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Food ramblings
Mar. 21st, 2006 03:34 pmI made dinner last night for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jmpava and myself: seared tuna, yakisoba, and broccoli with cheese sauce. The yakisoba didn't turn out that well, so I'm not going to give a recipe for it. The tuna and broccoli turned out nicely, however, and my only apologies are to 2gouda4u for subjecting her to fish smell.
Seared Sesame Tuna
When I saw that the local market had beautiful tuna steaks, I had to try this.
The tuna steak should be beautiful -- deep red, close-grained, firm and not mushy, with little to no fishy smell. (If the graining is ugly or the piece is weirdly shaped, that's fine; in fact, I know someone who feeds herself on high-quality sashimi because she's found a place that sells high-quality but ugly cuts of sashimi-grade fish for a discount.) I used a wild-caught yellowfin tuna steak that weighed about three-quarters of a pound. With the intelligence of hindsight, I can say that the amount of tuna was about right, but the steak was too thick (probably about an inch and a half to maybe two inches in the middle). Were I to do it again, I would split the steak lengthwise into two thinner steaks.
Once you have your beautiful steak, slather it on both sides in soy sauce and sesame oil. I suppose you could marinate it; I didn't bother. Heat up a pan (cast iron is really best) on the stovetop to what Alton Brown calls 'rocket-hot'. Liberally spread sesame seeds over one side and then put it seed-side down into the pan. You may hear popping sesame seeds and the hiss of seed oil. Be not alarmed (although keep an eye on it to keep the seeds from burning and blackening). It might smoke a bit, so turn the fan on. While it sizzles on one side, liberally cover the other side with seeds.
When the sesame seeds are browned, the tuna underneath should also be cooked on the surface. Flip it over and repeat the process on Side 2. When that side is browned, you're done.
Cooked this way, the inside will be very rare. (How rare will depend on the thickness of the steak.) It's the school of seared tuna that basically means you end up with sashimi-with-a-crust. It tastes mostly of rare tuna, with a sesame crunch.
Were I to do it again, I would concoct some sort of dipping sauce, or serve it with picked ginger and wasabi as well as soy sauce.
Broccoli and Cheese sauce
or
How to Turn an Innocent Vegetable into Heart Attack A La Carte
Cheese sauce is one of my achilles' heels -- not only in that I really, really like it, but also in that it's stupidly easy to make unhealthily and disastrously difficult to make healthy. I have tried a number of different variants of this that use something other than gross quantities of cream and hard cheese, but none of them have quite worked, and many wind up inedibly curdled. (Cheese and milk don't mix easily. Cheese and cream do. It has to do with the water content of milk, I think, and the fat content of cheese.)
So now I just make cheese sauce in full knowledge that it's going to be the caloric centerpiece of the meal.
Steam the broccoli. These days I use a metal basket steamer. In college I steamed broccoli in ziplock bags. It doesn't really matter. Nicely steamed broccoli is almost violently green; if it's turned olive, it's overcooked.
Meanwhile, in a small pan, heat some cream or half and half. Oh, maybe a cup -- but I never measure, I just pour some in. Heat it gently over low heat, so it doesn't bubble or stick or scorch. When it's warm to hot, but not bubbling yet, add a handful of cheese. Stir it briskly into the hot liquid until it starts to dissolve. Repeat until the sauce is of desired consistency. (It will firm up as it cools, but I find that it doesn't tend to last long; if you're concerned, stop just before you reached the desired thickness. Make it in small batches, since I've never been able to convince it to heat up well.)
That's it. It's almost evilly simple. If I've learned anything from Julia Child, I've learned that it's really easy to make food taste good if you use a lot of butter and cream.
jmpava and myself: seared tuna, yakisoba, and broccoli with cheese sauce. The yakisoba didn't turn out that well, so I'm not going to give a recipe for it. The tuna and broccoli turned out nicely, however, and my only apologies are to 2gouda4u for subjecting her to fish smell.Seared Sesame Tuna
When I saw that the local market had beautiful tuna steaks, I had to try this.
- Tuna steak
- Soy sauce
- Sesame seed oil
- Sesame seeds (untoasted)
The tuna steak should be beautiful -- deep red, close-grained, firm and not mushy, with little to no fishy smell. (If the graining is ugly or the piece is weirdly shaped, that's fine; in fact, I know someone who feeds herself on high-quality sashimi because she's found a place that sells high-quality but ugly cuts of sashimi-grade fish for a discount.) I used a wild-caught yellowfin tuna steak that weighed about three-quarters of a pound. With the intelligence of hindsight, I can say that the amount of tuna was about right, but the steak was too thick (probably about an inch and a half to maybe two inches in the middle). Were I to do it again, I would split the steak lengthwise into two thinner steaks.
Once you have your beautiful steak, slather it on both sides in soy sauce and sesame oil. I suppose you could marinate it; I didn't bother. Heat up a pan (cast iron is really best) on the stovetop to what Alton Brown calls 'rocket-hot'. Liberally spread sesame seeds over one side and then put it seed-side down into the pan. You may hear popping sesame seeds and the hiss of seed oil. Be not alarmed (although keep an eye on it to keep the seeds from burning and blackening). It might smoke a bit, so turn the fan on. While it sizzles on one side, liberally cover the other side with seeds.
When the sesame seeds are browned, the tuna underneath should also be cooked on the surface. Flip it over and repeat the process on Side 2. When that side is browned, you're done.
Cooked this way, the inside will be very rare. (How rare will depend on the thickness of the steak.) It's the school of seared tuna that basically means you end up with sashimi-with-a-crust. It tastes mostly of rare tuna, with a sesame crunch.
Were I to do it again, I would concoct some sort of dipping sauce, or serve it with picked ginger and wasabi as well as soy sauce.
Broccoli and Cheese sauce
or
How to Turn an Innocent Vegetable into Heart Attack A La Carte
Cheese sauce is one of my achilles' heels -- not only in that I really, really like it, but also in that it's stupidly easy to make unhealthily and disastrously difficult to make healthy. I have tried a number of different variants of this that use something other than gross quantities of cream and hard cheese, but none of them have quite worked, and many wind up inedibly curdled. (Cheese and milk don't mix easily. Cheese and cream do. It has to do with the water content of milk, I think, and the fat content of cheese.)
So now I just make cheese sauce in full knowledge that it's going to be the caloric centerpiece of the meal.
- A good head of broccoli
- Half and half or cream (but not milk -- sorry)
- Grated parmesan cheese (Most cheeses will work. I've had success with cheddar, jack and blue cheese. They need to be grated, though. While powdered parmesan in cans has its place in the world, don't use it for this. It doesn't seem to incorporate right.)
Steam the broccoli. These days I use a metal basket steamer. In college I steamed broccoli in ziplock bags. It doesn't really matter. Nicely steamed broccoli is almost violently green; if it's turned olive, it's overcooked.
Meanwhile, in a small pan, heat some cream or half and half. Oh, maybe a cup -- but I never measure, I just pour some in. Heat it gently over low heat, so it doesn't bubble or stick or scorch. When it's warm to hot, but not bubbling yet, add a handful of cheese. Stir it briskly into the hot liquid until it starts to dissolve. Repeat until the sauce is of desired consistency. (It will firm up as it cools, but I find that it doesn't tend to last long; if you're concerned, stop just before you reached the desired thickness. Make it in small batches, since I've never been able to convince it to heat up well.)
That's it. It's almost evilly simple. If I've learned anything from Julia Child, I've learned that it's really easy to make food taste good if you use a lot of butter and cream.
