I appreciate long winded, detailed food posts. Keep 'em coming imo.

What is this week's dish again?

Also, can we get it edited into the thread title please.

Yeti, curious which options you used from the recipe you linked. several of the ingredients listed an alternate, but since you mentioned the gf went shopping in chinatown i'm guessing the preferred ingredient was used?

regarding the sauce discussion, nong's sauce is fantastic (as are the recipes on her site). she started with a simple food cart in portland serving only one dish, and is rapidly spreading across the country. you can buy her sauce on her site, and there are good recipes there as well. http://khaomangai.com/ oh, and she's also pretty damn sexy (better in person than in the vid).

Nice. 'Cause she looks pretty damn sexy in the vid!

Week 1 wrap-up: Stir Fry

the original idea as crafted by JackInDaCrack:

cashy makes a pork stir fry and plates it quite nicely:

el timon with a nice chicken stir fry:

Shark doctor comes through with a nice looking steak stir fry:

Yeti makes a great kung pao chicken which was definitely one of the best looking meals of the week:

Wyman comes in at the end with a great looking dish and a ton of awesome details and pictures of the process:

Thanks to everyone who participated this week.

Week 2 Meal: Bacon Wrapped Protein with a Spicy Maple Glaze

I should have done a better job with the pictures, but I just forgot to photograph a few of the steps and a few others didn't turn out.

This week I made bacon wrapped salmon (and chicken for lunch the next day) with a Sriracha-maple glaze. I paired it with sauteed kale topped with bacon and potato stuffed mini bell peppers and onions.

Here I have my ingredients: salmon, bacon, kale, mini bell peppers, a small potato, chives, green onions, yellow onions, lemon, sriracha, and real maple syrup.



I first cooked the bacon until it started to shrink, but not to the point where it got crispy. It should still be malleable at this point. Set that to the side on some paper towels to take some of the grease away.

While letting the burner and the pan cool down a little I prepared the glaze. I did this in 1/2 cup measuring cup for simplicity. I filled it halfway with maple syrup and then added about 1/4 that much Sriracha (if I had to do this over again I would go 2:1 Maple:Sriracha rather than 4:1).

Preheat the oven to 375 at this point.

Then I emptied most of the bacon grease out of the pan leaving just whatever small amounts stay in the pan naturally. I cooked the salmon in the small amount of bacon grease and a very tiny amount of butter (think like a quarter sized pat) for about 60 seconds per side on low-medium heat. This was not meant to cook the salmon through, but rather just to absorb some of the flavor and start browning it.

At this point I added a little salt and black pepper to the salmon and also squeezed out the juice of 1/2 a lemon over it and wrapped it in 2 of the pieces of bacon and brushed the glaze onto all sides (next time I would apply the glaze before wrapping it in the bacon as the pieces of salmon under the bacon didn't have the same flavor).

I cooked the salmon at 375 for about 8 minutes and I thought that was sufficient and not overcooked once I tasted it, but it was very hard for me to tell by sight alone. I should have used a meat thermometer at this step.

While the salmon was in the oven, I put the remaining couple of pieces of bacon in the pan to cook to completion and cut up my potato. I added a little black pepper and some cayenne pepper to the potatoes. I cooked these in the bacon grease left over from the now crisp bacon.



Now I was onto the kale which I sauteed with just a little sea salt and a pat of butter. I used the same pan for this with the grease drained to a more palpable level so the kale took on a little of the bacon flavor as well.



The kale absorbed basically all of the butter and cooked down pretty quickly. While that was going on I put a few of the mini bell peppers and onions in a pan on low with just a little oil. The goal here way to just cut the tops of the peppers off and gut them and just use some outer layers of the onions as bowls to hold the potatoes. If I had to do this again I would definitely skip the onions and just use peppers. I love onions, but this was just too much.

I wasn't trying to cook these as much as just heat them up a little:



After everything was cooked I plated it with the peppers and onions forming little bowls for the potatoes. I topped the kale with crumbled bacon and added cut up chives to the potatoes. I have no idea if these sides actually compliment the main dish I prepared, but I enjoyed them.

