Everybody likes chicken. Well, some Yetis and people don't like chickens, and therefore eat lots of chicken. Stuffed chicken seems to be very popular. For instance, see my post about a bunch of different ways to stuff chicken from October in 2007. Well, too bad for you. Today's post is about meat. Meat meat meat meat meat. Red meat of the beef variety that comes from cow type animals. Yetis like the occasional meat dish. Not too often, but once in a while is nice.
I will share with you one of the simplest and best ways to cook a steak. Or at least I think so. So did James Beard. No grills needed, only a iron pan of some sort and a few other ingredients, including red meat. Oh, and the snowdogs like red meat. But they prefer sheep kind of red meat to cow kind.
Pan-fried steak in butter. Just like the French. Yes, the French are pan-fried in butter.
You'll need a nice steak. Preferably at least choice if not prime, perhaps a rib-eye or strip steak, or mmm, T-bone with both the Porterhouse and filet pieces still intact. You could even age them in your fridge, but I'm not going into that here. I'm assuming a 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick steak.
1 tablespoon butter. Or olive oil, but the recipe title says butter.
salt
fresh cracked black pepper
Prepare your steak. Trim off excess fat, rinse, and pat dry. You don't need to go nuts with the trimming of the fat if you have a nice piece. Place your cast-iron or other heavy bottom pan over medium high heat. If it's not a heavy bottom pan this won't work well as a thin pan will not hold enough latent heat to keep the steak cooking evenly. Allow the pan to reach a high temperature. Season the meat on both sides with salt and pepper. Add the butter or oil to the pan and as soon as either the butter begins to foam or the oil shimmers, add the steak. Now, you're probably going to want to move the steak around. DON'T MOVE THE STEAK. Just leave it there for a few minutes, 3-4 for a medium rare 1/2 inch thick or 5-6 for an inch-thick steak. Using tongs, not a fork, shame on you for reaching for that fork, flip your steak. Allow to cook for 3-4 minutes more or 5-6 minutes for a thicker piece.
Use your tongs to take the steak out of the pan and let it rest on a nice warm plate before serving. You can also always make a nice sauce out of the pan juices, but that's a different story. Ok, well, you can add a teaspoon of butter, stir it in the pan with the juices and oil, add some pepper and a pinch of salt, stir constantly and cook for 3-4 minutes, then add 1/2 cup of red wine or beef stock and have a nice pan sauce, but that's just an option. Or sauté some onions or mushrooms. Or top your steak with a nice bit of herbed butter or blue cheese. You get the idea.
This serves about 1 Yeti per 3 steaks, or 1 steak per person. You may want to have about 4 ounces of steak per person as a reasonable portion size, but lots of people eat more steak than that even if it's not good for them to do so.
Yetis have to catch their red meat, so we work for it. Snowdogs too.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Roast your bird for shredded sandwiches - easy cooking, good eating
Ok, so this week I was hankering for a roast chicken. Lots of Yetis like roast chickens, with some nice new potatoes, and some roasted asparagus... A nice plump chicken with a slightly golden brown herbed skin, with maybe a sliced lemon put inside for some nice tartness and additional taste. Mmm, that would be good. The snowdogs always drool and ask for some when I make a roast chicken. Snowdogs don't get any though.
However, since I have not made roast chicken in a while, but I have made barbecue duck sandwiches, I think I would share a technique for making pulled poultry that can then be mixed with your favorite barbecue sauce for amazing sandwiches. Or for anything else (tamales, enchiladas, quiche, tossed with pasta, confit, etc.) that you can think of. Also I think this recipe is easier to post tonight anyways. Yetis can be lazy.
Generic pulled poultry (duck, chicken, hens, etc.)
1 bird of your choice, not frozen. I am assuming a 5-6 lb bird for this preparation, you may need to increase your time with a larger piece of meat.
1 deep roasting pan
1 roasting rack that will hold your bird of choice
salt
pepper
1 onion
1 carrot
2 stalks of celery
Preheat your oven for 200F. Not any hotter than 220F. Check this with a thermometer as if your oven is too hot it will make the bird very dry.
Cut up your onion into large chunks, about 1 inch or so. You don't have to peel the onion. Also cut up the carrot and celery into similarly sized pieces. Place the vegetables in the bottom of the roasting pan. Clean your bird and pat it dry. Season the inside and outside of the bird with salt and pepper. You can be pretty liberal with the pepper, but just use a little salt. You don't want the bird to really dry out. Truss your bird if you want, but since you won't be serving it whole and you'll be cooking it for a long time trussing really doesn't do too much. I usually don't bother trussing for this preparation.
