Sailcooking: Wood-Fired Steak and Spicy Green Beans

Posted by Dave in meat, salad, vegetarian and tagged with , , ,

Our chartered sailboat docked at an island, as seen from the firepit near the beach.

Some of my friends are experienced sailors, and I recently had the awesome opportunity to sail Lake Superior with them; specifically, we explored the Apostle Islands.  There were a total of four of us guys on our chartered sailboat for four days in early September.

I don’t know much about sailing, so I made my primary contribution be our food; I did the food shopping and the cooking of our evening meals including chicken fajitas, birch-grilled steak, and grilled pork chops marinated in salsa verde.

We stayed on the boat every day of the trip; it was conveniently equiped with quite a complete kitchen, and even a propane-fueled grill over the stern.

The sailboat galley with gimbaled stove.

On one day we sailed to an island that had a dock in water deep enough for our keelboat, so that day we grilled ribeye steaks ashore over local birchwood from the boreal forest.

While we are all meat-eating men, we’re not savages.  We accompanied the dinner with a salad with freshly-made croutons of diced sourdough bread browned in olive oil, minced garlic, and salt.

Garlic sourdough croutons.

Mixed greens salad.

Our side dish was spicy green beans, similar to szechuan-style green beans.  Red pepper flakes and garlic were soaked in olive oil for a while, then we sautéed whole, trimmed green beans in that spiced oil.

Spicy green beans.

While I was aboard preparing the sides, one of my fellow sailors expertly grilled our thick ribeye steaks (rubbed with garlic olive oil, and minced garlic, salt and pepper) at the beach over a birchwood fire.  They were excellent, as evidence by my eating before taking a photograph; grilling over wood makes a huge difference in flavor as compared to gas or charcoal.

Ribeye steak grilled over birchwood, spicy green beans, and salad.

It was a spectacular trip, and the four of us guys managed to eat better than we ought to have. Ah, roughing it. :)

Stuffed Tomatoes and Peppers for 18 people!

Posted by Dave in meat, vegetarian and tagged with , , ,

Stuffed Tomatoes and Peppers to serve 18

So after a bit of a posting hiatus, I’m back… life got busy, mostly with fun stuff, so I haven’t been cooking a lot of new things, but I did find some interesting cooking situations, so here goes.

My girlfriend recently moved into a co-op house with 14 residents in total.  While the house doesn’t share all their food, as some co-ops do, huge dinners are prepared to eat communally; every resident signs-up for nights to make dinner for everyone, and this happens nearly every single day!

Whomever is making a dinner also typically invites other guests of their own. So, for this first dinner, we were preparing for 18 people!  That’s definitely the biggest sit-down home meal I’ve ever participated in preparing.

At the co-op house, appropriately, a lot of the cooking vessels are king-sized.

A giant colander.

And, an advantage is one gets to cook on this huge Viking gas range!

The co-op’s huge Viking gas range.

For the stuffed peppers and tomatoes, we prepared a stuffing of the following:

  • brown rice (cooked)
  • fresh tomato (cores, chopped)
  • fresh mushroom (finely chopped)
  • fresh garlic (minced)
  • fresh italian sausages (removed from casing and browned)
  • both fresh and dried oregano
  • fennel seed
  • cayenne pepper (powder)
  • fresh parsley (finely chopped)
  • salt and pepper
  • parmesan cheese (grated)

This was the first meal we prepared for the co-op; having no idea how long it would take to prepare, we started at about 2pm for a 7pm dinnertime.  (As it turns out, that was none too soon for this first effort.)

Hours of prep, prep, and more prep!

The peppers (selected for large size, and so they could stand upright) and tomatoes were cored and packed in baking pans (lightly greased with olive oil).

Hollowed-out peppers and tomoatoes; italian sausage for stuffing.

The stuffing ingredients were mixed and lightly cooked with the sausage after browning.

Chopped mushroom for the filling; also, tomatoes and minced garlic.

A relatively small amount of sausage was used (5 sausages for 18 total servings), and browned in a large pan.

Browning italian sausage.

Once the filling was mixed together with the cooked brown rice and seasoned to taste, the peppers and tomatoes were filled.  We also made some vegetarian only filling, substituting some more cheese instead of the sausage, and we were careful to keep track of which were the vegetarian ones.

