Every once in a while, I cook a new dish that is so great that I think of it as a home run, and I will pepper my family with constant self-compliments. Equally, when I blow something new, I’ll annoy them with an hour or two of self-castigation.
It’s rare that I have that home run feeling with a familiar preparation, and this weekend was no exception. Everything was good, nothing was spectacular. A lot of line drives.
Heading into the weekend, the chicken from last weekend got its last hurrah swirled into some cheesy grits. As I made it, I wished I had a few collard greens to put into it, kind of on the same theory as sneaking spinach into mashed potatoes—collards on the side tend to be one of those “only I” kinds of things when I do make them. But it was a satisfying plate as it was—the smokiness of the remaining chicken did a lot for the grits.
Friday’s cookery was my most ambitious for the weekend. I wanted to make something with some sweet potatoes and mushrooms, and I also had pork shoulder to work with. I didn’t want to do what I often would do, which is make a tomato-based stew or a heavy braise. For some reason, I’m kind of off that flavor for the moment, and I also know that one of my eaters doesn’t like it either. I thought briefly about making tacos—and that thought stayed with me for later in the weekend—but that knocked the sweet potatoes off into some other side dish if I did.
So I decided to make a separate broth, starting with a dashi and then adding soy sauce, mirin, sake, and black vinegar, and reducing that down some, to be added to low-heat roasted pork shoulder, roasted sweet potatoes and roasted mushrooms and peppers right before service.
Sticking with the baseball analogy, this was at least a stand-up double. (The stew is my lunch today, and I’m looking forward to it.) I think I could have reduced the broth a bit more and maybe thickened it with cornstarch, but it worked really well in flavor terms, and the roasted components didn’t have a heavy stewy flavor either. I almost wonder if this would work even better if I grilled the components and used tenderloin instead of shoulder.
Since we were watching the Phillies throughout the weekend, I figured that chicken wings were inevitable for Saturday. I wasn’t in the mood to try and think up yet another sauce (I think next time I might try something like Thai red curry), so I just used my own fermented chile sauce as the base of the dressing.
Which brought me back to tacos to finish the weekend off—I had some Oaxaca cheese, which has become one of the two or three staple cheeses I like to have on hand, and I made a couple of hanger steaks along with some tortillas and various vegetables.
That will probably get a sequel tomorrow night with quesadillas that have a bit of the leftover steak in them—I typically make 6-8 flour tortillas that I have to remember to use within a couple of days. (I’m at the point where I just cannot eat most store-bought flour tortillas, which always taste gummy.) Plus I opened a new jar of a La Fundidora salsa for this meal and that generally makes me crave them more. I don’t generally go out of my way to mention commercial products when I write about food but this company’s product is really just the best. I hope they’re succeeding commercially.
Tonight I’ll probably extend the weekend cooking spirit a bit—I have cauliflower and fennel to use up, and some boneless chicken breast. I’m thinking a bit of a baked pasta with those ingredients, mixed with a buttermilk alfredo sauce, but I could see a kind of Mediterranean stir fry. That’s the kind of choice I usually put up for a vote with my diners and then find a way to do what I feel most like doing whether they vote for it or not.
Go Phillies!
Ok, on your recommendation! I just ordered some of this salsa. I’ve been craving some new salsa, so we’ll see…
Can you buy that salsa anywhere around here?