Del Campo

We first tasted Victor Albisu's cooking back in the winter when we visited his Taco Bamba pop-up.  Since then, the brick and mortar version has opened, as well as Del Campo, a more upscale eatery that still harkens back to his Latin American roots.

The first thing you'll notice is that everything the restaurant offers touches the grill.  Even components of their cocktails have a nice, smoky char to them.  I opted for the pisco sour, a classic Peruvian cocktail.  It's a refreshing drink on a hot summer night, due to the citrusy tang of the lemon and lime, and light foamy egg white that floats on top.  Justin wanted the Tank 7 farmhouse ale since we were meeting friends for beers afterwords.  About 10 minutes later he was informed they were out of the Tank 7, and it took awhile longer to get another beer. Since we there during the first few weeks of them opening, we weren't too surprised they were working out some kinks in service.

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Then we came to the food options.  While perusing the menu we were presented with freshly baked bread, served with smoked olive oil and smoked salt for dipping.  I think I could've drank a cup of the smoked olive oil on it's own, it was that tasty!  The menu is broken down into appetizers & ceviches, asados (essentially all the meat options), house specialties, and del mar (the seafood options).  Your best bet is to share everything so you can try a variety of food.

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For appetizers, we chose the roasted beet salad with goat cheese, the chicharones (because we can't resist crispy pork skin!), and the yellowtail ceviche.  The beets and goat cheese was one of my favorites, both in taste and visual appeal.  There were golden beets, striped beets, and the traditional red beets, all with a nice sweetness that was balanced out by the tangy goat cheese.  But we can't forget the chicharones.  You may be envisioning a pile of crispy pork rings on a plate, but this dish was way more than that.  It was more of a pork tasting plate, offering up some crispy skin, a rib, and a slab of pork belly.  The salty, delicious pork was balanced out with a sweet potato puree.

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Now, onto the entrees!  Ideally, you'll want to try a variety of meats.  I opted for the lamb shank, which was grilled perfectly and arrived at the table, falling off the bone.  The portion was a bit on the smaller side though.  Justin went with the short ribs.  The most common preparation for short ribs is to braise them for hours on end so they're falling off the bone when you eat them.  But in keeping with the theme of the restaurant, these bad boys were grilled.  If you're a bit hungrier, these are a good option because you're served three strips of short ribs.  Our dining companions chose the hangar steak and teres major steak, both of which were cooked to a perfect medium rare, as well as the grilled salmon.  We also received a complimentary serving of roasted bone marrow.  Now, if you remember back a few paragraphs ago, I mentioned sharing the food.  That's because all of the meats were served on one large wooden board, to really encourage sharing.  They also came with four sauces; two chimichurris (a traditional South American herb-based condiment), a Malbec sauce, and a salsa.  For the amount of meat we ordered, I think we could've used slightly larger quantities of sauce.

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The sides are a la carte, as in most steakhouses.  To accompany our meats, we ordered the fried yucca and grilled polenta for some starch.  Like any great french fry, the yucca was perfectly crisp on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside.  They were served with a salsa criolla, and I easily could've eaten an entire basket of these fries.  The sauce was addictingly good, and although we were stuffed, we kept going back for more fries.  The grilled polenta had a nice, charred outer crust, yet was still fluffy in the middle.  But they weren't very memorable.  Next time, I may opt for one of the vegetables.

Overall, it was a great meal, and delivered exactly what it promised; deliciously grilled meats.  It would definitely be worth a trip back to try a few other cuts and the uni ceviche and some desserts (assuming we don't stuff ourselves on delicious meats again!).

Le Diplomate

Lately we've done a good job of visiting new restaurants and crossing them off our ever growing list of places to try.  Le Diplomate was one of those places, and it certainly lived up to all the hype!

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Walking into the restaurant, you're transported to a Parisian bistro, filled with globe lights, a checkered tile floor, and the aroma of freshly baked breads.  They also have several tables outside for you to enjoy some al fresco dining.

Once seated, we began to peruse the menu, filled with traditional French bistro fare.  We were presented with a bread basket, filled with an assortment of breads, to whet our appetites.  We decided to start the meal with their selection of 7 cheeses that included a goat cheese, 2 varieties of brie, a bleu cheese, and a couple semi-hard cheeses.  Overall, they were quite tasty, and a perfect way to kick off the meal.  Like any French restaurant worth its sel, La Diplomate has a wine list that doesn't disappoint.  There is a wide selection of French bottles, and there are some exquisite choices by the glass as well.  Our server was helpful in recommending both a red and a white to pair with our meal.  Being this was French cuisine we went with French wines.

