What did you cook tonight?

Best pantry meal ever? Bucatini Alla Matriciana.

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Ragu Bolognese. Based on Kenji’s recipe, so a combination of beef, lamb and pork. Sage, thyme and oregano from the garden.

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Looks delicious. What did you pair it with?

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Gas-x

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Hard to compete with the colon blow above. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: Made some farrow with shrimp/asparagus/preserved meyer lemons/olives and pickled onions.

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Kitchen’s being renovated; so have been using a makeshift one the past few weeks. Dishes have been simple since then. Made grilled giant river prawns (caught the morning of the same day) & spaghetti alla bottarga last night. Salad was by the cook.




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A chinnato/Aperol cocktail for my sous chef while we get started on an Asian slaw, that is built on coconut, citrus, and fish sauce

Broiled rockfish with soy/ginger on my cast iron griddle, which works great for thinner fillets

David Chan’s miso/butter noodles, but I used somen rather than soba. And left out the asparagus and egg…

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I have local bluefin coming out of my ears this week and there’s still about 2lbs left on ice in the cooler.
Otoro sashimi with ginger (torched a couple slices)
Simple chu-toro sashimi over avocado
Spicy otoro roll (no rice) with ikura
Glass noodles simmered in soy/mirin/miso/dashi. Then chilled and served with some kind of pseudo-poke concoction. I ended up cutting the noodles and making it into more of a mixed pasta dish. Good stuff.

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New World problems. Looks awesome.

Atlantic cod, corn, charred shishito, saffron tomato butter, fig leaf oil

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Exactly. I’d love to have this “problem” too!

Zach, we were thinking along the same lines after a morning at the Raleigh farmer’s market :grinning:. Red snapper, charred okra with silver queen corn shallot and Cherokee Purple tomatoes, dixie lee peas. '20 JM Pillot CM ‘Masures’.

My wife and kids were out of town so figured it was a night for “Whore’s Pasta!” Puttanesca from Not Another Cooking Show. Enjoyed all of the pastas I’ve made from Stephan’s site.

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Sunday grilling sesh. More Galician ribeye. Went low and slow over the Weber Smokey Mountain (primarily charcoal with just an occasional oak chunk tossed in), then pan-seared for the finish. Not terribly happy with the results - great flavor but even though my temp probes indicated the internals got to 135f the intramuscular fat didn’t render - it was really weird.

Still, overall good stuff. Grilled some Padron peppers to start. Also smoked some peppers and then fished on the grill. A panzanella-ish tomato and bread salad with these amazing tomatoes from the local farmer’s market, parmesan and fresh basil. Grilled tenderstem broccoli, sauteed mushrooms.

The real winner though was the potatoes. Par-boiled and then smashed, brushed with beef tallow, and then put in the oven at 425f until they crisped up. Such a beautiful smell while they cooked, so crispy with just a tiny bit of give inside. Wonderful stuff.

For wine, a '21 Patricia Green Sauvignon Blanc to start things off (the perfect patio wine), and a '98 Musar with the mains.








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Last night I decided to try the ATK version of Saumon avec lentilles des Puy, and because it’s quite warm here, I wanted to do everything on the induction unit, in an effort to reduce the extraneous heat that would be pumped into the kitchen. I’m not super comfortable with that heat source, since I can’t use my full pantheon of pans, and it just reacts so fast. I started with an enameled cast iron pan for the lentils since there was going to be some acid (sherry and vermouth) in the lentil braise.

While the legumes burbled away, I prepped a big slab of fish, removing the belly and tail, descaling, and portioning. Lots of coarse salt and pepper was pressed into the flesh side.

The lentils look done, and mostly soft to the touch, with just a bit of toothsome feel left, so they come off the heat to rest while covered, while a big pat of butter goes on top.

Now it’s time to pan sear the fillets, with some butter/oil, and then crisp up the skin. We tend to bake/roast this fish around our house, and prefer it on the well done side, so the first two pieces ended up underdone for the kids preference. As noted, I don’t have a natural comfort yet for cooking under induction.

Plated, or bowled, with a scoop of cold apple/fennel slaw to go with it. I thought it was fabulous, really something out of a Parisian cafe, but with an American sized protein portion, but unfortunately everyone else in the family isn’t really into this combination at all. I would actually make this for a small wine dinner party, since much can be done ahead of time, and I can see why it works well in food service.

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Yeah, I remember looking for data and seeing that most induction units transfer something like 90% of the energy to the pan – while most gas stoves transfer something like 30%. That’s a lot of extra heat just going into the kitchen.

Salmon looks great, BTW.

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Bucatini with clams, pancetta and fresh fennel seeds.

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I used to collect wild fennel pollen, but have never seen fresh fennel seeds. Gonna have to find and use that. Great looking dish.

We have bronze fennel growing around our house. No bulbs from them but the seeds this time of year are so sweet they almost taste like fennel candy, goes great with shellfish.

Have to get them before the caterpillars go for them.


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