In the Kitchen with DKDetective and InCali: All Things Food, Wine, and Spirits, Etc.

We finally got serious this year about our herb garden with Self-Isolation. Due to my love of French food, I go through fresh herbs like thyme, parsley, chives, mint, and rosemary like a madman.

What are some of your favourite fish and seafood?

My man! I just got Bouchon Bakery because I am fed up not being able to buy great french-style bread.

I'm planning on giving bread baking a try next week when I am on vacation (well staycation).

If you like Bouchon Bakery and Ad Hoc, you should give the original Bouchon cookbook a try. It is a wonderful compendium of all of the French bistro classics, but with Keller's trademark refinement. It is probably my most used cookbook. The Truite a la Grenobloise with Haricots Vert recipe has become one of my weeknight staples for a healthy, fresh fish and veggies dinner.

 

I am going to have try that cookie recipe then. I've sworn by Alton Brown's "The Chewy" cookie from Good Eats for years. I guess I have a new contender.

I forgot to mention in my initial post that I also love Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France. Since you are a big baker obviously, there is a wonderful, simple dark chocolate and sea salt cake in it.

 

I love most fish and seafood. I have always loved salmon and trout. Arctic char has a special place in my heart. I make homemade smoked salmon sometimes.

I also love sole meuniere, halibut, red snapper. My Dad's family is German from the Baltic and North Sea coasts, so herring, mackerel, smoked eel, etc. also have special places in my heart.

Mussels and fries are wonderful. When it comes to seafood, you cannot beat lobster and king crab. Every year for New Year's, I make my wife and I surf and turf for New Year's Eve dinner. I broil some lobster tails studded with chunks of butter on a bed of fresh parsley and lemon wedges. I sear up a couple fillet mignon, whip up some homemade Bernaise sauce, and crack open a bottle of Taittinger champagne.

For the spear mint, I would roast a leg of lamb and make some homemade mint sauce. I would then use the chocolate mint to make a homemade mint chocolate ice cream for dessert to follow. Enjoy outside on a cool August evening with a nice bottle of Left Bank Red Bordeaux or an Australian Cabernet Sauvignon.

 

Thanks for the recommendation. My technique for sauteeing or panroasting salmon or trout is very similar. I always do most of the cooking skin side down, and then finish with a quick sear on the flesh side. My Danish grandfather taught me young that eating crispy fish skin is one of life's healthiest pleasures. Sometimes though, if I want a softer texture or more delicate flavour, I will just move the fish into a hot oven and let the flesh side air roast. Alternatively, I will cook it skin side down in a mixture of oil and butter and I will gently spoon the hot butter over the flesh while the skin sears. I like the latter technique for trout, since it is more gentle on thinner fillets.

I have a Weber Summit grill/BBQ/smoker. It is Weber's version of a Kamado cooker. So I smoke it in there. I like it because I can use wood chunks instead of chips or pucks. The chunks better better and cleaner in my experience. I prefer oak or a Scandinavian wood variety for the smoking wood. Depending on whether I am hot or cold smoking, I will either wet brine or dry rub the fillets for a couple days before. Dill, coriander, white pepper, etc. are my favourite flavour additives for the brine.

 

I kinda feel sorry for this woman's life's work because the French National Library already beat her to it. It's like their version of the National Film Registry.

 

Hrmm, if the freezer is a little full for my weekend plans, I commit to work my way through some freezer items for dinner during the week. It's a good way of making sure things don't get forgotten in the freezer and are wasted.

Sounds like a great New Year's. Great choice on the wine. Cremants are wonderful underappreciated sparkling wines that do not get enough love. And a great value! They are my go-to aperitif for summer dinner parties.

 

Sorry to tell you man, but J. Kenji Lopez-Alt of the Food Lab and Alton Brown have both definitely disproven the old idea that searing first seals in juices.

It is actually the opposite. In order to brown the surface of a food item, you have to evaporate all of the surface moisture first and bring it to a certain temperature where the Maillard reaction will occur. If you sear at the start, it takes longer to boil off the surface moisture and bring the surface to Maillard temp. The result is you cook the interior of the flesh more while trying to brown the surface. If you sear at the end, it is quicker and easier to get the desired crust and you minimally affect the interior of the flesh.

 

Not directly, but kinda, my understanding of that theory is that it will maximize the sear. For thicker steaks, I will cook twice on each side (also gives you those gorgeous crosshatched grill marks).

I would stay away from the wrapping in foil. When steaks rest, they always leak juices and by wrapping in foil, you are holding the juices tight against the steak. The juices will dissolve that beautiful crust you worked so hard to make by searing.

I always rest my steaks on a cooling rack over a plate or platter. That way they don't sit in the juices. Obviously you have to be careful not to overrest or else the steaks will get cold. The best steakhouses I know of will rest their steaks on a rack in a warming drawer set to as close as possible to the doneness temperature of the steak. I've tried it with the warming drawer of my oven, but I can't get it any lower than 175, so it's too risky. As a result, I prefer to buy thicker steaks, in the 1.5 to 2 inch ranges, which means they have more carryover heat and you can rest them on the counter without worrying about them getting cold too quickly. Depending on the type, quality, and aging of the beef, I will cook to between 105 and 115, and it will coast up to medium rare at 130ish once rested.

 

Oh, you will be converted.

This is one thing that I learned from Americans that you people are unequivocally right about. Nothing is better than a tender steak that you can cut like butter, but with a beautiful, mahogany bark on the outside. The texture contrast is just magnificent!