I is for Iron Foodie Ingredient Sampling, part 2

Ideally I'd've talked about this _before_ posting my Iron Foodie entry recipe, but, well, Tech Week interfered. Consider this a prequel. : )

The Marx Foods Box of Mystery contained two ingredients that, in my opinion, needed a platform for useful/accurate tasting:

- Smoked Salt
- Tellicherry Peppercorns

(Of course you _can_ eat pepper and salt plain, but they don't tend to taste very good that way.)

What I did:

1) I equipped myself with a couple of steaks. Salt and pepper are the only things I like to put on a steak (credit to Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for the Food for this preference), so I figured this would make the differences between basic salt and pepper and the gourmet versions pretty apparent.


Salts on the left, peppers on the right. Grinder with the special pepper indicated by the purty pink ribbon.

2) I salted and peppered each side of the steaks and let them sit for 20 minutes while the broiler preheated.


Regular pepper on the left steak, Tellicherry on the right. Smoked salt across the top, regular table salt across the bottom.

3) I put the steaks in the broiler, 5 minutes per side.



4) I let the steaks rest as long as I could bear (seven minutes in this case) and served with sides of my choice (tots! brussels sprouts!)


How Did it Go?
- The Smoked Salt has a really, really strong scent before you cook it, which, to be honest, worried me a bit. It seemed that it could easily be overpowering. Fortunately, this was not the case. Cooking mellowed it out a little, while letting it keep the smokey edge. It worked really well with steak, and I bet would be good with lamb as well.

- The Tellicherry Peppercorns seemed to be both more and less subtle than your average black table pepper. The pepper taste was gentler, but the heat level was cranked up. *Full disclosure: I did go ahead and eat one of each type of peppercorn, just to confirm this impression. Whew. It confirmed both that opinion, plus my notion that eating pepper plain is just not a good idea.

If you'd like to see what I wound up doing with these ingredients, click here to see my Iron Foodie recipe: Toasted Ravioli.

Z is for Zucchini Chicken Parmigiana

My first time trying this was a FAIL due mainly to 2 things:

1) Following the bad advice of an online recipe that suggested pan frying was not necessary. I blame my laziness for letting me succumb to this ridiculous notion.

2) Not having cheese in the house when I started making it. Grrrr! Couldn't interrupt cooking to run out for cheese so what I made was more Zucchini and Chicken Breaded and Baked in Red Sauce and rather dry.

I'm giving it another go this evening with cheese and frying pan firmly involved. I'll let you know.

A is for Pork-stuffed Apples...

...and L is for Lazy Blogger. Sorry 'bout that.

This was my other attempt at a savory apple dish. Not entirely successful but, hey, not a kitchen meltdown either.

In the Prince Caspian book of The Chronicles of Narnia, the Pevensies eat bear meat roasted around apples while they're marching through the woods towards Caspian, and I’ve always thought that sounded oddly good. (The food, not the marching). So that’s where this started for me. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a source for bear meat.

The Joy of Cooking had a recipe for Sausage-stuffed Baked Apples, and that nudged me in a pork-ward direction (never a hard sell).

Here’s what I did:

- Lopped the tops off and dug out most of the insides of two apples.
- Seasoned two pork chops with sage, salt and white pepper. Cubed one and shoved it into the apples, sliced the other in half long ways and wrapped it around.

- Placed the apples on a bed of frozen hash browns (with a dash of milk).
- Baked that at 400 for 30 minutes

- I pulled it out to check the progress at that point and added some butter to the top of each apple. (I was worried about the pork being too dry.)
- I also added some zucchini to the dish and put the whole thing back in the oven for another 30.

How did it turn out:
It was ok, but the pork was a bit dry (darnit) and under seasoned (eep) and the side veggies didn’t really “go” with the main part (ok, probably something I wouldn't worry about if i didn't watch so many cooking shows). It was fine for home cooking. I mean, we ate it all and weren't hungry later or anything, but I wouldn't have wanted to serve it to guests.


What I’d change:
- The meat needed more moisture.
- I’d either try a fatter meat option next time,
- or marinate the stuff for a bit (which would've added more seasoning too. Hmm)
- or maybe try cooking the dish covered. I’m bad about that.

- The meat should’ve been smaller, to better fill up and get cozy with the apples. A nice mince or even a ground option would’ve been better, I suspect. Bad on me for being lazy in the meat breakdown.

- Still not really sure what sides would’ve suited better here. Way open to suggestions.

A is for Apples in the Curry

I was looking for something different apple-wise and some savory action besides. I was also facing the oh-so-typical modren dilemma of "I just washed a pound of chicken and I can't do a thing with it."

I don't think apples plus curry would've occurred to me without having seen this recipe.

What I did (not counting this as a recipe, because I played the whole thing by ear):

I got some olive oil heating in the bottom of my stew pot over a medium and then tossed in the chicken (purchased pre-cut for stir fry; lazy, I know). I threw some curry powder, garlic salt, ginger, cilantro and white pepper on it and gave it a stir, then minced a garlic clove and added it.

Next I threw in some hash browns (the cubed kind, not the toaster patties). Periodic stirring until the chicken cooked through, then added a bit of wine, butter and water (basically enough liquid to cover the mass of stuff). Cubed up some zucchini, and peeled and cubed a Gala apple and added those along with some frozen peas.

Once the peas looked cooked-ish, I stirred in a can of lentil soup and a bit more water. Then I let the whole thing simmer for awhile. Right before eating, I stirred in a bit of milk.

The verdict:
Tasty. The apples really worked and subbed in nicely for the dried cranberries I normally would've used.