Cooking aboard or outdoors

Not quite perfected yet, but a fish roulade stuffed with crab, celery, red capsicum and green onion and the rind of one lime.

Served on saffron rice with a lime (rind and juice) and chilli hollandaise dressing over the top.

 

I wonder how that would be if bacon were substituted for crab stuffing(I can't eat crab).

 

I think it would be great, parma ham even... The smokey aromas would be a wonderful contrast to the bland fish.

 

Not the first time you've sent me to a dictionary (or to Google), James. And it probably won't be the last...

I found out I've cooked something related to a roulade before. My wife and I got a recipe from an Argentinian woman one day, while we were buying some flank steak; she translated her name for them as 'beef wraps.'

Her English wasn't too strong, but she was apparently an enthusiastic cook. Unfortunately I don't really remember much about her version, except that we spread a layer of filling over each thin slice of flank steak and rolled it up like a jelly roll.

Your fish version sounds delicious.

 

Here is something you guys might like... A plate make-over I did for one of my readers.

Nothing more than a pork cutlet thats been tarted up.

Replaced the mashed potato with celeriac puree.

Blanched a segment of cabbage in chicken stock and then baked it in the BBQ

Caramelised some pear segments and brown onion, and popped them in the BBQ and the cutlets to keep them hot while I made the sauce.

Using the same skillet I caramelised the pears and onion in, I added the chicken stock and reduced it to a sauce consistency.

I wish I had kept the photo provided by the reader to offer a before and after comparison.

 

Did it upgrade the taste as much as the visual?

 

I'm in the middle of a mint julep, as a nightcap before I take a nap. I'm facing five 12-hour night shifts...

My recipe is basically true to the one I got thirty years ago, from Tony Duquette's sister Jeanne. For the younger generation and those who never kept track of entertainment history (like me), Tony designed the costumes for the play Camelot. He was about as eclectic a designer as the world has ever seen, ranging from interior decorating to jewelry, movie sets and costumes, the bottle For Midori (the watermelon liqueur from Japan), and the City of Angels display for the Los Angeles Bicentennial celebration...

I met him when I built a couple of sets at a West Hollywood theater he owned. where my girlfriend was the executive director. He started hiring me for repairs and remodels on his rentals and his homes, and I wound up working for him full-time for two or three years. So I moved into a rental on his ranch, in the hills above Malibu. It wasn't much, but it had a deck that looked out over a valley between it and the coast. On a clear day, you could see the channel islands beyond the coastal hills.

After I moved in, Tony asked me at lunch how I liked the place. I told him I loved it, and was going to have to learn how to make mint juleps so I could properly enjoy sunsets from the deck. Tony's sister snapped her fingers and said, "you know, I have a recipe for mint juleps. Clark gave it to me while he was working on that movie." She went digging in a kitchen drawer, and came up with a piece of paper Clark Gable had written his recipe on. I copied it, and I've been drinking mint juleps off and on ever since.... and I got downright religious about making it home in time to sit on the deck and watch the sun go down with one in my hand. It was a ritual that just drained off whatever negativity I had experienced during the day.

I'm not claiming this is Clark Gable's exact working; it was over thirty years ago and I've long since lost my copy. But basically he said:

"Place a teaspoonful of sugar and two or three mint leaves in a tall glass. Mash the mint leaves around in the sugar with a spoon for a minute or two, then add a shot of good bourbon. Fill the glass with crushed ice and branch water."

I'm normally not much for sweet drinks, but this is simple and delicious. For those who don't speak Southern, 'branch water' simply means good quality, uncarbonated water.

 

Well, I'll be off the get me some bourbon.

 

I'm inclined to think yes.

The celeriac was just a twist I thought to suggest as an alternative to potato. It has a similar colour, similar texture, has a hint of celery flavour so does not need to be "lifted" with other seasonings. Just a little butter or cream at the end for a velvety finish. Just for something different but not too radical.

Many people dollop apple sauce on their pork, the pear and onion, again was an alternative that offered difference but didn't depart too far from a stewed fruit sauce idea.

Pork and cabbage are like best friends. It had to make an appearance in spite it not being in the original dish I was making over. I traded in the green beans.

I elected to reduce the chicken stock to make a sauce, while the reader whipped up a batch of instant brown onion gravy for his plate. It would have worked well, but I wanted to make use of the remaining stock and used the solids and juices of the pear and onions to create a more sophisticated but similar sauce.

My plating was far superior. Imagine if you will a plate divided into three segments in one very flat dimension. One third was the pork cutlet, one third was a flat puddle of very wet mashed potato and the final third was green beans organised with neat military precision like a log raft on his plate. Upon the pork was a little turd of stewed apple sauce.

It's all trickery really, my plate is for the most part, his meal. Even if I had used mashed potato, and used green beans instead of cabbage, the presentation of a stack or an elevated plate of layers make this meal stand out as something special.

Pull it all apart and dissect it, and it is still just a meat and three veg dinner.

Oh, I did chiffonade some continental parsley to finish the plate... I suppose that makes it a "gourmet" meat and three veg diner.

 

Summer time.

Pork chops with grilled Pear slices.. Only a few seconds grilling the pear or they fall apart

 

Ah yes.... applesauce for pork, and mint jelly for lamb. I remember them well. The CIO's (California-improved Okies) I grew up among considered that gourmet cooking.

 

The trick is balancing the sugar with the mint. Too little won't bring out the mint properly, and too much overwhelms it. And there's a lot of difference between mints. Some are subtle; some just jump right in your face. Fortunately, there are no rules against adding mint, sugar and/or bourbon until a drink meets expectations.... sometimes I'm halfway through one before I get it right. Then of course I have to make another one, to apply what I've learned. And a third one, just to be sure.

I've tried making juleps with mint syrup, and gave it up. Even home-made syrup is one-dimensional, and loses the complexity of the fresh mint... you can beef up a julep made with syrup by adding a sprig of fresh mint - but then you might as well just forget the syrup, and make the drink the old-fashioned way to begin with.

 

Don't forget the cranberry with turkey.

 

Black-eyed peas with a tamal with New Year's ....

 

Hey. I resemble that remark....

My wife considers it her Christian duty to place a log of jellied cranberry sauce (straight from the can) in the middle of the Thanksgiving table, and slice off a round for everyone present.

There are at least a dozen home-made cranberry recipes I'd like to replace it with, but I'm smart enough to pick my battles.

But don't get me wrong: I like even the jellied stuff, and always finish my slice.