steak au poivre - part 4

For the last club members weekend at the track I signed up to prepare the dinner. There were going to be around committed seats of 30, I was told 3 days in advance so I could shop for the right quantity of ingredients. I wanted a dish with widest appeal so steak au poivre it is. By now I have made this dish a few times for myself and feel confident that I could scale it 30x without the need to measure or weigh.

steak au poivre - part 3

I still have a lot of the brined green pepper corns as well as the heavy whipping cream left for making steak au poivre. I bought more steaks when I was grocery shopping in town. Ideally the steak to use for this dish is filet mignon. I didn't want to spurge so I chose New York strip steak instead.

steak au poivre - part 2

While I made this dish a couple months ago, I didn't have green pepper corns nor Cognac. I went onto Amazon and ordered 2 cans of green pepper corns in brine. I also have a bottle of Hennessy. I gave this dish a go again without trying hard to make sure I have the other ingredients like reduced beef stock. I knew I can improvise and work around this minor detail.

steak au poivre

I bought some ribeye steak in the recent shopping trip. I decided to make steak au poivre (pepper steak).

pork tenderloin served many ways - part 2

Preparing pork tenderloin is one of my more recent gained repertoires. Pork tenderloin is significantly cheaper than the beef counterpart. With each pack of them many meals could be prepared with the least of time and effort. These important for me now as I have more projects than time I have. My cooking of these few years mostly have been adjusted to be most time efficiency and simplicity.

pork tenderloin served many ways

I had four pieces of pork tenderloin in cryogenic packages. These allowed me to have plenty of opportunity to refine the preparation techniques. I wanted to achieve the doneness without overcook it minutely. The center should has a hint of pink. As each oven is different and you also have to control the temperature and time.

stir fry of assorted ingredients with chinese celery 什錦炒中芹

This is a dish resulted from clearing out the refrigerator and freezer. With the exception of the vegetables all other ingredients are from the freezer or dried from the pantry. It is a stir fry of assorted ingredients with Chinese celery 什錦炒中芹. I retrieved a good amount of frozen shrimps that are freezer burnt, and a bit of leftover marinated beef. The beef was not enough to make a meal. The vegetables are also close to the limit of shelf life.

east meets west

This is an improvised simple meal that I made. It is a meal that I would make when I don't feel like spending much effort.

duck confit galore

I found a source of duck legs in one of the Asian supermarket. They have been frozen once. Ideally I would prefer them never but that is the state of American food supply unless you are in the restaurant business. They don't always have them so when they do, I would snap up a good quantify. I am getting quiet expert in mass production of duck confit now. Duck confit may seem exotic thing to prepare, but in truth it is quite easy. The most difficult part is when you first starting out and wonder where you can find duck fat. I rendered them myself with one whole duck that I bought, and added some cow fat that I render from cow bone marrow. The mallow fat adds another dimension to the richness.

home made boudin - part 2

This is my second time making boudin now, all within a month. The batch I did last came out great. I also learnt a few tips from the experience. I incorporated the learning to this batch.

a seafood gumbo

While I have made gumbo before. It was more of a winking it - kind of Cajun inspired cooking if you will. Yesterday was the first time that I sat down stood up and seriously made a big batch.

home made boudin - part 1

A few days ago I wrote about wanting to give making boudin a try. I got the chance yesterday. Not wanting to drive across town for grocery with the holiday traffic I drove to the Japanese (more aptly called Asian these days) supermarket Uwajimaya near my house instead. Uwajimaya sells pork and pork products from Carlton Farm, like An Dong market that I frequent.

pining for boudin

I had boudin for the first time in my road trip to the great state of Louisiana last winter. Before that I had no idea how they taste. Rice in sausage seemed so strange, why would anyone do that, I thought. Immediately cross the state line, I pulled off the highway into a greasy spoon for breakfast. I curbed my expectation as it was a all you can eat buffet. They have one kind of boudin amongst other mostly pork dishes. The boudin was dull with not a whole lot of taste. I would have to wait until I get to the real Creole and Cajun restaurants much later to taste the real boudin.

sous-vide experiment 真空低溫烹調法 - part 2

There is no processed food in this household. Only meals made from scratch - real food, as opposed to food-like matters. This is my second post on my sous-vide experiments. I bought a chicken and I thought I would do more experiment with sous-vide cooking. My first trial and error of the chicken is cooking one leg/thigh with bone in. I didn't bother to do much research, just figure that 4 hours at 140 F should do it.

sous-vide experiment 真空低溫烹調法

I have a few pieces of NY strip steak. This morning I have an idea what to do with them other than the usually ways. I decided to give sous-vide a try. Sous-vide has been in rage in recent years, started with restaurant chefs. Now there are specialty equipment for sous vide that comes in all price points, complexity, and quality.

haute cuisine 高級菜餚 - the movie

There are not a whole lot of good movies about food and food preparation. By these I don't mean to include food related documentaries. One that I really like is Eat Drink Man Woman, which inspired the name of my blog. I just finished watching this French movie Haute Cuisine.

french onion soup

The only French onion soup I'd ever made is one made with Campbell's. Recently I was watching the mind of a chef episode.  There is this brief discussion of making the classic French onion soup and I thought I really want to try making it. It is really simple but like old time recipes, it take patience.

leek soup - part 2

A bowl of good soup starts with a good broth. The quality of your broth is the foundation for your soup, be it Asian soup noodle, or western soup. I use pork bone most of the time because I can obtain relatively fresh one. Not so with cow bone. With only few exceptions I dislike chicken base broth but it is just my personal preference.

lobster thermidor - part 2

This is my third time making lobster thermidor now in only a short span of 2 weeks. I want to get the technique down so it would stay with me. I am quite happy with the result of the third attempt.

some dishes i made lately

Just a collection of dishes I made recently. Many requires very little time.