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Roasted Cauliflower aka “Summer Cruise”

Here’s a great side dish with bling: roasted cauliflower and rice, finished with lemon juice, capers and a light amount of cheese. If you love lamb chops, that’s your protein. If you prefer pork chops, that’s your meal.

I’ve named this dish ‘Summer Cruise’ for two reasons. I will serve it in a ceramic boat—plus, it will feature bright flavorings that my active imagination believes would pair well with salty, sea breezes, as if you are on a small cruise ship or sailboat among friends, somewhere in the Caribbean or perhaps French Polynesia, where the famous, Post-Impressionist painter, Paul Gauguin, spent a significant part of his life. If you are reading this Mr. Vernon Minor, my Humanities Art 101 teacher in Boulder, I hope this brings a smile. I have not forgotton! In truth, part of my memory of Ganguin is because a very influential book I read, also during my youth, is largely set in Tahiti (also in French Polynesia), The Moon and Sixpence, by Somerset Maugham. I absolutely loved Maugham’s written command of English. His subject matter only enhanced the book’s appeal to me, a fanciful young traveler and adventure seeker, as Maugham traveled to Tahiti in 1917 for research, noting the blend of English, American and French influences.

For cooking:

Break up or cut a whole head of cauliflower. In a mixing bowl, place the cauliflower then sprinkle with olive oil, salt, pepper, tumerick, sliced red onion, and toss around that place into a baking dish.

Bake at 425 for 35 minutes until golden brown. Remove.

Add the rice, bake in oven another 10 minutes or so until some of the rice starts to crisp up. Before adding the rice, I removed the burnt red onion but left the pieces that were not too charred.

Once the veggie and rice is out of the oven, spoon in a small amount of RINSED capers, and squeeze half a lemon all over the dish.

Then top the dish with finely shredded parmesan and roughly shredded mozarella. Not too much, as this isn’t a cheese dish (but everything goes better with some melted cheese).

Please in ‘boats’ that were greased on the bottom, first, with peanut oil (for ease of cleaning).

To reheat before serving, I just use the microwave.

For wine, we drank a 2022 Full Boar Red from Eberle, which is Paso Robles based. For more on the winery founder, see the April 2024 post in www.blisteredonions.com.

This Full Boar Red is a new staple in my cellar. Sooooooooooooo drinkable, yet full bodied, and so affordable! At under $35, it’s a bargain. Here’s how Eberle describes it.

Full Boar Red is a Grenache blend that harmonizes the luscious flavors of black cherry cola and blackberry with the velvety embrace of cocoa powder. Let the alluring undertones of sweet leafy tobacco and exotic hint of cardamom transport you to a place of sensory bliss. This wine promises a symphony of flavors that dance across the palate, weaving a tapestry of complexity and indulgence.

Wine Specs: Varietal 42% Grenache, 25% Barbera,18% Petite Sirah, 15% Zinfandel

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Pan Seared Pork Chops

There are many merits to pork chops: taste, ease of prep, affordability, and very short cooking time. In fact, it may take longer than all those steps combined, just to clean the stainless skillet. But like divorces can be expensive, it’s worth it!

After making the roasted cauliflower dish and telling my sister about it, and suggesting pork chops or lamb chops to go with the vegetable and rice dish, my sibling asked me how I do pork chops. Here goes.

I buy thin, bone-in chops from my butcher. I suppose a thicker chop would work, but they can finish on the dry side, given the added cook time to finish the meat.

24 hours in advance, I marinate the chops in:

  • Olive oil
  • Garlic powder
  • Salt and Pepper
  • Droplets of French’s Mustard
  • Tarragon flakes

The mustard and tarragon work together like a well-rehearsed church choir – a beautiful unison of flavors and vocal sounds!

For process, I put the olive oil down first, then the garlic, black pepper, and a limited amount of mustard, and lastly the tarragon.

Importantly, I salt each side of the chops before I lay them into the marinade, then turn them over and smear them around the bottom of the plastic wrap. You can use a Pyrex dish or some other vessel, but I use large sheets of plastic wrap because I can just discard the wrap once I start cooking, versus cleaning another dish.

