Opine Away

Was asked one day “I have this meat, how should I cook it?”, so I had to come with a quick answer… Here it is:

Ingredients:

A nice piece of meat for roasting, rib eye (or prime rib) will be good,  1/2 Lb per person

A stick of butter,  room temperature soft

Olive oil

Coarsely ground black pepper

smoked habanero (you can find it at www.davesgourmet.com ) or other hot red pepper.

Salt

Dry herbs blend (spices rack in the supermarket.)

Cloves of garlic (about 2-4 per pound of meat).

Wood chips for smoking (hickory, cherry, pecan, apple, whatever…).

You’ll also need a grill with a rotisserie attachment.

Preparation:

Make small cuts 1” deep in random locations in the meat, and push a garlic clove in each as you cut.

Next steps will be advices to do with disposable gloves.

Take the butter, and smear it all over the meat, massaging it in. Work it to get it in all over. Take some olive oil, and do the same. Take your time with it, do it with love…

In a bowl, take a very generous amount of the black pepper, some smoked habanero (very spicy, so up to you…), some salt and some dry herbs, mix them all together.

Take the spices mix, and spread it all over the meat, generously. You can never have too much of the black pepper, so add more as seems right.

Put the meat on the rotisserie skewer.  Don’t put it in the grill just yet…

Put the wood chips in the grill. I don’t wet them as they instruct you. I put them in, and add more every hours or so, to keep lots of smoke going all the time. If you don’t have a place to put them in your grill, you want them over the flame in aluminum foil.

Light the fire under the wood chips. This fire should not be directly under the meat when you put it in. If you have a rotisserie flame at the back of your grill, that’s the one you should use. Otherwise, you want a flame in one side of the grill, and the meat in the other side.

Let the grill heat up until the chips start to produce some. Put the meat in the grill, and turn on the rotisserie. Close the lead, and let the meat turn in the smoke. You want to make sure that when you put the meat in there’s a lot of smoke, because this is when the meat is open and will get in lots of the smoke.

Now let it cook…  a piece that’s 6-8Lb I cook for about 3 hours.  When the smoke stops, I add more wood chips, the more smoke the better.

After about 3 hours, you can take the meat out, but don’t cut it for 10-15 minutes, otherwise it will lose lots of the juices. After waiting a little, cut and enjoy. 

Chinese Spare Ribs

These are like candy covered meat, and are tender and delicious…

 Ingredients:

Spare Ribs,  cut into single ribs, 3- 4 pounds

2 Garlic Cloves

¾  cup brown sugar (“Sugar in the raw”)

¼ cup vinegar

Juice from one lemon

¼ cup soy sauce

1 cup water

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon cornstarch

¼ teaspoon Chinese Five Spice (can be found in most supermarkets).

Hot pepper powder to taste (cayenne pepper or any other red hot pepper will do, as much or little as you want).

Preparation:

Crash garlic with the side of a wide knife.

Mix well everything except ribs in a bowl.

Put ribs in an oven pan large enough and deep to contain ribs and sauce.

Pour mix on ribs and let marinate for at least an hour.

Cover pan with aluminum foil, sealing all sides.

Put  pan in the oven, about 350 degrees (f) for 2-3 hours.  Turn ribs after 30 minutes, and as often as every 10-15 minutes after that. After an hour and a half, let the aluminum foil just sit on top of the pan, shielding the ribs from direct heat but letting the sauce evaporate.

In the last 20 minutes before serving, remove aluminum foil, put temperature at 450 and let the ribs brown more, turning them every few minutes.

Take out and serve.  The sauce at the when ready should be pretty thick and nicely cover the ribs.

L.

It comes out so excellent!

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 tablespoon white sugar

½  teaspoon salt

1 egg

1 ½  cups milk

3 tablespoons butter (salted or unsalted, does not matter).

Maple syrup for serving.

