Rooftop Gourmet

After scouring the Internet for possible honeymoon destinations, an image of the Greek Islands was stuck in my head all day. A gorgeous view from a balcony, surrounded by ivory walls overlooking crystal clear waters inspired me to make some Mediterranean fare. I picked up some lamb loin chops and baby lamb lollipops from the store and brought them home to spice them up.

 The lamb lollipops come from the rack and the loin chops look like mini T-bone steaks. Grilled lamb chops really don’t need a ton of heavy seasoning because there is so much flavor in the fat and connective tissues around the bones. When that fat hits the grill and gets charred, the result is pure heaven.

 I toasted up some whole coriander seeds, which is the seed of a plant very similar to cilantro that has roots that trace back to Greece and Asia. Toasting the spices releases all of the natural oils and brings out the essential flavors and aromas. I sprinkled the chops with the coriander seeds, a few fennel seeds, and some dried chile flakes before marinating them in lots of extra virgin olive oil.

I let the chops sit, covered in the spices and oil for at least two hours to really take in all of the flavor. The coriander provides a smoky/nutty flavor, the fennel brings some anise flavor, and the chile flakes bring a touch of heat… all flavors that work nicely with lamb.

 My herb garden is overgrown and creeping up the side of the house, so it was a great time to snip off some fresh oregano and mint. With the flavors of a well dressed, Greek salad in mind, I composed a salad around the huge bushels of mint.

Lamb chops have outgrown their mint jelly from a jar companion, but still taste delicious when paired with the fresh herb. I minced up a few cloves of garlic, and shallots and combined them in a mixing bowl with the juice of three lemons and some extra virgin olive oil. I whisked it into a classic vinaigrette before I tossed in some sliced Fresno chilies (red jalapenos), pitted Kalimatta Olives, garbanzo beans, and chopped oregano.

When I think of Greek flavors, I imagine a combination of fresh, acidic, briny, and of course salty. I brought the salty element into the salad in the form of Greece’s famous cheese. Feta is a brined and cured sheeps milk cheese that is typically seen crumbled in salads.

 The feta is produced in blocks and brined and cured in a salted water. If you can, buy the fresh feta when it’s still in the water as opposed to buying it in a package. Once it’s removed from the brine it dries out quickly. At the last moment before the salad was ready to be plated, I sliced the Feta and folded it into the vinaigrette along with handfuls of fresh mint leaves.

 I piled the oily chops onto the grill and the flames began to rise. I let lamb gets a nice char on the outside before I move them out of the flame and onto a tamer side of the grill.

The toasted seeds on the exterior of the chops added some texture and wonderful licorice and woodsy aromas during the cooking process. I plated the chops “family-style” on a large platter and poured my mint and Feta salad all over them.

 A little splash of lemon zest was the finishing touch that helped wake up all the amazing Mediterranean flavors. As the chops were resting, I put a quick chill on a bottle of 2007 Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir from South Africa. I like my Pinot Noir to be served slightly below room temperature, and a good ten minutes in the fridge does the trick, especially before drinking it on the hot roofdeck.

This wine comes from Walker Bay, South Africa, which is one of the world’s most up and coming wine regions. Hamilton Russell’s Pinot is exceptionally well made and is a great food wine. Unlike fruity Oregon Pinots, this wine is big and bold, with tons of black cherry, cedar, tea and notes of Asian spices. The acidity was off the charts, which was a great compliment to my succulent lamb and wild salad. Despite the wine’s high alcohol content (14%) it was barely detectable, showing that it could put up with a few years of cellaring. The finish was full of energy, with all sorts of flavors and perfumes lingering forever.

The chops were cooked to temperature, a warm pink center, and the subtle gamey flavors were balanced with the salty Feta and the minty aftertaste. Even the slight kick from the chilies were tamed nicely by the meaty garbanzos. With a platter straight from the Greek Islands, and a beautiful Pinot Noir from South Africa, this was quite the worldly feast. If only, Greece had made it to the finals of the World Cup, hosted in Africa’s tip, this would have been the perfect fusion meal.  

Want to know why your steak tastes better at a steakhouse than when you pull it off your backyard grill? Butter. That’s all there is too it. Well… not all there is to it but for the most part, it’s all about the butter. The quality cuts of meat, liberal salting, and a dim-lit dining room also add to the steakhouse ambiance.

