Teriyaki Steak

This is the time of year when I'm willing to spend ages making a dish if I think it's going to come out well, and the time of year when my resolutions about food ('I'll cook dinner every night of the week!' or 'I'll start meal-planning!' or 'I'll start remembering to marinate things overnight the day before I want to cook them!') are coming so fast and furious that I know it's only a matter of time until something falls off the table... hopefully not literally. But while I'm determined to remember to marinate things (surely I'm not the only one who hates this process? The night after I remember to do it, I love it: a delicious dinner with little prep and few dishes... but the night before, when I have to have already done the grocery shopping AND remember to make a marinade AFTER I've already dealt with a different dinner? I usually just can't be bothered), I decided to give this a whirl. My hopes were not high, and when you're dealing with steak that you're pretty sure you're going to ruin, it's easy to get discouraged.

So imagine my surprise when I seared this steak evvvvvver so briefly and it came out delicious! Pink in the middle, tender and juicy with a unique (and very non-teriyaki-ish) flavour, this steak is a perfect dish to make next time you're trying to talk yourself out of ordering takeout again because it's embarrassing that the Deliveroo driver is starting to ask about your family and become friends with your dog. The soy sauce tenderises the meat until it's ready to melt-in-your-mouth, and the wine gives it just enough of a fruity edge to keep the saltiness from being overpowering.

If you can be bothered to remember to marinate it the night before, this cooks up in less than 5 minutes, start to finish (and if you can't be bothered to marinate it overnight, it's fine to marinate it for only a few hours). We served it with Momofuku's Brussels Sprouts with Fish Sauce Vinaigrette- seriously my favourite side dish to go with Asian flavours, and it was so nice I'm already watching out for the next time this wafer-thin steak goes on sale.

I've eaten enough Asian food in my life to be pretty confident that teriyaki sauce does not usually include golden syrup, but this one does (perhaps contributing to that non-teriyaki-ish flavour I mentioned above). If teriyaki is usually made from soy sauce, mirin and sugar, what we have here is a version substituting white wine for mirin (I would have had to make this substitution anyway because evidently there is not a single shop in Edinburgh- including the rich people grocery store- that sells mirin) and golden syrup/corn syrup for sugar. I'm not complaining; it may not be authentically teriyaki, but it was delicious.

The verdict:

4 spoons out of five. This was really tasty, but I have a feeling a large part of this was the specific cut of steak that I purchased, so I'm knocking off a spoon in case it doesn't work so well on other cuts.

ONE YEAR AGO: TOLL HOUSE MARBLE SQUARES
TWO YEARS AGO: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

the recipe:

Teriyaki Steak

the directions:

Mix together all ingredients except steak, making sure to blend golden syrup into mixture as much as possible.
Pour over steak and marinate at least 2 hours or up to overnight.
When ready to cook, heat a cast-iron skillet until it's screaming hot.
Cook steak, a few pieces at a time, making sure not to crowd them in the pan.
After 30 seconds, flip steak and allow to cook for a further 30 seconds on the other side.
Check for doneness and serve.

the ingredients:

1/3 c (2.5 oz) soy sauce
1/3 c (2.5 oz) white wine
¼ c (2 oz) golden syrup (light corn syrup in the US)
½ tsp ground ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
2 lbs (1 kilo) lean steak, sliced very thin

Pierogi

I grew up eating pierogis* occasionally- my mom would buy frozen ones and saute them in butter, then serve them with sour cream for a quick weeknight meal. I'm pretty sure she ate hers with cooked onions on the side, but as we've discussed, I didn't touch onions with a barge pole until I was probably 20, so I definitely ate mine without them. As I grew up, I realised that pierogis are not as common in American households as I previously thought- admittedly, it's been four years since I shopped in an American supermarket, but I don't recall ever having even seen pierogis in a grocery store, and prior to this week I think the last time I had them was probably in high school when my mom made them for me.

When I found a recipe in the Box for homemade pierogi, I set it aside thinking it would be a pain, and probably it required a pasta maker, and I didn't think I was up to the task. Fast forward to this month, when outside it's so cold that all I want to do is stay in the kitchen because it's the warmest place in the house and make warm, cosy food, and... suddenly the idea of spending a frozen Saturday locked in the kitchen with only flour, mashed potatoes and a rolling pin to keep me company sounded magical, so that's how I spent last weekend.