Preparation:

• Melt butter in a microwave (about 30 seconds, in a microwave safe bowl).
• Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl (Flour, baking powder, sugar, salt).
• Add milk, egg and melted butter.
• Mix well, until smooth with no lumps.
• Oil a large pan lightly by smearing it with oil soaked paper towel.
• Heat pan and pour about ¼ cup for each pancake. Flip over when bubbles appear on the top, bottom should be slightly brown. Second side will brown fast.

For chocolate chips if wanted, don’t use the readymade ones,  use regular chocolate, cut it to small pieces and throw it in the mix, it is much tastier.

Enjoy!

L.

This one is simple and delicious. Can be done with chicken wings, strips of beef, ribs (baby back or spare cut into individual ribs), prime rib, etc.
You start with mixing the sauce. You need a good amount of sauce, to not just cover all the meat, but also to let the meat be immersed in it, at least partially.
You can make your own BBQ sauce, based on ketchup, mustard and molasses mixed together; you can add honey, sugar, spices, whatever comes to mind…
Or you can take a short cut and start with readymade BBQ sauce – when I do that, I usually use a few mixed together – spicy, smoked, honey, you have to be creative.
I also add honey, a little soy sauce, sometimes some maple syrup, brown sugar, maybe a little vinegar, hot pepper, smoked habanero (you can find it at www.davesgourmet.com ), garlic (crash a few cloves with the side of a wide knife and throw them in), you can add some onion soup powder, or onion powder you buy as a spice.
Taste the sauce. If it is good now, it will be good later.
Put whatever meat/chicken you use into the sauce, and let it marinate for an hour or so. If you don’t have enough time, skip the marinating time… Lick your fingers to make sure you really like the sauce, and add whatever to improve it…
Put the meat with all the sauce in an oven pan and cover with aluminum foil. Put in the oven, about 350 degrees (f) for 2-3 hours. Yes, it has to be at least that. But don’t let it just sit there:
After the first half an hour, turn the meat over inside the sauce. You’ll do this over and over again, as much as you can, but at least 5-10 minutes apart. At the beginning not as frequent, but more and more toward the end. The meat (or wings or whatever) will start to build a sauce cover over it, that will get darker and thicker. Keep rotating, and replace the aluminum foil over it each time, but loose, so the liquids can evaporate but will not expose the meat to direct heat.
About 15 minutes before you want to eat, remove the aluminum foil completely. At this point, the sauce should be much thicker that what you started with, and the meat should be very tender, so handle with care… Put the oven on broil, and rotate every couple of minutes, to avoid burning but to really tan it nicely and get a good cover of sauce over everything.
Remove from the oven, let it cool a little because it will be very hot, and enjoy. Make sure you make enough, it will go fast… Can be served with white rice, corn on the cob, and lots of napkins.

L.

This is not my original recipe by any means, just a little adaptation… Was real fun to make it with my 9 years old daughter, and was a huge success ‘cause everyone liked it.

This version will make you 32 small pieces that are easy to handle and disappear  fast… I used two 8”x8” single use baking pans from the supermarket, easy to handle (and if relevant to you,  you do one while your kid do the other…). Cut all quantities  by half if you want to do only one pan. You might need to make another one right after, since it is going to be gone real fast.

It is easy to do, doesn’t take too long. Done in two phases, first prepare and cook the crust, then prepare the filling and cook all together.  I explain in details, so don’t get intimidated by the relatively long text…

List of all Ingredients needed in total (rounded up quantities, e.g. for checking what you have at home and for your trip to the supermarket, don’t use these exact quantities for the cooking…)

1. Non-stick cooking spray
2. Parchment paper
3. 8”x8x 1 5/8” high (that’s the off the shelf ones I found,  anything similar will do…) aluminum single use baking trays – 2  (they usually come in packaged of 3, oh well)
4. Confectioners’ sugar  - ¾ cup
5. All-purpose flour - 2 cups
6. Cornstarch - ½ cup
7. Granulated sugar - 1.5 cup
8. 6 Eggs
9. Butter  - 1 ½ stick
10. Baking powder - 1 teaspoon
11. Lemons  - About 8-10 (get a few more…) to make 1 cup lemon juice.
12. salt

