Cumin Themed Lamb and Shrimp Dishes

I've not had any lamb for quite a while. Shelley is not a fan of the lamb so it has never hit the menu around our house. If you are a fan of the Food Network, you'll notice they cook a lot of lamb dishes. Today was my breaking point....I just had to have lamb for dinner. So, what to serve my girl for dinner if I'm choosing down on the lamb?

I got some inspiration from one of the cooking shows to spice the lamb with fennel seed and cumin. What can I bring to the table that incorporates at least one of those spices? Googling shrimp and cumin brought me to another food blog, whatstomcooking. Hey, if Tom can combine shrimp and cumin, so can I. One thing I find with shrimp marinades, spices, etc. is that many recipies overpower the taste of the shrimp. Hey, I bought shrimp so I could taste the shrimp...not ONLY the spices or marinades they are cooked in. This is by no means any reflection on Tom's recipe, I just changed it up a bit to suit my tastes.

Grilled Shrimp with Cumin and Lemon
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1 lb. large raw shrimp, peeled, deveined and patted dry
Olive oil
1 tsp. cumin seeds
Course salt and fresh ground pepper
Bamboo skewers
1/2 lemon
2 tbsp. fresh oregano

Heat your BBQ up, searing temp.

Put the shrimp in a bowl, add about 1 Tbsp of olive oil and toss. Add the cumin seeds, salt and pepper to taste and again toss to distribute the spices. Skewer the shrimp.

Lightly oil your BBQ grill and allow the grill to come back to searing temp. Place the lemon, cut side down, on the grill. Cook the shrimp about 2 minutes per side.

Remove the lemon and set aside to cool while you take the shrimp off the skewers and place in your serving bowl. Add the fresh oregano to the bowl and squeeze the lemon over top. Toss to coat.

As alluded to earlier, we found that the use of cumin seeds vs. ground cumin added both a crunch to the shrimp and a nice flavour that didn't overpower the shrimp.

Grilled Lamb with Fennel and Cumin
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Lamb Chops, cut 1" thick, enough to feed those that like lamb ;)
Fennel seed
Cumin seed
Ground cumin
Course salt and fresh ground pepper

It doesn't get much simpler than this, however the taste was fantastic. Again the slight crunch added by using whole seeds added that crunchy layer I like, yet didn't overpower the main ingredient, the lamb! You'll need to play the spicing by feel. Basically you'll use a pinch of fennel seed, cumin seed, salt and pepper and then a very light "dusting" of ground cumin on each piece of lamb. A pinch will work for the ground cumin.

I grilled my lamb about 3 minutes per side on the hot grill mentioned above. This produced a perfectly seared, medium rare chop that melted in my mouth. Even the look on Shelley's face took nothing away from my enjoyment ;)

I served the lamb and shrimp grill with some homemade hummus and pita. Hummus recipe to follow in a later blog.

Enjoy cooking and experimenting.

Cedar Planked Salmon with Rosemary

Planning for dinner on a rainy day usually goes something like this...what's in the fridge that might go together? I've planked salmon many different ways, usually bringing together lemon, capers, mayo concoctions with dill or garlic. Been there done that....the fridge must hold some potential tasty topping for the salmon. Aha, leftover goat's milk cheese. That's better than mayo. Got some fresh Rosemary and a quick check of the pantry finds some pine nuts. A little lemon squeeze and we should be good to go.

Soak a cedar plank in cold water for at least one hour. With a half hour to go light ole Louie the Green Egg and get it stabilized at about 350 degrees.

Roll the goats cheese in finely chopped fresh rosemary and then slice it about 1/4 inch thick. You should end up with 1/4" thick strips about 1" wide.

Heat up a skillet on medium high, dry no oil, and drop some pine nuts in the pan. Shake these around until they are golden brown. Rough chop the pine nuts.

Assembly:
Put the salmon on the plank, folding in any thin parts so you have a fairly consistent thickness all around. Place your strips of rosemary goat's cheese down the centre of each filet, and press in the chopped, roasted pine nuts. Squeeze the juice from 1/2 a lemon over top and you're ready to bake on your BBQ or Egg.