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For our entrees, I chose the moules frites, prepared in the mariniere style.  It is a traditional white wine sauce, that had great added flavor from fresh thyme and bay leaves, as well as some butter to round out the broth. My only complaint is that they left the sprigs of thyme and the bay leaves in the broth.  The frites were perfectly crisp on the outside, and fluffy on the inside, just the way fries should be.

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Justin went with the Monday night special, veal sweetbreads, as his entree.  They were served on a bed of greens.  They were really flavorful, but he enjoyed the ones at the Red Hen more.  Our dining companions enjoyed the steak frites and the beef bourguignon, commenting that they were both delicious dishes as well.

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Dinner was rounded out by a couple of desserts.  We couldn't visit a French restaurant without trying their creme brulee, and it didn't disappoint.  The portion was pretty large, and easy to share amongst several people.  The top was a perfect golden brown, while the inside was extremely light and creamy.  We also shared the apple tarte tatin.  The apples were nice and carmalized, yet still had some bite to them, while the pastry of the tarte was very light and flaky.

Overall, it was a delicious meal, though the service was a bit slow.  They definitely weren't trying to rush us through our meal, which I liked, but it could've been paced a tad bit faster.  The food itself lived up to all the rave reviews the restaurant had received upon opening, though the atmosphere really stole the show.  You truly feel like you're on some cafe set from a French film.  Even for a Monday night it was very lively.  This isn't a romantic spot per se, but a great place to enjoy some authentic French food with some friends over a bottle of wine or two.  We will definitely be back to check out brunch or some of the other nightly specials.

Summertime Sweets

Tonight's dinner was super simple...we threw some steaks on the grill and mixed up a simple salad (for those of you at home playing the 2 Hungry Hearts drinking game, take a drink every time we make a simple salad) of green leaf lettuce and sliced fennel...all items from our share.  We topped the salad with some toasted walnuts, and dressed it with olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, some thyme and fennel fronds.  The sweetness of the white balsamic balanced out the fennel quite nicely.

But let's get on to the main event.  If you thought the salad and steak were easy, wait till you feast your eyes on this dessert.  It couldn't be simpler!

We only had 2 stalks of rhubarb, so we tossed in some quartered strawberries too.  Strawberries and rhubarb are a winning combination; the sweetness of strawberries balancing out the tartness of rhubarb.  Since we had the strawberries, we just cut out some of the sugar the recipe called for.  Anyway...just chop up the rhubarb and strawberries, and toss with a bit of lemon juice and sugar.

In a separate bowl you'll make the topping.  Rather than just use panko, as the recipe calls for, we also threw in some oats, along with cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, and some Chinese five spice, since we didn't have allspice on hand.

Butter the bottom of your baking dish, and spread some of your topping on the bottom to make a nice little crust.  Then layer on your strawberries and rhubarb so they're evenly distributed.  Top it off with the rest of your topping, along with your chopped almonds.  Then cube up some butter and dot the top.  Make sure the butter is spread out evenly too, so it melts over the whole dish.

Then just pop it into a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes.  You want the filling to start to bubble, and the top to be golden brown and crisp.  Let it cool for a few minutes, and then dig in! As our friend Jeffrey Zakarian would say, "Yummy!"

Food Bloggers Against Hunger

Today's post is part recipe, part public service announcement.

Growing up, did your parents try to get you to finish your meal because there were "starving kids in Africa" that could really use that food you were about to waste?  What about all the starving people right here in the US?  1 out of 5 kids in America are starving, and when you scale that to the entire population, 1 out of 6 Americans are starving.  People that use food stamps are only given $4 per person per day to supplement whatever food budget they have.  Just over a month ago, A Place at the Table, debuted in theaters, and became available On Demand and on iTunes.  It is a documentary by the same folks that produced Food Inc., and 3 families struggling with food insecurity.

We decided to put ourselves in their shoes for a day, and see just what $8 (since there's 2 of us) could get us for breakfast lunch and dinner.  As you can see, it didn't buy us much.  All we could afford was a half dozen eggs, some sirloin tips, and a bag of frozen veggies.

The eggs can be used for breakfast, and we'll use the steak and veggies for a stir-fry for dinner, but as you can see, there was nothing for lunch.  Frozen veggies are a great, healthy alternative to buying fresh vegetables however, about a third of the options, when it came to mixed veggies, had a sauce.  Nutritionally, that's where you run into trouble because you have no control over the salt, sugar and fat content.  So even just finding a bag of plain, mixed veggies that fit our budget was tough.

