Steak Sandwich Lament

Loaded steak sandwich

Sandwiches may be my real passion. An artful stack of textures and flavors in a portable package. Filling and satisfying bites of everything youre craving all at once. Plus they are terrific for sharing. Do I need to sell you on the form and function of a sandwich? Nope, but its always nice to dream about the perfect sandwich. Choosing high quality ingredients, and dressing them up a bit make for a superior experience. Also taking some time to consider how to cut and layer your sandwich will allow everyone to take a big bite without the sammy guts dropping out.

Blue Cheese and Steak Sandwich

1/2 lb skirt or hanger steak (the fresher the better)
1 tblsp molasses
1 tblsp soy sauce
1 splash hot sauce
1 tblsp oil
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tblsp crumbled blue cheese
1/2 tsp fresh cracked pepper
1 12-14 inch ciabatta loaf, split
6 oz roasted red peppers, sliced into strips
fennel fronds, optional
olive oil

Marinate the steak for 1-4 hours in molasses, soy sauce, pepper, hot sauce, and oil. Meanwhile mix blue cheese and buttermilk together to make the dressing. Remove the steak from the marinaded. Squeeze off excess marinade, and pat with paper towels. Turn the heat up to high/medium-high under a hot grill pan until it begins to smoke. Add steak and cook for 2-3 minutes per side until medium rare. Remove and let rest for 10 minutes. Slice the steak in thin layers.

Roasted red peppers, buttermilk blue cheese dressing and steak, slap it on some bread

When its almost sandwich time slice your ciabatta bread in half length wise. Drizzle a little olive on in each side, and rub to spread evenly. Next spoon some of the blue cheese dressing on the bottom half. Place the sliced roasted red peppers in a row over the bottom. Its nice to layer the slices parallel to the length of the bread. When you cut, and later bite into it the skinny slices are less likely to fall out. Next layer the steak slices, also parallel to the length of the bread. Sprinkle with fennel fronds, or whatever green you have laying around like lettuce, basil, arugula etc. Adding something green shows that you are trying to be healthy, and adds a nice contrast to the other ingredients. Drizzle remaining dressing on top of the sandwich pile and cover it up with the top half of bread.

I wrapped mine in wax paper and chilled it for a half an hour so the flavors could get to know each other. Cut into 2-inch slices, serves 6.

Callaloo Coconut Soup

Howdayado Callaloo Soup

Big bunches of callaloo have been inhabiting my vegetable drawer, a large part of my Ditmas Park CSA. I vaguely know what to do with callaloo. Stew, soup, steam? Its like spinach, with a little bit more iron, and perhaps a less tender. Callaloo has a pleasant mineral taste that really mellows in a soup. Im happy its here before its too hot to cook it down in a soup. Make sure to rinse it plenty of times to remove the grit that may be on it. Nothing worse than dirty grit callaloo stew.

Almost like spinach, but healthier

Callaloo Coconut Soup

1 large bunch callaloo (roughly 1 lb)
1 large onion, diced
2 tblsp vegetable oil
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 quart water
1 can coconut milk (unsweetened)
1/2 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
1 pinch red pepper
1 tblsp white wine vinegar
salt to taste

Separate leaves from callaloo stems. Rinse each individually in a large clear bowl. Rinse callaloo until water is clear to make sure all the grit is off. Meanwhile heat oil over medium heat in a large soup pot. Add onion with a large pinch of salt and cook until transparent. Chop callaloo stems down to 1/4 - 1/8" pieces. Add to onion and cook for about 10 minutes until soft. Add the callaloo leaves with about 1 cup of water to the pot. Stir and cook until softened. Add remaining ingredients: water, coconut milk, spices, and vinegar. Bring to a boil, and turn off heat. Transfer soup to a high speed blender or food processor. Process until smooth. Add salt to taste and serve.

Duck Tales Roasting a Whole Duck

Oh duck. I have taken your beauty, but given you delicious flavor from moist cooking

Shop Rite in Midwood Brooklyn is a super-duper market. It has a meat department one city block long. Somewhere among the 100s of cuts of pre-packaged meats I found a pile of ducks. I grabbed a mid-sized 6lb whole duck and checked out. From that duck I was able to make 2-3 pounds of luscious dark roasted meat, 6 oz of pure rendered duck fat, 2 handfuls of duck cracklings, 1 quart of duck stock, and a duck liver, heart, and kidneys I have plans to turn into some paté. Expect a few of those recipes soon.

What a long neck my duck had

I hate when people use the flavors of other foods to describe another. Tastes like chicken, cant get any less creative. Duck does not taste like chicken. Sorry to rely on the cliche, but duck may be the "pork "of the poultry world. It has a stronger richer flavor then turkey, Cornish hen, or even chicken. Moist, and hopelessly fatty from a thick layer of fat under its skin.

Having no idea how to roast a duck. I instinctually searched for a recipe on Epicurious. The duck wasnt cheap ($18), and I wasnt going to dry it out or burn it away with a somewhat reliable or not internet recipe. Gourmet magazine had my back. I sought the most complicated multi-step recipe. Easy and fast wasnt going to cut it. I settled on braising (moist heat to cook the meat), chilling (to prevent meat from cooking further while roasting) before roasting shortly (to crisp the skin). The product was a perfectly luscious (I think!), but less than butcher shop brown attractive duck. I will definitely be leaning on this process from now.

