All posts tagged fennel

By Jessica | April 16, 2009 | Main Courses, Projects, Recipes, Snackin, Salads and Apps | 8 Comments

I love Easter cause it’s all the food and none of the shopping. It’s not that I don’t like giving (or getting) christmas or kwanza gifts for my loved ones. It’s that if I have to stand in one more holiday line, fight my way through one more crowd of coupon-wielding buyers, I will punch a bitch in their mouth. And that’s why JJ loves Easter. You get to eat lots with fam and get drunk without having to remember to leave cookies for jesus.

B and I hosted this year. We had my fam and friends without fam (or friends with fam that don’t love them much). And instead of packing the place with the usual overfed fatties, we wanted to cook a regular amount of food for a regular sized plate – very unamerican of us. (well, B’s not american, that’s probably where that comes from). Anyways. We made lamb, roast potatoes, salad and asparagus. Check it, check it out to the bricka bricka.

Roasted Leg of Lamb
5.5 lbs of boneless lamb
2.5 lbs of boneless lamb
5 cloves or garlic
leaves from 4 stalks of rosemary
olive oil
salt
pepper
baking twine / string
Serves 12

I grabbed these two pieces of lamb /\ and cut the larger one in half so I had thee equal pieces of meat. You can do two 4lb pieces if you want but it will change the cooking time. The night before you are to gorge on this lamb roast, toss your garlic and rosemary leaves into the food processor. While pulsing, drizzle olive oil until it becomes a paste. You may have to pause to scrape the sides of the processor. When the paste is made, swath over your lamb meat and and stick in the fridge for a day.

About 30 minutes prior to roasting, pull out the lamb and bring to room temp. Preheat your oven to 450 degree. While waiting, wrap your lambs up into tight little footballs with your cooking string. It will be obvious where you are doing the folding and the tightening – promise. Tie that mother tight and place each piece into one large roasting pan.

Roast at 450 for 15 minutes. Reduce the temp to 325 and roast until the meat is at 125 for medium rare. Go get yourself a meat thermometer. It will change everything. Gonna be about 45 minutes at 325, but I can’t tell you exactly cause there are too many variables. Remove from oven and let sit for 15 minutes. Get your hot piece of meat (for me, that’s B) to cut your roast against the grain for optimal tenderoni.

Tangerine and Fennel Over Greens
This is the same tired ass salad I made the other night but I just cannot get enough of this shit.

Grilled Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce
I’m not going to bother to give you a recipe for the hollandaise sauce cause it’s not worth it. I mean, it was good, but really i just used tyler florence’s tastiness and I know you aren’t going to make this shit anyways.

Grilled Asparagus Recipe: Buy asparagus. Cut asparagus. Oil asparagus. Grill asparagus. Eat asparagus. Pee asparagus.

Roast Potatoes English Style
I don’t know how to make these – this was all B. But dead ass, this was the best thing on the table. Thank you Mama B for giving your son a butt like that and also teaching him how to make these nuggets of love. Maybe if we are lucky, he’ll jump in with a guest post and grace us with a recipe.

And last but not least, thanks so so much to K and P (click those letters) for taking these dizzle pics we see here. Never would have been able to wield a camera and a spatula and feed your asses at the same time. Big ups.

By Jessica | March 12, 2009 | Other People's Recipes, Snackin, Salads and Apps | 2 Comments

Aite. And here we are with course 3 of the Big Ass Dinner Party. Check out course 1 for some sesame / salmon / noodle jam and course 2 for some korean braised beefy yum. I then served this refreshing salad third: Tangerine and Fennel over Greens.

