Green salad with shrimp

Dressing:

• Anchovy smashed into side of bowl
• Egg yolk
• Lemon juice
• Dijon style mustard
• S/P
• Olive oil drizzled and whisked in

The shrimp was not actually boiled. The shrimp is frozen and large. It was peeled while still partially frozen and dumped into boiling water and removed from the heat immediately. Being still frozen, it lowered the water temperature to below boiling. Removed from water before it was fully cooked through. Chopped. The chopped pieces were returned to the hot water just to the point of a change to their internal color. Since they were chopped pieces it was easy to observe this. It took only a minute, possibly less. They were removed as soon as the inside turned white from opaque.

I have this thing about not overcooking seafood. I'm a maniac about it. A lot of people where I live object to this. They consider shrimp undercooked if it doesn't bounce off the table. Of course they're wrong, but there's absolutely no telling them otherwise. This is a point of frustration for me. [Anecdote here.]

Fruit salad

Gyros breakfast

Well, here we have it.

Poached eggs take a bit of technique. I am now sufficiently confident to show it.

The trick is vinegar. It causes the egg white to pull in.

Butter mixed with coconut oil and heated to melting. Slowly drizzled into egg yolk plus flavorings while whisking. Poured too fast. Failed to thicken. Doesn't really matter because it's to be heated to 145℉  whereupon it thickens.

Baked oysters with tomato

Breadcrumbs mixed with Parmigiano Reggiano. 

If I had spinach I would have used it. Alas, for I am spinachless. I thought diced Roma tomatoes would be pretty good, but they're not. My bad. My next batch will have spinach/cream/garlic. This just doesn't cut it. Nice try, but no cigar.

* I used lemon juice directly on the oysters and lemon zest mixed with the breadcrumbs.

* Dry Italian seasoning mixed with the topping.

* A few drops Worcestershire directly on each oyster following a few drops of lemon.

* Diced tomato plus diced onion following the drops

* Dry topping on top of tomato/onion.

* Insufficiently salty. I thought the Parmigiano would be enough salt but it wasn't.

* It needed something so at the table I added drops of Sriracha (Asian version of Tabasco) but even that didn't help much.

* I didn't have enough rock salt to steady the oysters. Thought I had a whole box but it was over half empty.

* Baked at 350℉ / 175℃ for 20 minutes. They were barely cooked. I would say, perfectly cooked.

What I learned: I'm a terrible oyster shucker. Those little butts are hard to open. I didn't come out of it completely unscathed either. Had to bash one open with a hammer. Used a knife and a heavy flat-head screwdriver for leverage, then cut the abductor muscle. I think I lost a good deal of the oyster liquor by my clumsy fumbling and by the need to remove shell fragments chipped by my inexpert oyster opening. This is not a task for the faint-hearted or for easy-bleeders for that matter.

I gotta up my game.

Mind, I'm not complaining here, just describing. I did devour this whole pile, which I'm certain qualifies me as a proper pig.

Rice, gyros meatloaf, poached egg

This is my latest obsession; poached egg on everything. Poached egg on my bread, poached egg on handmade pasta, poached egg on popcorn kernel polenta, poached egg on meatloaf, poached egg on rice. Poached egg here, poached there, poached egg everywhere. Today's poached egg was particularly well-behaved.

Simmering water covering a few inches of a low fry pan. A few tablespoons vinegar into the water. An egg cracked into a ramekin. The egg gently dumped at once into the center of the pan. It held together so beautifully today, and that's not always the case.

This lamb/pork/beef mixture is too much like meatloaf. The last batch was too dry and insufficiently adhesive. It's a texture thing. The flavor right but the texture is wrong. My next attempt will be different. I intend to process the meats with a slicer and use meatloaf adhesion techniques, except with thinly sliced meat. If that appears to not work, then I'll process further using the bottom chopping blade, but careful not to over process. Then compress. No stacked slices, no grinding. Then see what happens.

Gravy whipped out in a separate pan, at this point rather boring.

* butter brought to nutty brown.

* equal part A/P flour cooked in the butter until browned

* S/P + garlic powder + prepared Vindaloo curry + cayenne pepper all in scant amount

* chicken broth whisked in and added in continuous stream until desired viscosity attained with corrections as it boils. I should have added wine, or at least saki or something, beer, anything, I mean, it's always right there.