If you got my borderline culturally insensitive reference to a really bad late-eighties hip hop band's song title, then good for you. If you didn't, trust me, you're really better off for it.
To say I'm busy right now would be a huge understatement, but I'm too busy to think of a more accurate way to put it. As you may know, I just got back from a press trip to Vail and Aspen, and have articles to write for About.com. This weekend is chock-full of SF Chefs. Food. Wine. coverage, and more articles to write, after which I leave Monday for a two-week trip to western New York.
After a couple weeks catching up with family and friends (and eating chicken wings, iceberg lettuce, and garbage plates), I return to San Francisco for just a couple days before driving down to Santa Maria, California for a three-day Tri-Tip expedition (which you will be hearing much more about).
After returning from the land of barbecued beef and pinquito beans, I have only a couple days to catch my breath before flying down to LA to meet my "people," aka Brand New Entertainment, to do some filming on what may be the first step towards becoming the Bret Michaels of unscripted food television. I will continue to post from the road as much as possible. Of course, as often happens when I travel, I will probably be doing some impromptu video production along the way. So stay tuned for that, and please bear with me on the email/comment replies, or lack there of.
Okay, on to the recipe du jour! This miso-glazed recipe features Barramundi, a mild, flaky white-fleshed fish that you'll probably be seeing more and more due to it's reputation as a sustainable, eco-friendly seafood.
It's showing up in grocery store frozen seafood cases, and chances are you'll run across some soon. If you do, buy it and make this recipe.
By the way, you have to love Wikipedia for finding out where a food's name comes from. According to God knows who, Barramundi is a loanword from a Queenslander Australian language of the Rockhampton area meaning, "large-scaled river fish". Of course it is.
This super-simple recipe uses a miso glaze which is very popular with restaurant chefs, but not a common home cook ingredient. Miso is a traditional Japanese sauce made with rice, soybeans, and sometimes barley, which is fermented with salt and the fungus, Aspergillus oryzae. Sounds good, right? It is, don't be afraid!
This glaze can be used on lots of different fish, so if you can't find Barramundi, any firm white fish fillets will work. I hope you give this a try. Enjoy!
Chef Martin Yan is famous for being able to cut up a chicken in 18 seconds. I captured this at the SF Chefs. Food. Wine. event (they really need to do something about those periods). I used my little Flip cam, and couldn’t get too close, but it's still kind of fun to watch. If you look up at the mirror above the stage, you can sort of see what he is doing. Enjoy!
As soon as I get off the plane from my gourmet getaway to Colorado, I begin covering another major food event. SF Chefs. Food. Wine., which begins on Thursday, August 6th, and runs through the 9th, is hoping to become the premier annual culinary event San Francisco has been lacking.
As a longtime resident, I've always thought that for a city with such an incredibly rich culinary tradition, San Francisco should have its very own signature annual food and wine event. Hopefully, this event will turn out to be exactly that.
San Francisco's Union Square will be home to the main tasting tent where chefs, wine makers and local farmers will feature the best in sustainable foods and local products. A long, eclectic schedule of classes and seminars will also be offered in nearby hotels and restaurants, allowing patrons to interact with chefs, vintners, distillers, ranchers, food authors, and other culinary experts.
I'll be attending the Thursday night San Francisco Chronicle "Rising Stars" Opening Reception, as well as many other events throughout the weekend. In addition to being on the lookout for standout dishes and recipes to create videos with, I'll be taking lots of pictures so you can see what promises to be some very beautiful food.
If you live in the SF/Bay Area and were looking for a great reason to go besides the food and drink, this event will be supporting four local charities; San Francisco Food Bank, Meals on Wheels, The Golden Gate Restaurant Association Scholarship Foundation, and Project Open Hand.
Last night I enjoyed a fantastic dinner at The Lodge at Vail's signature restaurant, The Wildflower. Before dinner Executive Chef Rahm Fama treated us to a very enjoyable demonstration on how he makes his fresh mozzarella cheese.
The charismatic chef clearly enjoys interacting with the guests, and not only was knowledgeable and technically skilled, but also had just the right amount of "ham" in him to turn what could have been a tiresome demonstration into an engaging and entertaining performance.
I was able to film the presentation with my little Flip cam, so pardon the low-end production value in the video I've posted below. I need to thank fellow press member Allan Lynch for allowing me to use some of his footage. I had some momentary battery issues, but luckily Allan was also capturing the scene.
After the demo we enjoyed a very impressive dinner at what's considered by many the best restaurant in Vail. I will be posting some beautiful photos of the food Chef Fama prepared for us, including a simple amuse bouche made with the fresh mozzarella.
By the way, those of you following me on Twitter got a few sneak previews (did that foie gras look amazing, or what?) If you're not already following me, here is the link. Enjoy!
Here's the final post in the dry-aging steaks at home saga. What follows is my honest opinion on the results, as well as a fairly pointless video showing me finishing the project.
Admittedly, there isn't much to learn from the video, but since some of you seemed genuinely interested I figured you'd want to see the finale.
