FamilyFood

BARBECUE DINNER

Barbecuing is in my blood because I am half-Korean and Koreans love them some barbecue.  Tonight, even though it sprinkled intermittently we barbecued our entire dinner.  And we are not pussies.  We use charcoal or wood, dammit. 

This is what we ate:

(Bone-in rib-eyes, asparagus, corn-on-the-cob, and Walla Walla onion stalks.)

Steaks get the simple treatment at our house.  No marinades or anything like that. /shudder/  (What a way to ruin $20 worth of good meat.)  I use just coarse (usually Hawaiian) salt and fresh ground pepper on our steaks, or sometimes, Montreal Steak Seasoning which I buy in bulk at Costco (Don't laugh.  Why are you laughing?  I can't purchase liquor there anymore so I need to buy something in bulk.)  If you haven't tried it yet, shame on you.  You should.

The asparagus and onion stalks were tossed with The Usual: olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and garlic before being grilled.  The corn had nothing on it.

When we were ready to eat, I wedged up one of the Walla Wallas and sprinkled it with some salt and sherry vinegar.  (About a tablesoon of sherry vinegar for one medium onion.)  Give it a good toss.  Then you take a piece of onion and a piece of steak and pop it into your mouth at the same time (this is the way my family serves steak)...sheer heaven I tell you.

Bunny is a fan of bones—which is why we buy bone-in steaks and chops (that's my girl):

And Wallie chomped corn.  (She also ate a hunk of rib-eye which I food-milled for her.):

TWO OF MY FAVORITE COCKTAILS

If you have kids (especially more than one) you know how imporant that evening cocktail is.  5:00 is my favorite time of day, and some days, I get through by telling myself, "It's 5:00 somwhere!" 

Notice that I make these cocktails out of juice you might already have on hand for your kids.  "Will it make a good cocktail?" is the criterion by which I evaluate all my juice purchases.

These are perfect for your Three Martini Playdates.

CITYMOJITO

No need for simple syrup and muddlers, though I like "real" mojitos, too.  Just eyeball it.

• Newman's Own Virgin Limeade*
• Nellie and Joe's Key Lime Juice** (it's the best) or squeeze a lime or two
• Fresh mint, a bunch, chopped and kinda mashed with a knife
• Golden Rum (I like Mount Gay "Eclipse" Rum)
• Sparkling water or club soda

Take a highball glass and fill it with ice.  Fill glass half-way with limeade.  Add 5-6 dashes of lime juice and as much mint as you like.  Stir, then add a good 3-count pour of rum and then finish with a splash of sparkling water. Garnish with lime slice if you want to be fancy.

I like to drink this with a straw to keep the mint bits from getting stuck in between my teeth.

Variation:  Add one chopped basil leaf to make a "Basil CityMojito."

CITYMAMA'S MANGO WHISKEY SOUR

• Trader Joe's Organic Mango Lemonade
• Nellie and Joe's Key Lime Juice** (it's the best) or squeeze a lime or two
• Maker's Mark Bourbon Whiskey or your fave
• an orange cut into wedges

Fill a highball glass with ice.  Fill half-way with mango lemonade.  Add 5-6 dashes of lime juice and then a good 3-count pour of bourbon.  Squeeze an orange wedge into the drink and then plop it in.

Tip: The Mango Lemonade makes a great base for so many drinks where "sour" is required, especially margaritas.  Yum.

* In Portland, available at New Seasons and Beaumont Market.
**In Portland, available at Pastaworks.

SPAGHETTI WITH CLAMS: FROM PORTLAND TO ROME IN A DAY

When I walk our local farmers' market on Saturday mornings I look to see what looks freshest to inspire my cooking.  We make a morning of it because there are several breakfast vendors (burritos, waffles, sausages, coffee) and music (today it was pirate music and kids were dressed in pirate garb) and we hang.  Today J. remarked that it is his favorite way to kick off the weekend. 

