Tarragon Tuna Steaks

I don't really like fish. I suppose I don't have a decent reason for it, just the same one I have for olives or lima beans, I just don't like them. But over the last year or so I've had some rather enjoyable dining experiences starring aquatic creatures, so when I saw that tuna steaks were on sale, a crazy thought shot through my head. I tried to talk myself out of it, I really did. But in the end my desire to try something new was too strong, and I bought fresh fish for the first time ever.

My method of preperation was simple, perhaps overly simple given the fact that I knew I wasn't a fan of fish to begin with. The steaks marinated overnight in olive oil, rice vinegar, garlic, pepper, and lots and lots of tarragon. I spent a good deal of time reading about cooking tuna steaks because I found widespread discrepancies as to what degree of doneness the tuna should be cooked to, ranging from very rare to well done. But given that I knew that raw tuna was safe to eat, I thought I'd aim for about medium-rare, with a nice red center. The steaks ended up being in the skillet for about 2.5 minutes on each side, and I think that landed somewhere in the realm of medium to medium-rare. I seem to have a tendency to overshoot my target by a bit.

The verdict? I still don't like fish. But as fish go, this was pretty good, though I really should have made a sauce to go with it. I think next week I'm going back to something a little less radical for me.

Roasted Pork Sirloin with a Creamy Mustard and Onion Sauce

The closest I've ever come to having to worry about Valentine's Day was a few years ago when a professor jokingly, and unsuccessfully, attempted to set me up for the 14th with the girl sitting in front of me. Back in elementary school the day used to be like a little version of Halloween. Everyone in the class exchanged valentines and the ones from the kids with the cool moms always had candy. But at some point boys began to realize that there might be more to girls than cooties, and Valentine's Day went swiftly downhill.

Yet despite my cynicism, I still wanted to do something to commemorate the 14th, so pictured above is my attempt to cut one of the pieces of pork into the shape of a heart. These cuts are from the sirloin, which is considerably less lean than the center loin. The herb rub looks simliar to two weeks ago, but this time it was simply dry mustard, salt and pepper, and rosemary. The pork was browned on both sides, just about 30 seconds each, and then the whole skillet went into a 400 degree oven for about 5 minutes.

Pulling it out of the oven, I removed the meat and began to sauté some onions and scallions, managing to both burn my hand on the iron-cast skillet as well as set off the fire alarm. The pan sauce was finished by deglazing with chicken stock and adding dijon mustard, letting the sauce reduce, then stirring in some sour cream at the end.

I thought the sirloin was more flavorful than the center loin, but the sauce was just fantastic. It's somewhat simliar to the sauce for beef stroganoff, only with enough djion mustard to clear your sinuses for a week.

Cashew Chicken

Someone once pointed out to me that on the competative cooking show Iron Chef, the chefs always said the same thing when they were asked what their strategy was in preparing their dishes. The answer was always "I tried to accentutae the natural flavor of the (whatever food the show was about)" Now this makes sense when talking about venison or lamb or swordfish or many things. But could one ever say it about chicken? The natural flavor of chicken? Does chicken taste like everything? Or does everything taste like chicken? Or does chicken just taste like nothing and manage to accomplish both at the same time?

Of all the meats we eat, chicken seems to have least distinctive flavor of its own. It's perhaps why the little bird is completely left out of my book on meat, or why poor Gallus gallus probably doesn't feature prominently in the signature dish of any famous chef. Yet chicken is a staple all the world over, picking up flavor from whatever it's cooked in or with.

My chicken tonight picked up its flavor from a marinade of peanut oil, soy sauce, lots of chili powder, ginger and garlic. Naturally it was then sautéed, (one of these days I'm going to get around to using an oven, I promise), and set aside while the cashews boiled a bit, and the onions and scallions had their turn in the skillet. Then everything got thrown together and piled on top of rice. As planned, the marinade gave the chicken a much fuller taste then it would have on it's own, and who doesn't like cashews?

If anyone has noticed my new-found regularity yet infrequency in posting, most of it is due to a busier semester that cuts down on my nights available to cook. That as well as the fact that cooking big meals for only yourself can be moderately depressing, particularly around this time of year. But next week I think I'll give pork another shot, I still have to work on that cooking time..

Sautéed Pork Loin in Tangy Orange Sauce

I've wanted to make pork loin for a long time, but never have, probably because it was never on sale. I finally decided I didn't care anymore and picked this recipe out of the my meat book I got for Christmas. The pork here is a cut from the center loin and I put it through a herb rub of basil, rosemary, oregano, garlic salt, pepper and tarragon. Tarragon wasn't actually in the recipe, but I never get to use it very much, so I just threw it in there. The pork was then panfried on both sides, and cooked covered for just a few minutes. The meat book laments continously about how pork is universally overcooked, promising that trichinosis is killed at 137 F, and therefore slightly pink is ok, but I still may have gone a little too far, as I didn't see any pink at all.