Stuffed and ready for the oven.

For a side, we washed and trimmed 3-4 pounds of fresh green beans.

Prepped green beans.

The green beans were steamed while sliced almonds and garlic were sauteed in oil.

Toasting/browning sliced almonds in olive oil with garlic.

Humongous steamers are great for preparing the vegetables, and the range top with so many gas burners allows many things to be going at once.

To finish the beans, they were tossed with the almonds and some tamari (a gluten-free alternative to soy sauce.)

Green beans with garlic, almond, and soy sauce.

The co-op has a large dining room with a great table, here set for 17 residents and guests!  Two kinds of sliced melon were also served with the dinner.

The co-op’s dining room table, awaiting the dinner bell.

For those residents don’t make it for dinner, the leftovers are packed individually for each of them and left in their respective refrigerators.

So, from this monumental task, here’s what I learned:

  • Food prep takes a long time; in total we took over 4 hours to prepare this meal.  We’ll get better at using the food processor for chopping.
  • Adding spices for very large dishes takes practice… I kept having to add, taste, add, taste, add, add, add!
  • Easy summer foods like sweet corn on the cob and watermelons are great side dishes.
  • The hollowed-out bell peppers can be blanched and partially cooked in boiling water before stuffing them, so that they cook in much less time, similarly to the time for the tomatoes.
  • Some wine before dinner, near the end of the cooking, definitely helps relieve stress. :)
  • A large group makes for quite the convivial kitchen and dinnertime.

Alas, this post isn’t a recipe, per se… I’ve lost track of many quantities and there were a lot of adjustments to taste.  I trust most of you don’t need measurements to prepare such a meal for 18 people, though. :)

If you’d like a stuffed pepper recipe, here are some places to start:

Baked Lake Trout and Crispy Kale

Posted by Dave in fish, vegetarian and tagged with , , , ,

Baked Lake Superior Trout and Crispy Kale

Here’s an easy but great meal, whipped up last night with some wonderful companions.  We shopped at the market quite late, but found a nice Lake Superior Trout fillet (wild, frozen) large enough to serve three, after the seafood counter had closed.

Prepare a sauce for the trout from yogurt (plain, thick yogurt, e.g., greek style, perhaps 1/2 cup), finely chopped chives or garlic grass, Worcestershire sauce (~1-2 T.), lemon pepper, salt to taste.  Here, we used garden-fresh garlic grass from a friend.

Place the (thawed) trout fillet(s) in a baking dish and coat the top with the sauce, perhaps with a small amount of olive oil underneath to assure it doesn’t stick to the dish when cooking.  A tip: if you leave a large fillet whole, you can cut it to test for done-ness and cut into servings at the same time.

Arrange coarsely chopped fresh kale on a baking pan and toss with olive oil. We included the stems as well; if you do, they’ll just likely be a bit chewy rather than crispy, like the leaves.  Luckily, we had plenty of home-grown kale. :)

Bake both the trout and kale in a 400° F, perhaps for 10-12 minutes for the trout and 5-7 minutes for the kale, until the fish is cooked through, but still moist, and the kale leaves are somewhat crisp. Toss the kale occasionally to cook/crisp evenly.

We plated individual-serving-size portions of the trout, topped with a bit more finely chopped garlic grass/chives, and the crisp kale on the side, accompanied by a pretty insalata caprese (unfortunately, not pictured) of ripe, yellow tomato slices, fresh home-grown basil leaves, and sliced fresh mozzarella.

Lake trout with yogurt/garlic sauce and baked crispy kale.

Here are some related links:

Note that the crispy kale can be prepared easily at many oven temperatures, e.g., 250° F – 400° F, to share the oven with your entree.

I was away from home; these smartphone photos don’t quite do this meal justice. :)

Pan-fried Noodles with Vegetables

Posted by Dave in asian, gluten-free, vegetarian and tagged with , , ,

Pan-fried Noodles with Vegetables

Here’s a quick vegetarian, and potentially gluten-free, noodle dish.

To prepare: place rice noodles in warm water to soften (20-30 mins.)  I used rice noodles that were approximately 1/4 inch wide, but wider noodles would work well too.