If plain, boring, sensiouly silky, rich butter just doesn’t cut it for you… add something to the butter to make a compound or flavored butter as I did last night. The possibilities are endless. You could add herbs, truffles, chopped porcini mushrooms, crystallized ginger, pesto, honey or even fruit. In the words of Dr. Evil… throw me a friggin’ bone here… literally. Bones have been used in cooking for centuries to flavor soups and stocks, but what’s inside a beef bone is like the Holy Grail.

Marrow is like a beef compound butter in itself. Its slimy, fatty texture and concentrated beef flavor is typically spread on toast with a sprinkle of sea salt, but also famous in the classic northern Italian dish, Osso Bucco. Humans have been eating marrow for years. Back before humans learned to hunt, they were scavengers. Cracking open bones and sucking out the marrow was a great source of protein. Diners in the 18th century even designed a long and skinny marrow spoon that is now typically seen in antique shows.

Unless you’re a vegetarian, what could be better than a gorgeous piece of beef, enhanced with a beef flavored butter? When I stopped at my butcher the other day, not only did I ask for a prime, dry aged NY Strip, but a big ol’ bag of beef bones as well.

 Most supermarkets or butchers sell bones, but sometimes they can be frozen or hidden in the back because as you can imagine, they’re not the most popular item in the meat department. The poor old lady at the check-out counter thought that I had 17 Golden Retrievers at home.

I preheated my oven to 425 degrees and threw in a tray of vertically stacked bones to roast the marrow. It only takes about twenty minutes and your kitchen will start to smell like Julia Child has been making her Beef Bourguignon all day on your stovetop. Unfortunately, I do not own marrow spoons, but it’s just as simple to turn a regular spoon backwards and fish out the marrow with the handle.

 This part isn’t for those with a weak stomach, because the insides look exactly what you’d expect the inside of a beef bone to look like. Shiny, brain-like, gelatinous blobs of hot marrow spilled out into a bowl, one by one until I had about a half cup.

I promise you that if you close your eyes and take a spoonful, the most elegant, silky, buttery bite will slowly just dissolve on your tongue. There’s something incredibly sexy about eating bone marrow, as hard as that is for some of you to grasp. The sensation is quite similar to taking a bite of rich mushroom risotto, dowsed in truffle oil. I added a stick of softened, unsalted butter, and a handful of freshly chopped rosemary to the bowl and creamed my homemade compound butter until it was all incorporated.

I set the butter aside in the refrigerator to set because it became a little bit too soft during the mixing period and ultimately I needed it to be thick enough to pipe into a hollowed out bone. In the meantime, I prepared some classic, steakhouse side dishes. The asparagus I bought had some serious girth, so I decided to peel them before I tossed them into a pot of boiling water. Most of the time, I never peel them because when they’re grilled, the outer, fibrous skin usually chars and breaks down nicely. I was going for a more delicate, elegant cooking approach last night and simply blanched them and softly sauteed them before serving.

 I also sauteed some giant trumpet mushrooms that looked like they came from level 4 of Super Mario Bros. These massive shrooms, were meaty, and earthy… a great combo withthe marrow butter. I brought my dry aged steak to room temperature and seasoned it with coarse salt and freshly cracked black pepper while I preheated my grill. Dry aged beef has two significant benefits. Natural enzymes in the meat break down the connective tissue in the muscle to make for a more tender steak, and moisture in the muscle evaporates, leaving a more concentrated beef flavor.

As you can tell, I was doing everything in my power to showcase and enhance the beef. Once my grill was too hot to hold my hand over it, I slapped the two NY Strips down on the back of the grate. Inside, I piped the roasted marrow-rosemary butter back into the bone for presentation. I garnished it with a firm, sprig of rosemary which also acted as a tool to scoop the butter out.

After the steaks were ready to come off to rest, I slathered a dollop of the compound butter on top and watched the thick butter slowly melt into the flesh. As I plated, I opened a bottle of Chateau Clairefont Margaux from the highly acclaimed 2005 vintage. Bordeaux and rich beef dishes are a cute couple. They interact so nicely with each other and enhance the flavor of one another bite after sip and sip after bite. This particular wine from the Margaux region of Bordeaux is composed of primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, with a little Merlot and Petit Verdot blended in. The nose is perfumed with dried flowers and smoke and impeccably balanced with the bright, ripe fruit of cassis.

