Dad had various satays at his hotel in Indonesia while on a film trip back in the mid '70s. The hotel chef wouldn’t give up the ingredients, so Dad came up with this using ingredients we could get in Northern NJ in that time period.
A Friday afternoon virtual libation gathering of my Fin/Admin team. We made it through another week.
Dinner was my semi-Friday night standard: grilled steak tips with Ballymaloe steak sauce, baked tater with TPSTOB and sour cream, and roasted Brussels sprouts.
Celebrating the end of another interminably long week. Filet mignon (from an excellent birthday local butcher just discovered), roasted cauliflower and chickpeas, and asparagus. Also not pictured: spinach kale bites (TJs). To drink: Eight years in the desert. Delicious all around.
We are trying to support local restaurants by ordering takeout over the weekend, since we can’t dine out. Tonight we had some excellent takeout from A Taco Affair in Little Falls, NJ. We enjoyed crispy buttermilk fried chicken and smoked brisket tacos, along with Mexican street corn, and crispy and creamy fried avocados. It all went great with an excellent Napa Valley Cabernet.
The other half of the sous vide goat shoulder had been marinating for a few days, and restless natives demanded it be cooked.
Flavor was good, but I was not terribly happy because the stupid cast iron pot dried out my otherwise perfect biryani. Others were much happier with the outcome than I was.
Pizza dough fermented for tonight - we finally have fresh mozzarella.
I made a caprese salad ex-basil, and a margherita pie. Other eater was overstuffed from lunch (baasi biryani - ie “stale”/leftover biryani, which lore says tastes even better than the fresh version), so the rest of the pizza dough went into the freezer. Also roasted carrots which I burned, but were still delicious.
I don’t know why, but I just don’t like soggy Neapolitan-style pizza. I ate two slices fresh from the oven, but crisped the third in a cast iron pan a la leftover pizza, and that last slice was my favorite.
A couple of days ago I came across Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipe for Za’atar Salmon. I have been on a tahini kick lately and this recipe included a tahini sauce. I used frozen blackfish which Mr Bean caught last summer since I already had it and frozen spinach. It was delicious though I imagine it would be a touch better with crispy skin-on salmon.
I don’t follow him on Instagram, but maybe I should; I do have all his cookbooks, though I haven’t cooked from them much. That is about to change due to the QT, and accompanying restlessness. Your dinner looks good too - have been craving fish lately.
@Lambchop Thank you. I only have a couple of his books but want to add to my collection. Mr Bean is an avid fisherman so we always have freshly caught fish in our freezer, primarily sea bass, striped bass, blackfish, and fluke/flounder.
@tomatotomato I LOVE za’atar!!! The dish was good and very easy to make.
