Grilled Pork Chops with Wild Mushroom Sauce

This week for Gutsy Cooks Club we choose Top Chef's Marcel Vigneron's recipe for Grilled Pork Chops with Wild Mushroom Sauce from Season 2. If you are a Top Chef fan you must remember Marcel and his arrogant smirk and demeanor. 

He may be both arrogant and smirky but let me tell you this recipe rocked! 

We started with some bone in pork chops I picked up at  one of only two local butcher shops we have close by.

We made several adjustments to the original recipe. First, instead of the bacon and cabbage he has to be served as the side we switched to pancetta and kale. Cooked the exact same way. Second, we used baby portobello mushrooms (crimini) as I just am not a huge fan of portobellos for some reason. Third, we omitted the whipping cream and subbed a flavored creamy garlic and chive cheese for the called for cream cheese. Mostly because my goal was to pick up everything we needed for the meal at the butcher's and they didn't have cream cheese but they did have a flavored cheese, sort of like Boursin just a different brand. We just didn't feel the potatoes needed the whipping cream as well. 

At first we were concerned this was going to be a lot to take on after both of our 1st real day back to work and for our self made anniversary dinner. But really it was pretty quick. It did helped we made it together with a glass of Oregon sparkling wine in hand.

We layered our dish with the components of the recipe on the plate.

First,

 Then, 

Next, 

Finally,

We could tell immediately this was going to be pretty darn tasty given all of the components and how well they match together. 

We have to say the mushroom sauce was just weird. It was a strange texture and color, almost looked like a pate'. But the overall taste was good. We did additionally add a little heavy cream to mushrooms instead of just water to make them at least a little creamy. But it was not really a sauce.

We served the meal with a FANTASTIC 2007 Washington, Horse Heaven Hills Syrah from Robert Ramsey. It was a perfect syrah and truly perfectly paired with the meal.

Now that we enjoyed this recipe so much I guess I have to become a bit less of a Marcel hater I suppose.

Recipe:

Grilled Pork Chops with Wild Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

PORK CHOPS
4 medium pork chops
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

MASHED POTATOES:
6 pounds Yukon gold potatoes
1 1/2 pints heavy whipping cream
2 sticks butter
2 ounces creme fraiche
4 ounces cream cheese
Grated nutmeg, to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste

MUSHROOM SAUCE:
6 portobello mushrooms
3 heads of garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

CABBAGE AND BACON:
4 cups cabbage, cut as thinly as possibly
4-6 slices thick-cut bacon, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons butter

Directions

PORK CHOPS:

Lightly brush each pork chop with oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill pork chops to desired doneness.

MASHED POTATOES:

Peel and dice potatoes. Place in large pot and cover with cold water to the depth of one inch. Cook over low heat until potatoes are tender, being careful not to let the water boil. Remove from heat and drain. Let potatoes cool slightly. Process potatoes in a food mill, transfer to a large bowl and set aside.

Combine cream and butter in a small pan and cook over medium low until cream is warm and butter has melted.

Mix cream mixture, crème fraîche, and cream cheese into potatoes. Season to taste with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Cover and keep warm until ready to serve.

MUSHROOM SAUCE:

Heat oven to 425 degrees.

Wrap garlic in foil and roast in oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until very soft.

Remove stems and gills from portobello mushrooms and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil. Place portobellos on rimmed baking sheet and cover with foil. Roast in oven for 10 to 20 minutes, until tender. Squeeze garlic from skin. Combine with mushrooms in a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Process, adding 1 tablespoon water at a time, until mixture is smooth.

CABBAGE AND BACON:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add cabbage and blanch until tender. Drain and transfer immediately to a bowl of ice water. Let sit until cool. Remove and drain well.

Cook bacon in a medium skillet over medium heat until crispy. Remove from pan to a paper towel-lined plate.

In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add cabbage and bacon and stir to combine. Cook until cabbage begins to soften, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm until ready to serve.

© 2013 Marcel Vigneron

GCC:Kale Salad with Brussels Sprout Leaves and Lemon Vinaigrette

We are excited to be hosting our Gutsy Cooks this month with our Top Chef recipe theme. 