I had one large filet that I halved. This took about 25-30 minutes to bake through to 145 degrees. It's up to you, however even though 145 degrees is recommended I would pull it off at around 130 degrees and allow it to rest for 5 minutes before serving. The last 25 degrees happens very fast and it is easy to overlook your salmon.

Enjoy, we did ;)

Rog, Shell and Louie

Italian Sausage Stuffed Calamari on the Big Green Egg

As with many of the meals I "attempt", I look in the freezer to see what we've got that might just go together. Today I saw a bag of 5 squid left from a previous Friday night Calamari and finger food party and some Italian Sausages. Shell has a great contact in the seafood business so we've usually got something kicking around. I'm thinking that if I remove the sausage from the casings and use the squid as the eventual "sausage casing" this could be pretty tasty. So here we go. Oh, and yes, Louie gets to play a part in this experiment.

Ingredients:
5 Whole Squid
3 Italian Sausages, casings removed
3-4 Tbsp of Olive Oil
1 Tbsp Butter
2 Garlic Cloves
Kosher Salt
Fresh Ground Pepper

Assemble and Cook:
If you are using charcoal to cook these, and I suggest you do, get your BBQ lit and the grill nice and hot.

Meanwhile, remove the sausages from the casings into a Ziplock bag and mush it all together. Wash out the squid and set the extra bits aside....tentacles I mean. We'll do something with those later. Cut a hole in a corner of the Ziplock (think piping bag) and squeeze the sausage into the squid "casings". Leave about a 1/2" at the top of the squid. Repeat with the remaining squid. Using a round toothpick, sew the top of the squid closed. They seal very nicely on the BBQ. Finished product will look something like the picture.

Stabilize your BBQ around 400 degrees. Clean the grate and brush with olive oil. Brush olive oil on one side of the calamari, salt and pepper them. Place on the BBQ prepped side down and repeat the oil, salt and pepper on the undressed side.

Continue grilling and rolling these around to brown them up on all sides.

20 minutes into the cook I moved the stuffed calamari around so I could fit a small iron frying pan on the BBQ to heat up. Once heated I added the butter and about 1 Tbsp of oil. When the butter melted, I dropped in the tentacles (I know, sounds gross) and added the garlic, and some salt and pepper. These will cook fully in just minutes, 5 max.

I grilled the sausage stuffed calamari for a total of 30 minutes to completion. Check the internal temperature of the sausage, look for about 160 degrees in the middle of your largest.

I thought these were magnificent tasting. Shell thought they were tasty as well, with the following quid pro quo: "You know, these would be awesome if I was blind...you know, like Jeff Healey would think these were marvelous."

Not sure if I take that as a compliment or buy her a blindfold for Christmas.

Gringo Lasagna

Initially I was going to call this Mexican Lasagna....however I'm pretty sure Grandma Maria Gonzales would have something to say about that blasphemy. Shelley left me with a challenge today, clean out the fridge! OK, done deal. All I'm missing are some tortillas and I don't feel like going to the store. Tortilla making attempt #1 was really not worth publishing, however even my failed attempt at a perfect tortilla worked fine in this recipe. Funny enough, with all the green ingredients in the recipe I decided that a little red food colouring in the dough would add some colour....ok, so we ended up with tortillas that support breast cancer month, nice and pink. Took on the appearance of ham frankly when moistened in the "lasagna". Fun nonetheless ;) and tasted quite good. There are some really interesting YouTube videos of folks showing you how to make tortillas. Worth a peek. Anyway, onto tonight's recipe:

Ingredients:
Tbsp of cooking oil
1 onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
4 cloves garlic, diced
4 Jalapeño peppers, finely diced (optional)
2 lbs lean ground beef (or 1lb beef, 1lb pork)
3 tsp chili powder
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp sea salt (the course stuff...or reduce if you only have fine salt)
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
3 c salsa, divided
6 tortillas (pink ones even)
2 c of Monterey Jack or Mozerella (gringo) cheese, divided
4 oz can of green chilies
1 c old cheddar cheese

In a large skillet, heat your oil until shimmering. Add the onion and green pepper and sauté until the onions are opaque. Add the garlic and sauté for 30 seconds. Add your ground beef, or beef and pork, along with the chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper and the Jalapeño if you chose to add. Cook until the meat mixture is cooked through.