Even though the wine is quite young for a Bordeaux, it is refined, structured and succulent. As my steak knife slid through the pink flesh like butter, the aroma of pure and simple beef was met with flavors of earthy marrow and woodsy rosemary. As the wine sat and swirled around in my glass throughout the meal, it opened up quickly and released a second serving of fruit and oak. This was one of those moments where a perfect marriage of food and wine transform a normal meal into a heavenly experience. Let’s just say, when all was said and done, we had no bones to pick with the chef.

Over the weekend, I got a chance to slip down to Cape Cod for a few days and enjoy the warm weather at the beach. We set up shop at Dowse’s Beach in Osterville, a two minute walk from my grandparents house. The beach was packed with families and young kids boogie-boarding in the waves, which was a good sign that the water was warm. I sat down with, surprise… a non-food related book for the first time in ages, and soaked up some sun. The ninety degree heat was almost unbearable after an hour and it was time to jump in the ocean. The luke warm, salty bathtub water felt amazing despite the swarms of seaweed floating on the surface.

After all the fake mustache and arm pit hair jokes weren’t funny anymore, I started to examine all the different species of seaweed that floated by, and the foodie side of my brain kicked into overdrive. I thought about an article I read recently on the health benefits of seaweed and the many bowls of perfectly seasoned seaweed salad I’ve slurped up at Japanese restaurants.

 It turns out, that “vegetables of the sea” contain sufficient amounts of calcium, sodium, magnesium, potassium, iodine, iron, and zinc, along with tons of other vitamins that human beings require, but most of the time lack. Specific types of seaweed, in particular the Wakame variety which is most commonly seen at your local sushi joint, has been known to flush the body of toxic pollutants, promote youthful skin tones, and keep your hair healthy.

After floating around the Atlantic ocean amidst all of these slimy creatures for about an hour, I finally concocted a dish in my head that incorporated all of this mineral-rich kelp. It was the first time I’ve ever used seaweed in the kitchen but I was fairly certain that my idea had promise. I was leaning towards an Asian theme due to the seaweed but I also incorporated some Italian and southwestern flair to the dish.

I fine tuned all the parts while sitting in bumper to bumper traffic in my wet bathing suit, anxiously awaiting the kitchen. I stopped off at the grocery store and picked up some sushi-grade tuna that was bright purple in color and impeccably firm.

I also grabbed two containers of Wakame seaweed, which slightly resembles an over dressed, salad of fresh cut grass. The sea “noodles” have a briny, sweet flavor and a great pop of texture. When I got home, I prepared the seaweed salad the same way a Japanese restaurant traditionally would. I dressed it with rice wine vinegar, a touch of sesame oil, sesame seeds, and chili flakes. Since it was still incredibly humid outdoors, I was planning on eating on the roofdeck so I decided to serve the dish cold.

 I made an Asian pasta salad using a specific Italian variety of spaghetti made from ground Farro wheat. Farro is similar to barley or a wheatberry, which looks like a big, brown grain of rice (sometimes it’s furry). In Italy, people soak the farro and then cook it in the style of pasta to make farro salads, usually tossed with vegetables. I had this really cool, dark brown spaghetti in my pantry that I found in an Italian specialty market, that ground up the farro and turned it into pasta. I thought that the contrast of the dark spaghetti and the bright, lime green seaweed would look beautiful on the plate as well as acting as the healthiest pasta salad known to man.

Where else can you get all of these oceanic vitamins and minerals, as well as healthy carbs? I simply cooled down the spaghetti and tossed it with the salad, watching the long slivers weave together into one nest of deliciousness. As for the tuna, I wanted to spice it up a little bit with the heat of some Mexican Chili powder but I was afraid that if I rubbed the spice on before searing it, it would burn.

I heated up my skillet until the smoke alarm was just about to ring, before I quickly seared all for sides of the fish evenly. Immediately after I removed it from the pan is when I decided to roll it up and cover the entire eight inch block with this rich, rusty brown colored, chili powder. The heat that was still lingering in the outskirts of the fish heated up the powder and released all of its aromatic oils.