CRUST ingredients

• 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons cornstarch
• ½ cup confectioners’ sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup (1.5 stick) cold unsalted butter

Lemon Filling ingredients

• 6 large eggs
• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½  cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup fresh lemon juice

Directions

Prep the Pans:

1. Coat the two 8”x8” baking pans with the cooking spray, so the parchment paper will stick to them when preparing, and release easy after backing.
2. Cut the parchment paper to four 8” wide and about 14” long rectangles.
3. Line the pans with two crisscrossed rectangles each, leaving overhangs on all sides. This will make it easy to pull it all out when done. The paper should stick to the cooking spray and stay there.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with rack mid-height.  Squeeze lemons to get  1 cup of lemon juice (note – that’s what you get when you squeeze lemon J ).

Make the crust:

1. Put In a food processor with the sharp blade, and pulse a few times to mix:
   • 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
   • 6 tablespoons cornstarch
   • ½ cup confectioners’ sugar
   • ¼ teaspoon salt
2. Cut to a few pieces and add  ¾ cup (1 ½  stick) cold unsalted butter.
3. Pulse for 20-30 seconds (don’t take my word for this) until mixture turns into coarse crumbs.  If you over do it or the butter gets too warm, it will  mash together, it’s fine too, just stop there…
4. Divide to two and press each half into each cooking pan’s bottom (over the paper that’s already there) going up the sides about ½” to ¾” inch. Try to make it evenly spread over the pan
5. Refrigerate 10 minutes.
6. Bake until crust is lightly browned, about 20 minutes.
7. Take pans out of the oven, let it cool until filling is done, don’t take it out of the pan.

While it is cooling down, reduce oven heat to 325 degrees, and:

Make the filling:

1. Beat the 6 eggs with an electric mixer until it builds some volume and thickens. It should become foamy.  You can also do it in the food processor after cleaning it well from the crust, works too but takes a little longer.  
2. Beat in:

·         6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

·         ¾ teaspoon baking powder

·         ½ teaspoon salt

·         1 ½  cup granulated sugar

·         1 cup fresh lemon juice

1. Pour over warm crust.

Bake in 325 degrees until set, about 25 minutes. The top should be slightly brown, the inside will stay wet, that’s the way it should be…

Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate for at least  1 hour.

Take out from the fridge, use the paper overhang to lift it out from the pan.

Sift confectioners’ sugar over the top, and then cut crisscross to 4 sections of 2” in both directions, to create 16 2”x2” squares. I like the outside crust, but if you want it to look better cut the crust around before you divide it to make a nicer presentation…

Oh, and I suggest cleaning the knife between cuts with a damp paper towel, to create clean nice cuts..

Lift pieces using a wide knife,  and place on a serving plate. Enjoy.

L.

Decent food, small deserts….

www.sohoongeorge.com

335 George Street

New Brunswick

NJ 08901

Tel: 732-296-0533

Map

SOHO on George has good food, reasonable (not cheap) prices, good service, OK cocktails, OK décor.

They might be a little too pretentious, it is not a high end NYC restaurant, but the food is good and presented nice. Sitting outside is nice except for the traffic behind you, which is blocked by a row of small trees, but is very very close…

Opine Away rating of SOHO on George:

Rating index:  0 – Don’t bother. “-“ - irrelevant.  1 to 10, 10 is best. Price $ to $$$$$

L.

Fun and quick one. I made this one up for the kids one day a long time ago  just for fun, and they really liked it, so I guess  I can share…

Ingredients

Chicken  breast – for this I usually use the frozen chicken tenderloins from Costco (well, when I originally made them it was called Price Club….), but it can be made from any chicken breast. Cut to cubes about 1” in size, or whatever floats you boat…

Garlic – 2 cloves, sliced

Olive oil

Ketchup

Dry oregano (in the spices section if you need an explanation…). I’m not sure why I used oregano (probably whatever was in front of me), but it came out good…. You can modify of course, use dry basil, or pizza dry mixed herbs.

