Squid Cooks: Pan-Cooked Pork Burgers

Pan-cooked because it's too damn hot to turn on the oven.  Pork because I couldn't find the ground beef in the freezer.  Once again, necessity is the mother of invention.

I've covered Mark Bittman's pan-cooked burger recipe before, including here.  I went with longer cooking times than I normally would with either beef or lamb.  I fear trichinosis.  I realize it's a relatively low risk with pork these days but it's not a zero risk

I was pleased with the result - very tasty and, following Bittman's instructions, one gets a nice sear around the outside.  That's harder to get in the oven because of temperature management - worth remembering.  

Squid Cooks: Pan-Cooked Lamb Burgers

Necessity is the mother of invention.  We had ground lamb rather than ground beef and the oven is currently out of commission (though the stove burners are fine).  So with a few on-the-fly adaptations from my usual recipe, we had acceptable lamb burgers for dinner, medium rare.

I did check my improvised choices against Mark Bittman's advice in How to Cook Everything: The Basics afterwards.  I didn't add oil to the pre-heated pan - my wife gave me a little grief for that, too.  I did four minutes on each side, same as I do with the broiler.  Bittman recommends 5-10 on the first side, 3-5 on the second.  I was satisfied with the doneness of the final product anyway.  The burgers were fine, I think - not so different from beef with just a touch of the distinctive grassy flavor of lamb.

Squid Cooks: Mediterranean Chicken Kebabs

Wife is out of town and daughter has an intense summer job which leaves me 100% in charge of the kitchen for the week.  What to do, what to do...  It's time to break out Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics.

Bittman's recipe for Peanutty Chicken Kebabs won't do as I am allergic to peanuts.  His Mediterranean Chicken Kebabs variation, on the other hand, sounded delightful.  It's probably best I made my first attempt at such a dish with my wife and her Lebanese sensibilities out of the house anyway.

I made an early mistake.  The recipe calls for "boneless, skinless chicken thighs."  I got boneless but not skinless which made cutting it up more of a pain.  I definitely did not achieve proper cubes.

Fortunately, the end result was fine.  Some things for next time, beyond getting the right chicken cut:

• Marinate for longer.  I need to get in a better habit with that across the board.  Today, I was trying to do the shopping and cooking in one day.  The smarter thing would have been to shop one day, then do the marinade in the morning of the next.
• Grilling would have been better than broiling.  I already knew that but I was better equipped for broiling.  Plus, it rained all afternoon so grilling would have been out anyway.
• Broiling would have worked better if I had set the rack higher in the oven - and therefore closer to the heat - from the beginning.  I moved it up for the last five minutes but probably should have done it sooner.

Even so, it was a serviceable meal.  Definitely worth trying again and better some time.

Squid Cooks: Pan-Cooked Shrimp with Garlic, Cumin and Paprika

This is a variation on the Shrimp Scampi recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics (see here).  I really enjoyed this version, even preferring it to the original - lots of flavor, worth remembering as I look to pump up my other dishes.  I didn't realize until opening the drawer the wide variety of paprika my wife keeps on hand.  That would be a fun exploration sometime.  For the shrimp, I just grabbed the first one I saw - worked just fine.


Tinkering at the Bar

The other night, my wife came home excited by the idea of whiskey sours.  I've made them before (see here) with some success but still worth experimenting.  As noted in my previous post, the New York Bartender's Guide recipe was quite sour indeed and not surprising with a 2:1 ratio of whiskey to lemon juice.  Robert Simonsen's recipe in 3-Ingredient Cocktails isn't too far off: 8:3.  But rather than a mere teaspoon of sugar syrup, Simonsen recommends equal parts with the lemon, making for a significantly sweeter drink.

The result was quite nice, better balanced with a strong voice for all three ingredients.  I even got a bit of the bourbon fumes in the nose, a pleasant jolt.  Simonsen does not use a garnish but I did.  We like cherries.

Squid Cooks: Broiled Boneless Chicken with Herbs

This is a variation on the Broiled Boneless Chicken recipe (see here) from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics.  My herb of choice was oregano.  To be honest, I don't feel it added much - either I didn't use enough, I didn't rub enough or it just doesn't make much difference.  The result was still fine, just not very exciting.

This is still a good starting point dish, I think.  It's quick.  It's easy.  Chicken breasts are a relatively healthy meat choice.  In the recipe's "Learn More" section, Bittman refers the reader back to the "Building Flavor" pages - may be well worth exploring for this and other dishes, especially my stir-fries which could do with some pizzazz. 