We didn't have a ton of time to determine our theme so we kind of just thought of what was inspiring our cooking currently. With a new season of Top Chef starting we are definitely intrigued by their challenges, techniques and often even unusual ingredients. We are huge Top Chef fans so it just kind of seemed like a good theme to go with = Top Chef  recipes.

This week we went with a recipe; Kale Salad with Brussels Sprout Leaves & Lemon Leaves, from Season 10 which happened in Seattle (another "of course" choice.) It is a recipe from Brooke Williamson, who is only the 2nd female Top Chef ever chosen. We both actually think that's pretty cool.

There are a few reasons this recipe appealed to us. 1) It's summer = light recipes just sound good. 2) It has Kale and Brussels Sprouts = 2 Super foods we have great affinity toward. 3) It's rare a Top Chef makes a salad for the judges = it's even more rare that the judges feel a salad is Top Chef  "Worthy." But this salad met the mark with the judges. They were quite impressed. 

We immediately made a few tweaks to the recipe but subtle ones. The first was with the beets. Our local market had these beautiful golden beets that just said, "choose me." So we went with golden beets as opposed to the typical red beets. 

We also decided adding some bacon would really complete the flavors. ( WE REALLY THINK THIS TWEAK MADE THE SALAD FOR OUR PALATES.) 

The recipe calls for anchovy fillets. Funny, 12 years ago I would have never used anchovies in ANYTHING. 5 years ago I would have only went with Anchovy paste to make a Cesar salad maybe. But today fillets of anchovies are just fine.

These little fishy things really do bring a unique flavor to a dish like this. 

But the thing that really made this salad (in addition to the bacon) was the beet vinaigrette. Wow, this was good. 

We actually added a bit less olive oil than the recipe called for which made the vinaigrette more like a puree. This was a fantastic omission. 

We also added,as mentioned before, some bacon bits. I don't know for some reason these flavors were just screaming to us, "add bacon." And we were quite happy we followed our gut on this one. Because let me tell you with the bacon addition this salad was not only delicious it was also a main dish. 

This salad was a hit. Obviously, not an everyday side salad that we typically make when we do make salad but rather a meal in itself.

We hope all of our Gutsy Cooks will join us this month as we try to do some Top Chef replication. Even non- Gutsy Cooks can jump on over to Monica's Sweetbites Blog and check out the recipes and cook with us. 

RECIPE:

Kale Salad with Brussels Sprout Leaves & Lemon Vinaigrette

Season 10

We were excited to hear that Top Chef would be filmed in Seattle for season 10. We ended up being
somewhat disappointed to see so few Seattle food spots highlighted in the season and that the last 4 episodes were actually on a cruise and in Alaska. We felt a bit short handed. Few women have won Top Chef so it was exciting when Brooke Williamson won the season. This is her recipe for a great, bright salad that the judges raved about.

Brooke Williamson Top Chef, Season 10, Episode 1

Ingredients 
For the salad:
One head curly kale, torn and de-stemmed
8 anchovy filets, juliennedSeparated outer leaves from 6 large Brussels sprouts

For the lemon vinaigrette:
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoons whole grain mustard
One shallot finely diced
1 tablespoons honey
Salt and black pepper to taste
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil2 filets of white anchovies, finely chopped
For the beet vinaigrette:
One small shallot, diced
One clove garlic
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons red wine vinegarSalt to taste

One medium red beet, cooked, peeled and diced3 tablespoons olive oil

Directions
To make the salad:
Toss all ingredients together in a large bowl

To make the lemon vinaigrette:
Whisk all ingredients together until well combined

To make the beet vinaigrette:
Place all ingredients in blender except for the oil. Puree until smooth and slowly drizzle the oil into the blender.

Plating:
Place the beet vinaigrette on bottom of plate. Toss greens with lemon vinaigrette and place a mound of salad on top of the beet vinaigrette. Garnish with kale chips if desired. 

GCC: Scallop Sauce with Olive Oil, Garlic, and Hot Pepper

This week for Gutsy Cooks Club Marie from Weekend Viands, our July host, served us up a fantastic Italian recipe for scallop sauce. One of our favorite shellfish options. 

