Intriguing spice profile from Park Packing:

Bok Choy Jr wrote:Intriguing spice profile from Park Packing:

Sounds like the batch between batches, lol.

Meat and 3 over at Chez Suburban tonight . . .


NY Strip Steaks
From Zier's in Wilmette. Dave Zier is truly a beef rockstar.


Weber One-Touch Performer
My beloved workhorse, now 25 years old.


Grilling Indirect
Very hot fire and enormous steaks, so I marked them over the coals for a few seconds on each side, then cooked them indirect (covered) for quite a while, probably around 13 minutes . . . until they reached about 115 F.


Meat +3
Grilled Asparagus, Tomato-Shallot Salad and finally, the last of the spanakopita (huzzah!)


The Pay Off
These delicious steaks were so huge that the three of us ended up eating about one and half, total. The leftovers should make for nice sandwiches sometime in the very near future. I'm not ruling out later this evening!

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:These delicious steaks were so huge that the three of us ended up eating about one and half, total.

Oh Dear Sweet Carol Channings Ghost, those steaks are incredible! Wow Wow Wow!

Dinner tonight was thin sliced short ribs from Tony's in Arlington Heights with a Vietnamese dressing over lettuce from the garden, grape tomatoes, cucumber and carrot (supermarket), basil (from here), makrut lime (here), oregano (here because I don't have mint) and cilantro (there).

Cathy2 wrote:On Saturday's tour of the south side, I bought a small almost four-pound pork shoulder picnic with the skin on. I ended up braising the pork in milk, because I had milk whose freshness date was June 4th. While it was nowhere near spoiled, it might be by the time we came closer to finishing it. Plus I could rework the leftovers a few ways, though I might just eat it as-is.

Regards,
Cathy2

I made this dish this afternoon. It was simple to make and yielded a pork roast that was fork tender and very delicious.

For whatever reason, I feel a desire to make some squid ink pasta. Has anyone seen squid ink jars at a store recently? Looks like Amazon has some, but seems to be overpriced.

My daughter doesn't like to eat meat every night (lasting effects of being a poor college student.) Tonight was grilled vegetable sandwiches on homemade sourdough focaccia. Indian eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, red pepper, Vidalia onions, and baby Bella's were marinated in EVOO, white balsamic, salt, pepper, basil, oregano, and thyme. A bit of aioli on the bread, stacked with veggies; meat not missed.

That's a beautiful sandwich Ms. Ingie!

bnowell724 wrote:That's a beautiful sandwich Ms. Ingie!

Thank you. It was delicious.

bnowell724 wrote:That's a beautiful sandwich Ms. Ingie!

I agree. While I do typically eat meat at dinner, I also really enjoy meat-free meals. This looks terrific. And how can you not love a sandwich with that much care and effort put into it? Beautiful.

=R=

Decided to give the Joshua Weissman-inspired Chicken Parmesan another shot, this time with much better results . . .


Sauce Mise
Sliced garlic, Fresno chili, bacon.


Mise In Action
Also here are some evoo and some red chili flakes. Once this all cooked up crispy, I removed it from the pan, minced it up, added a can of crushed San Marzano tomatoes to the pan, added the minced crispies back and simmered it for a bit to finish the sauce.


Crispies
Before mincing. In the end, I probably won't include the bacon if I make this again in the future. Yes, I love bacon but I found the smoky note in the finished dish a distraction. I'd either leave the meat out entirely or use pancetta.


Cooker
Carbon steel roaster, which worked out very well, and some peanut oil. I'm finally getting the hang of this vessel, which is relatively new. You have to be patient while the oil gets up to temperature. But if you go higher than medium-low on the flame, you'll overshoot the mark and get the oil way too hot. On this foray, my patience paid off. I was able to maintain a pretty steady 350F through the entire cook.


Three-Stage Breaded Chicken Thighs
Last time I made an egregious error and used boneless, skinless breast meat. This time, it was boneless, skinless thighs which, unsurprisingly, worked out much better. They were moist and flavorful. Here, it was a fairly standard dry-wet-dry prep, with seasoned flour, seasoned eggwash and not-seasoned-enough panko bread crumbs.