The stir fry itself was easy to throw together.  Since the veggies were frozen, we threw those into the wok with some coconut oil and grated ginger.  Most people probably don't have that on hand, but you can use canola/vegetable/grapeseed...whatever oil you have on hand.

Once they had defrosted a bit, we threw in the steak, which we'd cut into strips.  We also added some black bean & garlic sauce that we already had on hand.  Again, this probably isn't a "staple" item that most people have in their pantries, but you can add garlic and soy sauce, or whatever other sauce you have on hand.

That's the nice thing about stir fry...there really aren't any rules when it comes to them.  You can just throw together whatever you have on hand to make a tasty dish.  Because we had a tiny bit of our homemade kimchi left in the fridge, we chopped it up and added it to the mix for some added spice.  An alternative would to be to use a little cayenne pepper or hot sauce.  We topped off each dish with some sesame seeds.

Now granted, our little experiment was a bit skewed since we used items we had on hand that may not be considered "staples" in most households, and we were trying to buy food for just one day.  Had we taken advantage of our economies of scale, and bought food for an entire week with $56, we probably could've found creative ways to make 3 meals a day.  There were whole rotisserie chickens on sale for about $4, which could be stretched to last at least 2 meals.  Cans of tuna and sardines were on sale for $1 each too.  But as you can see, your money doesn't stretch very far unless you have the time to be one of those extreme couponers.  And with sequestration, there will be less and less food assistance available.

So, here's what you can do to help.  Take a minute to complete this form and send a letter to your congressmen, urging them to protect federal nutrition programs.  Take a couple hours out of your day to watch A Place at the Table.  I'll get you started with the trailer...

This was a really enlightening experience. We are so used to cooking for fun and making creative use of a seemingly endless choice of ingredients.  Knowing we had an $8 budget for the day when we passed ads for $3 for 2 breakfast sandwiches at a fast food chain (that will remain anonymous) really showed us how much easier it would've been to just grab 2 sandwiches than to shop and cook on that tight budget.  It's understandable to see why people would just resort to the $1 menu at fast food joints. But with a little creativity, and some patience shopping around the grocery store, you can put together a healthy meal on any budget.

Don't Worry -- We Got Chimichurri!

We found ourselves with quite a bit of cilantro in the fridge, some from the last couple shares, and also from the grocery store, and we needed to figure out how to use it all.  We decided to put a spin on chimichurri, and rather than use parsley as the primary herb, we used cilantro.  Chimichurri is a traditional Argentinian condiment, much like pesto, used to top steaks.

So here we go...we started with the chimichurri, using this recipe as a base.  So cilantro was the star, but we balanced it out with some mint we'd picked up for the rutabaga, and some parsley we trimmed off our plant.

All of these guys went into the food processor with some garlic, red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt & pepper, and a touch of lemon zest.  It initially came out a bit acidic, so we added a little more cilantro and mint to balance things out.  Oh, and we threw in a dried red chili pepper for a touch of heat (Sorry there aren't more pictures!)

Next came the rutabaga.  It kind of looks like a giant turnip, but it has a slightly sweet taste to it.  We decided to roast the rutabaga, much like we roast our cauliflower, with a little red onion, mint, and pecorino (except the pecorino was at Justin's place...womp, womp!).  The rutabaga was peeled and diced.  Then we simply seasoned it with salt, pepper, grated red onion, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a drizzle of olive oil.  Into the oven they went to roast up.

While the rutabaga was roasting, we also threw the steak in.  We went with a London broil for our cut of meat.  With just a little salt, pepper, and olive oil, it went into the oven for about 5 minutes on each side.

 

Then we transfered the meat to a pan on the stove top to get a nice sear on each side.  The meat sat in the pan for about 90 seconds on each side, and then we let it rest before slicing into.  The meat came out perfectly medium rare.

Once the meat was sliced up, we topped it with the chimichurri.  By the time the steak had finished cooking, the rutabaga was ready to go too.  We just tossed the mint with the rutabaga and plated it up!

 

CSA Recap

Happy MLK Day, and Inauguration Day!  For as close as we both live to the Capitol, all we could hear were sirens all morning.  In preparation for our next share tomorrow, its time for a recap of how we used all the food from our previous share.

If you remember, here's what we picked up last time...

And here's what we cooked up...

