Italian Grilled Steak w/ roasted Oyster Mushroom steak fries

Alright, not your average steak and potatoes, lol.  The recipe for the steak can be found on page 235 of the June 2007 Cooking Light.  We used flat iron steak instead of rib-eye and did not follow through to the pasta, simply bbqing it and serving it with the potatoes.

The potato recipe can be found on page 108 of the June 2006 Bon Appetit. About 2 lbs of potatoes were used, and cut into steak fries, then roasted as the recipe calls for.  Also, didn’t use quite a full pound of mushrooms, but definitely make sure you get the ones that are in a large cap style as opposed to the small clusters. Also, used regular onions instead of shallots because I really dislike shallots, they’re generally too strong.

We had a Oristan 2002 Tempranillo/Cabernet/Shiraz blend from Spain along with it.  Before the pairing, the wine was exceedingly dry, but this changed once paired with the food.

Copper River Salmon part deux

Alright this time we decided to do it Japanese shioyaki style. This involved creating a sauce that went like this:

Ingredients:
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sake or dry white wine
1/4 cup mirin
2 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoon fresh ginger — chopped

In a small saucepan, combine the soy sauce, sake, mirin, sugar, ginger and about a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch. Bring just to a boil, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat immediately and allow the marinade to cool to room temperature.

For the salmon, butterfly as before, and slice up a small lemon and a bunch of green onions julienne style. Put those inside and put the sauce all over inside. Grill over hot coals, basting as necessary.

We served a warm soba dish with this. Green onions, radishes and oyster mushrooms, with a sauce of soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar and wasabi.

Method: Boil soba and add coarsely chopped oyster mushrooms when it’s nearly done. Then simply add onions and radishes and toss with sauce.

Simple Sole Parmesan

1 lb of sole
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons margarine or butter
1 bunch of green onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Place flour in a shallow dish. Lightly coat fish fillets with flour and set aside. Melt margarine in ovenproof skillet over medium heat. Add chopped green onion and fish and cook uncovered for 4 minutes on each side.
Add wine, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle with cheese. Bake uncovered for 15 minutes.
Makes 4 Servings

We also had Pine Nut and Lemon Orzo, which can be found on page 222 of the May 2007 Cooking Light, and salad. A pinot grigio complements all the lemon flavors nicely. We had Gabbiano 2006 Pinot Grigio from Italy.

Stir-Fried Sirloin with Ginger and Bok Choy

From the February 2001 Food & Wine.  We used a 1 1/2 lb London Broil for the meat, and about 2 lbs of Bok Choy.  Also 1/2 cup of broth instead of 3 tbls.  This naturally requires more cornstarch as well.  One caution, when you throw in the ginger, garlic and jalapeno into nearly-smoking oil, it’s going to spit and sizzle like you wouldn’t believe. BE PREPARED.  It’s fine once you get the steak in though.

Serve with rice and an off-dry rose or white. We had Meridian 2006 Rose.

Pork Vindaloo

Page 133 from the May 2007 Cooking Light. Btw, most of these recipes can probably be found on their site, at cookinglight.com

Mods or possible mods include, 2lbs of pork, 2 sweet onions, 3 on the vine tomatoes, and jasmine rice. Also, did not use the raita recipe, instead using already made tzatziki sauce. The yogurt base definitely provided the much-needed cooling. Also served onion masoor dahl with it, which was probably nearly as hot. Asahi beer rounded it out, and papadams would have been nice, but I can never find any.

Copper River Salmon

is basically an event here in the NW. At anywhere from 10 - 20 and even more a pound for a whole fish, it’ s not cheap either. BUT, it IS worth it. Simply put, the simpler you make it, the better.

Simple BBQ Copper River Sockeye Salmon

*1 bouquet of fresh herbs (in packs, it can be either pork or poultry medley)

*A lot of minced garlic

*A small onion, minced

*Lemon juice

*A few dollops of Smart Balance

The fish being presumably dressed, chop of the tail and the fins, and it’s best if you further butterfly the spine. Add the garlic, onions and Smart Balance, then the herbs, whole, not chopped. Finally, sprinkle all over with lemon juice. Then place on tin foil over hot coals and BBQ for about half an hour.

We also had Fiesta Rice, which can be found on page 194 of the May 2007 Cooking Light. I subbed out cilantro for parsley and used a can of corn instead of frozen corn. Also, skipped the corn-browning step and threw it in with the onions, combining both olive oil and butter.

Menage a Trois 2006 Rose from California completed the meal.

Old Bay Crab Cakes

We generally make these in coordination with the Preakness Stakes.

The recipe is found on the side of cans of Old Bay Seasoning, and is pretty much the best.  Only mods being a little garlic powder and fresh parsley.  One note though, deep-frying is the way to go.  Broiling or baking generally dries them out.  2 cans of crab will suffice for the pound called for.  Though I’m sure fresh would be even better.

We had a more or less invented, but typical, Italian-American pasta salad with it, and Leaping Horse Chardonnay from Cali.

Shrimp Quesadillas

4-5 roma tomatoes, diced

2 avocados, diced

1 bunch of green onions, sliced

1 large jalapeno, sliced

3/4 cup cilantro, chopped

2 cups Mexican shredded cheese

1 lb shrimp meat

Mix up in a med-sized bowl and add several squirts of lime juice.  Spread the mixture on a flour tortilla, top with another one and grill until brown and slightly crispy.  Makes about 6 quesadillas.

Simmered Mackeral (saba) in Black Soybean Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

* 2 fillets mackerel (saba)
* 1 cup water
* 3 tbsps sake
* 6 tbsps black bean sauce

PREPARATION:
Mix water, sake, and 4 tbsps of bean sauce in a pan and put on medium heat. Add mackerel in the pan. Simmer fish for about 10 minutes on low heat, pouring the sauce over the mackerel. Flip it once, briefly and then back. Keep scooping sauce over it.

Serve with rice, as it leaves a decent amount of sauce, and then also sauteed Asian greens, an approximation of which can be found in the May 2005 Sunset. We used bok choy and mustard greens. Combine oil, minced garlic and ginger in a wok and stir fry until brown. Add bok choy and 1/2 cup of water. Cover and steam until bok choy is tender. Then add mustard greens and cook until wilted. Drizzle soy sauce over the finished product.

Sweet Orange Steelhead

Page 266 in the May 2005 issue of Cooking Light, it was actually meant for salmon fillets, but we used a whole Steelhead.  Added about 4 tbs of melted butter to the rub and smeared it all over the inside of the fish, threw it on the BBQ for about an hour and it was pretty much amazing.

Simply had green beans and a 2006 Las Rocas Rosado from Spain with it, which went perfectly.  The fish brought out more balanced flavors from an otherwise very dry rose.