Bourbon Beef Steak with Blistered Broccoli and Napa Cabbage

You know those shirts that say:“I cook with wine, sometimes I put in my food”?. Think of that and replace wine with bourbon for this recipe. You would be surprised how versatile good old Jack can be not only for the meat, but also for the side dish. So let’s start breaking this recipe down.

The meat- grab yourself a nice piece of beef steak. Now, I wanted to mix things for the meat so I did a super easy and delicious trick that can give a real lift to any steak. Cook your meat to your desired result (remember that test to check your meat by comparing to different variations of your clenched fist? Use it!). 

With one minute or so to spare throw in the pan 20 grams of bourbon and flambé the meat. Also, it will impress anyone else in the room making you look like you performed a Holywood-like stunt. What can I say? The ladies enjoy a live flambee…. Back to business, let the meat rest for 3-4 minutes, lightly brush one side with some spicy mustard (try and get the type that has horseradish in it) then grab the meat and put the mustard side in some ground pepper. This will give your meat a strong, pregnant peppery taste and you can always use this trick to cover one or more sides of a steak that didn’t really came out your way.

So where should we use more bourbon you ask? Why, the sauce, of course. 

Grab yourself 75 grams of butter, 

some shimenji mushrooms (or whatever type make you happy on the inside), 

50 grams of whisky, 

50 grams of stock and 

the same amount of cream. 

Start of by melting the butter in the same pan that you cooked the meat in. Add in the mushrooms and cook them for 3 minute on high heat, then pour in the whisky. Take advantage of this occasion to perform some more pyrotechnics, cook for another minute, then reduce the heat and add the stock and cream. In about 3 minutes add the salt and pepper and remove from heat. 

For the side dish, I served the meat with some blistered broccoli and stir fried Napa Cabbage. Regarding the last ingredient, it was a nice surprise for me as its taste proved to work very nice with the meat. Simply cut it any way you want and throw it in a pan with a couple tbs. of olive oil on high heat. Cook for 2 minutes and add just a touch of bourbon to, you guessed it, flambé the cabbage, cook for another 2 minutes. Touch of salt and pepper and you’re done.

The other vegetable didn’t get the bourbon treatment, but I can’t complain: Mrs. G liked it a lot, so much that I can’t cook broccoli in any other way. What can I say? Broccoli can do that to a woman. I found this recipe on Instagram, on the @bonappetitmag account. Cut the veggie into florets making sure you keep a long enough stalk for each floret.

Then cut each one in half so you have a flat surface for each broccoli. Heat up some olive oil on high heat, put the veggie with the flat side down in there and cook until you get a dark brown color. Flip the broccoli and place the pan in the oven for 10 minutes. Plate the broccoli and add a splash of lemon juice, some chili flakes and garlic slices. Absolutely delicious. It’s a wonderful way to give broccoli a nice twist, similar to a Ottolenghi recipe for a broccoli salad that applied similar that technique, but in which you first blanched the veggie before grilling it on a super hot grill.

So, that was our bourbon beef dinner, but feel free to use whisky instead of bourbon. As a suggestion here, go for Islay whisky, some Laphroaig would really hit the spot with its peaty, rich taste.

Enjoy,

Lebanese- Inspired Salad

You’ll love this dish it has intense taste, a good level of sourness and some nice crunch, and it all mixes incredibly with the hummus. If you think about the crunch in the bread and the tangy dressing you can realise that it was inspired but the very famous Levant salad- fattoush.

So, grab yourself a romaine lettuce head coarsely cut, some tomatoes - diced, a skinless cucumber -diced, a couple of radishes – thinly sliced (I didn’t have those to use, but they work great). Mix the veggies together. 

Now for the crunch part: take some pita breads and carefully insert a knife in the middle in order to separate the two sides so you can cut the pita in half (basically, this bread is a like a giant, very thin, empty on the inside doughnut, that you want cut in half in order to obtain 2 slick sheets of bread). Use a brush or your fingers (whichever tastes better J) to very lightly coat the bread with some olive oil, then pop it in the pre-heated oven, high heat, for a minute, or until it reaches a dark brown color, similar to caramelized sugar. Remove the bread from the  oven and cut/brake it in to pieces for the salad. 

For the sour part, I mixed in some olive oil, about 2 tbs, the juice of half a lemon, 1 tbs of honey, a crushed garlic clove, some salt and pepper together (use a mortar and pestle to crush the garlic and mix the sauce in there), the result will be a tangy sauce that will counterbalance perfectly the rich hummus. For the traditional taste of fattoush, replace the lemon, or part of it with pomegranate molasses or juice. A different take would also be to add in even a couple of pomegranate seeds to the salad, that, besides giving great flavor to the sauce, also brings in for you some very nice, vibrant color.

And one last thing, the pita bread chips and some light aioli sauce= match made in heaven. 

Enjoy, 

Hummus

Ah, hummus, one of those foods that I just love to have around. It’s so versatile and keeps for long enough to be savored along side meats, vegetables or just plain and simple with some olive oil and pita bread. And seeing as I always keep in our fridge some tahini paste, that proved to be rather handy when we decided to have a nice hummus meal. This recipe is so easy that, literally, anyone can do it. 

Honestly, I think that hummus is one of those basic world-wide famous recipes that can be cooked, at different levels, of course, by both experienced or novice foodies (avoided to say chefs/cooks here because they can make hummus in their sleep). The main things that you need here are a food processor and tahini paste, which is basically a thick sesame paste that gives the flavor to the mashed chickpeas that make the body of the hummus: my idea is the more the better, and I love that slightly nutty, maybe a bit heavy taste to a tahini rich hummus. 

Of course, you need to balance that, and you use 2 things: garlic and lemon juice. For the chickpeas, you can either go with the canned, pre-boiled ones, in which case you can pop them straight into the blender/food processor, or you can boil you own. In this case, I suggest leaving the beans to soak in cold water over night, it really helps the boiling. You’ll know the chickpeas are done when you take one out and you can easily mash it with your fingers (I have to say here, I honestly don’t think chickpeas can be over boiled or that would be bad for hummus). So, chickpeas in, add the tahini paste (for 500 grams of boiled beans I put in 6 big tbs. of paste), the juice of 1 and a half lemon, 3 crushed garlic cloves, 4 tbs. of olive oil, about 2-3 tbs. of salt and water (you can use some of the water you cooked the chickpeas in).

Blitz everything together and taste frequently for taste and check for thickness, adding more water if necessary (you want it to have a thick oatmeal consistency). The way I like to eat this is with a lot of sumac, which also has a light sour note and gives a beautiful color and with some good quality olive oil, and pita bread. Feel free to add some extra ingredients to the mix or on top, after (mint, paprika, parsley, some fat yoghurt, etc., go crazy and try different combinations).

Also for this meal, we decided to make some salad, also inspired by another Levant classic, fattoush. You’ll love this dish it has intense taste, a good level of sourness and some nice crunch, and it all mixes incredibly with the hummus. Details in the next post.

Enjoy,

Fennel and Zucchini Pasta | You've Got Meal!

Lately, I’ve been browsing different foodies on Instagram, trying to see what is exactly trending in other people’s food posts. The thing is, except the consecrated restaurants or the users who have the possibility to access a large variety of (exotic) food, the biggest thing seems to be #vegan or #vegetarian.

 Honestly, just take a picture of a nice apple and strap some of those tags on it and the likes will start popping. I definitely support veggie lovers worldwide, but this is a bit ridiculous. So, instead of just taking pictures of chopped fruits in a bowl and call that dinner, I decided to make something of a vegetarian pasta recipe, using two of my best friends: fennel and zucchini.