Peanut Butter Steak

It has happened. The deed is done.

Though I didn't use the computer program to craft this masterpiece, I still thought it was appropriate to share here.

Actually, this dish was the inspiration this entire blog. One day, Fluffy Donuts had the stunningly brilliant idea to combine two of America's favorite foodstuffs: steak and peanut butter.

The original had a few variations. One he baked, another he stuffed with peanut butter and deep-fried. Finally, he seared one with a blowtorch. Not daring to do anything too extravagant myself, I settled for the reliable sear-and-bake method.

I seared the steak on both sides on stupid-hot cast iron, smothered it with peanut butter mixed with a little cayenne and fish sauce, transferred to a nonstick pan and baked it to medium.

Despite its looks, it was actually quite delicious.

Lamb Curry

The randomly-generated list of ingredients is:

chickpea

lamb

parsley root

potato

This is a recipe of firsts. This is the first time I've bought and cooked lamb. This is also the first time I've ever eaten parsley root. Hell, this is even the first time I've made a curry with meat, shockingly enough.

Despite my virginity in these matters, this was a straight-ahead lamb curry, and it turned out fantastic. There was a surprising sweetness that came from the parsley root, which nicely rounded out the spiciness of the sauce. Between the chickpeas, potatoes, and parsley root, I decided that there was plenty of starch already, so I forewent the usual side of rice.

Ingredients

2 lamb shoulder chops

2 handfuls chickpeas, dried

1 onion, minced

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 tsp cumin, ground

1 tsp, thyme, dried

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 bay leaf, fresh

cayenne pepper, to taste

2 parsley roots, cubed

2 small potatoes, cubed

parsley, chopped, for garnish

Method

Sear lamb chops on both sides, then remove. Saute onions, then garlic. Deglaze with stock or water. Combine with lamb, chickpeas. tomato paste, bay leaf, and spices in a pot. Add enough addition liquid to cover lamb and bring to a simmer.

Simmer covered until lamb and chickpeas are tender, about two hours. Remove lamb and debone. Add potatoes and parsley root and reduce. Return lamb. Serve topped with chopped parsley.

Pasta Salad with Herring

The randomly-generated list of ingredients is:

pasta

herring

horseradish

lettuce

Not wanting to go off the rails and cook with lettuce, I had to settle with a salad for this one. All in all, the result was very simple, yet very delicious, especially the horseradish mayonnaise dressing. I think this may have been better with shredded chicken breast or turkey instead of the herring, but that could just be me being burnt out on herring.

Ingredients

1 egg yolk

lemon juice, to taste

1 cup oil

1 tin smoked herring

4 oz bowtie pasta

6 leaves Boston lettuce, torn

horseradish, prepared, to taste

Method

Cook pasta. Make mayonnaise. Cool pasta. Mix everything together. Done.

Fried Oatmeal with Oranges

The randomly-generated list of ingredients is:
oats
orange
gin

Dessert time!

Although all the flavors were great, the textures were a bit off. However, this is entirely due to my putting only two minutes between recipe generation and execution. The orange slices should have been added at the very end just to heat them through, rather than turning them into a pulpy mess.

Forethought, forethought, forethought.


Ingredients

oats, uncooked
sugar

green cardamom
oranges, sliced
1.5 oz gin, per serving
cornstarch, slurried
honey


Method

Make oatmeal. Add sugar, depending on how sweet you like dessert. Let the oatmeal cool and congeal.

Infuse a few cardamom pods in some oil. Fish out the cardamom and fry the oatmeal cake until caramelized on both sides. Remove from pan.

Caramelize the oranges. Add one shot of gin, flame it, and repeat until all the gin is used. Add cornstarch, and stir until thickened.

Pour oranges over the fried oatmeal cake and drizzle everything with liberal amounts of honey.

Popcorn-Soynut-Carrot Snack

The randomly-generated list of ingredients is:
popcorn
soybean
carrot

I'll admit that is not the most inspired thing I've ever made. At its core, it's downright mundane. Really, it's just popcorn and soynuts.

Ingredients

popcorn
soynuts (yes, I made them myself)
carrot, grated, dried
sage leaves


Method

Fry the sage leaves in oil until crispy. Don't wear your best shirt.

