Salmon In A Whole New Light

Good evening everyone! Welcome back to Out Of The Culinary! We're going a bit off schedule tonight - I'm taking over the kitchen on back to back nights - I have a later shift at work tomorrow and in order to put the blog up in a timely manner, Maggie and I switched nights. So, for those of you tuning in for you 'Maggie's recipe Wednesday' fix - sorry to disappoint. Hopefully my recipe can fill the void until tomorrow.

Tonight I have a very interesting recipe to share with you. Much like yesterday's (delicious) sweet potato and chorizo soup - tonight's recipes combine two unique ingredients that you would not normally associate with each other.

I had been looking for a place to use salmon for some time now. A few recipes caught my eye, but nothing jumped out at me in particular. Last week, I finally spotted a salmon recipe that looked promising (somewhat complicated, but still promising) Tonight, I tackled that recipe.

The Recipe: Salmon Fish Cakes
Original Recipe Found In: Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals

What You'll Need:

(Side note: The recipe is constructed with the notion of freezing extras. If you only want enough for one meal - feeding a family of 2-4 - follow our amounts alongside the recommended amounts)

1 1/4 Lbs Potatoes (We lowered this to 1 Lb)
1 Lb Salmon Fillets - Skin on, scaled and bones removed (We opted for two 7 oz. fillets)
Parsley
All Purpose Flour
1 Large Egg
1 Lemon
Olive Oil
Sea Salt & Black Pepper

The Recipe: Best Baby Potatoes
Original Recipe Found In: Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals

What You'll Need:

1 Lb Baby Potatoes
Fresh Mint (5 to 6 sprigs)
Unsalted Butter
1 Lemon

Begin by placing a large pot of water on high heat. While that's warming up, peel and slice your potatoes into evenly sized chunks. The smaller the better. Rub your salmon with olive oil (non skin side) and sprinkle on some salt & pepper.

Initially, I was hesitant about buying a salmon fillet with the skin still on it. However, after doing a lot of reading on cooking salmon - I noticed that nearly all the experts recommend you purchase and cook salmon with the skin still on at least one side. The reason behind this is twofold - first, when salmon cooks the juices tend to ooze out of the fish. Typically these juices are lost through the bottom of the fillet. When the skin is left on, it acts a barrier; which traps all of the natural juices in the fillet. Secondly, the skin acts as a wall from the heat of cooking. High heat can cause the fillet to cook unevenly or even dry out on the bottom. By leaving the skin on, you create a wall that disperses heat evenly across the fillet as well as protects the fillet from direct heat.

Skin on fillets, a little strange looking at first - but it's a savior of the flavor! 

Once your pot has come to a boil, add the potatoes and wait until the water returns to a boil. Next, place your two fillets (skin side down) in a large metal colander and cover the colander with aluminum foil. Place this colander over the pot of boiling water (be sure the colander simply rests above the pot and that the fish are not being 'dunked' in water - you don't want to boil your fillets!) Reduce the heat to medium and cook for 10 to 12 minutes.

In the colander and ready to go 

After 10 or so minutes, your potatoes and salmon should be cooked. The salmon should be a light pink color (as shown below) and the potatoes should be fork tender. Remove the salmon fillets from the colander and set aside. It is likely that the skin will fall off the fillet right here, however, if it doesn't -remove the skin now. Don't worry about the fillets falling apart - you don't need them in one piece for the next steps anyway!

Drain the water from the potatoes and allow them to steam dry for a minute or two. Next, mash the potatoes with an electric mixer. Set the bowl aside for about five minutes to allow the potatoes to continue to cool.

While you're waiting for the potatoes to cool, now is a great time to begin zesting your lemon. By the time you have finished zesting the lemon - the potatoes should be cool enough to handle.

My favorite ingredient! 

Using a fork, break apart your salmon fillets. After cooking over the potatoes, they should break apart rather easily. Once they are good and chopped up - add the salmon to the bowl of mashed potatoes. Add your egg, lemon zest, a generous helping of parsley and a pinch of salt and pepper as well. Using a rubber spatula mix everything up very well.

Next, dust your work area with all purpose flour. Give your hands a generous coating as well. Break up the potato/salmon mixture into 5 to 7 separate balls. Give each ball a generous dusting of flour and work them into a patty shape - roughly 3/4 of an inch thick. Keep adding pinches of flour until the patties stop sticking to your hands. Don't be timid with the flour - the more you add, the easier they begin to take (and hold) their shape. If you go too light on the flour - the patties tend to fall apart.

Quick tip when making your patties - lean more towards smaller, thinner patties. When you're cooking them up later - the smaller patties will hold together better and crisp better than a larger patty.