Once the chops look evenly smeared (a technical cooking term!), I cover them with another sheet of plastic, seal the edges, then refrigerate until the next day.

Remove from fridge about two hours prior to cooking, so get them room temp.

For cooking!

Place a large, preferably stainless skillet, on the stove and turn heat up to high. You can use cast iron skillet or even a Teflon skillet, though you may not get the same golden-brown coloring to the fried chops.

Once the skillet is good and hot, drizzle in a little canola or peanut oil (it burns less at high heat, than olive oil), and drop the chops in once at time, searing each side for only 90 seconds. Once you flip to the second side, and after 90 seconds, turn stovetop off and let the chops rest while you plate the sides or toss the salad.

Serve the chops, then drizzle a little of the remaining juices and oil onto each chop.

I had a friend over and we drank a bottle of Cabernet Franc with the meal. It was perfect!

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Perfect Meal

It may be a stretch to call any meal “the perfect meal,” but that was my thought when I pushed this platter to the side, empty.

It was so straight-forward, with texture and full, complimentary flavors, but not in an overwhelming way – the way some really great food is.

It was such an American meal! Steak and potatoes down-the-middle. Perfectly grilled New York Strip, creamy, rosemary and garlic red potatoes roasted just so, lightly dressed Caesar salad (homemade dressing) and New Orleans (hot and tangy) Brussell Sprouts. The contrast of the blackened sprouts (with Mongolian Chile oil and sunflower oil) and finished with butter and generous splashes of red wine vinegar sets off the steak bites and freshness of the salad.

Each of the servings were on the small side, which was plenty to eat and satisfying.

This meal goes with any of the full-bodied reds from Bordeaux or a big, juicy Syrah. We enjoyed a 2018 Merlot from Lambert Bridge.

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A Seasonal Favorite

It was one of those springs we just couldn’t shake. A warmish day yielded to cold and wet the next one, followed by a dry but cloudy day and some wicked Spring winds carried south from the Pacific Ocean’s Alaska-to-California current that cool our usual “sun-kissed valley,” a charming phrase coined by Jack London to describe what is now known as Silicon Valley – where the epic story begins in his book, The Call of the Wild. Whether London was ever in the Santa Clara Valley or not (my guess is he was), he wrote the book while living one valley east of me, in the glorious and stunningly beautiful Valley of the Moon. And that valley is, indeed, sun kissed.

Anyway, “the Spring that wouldn’t quit” drove me to planning a comfort food dish that I hadn’t made all winter, and we had it for Sunday dinner: lamb shanks.

I’ve roasted plenty of shanks in the past, yet I reached out to my good friend on the East Coast, Owen, for any ideas. Owen is a serious home chef, like me, and I trust him implicitly and explicitly with our favorite passion, food. He sent me a clip from Chef John and his site, Food Wishes.

This dish was as easy to make as it was delicious. I usually don’t cook with recipes but I tried to be faithful to this one, and it worked! The meat was fork tender and crazy good! Even non-lamb eaters might like it, though at my age I’m not taking chances (and not wasting one of these hunks of meat on a potential convert).

In a shallow roasting pan (I used my 4-quart Braiser from Le Creuset) lay down a large sheet of foil and put the shanks in, then generously salt both sides and also add black pepper. Roast them first, with nothing else in the pan, at 450 for about 40 minutes, until they are golden brown. The photo here is what happens after step 2, which is to add a dozen or so garlic pieces and fresh rosemary, then double wrap the meat and flavorings in foil and slow roast at 275 for about 3 hours. This is what the shanks looked like after I opened the foil.

Chef John served his shanks over a bowl of bean ragout, though I went with our favorite winter carb, creamy polenta, with steamed broccoli.

We drank a 2022 Petit Verdot, “Fence Line,” from Merriam. It’s in the Russian River Valley AVA, just up the road from where we live.

We still had to wait a couple of weeks until we got consistent California spring weather, yet this meal made the wait a lot more tolerable.

