short ribs with celeriac and beets

plated
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

I bought some meaty spare ribs and butterflied them as to decrease the cooking time. It is a well marbled piece or meat, and butterflied (with the bone on) one can grill it relatively quickly as opposed to having to braise it for several hours.
This is the technique



I marinated the beef with salt, pepper, sugar, fish suace, wine, lime, and soy sauce.
I chopped the celeriac or celery root into cubes



and cooked it with two small potatos also cubed, garlic and onion.



When cooked I mashed it.
The beets I wrapped in foil with a garlic clove and two carrots and salt and placed it on a hot grill for an hour.



I steamed the beet greens



and served them with the beets and carrots chopped it into cubes



I grilled the short ribs




till done



Then plated with mashed potato and celeric, beet and green salad and the grilled short rib. that menu and the pool rocked.

Ground Turkey Crispy Rolls

in the frier
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

This takes a little prep but came out great. I browned ground turkey with the whites of some chives, onion, and garlic, It was flavored with hoisin, rice wine vinegar, fish sauce and lime.
I let it cool and then added the green part of the chives, shredded carrot and celery.
Two large tablespoons went into each roll with a piece of lettuce (to keep the wonton from getting too moist)



Then I fried them at 375 till brown



Served them with some steamed asparagus



They turned out very tasty.

Father's day Paella

a comer
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

My wife made the trek to williamsburg to get a special father's day sale item from La Tienda, a paella burner with an extra pan. she also bought some rice and a long spatula.



I put it together (My wife went out and bought the gas line to connect to a propane tank)



the boy was excited





Father's day we cooked a rice dish with shrimp and squid and some assorted leftovers. A video follows, most memorable for the boys comments on labor relations and poisonous frogs as much as for the cooking commentary.
But first:
Rice... short grain bomba rice



Parsley, garlic and red pepper


Grated tomato (I covered it against flies and missed sauteeing it, which should be done to decrease water content)



Green beans cleaned and chopped




Shrimp, squid and red pepper.



Full video here

Cooking paella with the kid from Eugenio Monasterio on Vimeo.

I love the new setup, bigger pan. Thanks to the family for the present

Cherry Braised Pork Chops

with thyme
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

This is a variation of the jam braised pork chops, but instead with fresh cherries and thyme as the main flavoring. I had about 2 cups of cherries in the fridge that where starting to loose their firmness so I decided to cook them for dinner. I pitted them by cutting them in half and removing the stone.



I pureed half of them (one cup) with a hand blender, with a quarter cup of white wine, half and onion, a clove of garlic and a pinch of salt.



I then sauteed the remaining half an onion with another clove of garlic and some guanciale till soft.





I then removed the onion, garlic and guancialle leaving just a bit of fat behind and seared the pork chops in the same pan.



As is usual I was flying by the seat of my pants and had not planned any specific side dish, I was about to send out my wife for some spinach when the door rang and the neighbor dropped off two big bunches of asparagus



I put it in a microwave safe bowl, sprinkled with fleur de sel (salt), olive oil and a teaspoon of water. I microwaved it a minute at a time till they where steamed and crisp (less than 3min)



When the porkchops where well browned on both sides, I removed them and deglazed the pan with the pureed cherry mix



I let the liquid reduce a bit then returned the porkchops, onions and garlic and added the remaining cherries



This cooked for another ten minutes or so and then I added fresh thyme over top



The dish was well received by the family, the fresh thyme adds great aroma and earthiness to an already very rustic dish. I thought the cherries were very good, not too sweet and the sauce was great. Thanks to the neighbors for the unexpected veg delivery.

Purple and Yellow Cauliflower

purple and yellow
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

I bought two head of cauliflower at Broad Appettite. They were standing out from the table of one of the vendors. The purple color an obvious draw, but for the yellow the fractal arrangement of the florets is stunning.

(quick aside great Jonathan Coulton song "Mandelbrot Set" describes albeight erroneously the formula for fractals)


Anyway... I briefly steamed the cauliflower, less than 10 minutes and then put it in a bowl and doused it with 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil with toasted garlic and covered the bowl.



I served it with chicken breast which was pan seared and Mac and Cheese (yes from a box)



It was delicious, try it out



Mandelbrot Set By Jonathan Coulton

BroadAppetit

BroadAppetit hot crowd
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

Another post on Broad Appetit. I swung down on Broad around noon and quickly ran into RVAfoodie and his wife (darling octopus) and the internet famous Jasper. They gave me the skinny on what to hit and they were right. The Thai pork belly from Six Burner was great, soft and fatty with an excellent savory sauce.





I had never eaten at Croakers, although I always have wanted to.



They by far had the most generous serving of food for $3



A large piece of perfectly fried catfish, cornbread, sauces to choose from, (the hot sauce was so great) onion and peppers and fries. I actually didn't finish the fries because I wanted to hit some other sites.

I got a blurry photo of the pastrami slider from Balliceaux, It was incredibly tasty the pastrami falling apart under the bun.



I had the ribs from Haligans pub and then scored some Macarons from Petits Bouchees



I said hi to Kitchen Musings and was awestruck at how tasty the Macarons were with contrasting textures and tastes, somehow cold on a blazingly hot day. My favorite was the passion fruit one.
I had a great time, and wished that I could have tasted more, but I was stuffed. Great fun and food, very proud of the Richmond restaurants that participated the great bands and crowds that braved the heat.

Morcilla

Morcilla
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

Another quick lunch post. Browned some morcilla blood sausage. These were from La Tienda. Only bread I had wasn't up to the test.



Would have been better with better bread and a glass of wine.

Online Gaming

Ok it's been forever since I covered anything video game related but I have had a recent resurgence of play.
I played a fair amount of the Halo Reach Beta, I enjoyed it very much. It is reminiscent enough of Halo 3 but not so much that it feels like an expansion pack. New weapons, loadouts and tactics make it feel like a new game. I am looking forward to the full game.
I just got a copy of Red Dead Redemption and have played for a couple of hours. The single player is very fun, with lots of sandbox missions and options. Not as hard (at least initially as GTA 4) My current gripe is with the implementation of multiplayer. I don't think it's an XBOX live issue as I have never been unable to log onto a game for "network" issues but Red Dead consistently denies me some multiplayer cowboy action.
I've got Super Mario Galaxy 2 in my mitts but do to a recent grounding of the boy, I haven't played it yet. Hopefully will fire it up this weekend.

Oh and I cooked a rib eye roast today on the grill it was good.