Now I'm Cooking! — London Broil w/Vegs & Sesame Cole Slaw

Welcome to the new week!  I hope you all had a nice weekend.  I must have been in a traditional mood yesterday, because I decided to do the quintessential Sunday-evening dinner: Pot Roast w/Vegetables.  But I'm never TOO traditional — in this case, I served my meat & potatoes with a kicky Asian-inspired salad using red cabbage and daikon radish.

In this meal, I used several ingredients that are not usually in my [metaphorical] pantry.  Blogging about what I cook has gotten me thinking about expanding my culinary horizons.  Not that I tend to make boring food or typically American or New York or Voice-Teacher or Gay Food.  I have a pretty creative style all my own, which has emerged over 3 decades in the kitchen.  (Don't worry; I haven't been continuously in the kitchen for 30 years.)  But I am always interested in trying new things and not getting stuck in cooking habits.  (It's an Alexander Technique thing.  Check out my other blog if you don't know what that means.)

Anyhow, the non-habitual ingredients tonight are London Broil (a 0.8-pound slab of beef about an inch thick), daikon radish, and sesame oil.  These latter two items used to be habitual for me when I was in my Korean phase, but it's been a while since then.  So long, in fact, that the first bottle of sesame oil I opened today turned out to be slightly rancid.  Thanks to Peter for sniffing it suspiciously and discovering the "off" aroma.  Otherwise, I might have ruined a whole bowlful of delicious veggies by drizzling them with fetid oil.  (Peter has a preternatural ability to detect "off" flavors and smells that zip right past my radar.  He also claims that he can taste plastic wrap if food has been wrapped in it, but I don't notice this, probably because 78% of the food I consumed growing up had come into contact with la Wrappe du Saran at some point.  Does anyone else out there have a princess-and-the-pea aversion to plastic tastes — or does my Peter have a rare gift?  In any case, I'm very lucky to have him around.)

Let's get cooking. . .shall we start with the salad?

Sesame Red Cabbage Slaw w/Daikon Radish

I began by shredding a little piece of red cabbage — it's amazing what a big pile of strips emerge from just a little chunk of the vegetable!  I put the cabbage in a bowl with slices of daikon radish.  (I'd cut about half a large radish in 1/8" slices and then cut the slices into strips, stacking several slices at a time to make it go quicker.)  I salted the veggies with about a half teaspoon salt and then tossed them with my hands, rubbing the salt in as I did.  After about 30 minutes, I drained off the liquid which had accumulated.  The salt softens the vegetables, wilting them similarly to cooking.

Cabbage & Radish before salt-wilting

While the salt was working its magic, I assembled my ingredients to dress the slaw:

Black pepper, garlic, cayenne pepper, vinegar, toasted sesame oil

I would have used rice vinegar if I'd had it, by the way.  Make sure your sesame oil is from toasted seeds for this recipe; the raw kind doesn't have the same rich nutty flavor.  I also toasted about 2 tablespoons of sesame seeds and crushed then lightly in a mortar.  You don't have to crush them, but it does release a little more flavor and creates a nice texture as well.

Roasting the sesame seeds

Sesame seeds after crushing.  The yellow smear is turmeric left over from another project.   So report me to the hygiene police.

When I was ready to serve the salad, I added to the veggies a couple teaspoons of sesame oil, a teaspoon or so of vinegar, a little fresh ground pepper, a bit of cayenne pepper, and one crushed clove of garlic.  I tossed the ingredients thoroughly, then added the crushed roasted sesame seeds and tossed again.  Done!

Now here's how I prepared the beef.  The night before, I'd begun marinating the meat in a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, crushed garlic, and a bit of soy sauce.  Here's what it looked like today:

This pic will not win any awards for beauty

OK, not that pretty, but let's give it a chance to cook before we cast aspersions.   I put the meat in a baking dish and poured the remaining marinade along with some extra oil and a little salt over the vegetables, mixing it well and then dumping the whole mess over the meat in the baking dish.  The vegetables, by the way, were chunked potatoes, carrots, onions, and mushrooms.

I set Connie's controls — Connie is my countertop convection oven, if you're just joining us — to 275 degrees and her maximum time of 1 hour and started the meat dish a-baking.  It's in there right now, and it's starting to smell pretty nice.  After 45 minutes, I noticed that everything was drying out a little, so I poured a little white wine over the top and continued to let it bake.  I'm going to let it bake for an hour and a half or so and then slice the meat thin to serve it, with the veggies on the side and a glass of a kick-ass Australian blended red wine called Marquis Philips 2007 Vintage Sarah's Blend.  I don't know what Sarah blended this stuff with, but it weighs in at an alcohol content of 15%, which is just about the highest I've ever seen in a non-dessert wine.  If I can still write after a glass of that, I'll let you know how the beef turns out. . . .

Dinner

Mmmmmmmm — that was delicious!  And that isn't just the wine talking.  The wine was big and jammy, by the way, no subtle flavors, but quite pleasant nonetheless.  There's still about half the meat and veggies left; they're now in the fridge, soaking in the remaining marinade/white wine.  I expect that they'll be even more delicious upon reheating, probably tomorrow.  (I teach until 8, and who wants to start cooking then?)

Now if only I'd thought about dessert. . . .