culinary flights of fancy

Home Cooking Adventures in Berkeley Heights

Monthly Archives: June 2014


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Cowboy Ribeye for Two (or Three)

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So, I love steak…really any kind of steak but my go to cut seems to always be a ribeye. Although rather fatty in general, it contains a lot of flavor (the flavor coming from the fat). Usually, when I cook a ribeye at home, I’ll heat up a cast iron pan until scorching hot and simply pan sear it for a few minutes on each side. I season it simply with just a good quality salt and freshly ground pepper. Usually I add a touch of vegetable oil or canola oil to the pan. Two other keys for a perfect steak: let it come to room temperature prior to cooking and after the steak is finished, let it rest at least 10-15 minutes to ensure all the juices stay in the steak. That’s about it…really that’s all you need to do to get a great steak with a great seared crust. My wife and I definitely prefer our steak on the rare side, so this recipe is really timed for that temperature. If you prefer yours better done, simply cook it a few minutes longer for medium rare and so on.

Anyway, on to the Cowboy ribeye. Cowboy ribeyes should be bone-in and rather large (2lbs on the lighter side to 3lbs on the larger). When I lived in Texas my first exposure to a Cowboy ribeye prepared in this manner was at Stephen Pyles’ restaurant, Star Canyon. The rub was complex and contained a good amount of heat. You can google Stephen Pyles and his Cowboy Ribeye recipe and I would if I were you…he’s generally considered the Godfather of new Texas cuisine and he’s a wonderful chef. It’s a great recipe but I think the ingredients are difficult to come by here in New Jersey without either searching high and low locally or ordering from the Internet. So, I created my own recipe that pairs down the ingredient list to just a few, adding in some that I like personally and some that are simply classic Cowboy ribeye ingredients. The ingredients are also certainly attainable locally. I made this for Tara and me last night and frankly, I thought it was pretty good. No, I thought it was super good and I generally don’t say that as I tend to be a pretty tough critic on my food.

The end result, is a steak with a thick, black crust that imparts heat as well as a touch of salty and sweet. If you want to serve it Texas-style, add a pat of butter at the end prior to slicing. I skipped that as I prefer it without butter. However, a lot of Texas steak houses finish steaks in this manner.

So, we paired this with a simple salad. However, if you want to continue on with the Texas theme, why not try roasting a sweet potato and seasoning it with chili powder, cinnamon, and a bit of real butter. Finish the whole thing with a bit of salt and pepper and you are set. For something sweet to follow, I’d definitely suggest peach cobbler…there’s nothing that screams Texas more than that. Peaches are plentiful in Texas and the State produces some of the best in the country. So google your favorite peach cobbler recipe or even google Texas peach cobbler. I’m sure you’ll find something great. Who knows, when Jersey peaches start coming around in a month or so, perhaps I’ll post my own peach cobbler recipe…stay tuned for that.

With no further discussion, here’s a pretty easy and tasty Cowboy ribeye recipe. Enjoy!  Recipe follows after the jump. Continue reading →


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Coming Soon…after some delay:

Sorry for the long delay!  I had surgery and between recovery and everything else, time just escaped my grasp.  However, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t in the kitchen.  In the coming days, I’ll have recipes posted for a great Cowboy ribeye, olive oil gelato (that’s Mario Batali’s but I’ll still share my experience and his link), a trio of bread toppings made from seasonal vegetables, scapes and scape mayonnaise, my grandmother’s cinnamon roll recipe…modified a bit, and a really great recipe/method for cooking a fresh ham!  That and possibly more in the next few days…promise.  I’ll get some of this posted later today.


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Products Worth Mentioning: Garden of Eden, Berkeley Heights

So, obviously Garden of Eden isn’t a product.  However, it carries all sorts of them.  This gourmet grocery store opened up a couple months ago right across the street (basically) from where we live.  It’s such a great addition to the choice of local grocers.  My wife and I lived in Hoboken for a good number of years and we became familiar with Garden of Eden there.  So, when we saw the signs posted that it was coming soon, we waited excitedly until it opened.  The downside of Garden of Eden really is the price point…it’s expensive.  However, the great thing is that they carry SO many items that no one else in the area carries.  There’s a myriad of olive oil choices.  They have a large number of hard to find produce items.  They stock high quality goods and brands.  We don’t purchase the majority of our groceries at Garden of Eden due to price (and a couple other reasons) and since I cook pretty often, we have not tried their prepared foods.  However, if you are looking for a special, hard to find cheese, go there.  If you are looking for Serrano ham, they have it.  If you want high quality anchovies packed in olive oil, go there.  They have a number of choices.  They stock high quality meats in their butcher area and they have high quality produce. They also have a great bakery.  They also have probably the most robust choices of charcuterie in the area.  At any rate, it’s a great addition to the grocery store landscape in Berkeley Heights and the surrounding area.  If you live in the area and haven’t checked it out yet, it is definitely worth doing.  You never know what little goodie you’ll find there.  Enjoy!

 

Update 6/18/2014:  Garden of Eden just announced free grocery delivery for people living or working within a ten mile radius from the store providing that the order is over $50.00!  Another great reason to give Garden of Eden a go.

 

 


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French Boule- a great rustic country bread recipe

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French Country Bread

I’ve been experimenting with bread for a few months now, making a loaf or two each week. Generally speaking, we haven’t bought store bread in a while now. I’ve tried different recipes and have used different types of flours. I’ve used bread flour, unbleached all-purpose flour, whole wheat, dark rye, semolina, and the list goes on. I’ve used instant yeast and the more traditional active dry yeast. I’ve tried growing my own sourdough yeast (and have failed…twice). However, I feel like I’m finally getting the hang and feel for the art of bread making. I’m not completely there yet. The more I do, the more I realize that I don’t know lots of stuff, but I do feel like I’m making progress.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I plan to try the sourdough starter again soon and will blog about my progress. Fingers crossed, it will work better now that we are in the warmer months. Who knows? At any rate, the only bread books I own come from Tartine Bakery, possibly the best bakery in the country and certainly the best bread I’ve ever had, came from Tartine. I hope to get into the ‘Tartine’ method of bread making and that all begins with the sourdough starter. So, more on that to follow in the coming weeks. However, one thing I have adopted from the Tartine books stems from the cooking vessel for the bread: the use of a cast iron dutch oven. If you are going to get into bread baking, I highly suggest investing in one. They are inexpensive, last forever, and they can be used in a myriad of ways beyond simple bread baking. In other words, cast iron is your friend in the kitchen!

So, as the title of this post suggests, I have a recipe for a great loaf of bread. It’s not original from me. I am simply not a strong enough baker to come up with an original bread recipe yet…and I may never get there. This recipe comes from a French show on the food network: French Food at Home. You can find the original recipe and other interesting French inspired recipes if you google the show or just go to foodtv.com and look at recipes from there. Anyway, after trying to make a great loaf of French country bread (and I have tried a good number and there are other great ones out there), I came across this super simple and simply great bread recipe last week.

I tried it and then tried it again. I may never look for another French bread recipe again. It’s that easy and THAT GOOD. Like most great breads, it contains very few ingredients. This one, like most classic French bread recipes, has four ingredients: AP flour, water, yeast, and salt. There’s no kneading. There’s no need for a Kitchenaid (though I never use one anyway). The only thing you really need beyond the ingredients is the cast iron Dutch oven for baking the bread. I included a picture of mine so that you can know what to look for if you choose to make the investment. I bought mine from amazon and it cost just south of twenty-five dollars…not bad for essentially two pans that can be used separately or together.  Recipe follows after the jump! Continue reading →