Prepare a sauce by combining fish sauce, soy sauce, water, and honey, and fresh lemon or lime juice … perhaps 1/2 cup total.  (To be gluten-free, use tamari rather than soy sauce.)

Sauté vegetables in canola or peanut oil to desired tenderness in a large pan or wok; for this dish I used matchstick carrot, sliced white button mushroom, sweet onion, and minced shallot, adding a portion of the sauce as well.
Remove the vegetables from the hot pan and set aside.
Quickly scramble an egg in oil in the pan, and place it with the vegetables.

Once the noodles have softened, drain pan-fry them likewise in a bit of oil, until they begin to crisp or brown slightly.  Control cooking with the sauce (which can also be used to add some color to the noodles.)

To finish, return sautéed vegetables to the warm pan, add any remaining sauce, add chopped fresh cilantro and chopped peanut and combine thoroughly.

I served this in one large bowl per serving… a pretty simple but satisfying meal just for myself, this time. :-)

Pan-fried noodles with vegetables.

Summertime Bounty Breakfast

Posted by Dave in breakfast, potatoes, vegetarian and tagged with , ,

A breakfast of summertime bounty

I’ve been away from blogging for a bit but have just wrapped up weeks of work (on this year-long project) that culminated in a research paper manuscript submission last night; now I’m looking forward to time for friends… and for breakfast, and perhaps the two combined.

Here’s my morning’s breakfast of summertime bounty with ingredients from the farmer’s market and some lovely friends:  scrambled egg and skillet potatoes with avocado and mesclun of arugula and other salad greens home-grown on my front porch, thanks to a lovely person that trusts me to babysit them.

The skillet potatoes are sliced red potato from the market, pan-fried in canola until tender, seasoned red pepper flakes, oregano, fennel seed, salt, and pepper and with shallots and garlic from a generous friend’s garden.

The scrambled egg is prepared with crisp corn tortilla strips and red pepper spread. Unfortunately, I did not know the chicken. :)

A breakfast of summertime bounty

Happy summertime eating with your fresh ingredients and friends!

Fried Fresh Bluegill

Posted by Dave in fish and tagged with , , ,

Fried Bluegill with zucchini green salad and sautéed chard

I haven’t posted many “rustic” meals. However, here’s one tied to my fond memories from summers at the lake in my childhood.

When I was young, my dad would fry panfish on the grill. First, of course, we’d have to catch the fish; typically for the lake we visit those would be perch, bluegill, and crappie (the latter two being varieties of sunfish.)  Then he would clean them, stationed on an old wooden bench covered with newspaper; if there happened to be many perch in the catch, he was not happy… apparently they’re harder to clean. Next he would drop them in flour and fry them in cast iron pans on a charcoal grill, so as not to make a mess of the kitchen.  My dad passed away more than half-my-life ago, but I still have these good memories and the cast iron pans as well. :)

I spent these past few days on a splendid holiday vacation at the lake in the northwoods (out of mobile phone coverage) with lots of swimming, canoeing, and just a bit of fishing.  While in recent decades I’ve eschewed fishing, opting instead for even lazier passtimes at the lake, a recent interest in foraging and finding one’s own food, and the idea of preparing a meal one might be able to do solely from what the earth provides directly, helped to change that.

Bluegill, a common variety of freshwater Sunfish

Bluegill are an attractive, colorful variety of panfish, i.e., a fish that typically fits, whole, in a frying pan.  (That’s a bit gruesome… wouldn’t that mean human beings could be called “pine box apes?”)

My companion and I caught four bluegill for this dinner, two for each of us; one was caught by casting an artificial lure and the others simply with cheese dangling on a hook as bait. I’ll admit I caught one and she caught three. :-) (When I was a kid, we usually fished with live bait: worms or night crawlers, but the cheese was conveniently on hand.)  I don’t believe that bluegill have any special affinity for cheese, but they were more interested in it than hot dog. :) Sometimes you can even catch panfish on a bare hook!

I considered cooking the bluegill whole (sans scales and guts, of course), but decided to do it as my dad did, removing the fish’s head and its gills along with it.

Scaling the fish with a knife…Warning to the squeamish: fish guts!

