Leftover Chuck

In this previous post, I described cooking a piece of beef chuck sous vide. We of course ended up with more than we could eat at a single sitting. So what to do next? I could consigne it to freezer bags, freeze it so that it could be dumped three years later, or better still could find creative uses for it.

It became a voyage of discovery with a really good outcome. The other key idea is that if you have hot potatoes, you can dress withem with a flavorfull vinaigrette style dressing, the potatoes absorb the dressing and become really flavorfull. So why not do it with carrots too?

Ingredients

6 Small Yukon Gold potatoes - of roughly even size

6 small (width of your ring finger) unpeeled, but washed carrrots, cut into 1/2" thick rounds 

3 scallions, white and light green parts only, sliced finely

2T Pickled jalapeno peppers

1 Roasted red pepper, sliced into small strips

3T Pine nuts, toasted

8 Grape tomatoes

4 Radishes, quartered

1 Hot pepper ( we used a fish pepper from the garden)

1/4 cup vinaigrette (we made some using a candied tomato, roasted pepper, olive oil base)

1/2 head of butter lettuce, chopped

8 oz cooked beef chuck, sliced very thinly

Method

Microwave the carrots and potatoes on high until they are soft. The carrots took 90 seconds, the potatoes 3 minutes. As soon as they come out of the  microwave, place in a bowl with the vinaigrette. Add the scallions , hot pepper, pickled jalapenos and leave to set.

Meanwhile, warm the meat gently in a saute pan over low heat. You are not cooking it, just making sure that it has a good texture.

Plate the dish by putting lettuce around the inside edge of each bowl, leaving a small well. Into the well  put the potato/carrot mixture into the well. Srinkle some of the toasted pine nuts over the potatoes. Arrange the sliced peppers, radishes and tomatoes over the top. 

Arrange the thinly sliced beef in spokes on top. Drizzle with a little high quality olive oil and sherry vinegar.

Serve with a robust red wine.

Gazpacho

I wanted to make a locally sourced dish for a "slow food" event here in Dallas. Of course I turned to the clever folks at Serious Eats for some pointers. I was less interested in a recipe from them, much more interested in techniques to create something like I have had in Spain. There were several obvious things and a couple of genius ahas. With a twist of my own at the end.

I didn't want this to be liquid salsa, nor did I want cold canned tomato soup. I wanted something special. That meant the ripest tomatoes that I could find (thank you Coppell Farmers' Market and the Fisher Family Farm), and locally grown peppers and onions.

First the Serious Eats genius:

• Cut up the vegetables and salt them all together. This extracts a lot of juice.
• Pour that juice over the bread and leave to stand
• Freeze the remaining vegetable parts. The recipe said 30 minutes, but I needed a full hour. But I was making a larger quantity.
• Thaw the vegetables and add them to the bread/juice. Keep some juice back

And the personal addition? The reserved juice after thawing is frozen into tomato-y ice cubes to be served with the soup to keep it cold, but not to dilute the flavors..

For serving - because this was a potluck event, I used a wine decanter. And had some olive oil, croutons, sea salt, sherry vinegar to act as final flavorings. It turned out to be a useful way to serve it because it could then be poured into glasses,

Chickpeas and pepitas - a really simple salad

I had read somewhere that a salad made with chickpeas and pepitas would be pretty good. The pepitas give some much needed crunch. But there is always the question of what else to add. So for this salad, some onion, red pepper, pomegranate, Meyer lemon juice and olive oil were the additions. A little habanero vodka for some extra character and it was a thing of beauty. It was a "We could serve this to people" kind of dish.

Ingredients

1/2 a small onion - diced into pieces about the same size as the pomegranate arils

1 pomegranate  - arils only, left intact

1/2 red pepper - diced into pieces about the size of the arils

1 tsp habanero vodka (or other hot sauce)

Juice of one Meyer lemon

2 small cans chick peas/garbanzo beans drained, rinsed and strained

a small handful of parsley leaves roughly chopped

1/2 cup pepitas (toasted pumpkin seeds)

High quality Olive oil to taste (maybe about 1/4 cup)

A few grinds of black pepper

Salt to taste

Large crystal sea salt for added crunch

A few lettuce leaves torn into large pieces.

Method

Combine onion, arils, red pepper, habanero vodka, lemon juice, chick peas, parsley in a bowl. Mix well. Add the pepitas, mix well. Add the olive oil - the chick peas should look glossy. Adjust the seasoning. 

Serve on some lettuce leaves. Add a few large sea salt crystals to taste