The leftover drippings were used to make the pan sauce, which was supposed to consist of onion, orange juice, lemon juice, orange marmalade, and chicken stock. However I have a rather annoying habit of making up a grocery list so I don't forget anything, then forgetting to take the list with me. Therefore when I got to the store I was left to the mercy of my memory, which as you may guess from the previous sentence, has some gaps. Luckily I had some chicken bouillon, which I added to boiling water to replace the chicken stock. In anycase, the onions were sautéed in the drippings, then all the other ingredients added and the sauce boiled and reduced. At the very end I added some corn starch to thicken it some.

In the end I'm glad I decided to splurge, for though the pork lion may have been cooked a little longer than necessary, it wasn't dry, and the orange sauce turned out wonderful. I have enough pork to cook it again tomorrow night, so I can take another shot at getting the cooking time down.

Plus now I have extra orange juice, which I love to drink, but never buy, because well, you can guess.

Chicken Brocccoli Penne

This is pretty similar to a couple of other things I've posted earlier. The only significant difference is the addition of the broccoli. Broccoli does better in cool weather so is actually more abudant in the winter. I didn't cook the broccoli any before the whole thing was set to simmer in chicken broth, and it might have done a little better had it been so, or at least simmered longer. I think broccoli tastes almost bitter when it's raw. In anycase it was still good, which is fortunate because I'm going to be eating it for three days.

London Broil.....kind of

London Broil isn't actually a cut of meat. Rather it's a method of cooking used to prepare a top round steak. The method became so common that now you can see cuts of top round labeled london broil instead. As you may guess London Broil normally involves broiling, so I'm reluctant to call this such, as I in fact did not broil this steak at all. In anycase, I've made this once before, but that was before I had an cast-iron skillet. Like the last time I made a marinade of olive oil, soy sauce, lemon juice, worcestershire sauce, and other fun things. A slight schedule hitch actually caused the steak to be marinated a full 72 hours, but longer is better right? Then I proceeded to quickly sear the steak on both sides, managing to set off the fire alarm while I was at it. I was aiming for medium rare, but I think I overshot it a little bit, probably because I let the steak rest in the iron skillet, which keeps its heat much longer than aluminum. Anyway the marinade did an excellent job, as this turned out quite flavorful and juicy.

Bolivian Fare

Pique: Bite-sized chunks of beef served with green peppers, tomatoes, locotoes, and onions over a bed of fry-cut potatoes in a beer sauce, all topped with an egg.



Brownies: Well they were supposed to be anyway. Much of Bolivia is at a high altitude and therefore requires some adjustments in baking. Generally a reduction in baking soda or powder, an increase in the liquid paired with the flour, and a decrease in sugar is suggested. For other cooking just remember that water boils are a lower temperature as the altitude increases, meaning an increase in cooking time is required.


So why does water boil at a lower temperature at higher altitude? (sorry can't resist)

Entropically, it's favorable for the liquid molecules to be in the gaseous phase. However at temperatures lower than the boiling point, the energy it would take the individual molecules to break free from the intermolecular forces holding the liquid together would be greater than than the entropic gain from going into the gas phase. Thus the boiling point is when these two factors are equal. Remember that the liquid isn't just up and turning into a gas, there is a required energy input, but that is equal to the entropic gain by switching to a gas at the boiling point.

So at higher altitudes the pressure is lower, thus there is a greater entropic gain than at lower altitudes, thus the equality between the energy and the entropy occurs at a lower temperature.

Anyway if you want to calculate the boiling temperature of a pure liquid you can use this equation. You'll need to know the atmospheric pressure.

Saltena: Simliar to a meat pie, it contains beef or chicken in the middle along with peas, other vegetables, an olive, and a quail egg. It also holds a lot of juice, and to be correct you have to eat it with your fingers without spilling any. I couldn't.

Truncha a la portuguesa - I am not generally not a big fan of fish, but sitting in a little restaurant on the shore of sparkling Lake Titicaca that specializes in trout, it would just be wrong not to get it. The only options in ordering the trout was how they fried it, and mine came with onions and tomatoes, though I'm not completely sure what they fried it in. In any case, it was excellent, and may cause me to reevaluate my opinion of fish.

Traditional bolivian meal in the area surrounding Lake Titicaca: Fried trout, something like sardines, chicken, boiled eggs, corn, potatoes, and beans. I didn't eat they sardines; they were looking at me.

A little bit of miscommunication at an ice cream place. In the top photo my brother tried to order a cappuccino milkshake and instead got a strawberry milkshake(the default flavor) and a cappuccino.

In the bottom photo my father ordered an ice cream coke expecting some akin to an ice cream float. Instead he got just what the name said, ice cream, and a coke.

Llama!: This is probably not a traditional method of preperation, but the fact that it's llama makes up for it. It tasted similar to beef, but kind of gamey.

T-bone steaks: This was one order of steak. One. Other than that, how different how can cooked cow meat be?