By the way, if you read my last post you know I'm in Vail, CO being wined and dined by RockResorts, so I did this voiceover in the hotel room with a voice you only get at 8,000 feet.
When I first considered how to test my dry-aged steaks, I was thinking of the standard "taste it with an un-aged steak and compare" method. Seemed logical, but then I thought of something even better -- why not taste it next a higher-grade, professionally dry-aged steak?
This would be the true test. Would my steaks have the same taste and texture as the real deal? As I've already stated in previous blogs, there's really no debate about whether a dry-aged steak is a superior eating experience to a conventional steak, so it seemed anticlimactic to taste them side-by-side just to say, "hmmm…the steak aged two-weeks is more tender and flavorful." What a shocker.
So, instead I bought a thick, well-aged steak from the same butcher, using the same beef as the whole loin I'd bought. Not only that, but I decided to make it even more of a challenge and bought "Prime" grade steak. The battle was on. Would my home-aged, "Choice" grade steaks match up against a "Prime" grade steak aged by an expert? First of all, the Drybags clearly worked exactly as advertised. The surface was hard and leathery, as you can see in my short video, and the meat had definitely undergone a slow, controlled drying process.
The loin smelled exactly like the aged steak I've worked with in the past, which is to say it had a faint, meaty musk that I would describe, as strange as it may sound, as very pleasant. After trimming off the hard, dried exterior, the color of the meat was a beautiful deep, dark red. As promised the bag allowed moisture to escape, yet sealed it from the outside environment, so no spoilage occurred.
The steaks were coated with freshly ground black pepper and allowed to come to room temperature. After a generous application of kosher salt, they were cooked over charcoal to medium-rare (internal temp of 130 degrees F). After resting, I sliced up the "Prime" dry-aged steak from the butcher. We tasted, and it was predictably fabulous.
We then cut into my steaks, and I'm happy to report the results were pretty impressive. I found the meat tender and flavorful, and comparable to the professionally aged beef. Lenny and Denise from ChezUs joined us to assist in the tasting, and along with my wife Michele, we had four experienced palates on the case.
The final verdict was; two of us though the steaks were comparable, one thought the quality of the butcher's steak was slightly better, and one definitely preferred the home dry-aged steak more.
So, there you have it. As to whether the Drybags are an effective way to age your own steaks at home, the answer is a definite yes. Should you get one? I can't answer that -- these are matters of taste -- while I feel strongly dry-aged steaks are better, you may not.
If you love dry-aged steak, and want to eat it more often, without the expense of the steakhouse it may be a good investment. It's worth noting that it also comes with smaller bags for regular vacuum packing, so that could factor into your decision.
Thanks to Drybag Steak for letting me test the product out. It was a fun experiment, and the final product was quite luxurious.
If you want more info, or have specific questions, please refer to the Drybag Steak website.
Professional food bloggers do not live by old beef alone! In addition to the steaks you see here, the rest of the menu included: - Frog Hollow peach, basil, and mozzeralla fresca crostini - Prosciutto and argula on baguette - Roasted cipollini onions - Watercress salad with marinated early girl tomatoes - Sottocenere truffle cheese and lobster mushroom pomme dauphinoise (I filmed this, so stay tuned for that video soon!) - Two sauces: classic Bordelaise sauce, and not so classic "Béarnaise" aioli.
I've always wanted to use that headline! I have to apologize -- I promised to post the dry-aged beef review today, but I left this morning for a three-day business trip to Vail/Aspen and I had a problem with my flight, which caused me to arrive much later than planned.
I wanted to finish and upload the beefy goodness before the first event this evening, but because of the late arrival there was no time, so I'll do it tomorrow. Hey, it's not like you're waiting for some great new recipe.
I'm currently at the amazingly beautiful Arrabelle, one the most luxurious hotels in Vail. The management team at RockResorts is trying to get the word out about some very interesting programs regarding culinary sustainability, as well as earth-friendly changes to the spas and guest rooms.
I was invited on the press trip to check it out and report back (I know, tough work). Stay tuned!
Spoiler alert: they were great! I'll have a more detailed report tomorrow, but the Drybags worked great, and the hunk of beef I sealed two weeks ago produced some very delicious steaks.
By the way, as I cut into the 3rd slice, I got a little shock...my strip loin was turning into a rib eye! A commenter had said it looked like a rib roast, but since it came from a butcher, and was priced and labeled as "strip loin," and the end piece was definitely a NY strip, well, I assumed I was aging a strip loin. I'm going to show the butcher the photos and ask why my roast was part NY and part rib eye. Also, great eyes by the viewer who identified it in the first video (I believe I called him a fool, which I must now retract). Stay tuned!
If you got my borderline culturally insensitive reference to a really bad late-eighties hip hop band's song title, then good for you. If you didn't, trust me, you're really better off for it.
After returning from the land of barbecued beef and pinquito beans, I have only a couple days to catch my breath before flying down to LA to meet my "people," aka Brand New Entertainment, to do some filming on what may be the first step towards becoming the Bret Michaels of unscripted food television.
It's showing up in grocery store frozen seafood cases, and chances are you'll run across some soon. If you do, buy it and make this recipe.
