Feel free to add/remove any of the meats, except, probably, the chuck…

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs chuck roast, cut into 1″ cubes
• 1 pound chorizo
• 1/2 pound spicy italian sausage
• 3 strips of bacon
• 5 jalapeno peppers, deseeded and finely diced
• 5 serrano peppers, deseeded and finely diced
• 3 habanero peppers, deseeded and finely diced
• 2 anaheim peppers, deseeded and finely diced
• 5 garlic cloves (or more if you want!)
• 2 bay leaves (optional)
• 16 ounces chicken broth

Directions

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees
• Add bacon to a thick pot over medium heat, I love using cast iron dutch ovens for this
• Cook bacon until crispy, remove bacon and set aside, leave the bacon grease
• Brown 1/2 of the cubed chuck (we only brown 1/2 of it, because browning will make the meat tougher, and we want to get a variety of textures)
• Removed browned chuck cubes, add any other meat that could use browning (chorizo, italian sausage), add a a little oil if needed
• Add all the cubed chuck, the peppers, garlic, and the chicken broth
• Bring to a low boil, then transfer pot to the 200 degree oven
• Cover pot, but leave a small gap to allow pressure to escape, and to keep the temperature lower
• Stir every 30-45 minutes (timing isn’t really critical, this is cooking very slowly)
• After about 3 hours, test to see if the cubed meat is tender. If you can easily cut it with a spoon, it’s ready
• If it’s not ready, check back every 15 minutes after the 3 hour mark
• Remove the meat with a slotted spoon
• That’s it! Serve it up, and crumble on some of the bacon from the beginning, add cheese, sour cream, and chives if you want
• Optionally, you can reduce the remaining broth, or add corn starch or masa to it to thicken it, and combine it with the reserved meat. I like to keep things lower carb, so I skip that step
• The result is a very chunky chili, but it’s really easy to chop into something finer, which I do if I’m putting it a chili dog

Based this almost exactly on NadiaG’s recipe from Bitchin Kitchen. Only real changes are that I added serrano peppers for a second kind of heat. Will try with some ghost pepper next time around. Also this is a bit of a blend of how Nadia made it on the Cooking Channel TV episode, vs. the somewhat more complex recipe on the website.

I should note that I absolutely love really hot food, but if you do use sliced but not seeded habeneros, make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.

Although Nadia used this on her hot wings, and I tried that as well, I’m really just a sucker for my own cayanne-based hot wing sauces. However, this sauce is tremendous for burgers, hotdogs, and actually, with it’s fruity flavor, would be good on something like catfish as well. I think this will become a hot-sauce staple I’ll make often.

Ingredients:

• 4 sliced habanero peppers (with seeds/ribs)
• 3 sliced serrano peppers (with seeds/ribs)
• 5 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
• 2 cups of cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 medium sweet white onion, roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 teaspoons salt (to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

• Add oil to a medium saucepan over medium heat
• Add onions, cook, stiring frequently, until translucent
• Add peppers, cook for 2-3 minutes until peppers have softened
• Add all the other ingredients, bring to a simmer
• Cook for 10-20 minutes until tomatoes break down
• Use an immersion blender, or transfer contents to a blender or food processor, and mix until, well, mixed

The second time I went to The Melting Pot, we got there a little early, so we went to the bar. We were greeted by a sportily dressed, and very pleasant bartender, John. Little did we know we were in for a treat. 

John is a purveyor of pre-prohibition era drinks, which are enjoying a resurgence as of late. A Mixologist., in current parlance, although John tells me he’s a bartender, and that anyone who needs a more elevated title is forgetting that the customer is what matters. These drinks feature strong ingredients like gin and rye, absynthe and bitters, and are accented with fresh fruit and zest. A complex blend of flavors. They also are handcrafted drinks, eschewing mixes, blends, and modern bar techniques, focusing on hand-muddling, shaving, grating, and mixing. These are beverages you should be at the bar to both watch them being assembled, but hear the descriptions of why John has chosen different ingredients and preparations, as well as the history of a particular beverage.

John made us a Sazerac:

An Old Fashioned:

and an Aviation:

A Moscow Mule:

A Manhattan:

All were really great. Now, keep in mind, these are slow, handcrafted drinks, and John makes wonderful sipping cocktails, ones you can enjoy over time, and who’s flavors subtly change as you drink them. If you’re looking for tequila shots or Vodka with a twist of lemon, you can get that too, but it’s not what’s going to keep me coming back.

With John’s artistry added to the bar, it is in itself now a destination. So even if you’re not in the mood for a fondue meal, you can stop in here before or after (or during) your evening in San Mateo, sit down, watch John craft you a complex cocktail, and slowly savor it.

I think this adds huge value to the San Mateo restaurant scene, since I’m a real fan of the classic cocktail resurgence we’re having. I don’t have to go to San Francisco or wait in line in San Jose to get a finely crafted cocktail. Plus, if my companions just want a beer, or a glass of nice wine, those are available as well.

Home Dry Aged Ribeye, a set on Flickr.

My first home dry aged roast. The sample I cooked up was spectacular. Fork tender, complex, intense flavor. Here’s what I did…

Bought a whole USDA Prime Ribeye (granted, my friend who raised beef walked me through why that doesn’t really mean anything), but this ribeye was pretty well marbled. You need a large piece of meat, I tried dry aging indivdual steaks, but you can’t leave them in for 2 weeks, you’ll loose too much material, and end up with an amuse-bouche. Ribeye is my favorite steak, there’s enough fat to keep the steak tender when searing, and for my pallete, it just has the richest flavor.

Prerequisite:

A fridge you won’t be using for a couple weeks that can keep a stable temperature of 35-38 degrees, and a way to keep the humidity at 40-50%. Mine stayed humid enough without having to add a pan of water, but instructions I read from people who do this a lot included a moisture source in the fridge, and a small fan that would keep air circulating inside the fridge.

