Dinner In A Bowl: Steak Salad

No real recipe for this one, because almost everything is optional.

First I boiled a few new potatoes. I let them cool, quartered them, and then lightly pan-fried them in olive oil with a little garlic powder.

Then I made a nice green salad, with romaine lettuce, cucumber, tomato, mild black olives, and feta cheese, added the potatoes, and tossed it with cider vinegar and just a dash of olive oil.

Then I took a thinnish (about 2 cm) ribeye, maybe 6 oz or so, and pan-seared it using Alton Brown's method. While it was resting I put three chopped mushrooms and a pat of butter into the skillet and let the residual heat cook them. After the steak had rested for several minutes I sliced it very thinly. I laid the steak and mushrooms atop the salad and dressed it generously with Francis Lam's ginger-scallion oil.

The result was so mouth-wateringly aromatic and so delicious that I tore into it before even thinking of taking a photo to post here.

This Is How You Empty A Fridge

Ginger Filet of Beef

1 6-8 oz sirloin or filet
kosher salt
1 T ginger-scallion oil

Pan-sear the filet and finish in the oven as described here, but without peppercorns. Spoon the ginger-scallion oil over the meat immediately after removing from the oven and allow to rest.

Passionfruit Curried Cauliflower

half-dozen cauliflower florets, quartered
1/2 red onion, chopped
1/2 jalapeño, seeded and chopped

pinch kosher salt

1 T olive oil

1/2 c passionfruit juice drink
1 T green curry paste
1 t cornstarch
5 canned white asparagus spears
1/2 small cucumber, chopped
handful cilantro leaves, chopped
1 lemon wedge

Heat oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Saute the cauliflower, onion, and jalapeño with a pinch of kosher salt until they just start to soften. Add the passionfruit drink and curry paste, stir to mix, and bring to a low boil until the liquid reduces by about a third. Mix the cornstarch in a little water to make a slurry, add and stir until thickened. Remove from heat and add the cilantro, asparagus, and cucumber. Squeeze in the lemon just before serving.

Served with leftover miso rice.

Fusion Nachos for Breakfast

What's "fusion" about them? Before warming the chips and carne asada in the microwave, I doped the meat with superheated hydrogen plasma at pressures only seen in nature deep in the fiery core of a star a couple teaspoons of Francis Lam's ginger-scallion oil. Big, bold flavor resulted, even capable of standing up to those pickled jalapeños.

A quick lunch salad

This poorly-presented bowl of yumminess contains grape tomatoes, scallions, cucumber, olives, avocado, some white rice cooked with golden raisins, and goat's milk feta, all dressed with a couple tablespoons of gently-warmed ginger-scallion oil.

It was quite nice. The green olives were a bit too vinegary, they kind of clashed with the ginger flavor, but the mild black olives were fine. And the occasional raisin was a burst of contrasting sweetness that really highlighted the onions and the saltiness of the feta.

You could make it a much less intense (and much less expensive) experience if the proportions were altered to be more rice and less of everything else: a rice salad with some vegetables instead of a vegetable salad with a little rice.

It was accompanied by a small glass from a bottle of 4-dollar sake from the local whole food market. I think the stuff is intended to be cooking-quality vile, but chill it down and it's really quite tolerable.