 

Once cleaned, I simply patted the rinsed fish partially dry, and dipped them in flour, spiced with salt, pepper, fresh thyme leaves, and an adobo seasoning mix (from Penzey’s.)

Bluegill dipped in flour and seasonings

I poured perhaps 1/2 inch of canola oil into a cast iron pan on a medium heat grill.  Once the oil was hot (test with a small piece of batter or food), I placed all four bluegill in the pan and cooked for 3-5 minute per side, until they began to brown and the fish flaked easily from the bone.

Frying bluegill in oil

Once done, place the fish on paper towel to drain excess oil.

Fried Bluegill

I don’t try to fillet panfish… besides, eating them carefully and watching for bones brings a civilized pace to the meal. :)

We ate our bluegill accompanied by a delicious green salad of fresh lettuces with sautéed zucchini, croutons flavored with fresh sage, and a touch of salad dressing; sautéed rainbow chard with garlic scapes; and a nice beer.

A meal of fried bluegill and vegetables

The bluegill were tasty, with a mild flavor and just slightly crisp, thin coating just as I remembered, having last had them prepared this way more than 20 years ago. They went from lake to plate in about an hour. I bet my dad (and mom) would be proud of my preparation from childhood memories. :)

Mmmm, fried bluegill tails!

Last but not least, don’t forget to try the crispy tails! They’ve got a potato chip-like consistency, and you can eat perhaps the last 1/2 end of the tail, just as you might eat the tail of a deep-fried shrimp.

Oh, I am also fresh from the lake in that last photo. :)

Oeufs de Soleil

Posted by Dave in Uncategorized and tagged with , , ,

So hot, you could fry an egg

Last week on Independence Day, July 4th, it was 100° F (38° C) where I live, as it was for most of the week, and it seemed you could fry an egg. Is that really possible?
Here, Bill Nye suggested that you might try it: So Hot, You Could Fry an Egg

From my cursory reading, it seems he found that a constant temperature of 130° F (55° C) can cook an egg.  Having a bit of time to kill, why not do some science? (Truth be told, I was partly just passing the time until the beautiful girl that suggested we try frying an egg, on the sidewalk, was done working.)

To perform this “eggsperiment,” I used one of my black cast iron pans and placed it in the sunshine around midday.  Fairly quickly, a thermometer indicated that the pan’s surface temperature exceeded 140° F and it was too hot to handle comfortably.

This looked promising, so I put a bit of olive oil and an egg into the pan.  A portion of the egg white, at the edge, immediately cooked to opaque.

Shortly after though, the action stopped; in part, I think, this was because the egg (which began at approximately room temperature, actually ~90° F) cooled the pan and decreased the pan’s ability to absorb the sun’s energy (by decreasing the non-reflective, black surface area).

After about 1/2 hour in this state, shadows encroached on my wooden deck, so I moved the pan to the sidewalk.

However, despite continuous sunlight on the hot sidewalk, the egg didn’t cook much more.  I believe this was because the sidewalk acted as a heat sink, pulling heat from the pan, resulting in a lower cooking surface temperature than when the pan was on the (insulating) wooden deck.

After perhaps 1/2 hour again, I returned the pan to the sunlit deck.

The half-cooked result

So, after about 1 1/2 hours total sunshine-cooking time, I ended up with this half-cooked, partially dried-out unappetizing fried egg.

My conclusion is that it is possible to cook an egg this way under some conditions, but maintaining the pan temperature, despite the egg being introduced and despite possible heat-sapping surfaces, is imperative.

Anyway, I hope you all stayed cool and likewise had a pleasant Independence Day!

Open-Faced Poached Egg and Hummus Quesadilla

Posted by Dave in breakfast, mediterranean, texmex, vegetarian and tagged with , , ,

Open-Faced Quesadilla with Poached Egg and Hummus

Here’s a colorful quick breakfast (and, for me, lunch) idea: poached eggs atop hummus on a open-faced quesadilla of flour tortilla with sharp cheddar cheese, tomato salsa, fresh scallion and habanero pepper.

This is simply a melenge of favorite ingredients that I almost always have on hand.