4 of the 6 patties I made up - these were the 'too large' ones 

When you've finished rolling all of the balls into patties, place them on a plate (dusted with flour) and into the refrigerator for an hour. This will give them time to firm up.

While the patties firm up - turn your attention to the second recipe. (If you're not tackling the second dish - simply skip down the page to the next *** series)

***

I spotted this recipe late last week and decided that it would pair well with the salmon cakes. It's very simple and sported another unique flavor combination (mint and potatoes) that I was eager to try. In order to finish both recipes at around the same time - wait until 30 minutes have passed after placing the patties in the refrigerator to begin this dish.

Begin by placing a medium pot of water on high heat. Next start washing your baby potatoes - you don't have to peel them (actually it's recommended that you don't). Once your water is boiling add the potatoes. Next, chop the mint leaves into fine pieces. I tried using our OXO Smart Chopper here...it didn't go well. It just 'smashed' the leaves rather than dicing them. It's supposed to be able to chop herbs - it doesn't seem to do that too well...

After 15 minutes your potatoes should be good and cooked. Give them a jab with a fork just to be sure. Drain the water from the potatoes and pour them into a large bowl. Add 3 pats of butter, the juice of one lemon and your chopped mint leaves to the bowl and give it a good shaking. Once all the potatoes are covered with the butter/lemon mixture and the mint has been evenly distributed you are ready to serve up and enjoy!

***

After an hour, your patties should have firmed up slightly. Place a large frying pan on medium heat and add two lugs of olive oil. Once the oil gets nice and hot (you should start to see little trails of 'smoke' from the oil) add you patties. If you made the patties small enough - they should cook in about 4 minutes (2 minutes per side). Larger patties will take more time - partly because of their size, mostly because they tend to break apart easily and are overall difficult to handle in the pan.

(If it sounds like I'm speaking from experience there...I am. The smaller patties I made up cooked very quickly - crisped nicely in the oil and gave me very little hassle. The larger patties crumbled - didn't crisp at all and caused a lot of extra headache.)

Once all your patties are cooked - all that is left is for you to enjoy!


The Results:

Once again, I combined ingredients that don't naturally seem to pair well together, and - once again, I was surprised with the result. This time around, potatoes and salmon worked very well together to make what essentially became a salmon burger. The cakes had a very nice lemon flavor that complimented the salmon well. The potatoes acted like a courier of the flavors - seamlessly blending the salmon and lemon.  For those that fear 'fishy' tasting fish - rest at ease. The lemon and parsley combination hides any hint at a 'fishy' flavor. Instead, you get a zesty little fish cake!  The only change I would make to the recipe on a second go-round would be to find some form of sauce to top the fish cakes with. I'm not sure what to use yet - lemon would be too much...I'm stuck on this one. Maybe a little research will turn up another good flavor pairing to really top off the recipe. Any suggestions?

The baby potatoes were delicious as well. Surprisingly the lemon flavor - not the mint - was the overriding taste. This is likely due to the scientific principles of cooking potatoes - mainly: once the potatoes are hot - their cell walls open up and absorb any and all flavors that they come in contact with. In this case - that flavor was lemon. Regardless, the resulting flavor combination was like fireworks in your mouth. First, the 'bang' of the lemon - followed by the ooh and ah of a nice (very subtle) minty aftertaste. All in all, a neat new way to cook potatoes!

Tonight's recipes were many things - great, flavorful combinations of unique ingredients - as well as slightly complicated (fish cakes) and very simple (baby potatoes) - but most importantly, they were both delicious! If you're up for the challenge, I would recommend your try the fish cake recipe - but be warned it is a little more difficult. I also highly recommend the baby potatoes. They are super easy and take very little time to prepare.

That's all we have for you tonight. Hopefully after reading these recipes you'll look at salmon in a whole new light (or at least see another way to prepare it!) Here's hoping you give these recipes a shot yourself. Maggie is in the kitchen tomorrow night - the blog should be up around the same time as it was tonight. Until then,

~Cheers

It's Kind Of Like The First Time You Try Peanut Butter And Chocolate...

Happy Tuesday everyone! It's a new week, which means one very important thing - new recipes! I was eager to get back into the kitchen this week - especially to try tonight's recipe. Every once in a while I come across a recipe that I'm not sure about - but it looks interesting or like it would be a good challenge, so I make a note of it. Tonight's recipe was that type of recipe. When I was browsing Jamie Oliver's cookbook - I came across a soup blend that made me stop and go, "Really?" Nonetheless, this recipe included some of my favorite foods so I made a note of it - promising to return when soup was in 'season'.

As time passed, this recipe kept popping up in my mind. Finally, events from last week finally opened up the opportunity for me to tackle this dish. (By 'events' I mean that I forgot to use two sweet potatoes that I had picked up for another recipe. Rather than letting them go to waste - I thought now was a great time to try this recipe.) So, 'season' and conventions be damned - I'm making soup in July.