Put your bird on the roasting rack, put the roasting rack in the pan, and put your bird in the oven. You'll be roasting the bird at 200 to 220 F for about 6 hours, or for those of you who are totally addicted to internal temperature, until the internal temperature of the bird has been 180F or higher for at least 2 hours. It may reach 200F.
When the time is up, take the roasting pan out of the oven and allow the bird to cool. If you want, you can reserve the drippings for a nice sauce or stock or broth later.
Once the bird of your choice has cooled, carefully remove the bird from the roasting rack. The bird may fall apart a bit. This is OK since you'll be shredding the meat anyways.
Remove and discard the skin. Remove the meat from the carcass (save this for some nice broth if you want) and place in a bowl. Shred the meat by hand or with two forks. You can then heat the meat with some barbecue sauce, or do whatever you want with it. Chicken salad is always good with some nice diced fresh celery, or in a pot pie, or all those other suggestions I put at the beginning of this post.
Enjoy!
This serves about 1 Yeti to 1 bird, or 4 people per bird if served as pulled poultry barbecue sandwiches, etc. You can figure the usual proportions of people per bird yourself.
Maybe I'll post my barbecue sauce sometime. That has a lot of ingredients though.
However, since I have not made roast chicken in a while, but I have made barbecue duck sandwiches, I think I would share a technique for making pulled poultry that can then be mixed with your favorite barbecue sauce for amazing sandwiches. Or for anything else (tamales, enchiladas, quiche, tossed with pasta, confit, etc.) that you can think of. Also I think this recipe is easier to post tonight anyways. Yetis can be lazy.
Generic pulled poultry (duck, chicken, hens, etc.)
1 bird of your choice, not frozen. I am assuming a 5-6 lb bird for this preparation, you may need to increase your time with a larger piece of meat.
1 deep roasting pan
1 roasting rack that will hold your bird of choice
salt
pepper
1 onion
1 carrot
2 stalks of celery
Preheat your oven for 200F. Not any hotter than 220F. Check this with a thermometer as if your oven is too hot it will make the bird very dry.
Cut up your onion into large chunks, about 1 inch or so. You don't have to peel the onion. Also cut up the carrot and celery into similarly sized pieces. Place the vegetables in the bottom of the roasting pan. Clean your bird and pat it dry. Season the inside and outside of the bird with salt and pepper. You can be pretty liberal with the pepper, but just use a little salt. You don't want the bird to really dry out. Truss your bird if you want, but since you won't be serving it whole and you'll be cooking it for a long time trussing really doesn't do too much. I usually don't bother trussing for this preparation.
Put your bird on the roasting rack, put the roasting rack in the pan, and put your bird in the oven. You'll be roasting the bird at 200 to 220 F for about 6 hours, or for those of you who are totally addicted to internal temperature, until the internal temperature of the bird has been 180F or higher for at least 2 hours. It may reach 200F.
When the time is up, take the roasting pan out of the oven and allow the bird to cool. If you want, you can reserve the drippings for a nice sauce or stock or broth later.
Once the bird of your choice has cooled, carefully remove the bird from the roasting rack. The bird may fall apart a bit. This is OK since you'll be shredding the meat anyways.
Remove and discard the skin. Remove the meat from the carcass (save this for some nice broth if you want) and place in a bowl. Shred the meat by hand or with two forks. You can then heat the meat with some barbecue sauce, or do whatever you want with it. Chicken salad is always good with some nice diced fresh celery, or in a pot pie, or all those other suggestions I put at the beginning of this post.
Enjoy!
This serves about 1 Yeti to 1 bird, or 4 people per bird if served as pulled poultry barbecue sandwiches, etc. You can figure the usual proportions of people per bird yourself.
Maybe I'll post my barbecue sauce sometime. That has a lot of ingredients though.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Summer flavors, but it's winter. Oh well, you do what you can.
The Yeti wife was out of town this week which means I usually experiment. I would then normally post results of experiments here. That is the crustimony proceedcake, as my bear friends would say. However, I did not really do any experiments (except for the lamb and beef cheeseburgers, east coast style, but I'll post that some other time). Instead I've opened up the legendary hairy Yeti archives and will share this dish with you. And the snowdogs did get to go somewhere every day this week too, including into the creek at the park even though I told them not to. Silly snowdogs.
