Entries by Isaac Philbrook

I told you I was gonna bombard you. Alright bombard is probably the wrong word. But I didn't want to quit while I was actually on a roll.

So part of what's been taking up our time is this club we call "M.E.A.T" We recently picked up a few like minded members 1 of whom is actually a chef, so thank god for some actual practical knowledge and expertise. M.E.A.T. Men Eating Animals Together.

This club basically spawned from a conversation about wanting to make prosciutto. Well in order to jump right into that endeavor we need our own climate controlled meat locker. Well so we commenced to building. Pato, one of our newest members happened to have an extra fridge (my extra beer fridge will get converted into an actual kegerator at some point and I wasn't about to give that up). Well once we had the fridge we gutted it and cleaned it out and went shopping on amazon for all the components we would need. A temperature controller, a humidifier, a fan to help with air circulation and a remote viewing system for the temperature and humidity. I don't want to bore you with all the details right now, but I think it's pretty cool and I just wanted to show you all some pictures. Just so that you konw that we haven't just been ignoring you since memorial day.

I know I know. It's been a really long time. We've been really slacking. But there has been a lot going on. So I am going to start the bombardment here!

Okay so I pretty much always have a craving for sushi or Indian food. At any given time I am more than willing to consume either of those food types. So I finally thought I would give something Indian a shot.


The first Picture is the marinade. Basically I cubed up about 1 3/4lb of chicken and just tossed it in a bowl. I dumped in a cup of plain yogurt (i used greek yogurt) about 2 Tablespoons of garam masala, 2 Tablespoons of chile powder, 1 tablespoon of ginger paste (which i bought in a tube at the super market), and 2 ish tablespoons of garlic paste (which i made myself. I almost always have loads of garlic and i love it so why not right?), and top it off with 2 tablespoons of melted butter, a tablespoon of lemon juice and a tablespoon of olive oil. Then using a spatula I stir it all up!! After that's done stick it in the fridge and let it marinate overnight.

So the next day straight from work I come home and I get to work on the sauce. My girlfriend is a vegetable hater.... I know I know how does she survive right? I'll tell you how, because I puree everything! I keed. Kind of.

So the Sauce, first i put 2 tablespoons of butter in the pot, get the heat going. I add 2 tablespoons of garam masala. Once you hear the garam masala start to kind of crackle and pop I add the rest of my dry ingredients which are 2 tablespoons of chile powder, 2 tablespoons of garlic paste, 1 tablespoon of ginger, about a tablespoon of salt. Next I puree a can of diced tomatoes with green chiles. A can is about 1 3/4 cups. After that's pure'd i drop it in the medium sized pot. kick the heat on kinda medium low. Next add a cup of water, a small can of tomato paste 2 tablespoons of honey and stir.



Once it starts to bubble I toss in the chicken and all the marinade. Between the marinade and this kinda slow cook the chicken should come out super tender. So stir it pretty frequently while it's cooking on the lower side of medium. While i'm watching to make sure this doesn't boil or burn i get to work on the basmati rice which takes about 35 minutes. Now really i should've started the rice first because it's totally set it and forget it, but I'm a spaz so i had to slow down my cooking. Either way it came out pretty tasty, and the chicken was really tender. After about 30 minutes I added 1 cup of heavy cream to my sauce, and let it cook for about 5 more minutes. It had a pretty good consistency and i think a pretty good flavor. My girl ate some leftovers for lunch which is rare (she's just not a leftover person) so that was exciting. Anyways Enjoy the pics and give it a whirl. I think the recipe i modified a bit came from

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/makhani-chicken-indian-butter-chicken/Detail.aspx

Now we'll have to wait till we get some input from people who actually cook Indian food to see if this recipe is even close to accurate. Some people said they liked mine better than a popular local Indian restaurant, which was nice, but true??? who knows.

So memorial day in our fine seattle rain I had a mission. Smoke baby back ribs. I was on a mission to smoke ribs start to finish. While I made some mistakes i was fairly happy with the outcome. I use a Char-Broil smoker/bbq, i unfortunately for whatever reason decided to not go with the version with the firebox on the side. I really wish I had, but I will make due.

So here's the long and short of it, you want to smoke the ribs for 3 hours between 200-225, and then for another hour at about 250-275. I kept a drip pan (i used an old loaf pan) filled with 1 cup of water, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar and handful of my dry rub. Initially I kept the coals stacked on 1 side of the bbq closest to the air vent, and then the meat underneath the smoke chimney.

This was my biggest mistake i think. While everything came out okay I had constant heat issues and at least every hour had to open up the smoker in order to add more coal. I think from what i've read my best bet is really to heat up about 6 lbs of coals in my chimney, and spread them out, then lay out another 6 lbs (a full chimney) plus whatever wood you are using to smoke on top of the already hot coals. After about 30 minutes when the majority of smoke has gone, place the ribs. This ammount of coal should keep for at least 3 hours, hopefully closer to 6 if you can keep your temperature proper. ANyways here's some pictures.