The Recipe: Sweet Potato & Chorizo Soup
Original Recipe Found In: Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals

What You'll Need:

2 Carrots
2 Medium Onions
2 Cloves Garlic
1 1/3 Lbs. Sweet Potatoes (Roughly 3 large potatoes)
7 Oz. Chorizo Sausage
1 3/4 Quarts (7 Cups) Chicken or Vegetable Broth
1 Tsp. Curry Powder
1 Red Chile

Begin by pouring the broth into a medium saucepan set on medium heat. While the broth warms up, peel and slice your carrots, sweet potatoes, onions garlic and chorizo. Add everything to a large bowl as you finish chopping it up. Don't really worry about size here. Later on everything is going to be put through an immersion blender - so feel free to chop fast and sloppily...I won't tell anyone.

Chopped up sweet potatoes 

*Save of the night* As I turned my attention to the chorizo (A delicious little sausage made of...well, I find it's best to not ask what sausage is really made out of...imported from Spain. It has an amazing smokey flavor and a great texture - although it does ooze a little odd orange 'juice' when you cut it...) I started looking for a way to remove the outer paper. I have used enough deli sausage to know that nearly all kinds of sausage come wrapped in some form of outer paper/wax/shell. I sliced a tip off of the chorizo and dissected it - searching all the while for some sign of paper or coating. I came up with nothing. Still thinking this was odd, I turned my attention back to the rest of the sausage and began cutting it up normally. On my third slice I heard a familiar 'rip', my knife had caught the paper just right, and it began to tear away. It turns out that the paper on the chorizo was VERY thin - almost impossible to see and even harder to peel. I'm just glad that the paper ripped while I was slicing it...I would hate to think what everything would have turned out like if I cooked the chorizo paper and all!

Chorizo - fresh from Spain! 

Next, place a large pan on high heat. Emphasis on large here, the bigger the pot you have, the easier time you will have later on. Add two 'lugs' of olive oil (wait for the bottle to go 'lug' twice) and turn the heat up to high. Add in all of your chopped veggies and sliced ingredients. Add your teaspoon of curry powder here as well.

I opted to only add 1/2 tsp. of curry powder. I did this for two reasons - 1. I still have bad memories from the curried cod recipe - and our apartment smelled like curry for days afterwards. 2. I've found that Jamie (being a brit) likes curry a lot more than I do - I felt it was safer to halve the dose. If you like curry, live it up with the full teaspoon.

There's no real context for this picture. I just wanted to show everyone this neat little plastic garlic preserver we found at Bed Bath & Beyond this weekend. It's supposed to keep your garlic fresh for longer. We'll see how it works. 

Mix everything up with a wooden spoon and cook it all for about 10 - 12 minutes, with the lid of your pan slightly askew. Now, according to the recipe - you are supposed to wait until "the carrots are tender without losing their shape OR until the onions are nice and golden brown." Now, I'm not sure what Jamie was thinking here, but both of those suggestions are laughable. First, let's take inventory of what you're cooking with. Sweet potatoes (orange), carrots (orange) and chorizo (which oozes orange fluid) - everything in your pot is orange. EVERYTHING. There is no way on this earth you can see your onions turn golden brown, because they are ORANGE the instant you mix everything together. Secondly, as I pointed out, everything is orange. If you want to hunt around in the pot for a carrot (good luck) be my guest. I found it easier to just cook everything for about 12 minutes.

Visual image of 'askew' for those who were wondering

After 12 minutes, add your pot of boiling broth to the mixture. Give everything a good stir and bring the soup up to a boil. Once boiling, turn down the heat and let simmer for another 10 minutes or so. The best test to see if your soup is ready is to take a fork and jab a sweet potato chunk. You should be able to pierce the potato easily.

Nice and hot - just before it was added to the veggies 

Finally, use an immersion blender (Similar to this KitchenAid Red Hand Blender) and mix the whole thing up right in the pot. I tried a few approaches to blending the soup. First, I stuck the blender over a batch of potatoes and sausage and pushed down - moved over a 1/2 inch and repeated the process. This was working - but it was too slow. Next, I placed the blender in the middle of the pot and held it steady. This had very little success as well. Finally, I held the blender just below the surface of the soup and slowly rotated it around the pot. This work superbly.

Our immersion blender - it does a very nice job

You'll be able to tell when everything is blended this way simply by feel. As the blender moves into an area with large pieces of potato or sausage - it will 'pull' to the bottom of the pan. Simply hold the blender in place until the pull stops, then continue moving around the pot until you find the next area of pull. After three or so minutes, your soup should be perfectly blended. All that is left is to chop up your chile and sprinkle that on top of the soup - finally, serve up and enjoy!