Ok, so I did this in the morning and poured this into a bowl, covered and put in the fridge while I made the tortillas. You can proceed with the recipe at this point or cover and refrigerate the mixture until you're ready to assemble the "lasagna".

Assembly:

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Using a 9x13 casserole dish, cover the bottom with a thin layer of salsa. Cut two tortillas in half and assemble over the salsa to create a tortilla layer. Spoon in 1/3 of the meat mixture and spread out evenly over the tortilla layer. Do the same for the chilies and 1/2 of the Monterey Jack or Mozzerella.

Using 1/2 of the remaining salsa, make your next layer, cover with 2 tortillas as in the previous step and repeat as you did in the previous
layer. For the final layer you will finish with the Old Cheddar instead of the Jack or Mozzarella, all else remains the same as layer two.

Put the lasagna in the oven for 45 minutes and enjoy!

Hey, throw me a comment if you tried this. Let me know how it turned out. Personally, I made a cerdo of myself.

Meat Pie, Meet Pot Pie

So, this is not a recipe per say as much as some inspiration for those of you that like to cook but may be afraid to venture too far from your recipe books.

My Girl was at home today, not feeling very good, so to make her feel better I asked her what she wanted me to make her for dinner. Being that she wasn't feeling very well, and obviously not thinking clearly, she said she wanted a meat pie. OK, Dad made a mean meat pie....I think I can handle that. Then as the conversation went on, the meat pie started sounding like a pot pie...you know, chunks of beef in a gravy with veg. While asking more questions, I realized that we may be looking at a marriage between the traditional meat pie and the traditional pot pie. Sure, why not.

I figured the idea was to bring the tastes of the meat pie: thyme, sage and cloves and marry that to ground beef (vs a mix of pork and beef or beef chunks) in a pastry pie with vegetables. I've got to admit, I've never made pie crust before, but certainly knew what I needed it to come out like...flakey....but not too flakey. After some research I got the feeling that that could be achieved with a blend of shortening and butter...vs one or the other.

Check the fridge, we've got carrots, celery, brown mushrooms, green pepper, onion, and let's not leave out the garlic.

I browned up a couple pounds of lean ground beef, seasoned with salt and pepper and poured in some beef broth once the ground beef was about 1/2 cooked. I let that simmer until the broth reduced to a "juicy" consistency. I always remember my Dad making meat pies and complaining that they ended up dry. Learn from your elders....something my son seems to dismiss...though I digress.

I poured the meat into a bowl and added the chopped up veg combo to the pan. Sauté that until what I figured was al dente. I added back the 3/4 cooked beef and juices and reduced that somewhat. I sifted in some flour to thicken it up into a gravy-like consistency. Fast forward....I should have reduced it further. Though it appears to be minimal liquid in the pan, there was more to come from the veg (in particular the mushrooms I suspect) to give you the necessary juiciness my Dad's meat pies were lacking.

A pat on the proverbial back is required for my first attempt at pie crust....damn that turned out well. I'll pass the recipe on in a further post. I decided that because this was likely to be a juicy "pie", I'd bake the bottom crust first and bailed when it was about 3/4 cooked. I bailed too early as it turns out. Cook the crust fully....with the extra juices produced, it won't over cook later.

Easy Peasy, dump your meat mixture into the pie, cover with the top coat of pastry....make cut outs like a face...Shelley's contribution and bake that at 325 degrees until the top crust is browned nicely. About 30 minutes if the wine allows me to remember correctly.

This meal surprised my sick girl and I. It had all the French Canadian flavours of a meat pie with the comfort food aspect of the beef pot pie.

Enjoy experimenting.

Beef Wellington

This used to be a dish I only ever ordered in a restaurant....and during my "singles" interlude, from M&Ms. I figured we should give it a go with the leftover tenderloin piece from our last full tenderloin purchase.

My dog Logan had different ideas on what should be done with said filet. We walked in the house to find him in the kitchen finishing the $22 piece of beef off. I of course took this all in stride....or not.

Shelley went out and grabbed a new filet, Logan became very familiar with the inside of his crate for the evening.