So last night I did a lobster stuffed flank steak. The stuffing consisted of 2 8 oz lobsters diced up, 1/2 cup of bread crumbs, 1 egg, 1/8 of a pound of bennings goat cheese, 1/4 stick of butter, 3 cloves of garlic finely chopped and 1 shallot finely chopped. First I drop my cast iron skillet on the burner and start to get it warmed up. Turn on the oven and preheat it to 400 degrees. I cut the lobster shells right down the center and pull back on the edges seperating the shell from the meat. Once exposed I just yank it out. Cut the lobster up into relatively small bite sized chunks. I toss in about a 1/4 stick of butter into the skillet and then toss in my shallot and garlic. After about 3 minutes i toss in the cut up lobster. It doesn't take much time to cook the lobster so keep an eye on it.

Before all this i have prepped my flank steak by pounding the hell out of it. After it's nice and tender, i drizzle on some olive oil and sprinkle on some ground sea salt and fresh ground black pepper and this fancy schmancy dom deluise seasoning that i just love. It's not really dom it's just got a picture of a fat guy on it that reminds me of dom deluise. I can never remember what it's called but it's delicious. Anywho I rub all the spices in with my hands and leave it on the counter at room temperature.

The stuffing I start out with a big bowl and dump in the 1/2 cup of bread crumbs, I crumble up the 1/8 pound of benning goat cheese, i drop in about 6 pads of butter, and crack 1 egg on top. Then I take the nice hot lobster garlic shallot mixture and pour it over the top. I give it a minute to cool, and then mix it by hand. Once it's nice and mixed, I spread it on the top of the flank steak. About a quarter inch from the top and maybe fill half the steak. Once that's on I roll it up nice and tight like a meat sushi roll :-). I tie it off with string and toss it back into the cast iron skillet so that i can seer it.

The beauty of cast iron is that once it's seered the entire pan can pop right into the oven. I love that. So in it goes. I set the timer for 30 minutes, and was gonna check on it then. My girlfriend was in the process of making mashed taters, so i just needed to not burn anything at this point. After about 20 minutes, I got worried so i dropped the oven down to about 200. All I had to do now was sit and wait. About 40 mintues later i pulled out the meat and it smelled delicious. I was terribly worried it would be over cooked, but as I cut in, the middle section was perfectly medium rare (I'm a rare guy but i'll live with medium rare) and the ends were pink enough for my girlfriend to tolerate. She likes her meat typically served with A1 and DONE I mean like ruined. I'm slowly teaching her though.

With the left over stuffing I just made lobster cakes and we had a nice appetizer with a side of cayanne aoili i had made not too long ago.

Okay first I must apologize for my long absense. My kitchen was attacked by a malicious beast known only as the landlord... The landlord beast did it's best to stop me from creating, but alas I won... Or patience did. Anywhoo enough of that.

So what we have here is what I like to call a calzone... The dough is the same as my pizza dough, and I just roll it out flat. I plop a big ol' scoop of ricotta in the middle, and then a tiny handful of whatever other cheese you'd like to do ( I like mozerella and Fontina) and then surround the cheesy goodness with Veggies and meat. Seal it all up and shazam you got yourself a calzone!!! I cook these at about 450 for about 15 minutes, or until it starts to get all nice and golden brown.

I just thought I might share some pictures of my first pizza from scratch in... I don't even know how many years. So it came out alright, i should have stretched the dough out a bit more because it came out kind of thick but all in all not too shabby. The dough was from a recipe book i had that was about 1/2 cube of butter, salt, sugar, all purpuse flour, 3 egg yolks. I also tossed in some garlic, onion salt, and rosemary. The topping is just olive oil sea salt (very light) roma tomatos, mozerella cheese and some parsley flakes ( i would have used basil, but i didn't have any, but i really like the green contrast color)

One of my absolute favorite things to make is bruschetta. I probably never make it exactly the same way twice, and it will really depend on what i have in the fridge. This is actually probably one of my favorite things to eat for dinner too. It's simple, quick and easy and really filling. So first the bread, I typically make my own baguettes, and because i like to bake more than I like to eat (looks are deceiving aren't they ;-)) bread has a way of going stale on me; especially since it has no preservatives in it. So when my baguettes start to go bad i know it's bruschetta time. You don't have to make your own bread to do this, if you want to try it, go to your local grocery store and get a medium sized baguette and go to town (it's gotta be big enough to put the toppins on when it's cut).

Okay, so first I mix a bowl of Extra virgin olive oil, and some Balsamic vinegar. We could spend all day talking about these 2 things, so we won't... yet. Anywhoo i use a ration of about 2/3 olive oil and 1/3 balsamic vinegar. Set that aside

Cut the bread. At a diagonal angle start cutting your baguette, you want them to be oval like in shape and however thick you want them, i like about 1/4". line them up on a baking sheet, they can be touching. Now we bake them for a bit, just to get them golden brown. 350 degress about 7 minutes each side on the middle rack i think. Just get them golden brown. We bake them so that when we slop em up with our topping they don't get soggy. When they're done just pull them out and set them aside.