It was Italian simplistic; the best seafood you can find, simple olive oil, garlic, parsley and hot pepper. Couldn't be much more simple and delicious.

We actually LOVE scallops. Sweet, succulent and with a smooth texture when cooked well. The original recipe called for chopped red hot pepper. We went with a dried ancho chile instead that I used some Rick Bayless technique on. In most of his recipes he first basically deep fries his chiles to rehydrate them which gives them a fantastic deep, complex flavor. We did this and chopped it up for the sauce.

This recipe first started with a great classic combo of garlic, olive oil and the pepper brought up to high temperature without burning the garlic. Not easy for me to do usually.

The thing with scallops is they are best when seared well. And its hard to get a good sear when buying frozen scallops which is most typically what you will find in the grocery stores even in a seafood haven like the Pacific Northwest. We used Sea scallops instead of the small Bay scallops the recipe called for. 

To achieve as much 'dryness' as possible I typically first ensure they are fully defrosted. Then I place them between layers of absorbent paper towels with weight on top to absorb as much moisture as possible. This helps. But having a hot pan, and we find the cast iron skillet works best for this, is another technique to help with this searing process. 

The recipe called to serve them over pasta. We had just had pasta the night before and having pasta two nights in a row for us, being not huge pasta consumers, was just not in the cards. We decided to make some Israeli Couscous to serve them on instead. 

We loved this simply elegant and delicate delicious dish. So, so good. 

Find the recipe it's linked here. Thanks Marie for a great line up of Italian recipes to try this month. 

GCC: Grilled Shrimp Panzanella Salad

Sometimes experimenting with flavors pays off. This week for Gutsy Cooks Club Marie from Weekend Viands set us on a path for making Panzanella  Salad. We are fans of this salad especially during the summer months.

But to be honest we had just arrived home from a 5 day road trip with a pretty sick pup so we were feeling mostly just 'done' and in need for comfort. I had ran to the store to get rice and lean ground beef to start the bland diet for our pup that the vet recommended and I decided to pick up everything to make a grilled tomato shrimp spaghetti. Obviously I had forgot about this week's Gutsy Cooks Club assignment. Once I did remember I quickly went into "Gutsy" mode and started thinking how to merge my original pasta idea with the panzanella.

I decided to essentially go with a grilled version and add some shrimp. Hey, it's worth giving a shot. I knew the flavors would mesh well and one of the things I'm not a huge fan of in a panzanella salad is the mealy texture. So I thought grilling the bread might help with that. I know this makes it not so traditional and for panzanella purists it might even be sac-religious but hey that's what our Gutsy Cooks Club is all about.

I started by prepping all my flavors for the salad. Here's new tip I learned. To keep your wooden skewers from charring up on the grill it helps to soak them in water. I never seem to have a vessel long enough to soak them in. But a wine bottle is the perfect size. And we always happen to have an empty wine bottle or two laying around here.

 I filled one with water and put the skewers inside. I had to put a little weight on the top to hold them down but this is the best vessel I've found for this purpose thus far. I pulled some basil off my plant that was begging for water when we returned from our trip today.

I first wrapped my garlic in foil and got it onto the grill to get it good and soft to make the anchovy, caper, garlic paste that I used to flavor the dressing.

And hopefully later in the summer I might even get to pull a few tomatoes off our plant too. It was looking a bit sickly today but hopefully after some good watering soaks in it will look better tomorrow.

I got everything grilling and started my dressing following the paste technique from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, by Marcella Hazan  using anchovies, garlic and capers. 

I didn't use anchovy fillets but rather the paste we use often for making Cesar dressing. I also roasted the garlic to get the sweet flavor too. 

I ground it all together and made it a paste to add to the dressing. 

Once I started seeing how lovely and charred the tomatoes were getting I knew this grilling idea was going to work well. 

And look at those grill marks on the bread about this time G was digging the idea even better too. Marie recommended making the homemade Olive Oil Bread for the salad. There were about 100 reasons why that wasn't going to happen for our attempt this week. But it was a thought to ponder if I was making the salad in late September when baking in the oven might be more logical than it was today. I used Greg's favorite Artisan Asiago bread with a chewy crust and heavy structure since we were looking to avoid the mushy texture.