Squid on the Vine

Château Vrai Caillou, Red Bordeaux Blend 2018
A little spice (high alcohol)
Bitter
Astringent
Leggy (that refers to those little rivulets that run down the class when you tip it - reflects sugar content) but not so sweet, interestingly
Darker side of medium purple
Wife: "Not a lot of notes to it."
My rating: 8.0

Squid Cooks: Stir-Fried Beef with Vegetables

This is a variation on the stir-fried beef with basil and chiles from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics (read here).  I added onions, green peppers from my band director colleague's garden, red peppers and green beans.  It was fine but I think I'd like to find ways to boost the flavor of the sauce.  Basil, onion, garlic, crushed red pepper, lime juice and soy sauce should be plenty and yet, it still lacked the Wow! factor.  I don't want to resort to the corn starch that makes the bottled stuff so goopy.  Maybe just more of something?  More heat perhaps.  I don't know - might require some experimentation.

My wife did make one request: thinner slices of beef next time.  I thought the thicker pieces were kind of nice but she thought they were harder to eat that way.  Fair enough.  Duly noted.


Happy, Healthy Squid

One of my favorite exercise activities is racquetball.  I first learned the sport in college, actually took a class.  I hadn't played much since until a few years ago when some friends took it up and invited me along.  We have a reasonably consistent group of four these days, two of whom have been featured in The Squid before: Mock (sadly hasn't blogged in years) and Blue Liner.  Our fourth we shall call simply Racquet Man as he is the best player among us.  I generally run a comfortable second strongest, I think.  I try to keep RM's superiority in perspective: he's 15 years younger than I am and a far more active athlete.  It's a friendly group, though competition can get intense.

We try to play once a week.  Last year, that didn't work out so well for me but with a few shifts in the schedule, I think I can make it work better this year.  So far so good.  It's a fantastic way to pad the FitBit stats!

Otherwise, I can say it's definitely harder to stay motivated on the FitBit goals as the cooler weather and the shorter days creep in.  There were two nights this past week when I fell short.  In both cases, I chose going to bed instead.  Mind you, sleep's important, too.  But big picture, I want both the exercise and the sleep.  So, I'm trying to think of good motivators to stay up.  I think the baseball playoffs might help - something to do while jogging in place.  Plus, I have all of those Star Trek episodes to watch.

Happy Autumn!

Squid Cooks: Pan-Cooked, Seasoned Burgers

I have been given Tuesdays.  My wife cooks dinner nearly every evening, mostly because she's better at it but also because she finds it relaxing after work, or so she claims.  But Tuesdays have become complicated.  Our daughter's clarinet lessons have been moved an hour later, so ideally we should eat before we leave.  The best solution for making that work: dad cooks.  I welcome the idea.  It's a fine opportunity to hone some of the quicker recipes I have already tried in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics and also implement the food choice thinking I've been doing in my weight loss efforts.

I asked my daughter if any of my recent efforts were especially appealing for her.  Burgers were her choice (see post here) so I tried not one but two of Bittman's suggested variations: pan-cooked and seasoned.  In all honesty, though, I took the pan option without thinking about it, simply being my more usual choice for hamburgers.  Next time, I might go back to the broiler, though with a shorter cooking time.  I like the crust on the outside but I also like the juicy middle - delicate balance.

As for seasoning, I tried two: oregano and basil.  I first had oregano in a burger at the St. Clair Broiler in St. Paul, Minnesota.  I lived in St. Paul for a year after college and the Broiler was a decent dinner option within walking distance of my apartment.  The place closed in 2017 after 61 years in business.  I haven't been to Minnesota in over 20 years but I've never forgotten those burgers.  I simply mix it in with the meat and onions before cooking.  We had some fresh oregano which I'd never cooked with before - worked just fine.  The basil was a new wrinkle, suggested by Bittman.  At my wife's urging, I added it fresh at the end rather than cooking it with the rest.   I wouldn't say it added much, at least not in competition with the oregano.  I think I might try curry powder next time.


Squid on the Vine

Domaine du Somail, Le Vin de Plume Minervois Red Blend, 2017
My Rating: 8.0
A little of the cat pee smell - yes, I know that sounds gross but it's actually a common description for a young wine.
Tart apple
Astringent
Sacramental finish
My wife presented it as one that might appeal to me in my quest for the idea (see here).  It certainly opened with promise but then didn't take me very far.  Good.  Not great.