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Las Vegas

This post was inspired by my review in the survey requested by Momofuko after our meal there. The restaurant is in the Cosmopolitan Hotel. I gave it four out of five starts for overall experience, three for ambience, 5 for service, and four for the food, which was a tad generous. If I had the option to give it a 3.5 I would have.

Here is what I wrote: “Server Danielle was terrific. I like the dining room and it is very pretty. The views of the city-scape were stunning. It was just too loud for my tastes. The food was pretty good, not great. The sauce on the Bronzini was too heavy for such a light, white fish. While it was tasty, it overwhelmed the fish. I like a simpler sauce for this wonderful fish. The endive salad was absolutely fabulous. Sunchokes good, not great, grilled lamb chops good, not great.

As I wrote the review I couldn’t help but recall the number of times and quality of the whole grilled Bronzini we had during our six-night stay in Riccione on the Adriatic “Riviera” in Italy, summer of 2018. Riccione is about 10 miles south of Rimini. We went there after five nights in Rome to hang out and relax, like part of a long vacation should be, especially if you are in between Rome for five nights and Florence for four nights – both intense city experiences.

We had the Bronzini at least twice while in Riccione. The notion that we were in a seaside resort probably created the perception that the fish was fresher, local. But it’s how it was prepared that made the difference. It definitely tasted grilled, lightly charred, and it certainly didn’t have much sauce on it. In fact I don’t remember anything more than a drizzle of olive oil, salt, and a squeeze or two of lemon. Let the fish shine! And it did. Indeed it did.

Momofuko is a really good restaurant and worth going if you are in Las Vegas. Better yet, make a point of visiting a seaside resort on the Adriatic and order the Bronzini. You won’t be disappointed.

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In Praise of Pork

Even vegetarians love bacon.

God, country, mother, apple pie, and bacon.

There’s a restaurant here in Marin County called Bacon. It’s probably not the only one in the U.S. I attended a conference once on Amelia Island off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, and must have been assigned one of the last available hotel rooms because I was right next to the kitchen. And every morning I woke up to the aroma of bacon cooking. I did not mind.

After I bought a house I hired a gardener to keep the property clean. We have something of a wild garden and plants grow profusely. We also have big trees, lots of them. Oaks, a Tri-Colored Beech, Dogwoods. We had a Persimmon tree but it died of old age. It was about 100. After a while Fernando and I became friendly enough for me to ask him if his wife made green chile. It’s my favorite Mexican dish. He told me no, his wife did not make green chile pork, but his mother did. I handed him a $20 and asked if he could bring me a serving of green chile the next time he came to clean up my property. He did, and this routine kept up for about a year. But then I let the gardening crew go, figuring I had better start doing more physical work myself to stay fit. That’s when I decided it was time to make green chile at home.

It’s not that daunting of a dish. You just need the right tools. Namely, a big ass Le Creuset. I’ve written about Le Creuset earlier in this blog. I have about 12 of the vessels in various shapes and sizes. This is the big boy at work, my 9-quart pot. I have a 6-quart version in blue that is excellent for roasting a 3-4 pound chicken with halved onions and whole carrots. I’ll make green chile, aka “pulled pork” with the 6-quarter Le Creuset or even my 5-quart (in orange!) pot if the pork shoulder and butt I buy is only three or four pounds. But when the chunk of meat is seven+ pounds, I need the big boy.

The second key to making this dish is having enough fresh, rough-chopped garlic on hand, and two, not one, yellow onion.

The third key to green chile – for the flavor profile I like, is a good amount of dried Mexican oregano. I added almost a half of couple to the fried onions and garlic. But first you brown the meat. Set the oven at 450, added a third of a cup of vegetable oil to the bottom of the pot and sprinkle that with either chile powder or cayenne pepper, the latter of which I did with this dish. Make sure the meat is dried off before putting it fat-side down on top of the oil and cayenne. Season the top of the pork shoulder with copious amounts of ground cumin, black pepper and garlic powder before placing it in the oven to roast, for about 40 minutes.