If you havent tried duck, and are anxious to spend $20, 8 hours, and lots of residual oven heat on a strong flavored meat you may dislike look for duck legs or breast first. Im sure they have them at places like the giant shop rite.

Roast Duck With Ginger Marmalade Glaze

1 5 1/2 - 6 1/2 lb Long Island duck
sea salt
1 carrot, sliced length wise into medium strips
6 green onions, chopped in half, root ends removed
1/2 cup sugar
hot water
1 tblsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1 large pinch red pepper flakes

Glaze
2 tblsp marmalade
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tblsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1 pinch cayenne

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare duck by pricking skin all over with a fork, which allows the fat to drain out. Place duck in a roasting pan. Note that a pan with higher sides is better than the one Im using. With breast up, and cavity towards you gently separate skin from meat with your hand. Be careful not to tear the skin, which I did. I needed to use a knife, making a slit above the cavity to get under the skin. Im not sure why this step is necessary, you arent going to shove butter or herbs under the skin as you would a turkey, but I do as Im told.

My hand inside a duck

Coat the skin and cavity with salt and rub. Place carrots and scallions in the cavity of the bird. Sprinkle ginger, coriander, and red pepper on top of duck, along with sugar around the bird. Add hot water (shrinks the skin, again dont know why, doing as told), within an inch of the top of the roasting pan. Cover the pan tightly with foil, and place in oven.

Flavor rubbed

After 1 hour remove from oven. Carefully peel back foil. Using a wooden spoon placed in the ducks cavity and a spatula, carefully flip the duck breast side down. Re-cover roasting pan with foil and cook for another hour until meat is tender. The wings on my duck actually fell off. A snack for me! Move duck into a bowl full of ice cubes. Strain remaining fluids and save. Thats some rich duck stock and fat for another dish. Chill duck in fridge on ice for 2-3 hours until cavity feels cold.

Not so elegant after 2 hours of cooking in hot water, but moist

Meanwhile prepare glaze by mixing the marmalade, soy sauce, vinegar, ginger and cayenne pepper in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Stir until bubbling. Once the marmalade melts turn remove from heat.

Remove duck from fridge, and pat dry. Heat oven to 500 degrees. Place a piece of foil on the bottom of the roasting pan. Place duck breast side down on top of foil. Brush glaze over the bird. Roast for 15-20 minutes until browned. Remove bird from oven, flip, glaze the breast side, and return to oven. Roast for another 15-20 minutes until browned. Remove from oven, and let rest. Its finally ready. You and everyone in a one block radius will know by the delicious smell. I couldnt help but tear into my duck, eating a leg off the bone. The rest I shredded and served on sandwiches with cucumbers, mayo, and pickled ginger carrot relish. You could also carve and serve the breast for a formal meal.

Fig Bars

Fig Bars better than you remembered

Loving a food is nice, calling it your favorite is serious. You crave it, you dream about it, you go out of your way to bring it to your life. That was the way I felt about Fig Newtons before I cut out processed foods or most things with corn syrup. If youve ever eaten the brown clump plastic wrapped fig bars often stacked in lopsided piles at the register of NYC delis youll know there arent too many good commercial replacements. THEN this recipe came to my life and offering a newer better kind of fig bar. Try remembering your favorite part of the fig newton, and then imagine it made 10x times better with butter, rich dried fruits, and a touch of almond. I adapted this recipe from the allrecipes website. It still has quirks, but its good enough to pass on.

Fig Bars

(makes 40)

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 tblsp vanilla

1 tblsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup almond flour

3 cups flour

2lb figs

1 lb raisins

1 lb dates

1/2 apple, cored and chopped

1/2 orange with peel, chopped

3/4 chopped pecans or walnuts

1 tsp cinnamon

Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until light colored and fluffy about 7 minutes. Add eggs incorporating each into the batter before adding the next. Add vanilla, baking powder, and salt. Mix until combine. Add half of the flours and gently mix until mostly combine. Add the remaining flour and mix until flour is just barely combine. Cover and chill for 90-120 minutes, or overnight.

Add figs, dates, and raisins to the bowl of a food processor. Run until dried fruits form a paste. Add in apple and orange, and run until smooth. Add nuts and cinnamon, and run food processor one final time until nuts are chopped up.

Preheat oven to 375. Remove dough from refrigerator. Roll about 1/8 inch thick on a lightly floured surface. Spread dried fruit paste down the center. Fold in dough in half over filling, and seal. *Cut into rectangles 1 x 2 inches with a knife or pizza cutter. Move to an ungreased cookies sheet with a spatula, spacing 1/2 inch apart. Bake for 12-15 minutes until bottoms are golden brown. Serve to adults and children, and be prepared to accept compliments.

*Note: You may have extra dough, the quirk of this recipe I have not worked out. I found the extra dough made nice cookies on their own.