Fennel Boudin with Grape Extract

Tuesday night is dull. There is nothing I want to watch on TV until Fraiser re-runs start at 8. It's a good night to cook, but nothing that requires too much effort or clean up. I found a recipe on Serious Eats that only called for 5 ingredients that I had most of, but like with most recipes I had to embellish on it a little bit. 

Part One: The Ingredients

-Olive Oil (Not extra-virgin)

-Link Dinner Sausage (Preferably fennel, but I had to use a sun dried tomato. Avoid anything spicy) 

-Grapes

-Pine Nuts (Toasted)

-Fresh Fennel. (Slice the bulb and then mince some of the leaves for garnish)

Five Simple Ingredients

Part Two: The Process

-Heat the sausage with the oil until they're a nice golden brown.

Browning Nicely with the Fennel

-Take one cup of the grapes and process them in either a blender or a food processor. 

-Once the sausages are browned strain the pureed grapes and use the juice to de-glaze; throw away the pulp. Then add another cup of whole grapes and the sliced fennel bulb to the pan.

I Used a Cheese Cloth, but a Mesh Strainer Would Work

-Continue to cook until the sausages are cooked through, remove sausage and allow the sauce to reduce and the grapes to collapse.

Let Them Cook and Fuse Flavors Together

-Garnish them with toasted pine nuts and minced fennel leaves. I served it on top of some left over polenta, but it could be served over rice or perhaps even egg noodles. You just want something there to catch the sauce. 

Part Three: The Service

The meal was light and flavorful. The grape had a great sweetness that was met and balanced the subtle anise flavor of the fennel bulb. The sausage would have been better with a deeper richer flavor meat like lamb or beef, but the light sharp flavor of the sun dried tomato in the sausage. The polenta served as the perfect medium to enjoy the sauce, but would have been better if it had been made fresh. 

Enjoy

Granny Smith's Fajitas

There are few meals that are easier to construct than the fajita. It is simple, flavorful, generally healthy, and allows for great improvisation. I also had plenty of the ingredients on hand, which made for a quick market run.

We had not had a hard day. We were both off for the holiday and spent the day going to the movies (I mean this literally. We saw The King's Speech walked out of the theater turned around and went back and saw Black Swan). This meant that lunch consisted of popcorn and chocolate, and that meant that our stomachs were in dire need of real food by the end of the day the kind of gnawing aching your stomach creates when it is just crying out for a vegetable not covered in faux butter and salt. I could not be content with the simple classic of peppers, onion, and protein with out a few touches of the unique.


Part One: The Ingredients

-Steak-Top sirloin, cut into strips and dusted with Kosher salt, white pepper, smoked paprika and chili powder
-Pineapple-I used canned chunks, because the fresh ones looked lousy and I was feeling lazy. Dust it with a little brown sugar and cinnamon
-Peppers and Onions-Sliced
-Garlic-Everything needs garlic, minced into the pan with the onions.
-Granny Smith Apple-Sliced
-Chorizo-I would have preferred a link sausage to the ground, but you work with what you have available and I really wanted the Chorizo flavor more than I wanted the hunks of sausage meet.
-Cotija Cheese- This is a crumbly dry Mexican cow's milk cheese.
-Corn Tortillas-I should not have to list this.

Part Two: The Process
-Saute the onions with the garlic in a little bit of oil (I used safflower).
-As the onions become translucent add the sausage.
-After a few minutes of cooking add the steak.

-After a few more minutes add the peppers and pineapple 

-Sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.

-Lastly add the sliced Granny Smith Apple.
-Dish the fajita filling onto warm tortillas and top with the Cotija cheese.

I did not add any additional spices to the meal because I had seasoned Chorizo and had seasoned the steak. It could have been aided with the addition of a oregano and some ground cumin.

Part Three: The Service

The meal was really light a flavorful. The pineapple gave the spicy meal some much needed sweetness with a bright summery taste. The apple added an interesting texture more than anything. I think if I were to do it again I would them even later in the cooking the process and dust them with brown sugar and cinnamon as well in hopes of better maintaining their crisp clean tart flavor. It certainly added to the meal and took the familiar fajita to an extra level complexity.

The Chorizo added heat and flavor to the meal, but did not form big enough chunks for you to know you had bitten into the sausage. I orginally thought that this is what I wanted, but on eating I was wrong. I wanted big chunks of sasuasge. The steak was tender, flavorful and extremely lean.

There is no Rabbit in Rarebit.

Cheese as a main course is a good idea. When one of the best food blogs posted a recipe for Welsh rarebit dinner for Tuesday night was decided. I wont go into great detail about the recipe because you can easily find it through the link. Consider this a review rather than a how to.

The ease of the meal was perfect for a work night where my petite copine had to hurry out the door to book group. It took about an hour from start to finish with minimal clean up. I had most of the ingredients on hand and only needed to pick up the Brussels sprouts. I made the bread from scratch the day before and had the dough ready to go in the fridge so I called ahead and had the my petite copine pull it out and let it begin proofing on my way home from work.

The results were an excellent and simple dinner. The rarebit was sharp and pungent. The fresh from the oven, made from scratch artisan bread provided crunch to accompany the soft slightly bitter flavor from the rarebit. The ability to vary the recipes is one of rarebit's great features. I could easily see me using different Cheddars, spices or beers(cider would offer a sweeter version) to make the dish all of which would alter the flavor.The Brussels sprouts were tender and fresh. The required no more seasoning than some Kosher salt and some of the residual rarebit. The natural flavor of the sprout provided a clean refresher in between the sharp heady flavor of the rarebit, while its normal bitter flavor made it fit with the over all taste of the meal. If time were not an option I might have used olive oil, rather than safflower oil, and roasted the sprouts lower and slower with garlic and/or fennel to provide a more complex side dish.

Over all the meal was filling and incredibly satisfying. It makes for the a perfect work night meal. A simple meal that fulfills winter's need for comfort food.