All blended and creamy

The Results:

Serve it up with a couple of crackers and enjoy! 

It's kind of like the first time you try peanut butter and chocolate. In your mind, you're thinking - really? Can these two things be good together? One bite, however, and you're sure. Yes - they can be good together. It's the same way for sweet potatoes and chorizo. The sweetness of the potato combines very nicely with the spicy bite of the chorizo (although chorizo really isn't that spicy - if you can handle summer sausage, you can handle chorizo.)

What you end up with is a nice, smokey, soup. The overall flavor is that of a sweet potato, however, the chorizo adds a smokey flavor to the whole dish. The soup is neither hot, nor sweet - rather it's this (almost hard to define) blend between the two. It's warm - yet mild. It's delicious!

The only change I would make to this recipe would be to omit the chile.

 *Aside: I did some digging as to why the red chile seems to be so hard to find right now. It turns out, they are out of season. Grocery stores that bring in fresh ingredients (Hy-Vee & Gateway Market) simply cannot stock true Mexican chiles during this time of year. I'm assuming that Target either owns a large farm - or contracts out another company with said farm - that grows fruits and veggies out of season.*

Peak season is August - October 

While the rest of the soup was a nice, warm, mild flavor  - the chile was overpoweringly HOT. When you hit a bite that had a small diced chile in it - you knew. This had to have been one of the hottest red chiles we've ever had! Even if the chile had not been as hot - the soup really doesn't need that extra kick. All of the ingredients blend very well together as it currently stands.

This recipe is certainly going into our big book of repeat recipes - here's hoping you give it a try for yourself. Don't let your assumptions fool you. The flavor here isn't what your mind 'assumes' it to be. This dish is one of those rare occurrences where two things that don't seem related - turn out to be fantastic!

That's all we have for you tonight! I'm back in the kitchen tomorrow with a recipe that is (appearing to be) rather complicated. (Actually, it combines two ingredients that you don't normally associate with each other either! Just noticed that!) Come back tomorrow to see what I've got cooking. Until then,

~Cheers

This Week's Ingredients

Happy Monday everyone! Hopefully this day finds you enjoying an extra day off - preferably in some nice, sunny weather. Alas, around the greater Des Moines area - that is not the case. Yet again, we are dreary and wet - essentially washing away a long 'summer' weekend. That's alright though - today is Monday, which means one thing...grocery day! Today it took a few trips to acquire everything we were looking for. However, after three stores (20 some miles) and a lot of searching, we've acquired all of this week's ingredients. 

1 Bag Carrots 

2 X Medium Onions 

1 Sweet Potato 

Vegetable Broth 

1 Red Chile * 

1 Lb Russet Potatoes 

3 X Lemons 

2 X Salmon Fillets (6 oz. each) 

7 Oz. Chorizo ** 

2 X Shallots 

1 Box Arborio Rice 

Mascarpone Cheese 

1 Lb Baby Potatoes 

Fresh Mint 

* The first ingredient we had issues tracking down was a red chile. Our local Hy-Vee hasn't stocked red chiles for about a month now. We've managed to work around and use substitutes, but we really need a red chile for one of the recipes this week. After finishing up at Hy-Vee, we journeyed to one of our favorite metro Des Moines locations - Gateway Market. This little market carries all sorts of things that normal grocery stores do not (imports - out of season veggies, spices etc.) surely, they would have a red chile! Nope. Go fish. We ended up having to go to a Super Target to track down the elusive little thing. Is there a shortage on red chiles at the moment? I may have to do some research... 

** Another ingredient that we had to search for. Luckily, Gateway Market did have chorizo in stock. Chorizo is a dried, spicy, sausage. The chorizo that Gateway had was imported from Spain...and was packaged entirely in Spanish. Luckily, I remember some key phrases and words from my four years of Spanish...mainly "Picante" (HOT). The chorizo came in two forms - picante and plain old chorizo. Knowing that chorizo is ALREADY a spicy sausage - the wrong grab could have destroyed our mouths! 

There you have it. There are a lot of new and interesting ingredients on this week's list. Shallots, mint, arborio rice, mascarpone cheese, chorizo - all things that we have never used before. It's going to be an interesting week! Tune in tomorrow as I take over the kitchen for a soup that I've been very eager to try. (So eager that I cannot wait until winter when it is 'okay' to make a soup.) Until then, 

~Cheers 

ANOTHER Delicious Twist On Pancakes

Good morning everyone! Happy 4th of July!! Alas, it is raining and otherwise dreary around our area today, so it looks like 4th of July fireworks and other festivities are either canceled or very soggy. That makes today a good day to stay inside and make up some breakfast! 

