Broiled Salmon with Homemade Teriyaki Sauce

Coming to you from the domestic goddess who is Gwyneth Paltrow, I present the greatest way to cook salmon EVER...(pic coming soon!!)

1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons mirin
3 tbsp honey
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon peeled and finely grated ginger
2 sprigs fresh cilantro
4 6 oz. salmon fillets, skin discarded
1 tbsp finely minced fresh chives

Combine the soy sauce, mirin, honey, water, ginger and cilantro in a small saucepan over high heat. Once it boils, turn heat to low and let simmer for 2 minutes.  Remove saucepan from heat and let sauce cool down.  Once it's cool, pour into large bowl or plastic bag and add salmon.  Marinate in the fridge for at least an hour, up to overnight.

When you're ready to eat, preheat the broiler.  Put the salmon on a heavy baking sheet with whatever sauce adheres to it and broil until cooked to your liking, around 10 minutes.  While it's cooking, put extra sauce into clean saucepan, bring to a boil and let it reduce.  To serve, drizzle the salmon with the extra sauce and sprinkle some chives on top.

NOTES:  I am lazy--therefore I buy jars of pre-grated ginger.  I'm a fan of really seeing and tasting the ginger in each bite, so I probably double the amount.  I always forget the cilantro and I don't think the dish suffers for it.  The chives are, in my opinion, more necessary.  I cannot express how good this sauce is--as it cooks is gets all caramelized and gooey (makes pan cleanup a B*TCH if you cook it too long FYI) I want to try it on chicken and eggplant soon...

Chicken Piccata

Here at Cannibal Stew, we apparently like our chicken (tastes like chicken?).  Well, here's another one, courtesy of a friend of a sister, I think...  Chicken piccata, though of uncertain translation, is basically a breaded chicken cutlet with a lemon-butter-white wine-caper sauce.  A little more elaborate as a chicken entree, but reasonable and rewarding!

The Recipe

6-10 medium-sized chicken breasts or thighs (skinless/boneless)
bread crumbs
1-2 cloves garlic
2-3 lemons
3/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup capers
olive oil, butter, salt & pepper

Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper, and coat with bread crumbs.  Heat a few tbsps of oil over medium high and add garlic.  Next you cook the chicken in single layers and cook for about 3 minutes per side.  Once it's all done, it goes into baking dishes.  Sprinkle the zest of a lemon over the top and set aside while you whip up the sauce.  Without cleaning your pan, add lemon juice and white wine, then a tbsp butter and the capers.  Scrape/stir and heat for a few minutes, then pour over the chicken and cook at 350 for about 20 minutes.

Notes

Well, I'm not a classy enough guy to just have some white wine lying around, so I subbed in a splash of the Chardonnay of beers: Stella Artois.  I was a little worried, but as soon as I tasted the sauce I realized there were no ill effects.  Whatever you use, you'll want a generous amount of that sauce.  I also thought my chicken (thighs) might be a little smaller than the recipe calls for, so I left them in the oven for more like 15 mintues, which was probably the very bottom end of doneness...  I was too lazy to make pasta, so here's the finished product on a bed of greens:

Sweet Potato Hash

Got to give credit for the idea here and here, but basically just sort of winged it this weekend.  Grating three sweet potatoes was a bit of work, but one or two would be much more manageable and still plenty of grub.  Here's my usual for a hearty breakfast for myself - scale up as needed:

1 medium sweet potato, grated
1 small-to-medium onion, chopped
1/4 pound bacon (four slices), chopped
Optional ingredients - garlic, peppers, mushrooms, anything else

First, fry up your bacon until it's just starting to crisp up.  In go the onions until they're soft and brown; add your other ingredients around here as well.  Then, drop in the sweet potatoes and mix it all up.  Cook about 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sweet potato is cooked through.  From that point, doneness is up to you - soft, a little crusty, charred, somewhere in the middle.

Here's a nice tasteful serving of the first try, which used fancy wild boar bacon:

Apple Onion Pork with Butternut Squash

Fall is in the air, but maybe not enough of an autumn chill to turn entirely to soups and stews and such...  Instead, we started with some seasonal produce with this recipe.  It's a bit of an ambitious undertaking, appropriate for a group cooking and eating evening.  Butternut squash is always a bit of an ordeal, and this preparation took longer than anticipated to cook.  On the plus side, though, the crockpot can really turn not-quite-ripe squash into a pleasant goo...  It was a shame it wasn't ready with the rest of the entree, though, because the pork and apple-onion relish (?) really could have used another savory component, and it was not nearly sweet enough to pass off as a dessert.  But it was interesting and fun, and now that I've rambled on, I guess trying to provide those thousand words to make up for no picture...  But yeah, no picture :(

Crockpot Chile Pork

I went through a phase where I was ducking out of work briefly to set up a crockpot meal about once a week - don't know why I stopped!  Aside from the Johnson family classic, this crockpot pork and peppers was maybe the biggest success.  A lot of peppers and spices in there - too many to fit into my kiddie crockpot, unfortunately.  But even cutting back gives the meat plenty of flavor and a great sauce.

The Recipe

2 lb pork roast
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 4-oz cans of diced chiles
2-3 jalapenos, diced
2 cups broth
1 8-oz can of diced tomatoes
1 tsp each of oregano, salt, pepper
1/2 tsp each of cumin, sage, paprika, cayenne pepper

Put your pork in the crockpot, then veggies, then chiles and tomatoes, then spices, then broth.  Cook on low 6-8 hours.

Outcome

Because of said mini-crockpot, I had to stretch the pork for a couple people.  With some tortilla, papaya and kale chips, made a very nice meal:

Steak Fajitas

Red meat always seems a little tricky in a humble NYC apartment.  If you're not grilling, you're probably using a second-best cooking technique, sadly.  So I was happy to find a steak recipe that actually recommends using a pan.  A little guidance on the marinade didn't hurt either.

The Recipe

1 lb flank steak or skirt steak
1 onion, sliced
2-3 bell peppers
olive oil, salt

Marinade
juice of 1 lime
1 jalapeno, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

Mix the marinade ingredients together, coat the steak and let sit at least an hour.  Then heat a skillet over high with oil and sear your meat for a few minutes each side.  Let it sit while you cook the vegetables.  Then slice the meat and serve with tortillas, etc.

Results

With your choice of peppers, veggies and other fajita fixin's (I liked sprinking some Manchego on mine), it makes a fun group meal.  I was a little underwhelmed by the marinade, though - the more you stuff into your tortilla, the less that flavor comes through.

No picture :(

Cider Braised Brats

This is one of my favorites. It's simple enough, with just a handful of ingredients, and you can enjoy one of your extra bottles of cider while you cook and/or eat.  You might not think that sausage could absorb much flavor from the cider, but that just isn't the case at all.

The Recipe

bratwurst
1 onion, sliced
1 bell pepper, sliced
1 bottle hard cider

Melt a tbsp or two of butter over medium low, and put on your peppers and onions.  Once they're pretty well cooked, add the cider and brats, cover loosely and simmer until the sausage is cooked through.  Then char the brats a little on a grill pan, while turning up the heat to reduce the cider and finish off the veggies.

Thoughts

My only problem with the recipe is that it's a bit ambiguous with the peppers and onions.  What does it mean to "sweat" them out?  I basically soften them pretty good, and then you have to make sure to nuke them pretty well at the end.  And if you don't have a grill pan, sear the brats a bit in another pan.  And did I mention, enjoy another cider while you eat?