Today’s Insanity What’s cooking? Grilled Korean-style Steaks with Cilantro Sauce

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” A Google search reveals that saying to be attributed to Benjamin Franklin, Rita Mae Brown, Albert Einstein, handbooks for Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous, and an old Chinese proverb. I don’t care who said it – it’s obviously true. And it doesn’t apply just to humans.

We have a crazy cardinal at our house. He shows up every morning that’s even moderately bright, pecking away at various windows, starting around 7am. He moves from one pane to another, banging away, apparently trying to scare off the cardinal he sees reflected in the glass. Then he flies off, but returns after a suitable interval and goes back to his task. He’s been repeating this behavior for at least the past year.

I watch him – and hear him – and think how nutty he must be, and I wonder if his mate appreciates his efforts, or if she just rolls her eyes and says, “Whatever.” But I also recognize aspects of my own behavior in his actions. Back when my children were living at home, for instance, it was the clean-up-your-room battle. Also, the pick-up-your-shoes battle (which apparently my daughter-in-law still faces, though she recently gave up and allowed the dog to eat a pair of my son’s favorite flip-flops – a tactic I never thought of). These days, it’s more about getting my husband to put his dishes into the dishwasher.

For my own part, I love to have a dinner party, but I usually make myself so crazy getting ready that I’m exhausted for at least a couple of days afterward. The dinner party I wanted to have this week was for friends visiting from New Jersey, and they’d be staying for several days – I could hardly afford to spend the whole next day in my jammies.

So I had to find recipes that would allow me to actually participate in the party. Something to be grilled – that much was clear. Marinated, too. And the sauce had to be easy and do-ahead.

From the grease stains and notes to self on this recipe, I recognized the following as one of the all-time greats. From the June 2001 issue of Gourmet:

Grilled Korean-style Steaks with Cilantro Sauce (serves 6)

The steaks:
4-5 boneless beef top loin (strip) or rib-eye steaks, about an inch thick and ½ - ¾ lb each

The marinade:
¾ c soy sauce
¼ c Madeira
3 Tbl sugar
1 ½ Tbl minced garlic
1 Tbl Asian sesame oil
1 tsp dried hot red pepper flakes

The sauce:
A medium-sized bunch of cilantro, coarsely chopped (including roots and stems) – at least 1 cup
⅓ cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1½ teaspoons minced garlic
½ teaspoon Asian sesame oil
Optional: ½ teaspoon minced, seeded fresh habanero or serrano chile [Kitchen Goddess note #1: Despite my Texas upbringing, I’m a bit of a wimp in the hot chile category, so I opt to omit the chile. It’s still a winner.]

Stir together the marinade ingredients until the sugar is dissolved. Place the steaks in a 13x9 baking dish, and pour the marinade over them. [Kitchen Goddess note #2: My preference – for any marinating – is to pour the marinade into a gallon zip-lock bag with the steaks. They fit better in the frig, and you can turn them without splashing marinade all over yourself.] In either case, marinate the steaks 1-2 hours, turning occasionally.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce by putting all ingredients into a food processor and pulsing several times until well chopped but not pureed.

Grill the steaks on a medium-hot grill, 3-4 min per side for medium-rare. Let steaks stand on a cutting board – without cutting – for 5 mins. [Kitchen goddess note #3: I know you want to just take a little peek and see if the steaks are really done, but resist that urge. The five-minute rest allows the heat to equalize across the whole piece of meat, producing a more evenly cooked, steak that actually retains the juices better. You can still put it back on the grill if it needs more cooking.] Cut the steaks lengthwise into ½-inch thick slices and drizzle the sauce over them. Serve remaining sauce on the side.

A Sprinkles Tribute to the Oscars

It's my own version of the red carpet treatment...

A Toast to Bridge and Arugula What’s cooking? Honey-Lemon Salad Dressing

Tournament bridge has been a passion of mine for a very long time – in college, I was one of those people in the dorm who would ambush anyone walking down the hall to be a fourth in some marathon game. But to everything there is a purpose, and a decade later, tournament bridge introduced me to my husband. (Not many people get their marriage announced in The New York Times’ bridge column!)