Once the shrimp and the dressing were done it was time to start layering the salad in my favorite panzanella salad bowl. I started with the grilled bread.

Followed by the slightly charred and almost caramelized red onions.

And then the most perfectly grilled tomatoes that just slid off the skewer and immediately made the salad smell fantastic.

Followed finally by the grilled shrimp and basil.

The last touch was slowly adding the dressing and tossing carefully.

It was immediately beautiful and so aromatic.

This was a huge hit, the bread perfectly absorbed the dressing and flavors but kept it's structure enough to not turn into mush.

And the grilled onions and tomatoes made the most luscious flavors together. And the shrimp just made it feel like more of a complete meal.

We really loved this salad, we wish it wouldn't of been so hot out so we would of had more of an appetite since the leftovers probably are not going to taste so hot tomorrow. But it was so good we just had to test it out. 

To go to Marie's blog to see her version go here.

To see the original recipe from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, by Marcella Hazan go here.

 

GCC: Maryland Crabcake Sliders with Yum-Yum Sauce

One thing we love to both order out and make at home is crab cakes. Crab cakes are one of those restaurant dishes that we often judge a restaurant by. We've had some great ones and we've had some horrible versions. 

To be on the great list we need them to be full of dungeness crab, not full of filler and with good flavor and a little crunch from veggies is also helpful.

This week when Steph from Orangespoken challenged us to make Maryland Crab Cakes for  our Gutsy Cooks Club assignment we were happy to indulge yet again.

We decided to change it up just a bit. First, by omitting Old Bay seasoning. Just plain don't like it. 

Second, adding chopped red pepper and red onion and subbing cilantro for the parsley. When G makes them he always uses red pepper, red onion and cilantro and I love them like that. 

Third, we decided we would make them into sliders with some Yum-Yum sauce and Sriracha slaw.

Having crab cake sliders were a first for us. 

Overall, they were fine but to be honest the Hawaiian buns we served them on were a bit sweet and with the richness of the crab cake it was just a bit too sweet and rich together.

But we gave it a try, we'll most definitely go back to making them sans bun as we usually do.

RECIPE:

Maryland Crab Cakes (adapted from Once Upon a Chef)
Ingredients

1 large egg
2½ tablespoons mayonnaise
1½ teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Johnny's seasoning
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup finely diced celery 

1/4 cup finely diced red pepper

1/4 cup finely diced red onion

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 pound lump crab meat*
½ cup panko
Canola oil

Directions

1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Combine the egg, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire, Johnny's, salt, celery, red pepper, red onion, and cilantro in a large bowl and mix well. Add the crab meat (be sure to check the meat for any hard and sharp cartilage) and panko; gently fold mixture together until just combined, being careful not to shred the crab meat. Shape into 6 crab cakes (about ½ cup each) and place on prepared baking sheet. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

3. Preheat a large nonstick pan to medium heat and coat with canola oil. When oil is hot, place crab cakes in pan and cook until golden brown, about 3-5 minutes per side. 

Sriracha Slaw

2 Tblspns sriracha

2 Tblspns chopped cilantro

2 Tblspns cider vinegar

1/2 cup mayo

1/2 tspn sea sal

2 cups packaged slaw mix

Directions:

Mix together sriracha, cilantro, vinegar and mayo until well mixed. Add dressing mixture to slaw mix and add salt. Cover with saran wrap and place in refrigerator until ready to serve.

Yum-Yum Sauce

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 3/4 teaspoon paprika
• 3/8 teaspoon garlic powder

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a small bowl, combine mayonnaise, white sugar, rice vinegar, melted butter, paprika and garlic powder.
2. Mix well.
3. Cover and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Cedar Planked Copper River Salmon with Strawberry Basil Gastrique

This week for Gutsy Cooks Club Steph from Orangespoken was hankering to cook some salmon on a piece of cedar. And we were pretty happy to oblige in this hankering of hers. As foreign as that might sound to some folks, around here in the Pacific Northwest it is quite common. I am pretty sure even Lewis & Clark probably indulged in salmon prepared in this fashion during their travels here. 

Essentially you cook salmon directly on top of a piece of a cedar plank. 