I popped it into the fridge for it to chill and firm up before I sliced it. I plated the seaweed pasta salad and made sure to sharpen my knife, because any sushi chef will tell you, the key to slicing raw fish is a sharp blade. Long fluid motions, without sawing, will keep the flesh in tact and make the dish presentable. I fanned the sashimi out over my nest of pasta and adorned the dish with some drops of ginger-wasabi cream that will bring a whole different type of heat to the party. I marched upstairs and plated this healthy dinner on the table right next to an empty ice bucket that needed a clean, crisp white to wash this food down with.

 I opened a bottle of 2008 Quinta de Azevedo Vinho Verde from Portugal. Vinho Verde translates to “green wine”, referring to its youthfullness rather than its color or organic benefits. The Vinho Verde is light and fresh, with less than one bar of CO2 pressure, it doesn’t quite qualify as a semi-sparkling wine but definitely has some fizz. The hazy straw color foams up in the glass from the tiny little bubbles and gives off aromas of stone fruit and flowers. This was one of the most refreshing wines that I’ve ever tasted and a great compliment to such profound flavors and textures in the dish. The strong, natural acidity cleans your palate and leaves you with flavors of Granny Smith Apples and peaches.

 If you close your eyes, it almost seems like you’re drinking a very strong Bellini (Prosecco and white peach puree). Despite the low alcohol content, this wine was bone dry, leaving no traces of residual sugars. We left the forks in the drawer and cracked apart a few sets of chop sticks like wishbones and devoured this meal as the sun went down. The meaty tuna was so fresh and delicate, it seemed to melt away on your tongue. The contrast in texture in the pasta salad was exciting and the two different genres of heat from the chili and wasabi played nicely with each other. Even though there was a lot of food, it was such a healthy dinner and I felt great afterwards; almost light enough to float in the ocean again without sinking to the bottom.

 One of my favorite vegetables has always been broccoli no matter how it’s prepared. Steamed, roasted, sauteed, or even grilled… its vitamin rich, dark green stalks are always delicious.

The bitter flavor is great on it’s own but when combined with other flavors such as garlic or chilies, the broccoli lives up to its full potential. One of my favorite Italian pasta dishes is orchiette (small, ear shaped pasta) with sauteed broccoli rabe and sausage. There’s something about the combination of spicy pork, and the buttery, wilted greens that really wakes up my taste buds.

Broccoli rabe, or rapini, is a member of the broccoli family that tends to be quite leafier. The stalks are edible and within all of the dark leaves, tiny little florets sprout out at the ends.

 Last night we decided to make pizza in a pan, and I wanted to incorporate all of the flavors of my favorite dish. Due to the warm weather, I have been grilling broccoli a lot lately, and the char from the grill combined with the bitter greens and some great olive oil is a wonderful combination of flavors.

 I dumped three huge bushels of rapini on my fiery hot grill and let them char on one side before removing them. I made a pesto-like concoction in my food processor with the charred broccoli rabe, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and some Pecorino cheese.

The bright green pesto was laced with black speckles from the grill and it added an amazing smoky flavor to the spread. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to make homemade pizza dough, so I grabbed some from the the supermarket and left it on the counter to rise a little bit.

 Once we had it ready to roll out, I realized that I don’t have a rolling pin, pizza stone, or anything else that is generally needed to make homemade pizza. We improvised rolled out the dough by hand and stretched it into a large skillet. The final result didn’t come out as thin as we had hoped but it was still absolutely delicious.

 I spread a thin layer of creamy mascarpone cheese on the dough before lathering on my charred broccoli rabe pesto. Next, I sliced up from fresh balls of buffalo mozzarella and arranged them on top. The contrast in colors was very eye catching. On top of all that, I sprinkled some spicy Italian sausage that I rendered down in a pan, and a dusting of Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Into the oven the pizza went, where it baked for about twenty minutes. I popped the light in the oven on a few times just to watch the thick slabs of mozzarella bubble and ooze down the sides of the crust. By the time we cut the pizza into slices, I needed a pair of scissors because the cheese was so stringy. I popped a bottle of 2006 Poliziano Vino Nobile di Montelpulciano from a small town in the hills of Tuscany. Vino Nobile or ‘Noble Wine’, is primarily Sangiovese, known locally as Prugnolo gentile, with small traces of local varieties blended in such as Caniolo Nero and Mammolo.

 This wine truly accentuates the terroir and the ancient Tuscan bond between soil, man, and culture. It’s deeply concentrated and well structured with aromas of herbs, oak and red fruit. On the palate, the wine is bursting with acidity and tons of black cherry flavor.