I need to work on my photography and lighting, but here is the final plating:






I will add the wrap-up links weekly in an index format like this:
Week 1 Wrap-Up: Stir Fry

yum

That looks really good, and I think you are on the right track about the onions, they don't look needed. I actually think that if you were to hand your finished ingredients to any decent chef, they would be able to make your plate look amazing. The idea of the dish, with all the colour from the peppers and the bacon, combined with the texture of the potatoes, really could look world class. From what I hear, proper plating is about highlighting the cooked ingredients. As done, the peppers dominate, and you can't really see the fish. I would ditch the white onions, and half the peppers. I would put the potatoes in the centre of the plate, put that nice salmon on top, dice my pan roasted peppers and top with thin slivers of green onion, sliced on the bias. Then I would get some extra virgin olive oil, and drizzle a tiny bit around the plate. A bit of balsamic reduction to finish, and done.

Very good dish, everything looks tasty, the only thing I would really change is the plating and the volume.

Or maybe even better - Put the kale in the middle, salmon on top, and strew the potatoes around the kale/salmon. Throw the diced peppers around in a way to make the whole plate look nice, then a bit of green onion, etc. etc.

main problem is that the plate is way too small and everything looks a bit chaotic

also please god no balsamic reduction(some restaurants still putting it over a good carpaccio is so ridiculous)

On carpaccio it is ridiculous, but balsamic goes really well with peppers. Maybe a small drizzle of some good stuff instead of a reduction?

Really like the way the plate looks so colourful - everything looks really delicious, and makes me eager to try out some new salmon recipes of my own

That plate is super busy and I don't really think it works to that dish. It can work for some and I don't think you should be discouraged from trying it in the future. Like with bandeja paisa as an example, the idea of loading a plate with a ton of different food and color can work.

Solid effort and it looks like it tastes quite good.

Really cool that you can post about your nicely cooked beautiful food, and the only criticism is plating. Very well done!!!

wasn't fan of the bacon fish idea at first(not the best combination imo) but once I thought about it more and started to assemble a coherent dish in my mind I was excited.

most of the ingredients(made the basil pesto and pre-cooked the potato yesterday)

redfish, proscuitto crudo, white mold cheese(didn't need the camembert) & more

as side for the bacon I wanted potatoes and cheese fits in well too so I went with "cheese-rösti". A mediterranean vegetable side with mushrooms a great fit as well.
so I needed something to really bring the prosciutto and potatoes out and basil pesto just complements it perfectly.
I rubbed the fish with a little honey(didn't want to do maple) but that alone is not enough to give the salty/strong-flavored prosuccito enough contrast, so I went with a spicy apple-wasabi-ginger purée(with lemon juice and zest for acidity and freshness)

so let's start
after searing apple pieces in a little butter I added paprika, cayenne pepper, turmeric, peperoncini and pickled ginger


then deglazed it with a little cognac and added sugar, lemon juice and added water and boiled it down for a while.

then seasoned with salt, pepper, wasabi and lemon yest and puréed 3/4 of it while leaving 1/4 as it is for texture.

mise en place for the vegetable side
started with searing garlic on medium heat for a few seconds with a little thyme(being very careful b/c garlic burns ultra quick) then added carrots/bell pepper and continued for about a min then added mushrooms and turned up the heat(mushrooms have a good bit of water) and seared for 1-2 mins and deglazed with a little white whine and boiled down. at the end added dried tomatoes, some grana padano and season with salt & pepper


pre-cooked potato grated and mixed with (garlic-flavored)white mold cheese


after first flip using a plate:


close to finished


finished product:
honey red-fish wrapped in prosciutto with cheese-rösti, basil pesto, spicy apple-wasabi-ginger purée and vegetable side.


taste combination worked just as planned and was fantastic, basil pesto great complement and purée perfect contrast.
still not a fan of fish+bacon but in this combination it's still very good(would use pork the next time though)
ah and cheese rösti is just godlike, can't believe I have never made it before.