Poached Egg and Hummus Quesadilla

Oh, on an urelated note, Happy Canada Day! :)
Here some interesting Canadian craft beers for the occasion:

Salade Niçoise

Posted by Dave in fish, mediterranean, potatoes, salad and tagged with , , , ,

Salade Niçoise: a french treat with tuna and anchovies

Here’s a delicious and colorful salad that makes a whole meal… and it’s perfect to make with your fresh vegetables on a warm summer day.

There are a number variations of the Niçoise Salad, common in its namesake city, Nice, France, and along the rest of the Côte d’Azur, where I first enjoyed it.
Apparently it became popular in the states because of Julia Child.

Last night, in anticipation of this salad, my companion and I biked around our city to procure vegetables from the yard and from a little farmers’ market (4-7pm!).  After a nice summer evening’s ride with a short stop for live music and visiting friends, we prepared our ginormous Niçoise salad from these ingredients (for 4 meal-sized servings):

  • romaine and other leaf lettuce, torn to bite sized
  • Nasturtium leaves, chopped
  • fresh basil leaves, chopped
  • fresh parsley, chopped
  • scallion greens, from 2 scallions, finely cut
  • green beans, 1 pound, blanched (we substituted some nice Dragon Tongue Beans that surprising lost their purple stripes when cooked)
  • ripe roma tomatoes, 3, quartered and coarsely chopped
  • eggs, 4, hard-boiled, and quartered
  • fingerling potatoes (~1/2 pound), boiled (e.g., with the eggs)
  • green olives, pitted
  • tuna, 1 can, partially drained of oil
  • anchovy, about 2/3 of one very small jar

Dressing ingredients:

  • balsamic vinegar, 1 T.
  • apple cider vinegar, ~1/8 cup
  • Dijon-style mustard, 1-2 T. (e.g., Grey Poupon Country Dijon)
  • honey, ~1 t., to taste
  • olive oil, 1-2 T.
  • water (sparingly, to dilute slightly if desired)
  • capers
  • salt & pepper, to taste if desired

Niçoise Salad

To serve, we tossed the cooked beans with dressing, and placed them atop the chopped lettuce on a large platter and arranged the other toppings, leaving the tuna and anchovies for last, and finally lightly drizzled the salad with the rest of the dressing and olive oil.

Salade Niçoise, plated

I enjoyed this both for dinner and my subsequent day’s lunch. :)

Give it a try and experinece this tasty sample of southern France, especially if you can find some beautilful vegetables in your garden or at your farmers’ market!

Update (June, 2013):

I made this again… this time with the traditional green (string) beans and used a combination of pimento-stuffed spanish olives and jalapeno-stuffed olives. Also, I used a spicier Dijon mustard (Trader Joe’s)… mmm, still awesome.

Salade Niçoise

Salade Niçoise

Mediterranean White Fish Salad

Posted by Dave in fish, mediterranean, salad and tagged with , ,

Mediterranean White Fish Salad

I visted the farmers’ market this morning and found some nice romaine lettuce and slender green onions (amongst other things) and decided to make this quick salad for lunch – before, hopefully, heading out to the lake with some friends.

Ingredients, for the fish:

  • white fish filet (I used swai, from frozen; tilapia would be a good choice as well)
  • lemon juice
  • dill
  • mint leaves, finely chopped
  • rosemary
  • fennel seed
  • oregano
  • green onion, whites cut finely
  • salt
  • black pepper
  • kyopoolu (I used Trader Joe’s Red Pepper Spread;
    You can also find kyopoolu or avjar at Polish, Bulgarian, etc. delis or stores.)

Ingredients for the salad:

  • romaine lettuce
  • green onions, greens cut finely
  • kalamata olives
  • balsamic vinaigrette dressing
  • olive oil

To prepare:

Pat the filet mostly dry and coat liberally with all the spices, i.e., everything but the green onion and kyopoolu, as if you were making blackened fish, for instance.  In a cast iron or other skillet on medium high heat, pan fry the filet in olive oil.  When the fish is nearly done (flip to cook both sides), add the green onion to the hot pan and spread a teaspoon or two of kyopoolu on onse side of the filet, and flip that side down briefly.

Here, I served the fish filet atop a salad of the ingredients above, drizzled with some olive oil.

This was a tasty salad; I hope it inspires you to have a nice summertime lunches too. :)