We put that passion on hold for many years while we raised our sons – the time and mental commitment was more than we felt we could give. And now that we’re retired, we are back on the tournament scene. But even at a bridge tournament, I can’t seem to get away from food and other foodies.

A Day without Sprinkles Is Cold and Gray

A little something for my friends in the frozen North...

Beep, Beep! What’s cooking? Fennel Flounder

I’m surrounded by beeps.

My computer beeps at me for the usual variety of reasons – hello or goodbye, mail arriving, browser stops working, a program won’t load – that’s not news to anyone. But our house is only two years old, so most of the appliances operate with some sort of system that I’m sure the manufacturers believe is helpful. Some days, however, I go almost crazy trying to figure out which one of them is calling to me and why.

Consider:

– The washer beeps when the load is out of balance, like if I don’t put enough other stuff in when I wash the bathroom rug.
– Ditto the dryer. And both of them sing a little song when their cycle is over. You can hear it almost anywhere in the house.
– The microwave beeps when it’s done, and again every 10 seconds after that if I haven’t removed whatever I was heating.
– The coffeemaker beeps twice when it has finished brewing, and again 20 minutes later to tell me it’s turning itself off.

Book Group Soup What’s cooking? One-of-Each Soup

I don’t always read the book. This time I didn’t even buy it. My book group picked The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, a 425-page tome that by many accounts is an enlightening philosophical treatise on Tibetan Buddhism. I looked it up on amazon.com, and after reading the five pages that were available with the “Look Inside!” feature, I felt as if I’d been transported back to the 1960s.

I know I sound shallow and closed-minded, but I believe that everyone doesn’t have to read every book we choose, and this was one I chose not to read. Instead, I caught up on my New Yorker backlog, and put in some quality time with Q is for Quarry, a Sue Grafton mystery I somehow missed in the run to her latest, U is for Undertow. They’re in a category I refer to as “brain candy.”

January Means Soup’s On! What’s cooking? Crimini Mushroom Soup

I got this picture from my friend Leslie in Massachusetts yesterday. It’s a color photo, but the snow has transformed the world there into a vision in black and white. I suspect it’s a lot like the way my old home in New Jersey looks about now, and for reasons I will explain, it reminds me of soup.

For at least the last 15 years of our life in New Jersey, we taunted winter with a soup party in January. The tradition started small, with three or four other couples invited for dinner in the post-holiday malaise. But it was such fun that every year, I expanded the list; by the time we left the state, it had reached 50 people.

I’ve always suffered a bit in the cold and gray of January, coming down from the colorful excitement of December. So it was a great time for a party. Although the Christmas tree was down, I insisted that the outdoor lights remain until January 31, and the planning and cooking kept cabin fever at bay. By the end of the month, almost everyone was looking for a respite, so the opportunity to gather over good food and wine enticed even the most curmudgeonly of our friends.

These days, even though I’m not in New Jersey – or anywhere else where there’s snow – I still find myself in January wanting to make soup. Cream soups, stewy soups, bean soups, brothy soups. I realized how deeply entrenched these feelings are as I checked out at the grocery store the other day and noticed that I had gathered the makings of FOUR different kinds of soup.

One item I bought was a lovely box of crimini mushrooms – the ones that look like a toasty brown cousin to your standard white button mushrooms. I’ve always preferred them to the white ones because the taste is a little woodsy without being as intense – or as expensive – as wild mushrooms. I’ve now done a bit of research, and at least according to one website (www.whfoods.com), it turns out that all mushrooms (crimini and button mushrooms included) are a great source of iron and cancer-fighting (especially breast cancer) selenium. Criminis also deliver significant amounts of B2 (riboflavin), copper, and B3 (niacin).

So I cobbled together the following from what seemed like the best parts of a Culinary Institute recipe and a Silver Palate recipe. It's easy, and even with the chopping, takes only an hour and a half. On a gray, rainy, cold January day (yes, even in Texas), I loved the earthy flavor and the warm, creamy texture – like wrapping my insides in a soft, cashmere blanket.