After the meat browns, extract the meat from the pot and put it on a large platter. This is no easy task, as the meat is huge and you don’t want to pierce it. I used a large metal spoon and large metal spatula to get the meat out of the pot. Turn the oven down to 325. Then cook the onions and garlic. Once the onions soften, I added two or three pasilla peppers and one diced jalapeno or fresno chile – whichever I have on hand. I also add smoked paprika as this phase of the cooking.

Once the vegetables are mixed well together, add the meat back to the pot and pour any juices from the platter on top of the meat. Add two cups of chicken stock, put the lid on tight and put the Le Creuset in the oven. After 90 minutes or so, turn the oven down to 200 and let it cook another 90 minutes. The meat will be fork tender.

We’ll normally have a meal when this dish is done. Just take a flour tortilla, smear a little chile-mayo on the bottom, a handful of arugula, some shredded meat with juices on top of that, plus a very light serving of grated cheddar cheese to enjoy a soft-shell taco.

The rest of the meat, vegetables and juices I pack in multiple containers, one of which I freeze and is mostly just the meat. That meat will come in handy a couple of weekends from now when I invite friends over for Cubano Sandwiches. That’s the pulled pork in the Cubanos.

The container I pack with most of the peppers will be a dinner in a few nights, with sticky white rice and a side of chayote squash and carrots boiled and finished in a little bit of butter. A big and hearty Zinfandel pairs well with this meal.

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Chicken with honey and cumin

Normally when you opt to cook with boneless skinless chicken breasts, you are training for a triathlon or body building contest (or the guy that played Tarzan in the 2016 remake) in which you are eating super lean meats and steamed broccoli to get that “six pack” for Abs. The other reason to eat the breast without the merits of bone or skin is speed and flexibility in flavor profile. Well I adapted one of Mark Bitman’s recipes (from How to Cook Everything) into one transformative quick meal that featured one of the most harmonious ingredient combinations I can ever recall.

But first, the cooking vessel. If you don’t have a 4-quart Le Creuset Brazer with lid, you must buy one (these also make great wedding gifts).

This is the 4-quart brazer with lid on:

You can fry, saute, braze with lid on or make a killer “Grilled or Broiled Chicken Cutlets with Honey and Cumin,” as I did. Bitman called for grilling or broiling the chicken but I thought #1, firing up the grill is not worth the effort for boneless/skinless breasts, #2 it seemed that the great liquids and flavors in the recipe could get lost by basting etc. and #3 I could better control the done-ness of the chicken by cooking it on the stovetop in a deep skillet. Nobody likes dried breast, especially me (a lifelong dark meat guy). While I never did put the lid on to make this dish (thus, it wasn’t truly brazed) the depth of the skillet was great for handling the meat and the sauce without making a mess of the stovetop.

Other than changing the cooking method, I used peanut oil instead of olive oil (peanut oil can handle higher heat to brown the chicken), sake instead of dry sherry, white wine or orange juice, and I also added some vegetable stock, plus I added a 1.5-inch thick cut of butter from a quarter-pound section at the end of the cooking which gave the sauce a silky texture. Butter makes everything better, anyway.

  • Two halves of a boneless skinless breast
  • 3 Tbls Peanut oil
  • Half cup sake
  • Quarter cup vegetable stock
  • 3 Tbls honey
  • 1.5 Tbls ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
  • Salt and pepper
  • 3 Tbls butter
  • Steps: Heat the skilled and just before putting the chicken in add the peanut oil.
  • Brown chicken 3 minutes a side and then remove
  • Add sake, scrap brown bits off bottom of pan (on medium high heat)
  • Add minced garlic, honey and cumin – stir and cook for a minute or two
  • Cut the breasts in half (making four pieces)
  • Add veggie stock – cook on medium high heat two more minutes when some of the liquid starts to evaporate, add the chicken to the liquid and lower heat to simmer, cooking for 2 minutes.
  • Add the butter, stir the chicken and sauce gently and constantly for about a minute then turn off heat.
  • Let stand for 2-3 minutes, then turn the chicken pieces over and stir the sauce again.
  • Let stand for 2 minutes and serve.

We had this dish with sticky white rice and steamed broccoli. Fantastic!