• Thai Peanut Stir Fry
• purple carrots
• broccoli
• spinach
• sweet potato
• dill
• Spaghetti Squash (we spared you ANOTHER post about spaghetti squash)
• pork sausage
• Stuffed Pork Loin & Butternut Squash Polenta
• gold rush apples
• butternut squash
• Sausage Egg Scramble & Home Fries
• pork sausage
• potatoes
• Bison Steak & Kohlrabi Fritters
• bison NY strip steak
• kohlrabi
• spinach
• bibb lettuce
• romaine lettuce
• Turkey Burgers & Sweet Potato Fries
• dill
• sweet potatoes
• Pain Perdu (like fancy french toast) & Hash Browns
• pink lady apples
• onion
• potatoes

The only thing we haven't used up is the head of cabbage, though we have plans to try another kimchi recipe.  Fingers crossed we don't get another one in tomorrow's share.

Sunday Night Steak Out

Ahh Sundays...since my Pittsburgh Steelers failed to make it to the post-season, I have even more time on my hands where I can either mope around that I have to get up early the next day or make something delicious to eat.

Today Kara and I were looking to use up few items from our last share.  Originally we were hoping to grill our steak since the weathermen promised us a sunny and 70 degree day, but yet again we were led astray by a weather forecast fail; so that was out of the question.  Instead, we decided to work around this by sous-viding our buffalo strip steak. We're not fortunate enough to own an immersion circulator, so we simply threw our vacuum-packed steak into a dutch oven filled with water heated to about 130 degrees for about 40 mins.  Once it was cooked through to a nice medium, I removed it, seasoned it with a little roasted garlic salt and black pepper, and seared it in a grill pan for about two minutes a side.

 

Next up was the kohlrabi.  We were simultaneously thinking "awesome" and "WTF?!?!" when we learned we were getting kohlrabi this week.

A brief search through the interwebs led us to this fritter recipe .  We subbed the besan for good old-fashioned flour.  One tip when squeezing out the excess water from the shredded kohlrabi...place it all in a dish towel, and just wring it out.  You'll be able to squeeze a lot of water out without losing any kohlrabi down the drain.




The fritters were pretty easy to put together...shred the kohlrabi, chop up some scallions, mix in the spices, and you're good to go!

What about those greens? Why we sauteed them with some garlic, shallot, and the rest of our spinach.

The meal was really starting to take shape, but rich steak and starchy pan-fried fritters needed to be paired with a fresh component.  Luckily, we had lettuce from our CSA and decided to throw together a little salad.  During a quick jaunt to Trader Joe's, we picked up some mini portabella caps, which we roasted with some goat cheese, and some orange muscat vinegar to round out the salad...plus some decent $2 beer to boot.

We were only missing one thing...a tasty sauce to compliment our greens and meat.  I'm a huge fan of red meat and Bearnaise sauce, and I like putting my own spin on this classic sauce by subbing the tarragon for other herbs, deglazing with liqueurs etc.  Since we had the dill, I simply used it in place of the tarragon.

It all came together quite nicely, and we truly made the best of an otherwise dreary day by relaxing with some quality food and drink.

Taco Night

It hard for us to resist the Korean tacos from Takorean.  The bulgogi steak, topped with crunchy, spicy kimchi, and wrapped in soft corn tortillas is a combination that's hard to pass up.  Since we've had a tub of homemade kimchi in the fridge, we thought we'd try our hand at making our own version on them.

We started with some top sirloin.  Justin cut it into strips, while I made the marinade.  I found this basic recipe online, and luckily I already had the ingredients on hand.

The marinade consisted of soy sauce, sesame oil, a little sugar, garlic, ginger, and toasted sesame seeds.  Once everything was whisked together, you simply add the meat, some green onions and some yellow onions to the bowl and massage it altogether.

We let the meat marinate in the fridge for a little while we made the cilantro lime crema.  I had about half a container of sour cream leftover from when we made chipotle sour cream, so we thought we'd make a nice little topper for our tacos.

We chopped up a bunch of cilantro that we had left over from a previous CSA, added the zest of 1 lime, and the juice of half.  Mix it all together, and you have a delicious crema!  I also chopped up a bunch of the kimchi so it'd be more the size of cole slaw, and easy to put into our tacos.

It was finally time to cook the meat and assemble our tacos!  The meat cooked up pretty quickly, and then it was time to fill our warm, soft tortillas!

Then came the kimchi, and cilantro lime crema.  We'd reserved some of the toasted sesame seeds and chopped cilantro to sprinkle on top of each taco.  And to really finish them off, they each got a drizzle of sriracha.

 

They turned out to be quite tasty, and a great way to use some of our kimchi.  To quote Justin, "They're my 2nd favorite half Asian thing."