Drowning in Crawfish

Nearly killed myself over memorial day

Crawfish

Octopus Terrine

octopus terrine
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

I had bought a pair if frozen octopi the last time I was at the fish store, The act of freezing the octopus actually makes it more tender after cooking. Defrosted the octopus in the fridge over a couple of days and tried to decide what to make. I was going to make it for escabeche with capers, olives, onion and peppers, or a traditional galician way but decided instead to make a terrine that either way if it fell apart or had leftovers I could still make into escabeche.



defrosted octopi

I set a pot of water to boil, with no salt (it's supposed to make the octopus more chewy) a couple of bay leaves, peppercorns, and a penny (traditionaly octopus is cooked in a copper pot which gives it a darker color.)



I then dunked the octopus into the water 3 times letting the water come back to a boil after each dunk.



We shot a bit of a ponderous video of the whole process

terrine of octopus from Eugenio Monasterio on Vimeo.

As you can see we cooked potato in the same water after the octopus was done. The octopus was seasoned and placed in the terrine with plastic wrap, and unmolded the next day.



My son says it looks like a fossil. We served up the potato with pimenton



and served it all up



Served with some olive oil and some sea salt on the side. Turned out very tasty and makes a cool presentation.

THREE MONSTER FISH HEADS IN A BROKEDOWN COOLER MAKE A DAMN FINE CURRY

Fish head curry story on Stunt Foodways.



Stunt Foodways

Stuffed potato fritter, papa rellena

papa rellena
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

This is a modified recipe from my well worn Puerto Rican Cookery cookbook. My mother gifted me this book when I moved out of the house. She wrote some of her own recipes on the blank pages. So it's never going away.



I followed the recipe, but I think I used more flour than the recipe calls for, and I made the fritters pretty huge. Potato boiling, with added pumpkin...



Potato and pumpkin mashed, mixed with flour and stuffed with savory meat filling.



Then fried, they where very tasty.

Secco Wine Bar

The boy
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

The boy and I went out on Saturday and we chose Secco Wine Bar for dinner. We sat at the Bar as all the tables where taken and checked out the menu. We Started with a cheese plate with one cheese substituted with Jamon Iberico.



We chose one VA cheese, one VT. It is served with toasted bread some quince paste and some berry compote. We enjoyed it very much. We then selected 4 small plates which we both shared.
We ordered the octopus



Which came with some potato and ink. Delicious.
Duck confit with pasta



Also very good, but not as lively a taste as the other plates.
Flamenquines, which are fried rolls of pork



excellent with the crispy potato strings
and pork rillete



served with dehydrated apple crisps and mustard. (The boy referred to it as a jar of lard, but didn't stop him from voraciously eating his half)
For dessert whe shared the bread pudding and the chocolate ganache ribbon. Both excellent





On the way back home we stopped in at One Eyed Jacques and bought a set of Zombie Dice, which we played a couple of rounds before bedtime. Great dinner and entertainment.

One Egg Tortilla de Patata... Ostrich Egg

ostrich obligatory pacman
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

I received an ostrich egg for my birthday.



It was an odd but extremely funny gift and of course presented a bit of a challenge as to what to do with it. I was very wary of going too straight forward, ie scrambled or fried egg as I wasn't sure if it would taste just like a chicken egg. I chose to make a one egg tortilla de patata. A quintissential spanish dish served in homes and bars around the country.
Basically it is cooked potato, onion and garlic salt and pepper set in egg. I added some chopped chorizo, and pancetta as well as a tsp of pimenton.
The first job was to open the egg. The family threw out reccomendations, hole saw, screwdriver, mallet, but we ended up scoring the top with a saw and cracking it open with a wooden pestle.





