Gotta Love the Internet

If you got a problem, yo, I’ll solve it.

But seriously, I have the Lodge cast iron grill pan and yeah, I’ve been wondering if/when I’ll be able to use it again without smoking up my entire apartment due to the caked-on nastiness.

Seared Salmon with Beurre Blanc, Asparagus, and Couscous Salad

Salmon with Beurre Blanc, Asparagus, and Couscous Salad (taken with my cell phone, because I was hungry and didn't want to run upstairs for the digital camera)

H.K. and I were in the mood for salmon last night, which we usually have once a week, but we couldn’t agree on how to have it. H.K. wanted the Bobby Flay Glaze (as we refer to it), which is really delicious, but kind of heavy and sweet. I really have to be in the mood for it and I wasn’t, so I nixed that idea. I wanted a citrus reduction that I had made once before, but H.K. wasn’t a big fan, so he nixed that idea. We decided to just go to the grocery store and wing it, which I don’t usually do. I almost always have a list that I stick to (like a good little shopper), but last night I stood in the produce section until the grocery gods answered my prayer for a dinner idea.

We decided to have seared salmon with a beurre blanc, roasted asparagus with garlic, and a couscous salad. H.K. made the beurre blanc and I made the rest. I seared the salmon in a nonstick pan with a little olive oil. I tossed the asparagus with minced garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper and roasted it at 400° for about 8-10 minutes. The couscous salad I just kind of threw together without any particular recipe in mind.

Couscous is ridiculously simple to make, and I like to eat it in the summertime because it tastes good at room temperature. (I like asparagus in the summer for the same reason.) You bring some water to a boil (you can use broth too, if you’re into that), add an equal amount of couscous, give it a stir, then take it off the heat and leave it covered for five minutes. Presto! You’re done. To the couscous I added chopped grape tomatoes, avocado, green onions, and parsley, then tossed it all with a lemon vinaigrette.

Vinaigrette is one of those things that I think everyone should learn to make. It tastes significantly better than bottled dressing. Actually, that’s an understatement—there’s really no comparison between freshly made vinaigrette and vinaigrette in a bottle. One of the first cookbooks I ever owned was Mark Bittman’s The Minimalist Cooks at Home, and that’s where I learned the basic recipe for vinaigrette. (I think the last time I bought a bottle of salad dressing people were worrying about the Y2K crisis.) You can find Bittman’s basic vinaigrette recipe at his New York Times blog.

For the couscous salad last night, I used lemon juice and a little rice vinegar as the acid. (Using lemon juice alone doesn’t taste acidy enough to me.) To that I added a minced shallot, a dollop of Dijon mustard, salt, and pepper. Then I whisked in the olive oil. A ratio of 3:1 (olive oil:acid) is too oily for my taste, so I usually use about a 2:1 ratio.

Once you get the hang of the ratios (which of course you can adjust to your taste), you can bang out all kinds of different vinaigrettes that will taste far better and be much cheaper than bottled dressing. For Cobb salad, I use a combination of lemon juice and red wine vinegar and I add minced garlic and a few dashes of Worcestershire. For Asian salads, I use rice vinegar (to which I sometimes I add lime juice), soy sauce, a little sesame oil (it goes a long way), and some Sriracha. Depending on what’s in the salad I sometimes throw in a little mirin or honey for sweetness or, if I want a nutty dressing, some peanut butter or tahini.

As you can see, I feel very strongly about vinaigrette. I’d like to make it my mission in life to convince every home cook to learn this basic recipe and abandon bottled dressings forever. It tastes infinitely better, it’s cheaper, and you make just what you need for that meal, so you don’t end up with eight different bottles of dressing in the fridge for all of the different kinds of salads you eat.

Cross-posted at Raging Red.

The Top Chef Drinking Game

Hippie Killer asked if I wanted to write for this blog, and I gladly accepted. For my first contribution, I’d like to offer up a Top Chef Drinking Game, which HK and I road-tested last night. Okay, we sofa-tested it. I’m a big enough Top Chef fan that I read the blogs on BravoTV’s web site. Well, not all of them, since they’ve got a slew of them now, but I usually check out the judges’ blogs and Lee Anne’s. She’s the former cheftestant (from Season 1) who now works behind the scenes for the show.

In her first blog post for Season 4 Lee Anne mentioned a Top Chef Drinking Game and noted, in a live-blogging-esque fashion, each time she had to take a drink during the first episode. So of course I went Googling for the game, but the results were disappointing. Admittedly, I only checked out the first couple of pages of results, but all I found was the same fairly lame version recycled on a bunch of different food blogs. For one thing, there aren’t enough items on the list. For another, the very first one is an uncalled for slam against host Padma Lakshmi, who is supposedly unqualified to talk about anything whatsoever. (Food snobbery, or snobbery of any kind, is insufferable.) Disappointed, I decided to create my own.

I won’t claim that this is the best Top Chef Drinking Game evah, but it’s better than the ones I found. I did borrow a few items that I actually liked from the others. HK and I whipped this up moments before last night’s episode, so I’ll add more to this list as we think of them. Readers are highly encouraged to add more suggestions in the comments. (Of course, this blog hasn’t officially gone public yet, but I suppose we’ll get a few Google hits.)

Without further ado, here’s the game:

THE TOP CHEF DRINKING GAME

You know the rules.

Take ONE drink if:

1. Padma says “Utensils down, hands up.”
2. A chef says they’ve never cooked __________ before.
3. A chef says “I’m just here to compete” or “I’m just here to win.”
4. A chef can’t find something in the kitchen/pantry.
5. Two words: Product placement. (Granted, this item alone could get you drunk off your ass.)
6. The chefs draw knives.
7. A chef makes a dessert when he/she doesn’t have to.
8. You see a chef wearing Crocs.
9. A chef makes a foam.
10. A chef accuses another chef of copying an idea/style/ingredient, etc.
11. A chef yells out how much time is left on the clock.
12. A chef or judge says “Someone has to go home.”
13. A judge asks a chef what the inspiration for their dish was.
14. A judge says that a chef’s plating looks messy/sloppy.
15. The judges say the food is too salty or not salty enough.
16. Tom Colicchio says “This was a tough decision.”
17. Gail Simmons is not at judges’ table.
18. Anthony Bourdain says something that he thinks is clever.
19. A judge asks “Did you taste it?”
20. Gail mentions Food & Wine Magazine.

Take TWO drinks if:

1. A chef makes a duo of something.
2. A chef uses an ingredient that you’ve never heard of.
3. A chef misses the whole point of a challenge or doesn’t follow the rules.
4. A chef says that the guest judge is their hero/idol.
5. Someone uses the phrase “molecular gastronomy.”
6. Padma tells the chefs they will be packing their stuff in GladWare.
7. Tom says “This is Top Chef, not Top _______.”
8. Someone actually refers to the chefs as “cheftestants.”
9. Someone utters any variation of the phrase “throw me under the bus.”
10. Someone utters any variation of the phrase “stand behind your dish.”
11. A judge says that something is inedible.
12. A chef says “This won’t be the last you’ll see of me.”

Take THREE drinks if:

1. A chef makes a trio of something.
2. The challenge was obviously created primarily for product placement and doesn’t really have much to do with being a chef (I’m talkin’ to you, Bertolli Frozen Dinners!).
3. A chef cuts or otherwise injures him/herself. (Not that I wish for this to happen!)

Do a SHOT if:

1. A chef gets kicked off (á la Cliff in Season 2) or quits the show.
2. A woman finally wins Top Chef.

HAPPY DRINKING!