Stinque Recipe Challenge

Sounds delicious! Looks like a great site, but I’m not sure I would care for the Louis salad recipe below it on that page:

Tip: To make sure the salad isn’t overpowered by the dressing, place all salad ingredients in an appropriate sized bowel, add a little bit of the Louis dressing, and gently toss with your hands.

Salmon with parmesan cheese? Normally, fish and cheese is a no-no. How were they together?

@lentinus: bueno …

@karen marie: Never made that salad, but will do it at some point ….

@blogenfreude: Well, I hope you have an appropriate size bowel.

TJ/ Epically dumb question in the sandbox.

@karen marie: If I do not have it, I will buy one … ANY excuse to buy a new kitchen gadget ….

Bloggie, I like the composed ceasar, its pretty, drizzled emulsfied ceasar dressing below it, its all nice, and I would do that.

But I like it rough and crude, the way I learned it. You take a big bowl, and I use a mix of half and half lemon juice and red wine vinegar, throw that in the bottom of the bowl, then add salt, pepper, some mustard powedr, an egg yolk, an anchovy, and some garlic paste that you prepared by taking a garlic clove, smashing it flat with the blade of a chef’s knife, then dice it fine with the blade of the chef’s knife, then pour kosher salt over it, then turn the knife upside down, and mash with the flat back of the knife, the salt acts like an abrasive and lets it turn into a pure mush of garlic. Then you basically muddle this mix, there in the bottom of the bowl, roughly muddle it, then add olive oil, and then add the chopped romaine lettuce, and toss, and you are mixing the dressing as you mix it with the lettuce. Then add the cheese, and toss some more, then add the croutons.

The last thing I want in a ceasar is an emulsified dressing, I like a dressing that retains some of the individual characteristics of the ingredients, This way, the dressing actually has a noticeable texture, grainy from the cheese, very different from emulsifying the same ingredients in a processor and adding to the salad.

The old term “tossed salad,” its lost all meaning, but to me, there is a big difference between a real tossed salad and a composed salad with a completed dressing drizzled on top. If you take the same ingredients for a classic vinaigrette, and combine them and make an emulsified dressing, and add this to a salad, its completely different from taking the very same ingredients in the same amounts, and adding them individually to a bowl filled with salad, and tossing the salad to mix the dressing ingredients. To me, this is the difference between the sad, creamy ceasar salads most restaurants serve, they have this creamy dressing they call “ceasar” and they pour it on chopped romaine. To me, a real ceasar is a true “tossed salad,” the final mixing of the dressing ingredients does not occur until those ingredients are tossed with the chopped romaine in a big bowl.

@blogenfreude: Bloggie, when it comes to food, I am an obsessive perfectionist, and highly opinionated. Its clear you are also, its shown by the fact that you specified the difficult to find, much more mild, white anchovies. By the way, something I picked up from my asian food experiments, instead of an anchovy, just add a dash of thai fish sauce. I have found you can add a dash of thai fish sauce to almost anything, and it makes it better, use it in place of salt. In my deli, I put fish sauce in several dishes, and my high-school age employees, by no means foodies, started calling it “pat’s crack,” because even though they found it revolting, right out of the bottle, they found that any food it was an ingredient in was addicting, like crack cocaine.

But anyway, I am opinionated and obsessive, and I will throw out these long-winded opinions about the only true way to make proper ceasar, but its not one-upmanship, I am not trying to establish this is right, that is wrong, just my way. I love the look of your composed ceasar, its very pretty, and I am sure delicious also.

RML’s Elk Steaks

Cut steaks from hind quarter of elk (seriously, I did that a few months ago).

Season thawed steaks to taste w/pepper, garlic, salt (optional). Set aside in fridge.

Quarter a bunch of little red potatoes, enough for number of diners. Put in Pyrex baking pan, drizzle in olive oil, season to taste. Put in oven uncovered for 1 hr at 425 degrees.

Slice choice of vegetables for grilling. Cook potatoes and veggies in advance of grilling elk . Place in oven on warm.

Pull elk steaks from fridge. Toss a little red wine on them if they look a little dry. Grill as if it were a fine lean cut of beef.

Serve with a suitable wine. For tonight, we went with a Grenache from Spain, which worked out very well dining out in the cool, beautiful backyard we’ve been kicking ass on for the last three weeks.

Perfect end to the day.

@Promnight: As I recall from your deli’s servers, had they been college aged, “Pat’s crack” could have taken on an entirely more alluring meaning. I hope they went on to good schools where they study hard, avoid frat guys, and save the world.