Directions:

• Unwrapped washed, and towel dried the whole ribeye
• Put the ribeye on a metal rack, sitting over a baking pan to catch any liquid that comes out out, allowing air to circulate around the entire ribeye.
• Put the ribeye in the fridge in the place you’ve previously checked out and made sure the temperature and humidty stays stable.
• Leave it there for 2 weeks. If you don’t have a remote way to check the temp/humidity, do a very quick check once every day or two, but don’t keep the fridge open long enough for the temp to change, you want the environment to stay stable.
• Remove from the fridge, and trim all the hard and/or discolored meat from around the edges. It’s easiest to cut it into a steak, and then trim the edges. I found I had to trim about 1/4-1/2″. I took the opportunity to also trim some excess fat, resulting in removing about 30% of the meat.

All told, I lost about 40% of the original weight to the steak drying, and trimming the outer parts.

The result? A fork-tender steak, amazingly flavorful. It rivals all but the best I’ve had at resturants that specialize in top quality steak. But, they have access to better cuts of beef than I do, and better controlled conditions for aging, as well as controlled high-temperature cooking, so that’s to be expected.

Cost-wise, in 2012, I was able to get a 15 pound prime ribeye for under $7 a pound, which after the material loss from aging, brings it to around $12/lb. That’s less than half what a dry aged steak costs at my local butcher.

Crab in garlic sauce. Not some wimpy garlic sauce, mind you, but one suitable to ward off creatures of the night. And, as an experiment, I made this with no butter, and no oil. A low calorie, low-fat sauce, if you’re looking for something like that.

Ingredients:

• 2 Dungeness Crab, cooked
• 2 cups of peeled and minced garlic (you may want to use a food processor for this)
• 1/2 onion, chopped or minced
• 2 cups of soy sauce
• 1 cup of water
• 4 Tbsp dried hot pepper powder/flakes
• 2 Tbsp ginger powder, or 2″ of chopped fresh ginger

Directions:

• Open the cooked crab
• Remove and put aside the butter, the brown/green material found there. Seriously, it’s wonderful. Don’t confuse that with the lungs, the butter is the consistancy of soft butter, not an organ.
• Clean and crack the crab, breaking the body into two pieces.
• Check out this video, if you haven’t cleaned a crab before, but don’t toss the butter
• Put the onion and minced garlic in a wok/deep pan, and cook for a minute over medium-high heat until fragrant
• Add soy, hot pepper, ginger, and 1/2 cup of water, and bring to a simmer/low boil
• Add the reserved crab butter, stir in. Gives the sauce a wonderfully intense crab flavor.
• You’ll heat the crab in stages…
• Start putting in the crab parts, heat in the simmering liquid for 2-3 minutes, move to a plate/bowl, and put in the next load of crab
• If the sauce starts to reduce too much, getting too thick, add remaining 1/2 cup of water, bring back to a simmer, and continue
• Once crab is all heated, reduce remaining sauce to desired thickness (if needed), and pour over crab
• You can also reserve some of the sauce for dipping bowls, if you’d prefer
• Sleep well, knowing you’re safe from those pesky nocturnal visitors, at least for one night

Chicken, lemon, butter and olive oil. Come on, you know you want it. Who knew it was so easy? Well, I guess a lot of people, but I just figured it out.

Ingredients:

• 2 whole or 4 half bonless, skinless chicken breasts
• 3 Tbsp Olive Oil
• 4 Tbsp Butter (split into two 2 Tbsp portions)
• 4 Tbsp flour
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup rinsed capers
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup chicken broth

Directions:

• Heat olive oil and 2 Tbsp of butter over medium high heat in a skillet
• Salt and pepper the breasts, and dust with 1/2 of the flour, flip and repeat
• When oil/butter mixture starts to sizzle/spit add chicken breasts
• Cook for 3 minutes until slightly browned, flip and cook for another 3 minutes
• Remove chicken to a plate, reduce heat to medium
• Add broth, lemon juice and capers, bring to a boil, and deglaze pan
• Add chicken breasts back in, cook for 2-1/2 minutes, flip, cook for another 2-1/2 minutes
• Remove chicken to a plate again
• Add remaining 2 Tbsp of butter, stir into sauce until melted
• Pour sauce over plated chicken breasts

Hard to tie down to any set of ingredients, you can make this with lots of different toss-ins. Generally, I like crispy veggies (in the picture are baby bok choy, celery, broccoli). Some onions, garlic, optionally meat if you want. It’s a great thing to throw together with leftover veggies or meat in smaller quantities than you’d use for a dish of them.

Ingredients (as pictured, but make it up!):

• Broccoli
• Bok Choy
• Celery
• Onion
• Garlic cloves (whole or sliced)
• Sausage
• Thinly sliced meat (beef, pork, chicken)
• 2-3 Tbsp Oil (Canola or Olive or Peanut work well)
• 3 Tbsp Soy Sauce
• 1 Tbsp Rice Wine Vinegar
• A handfull of whole chili peppers (optional)
• 1 Tbsp chili powder (optiona)
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

• Chop all veggies to bite-sized pieces
• If using meat, thinly slice and cut into bite-sized pieces
• Put oil in the bottom of a wok or deep frying pan over medium to high heat until oil is hot
• If using meat, add to oil and cook for a minute until partially cooked, remove meat and place aside
• Add veggies, stir in oil until warmed but still with a bit of crunch. Time will depend on the veggies you’re using
• Add soy, rice wine vinegar, chili powder, salt, pepper, and optional reserved meat
• Continue to stir for another minute
• Serve on a platter, or on indivdual plates or bowls. Optionally over rice, if you’d like.