About a month ago, we shared a simple pancake recipe with you, highlighting how the simple foundation can be utilized into so many other types of recipes. We asked for feedback on our reader's own pancake recipes - and you didn't disappoint. Today, we have yet another new pancake recipe - however, this one is unlike ANYTHING we've discussed before. This recipe doesn't have sugar - you don't use syrup or butter and it's topped with something I would never had thought to use as a pancake topper. Hold on to your seats, we're about to blow the world of conventional pancakes away! (Maybe that's slightly overdramatic, but it still is a pretty cool recipe) 

The Recipe: One-Cup Pancakes, Tropical Yogurt And Mango* 

Original Recipe Found In: Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals

* I'm renaming this recipe here and now. I'm not sure what Jamie was thinking, but that name is boring. From hence forth, this recipe will be called 'Mango Pancakes' a better name...in my opinion! 

Mangoes - the breakfast fruit? 

What You'll Need: 

For The Pancakes:

1 Egg 

1 Cup Flour - Either Self Rising Or All Purpose (See note below) 

1 Cup Milk 

Sea Salt 

2 Mangoes 

For The Yogurt: 

1 Cup Natural Yogurt Or Tropical Flavored Yogurt (See additional note below) 

A Handful Of Unsweetened, Shredded Coconut 

2 Bananas 

Note on the flour: You choice of flour here depends on your pancake preference. If you like thinner, more European style pancakes (similar to Crêpes) use all purpose flour. If you prefer the american version of pancakes (big, fluffy cakes) use a self rising flour. For our recipe, we used self rising flour so we could have a nice, fluffy pancake. 

Note on the yogurt: Jamie's recipe calls for homemade tropical yogurt using bananas and shredded coconut. Since I'm not a big coconut fan, I opted to use a tropical a yogurt as a replacement. However, if you do like coconut - I'll place the instructions for making the homemade yogurt later on in the recipe. 

Begin by slicing your mangoes. (Just like I shared with you a few weeks ago for my tropical fruit salad recipe.) Since I went into full detail there about how to slice a mango, I'll just give the bullet points here. Begin by slicing off the cheeks of the mango.

Once sliced off, use a paring knife to crosshatch the mango's cheeks.

Push up on the underside of the mango to create a porcupine look.

You can either slice the skin off here...

Or, slice off the squares. Next, carefully slice around the skin of the center section of the mango. 

Finally, use your paring knife to cut away all of the soft meat. Anywhere you meet resistance is the pit of the fruit. A lot of the center section will (unfortunately) be unusable. 

If you are going to make the tropical yogurt, begin by peeling your bananas into a large bowl and then mash them up with a fork. Add in your shredded coconut and the yogurt and mix well. Set aside this mixture until you're ready to serve. 

Jamie's big draw for this recipe is the fact that it is 'one cup'. You don't even have to use a measuring cup - you can use a mug and (so long as it is the same mug for everything you measure) everything will work out just fine. Begin to make your batter by adding one cup of flour, one egg and one cup of milk into a large mixing bowl. Mix by hand for about 30 seconds or until the mixture is smooth. You shouldn't have very many lumps in the batter. 

Our 'mug' 

Mixin' like a madman 

Next, set your griddle or a frying pan on medium heat and spread a little olive oil across the surface of the pan to prevent sticking. Once the pan is nice and toasty (the oil should be 'smoking' a little) pour in your batter and make up the pancakes. 

They smelled just as good as they looked 

Once you've finished cooking up all of your pancakes, simply top them with your yogurt. (In this case, I chose a banana & strawberry yogurt - I wanted to use something tropical and fruity, but didn't want to go with Jamie's coconut version. Any flavor of fruit yogurt that compliments mangoes (such as melons, kiwi, strawberries, pineapple) would be good alternatives as well.) Finally, add your slices of mango and your ready to go! 

The Results: 

When I shared with Maggie that this recipe wasn't going to use syrup, or butter or some other form of sugary topping that pancakes have become so accustomed to being topped with - she was visibly apprehensive. To be honest, I was a little nervous myself. The things I have topped pancakes with throughout my entire life are as follows: Syrup (all flavors) butter, nuts, whipped cream, powdered sugar, carmel and chocolate. Not exactly the healthy isle in the store. How exactly would yogurt and fruit taste atop a pancake? Well, in short - amazing. 