If you're not familiar with pierogis, they're Central/Eastern European dumplings (most likely originating in Poland, though it seems every country in the region has claim to their own version), generally made from a simple dough and filled with potatoes, sauerkraut, onions, mushrooms, cheese, fruit or any combination of the above. They're nearly impossible to make in small batches, so this is a dish to make when you want to stock your freezer, have a dinner party and/or stock a friend's freezer while you're at it. Vegetarian and made with budget ingredients, these are perfect for making in January, when everyone's resolutions involve eating less meat and spending less money.

Now, the logistics: these aren't easy per se, but they're far simpler than I thought they'd be. You need a substantial amount of time to make them on account of making the filling and rolling out the (fairly stiff) dough, but it's actually simple to get the dough as thin as you need it to be, the dough adheres to itself easily so you don't need to worry about the pierogi coming apart as you go, and once you get into a rhythm, it's really not difficult. Also, there's no real 'technique' involved as there is with, say, macarons or soufflés where you don't know until you remove them from the oven whether they have worked or not. With pierogis, you can taste the filling in advance and re-season as needed, I've included specific instructions for the texture and thickness of the dough to take the guesswork out, and when you're finished, you fry them in butter which covers all manner of sins. If you're looking for a way to fill your freezer, get creative in the kitchen and try out a food you probably have never made from scratch before, here's your chance: get yourself an audio book (I listened to like half of Paula Hawkins' newest while making these), a podcast you're really into or a Netflix series that jumps straight from one episode to the next and spend your day in the kitchen rolling and filling these delicious dumplings. You might really enjoy it!

Some tips:
  • It helps to make your filling a day ahead, so that on the day you can just focus on dough making, rolling and filling.
  • Fillings can be anything I listed above, or anything else you can think of. I made half of my filling according to the recipe below, and for the other half I made a simple mashed potato mixture with sauteed shallots (I happened to have some shallots on the edge), sage, rosemary and a scoop of cottage cheese. They were amazing.
  • If you make a mashed potato filling, you'll want the mashed potatoes to be substantially drier than you would normally eat them. They should be mashed until there are no potato lumps, but resist the urge to add more milk/butter/cream cheese/whatever you usually use to make yours smooth. When the dumplings are cooked, the steam softens the potato mixture and if you make them too smooth to begin with, they'll be runny by the end.
  • Keep any dough you aren't rolling out covered with a warm, damp dishtowel to keep it from drying out. If it does start to get too dry, you can add a few drops of water and rework it briefly, but be careful not too add too much so that the dough becomes sticky.
  • ROLL ROLL ROLL that dough until it's as thin as possible. 1/16-inch is ideal and though that seems impossible, if you work in small-ish quantities of dough (1/5 or so of total dough at a time), it's totally doable because this dough does not stick to the counter or your rolling pin.
  • Next time I am dying to try a sweet filling- prune is traditional, and I might use the prune purée from this recipe next time to see how it goes.

*For what it's worth, the plural is pierogi, and the singular is pierόg in Polish, but since most English speakers refer to them as pierogi and pierogis, I'm going with that.

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. These are beyond delicious, I had a blast making them, and I'm pretty excited that there are 60 more dumplings in my freezer just waiting to be reheated and eaten when the weather gets too cold for anything but potatoes.

ONE YEAR AGO: TOLL HOUSE MARBLE SQUARES
TWO YEARS AGO: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

the recipe:

Polish Pierogi

the directions:
filling:

Peel, chop coarsely and boil the potatoes in enough water to cover them until tender.
Drain the potatoes, then return to the pot, turn the heat back on low, and begin mashing (this helps rid the potatoes of the steam trapped in the pot).
Mash for 1-2 minutes until steam begins to lessen.
Add cheddar and cottage cheese and continue mashing until smooth (as mentioned above, consistency should be drier than normal mashed potatoes as the pierogi-cooking process will moisten the filling and make it smoother).
Taste and add salt & pepper accordingly, remembering that finished pierogis will have salt in the dough and be sauteed in salted butter, so don't overdo it on the salt- just enough to keep filling from being bland.
Set filling aside (may be refrigerated overnight until ready to use).

Dough:

With a mixer, combine flour, salt, and egg until well mixed.
Drizzle in the water a few spoonfuls at a time, watching for dough to become 'dough-like,' pulling away from the edges of the bowl and forming a ball.
THIS HAPPENS QUICKLY so add water very slowly.
If dough still has not formed after adding the ½ c, add more water by tablespoonful, mixing on low speed all the while.
Dough should be VERY stiff and firm but still able to be rolled, and should not stick to countertops, rolling pin, etc.
Fill a small bowl with water and place it next to your work surface.
In batches (unless you have arms like Michelle Obama), roll dough out to 1/16th-inch thickness, keeping remaining dough covered with a warm damp kitchen towel to keep it from drying out while you work.
Use a 3-inch round biscuit cutter to cut circles from dough, then fill them with a small scoop of filling in the centre.
If your dough is quite stiff, as it should be, it won't want to seal on its own, so dip your finger in the bowl of water and run it around the edge of the circle to help the dough form a seal.
Fold circles in half over the filling and press edges together, making sure to press air out as you go (works best to start sealing in the middle of your half-circle and work your way to the edges).
Set filled pierogis on a baking sheet and keep on going.