All the recipes on Go Meat Yourself are mine unless I say otherwise. That isn’t to say that I am the first chick to braise beef in that combination of ingredients or put some goddamn sesame seeds on a piece of salmon. It means that I didn’t follow a recipe. Or rather, followed 12 recipes and took the best parts from them all and made my own shit. Anyway, this salad was taken exactly, step by step, from Bon Appetit Magazine, thee most annoying food magazine I’ve ever read. Actually, the only one I ever read? Until I tried Food and Wine. Which I’m going to order cause they shut the fuck up and put some recipes on paper. As opposed to this Bon Appetite bullshit that was trying to make me feel bad for not picking my own pig shit truffles in the county side of italy. This is brooklyn and I’m working on a budget. Fug off.

Anyway, another note. For those of you that don’t put fruit in your salads, I totally understand. I’m not one of those freaks that is trying to put strawberries or cranberries up with my greens or tuna or even tangine. BUTT, this combination is like snacks in bed, like tequila and lime, like tacos and me, like hollywood whores and bare vagina. What I’m saying is, try this shit. It’s good. It’s tangy. It’s meant to be.

Go here for the recipe: Tangerine and Fennel over Greens.

By Jessica | March 5, 2009 | Recipes, Snackin, Salads and Apps | 3 Comments

I’ve been freaking obsessed with this salad. You know how people get obsessed with things, like say, the iphone? I get that about food. Definitely not about the iphone. Mostly cause my iphone takes shite pictures, like the ones in this post.

I’ve been freaking obsessed with this salad. I don’t want to tell you where I got the original inspiration from because you are going to think that I sit outside his damn house, crying and rocking, with my iphone, waiting to see what video he is going to come up with next so that I can make it and write about it and love it all night long. All night long. So yeah. This recipe was inspired by… your moms.

This salad is great for winter cause the veg is everywhere, great for hangovers because it is so thirst quenching, and great for the wallet cause its cheap. Pair this up with anything that needs a bright, watery buddy. Open wide cause you are going to want to eat this up.

Fennel and Celery Salad with Roasted Nuts

1 bulb of fennel
1 bunch of celery
1/4 c. red wine vinegar
1/8 c. olive oil
1/4 mixed roasted, salted nuts, roughly chopped
Fresh black pepper, generously garnished.
Serves 6.

This recipe so wants to be made with a mandolin. Like I have said before, you really really want one of these. It has changed my everything. Check this. You really don’t need anything fancy. A 20 dollar job is juuuuuust fine. So. Wash your veg. Cut your fennel in half and use the stem that is still attached as your handle so you don’t cut the shit out of your fingers. Slice that mother up using the thinnest setting.

Break apart your celery into separate stalks. Cut off the bottom bits and slice slice slice.

Of course, you can use a knife for this but it’s just mo quick with the mandolin.

I like doing a 3:2 / celery:fennel ratio? Combine sliced veg in a bowl and mix. Add your vinegar, then your oil, then your black pepper. Divide into your eatin bowls and top with the nuts.

Some people add cheese to this, like bleu or parmesan, but foreal? That to me makes no kinda sense. Creamy doesn’t go with watery. Does it. (Is watery the right culinary term?) (Fuck culinary terms, yall know what I mean.)

Again. Apologies for the crap pictures. Double ugh.

By Jessica | September 16, 2008 | Main Courses, Recipes, Snackin, Salads and Apps | 3 Comments

I don’t usually buy cookbooks but I was given one as a gift (thanks mom) and I’m sho glad about it. Cree lefavor’s the new steak offers 55 recipes for steaks with sides, grouped by region. Last night, R and I tore up some strip steak. Pretty sure I saw a tear in his eye at his first bite. Check this recipe. You’ll wanna be cree’s bff after this but because she is more famous than my ass, you can just try to be mines and maybe I’ll cook you a steak. But you have to buy them shivs – 2 strip steaks cost 23 schmacks at my dudes. One more thing before I get on with it. How much do you want to call this chick cree mcflavor? Why hasn’t she changed her name yet? I think I’ll write a letter.