Remove the sage leaves and cook the popcorn in the oil as appropriate.

Mix popcorn with soynuts, dried carrot, and crumbled sage leaves.

Tempeh Stir-fry with Curry Rice and Chana Dal

 

The randomly-generated list of ingredients is: 

dal

tempeh

bamboo shoots

sun-dried tomato

It didn't seem too difficult of a task. These are all fairly familiar ingredients without any apparent clashes. Tie it all together with some curry spices. Easy.

Not surprisingly, it turned out pretty good. The crunchiness of the dal nicely balanced the chewiness of the tempeh and tomato. Also, not surprisingly, this dish tasted nutty. Severely nutty. Fortunately, copious amounts of cilantro kept that in check.

Unexpected lesson of the day: add sun-dried tomato to all future stir-fries.

Recipe for 2 or 3:

Ingredients

0.25 cup chana dal, soaked for at least 4 hours

8 oz tempeh, sliced

5 oz bamboo shoots, sliced

7 oz sun-dried tomato, sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp cumin seeds

2 tbsp cashews

2 tsp curry powder

1.5 cup basmati rice, cooked

cilantro, as much as you can stand

lime wedges, for garnish

Method

Deep-fry the chana dal in a wok. Fish out the dal. Eat approximately one third of it while cooking the rest of the meal.

Pour off all the oil except what's needed to stir-fry. Brown the tempeh on both sides. Add the bamboo, tomato, and garlic. This doesn't need to cooked at Wokmaster heat, so the rice can be prepared in between stirs.

In another pan, fry the cumin seeds and cashews in a bit of olive oil. Add the curry powder when the cashews are almost browned. Mix in the rice. Add the lion's share of the dal.

When the stir-fry is almost done, throw in a splash of water or stock to soften up the tempeh and tomatoes.

Plate, sprinkle over the remaining dal, drown in cilantro, garnish with lime wedges, and serve with your favorite $3 white wine.

Beet Chips with Amaretto-Lime Sauce

The culinary gods have spoken.

beet

amaretto

lime

Unfortunately, I did not get this list of ingredients from pressing the “dessert” button on my fancy random-ingredient-list-generating program. This was supposed to be an appetizer, so I tried to take a savory approach to it. Big mistake.

Since I wanted to make this quickly, I decided to make some form of deep-fried beets and a dipping sauce. Initially, I wanted to make bright-red beet French fries, but given the limiting geometry of the roots, chips had to suffice. They were good, like beet-flavored potato chips. It was nothing outstanding however, unless you really like beets.

The sauce. The first attempt was a mayonnaise. It was like eating an Amaretto Sour, and that's not as good as you might think. The second attempt was an Asian-inspired sweet-and-sour sauce built upon cornstarch, Sriracha, and the two impossible ingredients. I wish I could describe the taste, but my brain has repressed those particular memories. That is the sauce I put in the photo purely for aesthetics.

I won't bother with a recipe here. Search for other deep-fried beet recipes. They can describe the process far better than I can.

Sweet Potato Hash Browns, Smoked Herring, and Celery-Pear Salsa

The randomly-generated list of ingredients is:
sweet potato
herring
pear
celery

There is one extremely important observation to be gathered from today:

Sweet potatoes make regular potatoes look like incompetent tubers that only have a job because their uncle works for the company. The potato company. This is exemplified most clearly in the art of the hash brown. Here, the two rest on entirely different realms of existence. It is almost disrespectful to even call this majesty a "hash brown".

As you can see, the sweet potato hash browns were great. The herring was, well, herring. It was canned, but it's a good canning fish. It worked out. I also included a fried egg merely for added decadence. The pear wasn't too much of a troublemaker, and the salsa as a whole seemed to function the same way as sweet pickle relish. Maybe serve some with hot dogs at your next cookout. No one will give you any strange looks.

This would make a good, non-routine brunch, maybe with green apple instead of pear if keeping with the spirit of the dish. And since this is a herring dish, it is mandatory that it be served with aquavit. Skål.