There is a subtle, leathery, tobacco note in the finish that plays nicely with the charred broccoli rabe. The pizza dough was crispy at the crust and pleasantly chewy in the middle. All of my favorite flavors came together on every single slice. The good part about making a huge batch of the broccoli rabe is that we have a wonderful pasta dish for tomorrow night.

Unless you’re an avid hunter with excellent aim, or know a great butcher, it can be hard to get your hands on some quality game meat. Luckily, our friend Leigh’s father is a certified, wildlife ass-kicker, who goes on hunting trips armed with a massive bow and arrow. He snipes all sorts of delicious animals such as elk, caribu, deer, and goose just to name a few. Last Sunday, Leigh was generous enough to empty out her freezer for us while we watched the big futbol game.

We had plenty of time to plan the menu in between all the scoring going on between Spain and Netherlands. It was beautiful out, so we moved the party up to the roofdeck and opened a few bottles of crisp white wine to enjoy with our first course… Sliced venison summer sausage with extra sharp cheddar and three peppercorn mustard.

 As soon as the deer was killed, it was professionally butchered, ground up with pork fat filler, and piped into natural casings. It had the appearance of Genoa Salami but the flavor was definitely different. There was an intriguing gamey flavor that came out in the aftertaste, which was perfect with the velvety pork fat and the tangy cheese. This was some serious charcuterie!

After a few craft brews and a Spain victory, I opened some celebratory Spanish Godello to go with our next bird course. This was the first animal of the evening that I have yet to try. Breasts were removed from a goose, corned by boiling in salted water for a long period of time, and them dowsed in peppercorns before getting smoked. This is how pastrami is made.

The goose pastrami looked like two, bright red, clenched fists that were dipped in black pepper. We sliced them very thinly to reveal the bright purple, flesh and a wonderful, smoky aroma. We made a huge platter of goose pastrami crostini, topped with a chiffonade of shallots and sage, followed by a healthy drizzle of black walnut balsamic reduction.

The sweet, vinegar complimented the smoky meat nicely as I wolfed down a handful of these gamey treats. It brought me back to the days of sitting Indian-style in my living room, clenching my bright orange weapon, and picking off virtual ducks, which is obviously as close as I’ve come to hunting real birds.

Even my friend Tommy, whom I had to get “back up” food for, chomped away at the goose while pretending to line up a sea gull that swooped over our heads. The sun started to set along the skyline and it was time to start cooking the main course. This is what I had been waiting for all day. The giant elk that is getting pummeled by Rambo in the attached picture is what went into our burgers.

 Elk is not only the largest species of deer, but also one of the largest mammals found in North America. It was shot by Leigh’s dad, butchered, ground immediately to ensure freshness.

You know you’re not eating your typical dose of hormones and other additives when consuming a free range animal. The flesh was bright red and extremely lean. Even though elk has tons of natural flavor, I added some chunks of cubed butter to the patties so that the burgers didn’t dry out during the cooking process.

 I pan seared the burgers in a giant cast iron skillet and then finished them off under the broiler to melt the smoked gouda on top. I also adorned the half pounders with some sauteed shiitake mushrooms, and grilled scallions that were marinated in Fig Balsamic Vinegar. The earthy flavor in the shrooms, combined with the sweet char on the onions accentuated the gaminess of the elk. I didn’t want to mask the flavor of the giant deer with tons of unneeded bread, so I simply slid it into a paper thin pita pocket to serve.

 I marched up the spiral staircase, with a giant platter of elk burgers, slightly chilled Pinot Noir, and tons of napkins. The burgers were jaw numbingly huge, and freshly pink and juicy. There was no way that this treat could pass for beef because the wild flavors were so intense and concentrated. It was by far one of the most interesting, and most delicious burgers I have ever consumed. After all this food, everyone was pretty full, but we brought up one final course to nibble on as the sun dipped behind the Prudential.

Even if we had to remove our belts, we were going to make room for some grilled skirt steak, sliced, and tossed with some Asian Sesame noodles. The cool ocean breeze cut through the humidity, and made it bearable to digest under the stars as we finished off some more wine, and planned a massive hunting trip in the Fall. It’s one thing to be a gatherer, and pick up your own food at the supermarket, but to be a hunter and truly appreciate the flavors of what you catch is something that I really want to experience.