pepper

Speaking of Food – Sauces

Haven’t done a food post for a while so with the holidays in a few months are some sauces you can use to brush up your meals so to speak. The sauce is a lot like the wing man in a fully composed meal. It should not compete with the other elements of the dish, but work with them to bring out their very best. So here are some sauces defined.

Pomodoro – One can look at this is as the basic tomato sauce. Fresh picked tomatoes with very little extra seasoning cooked down to a sauce consistency. Tomato puree can add thickening power if you find through the simmering process that it just is not the texture you wish.

Marinara – Usually seasoned with onion as well as more herbs and garlic then a pomodoro sauce would be.  Due to the additions of other flavors stirring to keep  any possible items  from sticking to the bottom of the pot  may be critical. Finding a a good bodied red wine can add a flavor boost near the end of the simmering process.

Arrabiata – This is known as the angry sauce due to the amount of chili pepper in it. It is made from a tomato base like the marinara and the spice should be calculated carefully as I have found acidic elements – such as the tomatoes in the base make the heat of the peppers a little more pronounced. When simmering try to keep the heat on the pot on the lower side of simmer (medium low on most stoves) Simmering sauces to high after the inclusion of spices may add unwanted bitterness or a metallic flavor to your sauce

Gastrique – A sauce comprised of vinegar, sugar and seasonings under low heat. With the holidays coming up a cranberry gastrique is often a nice way to bring a fresher cranberry sauce to the table. The biggest thing to be careful of is let everything come together slowly as if you leave it for a moment on high heat after it has just absorbed all the sugar then you could burn it.

Compound butter – A forgotten sauce for some reason it can be made and frozen and holds very well in the freezer. It really is butter plus (x). You can mix some apple sauce and honey in it and do a sweeter one. Mix herbs and lemon and use that for grilling or roasting. It is so easy to make you just take what you want to mix  add it to cold butter and let it warm to room temp before mixing it thoroughly.

Stock is also something that yo ushould make and usually is good with whatever is left over from a roast. It is in a lot of different sauces and can add body to just about everything that has to be simmered.

 

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Apple onion salad with garlic mustard dressing

This is a nice dish that will work well with the pork dish for next week. If you are vegetarian no fear this works just as well as a light potluck dish. For two servings you will need the following.

Salad: One green apple, half a white or yellow onion, salt and black pepper to taste, one lemon to juice. In this picture the orange and lemon are already zested because I used the zest for making my own bath salts. Like put in the bath and make everything smell nice as you relax and mine is all natural. Salt, teas, extracts, zests, etc. So ya mine are already zested if you have a moment you can use the zest as a garnish on top.

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Dressing: A tablespoon mustard paired with one of honey or two tablespoons honey mustard, one teaspoon chopped garlic, a pinch of cocoa powder.

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So core your apple chop it in to quarters before slicing and toss it in a pan on low heat. Next you want to take your half onion and slice it up julienne style making sure to do it a little thicker then normal julienne. tossing it in the pan we will mix it together and let the flavors meet each other as the onion begins to sweeten. Sweating on medium low with a touch of butter or oil of your choice if you do not have a non stick pan.

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Mix up your dressing as everything is sweating just mixing it all up before tossing a portion in to toss with the reminder of the dressing on the side to taste.

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Beef and bell peppers over rice

For this you will need the following for ten portions heaped over rice. This is a dish that holds well in the fridge and can be eaten as is or over rice or noodles. When my friends or myself are feeling a little under the weather we eat a bowl of this. It can cure what ails ya.

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Seven large peppers consisting of three red bell peppers, two yellow, a green bell pepper, and one poblano pepper.

One large white onion, one bunch of green onions, one shallot, and five or six good sized cloves of crushed garlic.

Meat wise you will need a half pound of each beef and pork chorizo and a pound and a half of 75/25 ground beef ( 25% fat)

Otherwise you will need a tablespoon of oil. (your choice) I had olive nearby but any will do.

Start by getting your oil in the pot before putting the pot on medium low heat.

Peel and smash your garlic before adding them to the pot. Dice your onion type items ( green, white, and shallot)  before dumping them in to the pot and giving them a good stir. You don’t want to hear a whole lot of sizzling.The pot will be there just to hold everything.

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Give it a good stir before dicing up your peppers. Make sure to remove the white ribs of pith (That’s the kind of soft stuff forming the ribs inside the pepper.) Dice your peppers up and toss them in. Even if you are not the fastest with a knife you should have very little effect on the food. We are letting all the guests know each other flavor wise. Once it is mixed up in a pot take it off to cool. If your doing rice with this you can dump the veggies in to the future rice pot while the meat cooks.

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Place your pot on medium high heat devoid of all vegetable matter before dumping in your chorizo. You want these to cook first because this will allow the spices in the fat to be released so that the beef can pick up the flavor. Once that has been rendered you can dump in your beef and let that cook up. While that is going in this is only going to have the spice of the chorizo which will be very mellow once it is all tossed together with the chopped offerings. This will be fairly mild overall.

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Now the main portion of cooking will be when you dump everything back in to the pot with the warm meat and let everything hit a low simmer. Doing this will draw some of the liquid out of the peppers giving you a very nice well rounded sauce made in pot with little effort to pair with our bell peppers and beef.

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Cook some rice and cook an egg sunny side up and build your bowl. It follows very few diets but by portions it can be tweaked with adding more vegetables or less fat if you need to.

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This recipe was just a guess from the bell peppers and beef mentioned in the Cowboy Bebop anime. I would think that even a pair of bounty hunters could enjoy this. Thank you and see you all next time. Happy Easter.

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