A New Years Rib Roast

When cooking for a big crowd, sometimes you want to make something that's low maintenance so that you're not spending all night in the kitchen while everyone else is having fun. This past New Years, I wanted to create a meal that was hearty, festive, and delicious, without keeping me confined in the kitchen all night long. I decided on making a rib roast with potato and celery root puree and roasted bacon brussel sprouts. This meal is a classic large party menu with a lot of flavor, but is simple enough to keep even picky eaters happy.

An Old Fashioned Steak Trade

I'm a good cook, and I generally feel very comfortable in the kitchen. When it comes to using a camera, my cousin Adam is the expert. He does freelance video and photography in his spare time, and he is very good at maximizing a camera and then improving the shots in Photoshop. We decided on a steak dinner trade. I would give him and his girlfriend a cooking lesson, and he would give me and my girlfriend a camera lesson. A reasonably fair tradeoff, and a good excuse to spend some quality time together.

Closing Out Summer in the Hamptons

I can think of no better way to end summer than with good friends and good food. The last weekend before labor day, my girlfriend and I went out to Quogue in the Hamptons with some friends to visit our friend's parent's house. We had postponed the trip a week because of hurricane Irene, and the weather was perfect. We spent some time on the beach and relaxing by the pool, and when the evening rolled around, we were treated to a delicious dinner. To date, all of my posts have been made by me, but this was such a great meal in such a wonderful setting, that I wanted to feature my friend's parent's meal as a thank you for their impeccable hospitality.

Hurricane Chili

As New York awaited the arrival of Hurricane Irene, weary and anxious for the unknown fury of mother nature, I made chili. I had competed in a chili competition in the Spring, and figured a day stuck inside will all stores closed would be an excellent opportunity to tweak my recipe a bit.

Impressing My Girlfriend's Friends

I heard from my girlfriend that one of her co-workers was a fan of the blog and wanted to get a meal cooked by Tyler. One of my goals is to create an in-home cooking class company, so I figured this would be a great way to showcase my talent to people who have been impressed by my food. Unfortunately, the meal was taking place in the dead of summer when my kitchen is about 100 degrees, so I wanted to start with a simple, cold cucumber soup. I pureed seedless cucumbers (though could have used normal cukes and just removed the seeds) with water and mint leaves. I then added salt, pepper, honey, and cayenne pepper and let it cool in the fridge. When it came time to serve, I topped it with a dollop of Greek yogurt mixed with honey, some chopped mint, and a cucumber that I cut into a ribbon. The soup was light, crisp, and refreshing in the sweltering kitchen.

4th of July Grilling Extravaganza

4th of July always brings beach, fireworks, and grilling. In celebration of this fun summer holiday, I wanted to put together a grilling extravaganza. I made skewers of all sorts for a crowd of 13 people. To start the meal, my girlfriend made delicious deviled eggs. I would give the recipe, but it's a family secret and I've been forbidden from divulging it.

Tyler's Not Award Winning Chili

A couple weekends ago, I competed in a Texas alumni chili competition. The competition was open to all, and each team was required to provide 5 gallons of chili. If you’re not familiar with measurement amounts, 5 gallons is a massive amount of chili. Our team of 5 people was named “To Bean or Not To Bean” (we beaned). My job was to plan and execute the making chili, with my friend Andrew and my girlfriend Devon as my sous-chefs.

Wrapping my head around the sheer volume of ingredients needed for this amount of chili was one of the hardest parts of the preparation. I had never made that amount of anything before, so I had to do a bit of guessing in terms of what quantities to buy. My normal chili recipe feeds about 6 and is about 1-1.5 gallons, so I figured I could just quadruple that and be set for the competition. 

I picked up 20 lbs of meat (10 of a ground beef blend of chuck and sirloin and 10 of boneless short rib). I like using boneless short rib because it’s a very marbled cut that breaks down well when cooked for a long time. Chunks of short rib give chili a nice texture and a bit more heartiness than using only ground beef. In addition to the beef, I bought 3lbs of onions, 2 lbs of carrots, 2 celery hearts, 2 garlic cloves, 1 lb of jalapenos, 4 cans of diced tomatoes, 6 cans of kidney beans, 2 bars of 100% dark chocolate, brown sugar, 2 4oz cans of tomato paste, 2 16 fl oz boxes of chicken broth (I like Kitchen Basics, Pacific Organics, or Whole Foods brand – most other ones are too salty and have some artificial ingredients in them), and 2 bottles of Yuengling beer. In order to transport all of this, I had to bring my large rolling duffel bag to whole foods and pack everything nice and tight to I could get it home.

Once home, we started on the chili. Andrew diced the vegetables, while Devon cut the boneless short rib into small cubes. I made my special spice rub which consists of toasting and grinding whole peppercorns, cumin seed, mustard seed, and crushed red pepper, and mixing those with paprika, chili powder, cayenne, cinnamon, and salt. Once the spice mix was done, I mixed some of it in with the ground beef and began to brown all of the meet in a couple heavy bottom pots. Browning the meat gives it a nice caramelized flavor that you wouldn’t get if you just tossed it in the chili, and it cooks off a lot of the fat content, making the chili a little healthier and a little less greasy. I did reserve the fat for use while cooking, as it does have great flavor (I just didn’t want to use all of it).