For me, it gets me thinking about what we can eat immediately (lemon-chicken sausage, cherries, and fresh-pressed strawberry-limeade) and what to cook for the week (asparagus, something with bacon, Hood strawberries—the best, lots of salads with butter lettuce).

Today, the clams were calling to me.

Our market has a shellfish vendor that has wonderfully pristine oysters and clams (butter, cockle and steamers).  I bought two pounds of steamers and decided immediately to make spaghetti alle vongole for dinner tonight.  The fish monger took his time selecting good ones.  You cannot be in a hurry at this stall.  You wait.  Patiently. And you don't rush him.  Once selected, he packed the clams on ice, and then sent us on our way.

As soon as I got home, I instant-messaged my cousin in Rome to double check my aunt's recipe.  Thankfully she was home and confirmed that the way I was planning on cooking them was right.  Everything I know about cooking pasta I learned from my Zia Gabriella.

SPAGHETTI ALLE VONGOLE (Spaghetti with Clams)

Put the pasta water on to boil.  Don't forget to salt the water with a good fistful of salt.

• 2 pounds steamer clams, well-scrubbed
• extra virgin olive oil (about a 1/2 cup)
• 5 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
• 4 whole dried chilis, ripped up
• chopped fresh parsley, any kind
• 1 pound of dried spaghetti (or linguine)

Preheat a pot on med-high and when it's searing hot, dump in clams and immediately put the lid on.  (Do not add anything to the pot but the clams.)  The clams will instantly begin to open and release their juices.  When pot starts to steam, after about a minute or so, remove pot from heat and let clams cool slightly.  DO NOT OVERCOOK.  Keep lid on (but you can peek to see that they have opened).

Remove clams from pot and place into a separate bowl.  (You can remove them completely from the shell at this point if you wish. Discard shells.)  Strain juices carefully through a fine-mesh sieve or coffee filter and reserve.  You should have about a cup.

Meanwhile, in a frying pan, heat the olive oil, garlic, and chilis over medium heat until the garlic turns lightly brown.  (If it starts browning too quickly, remove it from the heat.)

Once garlic turns golden, add clam juice to pan all at once (it will splatter, no worries) and bring it up to a simmer. Let it bubble for a minute or so to reduce slightly and then dump in the clams.  Continue cooking until clams are warmed through again, a further minute more.

By this time the pasta should be done.  Drain it and then either dump it back into the pot (preferred since the pot is hot and therefore keeps the pasta hot) or serving bowl.  Garnish with parsley and serve. 

No salt should be needed since the clams and their liquor are salty enough.  And never, ever serve cheese with this pasta (or with seafood pasta in general).

You can make this.  You really can.  I pre-did everything while J. took the girls out to rent movies and get a wake-up-from-nap snack.  I warmed the garlic in oil and set that aside.  I steamed the clams and strained the juice.  I put the pasta water on medium-low to slowly heat.  It glub-glubbed at a bare simmer.

When I heard the car pull into the driveway, I cranked up the heat on the pasta water then dumped in the spaghetti.  Turned up the flame under the oil and finished the sauce.  By the time the girls were de-shoed and washed up for dinner, it was ready to go.

Buon Appetito!

I HATE EMERIL, BUT PORKFAT REALLY DOES RULE

I love pork.  In all it's forms.  Guanciale, pancetta, prosciutto, lardo and porchetta .  Bacon, fatback, and ham.  Chops, ribs, tenderloin.  Kalua pig.  Suckling pig.  If it's Babe, I'm eating it.

It's just so damn tasty.  And it takes to whatever you put on it like nobody's business.  We eat it several times a month because it is so versatile and fairly easy to prepare.  And if you make a tenderloin or boneless leg, you will almost certainly have leftovers.  Sliced tenderloin makes fantastic sandwiches. 

A super-easy preparation for cooking a big ole hunk of pig is this one:

ROAST BONELESS LEG OF PORK (OR TENDERLOIN)

Today I prepped and cooked this during naptime.  I kept it tented until dinner time, just hanging out on the stove.  We ate it at room temperature (it was still slightly warm), but you could warm it up in the oven if you like it hot.

