More Cooking Success

Last night's experiment: New York strip steak with caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms, split three ways.  Since we're all college students, we had planned to buy a cheaper cut, but HyVee (a Midwest grocery store chain) was selling strip steaks for $5.99/lb.  We got a bottle of Barefoot Merlot too.

The mushrooms and onions were the easy part.  I bought three massive Vidalia onions, since the white and yellow onions available were less than ideal, cut them in half through the root end, and then sliced them about 1/4 inch thick.  In a deep 14" saute pan, I heated about 4 tbsp of unsalted butter and a splash of canola oil over medium to medium-high heat.  I added all of the onions, salt and pepper, and a sprinkle of brown sugar (in retrospect, unnecessary, but I'm not usually using sweet onions), and then stirred to coat everything.  I let them cook for a bit, stirring frequently, until they were well-softened and starting to brown; then I turned the heat down and let them cook longer.  Whenever the pan started to look dry, I added a few tablespoons of water to deglaze it.  Finally, when they were dark brown and quite sticky, I took them off the heat.  I added about 3 tbsp of butter to the onion pan, heated it until it had stopped foaming, and then poured in about 1.5 lbs of button mushrooms, sliced.  I cooked those until they had stopped losing moisture, stirring regularly, and then combined the mushrooms and onions, tossing to coat everything with delicious caramelized onion juices.

The steak was a bit more difficult.  I had two 8-oz steaks of approximately equal thickness, so I patted them dry and seasoned them on both sides with salt and pepper.  I heated 2 tsp of olive oil in a cast-iron pan until smoking, and then added the steaks.  I suspect that was my first mistake - adding two steaks caused a large temperature drop (I'm guessing) and so they didn't brown as quickly as necessary.  I flipped them using forks, as we have no tongs in our apartment, and then stuck the whole pan into a 450-degree oven for 4 minutes.  In my defense, the instructions I was semi-following said 3-5 minutes for rare, though obviously they meant a thicker steak, and my friends had asked for doneness ranging from "rare" to "medium-well". 

Sadly, upon removing the steak, it became clear it had made it all the way to medium-well.  It was still very tasty; dousing a bite of steak in mushrooms and onions made it acceptably juicy, the wine paired well with it, and the entire meal, including wine, only cost about $8 per person.  I would have taken pictures, but we were all too busy eating.  Plus, I'd prefer to document the experiment when the steak is appropriately red and juicy.  With steak this inexpensive, though, I could probably try it once a week...which is awesome. 

Fake Risotto = Success!

Last night, as I was racking my brain for ways to turn Minute rice into a halfway decent risotto, I remembered a New York Times recipe that I'd read awhile ago for pasta, risotto-style.  In essence, you replace the rice with regular dry pasta, and it becomes magical.  I started out by chopping an onion and putting one large clove of garlic through a garlic press.  I heated three tablespoons of olive oil in a big skillet over medium heat (though whether our stove can actual manage "Medium" is anyone's guess) and, when it was warm but not hot, added the onions and garlic.

The goal is to soften the onion and garlic, not brown them, so I cooked them over medium, stirring frequently, for maybe 5-7 minutes.  Then I added a liberal amount of salt and pepper, as well as a sprinkle of dried oregano, and poured in the pasta - around 1/2 lb, maybe a little more.  That required constant stirring for 2-3 minutes, to get the pasta coated in olive oil and mildly toasted.

Then I started adding liquid.  First was 1/2 cup of water (the recipe recommends dry white wine or water, and I had no wine at hand), which cooked down pretty quickly.  When it was almost gone, I began with the chicken stock: adding 1/2 cup, stirring constantly, until the pasta had absorbed almost all the liquid, and then adding more.  I ended up adding around 3-4 cups of chicken stock.  I could generally tell from my stirring when the pasta was almost ready, at which point I started tasting it.  When it was done, I pulled it off the heat, grated in a healthy amount of Parmesan, and ate.

No pictures, as I was too busy with the actual consumption, but it was fantastic.  Much more flavorful than ordinary pasta, with a nice sweetness from the onions balanced by the flavor of the chicken stock and Parmesan.  Things I would add next time: mushrooms, absolutely, maybe some fresh basil, possibly some chicken as suggested in the recipe.  Yes, it's a lot more work than throwing pasta into boiling water and ignoring it for 5-7 minutes, but it's so much tastier, too.  I would be sure to use low-sodium chicken stock, if you're going to use store-bought as I did; I can picture this dish being overwhelmingly salty otherwise.

I love when cooking experiments work out.

Sleep and fake risotto

I've slept very little lately - not sure why - but it did have the happy result of making me drink honey vanilla chamomile tea, which smells incredible (like some kind of terrific baked good) and tastes passable.  I really resent insomnia as a problem, though, because I love sleeping.  Not okay.

I'm having a sudden craving for risotto, but have no arborio rice and no fresh vegetables.  No matter; I will forge ahead bravely with Minute rice, a single onion, domestic Parmesan, Great Value unsalted butter, and six-month-old boxed chicken stock.  My plan: sauté the onion, cook the rice in onion drippings and butter, mix in hot chicken stock, and finish with large amounts of cheese.  It will probably taste a lot like rice with onion and cheese, but I'm okay with that.  I will report back.

Grinnell is cold and buried in snow.  I look forward to spring. Haven't written anything in a few days; maybe I should do a mini-NaNo?  Or perhaps actually revise something?

Baking all the time

I have perfected my scones: I added more butter and sugar, replaced the chocolate chips with cinnamon chips and chopped walnuts, and sprinkled ground cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and ginger into the batter.  They are delicious.  I make them far too often, and my roommates have started to request them.

School continues as usual; I have great classes and not too much work.  Of course, it snows constantly, but that's inescapable.  I've been writing a little - scattered projects - but haven't done a lot of sustained work.  Or revision.  Oops.  I've also been applying for part-time work to support me during my internship this fall.  In other words, I may actually have a life after I graduate in three and a half months.  Yay.