Blog Archives
Gyros
Still using Alton Brown’s recipes for these. Mrs J has been on a mint eradication jihad in her front garden and has had some success, enough that I couldn’t find any to garnish the plate tonight. She also dug out an old gnarly rose bush that the mint was growing up through.
I did alter his method a bit, informed by my reading from the Serious Eats web site. I kept the lamb cold for the processing, it was nearly so cold that the paste was stiff enough that my machine had all it wanted to spin. I have no idea if the “leakage” of liquids from the loaf was affected for good or ill. I cooked it in a 300 oven until the thermometer reached 165 which was higher than the second fellow recommended. I did do the slicing and broiling trick to get a bit of crisp on the meat.
And I did add some mayo to the tzatziki, again influenced a bit by the Serious Eats discussion, but it otherwise was Alton’s recipe. I can’t say it helped any and I’ll leave it out of the next batch but YMMV, as the kids say these days. I will note that his Food Lab blog is the place that taught me how to do French fries right. Enjoy!![DSC_5777 [1600x1200]](http://whats4dinnersolutions.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/dsc_5777-1600x1200.jpg?w=914)
Sammich Pr0n – Fillet of Fish
Mrs J dug a bag of fillets from the big freezer. A neighbor caught a few small bass and some panfish from the back pond last year and these are some he cleaned and bagged for us. Fried fish require hushpuppies and Mrs J needs beans to spread on those. I made a small salad from store bought tomatoes and cucumbers and a slaw with the white parts of a Napa cabbage and sliced sweet peppers. The slaw has a rice vinegar dressing sweetened with Splenda and flavored with a wee drop of toasted sesame oil.
Chilies Rellenos
I decided to take a whack at these today. We brought home a couple of nice fresh poblanos that weren’t really slated for anything in particular but I was thinking a salsa verde. The roasted tomatillo salsa was so good the other day that I wanted a replay and thought these poblanos might work in that. I hemmed and hawed a bit and then looked up a rellenos recipe, having heard them mentioned a few days ago.
I’m sure my pepper stuffing technique can be improved upon with a little practice. These ended up with toothpicks holding them together. I saw, too late, a tip at another site that one should remove the seeds and membranes while they are still raw to help prevent tearing after roasting. I think I’ll buy more than two next time so I can cook up the best ones and save the ones I tear up for tacos or enchiladas. The whipped egg whites folded into the beaten yolks was interesting and worked better than I would have supposed.
I went with the cheese and corn stuffing this time, I’m pretty sure there will be some additions the next round. I used a few cilantro leaves in the tomato sauce having heard from a few others that the taste can grow on you. I managed to eat it all without any particular discomfort. I went ahead and made more of the tomatillo salsa and added cilantro to that as well.


