Cooked some great dinner last night. Actually, altogether, we cooked up a storm. My housemate made up some jiao zi (yum!), some bitter melon (yuk!), and some rice. Using the George Foreman Grill, I cooked up some homestyle porkchops with sliced apple:
3 Tbsp butter/margarine
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/4 C maple syrup
[Makes enough for 4 chops]
Melt all those together; cut up an apple or two, thinly. If desired, sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on apples. Brush the aformentioned sauce all over the porkchops, and on apples. throw the stuff on the grill for 8-10 minutes.
The chops came out ok… they tasted ok, but I couldn’t sear them as nicely as if I’d used a real grill, so they didn’t look exciting. I might have to resort to my “liquid smoke” next time, again, too :-P.
Also — if you’ve got any leftover sauce, and assuming you didn’t stick the basting brush repeatedly into it (thus getting raw meat juices in it), it’s pretty tasty to just dip straight-up raw apples in it.
However, last night’s pork chops are by no means the end of the story. We had some leftover salmon steaks in the freezer; my housemate wanted to use ‘em up. I don’t eat much seafood at all, but I’m willing to try cooking it. I think that’s something like a blind man directing traffic… I basically have to experiment, read books and figure out how to cook it, but I almost never actually eat it — so I have to trust the opinions of those actually doing so. Apparently last night’s were exquisite…
In any case, I found a recipe that I didn’t quite follow. Mostly because I don’t have a food processor to make the garlic sauce. So I just brushed the stuff on, instead.
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine
5 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp cumin powder
Handful of almonds.
Salt, pepper
[Makes enough for 2-3 steaks]
Chop almonds; Bake on pan in 350 degree oven for 10+ minutes.
Chop garlic really small (Hint: Garlic presses are great). Mix garlic w/ cumin and the rest of the wet ingredients, in a bowl. It looks kinda ugly ;). Brush mix onto both sides of salmon steaks. Add salt and pepper to taste. Grill until salmon is cooked to desired levels (probably about 12 minutes on GFG). Cover the top with toasted almonds. Serve and enjoy.
It was a delicious night. Too bad I didn’t have any wine to go with it. But I still have a pork chop for lunch today.