The egg cracked presented the contents still safely hidden behind a thick membrane (amniotic sac) which I cut into and then poured the egg into a large glass bowl. My wife about lost her lunch at that moment as the egg gurgled, squashed and slithered out of it's shell. I will post video at the end of the post cause it's not a very appetizing moment. Having said that she did take my daughter and go out to dinner instead of waiting for the tortilla. The white and yolk are very intermingled with an orangy color, It smelled sweet, almost with a hint of vanilla, strange but pleasant.
Ok then I was on my own from here. I peeled 4 yukon gold potatoes 2 onions and 6 cloves of garlic and diced them. I sauteed them in olive oil some chorizo and a tsp of pimenton.



and pancetta



I sauteed it till it was almost done, the potato still had a bit of crunch but barely. I seasoned this with salt and pepper.

I initially thought I could cook all this in my large cast iron skillet, but the side isn't very high... and I had a ton of egg. I decided to transfer it all to the oven and use my relatively new clay pot from La Tienda.
I put the empty cazuela in the oven and preheated the oven to 350. When both the oven and cazuela were at 350 I added another bit of olive oil to the pot, half the potato, the now scrambled egg and the rest of the potato.



I then increased the temp to 400 and cooked for 10 min. At 10 minutes I mixed the ingredients which were partially set and cooked for another 10 minutes. After the total 20 min it was set so I switched to low broil for 4 minutes till it looked like this.



I flipped it onto a serving platter (the tortilla is 12 inches in diameter)



I summoned some pac-man vibe with a slice





It tasted great, very close to a chicken egg, no longer sweetly fragrant as it was before but with a nice pimenton aroma. Clearly have a bunch left over for breakfast and some snacks.


The egg cracking video is below, sorry if it is gross

ostrich egg open from Eugenio Monasterio on Vimeo.

Sancocho

sancocho
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

I had been craving sancocho for some time. This is a soup/stew starch heavy and typically made with multiple lesser cuts of meat, and mixed meats, chicken, pork , beef all comingling. I went with straight pork, but used a homemade chicken stock for the base.
Ingredients
(chop all roots + vegetables into cubes)
1 large yucha root peeled
1 sweet potato
6 small yukon gold potatoes
2 large carrots
2 large turnips
1 large onion
2 large leeks cleaned and chopped
6 cloves of garlic
4 pork shanks rubbed with salt, garlic, oregano, black pepper and left overnight in fridge

1 large can (20 oz) of hominy (this is not a typical ingredient, but I had been saving it to make pozole and said what the hell. Normally a couple of corncobs would be substituted)

3 cups chicken stock
1 cup white wine
1/2 cup of sofrito
salt and pepper to taste

I cooked it all outside as it was summer, and I could jump in the pool between doneness checks. The shanks were browned on the grill



We had bought them at the farmers market



Once browned the sofrito is sauteed in the cooking vessel (oven safe) and all the roots and vegetables (except the hominy) are added. I then put the shanks on top of the vegetable mix and cooked at approximately 350 degrees for an hour.



This way the fat and rub drips down onto the roots. After an hour I added the liquid ingredients and the hominy tasted and adjusted for salt and pepper and cooked for another half hour. After that I boned out the pork and returned it to the pot. You should have a very thick broth from all the starch with contrasting textures from the different roots and corn. The meat should be soft and easy to chew.



Makes for great leftovers as well

T-bone Tagliata and Salad (Rachel Ray recipe)

salted T-bone
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

My wife saw this recipe on Rachel Ray's TV show and wanted to make it. She typically (well actually rarely) takes control of the kitchen, so it was exciting to watch.

The whole recipe is here
T-bone Taglita


The steaks where grilled with a rosemary, garlic, salt and olive oil marinade



Garlic was roasted



The salad and bacon where put together, by the way the salad dressing is great, (Tricia typically doesn't like mustard/mayo/ketchup but this combination was great)



We cooked everyting on the grill. The chopped potato



and the T-bones which I cleaned off the bone and sliced for the table



The meal was great. Not only as it was incredibly tasty, the salad, the meat the seasoning everything perfect, but also my wife gained some culinary confidence, which is great.

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.