Skip to main content

A hurricane of flavor

So Hurricane Fuckyourself hit Louisiana yesterday, which means Memphis got to have storms all day. It was a blast. I love driving in the rain. I love wondering if I'll have power when I get to the house. It's just the best. 
I'm starting to run out of the groceries I bought last weekend, so I decided to have a little fun tonight. I managed to find a couple purple sweet potatoes to go along with some red bell pepper, my last three tomatoes, a little bit of red onion, some garlic, and kale. I also cooked up some jasmine rice with split green peas in the rice cooker, but that was boring. 
I started off by peeling and cubing up the potato. I started boiling a pot of water, threw in some salt, and then added the potato cubes. I just let those cook while I prepped and started everything else.
I minced up the red onion, crushed and sliced three of the garlic cloves, and quartered the tomatoes, which I lightly salted and let sit for a few minutes before I used them. I melted some vegan butter, added a little olive oil, and sautéed the onion and garlic until the garlic was just starting to get crispy around the edges. Then I added in some red pepper flakes, let it go for another minute, and added in the tomatoes peel side down.
While that cooked, the sweet potato finished boiling. I don't really remember how long it took, but I knew it was done by pulling a chunk out with a spoon and stabbing it with a fork. When it's soft, it's cooked. I drained the water, then tossed the chunks back into the pan, where I added two minced garlic cloves, a scoop of vegan butter, and a little bit of vegan cream. I used my masher to mash and mix all that shit together.
After the potato was mashed, I went back to my other pan. Once the tomato skins were starting to wrinkle, I knew it was time to pull them off. I just used my tongs to grab the wrinkled section and the peels came off quite easily.
With the peels gone, I was able to smash the tomatoes down, at which point I added in my diced red bell pepper and just let it all simmer until the pepper started to soften. I then added in the chopped kale and let it just start wilting before I poured in maybe a quarter cup of pinot noir and a dash of salt. When the liquid began to reduce again, I drizzled a little extra virgin olive oil on top to finish it off.
For plating, I used my 3" PVC to stack some of the rice and peas on top of some of the mashed potato. Yes, yes, I know, I used two starches, but, since they were stacked, it only counts as 1. Honestly? I don't give a shit. I wanted potato and I wanted rice, so I had potato and rice, so you can fuck yourself if you have a problem with it.
I spooned some of my veggie sauce-ish mixture around one side of the tower and let the liquid surround it some. I really enjoyed seeing all of the colors together, to be honest. I also thought the positioning of the veggies kind of concentrated on one side had a nice look to it. I'm doing my best not to make everything symmetrical. It's hard as hell for my engineering brain.
Bonus shot from above. I think the look of having the liquid slowly surrounding the central pillar was a cool touch, too.
Flavor-wise, this was a tour de force. There was cohesion between the different items, but, at the same time, the earthiness of the potato contrasted with the boldness of the veggie sauce with the rice and peas helping to tie them together. This is getting made again soon.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Restaurant week: My new Mexican restaurant

 As I mentioned the other day, my Mexican restaurant closed down. Luckily, they opened up in a new space a couple of months later. Great new look, new name ("Lopez Grill"), they've got a bar, staff is expanded, and the place is always packed. Business seems to be going great. Now, this isn't just a rehash of my post about the 'Dolo. While the menu is largely the same, there have been a few changes, plus I'm going to share a few things I've learned eating there. On my first visit to the new location (which was opening day, right when the doors opened; yes, I was standing in line outside with the other faithful), Señor Lopez brought me a bowl of their new salsa. He called it "guacamole salsa," but it's a jalapeño-based sauce. It's got an almost creamy texture, but is dairy-free (I asked for my vegan friend). Being a jalapeño salsa, it's got some heat, but not nearly as overbearing as some capsaicin-phobes may fear. It is perfectly bala...
Post a Comment
Read more

Restaurant week: Polish food truck tasting

Due to a strange combination of circumstances, I recently found myself at a menu tasting for a soon to open Polish food truck called Halinka's Polish Eatery . I'm about 99% sure I was the only person in attendance who wasn't already personally known to the owner/chef, Magda, but it was a good time. Got to meet some nice folks and eat free food, but then I had to give feedback in public in front of other people, so that kind of sucked. Like, really fucking sucked. Pretty sure my face my was red the entire time. This is the price we pay for food sometimes. Our first course was a cabbage and mushroom pierogi with a side of beets. Apparently when the food truck gets going, the pierogis will be steamed, then finished either on a grill or in a skillet with some butter. However, due to facility constraints where we were trying the dishes, Magda had to serve them just steamed. Anyway, to the food: the cabbage and mushroom pierogis were fucking amazing. There was a tremendous depth ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stream recap: pseudo-bougie dinner party

 This past Sunday (1/18/2025) was my second cooking stream of the New Generation of ODG Cooking Streams. When I was trying to come up with a "theme" for the afternoon, I was thinking a lot about those fancy-ass restaurants where they serve you three bites of food on a fucking plate five or six times and, even though you're somehow full, it still doesn't seem to quite justify spending five million dollars just to eat there for two hours while everyone around you looks at you condescendingly because you didn't wear a goddamn tie. Fuck those people. Anyway, I decided I wanted to figure out a way to do that kind of fun, small plate, presentation-centric food at the house without having to break the bank. My first course, as a direct theft from The Bear , a show I absolutely love, was the mirepoix broth. I started the stream by starting a light stock, which means you don't roast the bones beforehand, using some pork and beef bones. For the mirepoix broth, I finely ...
Post a Comment
Read more