Crimini Mushroom Soup

1½ pounds crimini mushrooms, quartered, stems cut even with the base of the cap
1 ounce dried assorted wild mushrooms
½ cup Madeira wine
6 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, diced (about 2/3 cup)
2 leeks (white part only), diced (about 2 cups)
1 celery stalk, diced (about ½ cup)
3 tablespoons flour
3 cups chicken broth
2 cups beef broth
2 sprigs fresh thyme
½ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon white pepper (black is fine if you don’t have white)
¾ cup heavy cream

Set aside ½ pound of the quartered mushrooms for garnish.

In a small saucepan, bring to a boil ½ cup of the chicken broth and the Madeira, along with the dried wild mushrooms. Turn off the heat, put a lid on the saucepan, and let the mushrooms sit for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a large heavy pot, add the onion, leeks, and celery, and cook on medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the leeks are wilted, about 10 minutes. Stir in the flour and continue to cook the vegetables, stirring constantly for another 5 minutes. Add the remaining 2½ cups chicken broth, the beef broth, the pound of quartered mushrooms, the thyme and salt/pepper. Add the wild mushrooms and the broth/Madeira mix. Bring the soup to a low boil and simmer uncovered 30 minutes.

Turn off the heat and remove the thyme stems. Using a food processor or a blender, purée the soup in batches and return it to the pot. Heat the cream (do not boil) and add it to the soup. Reheat the soup (no boiling!) and serve with a garnish of sautéed mushroom pieces.

The garnish: Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil on medium-high until very hot. (See note below.) Add the mushroom pieces and stir or shake the pan for about 4 minutes, until the mushrooms take on a golden color. Remove them from the heat and serve immediately.

Kitchen Goddess note: There are three tricks to well-sautéed mushrooms. First, the mushrooms need to be dry. Second, the oil has to be very hot. When the butter foam subsides, that’s the signal that it’s hot enough. And third, don’t crowd the mushrooms. If you crowd them, they’ll just steam instead of frying, and lose their juices. For this recipe, depending on the size of your skillet, you’ll need to sautée the mushroom pieces in one or two batches. I use an 8-inch skillet, and need two batches. If you are cooking them in two batches, use half the butter/oil for each batch. The mushrooms will absorb all of the oil/butter in the process.

Easy, Cheesy... What’s cooking? Bruschetta with Herbed Ricotta

I never took chemistry – in high school or college. I thought it would be too hard, so I took physics instead. Which just goes to show how ridiculous are the thoughts that wander around in a teenager’s head.

So I’ve always wondered if I’d have done well in chemistry. My friends who took it tell me that, as a math major, I would probably have really enjoyed it. And I’m starting to think they are right.

My new favorite hors d’oeuvre strikes me as something of a chemistry experiment. If you think about it, of course, most cooking resembles chemistry. You combine two or more substances that are known to react in certain ways. You add or subtract heat. And then you sit back and hope that the same thing that happened last time – or that is known to have happened before – will happen again. And you hope you don’t blow up the house in the process.

Think of It as a Motherhood Anniversary What’s cooking? Bacon-wrapped Tuna Steaks with Sesame Sauce

 As of this day, I’ve been a mother for exactly 30 years. Three decades of alternately worrying, cheering, prodding, encouraging, admonishing, and marveling. Caring more than I would have thought was possible.

The pregnancy was something of a lark, without the morning sickness or other complications I’d heard about. I knew life would change, but without a clear understanding of how. Twenty-two hours of labor and a C-section still didn’t make me feel different as a person. And even when I held him in my hospital bed, his warm little head tucked up under my chin, we were both being cared for, both special, both on the receiving end of visits and attention from loving friends and family.

Start the Year Right What’s cooking? Polentina with Bananas and Maple Syrup

I can’t resist the desire to have a posting for 1/1/11, so this won’t be long. But I do have a nice breakfast recipe for you, so stick with me. (Ok, I know, I’ve now missed it. But here I am, so I'll finish the thought.)

I also noticed today that for this year only, we’ll actually have three occurrences of those fun dates that have only one digit in them – there’s also 1/11/11, and the most fun of all which is 11/11/11. That confluence of dates isn’t available for the other digits, so this must indeed be a special year.

We’ve had houseguests this week, and while we’ve mostly eaten out, I did make an effort to have fun breakfasts. Yesterday, I made scones, and tomorrow I’ll be cooking a frittata, but this morning I went for something different but very easy. And it was a really fun way to start the day, as it reminded me of many breakfasts I  had growing up.