Tomato. Yum. Okay I am a freakshow about roma tomatoes. I love these things. I just slice these guys in thin rings and i use 1 slice per bread slice. So match em up and set em aside.

Cheese. You can just use a bagged shredded mozerealla and some pre shredded parmesean also. It's quick and easy.

Basil, I like to cut basil leaves into thin strips. Basil matches real well with the olive and vinegar and tomato and cheese, plus it adds a neat contrasting color with the red tomato the browned bread, the white brown cheese. If you don't have basil i will sometimes use parsley flakes in it's absense.

Now, you can either use a pastry brush to coat each of the baked bread bits, or what I do is basically slop the roma tomato int the mixture and then plop it onto the bread. I do 1 tomato for each bread slice. Then I take some sea salt and grind just a touch over the top. If you don't think the bread and tomato has enough "sauce" then go ahead and as much as you like. Now sprinkle your cheese on top of the tomato. doesn't take much, moz melts and browns nice. Then just a dab of parm because i like the flava. :-) Shazam! Kick the oven onto broil toss those bad boys in and watch like a hawk! Should only take 2 or 3 minutes for those kids to get all hot and that cheese to melt. Once the moz starts to brown and bubble you are done! Pull em out sprinkle on your basil or Parsley and serve em up!!!

hopefully they look like this or better

I am pretty new to this whole scotch thing, but boy can it be wonderful. By no means am I an afficionado (that's a fancy word for pretentious), but I know what I like. I am currently doing some work with a friend and coworker helping him with a multi media center. Recently in preparation for this I was at his house helping him with some home network issues. Well long story short it didn't go quite as easily as expected. This guy is most generous, and in return for my work he gave me a bottle of The Macallan. The Macallan is a 12 year old Single Malt scotch and it tastes incredible. It is so smooth and easy that I had to share it with you.

Typically when I buy scotch I actually just get myself some dewars, which is your average blended stuff that you can usually find at any given bar and not pay out the nose for; I mean even Chop Suey has it. Apparently one of the many secrets to this scotch is that is is exclusively aged in Sherry Oak Casks from spain. I'm not sure if that is really awesome or not, but this stuff tastes pretty good. It's not overpowering and in my opinon if you are new to scotch and looking for something really easy on the pallette this is the stuff to get started with. Way better than Dewar's... 2 thumbs up. Anywhoo here is a link to the website, so please give it a whirl because this definitely has my seal of approval. Macallan

Hi there, I am a partner in crime. My name is Isaac and I like food. I consider myself to be an amateur cook and I love it. Much like Chad I also work in the tech industry. Cooking for me is a pretty hardcore hobby. In the last few years I have really kicked it up a notch and really enjoying cooking for friends and family and have rekindled the dream of making people's mouths happy. I got my start in the restaraunt business at the tender age of 15 busing tables at the Brown Bag Cafe in redmond. Initally the food industry really served as a way for me to make some cash so I could maybe buy a car and chase beer at the nearby 711. I slowly but surely earned the right to wash dishes, make toast and eventually do prep work and work on the line when one of my mexican compradres needed a break and if it was slow. Shortly after I went to work for Emerald Heights a high end retirement home in Redmond Wa, where in the West Wing I pure'd decent food so that memory defunct senior citizens could swallow it. After that short lived placement I migrated to Frankies Pizza and Pasta also in Redmond where I really actually got to learn about food and preparation. I always wanted to go to culinary school but for some reason kind of thought the idea of becoming a successful restaranteur and chef was about as likely as hanging out with Billy Idol. Some of my other pipe dream hobbies include playing music (I have too many guitars, and an accordian that sounds terrible when I'm behind the wheel), writing, learning new things and just generally enteraining people.

I hope that together we can share some neat stuff with you guys and I look forward to questions, comments and feedback!

A few weeks back we started making our sausage. I think so far our tastiest was our "Gyro" Sausage. Pretty Basic as far ingredients go so I guess I'll get started there. you will need 1Lb. Lamb (ground), 1Lb. Pork Butt (we grind our own, but you could use just a fatty ground sausage), 1 whole white onion finally minced, 4tsp minced garlic, 1 1/2 tsp Salt, 1 tsp Marjoram, 1 tsp Rosemary 1/4 tsp Black pepper. Essentially shove it all in a bowl and mix it all up real good. We use your standard Kitchen Aide and the happy mixing paddle, turn it onto 4 and let it go for a few minutes, 3 or so should do it. When you have it all mixed it's probably a good idea to take a table spoon or so and pan fry it real quick just so you can taste it and adjust your seasoning before you either cook it or stuff it into sausage casings.

I also use this for my gyro meat (minus the pork), in which case i take a loaf pan and spray it with some olive oil spray and then fill it with my mixture. I then cook it for about 60 minutes at 325 degrees. It turns out pretty well I think. I also make my own tzatiki sauce which is really simple. Just take some plain greek yogurt (small container) half a cucumber and a spoonful of garlic (i really like garlic) and blend it all together ( I use my magic bullet... I am that guy)

When I'm done I dice up some Roma tomatos (because I think they rule) pour on a dab of my tzatziki and yummy Down! Enjoy