Squid Cooks: Stir-Fried Chicken with Broccoli

I got this recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics.  Typically of stir-fry, most of the work is in the prep.  I'd probably pick different vegetables next time - something in season - but the end result was decent.  The girl happily ate two bowls, always a good sign.  As I have written before, I've been making stir-fries for much of my life but usually with a bottled sauce.  Making my own is a new adventure.

Squid Cooks: Sausage and Peppers

Another recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics and an easy one.  The rolls my wife bought were enormous, a good 10.5 inches long - cut in half, still easily long enough for two sausages.  The only real "work" was chopping and waiting for everything to cook. 

Squid Cooks: Roasted Chicken Cutlets

Not much to this one, another recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics.  I guess the new skill developed here is the breaded crust.  Easy enough.  One suggested variation I might try sometime: using miso instead of egg as the glue for the bread crumbs.  More seasoning might be nice.  Bittman suggests the typical herbs: tarragon, oregano, rosemary, cilantro or mint in place of the parsley in the basic recipe.  I'm thinking something with a bit of heat would be nice: paprika or old bay, perhaps.

Squid Cooks: Seared Scallops with Pan Sauce

Across the board, I am a far pickier eater than my wife but there are a few things I like a lot more than she does.  Scallops are high on that list.  As she was out of town for work recently, it seemed like a good time to try this recipe.

Scallops, like shrimp, are pretty easy and you don't even have to worry about peeling them.  My recipe came from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics.  Learning how to make a sauce is fun, though I'm not entirely sure I'm doing it right.  The end result was tasty so I suppose I can't be too far off.

Daughter was only moderately impressed - chewy, she said.  She ate all of hers - no seconds, though.

Squid Cooks: Chicken Cutlets with Quick Pan Sauce

I learned good lessons from last week's dish, pork stir-fry with greens (read here).  I got all of my ingredients ready this time and put them close to hand before I started cooking.  All went smoothly.  I successfully dredged.  I successfully deglazed and reduced.  I almost felt like a real cook!

The resulting dish - recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics - was less than dazzling, though the chicken was pleasantly moist.  But it was a good skill builder and that's what I need. 

Squid Cooks: Pork Stir-Fry with Greens

As I wrote in this post, stif-fries are well within my comfort zone.  This recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics is a nice one.  I think I could do it better a second time, and it would simply be a matter of setting up my ingredients more sensibly as the timing is still quite intuitive.  One has to be more careful with pork than beef in terms of thorough cooking but in small enough pieces, it's still easy.  I think I probably let the garlic brown for too long and that would have been helped if the follow up ingredients had been closer at hand.

The sauce requires the juice of half a lime which was a little much, or should at least have been set off by more soy sauce.  Here, my dear friends, is exactly where my cocktail mixing experience should come in handy.  As discussed in my drink posts, citrus is potent flavoring, easily muscling out everything else, even salt as it turns out.

Overall, the dish was a success, even making good leftovers for the next day's lunch.

Squid Cooks: Shrimp Scampi

My wife recently reminded me of the first time she called on me for prep help in the kitchen.  The job: peeling and deveining shrimp.  I don't remember the incident with the detailed precision she does but she reliably reports that I complained through the whole operation.

I'd like to think I've come a long way since then.  I still find working alongside my wife in the kitchen to be intimidating but I'm not put off by the work itself.  Even so, I was amused to see that the package of shrimp my wife got for me was already deveined, though she admitted that was all they had at the store.  Even funnier is the fact that in his recipe for shrimp scampi in How to Cook Everything: The Basics, Mark Bittman admits that he doesn't even bother with deveining.  I guess he doesn't enjoy that job any more than I did 19 years ago.

Cooking shrimp, once peeled, is frightfully simple.  Daughter loves shrimp so she was an easy sell.  The pan sauce was tasty, too.

Squid Cooks: Stir-Fried Beef with Basil and Chiles

As cooking goes, stir-fries are in my wheelhouse.  I can't say I learned too much about cooking growing up - nor can I say I pursued the discipline with deliberate intent - but my parents did teach me how to make a stir-fry.  Timing is everything and beef is especially forgiving because it doesn't matter if it's a little underdone.  My recipe for this dish came from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics.

