian sausages and salting the eggplant I just forgot. I’m particularly partial to fried cabbage with things like bacon and chillis but I’ve never got into the whole coleslaw thing. This changed when I had a few radishes lying around and went to cuisine.co.nz and typed radish into their keyword search. A radish dill coleslaw came up and I thought what the heck…
I made my own mayonnaise (very messily I have to say) and replaced the dill with fennel fronds (which I have lots of in my garden) and replaced the cider vinegar with rice wine vinegar. Matt gave it the thumbs up and I thought it was a bit of alright, so here’s the recipe for the entire dinner. A bit of a hodge podge of everything, but somehow it ended up working together.
Coleslaw
1 egg yolk
½ cup of very good olive oil
½ tsp of salt
1 tbsp of lemon juice
¼ of a cabbage
~5 radishes
1 tbsp of chopped fennel “leaves”
2 tbsp of rice wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to season
I whisked the egg yolk in the tall narrow container that came with my hand blender (using whisk attachment) until it was light and fluffy. This step is very important. If you try to combine the egg yolk with the oil and whisk from there you won’t get an emulsion and everything will look like oil with globs of egg yolk in it. Once your egg yolk is nice and fluffy, drizzle oil with continued whisking to make a sauce that looks just like mayonnaise. Add salt and lemon juice to season. (alternatively adding roasted garlic instead of lemon juice will make garlic aioli).
Salsa
This is my new favourite salsa recipe…. Very simple
Chopped fresh tomatoes
Diced Cucumber
Coarsely chopped coriander leaves
A few good squirts of lime juice
~ ½ tsp of salt… (a little more than you think necessary will bring everything together)
Ground pepper to taste
Saag Lentils
Left over Spinach sauce from the Saag Paneer (last Saturday)
~1/2 cup of Lentils
Salted Water
Boil lentils in salted water for ~30 minutes, drain and combine with Saag sauce from Indian Feast.
Serve dinner with coleslaw, salsa and lentils…. Paired nicely with a Vouvray white wine Jason brought us on Saturday -- dry and crisp with plenty of fruit. Yum yum yum….
Tuesday: Flank steak with spicy cabbage and cucumber-cilatnro salsa
Spicy Cabbage
Still have cabbage… Just boiling it doesn’t bring out the flavours, but steaming it in a concentrated chicken broth with a good amount of cayenne pepper makes it interesting.
¼ cabbage – chopped
1/3 tbsp of chicken stock paste
¼ tsp of cayenne pepper – ground
Just enough water to cover the bottom of the pot.
Put water in bottom of pot ~1 cm deep, add chicken stock and cayenne pepper. Top with chopped cabbage and simmer on stove (covered) to steam cabbage and create sauce coating.
Flank Steak
This used to be a fairly cheap cut of meat but is gaining popularity which unfortunately has been pushing up the price. Provided you panfry this cut rare to medium rare, leave it to rest and cut it thinly with the grain it remains tender and is quite a tasty treat.
1lb Flank steak
¼ cup of soy sauce
1/8 cup of lime juice
Salt and Pepper to season
Combine above ingredients and marinate meat for >30 minutes. Pan fry for a few minutes of either side until the meat is medium rare.
(Try reading this for the rule of thumb for deciding when meat is cooked rare through well done.)
Serve sliced flank steak on top of a mound of cabbage. Top with same salsa as previous day. We had a Ken Forrester 2007 Petit Pinotage (South Africa) with this meal.
Wednesday: Omelettes
No cabbage today but left over salsa, red onion and a whole chopped tomato make an appearance.
3 eggs
3 egg white (from crème brulee left overs)
~1/4 cup of heavy cream
½ tsp of fish sauce
Salt and fresh ground pepper
Combine above recipes with a whisk
½ red onion (sautéed till lightly browned)
1 large tomato, chopped and fried
~1/2 cup of left over salsa
1 handful of coarsely chopped cilantro
Combine above ingredients ready to add to omelet.
~1/4 cup of parmesan cheese
In a small non-stick fry pan heat oil and pour enough egg mixture into pan to coat the pan. Cook on high heat until egg is almost cooked though. On one half of the egg mixture spoon some of the onion, salsa, cilantro mix and sprinkle parmesan cheese. Using spatula turn over omelet to encase filling and flip out onto plate to serve.
Repeat to make another 1 to 2 omelets.
Garnish with a little cilantro. Mmmmmm...
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