Ribs, Rib Marinade

The secret of this dish is twofold:

1. Hoi Sin sauce
2. Bake a long time at a low temp
   

Marinate the ribs in the following for a couple of hours or 6:

Ingredients:

• 1 kg ribs, pork
• 60 ml hoisin sauce (4T)
• 15 ml red wine vinegar (1T)
  
• 15 ml garlic, crushed
• 15 ml ginger, minced, fresh
  
• 15 ml oil, olive
• 30 ml soy sauce (2T)
• 15 ml oyster sauce
• 30 ml water

Instructions:

• Oven temp is unimportant at this point
  
• preheating is not required 'cause it's going to bake for quite a while
• Line a pan with foil or use a rack (or both, for easy clean up);
• meat side up;
• coat with the marinade;
• pour excess marinade into the pan.
• Broil ribs for 4 minutes each side (to give a little color).
• With the oven at 150 C (300 F)... bake ribs for 90 minutes;
  
• turning every 30 minutes
  
• and basting with the juices.
• This will "hold" in the oven for another hour, no problem.

I served this with garbanzos. Just plain cooked garbanzo beans (which also went good woth the sauce)

Boulangerie Group Foto

Boulangerie Group Foto
Originally uploaded by willsong.

An excellent picture of my ole Boulangerie class.
Who can name names?

Camembert & Beets

Try the following:

• Fresh wood oven baked bread - thin slices (baguette sytle)
• Room temperature Camembert (smear on)
  
• Cooked beet slivers (on top)
  

Boy oh boy was it a surprised how well the cheese and beets (!) went togther. This idea, I will be doing something with.

Back in Business

After a week of hacking around with the new machines/s things are back up and running (more or less). I'll be going at it again in very short order.

100 Gig is Here

The drive for the broken Thinkpad is here! I've spent the last couple of days reinstalling the original image (from 2002), updating, reupdating, installing software - - am now recovering data from backups (yes, I have [some] backups.
Might be back in gear by the end of the week. It'll take that long because I'm also updating a new ThinkCenter A52 and stripping the old desktop so that it can be given away.

Busy busy busy.

It's Monkfish Week!

Again with the Monkfish (Rapé) . Very similar to lunch.

• Hot pan, oil, fry two sides - quickly. Not until they're done - just until colored.
• Remove to a plate.
• Add oil - heat; add garlic slices - brown;
• add paprika (sweet) - off of the fire (to avoid burning the paprika) - stir around a bit.
• Return the fish and flip around briefly them to really color them up.
• Remove fish to the serving plate and
• dribble the oil / garlic / paprika combination over them.

This takes all of 7 minutes and is really worth while to have in the repertoirer.

Lunch - Rape (Monkfish) Again

Quick fried the slices of Rape in a very hot oiled pan - for color. Then stuff them in a 170C oven to finish cooking (don't worry, they won't be underdone).
Lots of oil in another small frying pan - not too hot; add sliced glarlic - fry 'til golden brown; add 2 t of powdered sweet paprika (pimenton de Vera) - stir.

This oil / garlic / pimenton combo is the classic Galacian finish for pumping over fish. Simple.

Served with potatoes.

100 GB - Can it be Filled?

It's after the xmas vacation. I'm back home and the 100GB drive (to replaced the freaked 40GB one) has arrived on the front doorstep. Literally. It appears that the express delivery people found no one at home and elected to heave it over the gate to land on the front (granite) steps. It was not stolen but may have spent up to a week exposed to the elements. The package was wet from the rain but 100% sealed and appears unharmed.

Someone will be getting an email about that tomorrow.

Installation proceeds. Luckily I already had my handy dandy Recovery CDs and have swapped in the new hard drive; swapped the CD drive that was acting flaky; reinstalled all from square one and am doing (endless) updates of Windows XP. Approximately 150 Meg of updates so far.

Then I get to try to do some recovery from my unreliable backups.

Creamed Leeks and Onion (Puerros y Cebolla)

Using what's in the refrigerator

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• 3 fresh onions (chopped) [cebolla]
  
• 3 cloves (whole) [clavos]
  
  
• 4 leeks (white part mostly) (chopped) [puerro]
  
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme [tomillo]
  
  
• 200gr cream (22%) [nata]
  
• 100gr milk [leche]
  
  
• Salt & pepper [sal y pimienta]
  

Directions:

1. Put oil in bottom of a cooking pan (cassaroule type, wide, not tall) - Medium heat (the onions will sizzle slightly when they go in)
   
2. Add onions & cloves - soften for 10 minutes or so. Do not brown - lower the heat if neccesary.
   
3. Toss and/or stir to cook evenly. Cook until they've lost their 'crunch'; they will be continuing to cook with the leeks later
4. Add a touch more oil to the pan if needed - heat it - medium heat again (for the slight sizzle)
   
5. Add leeks and thyme - soften for 5 minutes (again, until crunch is mostly gone) (toss and/or stir - still without browning anything)
   
6. Remove from heat; add cream - stir
7. Return to low heat; stir in some milk so that you have a thin cream sauce
8. Reduce for 10 minutes (don't boil it 'cause that makes the cream mess up)
9. Add salt & pepper (at the end)
10. The leeks and onions will be soft and creamy
    

Notes:

• Remove cloves and thyme before serving
  
• Make up to a day in advance and reheat using a little milk; re-do the salt and pepper
• Goes well with fish
• Cut the onions and leeks in julienne for a "finer", more French, presentation. Me, today I was going for a rustic, family, feel to the dish.
  

We're having this today with pan fried Monkfish tails (Rape a la Plancha).

New Year's Day First Meal

Traditionally we like to start the year with a very special meal. This year it was at Pazo de Mendoza, a nice little restaurant on the west coast of Spain (in a town called Baiona).
Pictures were taken - which I will add later, when I get home and fix my dead lap-top.

The menú de gustación was €38; €50 with wines included (the latter, more dangerous option was selected). As for the wine, each bottle was new (except the ports), opened at the table and then left there for you to enjoy at your leisure. By the end of the meal there was rather a lot of partial bottles standing there.

The menú:

• Bread basket (warm (good), 2 types, 4 pieces)
• Sparkling water (agua con gas)
  
• Foie stuffed eggs (huevos rellenos de foie)
  
• Calem Porto Blanco (white port)
• Duck Ham (Jamon de pato)
• Pazo Casanova (Ribera del Duero) white wine (local)
  
• Grilled Squid and vegetables (Pulpo a la Brasa)
• Condes de Alberei (Albariño) white (local)
• Monkfish with Beans (Rape con fabas)
• Ardandeja (Rioja)
• Margret de Canard
• Viña Mayor (Ribera del Duero) red
• Cheese Plate (Quesos variadas)
• Vista Alegre (Oporto) 1999 Late Bottled Vintage
• Dessert: Chocolate Mouse with Custard (Chocolate con Natilla)
  
• Petit Fours: Chocolate Truffles, Tarta Santiago (cake)

Cigars were available (but not taken).
That was enough. Time for a siesta.