Biscuits

Today on "Cooking with Plonq":

When I was out shopping yesterday, I grabbed a carton of buttermilk because I haven't bought that in a very long time. When atara saw it in the fridge this morning, she reasonably asked what I planned to do with it.

So this morning, I showed her.

I started off by cutting two pieces of bacon into small bits and tossing them into a frying pan because that seemed like a reasonable thing to do. While that was rendering, I whisked together flour, salt and baking powder in a shallow bowl.

I chopped up half-a-stick of unsalted butter into ½ inch cubes and cut it into the flour with a pastry cutter (note to self: we need a new cutter). Once it had the right consistency, I put it in the fridge to stay cold, and I measured out just over ½ cup of buttermilk and put that back in the fridge.

When the bacon had rendered down into nice crispy bits, I scooped it out onto a paper towel and set it aside to cool while I dealt with the base biscuits. I took the flour out of the fridge and shredded a couple generous tablespoons of sharp cheddar into it, then stirred in the cooled bacon bits. I put it back in the fridge and set the toaster oven to 400° convection to preheat.

When the oven was up to temperature, I took everything out of the fridge and made a small well in the flour. I poured in the buttermilk, combining it all with a silicone spatula before pouring it out onto the counter. After folding it on itself a few times, I determined that it was a bit too dry, so I added another splash of buttermilk.

I folded it on itself in thirds a few more times until it had all come together, then pressed it out flat and used a round cookie cutter to carve out some biscuits. I managed to get half-a-dozen biscuits out of it in total.

I normally brush the tops of the biscuits with melted butter or buttermilk before putting them in the oven, but given the nature of these ones, I decided to brush the tops with a bit of the residual bacon fat in the pan. The result was as good as I'd hoped - the tops browned up nicely, and the bacon flavour came through subtly.

Two thumbs up. Will keep this recipe on hand for future biscuits.

Sometimes I cook less ambitious things. This was a recent attempt at beans on toast.

Stir Fry

This evening on "Cooking With Plonq":

When I was out shopping yesterday, I picked up a bag of bok choy at the grocery store. atara saw it in the fridge this morning and said, "What do you have planned for all that bok choy?" It was a reasonable question since we already had bok choy in the fridge when I brought home more.

This evening, I showed her the plan.

I grabbed a ribeye down at the butcher shop yesterday to use a coupon before it expired. It's a rather premium cut of beef to be used in a stir-fry, but we don't spend a lot on meat these days and I decided to splurge for a change.

I sliced it thin and tossed it into a bowl to marinade in some light soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, dry sherry and corn starch. I set that aside and got myself busy chopping the ends off of an unseemly quantity of bok choy and washing it thoroughly.

While that was drying, I minced up two cloves of garlic, the rest of the sweet onion that had been languishing in the fridge, and a medium yellow onion. Finally, I put on a pot of rice to begin cooking.

I set the wok on a second burner and cranked up the flame, swirling some oil in the bottom of the wok until it just started to smoke. I dumped in the marinading steak and tossed it in the oil until it barely lost its pink colour. I quickly transferred the meat to a bowl to rest and dumped in the minced garlic and a good spoonful of pureed ginger.

After a minute, I poured in the onions and stirred them over high heat until they started to turn slightly translucent. I dumped in the bok choy, put a lid on the wok, and turned off the heat under the rice to let it coast to a finish.

When the bok choy had cooked down adequately, I dumped in the meat and its accumulated juices and tossed everything together to distribute the sauce. I finished in the bowl with a shake of toasted sesame seeds.

Was it worth using a fancy cut of meat in a stir-fry? I'd say that it was. We could really tell the difference from the usual quality of stewing beef we normally use for this.