Last week it became apparent pretty quickly that many of you are interested in The Flavor Bible. I held a contest for The Spice House and literally dozens of readers said they would like to own this book more than the spices themselves. It’s understandable…I’ve wanted the book myself, but the $35 price tag kept me away. But not anymore.
Behold the power of Google. Karen Page, co-author of The Flavor Bible, contacted me since all of your dreams of owning The Flavor Bible caused her google alerts to ding loudly. Karen sent me two copies of her book…one for me to sleep under my pillow with, and one for me to give away. Nice lady huh?
This book is really pretty cool. I’ll allow YouTube to explain what I mean:
Here are a few photos I took of the book contents:
I love this book because I don’t like using recipes. I like to see what I’ve got on hand, and try to pull together complimenting flavors. This book will help you do that. Got a Skirt Steak, but you’re not sure how to coax the most flavor out of it? You do now.
Or you can try to win one. All you’ve got to do is leave a comment on this post mentioning your favorite flavor/ingredient. What’s that one thing that just tastes great on everything to you? Chipotle? Brown Sugar? Garlic? Parmesan?
I’ll pick one random commenter and ship you a brand new copy of The Flavor Bible. One entry per person please. All cheater-cheater-pumpkin-eaters will be disqualified.
You CAN be entered into the contest a 2nd time by RE-TWEETING this post – using the button on the bottom of the blog post. I’ll add all re-tweets to the end of the comments and you’ll have another chance to win.
I was recently contacted by The Spice House, a company I absolutely love buying spices from, to say that they are really enjoying my blog. (Sweet!) And to say thanks for what I’m doing (What am I doing again exactly?) they were sending me a gift certificate to their spice shop. (Sweet!) This happens from time to time. When your blog gains some popularity, companies will send you a small gift of their product and ask that you say something nice about it on your blog…it’s cool, I get that. It’s a great marketing idea really. But The Spice House didn’t ask me to do that at all…they simply said they like what I’m doing and then they gave me a generous gift to their online store. And so…I love them. I love them a lot.
Here’s what I got with my gift certificate:
A Spice Grater
Oh, and look what they send you when you buy a spice grater…a little gift of fresh spices to grate!
Fresh Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Turmeric, and Ginger.
I got these…
And these…
And these…
And this Porcini Mushroom Powder, which I can’t wait to try…
And check this out…the Crown Jewel of my freebies. Something I’ve always wanted, but just couldn’t bring myself to purchase…
Score.
In an effort to share some of the love. I want to hold a contest until some time tomorrow.
I’m giving away a $50 gift certificate to The Spice House.
I purchased a little over 6lbs of Skirt Steak from Whole Foods. Next up was the marinade. It included:
* 1 bottle of red wine
* 1 cup of water
* 2 TBSP Lemon Pepper Seasoning
* 2 TBSP Creole or Cajun Seasoning
* 1 TBSP Smoked Sea Salt
* 4 TBSP Worcestershire Sauce
* 3 Lemons Zested and Juiced
* 12 Cloves of Garlic, peeled and smashed
I let the skirt steak marinate for close to 3 hours before I grilled it over high heat. An important step is to allow the steak to sit outside of the refrigerator for a while to get closer to room temperature. This will allow for a juicier steak overall. It’s part of the resting process. Grill each side for about 2-3 min.
After grilling, I return the steaks to the marinade to rest there for about 10 minutes. This allows the meat to “relax” and the juices from the beef begin to marry with the marinade of red wine and spices. Don’t worry about the cooked meat going back into uncooked marinade…we’ll be heating it all back up momentarily.
After letting the skirt steak rest for a while. I removed it from the marinade and sliced it thinly on the bias. That pretty much means against the grain. This beef has a certain direction to the fat and connective tissues…we want to slice through that, rather than slice along side of it. This will help to create a nicely chewable steak, instead of something shoestring-ish.
Put your pan of marinade-y meat juice back on the stove top and bring it to a simmer.
Return the sliced steak to the pan with the marinade in it, mix it all around and begin heating it all up together over a medium-high heat. My steak was medium-rare coming off the grill, so this will heat everything up together and get the steak to a nice medium doneness.
Once completed and covered with caramelized onions…well…how can you not like this?
Unless of course you’re some sort of a vegetarian or something.
And to that, well…Finn wants to know if I should trust you.
