Day 64
We started the week off with a bang today producing both a grilled ribeye steak with compound butter and tomato provencal and pork carnitas with flour tortillas and all the fixings.
A compound butter is basically any butter that you have whipped additional ingredients into - in my case, it was roasted shallots and a red wine reduction - and then you roll the butter into a log and chill it until it is nice and firm. Once the butter is chilled you can slice it and use as much as you would like for the dish of your choice.
Today I topped my ribeye with a slice of the butter and then let it melt into the steak. I also used some deep-fried shallot rings that I had first seasoned and dredged through a bit of flour. The steak was seasoned generously with salt and pepper and cooked to a perfect medium-rare.
We made the carnitas by braising the pork in spices and water and then shredding it and pan-frying it with more spices. We were assigned to make tacos but I decided to go more of a tostada route so after I made my flour tortilla dough I deep-fried it to make a nice crispy base for the dish. On top of the fried tortilla went a grilled black bean cake, a saute of sweet corn and roasted poblano, fresh salsa cruda (uncooked salsa), carnitas, and guacamole. I was really happy with the end result - so delish.
Also an update on our homemade bacon: after about 10 days of curing in brine we removed the pork belly, rinsed and dried it, and placed it on a rack in our walk-in refrigerator so that it could sit for 24 hours before we put it in the smoker tomorrow.
A compound butter is basically any butter that you have whipped additional ingredients into - in my case, it was roasted shallots and a red wine reduction - and then you roll the butter into a log and chill it until it is nice and firm. Once the butter is chilled you can slice it and use as much as you would like for the dish of your choice.
Today I topped my ribeye with a slice of the butter and then let it melt into the steak. I also used some deep-fried shallot rings that I had first seasoned and dredged through a bit of flour. The steak was seasoned generously with salt and pepper and cooked to a perfect medium-rare.
We made the carnitas by braising the pork in spices and water and then shredding it and pan-frying it with more spices. We were assigned to make tacos but I decided to go more of a tostada route so after I made my flour tortilla dough I deep-fried it to make a nice crispy base for the dish. On top of the fried tortilla went a grilled black bean cake, a saute of sweet corn and roasted poblano, fresh salsa cruda (uncooked salsa), carnitas, and guacamole. I was really happy with the end result - so delish.
Also an update on our homemade bacon: after about 10 days of curing in brine we removed the pork belly, rinsed and dried it, and placed it on a rack in our walk-in refrigerator so that it could sit for 24 hours before we put it in the smoker tomorrow.
Sarah Simms