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Wednesday, April 16, 2014

More Delicious Than It Sounds Garlic Shrimp Pasta

I had a hard time coming up with a spunky and creative title for last nights dinner that would draw you in and compel you to stop what you are doing and read this entry. Oh, and the picture I took does not do it justice either! So Ill give you the basics, a title, the ingredients, a reasonable photographic representation and your imagination will have to make up for my shortcomings.

Normally, I must admit, I would have purchased U.S.A. wild caught raw shrimp and cleaned and cooked them myself. However, I had a few shrimp left over from a bag of precooked flash frozen shrimp I bought over the holidays to make a shrimp dip for a Christmas Eve hors doeuvre. That being said, I took about ten or so frozen, peeled, precooked shrimp from the freezer and thawed them in a bowl of cold water for about 10 min. While the shrimp were thawing I cooked and drained the pasta, spaghetti for this dish, and removed from the refrigerator the compound butter, which will serve at the "sauce", I made earlier in the day.

In a bowl, combine 2 tablespoons of room temperature butter, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 1 large minced clove of garlic (or more if you dont have a date or better yet if your going to eat together), 1 teaspoon lemon zest, 1 minced red chili pepper (red pepper flakes could also be used), 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley and sea salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until your ready to cook the shrimp.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add 1 nice sized dollop of the garlicky compound butter to the pan (do not let it burn). Introduce the shrimp to pan and cook just until warmed through. Remember my shrimp were already cooked so they just needed to be heated. You could certainly prepare this recipe with raw shrimp as well, just cook them until pink and opaque which should not take more than 5 minutes. When the shrimp are sufficiently warm, add splash of white wine just to create a little sauce, not leave the shrimp floating in a pool. Add the pasta and combine. The pasta will absorb the wine and lend a most delicious flavor. Again, cook just long enough to warm everything through. Then, turn off the heat and add a final bit of the compound butter to coat the shrimp and pasta. Serve hot!

Please let me know your thoughts and ideas for your favorite pasta dishes. Perhaps we will inspire some else to fix a home cooked meal for themselves and their family!

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Dry Aging Steaks at Home – The Final Chapter I Think It Worked

Heres the final post in the dry-aging steaks at home saga. What follows is my honest opinion on the results, as well as a fairly pointless video showing me finishing the project.

Admittedly, there isnt much to learn from the video, but since some of you seemed genuinely interested I figured youd want to see the finale.

By the way, if you read my last post you know Im in Vail, CO being wined and dined by RockResorts, so I did this voiceover in the hotel room with a voice you only get at 8,000 feet.

When I first considered how to test my dry-aged steaks, I was thinking of the standard "taste it with an un-aged steak and compare" method. Seemed logical, but then I thought of something even better -- why not taste it next a higher-grade, professionally dry-aged steak?

This would be the true test. Would my steaks have the same taste and texture as the real deal? As Ive already stated in previous blogs, theres really no debate about whether a dry-aged steak is a superior eating experience to a conventional steak, so it seemed anticlimactic to taste them side-by-side just to say, "hmmm…the steak aged two-weeks is more tender and flavorful." What a shocker.

So, instead I bought a thick, well-aged steak from the same butcher, using the same beef as the whole loin Id bought. Not only that, but I decided to make it even more of a challenge and bought "Prime" grade steak. The battle was on. Would my home-aged, "Choice" grade steaks match up against a "Prime" grade steak aged by an expert?

First of all, the Drybags clearly worked exactly as advertised. The surface was hard and leathery, as you can see in my short video, and the meat had definitely undergone a slow, controlled drying process.

The loin smelled exactly like the aged steak Ive worked with in the past, which is to say it had a faint, meaty musk that I would describe, as strange as it may sound, as very pleasant. After trimming off the hard, dried exterior, the color of the meat was a beautiful deep, dark red. As promised the bag allowed moisture to escape, yet sealed it from the outside environment, so no spoilage occurred.

The steaks were coated with freshly ground black pepper and allowed to come to room temperature. After a generous application of kosher salt, they were cooked over charcoal to medium-rare (internal temp of 130 degrees F). After resting, I sliced up the "Prime" dry-aged steak from the butcher. We tasted, and it was predictably fabulous.

We then cut into my steaks, and Im happy to report the results were pretty impressive. I found the meat tender and flavorful, and comparable to the professionally aged beef. Lenny and Denise from ChezUs joined us to assist in the tasting, and along with my wife Michele, we had four experienced palates on the case.

The final verdict was; two of us though the steaks were comparable, one thought the quality of the butchers steak was slightly better, and one definitely preferred the home dry-aged steak more.

So, there you have it. As to whether the Drybags are an effective way to age your own steaks at home, the answer is a definite yes. Should you get one? I cant answer that -- these are matters of taste -- while I feel strongly dry-aged steaks are better, you may not.

If you love dry-aged steak, and want to eat it more often, without the expense of the steakhouse it may be a good investment. Its worth noting that it also comes with smaller bags for regular vacuum packing, so that could factor into your decision.

Thanks to Drybag Steak for letting me test the product out. It was a fun experiment, and the final product was quite luxurious.

If you want more info, or have specific questions, please refer to the Drybag Steak website.

Professional food bloggers do not live by old beef alone! In addition to the steaks you see here, the rest of the menu included:
- Frog Hollow peach, basil, and mozzeralla fresca crostini
- Prosciutto and argula on baguette
- Roasted cipollini onions
- Watercress salad with marinated early girl tomatoes
- Sottocenere truffle cheese and lobster mushroom pomme dauphinoise (I filmed this, so stay tuned for that video soon!)
- Two sauces: classic Bordelaise sauce, and not so classic "Béarnaise" aioli.

First Three Photos (c) ChezUs