Recipe for 1:

Ingredients

smoked herring, however much you feel like eating
1 egg, fried

Hash browns:
one half sweet potato, grated
1 tsp cornstarch
pinch allspice powder

Salsa:
2 tbsp pear, diced
2 tbsp celery, diced
1 tbsp red onion, diced
0.5 tsp capers, minced
0.5 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp dill, chopped


Method

You can take it from here. No fancy tricks involved.

Shrimp-Banana Miso Curry with Peanut Couscous

Here's the first mystery entrée. Let's just dive right in, shall we?

The randomly-generated list of ingredients is:
couscous
shrimp
banana
miso 

It's obvious that one of these ingredients is severely lacking from most people's routine cooking. I can't even remember the last time I've had some for dinner. I don't see why though: there's no great mystery in preparation and the price and availability are quite attractive as well. It's such a shame that people don't show more love for couscous.

In all seriousness, forcing banana into a dinner entrée is no easy matter. But then again, clobbering together unique, possibly disastrous combinations of food, is exactly what this blog is about.

The biggest obstacle was harnessing the banana's unique sweetness and bending it to my will. Since curries typically have a touch of sweetness to them, I figured that I could the awkward fruit for that purpose. Unfortunately, even the most Christmas-green bananas have more than "a touch" of sweetness, therefore I needed more than a touch of counterbalance, in this case, some "non-sweet" spices and some brown. Yes, brown is a tangible ingredient. Mustard seed, dill seed, and dark roux seem to fill those roles. So I that's what I used.

Finding a place for shrimp in a curry is marginally less difficult as you might imagine. And adding miso to a random dish shouldn't render it completely inedible either (unless it's ice cream or something. Let's hope that combination never shows up.)

And now for the important part: the results.

I'm not going to lie to you, if you try this, the first bite of banana is going to be strange, possibly even uncomfortable. Do not be discouraged, however! This is a dish that requires patience. As I continued to eat, I found that something magical was happening. The banana became less and less weird and out-of-place, especially if I got a peanut or two in the bite. But, that's not all. By time I was almost done with the plate, I found that I actually needed its sweetness, because the dish started to taste wrong without the banana. Oh, and the shrimp was good too.

Do make this.


Recipe for 2:

Ingredients

Curry powder mix:
1.5 tsp turmeric
1.5 tsp coriander seed
0.5 tsp cumin seed
0.5 tsp dill seed
0.5 tsp mustard seed
0.25 tsp black pepper

Curry:
1.5 tbsp flour
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 green chile, minced
2 green bananas, sliced 1-inch
0.5 lbs shrimp, peeled
miso paste, to taste
vegetable stock, as needed
cilantro, chopped, for garnish

Couscous:
0.5 tsp cumin seed
2 tbsp peanuts
1 branch curry leaves, torn
1 shallot
0.5 cup couscous


Method

Roast and grind the curry powder spices as necessary. Set aside.

To start the curry sauce, make a brown roux out of the flour and olive oil. Add the garlic and chile, and fry until the garlic is golden. Throw in the curry powder and fry everything a bit more. Little by little, stir in some stock until the sauce is smooth. Add the miso until it's satisfying salty. Keep it simmering.

Couscous time! Get some water boiling. Fry the cumin seed and peanuts in some olive oil. When the peanuts begin to brown, add the curry leaves, shallot, and some salt. Take it off the heat when the shallot's cooked and thoroughly mix in the couscous. Pour in 0.5 cup boiling water, mix, cover tightly, and let it sit for 5 minutes.

In the meantime, fry the bananas over high heat. The goal is to put some color on the bananas without making them any softer than they already are. Set aside when done.

When the couscous is done, add the shrimp to the simmering curry sauce. Fluff the couscous for the minute or two it takes the shrimp to cook. Add the bananas to the curry when the shrimp are done.

Plate it up, and throw some cilantro on top.

First Post!

I doubt anybody is ever going to read this blog, but this is where I'll be posting all the random food I'm going to be making and/or finding. The plan is to make giant lists of foods, preparation and assembly methods, etc. and roll dice to see what we get. Right now this is just in the planning stages, but it shouldn't take too long to make this all happen after some trial and error. More to come later...