Experimenting with Recipes

I read in bed every night.  Often, I read books.  One of my favorite authors is Chaim Potok, who wrote wonderfully worded, semi-autobiographies, about growing up in Brookly, New York.  Some times, I read science fiction by Catherine Asaro.  Often, I read non-fiction centering on histories of Indigenous Peoples of, what is now the United States (my ancestry), history of music of the world, and many other topics of my varied interests.  That’s not what this blog is about today, however!

I must admit that one of my all time favorite reads at night, or any other time, is recipes!  Yes.  I’ve written, often, about food.  Cooking or baking is a creative art.  I like to be creative, and I get recipes from magazines, food stories on Netflix, as previously mentioned, and cookbooks.  I like very old cookbooks, because the ingredients are interesting, like boiling a cow’s hoof for gelatin and other such wonders.

My favorite books are those that list the ingredients but do not list measurements.  Instead, they tell a story of the origins of the foods.  I think I’ve mentioned Sean Shermans’, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen and Pino Luongo’s There’s a Tuscan in the Kitchen.  Both of the books were gifts from very thoughtful friends, Carole and Lynn.  Some of my best meals have come from those books.

Lately, I’ve been reading hand-me-down cooking magazines.  In addition, my dear friend, Mary, gifts me with a cooking magazine as a holiday gift these past few years.  So, that means that I’ve been reading cooking magazines.  My friend, Paula, posts recipes on her social media page, and I do web searches on other recipe concepts.

My feature photo comes from this past weekend and a short time with our granddaughter.  When she comes to visit, I ask about a special meal.  She regularly requests, beef steak.  Being doting grandparents, we oblige. She loves asparagus and fried potatoes.  We grilled her rib-eye, and  I made our portions into Steak Au Poivre with red wine pan sauce.  I found this recipe in a Food & Wine magazine from April 2018.  The taste was quite delicious, but I did not have shallots, so a few onions was a bit too powerful.  Here are the ingredients:

One beef rib-eye steak.  (It suggest that it’s tied with butcher’s string)

Salt and Pepper the steak pushing the seasonings into the flesh of the steak (set aside)

Brown the steak in a hot skillet to which a 1 TBS (14.2g) and a little neutral oil (I used sunflower oil)

Sear the steak on both sides (about two minutes each), and sear the sides to render the fat. Thusly:

Once the steak (I used two steaks for our meal) are browned, drain a bit of the fat and leave the fond (the brown bits from cooking the steak) behind for the sauce.  Now melt another tablespoon of butter (14.2g) in the fond, and sweat 1/4 cup (60g) shallots about two minutes.  Now, deglaze the pan of cooking shallots with 1/2 cup red wine (take a little swig for yourself!).  Simmer until reduced by half.  Then add 1 cup (236.6 mL) of beef broth.  I made beef broth from trimming from a previous beef steak meal.  Cook until thick.  Finally, add 1 more tablespoon (14.2g) butter.  The sauce should be thick.

Slice your steak and arrange on two plates.  Cover your sliced steak with the wine sauce.  This went quite well with a Cabernet Sauvignon.  I like Carnivor from California.

My main mistake was timing with the asparagus and potatoes.  They finished while my sauce was still cooking, so it was not thick enough when I put everything on the table.  Alas, granddaughter loved her grilled steak, and we loved our steak au poivre.

In an effort to provide interesting food while we had our little visitor, I fixed extra fluffy pancakes the next morning.  I think this recipe came from a Japanese cook posting on YouTube.  I modified the recipe only slightly.

Begin by cutting 8 molds from copy paper.  We wrapped the two inch high paper strips around a wine bottle.  We taped them into round molds for the pancakes.

Separate three eggs.  Set the whites aside for a few minutes.

In the bowl that contains the yolks, add vanilla (to taste) and 1/4 cup (59.15 mL) milk (I use buttermilk). To this mixture, add 1/2 cup (113g) wheat flour and a dash salt.

Mix the yolk mixture (set aside)

Whip egg whites to soft peak, and add 2 tablespoons (25.00g) sugar, little by little.  Then add 2 teaspoons (9.58g) of baking powder.  Whip until stiff peak.

In the mean time, heat a griddle until the butter on it sizzles slightly.  Place the paper molds on the griddle.

Incorporate yolk/flour mixture with the egg while mixture to the batter.  Fold gently so that the whipped egg white mixture holds it shape.

Spoon the batter into the molds.  Cook on one side until brown.  Flip the mold with its batter gently.  When the cakes are finished, transfer them to a plate.  Peel off the mold.

Heat pure maple syrup with butter.  Pour syrup over the pancakes.  Serve with a breakfast meat and a warm cup of coffee or tea.   Yum!

It’s always fun to share a meal with those you love.   Thank you for reading!