Cooking it this way infuses that fantastic smoky flavor into the deep, rich fatty 

flesh of the salmon. 

And speaking of fatty. It's also perfect timing on Steph's part because the most wonderfully, fatty, delicious salmon; Copper River, is still in town flown directly from Alaska.

Now if you are not a serious salmon fan we would never recommend indulging in this "way over priced" variety of salmon. And at something like $34.99 a pound it is a salmon price gouging conspiracy. But we do love salmon, we eat a lot of a  fresh, only wild caught salmon and we do usually splurge at least once or twice a year in this  special variety when it's available. The window of availability is typically short.  But what makes Copper River so worth splurging on is how thick, fatty and deeply red it is. The Copper River Delta is evidently incredibly cold which makes the salmon have extra fat to survive. And extra fat always tastes better. 

It's important when cooking on a cedar plank to make sure you adequately soak your plank ahead of time to detour it catching on fire on the grill. Since we did this on weeknight we didn't soak our board as long as usual and our board did flare up a bit but we saved it. We simply rubbed our salmon with our favorite Tom  Douglas' Salmon Rub with Love made with smoked paprika, thyme and brown sugar. It's really all good salmon needs to taste delicious but since this is Gutsy Cooks Club I figured I better go beyond just a good rub on the salmon. 

So when I was thumbing through Stephanie Izard's Girl in the Kitchen Cookbook I came across a recipe for Fried Cheese with Spring Veggies and a Strawberry Gastrique (reduction) that I thought would taste pretty good over our perfectly smoked planked salmon.

I had never made a Gastrique before but they always make them on Top Chef and sound so complicated. But really a gastrique, we learned, is just a reduction of fruit, sugar and vinegar. Pretty simple actually. After boiling and reducing the sauce you strain out the solids and voila  you have a gastrique.

Our Copper Salmon indulging is also a pretty simple tradition. Copper River purchased at our local Metropolitan Market, cooked outside on the grill, sometimes on a cedar plank, sometimes directly on the grill but also eaten outside on the patio served with a nice Oregon Pinot Noir. Always! Or at least for the past 15 years.

And again perfect timing since we are fresh off of stocking up the cellar from our Oregon Wine weekend over Memorial Day. 

For this occasion we went with a new winery to us from Oregon called Maysara not only do they make beautiful pinots they also have a great story and a beautiful facility for making and tasting wine. 

Honestly, pinot noir is not really a fav varietal for us anymore but there is nothing better served with salmon and this one was exceptionally earthy and complemented the smoky flavor that the cedar brought to the dish just right.

The salmon was perfect! And the strawberry basil gastrique brought the right amount of sweet and sour to balance the richness and smokiness of the salmon. It was a fantastic indulgence. We thank Steph for a reason to make our 2013 version of our tradition happen.

RECIPE:

Cedar Planked Copper River Salmon with Strawberry Basil Gastrique

1 lb. fresh Copper River salmon filet

2 tablespoons Salmon Rub with Love

1 piece of well soaked cedar plank

Strawberry Basil Gastrique

1 C white balsamic vinegar

1 C sliced fresh strawberries + 1/2 C additional sliced for top of salmon

1/2 C packed fresh basil leaves

1/4 C sugar

1/4 C fresh lemon juice

1 C baby fresh pinach leaves

Soak cedar plank in water for 2-3 hours until thoroughly saturated. Combine vinegar, strawberries, basil, sugar and lemon juice in a medium sauce pan. Bring them to a boil then reduce heat. Simmer to reduce the liquid by half, 25-30 minutes. Strain, discarding the solids and let the liquid cool.

Heat grill to 375 degrees. Brush salmon lightly with Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Rub salmon flesh with the rub. Place salmon skin side down on the cedar plank. Place plank directly on grill. Cook salmon until done to your liking, we like our salmon a bit on the rare side. So we cooked our thick piece for approximately 15 minutes until it only had a slight give when we pushed it with our finger.

Serve salmon over spinach leaves dressed with a bit of the gastrique. Place salmon on top of the spinach. Add some sliced strawberries and basil on top of salmon. Drizzle salmon with strawberry basil reduction/gastrique. Enjoy!