I almost followed the recipe exact except I made 2 steaks instead of 4, as the recipe calls (you know R was sad) and I did not use oregano cause one time? I put oil of oregano on my tongue? and I gagged for 10 minutes and couldn’t eat pizza for 3 years. I should also say, before cree comes to my house and beats me with a heirloom tomato from her garden, I typed her recipe below in a much less professional and flowery way cause I’m lazy. Just didn’t want you think cree is as crass and unspecific as me. Her writing is soft and cookbooky, just as you would imagine.

Risotto and Strip Steak Scattered with Olives, Parsely, Pine Nuts, Lemon Peel, and Parmesan

Risotto first cause that takes the longest.

1 cup of italian arborio rice
2 tbl unsalted butter
2 tbs of chicken juices (I didn’t use this cause I wasn’t about to roast a chicken to get its juices. I just used a bit of chicken stock here, I’m sure it woulda been dope though.)
1/2 tsp of salt
2 1/2 – 3 cups of chicken stock at room temp (I’m haven’t fully jumped on the organic bandwagon yet – lemme get some chairs in my kitchen that aren’t plastic first. But, what I always do is buy products from chickens that are free range only. To me, it’s worth it.)
1 tbs freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano, plus more for garnish
2 tbs of your best olive oil
fresh black pepper

In a heavy pot, combine the rice and butter over medium heat. Stir constantly for 2 to 3 minutes until the rice is coated with the butter. Add the chicken juices (or stock) and salt, still stirring. Once it’s hot, add 1 cup of your chicken stock. Stir more, scraping the bottom as you go.

Reduce your heat to low and allow your risotto to absorb all the liquid. No need to stand over the stove like a sweaty obsessive – just keep an eye on it. When it starts to stick and most the liquid has been absorbed, add another 1/3 cup of stock . Keep doing this until you have added 2 cups of stock.

At this point, taste your risotto. It should be chewy, but you should definitely taste and feel the grain of the rice. But don’t get it twisted – it should not crunch in your mouth. Since the risotto is almost done, add even smaller increments of stock and let it absorb. Repeat until it’s the texture you want. When you have added the last of the stock, grate the lemon zest, parmigiano and olive oil. When you put it on the plate, finish with more cheese, olive oil and pepper.

At about half way through this process, you need to get your steak on.

2 strip steaks
1 tsp salt
1 clove of garlic, cut in half
olive oil for rubbing on your shteck
1/4 cup of pine nuts, toasted and salted
1/2 tsp of whole fennel, toasted and ground
1 or 2 tsp of peanut oil for frying (I didn’t use this)
2 tbs of chopped parsley (I used italian)
1 tbs of chopped oregano (ew)
1 lemon, zested
1/3 cup of kalamata olives, roughly chopped
1/3 cup of fresh parmigiano-reggiano, grated
fresh black pepper
1 tbs of your best olive oi

Prepare your steak by salting it and rubbing the garlic halves over it. When the steaks come to room temperature, rub em with olive oil. During this time, you should be gathering the rest of your ingredients cause this process goes really quickly. Cree gave detailed instructions for grilling over coals or pan frying with peanut oil, or even finishing them in the oven. But… I kinda crudely just slapped them on my stove-top grill when I thought it was hot enough. You know what? They turned out in a way cree would have been proud. Swear.

What I will include is, to check the doneness of your steak, jab a meat thermometer in the thickest part. Once it reaches 110/115 degrees, take them shivs off and cover with a loose tent of foil and let sit for 5 minutes. They will continue to cook to a lovely medium rare.

After they have sat, plate your steaks and your risotto and “scatter” your olives, parsley, oregano if using, pine nuts, and fennel. Grate your lemon and parmigiano, add your salt and pepper, and drizzle your olive oil.

One more thing, just because I typed this recipe here, doesn’t mean you don’t need the book. There are interesting bits before each recipe and lists of useful items that “everyone needs in a pantry.” I may differ on some of these items, but her list is ite. For a pro cook with a garden and a pantry.