Once I browned all of the meat, I started cooking the vegetables. Because I was making so much chili, I wanted to use 2 pots to cook so that it heated more evenly and I could better prevent burning at the bottom of the pot. I did my best to divide the ingredients proportionally between the two pots. I cooked the onion, celery, and carrot until translucent, and added the remaining spice mix, the peppers and garlic. Once all of the veggies were ready, I added the meat in, the tomato paste, the cans of tomatoes, the broth, and the beer. I also put in a couple bay leaves to give the broth more flavor. I had wanted to add beef bones to the broth, but Whole Foods didn’t have any. These would have added a rich beefy quality to the liquid. Once everything was stirred, I let it simmer, and then let it simmer some more.

The chili cooked for about 3 hours that night. After hour 1, I added the chocolate and some brown sugar. After hour 2, I added the kidney beans. I stirred it about every half hour, and watched it go from a brothy red to a thick reddish brown. The texture was perfect. You want chili to be a little thicker than a stew. As you cook it, it begins to grow an identity of its own. The color changes, the textures change, and the flavor develops and expands.

Once the chili was done, I put all of it in a big 5 gallon pot, and put it in the fridge to sit until the competition. On competition morning, I got up early, divided the chili between 3 pots to heat it, and stirred it constantly to avoid burning. I also added a little more sugar and some crushed red pepper and cayenne. The chili was good! It had a rich flavor that was sweet at the beginning and hot at the end. We brought it to the competition, setup our table (led by Keeli and Lily, the other two team members), and served the chili to judges, competitors, and attendees. Everyone seemed to like it a lot, other than the judges...

We didn’t make it to the finals because the chili was too sweet and not hot enough. Next time I will make the chili with less sugar and use habanero peppers instead of jalapenos to add more spice. We had a blast at the event nonetheless, and now I have a clear goal for my chili making throughout the year - perfect my chili, and win the competition!!

Beef Stew for Dave

My good friend Dave was turning 26 and a celebration was in order. Instead of dropping a lot of money at a restaurant, we decided that a home-cooked meal would be best. Dave is one of my favorite people to cook with and a very good chef himself, so I wanted to be sure to deliver a meal to remember. He has requested beef stew with mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts, and I obliged. The plan was to meet around 5 in Williamsburg for some drinks and oysters and then head to my place for dinner.

I picked up the ingredients from Whole Foods and rushed to get the stew on so that it would have enough time to cook before we met up for drinks. I wanted to do a classic beef stew, so I got about 4 lbs of stew beef, carrots, cipolini onion, mushrooms, red wine and beef broth. For the potatoes, I wanted to do a horseradish and chive mash, to give a nice tangy flavor as a counter to the warm and hearty stew. I picked up 4 lbs of yukon golds, some chives, greek yogurt, and horseradish. For the vegetable, I grabbed 4 lbs of brussel sprouts.

With my very heavy bag of groceries in tow, I headed home to get cooking. I cut up the carrots into thin discs, sliced the mushrooms, peeled the cipolinis and cut up some garlic. Once my vegetable prep was done, I salt and peppered the meat and browned it in batches so that I didn't overcrowd the pot. Once the meat was browned, I poured off the fat and sauteed the vegetables until they were starting to brown. I added the meat back in, tied up a bunch of thyme and bay leaf, and covered everything with about half a bottle of malbec and 4 cups of beef broth. I brought the pot to a low boil, covered it and put it in the oven at 375 for about 2 hours (taking off the cover for the last 45 minutes to let it thicken.)

For the potatoes, I peeled the yukons and put them in a large pot of boiling water. I boiled them for about 15 minutes until tender, drained them (saving a little of the water) and mashed them up. I added in about a cup of greek yogurt, 2 tablespoons of horseradish, 1 tablespoon of butter, salt and pepper. I then used a hand blender to make the mash very smooth, and once it was smooth and rich, I added in about half a cup of chopped chives.

For the brussel sprouts, I cut the rough base stem and then sliced them in half. I tossed them in olive oil, salt and pepper and cooked them for 35 minutes at 375 until they were brown on top.

The meal turned out great. We shared a nice bottle of Belgian style beer and laughed the night away while we enjoyed the meal. One thing I did realize is that beef stew is very difficult to photograph in an appetizing way. Despite the aesthetics, the dish was beautifully balanced and exactly what Dave wanted for his birthday dinner!

Sunday Steak

Sunday evening and I was craving some beef. I picked up a nice big ribeye from the WF meat counter, some asparagus, and some fingerling potatoes. I didn’t want a big involved meal to cook, but was definitely feeling a hearty and comforting dish. When I got home, I salt and peppered the steak and let it sit until I was ready to cook it. I sliced the potatoes in half, tossed them with 5 garlic cloves, olive oil, salt, pepper and paprika and put them in the oven (all sliced side down) at 375. I tossed the asparagus with olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon and added them to the oven about 15 minutes after the potatoes. I usually cook my potatoes for about 45 minutes, so I wanted the asparagus to be nicely roasted for 30. I heated up the grill pan tossed a little olive oil on it. Once the oil was almost smoking, I added the ribeye. I cooked it about 7 minutes a side to a nice medium rare. The steak sit for about 10 minutes, and once the potatoes and asparagus were done, I put it all on a plate and enjoyed this classic meal. It was the perfect dish for a Sunday night, and a great way to end the weekend.