Tag: grilling

I Don’t Like Lobsters

Whaaaat? How can you not like lobsters?! That’s what you are thinking right? Let’s break it down. I usually give myself at least 3 tries before I state that I don’t like something, especially if it’s something that is known to be universally good.

The first time I had lobsters, it was at a Vietnamese wedding. The meat was cooked in a ginger asian sauce. I didn’t like the texture.

The second time, I had it just steamed, dipped in butter. The traditional way right? I had that at a blogger preview of Tacklebox in DC (which has since closed down). Didn’t like the texture, or the flavor.

The third time, I had surf and turf at the Palm. It was a nice restaurant, I figured it would be done right, and I can see what it was really supposed to taste like. Nope. Still didn’t like it. Definitely a texture thing.

So here we go again. A friend of ours went to Maine and brought back 6 lobster tails. She didn’t know how to cook them, I didn’t know how to cook them, and no one that was invited to eat knew either. As the designated chef of the family, I was tasked to figure it out.

After googling things here and there. I decided to wing it and hope for the best. We started with cutting the tails down the middle, then splitting the flesh open.

Rubbed it down with olive oil, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

Grilled it flesh side down for about 3 minutes, until it go its nice charred flesh. Then rubbed it down with a garlic, lemon, butter concoction I mixed together. We then put it back on the grill butter side up and let it cook and smoke for another 5 minutes.

I really liked the flavor of the meat, and the smokiness. It was very similar to scallops. But I didn’t like the texture of the meat! So I guess no lobsters for me. However, I did like the butter and the technique, so I guess I will have to save this recipe and use it on something else, like shrimp, scallops or fish!

Seafood Lemon Garlic Butter

Ingredients
1 stick of butter, softened
2 tbsp. dried parsley
2 tsp cayenne pepper powder
4 cloves garlic, minced
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of half a lemon
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions
Combine all the ingredients, mix well. Refrigerate until use.

Posted on by miemo 0

Suki Yaki at Mama Miemo’s

A few weeks ago, I scrounged up the confidence to make my mom’s suki yaki sauce. From that I made a delicious soup, my most favorite noodle soup dish that she used to make. And I made it, and it was good. Very proud of myself. It brought in a swirl of warm comfort and memories of my mom. But more on that in another post.

When you make this sauce you get a huge pot of it, and so I froze some for later use. This was the later use.

Traditionally, Suki Yaki is the term used for a hot pot meal in Japan. I call this meal sukiyaki because of the sauce. We grilled meat instead of cooked it in a hot pot. This is how we did it at my house.

I marinated some beef, cut up some pork belly, and cleaned and deveined/shelled shrimp. I washed some napa cabbage, sliced up onions, green onions, and mushrooms. Everyone gets a little dish of suki yaki sauce, a plate of rice and chopsticks.

..and butter… a small bowl of cut up butter. We gather around the griddle, butter it up, and throw the meat and veggies on there, and everything just cooks together. The onions caramelize and it just smells awesome. It was great to have everyone over, gathered around the table enjoying the meal, sharing laughs and love.

I am working on writing all these recipes, so if you see anything that I make that you’d like to know how to make, let me know!

Posted on by miemo 0