Black pepper to taste.  If spicy is good, you can use a little hot red pepper (powder) as Cayenne or similar.

Preparation

Fry the garlic a little in a pan with the olive oil (30 seconds, no more cuase it gets bitter) to get the flavor into the oil, add the chicken and fry until it starts to get white on the outside (real quick). Add some Ketchup, Dry Oregano, black/red pepper to taste, stir on a small flame for a couple of minutes and serve.

Serving

Now that’s up to you.  It can be good with just bread or garlic bread, rice, pasta…. You should know what your kids like…or you… slice some tomatos and cucambers on the side.

L.

Well, I’m not Creole… but like spicy food…

The story starts with me fishing with the kids at Lake Hopatcong (great place). We’ve been there before, and last time I made seafood pasta with the fish we got (maybe I’ll write about it sometime…). This time, the last fish of the day was a small catfish my son got, so I got the idea to make catfish Jambalaya.

I fileted all the fish we caught (mixed, including the catfish) and got some shrimp. Shrimp were peeled with only tale on (uncooked of course), and fish pieces cut small, probably 2” in size, maybe less. Play with it - no rules…

You can use any seafood. Catfish, white fish, shrimp, clams, mussels, whatever. Clams and mussels cook before adding…

Ingredients:

Seafood – as described above. I used mixed fish including catfish cut to 1-2” pieces and shrimp. Pound to two of fish, 20 shrimp, depending on how many people and if you want leftovers…

Vegetables – two large onions, 3-4 celery sticks, red bell peppers, all diced. I also added mushrooms (cut to ½” pieces), carrots (handful of carrot “strings” from a precut bag) and 3 small tomatoes, diced.

Garlic – 4-5 cloves , sliced.

Bacon – 4-5 strips cut to small pieces (1/2”x1/2”).

Butter – half a stick.

Spices – Cayenne pepper, Smoked Habanero (you can find it at www.davesgourmet.com ), Black Pepper, a little sage and thyme, salt, flat tablespoon chicken soup powder, flat tablespoon onion soup powder (Israeli brands soup powders are a good choice for that, get in Israeli stores or www.parkeastkosher.com ).

Cooked rice to serve it on.

Scallion, chopped, to add on top when serving.

Preparation:

I used a deep large Teflon heavy pan – chose your weapons as you like… Fry the bacon pieces until starts to get crispy, then pull them out leaving the fat behind. Add the butter,  and when melted add the onions and sauté them (well, actually fry them…) a little until starts softening, then add celery and bell pepper, carrots and mushrooms (and whatever vegetables you’d like to add, up to you…). Sauté it for a few minutes until starts to looks it’s cooking. Add Garlic.

Add spices and soup powders and tomatoes  and mix for another minute or two.  Push to the sides making a free spaces in the middle and put in the fish pieces, fry until cooked a little, move aside, add shrimp and fry until starts to get pink, put back the bacon pieces, mix gently all together. Add about two cups of water and mix gently. Let cook a little until the liquid looks a little thick. Cover and cook for a few more minutes.

Serving

Put rice layer on the dish. Put some Jambalaya on top. Put some cut scallions on top. Eat.

I love cooking and love eating good food. I’m not pretending to be an expert (at anything) but I’m getting good feedback and repeat “customers” (well, free helps too…).

I’m going to write here whatever recipes come to mind, or I make. I’m not accurate with anything I cook – it’s a matter of what I have at home, what seems right and taste good – no real rules, measurements or strict ingredients. If you need cooking instructions that are accurate and you can’t deviate from the written instructions, you’ll probably have a little hard time with it… but I’ll try to always give alternatives, hints and tips about stuff… if you’re not enjoying cooking, and not enjoying experimenting with cooking,  please don’t bother.

L.