The yogurt / mango combination made for a fantastically fruity burst of flavor to the flavor neutral pancake. You honestly don't need butter, syrup or some other sweetener in this recipe, because the naturally sweet flavors of the mango provide more than enough. The yogurt keeps the pancake from drying out too much (it actually absorbs some of the yogurt - with makes for a very interesting first bite!) All in all, this is one of the best variations I've had on pancakes in my lifetime. I know the folks at IHop lay claim to innovation with the pancake - but I don't recall every seeming something so fruity (or as healthy) on their menu. Even their 'healthy' options come with whipped topping to add artificial sweetness to the dish. What ever happened to letting the food do the talking? Get on the ball people at the 'house of pancakes' there's a great recipe sitting right under your nose (one that doesn't raise your chances for diabetes after eating them). 

In short - try this pancake recipe some Sunday morning. You may have a new favorite way to start your day. I know we do. Of course, the options are not limited to mangoes and tropical yogurt. You can use bananas and strawberry yogurt. Blueberries and natural yogurt. Strawberries and vanilla yogurt. The options and endless - but all of them are delicious. 

That's all we have for you today. We hope you enjoyed reading our new favorite twist on a classic breakfast dish. We're back tomorrow with our list of ingredients for the coming week. I will be cooking on both Tuesday and Wednesday this week - with Maggie taking Thursday - due to a scheduled long day at work (for me) on Thursday. Enjoy your holiday everyone! We'll see you back here tomorrow! 

~Cheers 

Saturday Quick Hit: How To Buy A Grill Pan

Good morning everyone! (Technically, I'm typing this on Friday evening, but no one will really see it until Saturday morning...) It's the 4th of July weekend (hooray!) which marks the (unofficial) midpoint of summer. (And, alternatively always seems to mark the point where the rest of the summer zooms right past!) This holiday weekend is typically associated with the outdoors, family - friends and food. Most importantly, grilling!

We've done a lot of grilling on the blog lately, although not in the traditional sense. As we've noted, we recently acquired a grill pan, and as I'm sure you've noticed, we've put it to good use already. Nearly every recipe I've tried in the past two weeks (minus the beef wellington recipe) has used our gill pan in some form.

I really am enjoying the multiple uses and extra adaptability this product is adding to our kitchen. It truly has open up many other avenues for recipes and different approaches to cooking our dishes. Using a grill pan on certain cuts of meat (steaks and chicken for us, that's all we've had the ability to test so far) really generates new ways to create amazing flavors that simple pan frying cannot produce.

What's funny is up until a few months ago, I had never even heard of a grill pan. When I first learned that such a pan existed, I scoffed - "What is the purpose of a grill pan?" I wondered, "It doesn't seem to do anything different than a frying pan". Well, I've since learned that a grill pan allows you to char and sear meat in ways frying pans can only dream of - and a good grill pan can reach extremely hot temperatures, something a common frying pan cannot safely do.

So yes, I do recommend adding a grill pan to your kitchen arsenal, if you do not already own one. However, there are some tips to buying a good grill pan - because if you choose a poor grill pan you will not be very happy with the results. Below I've listed the top five tips I've found to buying a good grill pan. I used all five and am very happy with the results.

**Note** Since I originally posted this article, I've stumbled across some more tips -some of which contradict my earlier research. As such, I've amended the article below to include both viewpoints whenever I've come across a contradiction.

In addition, since I've edited this article a few times now, the formatting is a little messy. If your version shows the text randomly getting smaller in the center, I apologize. Once again, you get what you pay for with the Google blogger tool. While this tool is amazing most of the time, sometimes it causes formatting issues that can be a real headache. On my end - everything looks fine. When you view the website, however, everything gets a little...out of whack. I apologize in advance for a less than desirable presentation with this article.

Our grill pan

#1 Find a good, thick pan

There are many grill pans on the market, and they are not all the same. The largest difference between a quality grill pan and a piece of junk pan lies in the thickness of the pan. The easiest way to see this difference is to simply reach around the back of the pan and feel. If you can feel the ridges of the grill on the bottom of the pan - walk away. These pans are no thicker than a standard frying pan and simply will not take or contain the heat that a thick grill pan will. I was shocked at how many - very expensive - grill pans fell to this problem. Bed Bath & Beyond, Target and even some Williams & Sonoma pans all came up very thin. I found our grill pan at TJ Maxx for $19. It just goes to show, price is not an indicator of quality in all cases.

There are some, such as the folks at America's Test Kitchen, who swear by a grill pan that has the indentations showing. They claim this allows the heat to transfer faster and speeds up cooking time. I've read just as many websites that say the exact opposite, however. America's test kitchen claims that you need to still find a thick pan (with the indentations) - I've found this rather difficult. The pan they recommend is over $90 - which could be out of budget for a lot of people. From all of my research I've reached one conclusion. You need to find a thick grill pan, regardless of indentations showing on the bottom or not. If you are looking to save a little cash, you can purchase a grill pan with a copper core. If money is no object, find a thick pan that shows the indentations - just be prepared to spend close to $100.