One thing that's new for me with this recipe, though, is making my own sauce.  In the past, I've always used pre-bottled.  Just as with the meat, timing - in effect, when to add what - is the key.  The recipe suggests but does not require a 30 minute marinade.  I skipped it because I was hungry.  I'll try that next time - of course, I think I may have said the same thing the last time I made it.

The reviews were solid.  Daughter ate it, happily.  She didn't have seconds but I did.  The heat was mild.  Good leftovers for the next day's lunch, too - an important consideration in family meal planning.

Squid Cooks: Oven-Seared Lamb Chops

With my wife out of town, the cooking is left to me.  As discussed in previous posts, I am a functional cook.  I know how to make a few things and would not starve left to my own devices.  My wife is the artist.  Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics has recently been my go-to cookbook for learning more of the culinary fundamentals. 

The standards for lamb are high at our house.  Lebanese food is one of the primary influences on my wife's cooking.  Bittman's recipe is simple: preheat the oven, rub the lamb chops with garlic and cook.  They took a little longer than the book suggested but that is to be expected in our oven.  Daughter was pleased, said it reminded her of Mama Ayesha's in DC (see this post).  High praise, indeed.  And really, so easy - worth remembering.

Squid Cooks: Real Buttered Popcorn

On Saturday evening, my wife and I were discussing our plans for Sunday, a rare, completely open day on the family calendar.  "I think I'll make chocolate chip cookies," she said.

"Do we have any popcorn?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"I think I'll make some popcorn."

A moment of puzzled, disbelieving silence.

"Do you have a recipe for popcorn?"

"Yes," I replied enthusiastically. "There's one in the Mark Bittman book."

I know popcorn is barely beyond making toast or freezing ice cubes on the culinary challenge spectrum but the truth is, I'd never made popcorn on a stove top before.  Plus, the Bittman book - How to Cook Everything: The Basics - has a trick I wanted to try: putting three corn kernels in with the oil as test subjects. According to my wife, Alton Brown poo-poos this idea but if it's good enough for Bittman, it's good enough for me!

Wouldn't you know, I got impatient.  As soon as the first kernel popped, I got curious about the other two.  Was it remotely possible they could all have popped at the same time?  Well, of course not.  And naturally, one popped the instant I lifted the lid, ricocheted off my face on to the floor.

The popcorn turned out just fine.  Next time, I'll use a bigger pot for the half cup of corn in the recipe.  I used our largest sauce pan but it wasn't enough space.  Next time, Le Creuset!

Squid Bakes: Butter Cookies

I won big time brownie points at home with this recipe, yet another from How to Cook Everything: The Basics by Mark Bittman.  Butter cookies are my wife's favorite and these turned out well.  I was a little worried they'd be too soft as they came out of the oven but they hardened as they cooled.

Squid Cooks: Broiled Boneless Chicken

My wife was out of town for a few days last week, leaving me in charge of dinner.  Just so all of you understand, I'm not completely useless when it comes to cooking.  I know how to make a few things just fine: burgers (as discussed last week), pasta, stir fry, salad, etc.  I would not starve left to my own devices.  But I am lacking in some fundamental skills, including meal planning.  When my wife's away, I usually default to something easy but with my current goal of expanding my culinary capacities, I took the opportunity to learn a couple of new recipes, both out of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics.  The first night was the burgers.  The second was broiled boneless chicken.

Both recipes involved the broiler, a first for me.  With the chicken, it actually made me a little nervous: a fair amount of oil awfully close to a flame.  But it more or less worked.  The resulting dish was not especially interesting, though serviceable.  As Bittman points out, broiling chicken breasts is a good thing to know how to do for other recipes, like chicken salad. 

My wife's brief absence also provided an opportunity to indulge in something my daughter and I enjoy more than she does: Star Trek!  I'd recently taken my daughter on a tour of my own top ten TOS episodes (see here).  On broiled chicken night, we started TNG from the beginning.  So, she got to meet Q!

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Squid Cooks: The Burger

Even prior to my current efforts to improve my cooking skills, I was fairly confident in my hamburger recipe and technique.  Indeed, it was gratifying to see that Mark Bittman's recipe in How to Cook Everything: The Basics was essentially the same as mine: fold chopped onions into the meat before cooking.  What was new for me, however, was using the broiler for the job.  I usually cook them on the stove top.  It made for a nice variation, providing an exterior crust.  I might not cook them quite as long next time.