Enjoy the Delicious

My friend Kim had us over, our friend Marcella cooked.  Pasta putanesca with an arugula and asparagus salad dressed with a grain mustard vinaigrette.  Good food, good music, good wine and good friends.  Nothing better.

I don't drink beer; I never really aqcuired a taste for it.  I recently had some friends round and they brought over a six-pack.  They were in no way interested in my fine bottle of 2006 Bordeaux.  After my friends left, one bottle of the dark, syrupy brew remained and for the past couple of weeks, that lone bottle sat lonely in my fridge.

Every day when I opened the fridge I would pause, cock my head and look at it wondering just how long it was going to stay there.  Maybe I would have another guest that drank Guiness Stout, maybe it would just continue to sit.  The situation was getting ridiculous.

Tonight I bit the bullet; I opened it and took a swig straight out of the bottle.  Eh.  There was only one thing left to do.  Cook with it.

London Broil marinated in Guiness Stout with the most scrumptious potatoes and roasted asparagus.

Ingredients:

• 1 large slab of top round steak
• 1 Bottle of Guiness Stout
• 1 T of brown sugar
• The juice of 1 lemon
• A few cloves of garlic
• Salt and pepper
• 1 Bunch of asparagus
• Recipe for potatoes can be found here.

In a large tupperware, pour half a bottle of Guiness Stout, add the brown sugar and lemon juice.  Rub your steak with smashed garlic cloves, season with salt and pepper and throw it into the syrupy mixture.  Let it sit in your fridge for up to 5 hours.

Take the meat out of the fridge and bring it to room temperature.  Prepare your asparagus by cutting off the ends, dressing with salt, pepper, olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice.  Cook your potatoes per the linked instructions.

Heat your grill and cook the hunk of meat for approximately 4 minutes per side, which yields your steak medium rare.  2 minutes before it's done, add some of the stout to the pan and let it cook.  Remove the steak to rest and continue cooking the liquid until it is reduced and deliciously syrupy.

To cook the asparagus, place it onto a baking pan, or as I do, onto a folded sheet of foil and roast at 360 for 7-10 minutes.

Slice your steak and prepare your plate.  Drizzle your meat with sauce and enjoy that delicious.

This has to be my favorite starchy side dish.  Crash Hot Potatoes.  It's a dish that many food writers post on their sites at one point or another and when attributing the source of this perfect bite of heaven, all roads lead back to this woman .

There are always different variations on types of potatoes and toppings but at the heart of it, it's all mostly the same: Whole potatoes, parboiled then placed on a baking sheet, smashed on the top - you can use a potato masher to do it or even the edge of a coffee cup - and slathered with olive oil, seasoned with lots of coarse salt, pepper, finely chopped rosemary and then placed into a screaming hot oven (450F) until the outsides are crispy and the insides are creamy, about 20 minutes.

I use red potatoes and top them with sour cream, chives and an insane amount of freshly cracked black pepper.  Delicious, very comforting and you can serve them anyway you like...as a side dish, as an hors d'oeuvres or as a stand alone meal - my favorite way!

This is the easiest meal you will ever cook and your dining companions will think you slaved over a hot stove all evening.  The utter beauty of this dish is that the oven does all the work.  You just take care of the timing.

Ingredients:

• 1 Whole chicken
• 1 Lemon
• Olive oil
• 1 Head of garlic cut in half - widthways
• A few sprigs of thyme
• 4 Bay leaves
  
• Sea Salt and freshly cracked pepper

Sides:

• 2 Sweet Potatoes and a pat of butter
• Herb salad
• 1 English cuke
• Handful of chopped red onion
• Olive oil and lemon
• Slight splash of balsamic vinegar
• Salt and Pepper
  

Put your chicken in a baking dish and pat it down with a paper towel. Pour over some olive oil and rub it into the skin. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze it over the chicken and then season your bird with salt and pepper. Into the bird's cavity put the squeezed half of the lemon, garlic, bay leaves and thyme.  Tie the legs together with kitchen twine and add one last generous pour of olive oil and a 1/4 cup of chicken stock to the pan.  Place in a 425F oven and cook for 15 minutes.  Lower the heat to 365F and cook for 15 minutes per pound and then add an extra 10 minutes for good measure. Remove the bird from the oven and place on a platter to rest before carving.  Pour the jus into a gravy boat and reserve a little to use on your sweet potatoes.

Your sides should be anything your heart desires.  Tonight it was mashed sweet potatoes and an herb salad.

Peel, dice and parboil your large sweet potatoes.  In the same baking dish you cooked your bird in, place a layer of this coral starch.  Generously salt, drizzle with olive oil and pour a small amount of the chicken jus over it.  Cover with foil and place in a 365F oven until they are soft enough to mash - about 45 minutes.  It is not your goal to brown and crisp them, the goal is to slow roast them on a lower temperature.  The foil tent will trap the steam, allowing all the flavors to infuse which will yield an extremely tasty side dish.

Mash the potatoes with butter, coarse salt and a little bit of nutmeg if you have it on hand.

Prepare your salad and dress with a clean vinaigrette consisting of olive oil, juice of the other half of the lemon and a very light drizzle of balsamic.  Add salt and pepper, assemble your plate together and dig in!