So, here goes....not a lot of specific measurements in this one:

2 beef tenderloins, or 1 big enough for two
2 Tbsp oil, grapeseed, et el (separated)
2 or more Tbsp Old Style prepared mustard (you can use regular mustard)
3 large shiitake mushroom caps
4-6 thinly sliced strips of Prosciutto
1 Egg
1/2 pkg (220g) Puff Pastry (defrosted)
All purpose flour
Salt and Pepper

Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a heavy pan on high heat. Season beef with salt and pepper. Pop the tenderloin into the pan and sear it on all sides to seal. Remove to cutting board. Turn the heat down to medium, and give the pan a quick wipe to remove any excess oil.

Coat the entire tenderloin in mustard. Let rest to the side while you prep the mushrooms.

Rough cut the mushrooms and add to food processor with some pepper (I don't add salt because I find the prosciutto to be salty enough). Whiz it until it is quite smooth. Dump the 'shrooms into the pan to cook off any excess moisture....not dry, just not soggy. I'm sure there's a culinary term for that ;)

Lay out a strip of plastic wrap on the counter, line it with prosciutto slices...enough to wrap around the tenderloin once assembled. Spread the mushrooms on the prosciutto, completely coating it. Lay your beef in the middle and using the plastic wrap, surround the tenderloin with the prosciutto layer. Wrap this all up in the plastic, twisting the ends to get the plastic tight around the meat. Put this in the fridge while you prepare the pastry.

Lightly dust the counter with flour. Roll out the puff pastry as per the package directions. Think about what you are putting inside the pastry and shape your rectangle as needed.

Using a 9" x 6" oven safe pan, pour 1Tbsp of oil in the bottom. Put this in the oven on the middle rack and turn the oven to 400 degrees. You want to pre-heat the pan so the bottom of the Wellington browns up nicely. You will be surprised how quickly this dish will reach target temperature inside.

Take the meat out of the plastic wrap and place on the puff pastry, egg wash the pastry all around the meat (this is the glue) and then wrap the meat up inside, think Christmas present without the tape. Make sure everything is sealed and cut off any excess pastry or else you'll end up with a pile of mushy, uncooked pastry inside. Only overlap as little as you feel is needed to seal the meat in. Use the remaining egg wash to cover the Wellington, it'll get nice and brown in the oven.

Here's hoping you have one of these...

Insert your thermometer into the center of the Beef Wellington and place in the hot pan we put in the oven. Bake until the center reaches the desired temperature you're looking for. We like rare, so we set the temp for 120 degrees. The meat will continue to cook even after you remove from the oven so it's better to remove it a little early.

Enjoy!!

Semolina Pasta

This is a very simple, very versatile pasta dough I make at home. If you've never made pasta at home or never ate a restaurant that makes their own pasta, you don't know what you are missing!

This recipe makes enough pasta for about 6 people. If you don't have a pasta rolling/cutting machine, you can roll the dough out using a rolling pin and cut linguine or fettuccine using a pizza wheel.

2 cups if all purpose flour (don't scoop your flour, spoon the flour into your 1 cup measuring scoop and level with a knife or you'll end up with too much flour)
2 cups of Semolina flour (very important if you're making pasta)
1/4 Tsp salt
6 large eggs, room temperature
2 Tbsp of good olive oil

In a medium bowl mix the flours and salt until well blended. Mound the mixture up in the middle and create a deep well in the middle. Add your eggs and olive oil into the well and gently whisk using a fork incorporating the flour mixture into the eggs and oil. when the dough starts to become difficult to mix with the fork, get your hands in there and finish combining until there is no flour remaining.

Lightly dust your countertop with semolina flour and transfer your dough ball over. Knead the dough for 8 minutes. The dough should become smooth and supple. Once kneaded, wrap your dough in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temp for 30 minutes.

Cut your dough up into manageable chunks and run through your pasta machine, or roll out, to the desired thickness. Cut in the shape you want.

Because the thickness varies depending on what you've created, you'll have to pay attention when boiling this pasta. Spaghettini can be done in as little as a minute, thick Fettuccine will take up to 8 minutes. Either way, boil your water and add only salt to the water, no oil like your mama used to do. Enjoy.