Man oh man oh man was this good! If you try any of the recipes I post here, this should definitely be the one. Fair warning, this will be a little on the spendy side, but I’ll have some tips, as always, at the bottom.
First things first. What really makes this salad is the dressing. I used this one which I’m repeating here for those of you too lazy to click.
- 1 1/2 cups Mayo
- 1/4 cup chili sauce
- 3 tbls finely minced green onion
- 3 tbls finely minced green bell pepper
- 1 tbls fresh lemon juice (juice from 1 lemon)
- 1 1/2 tsp Worchestershire Sauce
- 1/4 tsp hot pepper sauce (Tabasco)
Mix all together in a bowl and store in the fridge for at least 1 hour before using. My changes to this recipe were in the amount of Tabasco (1 1/2 tsp), I used cocktail sauce instead of chili sauce (I like the horseradish flavor) and I added 2 cloves finely chopped garlic.
Now, for the salad, or at least how I made it.
- 1lb each cooked shrimp and lump crab meat. DO NOT use imatation Krab you savages. That’s just wrong
- 2 heads romaine lettuce
- 1/2 medium red onion, sliced thin
- About 8 radishes, sliced thin
- Diced green bell pepper (whatever was left from making the dressing)
- Diced green onion (again, whatever was left from making the dressing)
- tomatoes cut into wedges
- Lemons, cut into wedges
- Fresh ground pepper. Yes, it makes a difference
Toss everything with the dressing except the shrimp, crab, tomatoes and lemons. Serve in a salad bowl or on a plate and top with shrimp, crab and tomatoes. Garnish with lemon wedge.
For the table I have to suggest a nice loaf of Sourdough bread with butter and maybe some basalmic vinegar and olive oil. You should also really have a pepper mill ready for this as well.
Serves 4 probably. I eat a big salad and the lad loves shrimp, so we went a little bit.
Beverage? A nice white would be good. Go dry or sweet, you’ll be covered either way.
And yes, this was awesome!
My take on the ever popular hobo mash. I think you might like it as much as they do.
Need
- Top Sirloin, about 2lbs
- 3 roma tomatoes, diced
- 1 can black beans
- 1/4 cup basalmic vinegar
- 1 tbls garlic salt
- 2 tbls olive oil
- 1 tbls chili powder
This one is so simple it’s not even funny. Start by dicing your top sirloin into 1″ cubes. Put the meat into a bowl then add everything except the beans and tomatoes. Mix it up real nice and let it marinade for about 15 minutes.
Get your pan hot. Add the meat and any liquid from the bowl and cook for 5 minutes on high heat. Add the tomatoes and reduce heat to medium and cover. Stir occassionally. Cook like this for about 10 more minutes until the sauce reduces and the tomatoes start to break down. Add the black beans, drained and rinsed, put back on high heat for about 5 minutes.
That’s it! Not wanting a starch tonight, we only had it with spinach. Ideally this would be very nice over a bed of rice. Also, you could probably make this with London Broil. Increase the marinade time to 1 hour and double the cook time over medium heat.
Beverage? This isn’t as heavy as it looks. A nice pinot would be good. I had it with an Amber wheat beer that went well too.
Dinner tonight. Nothing special, just some pasta and a salad.
Ah yes, the salad. One of my true passions. Well, not so much the salad, but the dressing. You could say that I have mastered salad dressing foo. It’s all in the science and vinegar, but you didn’t hear that from me. You did hear from me that I never use the dressing in a packet (water? no, I don’t think so) and seldom use dressing from a bottle (sometimes you just gotta have ranch).
So, I’m chopping salad and had the lad make up tonight’s dressing (under my guidance), to pass along some of that foo. And, since I’m pretty sure I’ve not done the same for you, here is a great starter.
What you need
- Olive Oil
- Vinegar - red wine and/or basalmic work best, more on this in a bit
- Parmesean Cheese. The stuff in the green can works really well.
- Salt
- Pepper
- Mustard Powder
- Sugar
No measures my friends, that’s where the foo comes in.
Start with your mixing container. Put in it the dry ingredients. No, wait. Put in the dry ingredients, except the sugar. You aren’t ready for that yet, I’m sorry I mentioned it. What I do is put in about a tbls of green cheese, a pinch of salt, a few grinds of pepper and about 1/2 tsp of mustard powder.
Next, you are going to need your oil. Start off equal parts oil and vinegar, but don’t put the oil away yet. Mix that all together very very well and give it a taste. It will probably be a bit strong and/or watery. Add the same amount of oil you started with. Mix some more and taste again. Too weak? Add a little bit of vinegar. Mix again. Taste again. Should be how you like it by this point.
Now, here is where the sugar comes in. I have some very interesting vinegar that you can’t get anywhere. My Grandfather made it years ago and I have a case hidden in a dark recess of a cabinet someplace, plus Mom has a case in the shed. Anyway, it tends to get a little strong and gives the dressing a very sharp edge. If this happens to you, you can add a very small amount of sugar, say a tablespoon, to knock that edge down a bit. You won’t get any of the sweet, but it will take away some of the bite. You can also use a bit of basalmic vinegar to do the same thing, bonus is you will get a really nice color.
Don’t get all freaked out if it sucked either. Just keep adding oil and vinegar and spices until it tastes the way you like and has the right mouth feel. Nice thing about this one too is that it will break, but unlke a fancy emulsified vinegrette, it’s supposed to. Just give it a good shake/mix before using.
Keeps in the fridge for about a month too, so get a good mason jar to store it in.
Came up with this while I was at the gym this morning.
Cilantro Chicken with Carmelized Mushrooms
This was another easy one. Served with black beans and rice.
- Chicken breast x2 or 3
- 1 bunch cilantro, chopped fine
- 4 cloves garlic
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1/4c (ish) of Olive Oil
- 1TBLS red wine vinegar
- 1 blue box of Mushrooms, cut into quarters
In a mixing bowl, add cilantro, garlic, lemon juice, vinegar and olive oil. Mix thoroughly. Cover chicken breast with marinade, leaving about 1/2 cups worth aside. Put the chicken in the fridge for about an hour to marinate.
In a saute pan, add the remaining marinade. Heat on high until it starts to sizzle. Add the mushrooms and reduce heat to medium. Cook until mushrooms get nice color and reduce in size. About 15 minutes.
Grill chicken until it’s cooked all the way through and internal temp is no less than 170F/75C. This is important ’cause I don’t want anyone eating medium rare chicken. Not good, not good at all.
Once chicken is done, plate and top with mushrooms. Garish with a bit of cilantro if you like.
Black beans and rice recipe after the jump.
I posted a recipe for Poached Chicken a bit a go. Made it again tonight and updated the post to include a pic. Check it out here.
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