Stir Fry Question:

So I browned my chicken and cooked my noodles in water separately from the stir fry (so 3 pots). Then I just added those to the stir fry part at the end. Is there a step I can take out there? I wasn't sure how long browning chicken would take and how long the noodles would take in the pan with the stir fry. Any thoughts?

And omg that first fish meal.

You can brown the meat, remove from heat and set aside, then use the same pan to cook the vegetables, adding both the noodles and the meat back in to finish. I would not envision a time that I would cook the noodles in the same pan. Unless you were doing a fried rice vermicelli. I think that would work, just drain off the excess oil you won't be needing in the final product. You would also get some great texture.

CDL: I don't understand why you went with basically raw bell peppers in your meal. Seems like a sort of odd/random component. I think you simplify that dish to the fish, kale, and potatoes and you have a really nice plate. If you want bell peppers as part of the dish, I'd prob julienne and sauté them, maybe w/ the onion if you want.

cashy: were you trying to plate that as a funny face? Looks kinda funny to me. The fish/bacon + rosti + puree + veg sound like a great combo. I'm with you on the fish+bacon, and think that would be even better if you just replaced that fish with some pork tenderloin. I'm a big fan of pesto, but with all the richness in that dish, I'd prob try for something even brighter and more acidic. Overall looks really tasty.

I had my dish of the week; was awesome. I took a bunch of pics this time around, but won't be uploading it tonight as I've had a lot to drink.

i know thats the classic way of doing it but i actually prefer to do the the vegetables first in batches and the meat last. that way i can throw in the noddles next and the residual moisture from the noodles deglazes the wok. when i do the meat first i found that at times the brown bits from searing the meat have become to dark by the point i am finished with the last vegetables.

I'm basically a noob at cooking, but I thought I'd give this a shot. Never grilled indoors before, so I gave it a shot with an Ikea indoor grill I got for X-mas.

This thread got me in the mood for Siracha, so I made a butter/Siracha sauce and basted some bacon-wrapped scallops. I was nervous about setting off smoke alarms in my apartment so I didn't grill it as thoroughly as I'd like, but a few more tries and I should get the hang of indoor grilling. Siracha butter goes great on a veggie side.

My whole apartment smells like bacon and Siracha. This is a welcome development.

Someone needs to come up with a bacon-scented air freshener. I'd buy it.

Btw, I'll be posting my meal shortly.

My submission for this week's spicy maple syrup with bacon wrapped protein dish:

Stuffed pork tenderloin with maple chutney, whipped winter squash with sweet potatoes, and Brussels sprouts



I baked the squash and sweet potato, then skinned and put in the mixer. I added salt, cream, butter and maple syrup and whipped.





I trimmed and halved the brussels sprouts, chopped and fried the salt pork, brought the asafoetida to aromatic, added the brussels sprouts to the pan and sauteed on medium high heat. In the last couple minutes I added the herbs de provence, an admittedly Americanized mix of chervil, tarragon, lavender, savory, rosemary, and thyme.



For the pork tenderloin, I made a chutney by heating the grapeseed oil, then brining the asafoetida to aromatic, then adding the mustard seeds and turning until they popped. I added the diced jalepeno and ginger, cooking until soft. Next I added the dates and raisins just until it clumped. I finally added the liquids - maple syrup, apple cider vinegar, sherry and water - and some cinnamon and Thai peppers - then reduced.



As it cooled I butterflied and pounded the tenderloin and shelled and crushed the walnuts. I spread the chutney and sprinkled the walnuts, then rolled, wrapped with pancetta then tied and put into a 400 degree oven to an internal temp of 125. I let it rest, then cut and plated.







Plated:



Thoughts:

I didn't use enough heat to balance the sweetness of the chutney. It really needed another jalepeno at minimum and maybe more thai chilis. I almost always undershoot on heat though since I'm feeding a couple kids who don't really go for too too much.

The walnuts were really key and brought the mouth feel together, and with the nutty flavor and texture of the brussels sprouts and the creaminess of the squash.

Just make bacon fat candles imo. Easy.