Serve & Store:

To boil, drop pierogis into enough boiling water to cover them and boil 3 minutes. Drain and serve as below.

To fry (as I prefer and as illustrated here), melt a few tablespoons of butter in a pan, then drop a few pierogis into the pan (do not crowd the pierogis).
When the first side is browned, flip the pierogis and cook the second side until golden.
Sprinkle with chives, additional butter or sour cream and flaky salt or black pepper.

To freeze, place uncooked pierogis on a baking sheet and place in freezer for fifteen minutes.
Remove from baking sheet, place in a tightly sealed bag and freeze.
Pierogis may be thawed before cooking or cooked from frozen by allowing a few extra minutes of cooking time.

Yields 75 pierogis, plus additional filling in case you manage to fit more filling inside than I did.

the ingredients:
the filling:

3 lb (1.5 kilos) potatoes
2 c (250g) cheddar cheese, grated
1 c (225g) cottage cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the dough:

6 c (720g) flour
1 tbsp salt
1 egg, beaten
½ c water

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to serve:

Butter
Chives
Sour cream
Salt
Pepper

Brandied Kumquats

This recipe is a bit of a cheat, because it's not actually IN the Recipe Box. All I have from the Box is the title of the recipe, at the bottom of a torn-off piece of newspaper that included the recipe for Cinnamon Pecans that let me down way back in 2015. But I was immediately taken with the idea of Brandied Kumquats- I adore brandied cranberries and I positively relish citrus fruits, so I figured this would be totally up my alley.* What I didn't account for was the fact that I no longer live in Florida, the land of kumquats, where they grow so plentifully that people throw them instead of candy in parades, and instead I live in Scotland, where the only thing that grows between the months of September and May is neeps.

For the last two years and two months, ever since I found the name of this recipe in the Box, I've had my eye out for kumquats, and this week I finally found them, at the rich people supermarket, of course. I came home and googled recipes for brandied kumquats but none of them sounded like exactly what I wanted- a citrusy version of cranberry sauce, the perfect mix of sour, sweet, bitter and boozy. So I invented my own recipe.

I'm not really sure what to do with these now that I have them- I love the flavour enough to just snack on them, but I've also made a citrusy riff on an old-fashioned with them, adding a sliced kumquat and two spoonfuls of the sugared brandy to a glass of bourbon and serving over ice. I served some with pork chops and they were great that way too; I think they'd be lovely chopped coarsely and stirred into scone dough, or sprinkled on top of a cardamom bun, but I'm happy enough eating them straight from the jar or mixed into cocktails.

These will last forever in the fridge, so make them when you find kumquats and then use them to your heart's content!

*When I saw I love citrus, I mean it: one of my favourite snacks is citrus peel, and Judson finds it repulsive that my preferred method of eating an orange is whole, like an apple.

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. These are slightly more on the sweet side than cranberries treated in the same way would be, but they still have that essential tartness and most importantly, the edge of bitterness from the peel and the alcohol. They work well in cocktails (I can't wait to try one as a garnish for a gin & tonic!) and even better as a side dish or topping to pork, pastry and more. Plus, they're a cinch to make- what more could you want?

One year ago:Toll House Marble Squares
two years ago: Happy New Year!

The recipe:

Brandied Kumquats

the directions:

Prick kumquats all over with a wooden pick or the tip of a paring knife (you want AS MANY HOLES AS POSSIBLE, so don't skimp).
Heat kumquats, sugar and brandy over low heat, stirring constantly, until all sugar has dissolved.
Continue cooking for 3-5 more minutes until syrup has thickened and kumquats are softened.
If any of your kumquats are still stiff, poke them with a paring knife in the pot and keep stirring.
Leave to cool slightly in the pot, stirring occasionally.
As they cool, they'll become translucent.
After 30 minutes, add ¼ c more brandy and stir into mixture.
Pour mixture into a jar and refrigerate or use.

Will keep in refrigerator for at least one month, probably longer.

the ingredients:

1 lb (500g) kumquats, washed and stems removed
2 c (250g) sugar
½ c (4oz) brandy, plus additional for topping up