Use a meat thermometer to ensure that you don't overcook this. The brown sugar make it caramel-y and crusty and yummy.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

• 1 boneless leg of pork, about 3 lbs, tied (ask your butcher to do this), or a tenderloin of similar weight
• a palmful of brown sugar
• a soup spoon full of dijon mustard
• 3 garlic cloves
• one long sprig of rosemary, leaves removed
• a glug of olive oil
• coarse salt and fresh ground pepper

Place pork in a lightly oiled roasting pan, fat side up.  Pat brown sugar all over the top.

In a small food processor place the mustard, garlic, rosemary leaves, and olive oil.  (If you don't have a small food processor—I use the one that came with  my stick blender—then just give everything a good chop and mix it together in a bowl.  No worries, mate.)

Whiz to make a uniform, loose paste.  Shmear this carefully over the pork and nevermind if it glops over the sides and into the roasting pan.

Salt and pepper the pork.  I got a shot of the pink Hawaiian salt of which I am so fond.

Roast at 325 degrees until your meat thermometer registers an internal temperature of 160, about 40 minutes.  Remove from oven and tent with foil until ready to serve, at least 10-15 minutes.

Slice and spoon some pan juices over.  Silly tomato garnish courtesy of Bunny who promptly ate them as soon as the picture was taken.

FISH IS TOO HARD TO COOK, YOU SAY?

It's not, really, it's not.  In fact, fish is the staple of my favorite "Twenty Minute Meal." If you have a glass dish with a lid  (i.e. Pyrex or Corning), you can use it to steam fish in the microwave.  Yes, I said microwave, but bear with me.  You know how microwaves are famous for steaming veggies like broccoli and asparagus so perfectly?  Fish gets the same gentle treatment, and because fish has such a high water-content, it's nearly impossible to ruin it. Fish only takes 5 minutes in the micro, and this cooking method is healthy, too. Follow the time management tips below and this meal will be on the table in 20 minutes if you are serving (white) rice, or even less if you are serving cous cous.

First things first, put some rice (try basmati or jasmine depending on how you are preparing the fish) in the rice cooker and turn it on.  Or, get your water boiling for cous cous.  (Don't forget to salt the cous cous water and add a little butter or oil.) While rice or cous cous is cooking, prep the fish.  You can use any kind of thicker fillet (salmon, halibut, bass, snapper etc.) Lay the fish (I cook about a pound and a half for my family of four) in a lightly oiled glass dish.  If you are working with several fillets, it is okay if they overlap.

Now, the fun part.  You can give your fish any kind of flavor you want.  Don't worry about being precise.  Just glop everything on top of the fish, cover it with the lid, and away you go.  Here are my favorite additions:

• a few glugs of coconut milk, a couple cloves of smashed garlic, some ripped (Thai) basil leaves, a handful of cilantro leaves, sliced chilis, smashed lemongrass stalks or lime zest, and a dash or two of fish sauce
• grated citrus zest (any kind), citrus juice (any kind), sliced green onions, garlic, salt, and pepper
• a shmear of pesto (preferably pesto made without cheese)
• a palmful of ground cumin, a couple cloved of crushed garlic, sliced sweet onion, cilantro leaves, salt, and pepper
• a splash or two of light soy sauce, a splash of sesame oil, grated ginger and a glug of mirin (rice wine), sprinkle with sesame seeds
• a heaping tablespoon of black bean chili sauce rubbed over the fish and some xiao tsing rice wine (or sherry)

Cover and microwave for 4-5 minutes or so for a 1 inch-thick fillet and let sit covered until the rest of your dinner is ready. Comes out perfectly steamed/poached everytime.

While the fish is cooking, make a green salad or saute some quick-cooking veggies like snap or snow peas, green beans, or broccoli.

There you have it.  Dinner in under 20 minutes.