That top ridge is the thickness of our pan - that's what you're looking for

#1.5 Find a pan with a copper core

This was originally #3 on the list, but since I've found some more information, I'm simply merging this tip with #1. As I mentioned, a solid bottomed pan with a copper core is going to be your most cost effective option. A copper core will conduct heat quickly from your heat source throughout the entire pan. Since a copper core allows you to heat your pan faster, you can achieve goals such as searing the mushrooms from Thursday's recipe and then move onto cooking your steaks in a very short period of time.

Pans with a copper core will typically have a base that looks like this notice 2 things: 

1. You cannot see the grill 'ridges' from the bottom of the pan 

2. The abuse our pan has taken already! 

#2 Cast iron grill pans are your friend

Ideally, your grill pan should be cast iron (and non-stick!). Cast iron contains its heat better than aluminum pans and that will greatly help your cooking time. Many recipes that call for a grill pan do so assuming that you can throw the meat on, sear or char it quickly and be done. Spending time turning and babysitting your cut of meat on a pan that can't keep up with the heat will only delay your recipe and in some cases (like our charred mushrooms from Thursday -which had to be charred fast) could even ruin the dish!

#3 Find a pan with high ridges 

The higher the grilling ridges on your pan, the greater caramelization you will achieve while cooking. Grill lines appear more defined, and the searing process is enhanced - all good things for your cut of meat, and the overall recipe. The taller the ridges, the better the caramelization, the better the end result. 

#4 Buy a pan with a drainage spout

Quality pans will come with some form of drain or spout on the side. This allows you to dispose of grease and other liquid droppings easily after you've finished cooking. This also allows you to salvage said juices if you plan on making a gravy or sauce.

Grill pans, teapots - they both have spouts - only one has a song though 

# 5 Choose a grill pan with a hard-anodized surface

This will prevent cracking and chipping in your pan - guaranteeing it will last a long time. You grill pan will take some abuse. Cooking on a grill pan is generally fast and aggressive. Get in, get out, get on cooking. You will knock the pan around and scratch at it from time to time. A hardy finish on the pan will keep it looking nice (and in one piece) well after the pan's first use.

We store our pan on the wall, right above the stove - easy access! 

That's all we have for you today! I hope you enjoyed our Saturday quick hit. More importantly, I hope you know have the knowledge necessary to make a good grill pan purchase. Use this weekend to go out and seek a grill pan from your retailer of choice. If you keep (and follow) these five tips in mind, you will not be disappointed with what you buy. A grill pan is simply a kitchen necessity - and it's a lot of fun to use!

We're back on Sunday with a breakfast recipe that is sure to grab your attention. Stop in then to see what we're cooking next! Until Sunday, 

~Cheers 

If You Make Enough Changes To A Recipe, Does It Become An Original?

Welcome back to Out Of The Culinary! Tonight's blog title says it all. When I set out to pick my Thursday recipe, I wanted to find something that was simple to make - yet complex in flavor. I wanted to use ingredients I was familiar with, but use them in a way I had never done before. After some searching, I found the recipe I was looking for - however, things began to go off track with this recipe right away...and what I ended up with was nothing close to the recipe (but still very good!)

The Recipe: Butterflied Steak Sarnie
Original Recipe From: Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals

(Yes, the link works again! However, it looks like it wasn't due to a shortage of the book - but rather Amazon's outage on Tuesday)

What You'll Need:

2 Large Portobello Mushrooms*
2 X 7 Oz. Fillet Mignon Steaks
Rosemary
Sea Salt & Black Pepper

(Yup, that's it!)

* Quick note on the portobello mushrooms. First, some people call them portabellA mushrooms, others portobellO. I've always heard them called portabella, and when I saw the recipe call for portobello - I decided to do some digging on the difference between the two. It turns out, there is none. Whether you call it portobello or portabella seems to be a result of 1) your region and 2) what commercial / advertisement you've just seen. It seems the only difference between the A and the O is marketing fluff. Marketers refer to the mushroom in one way in one region of the US, another in a different region (all based on their scientific charts of what will sell best where I guess...) So, which is the 'correct' version? Neither.

Two, large portobello mushrooms

It turns out that portobello mushrooms are actually brown crimini mushrooms, just undersized. Does your head hurt yet? I know mine does. For the purposes of the blog tonight, I'm calling them portobello mushrooms. Enough about mushrooms...moving on-

Begin by slicing your portobello mushrooms. Slice off the stem and then trim the bottom edge so the entire mushroom is flat across the bottom (if you sit it on a countertop, it shouldn't 'wobble'). Place your grill pan on medium heat and while the pan is warming up, toss your mushrooms on - bottom down. Press them into the pan while it is heating up. Once the underside is nice and charred (after about 2 minutes or so) flip the mushroom over and grill the top side for another minute. Once charred to satisfaction - set the mushrooms aside.