I know that this is really a summer dish with the tomatoes and all, but since "bulletproof" tomatoes are available in the market year-round nowadays, this should be possible for people in general to do anytime. The texture of "bulletproof" beefsteak tomatoes are actually well suited for this recipe, but the flavor is lacking as you would expect. I like to use large heirlooms that are often available in late summer. If you want to use vine-ripe or other smaller tomatoes, try using about double the number of tomatoes (8 or so) or you can cut and stuff a bunch of larger cherry tomatoes and substitute feta for the softer chevre goat cheese for appetizers. Tomatoes stuffed with couscous
4 large tomatoes, preferably nearly ripe, but still with some firmness of body
couscous, about 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup dry instant, or about 1 cup when fully prepared. That would also be about 2/3 cup of Israeli couscous if you wanted to use that. For this I like the texture of the smaller grained couscous.
Some goat cheese, about 4 ounces
Salt and pepper
about 2 tablespoons diced onion
1 clove of garlic, crushed
no more than 1/4 cup of additional herbs and veggies, such as curly parsley, cilantro, dill, diced bell pepper, as desired.
Prepare couscous as you would normally. Mix prepared couscous with the onion, garlic, and optional ingredients and set aside (for at least 20 minutes, this is about as long as it will take you to prepare the tomatoes).
Prepare tomatoes:
Cut off the top of the tomatoes. Taking care not to puncture the sides or bottoms of the tomatoes, remove the core and seeds. I use a melon baller. Season the inside of the tomatoes liberally with salt and pepper and place upside-down (open side down) on a rack above a tray or other container for the tomatoes to drain off excess liquid. You'll want to let the tomatoes drain for at least 15 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 325F.
After tomatoes are drained, stuff each tomato with 1/4 of the prepared couscous mixture. Place 1/4 (about 1 ounce) of goat cheese on top of the tomatoes. Bake for about 15 minutes, then place under a broiler for about 5 minutes or until the goat cheese is melted and slightly browned.
Serves 2 Yetis, or 4 people as a large side dish. This is great with some garlic bread and broiled fish or fresh green beans.
I know that this is really a summer dish with the tomatoes and all, but since "bulletproof" tomatoes are available in the market year-round nowadays, this should be possible for people in general to do anytime. The texture of "bulletproof" beefsteak tomatoes are actually well suited for this recipe, but the flavor is lacking as you would expect. I like to use large heirlooms that are often available in late summer. If you want to use vine-ripe or other smaller tomatoes, try using about double the number of tomatoes (8 or so) or you can cut and stuff a bunch of larger cherry tomatoes and substitute feta for the softer chevre goat cheese for appetizers. Tomatoes stuffed with couscous
4 large tomatoes, preferably nearly ripe, but still with some firmness of body
couscous, about 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup dry instant, or about 1 cup when fully prepared. That would also be about 2/3 cup of Israeli couscous if you wanted to use that. For this I like the texture of the smaller grained couscous.
Some goat cheese, about 4 ounces
Salt and pepper
about 2 tablespoons diced onion
1 clove of garlic, crushed
no more than 1/4 cup of additional herbs and veggies, such as curly parsley, cilantro, dill, diced bell pepper, as desired.
Prepare couscous as you would normally. Mix prepared couscous with the onion, garlic, and optional ingredients and set aside (for at least 20 minutes, this is about as long as it will take you to prepare the tomatoes).
Prepare tomatoes:
Cut off the top of the tomatoes. Taking care not to puncture the sides or bottoms of the tomatoes, remove the core and seeds. I use a melon baller. Season the inside of the tomatoes liberally with salt and pepper and place upside-down (open side down) on a rack above a tray or other container for the tomatoes to drain off excess liquid. You'll want to let the tomatoes drain for at least 15 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 325F.
After tomatoes are drained, stuff each tomato with 1/4 of the prepared couscous mixture. Place 1/4 (about 1 ounce) of goat cheese on top of the tomatoes. Bake for about 15 minutes, then place under a broiler for about 5 minutes or until the goat cheese is melted and slightly browned.
Serves 2 Yetis, or 4 people as a large side dish. This is great with some garlic bread and broiled fish or fresh green beans.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Yeti and a snowdog
Hello all--this is the Yeti's wife. I'm just popping by to post a photo of the Yeti and one of our snowdogs. This particular snowdog is the larger of our two snowdogs. She weighs about 140 lbs. The other snowdog is longer and taller but much leaner, coming in at around 120 lbs. Right now they are munching ice cubes (a favorite snowdog treat) and hoping for colder weather.
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