Chicken Frying
Coming along nicely . . . don't crowd that pan! With 12 pieces to cook, the temptation was great to do more than four at a time but I resisted.


Outliers
I ran out of panko, so these last two pieces were coated in a seasoned bread crumb mixture I'd made a while back that I'd vacuum-sealed, and stored the freezer. While the texture wasn't quite as boldly crunchy as the panko, the flavor (with herbs, cheese, etc.) was actually better.


10 Crispy Thighs
When you dial in the oil temperature correctly, the cooking is predictable. It goes fast and is drama-free.


Fried Eggwash
I can't remember where I picked up this move but at the end of the frying session, I dumped the unused eggwash into the oil and let it cook up. Delicious!


Sauced And Cheesed
I was lazy and used pre-grated cheeses. I hate hand-grating soft cheeses like mozzarella. Doing a straight broil, I didn't mind taking this shortcut, because the anti-caking agents (potato starch) on the cheese wouldn't have too much impact on the final product. If I were making a sauce, I would have had no choice but to grate it myself.


Finished Chicken Parmesan
Just a couple of minutes, closely watched, under the broiler.


Plated Up
With roasted broccoli and a sidecar of slaw from Carson's (the only item I really like there).

=R=

One of our favorite dinners —the “BIG” salad (named after my favorite 90s loop lunch spot in the Hyatt on Wacker). Only problem is that every time I make it, the hubs says “we should have this once a week” to which I reply —NOOOOOO because it is absolutely the most labor intensive dish I make! But it is definitely delicious and so pretty...

boudreaulicious wrote:One of our favorite dinners —the “BIG” salad (named after my favorite 90s loop lunch spot in the Hyatt on Wacker). Only problem is that every time I make it, the hubs says “we should have this once a week” to which I reply —NOOOOOO because it is absolutely the most labor intensive dish I make! But it is definitely delicious and so pretty...

30445035-EDF7-4DA9-A9EB-4BBB2A8D3BDC.jpeg

That looks amazing!

Bok Choy Jr wrote:Intriguing spice profile from Park Packing:

3F20852A-2916-4179-A2E6-7FF4B69FBAE8.jpeg

I bought a box of these just an hour ago. How did I never realize they had a retail space? For the last two years, I've literally driven by them three times a week. Anyhow, as of today, pork butt was $0.79/lb; picnic ham was $1.29/lb; pork spare ribs $1.49/lb; pork baby backs $1.99/lb; smoked hot links $0.99/lb, Mississippi hot sausage (fresh) $0.99/lb; fresh Polish sausage $1.59/lb. 10 lbs Eisenberg hot dogs, $5.99; 12 pack of Eisenberg buns, $1.49. These pork prices are just insane. And this is three miles east, almost directly, of where I live. How did I not realize they had a retail space until now?

Anyhow, grill is going, I'll let you know how these various sausages are. Wish I had the smoker going, too, but not right now.

I'm liking all of these. I especially like the Mississippi sausage. Good punch of heat to it; would be great smoked. The 5lb for $2 special is hitting me mostly with bratwurst and jerk notes. I don't really catch much of the Italian, and I'm not sure I would be able to pick out the hot link, as it would blend in with the jerk a bit. I'm getting coriander, mace, allspice. Touch of heat. Fairly coarse ground with bits of solid fat in there. Smoked hot link I'm not quite as fond of cooked. Tough skin and the interior texture is a bit tight and dry to me. I had a few slices of it uncooked, and it tasted better to me that way. Polish is reasonable. Not as good as the ones I get at places like Dunajec, but reasonable. I'd like to try this one smoked, as well.

So I'd definitely hit up that Mississippi hot sausage again, and I'm digging this Frankensausage, as well. Have to try their normal bratwurst, too.

The GP wrote:

boudreaulicious wrote:One of our favorite dinners —the “BIG” salad (named after my favorite 90s loop lunch spot in the Hyatt on Wacker). Only problem is that every time I make it, the hubs says “we should have this once a week” to which I reply —NOOOOOO because it is absolutely the most labor intensive dish I make! But it is definitely delicious and so pretty...

30445035-EDF7-4DA9-A9EB-4BBB2A8D3BDC.jpeg

That looks amazing!

Thanks!! It is a summer fave, no matter how labor intensive