Give the mushrooms a good press, to achieve the charred result 

Next, turn your attention to your steaks. Now, here is where my experience and the recipe's direction begin to separate. Jamie's recipe calls for fillet mignon. We were not able to obtain fillet mignon this week (I.E. not in the budget!) so we went with a very high quality ribeye instead. I assumed "steak is steak and a quality cut of one should be as good as a quality cut of another"...wrong.

You are supposed to butterfly the steak by taking a sharp knife and slowly slicing back and forth across the middle section of the meat. Once you get to the end, pull the meat back and open it like a book. According to Mr. Oliver, this is incredibly simple and should only take a few moments. Well...I didn't have such luck. I'm not sure if it was the wrong cut of meat, our knives weren't sharp enough or if something else entirely was getting in the way, but I could not - absolutely could NOT slice through that bugger. All I ended up making was a nice meat 'pouch' in one of the steaks.

Attempting to butterfly my steak...it didn't go well 

Taking a step back, I surveyed the situation. We picked up a very thin ribeye to begin with - this, I decided, would be good enough for our purposes. Since the ribeye was already thin, it was essentially the same effect as butterflying it. So, I decided against butterflying the steak - mainly because I wasn't able to. (Everything else in this recipe does not change wether you managed to butterfly your steak or not, so feel free to continue following along.)

Next, season your steaks with rosemary and a pinch of salt and pepper. Simply sprinkle some of the seasoning on your cutting board and push each steak into the seasonings. This works them into the meat and really cooks in the flavor.

Rosemary, basil, salt & pepper - right on the cutting board 

I had to improvise here (yet again). As I turned to our spice rack to grab the rosemary, I noticed something was missing...mainly, rosemary. It turns our, we had run ourselves out of rosemary and had yet to pick any more up. Thinking on the fly, I substituted the rosemary with another strong herb - basil.

Once your steaks are seasoned, drizzle each with a little bit of olive oil and place them in your grill pan. (Still on medium heat). If you managed to butterfly your steak, you should only need to cook them for about 4 minutes in total - flipping every minute. This will give you a medium-rare steak. Longer time (obviously) will yield a slightly more cooked steak. Since our ribeye was a little thicker, I had to cook them for about 7 minutes, still rotating every minute.

*Sizzle* 

Halfway home!

Once the steaks are done, simply top them with your grilled mushrooms and serve. Since we still had some italian bread left from Maggie's recipe yesterday, I threw that on the grill pan for about 30 seconds to toast it and added it as a side as well. Jamie recommends serving up the steak with a side of dijon mustard. Since we're not British - we opted for a side of good ol' American steak sauce instead. All that's left is to enjoy!

Slicing up the last minute addition to the recipe 

The Results:

                                    


All in all, the end result was still delicious. Even though my version of butterflied steak sarnie wasn't exactly butterflied...or fillet mignon...or seasoned with rosemary, it was still a very tasty dish! As I hinted at yesterday, tonight was the first time I had ever eaten a mushroom. (Setting all sorts of firsts this week - first a return to peas, now mushrooms!). I have to say, they are not as bad as I always thought they were. When you cook a portobello mushroom on a grill, it gives it a 'nutty' flavor. A slice of mushroom on top of a slice of steak produced a very flavorful result. The basil was a nice last minute substitute for rosemary and really enhanced the steak's meaty flavor.

That being said, I don't know if I'll use mushrooms again like I did tonight. Slicing them up and adding them to a dish does seem to have its merits, however, using a giant portobello mushroom as a topper to a slice of meat seemed a little overbearing. When combining a bite of steak with an equal size bite of mushroom, the mushroom's flavor overpowered and all you ended up with was a nutty tasting mouthful. Small bites of mushroom balanced this issue out, but that left a lot of leftover mushroom long after the steak was gone.

Live and learn, that's our motto - and we certainly did that tonight. I don't think this one will make our big book of repeat recipes, although the steak seasoned with basil will (It was really good!) The recipe is still enjoyable and I would recommend you give it a try. The only changes I would make is to reduce the number of mushrooms to one. That way you can slice it in half and share it between the two steaks. That will result in a better balance of flavor, and a lot less mushroom leftovers.

That's all we have for you tonight! Thank you once again for stopping by and sharing our cooking experiences with us. We're off tomorrow and don't have a major post planned for Saturday (that doesn't mean we wont post a 'quick hit' about something interesting in the culinary world...stop in Saturday to see what we're up to) We will have a post on Sunday, we're going to be cooking up another breakfast recipe - be sure to stop in then to see what we've got cooking. Until then,

~Cheers