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Able Hands

Assistant Cook
Joined
May 15, 2009
Messages
38
Location
Garner, NC
Last night we had a friendly "competition" amongst four home cooks. Everyone had to cook something they had never done before. The dishes were:

Gorgonzola stuffed chicken breast, not sure what else was in it.
Pan fried steaks with onions. Sesame crusted scallops.
Roasted beef tenderloin (with horseradish sauce on the side).
Stuffed London Broil. Grilled pineapple for desert.

I did the stuffed London broil, and grilled pineapple.

Butterflied the meat, rubbed a little EVOO and spread out two cloves of minced garlic. Layed out asparagus, carrots, & broccoli. Rolled up and tied. A little more EVOO on the outside, and seasoned heavily with S&P. Seared in a smoking hot cast iron pan on all four sides.

The oven was in use so I took my meat out to the grill. I left it in the pan, and had the grill heated to 300. The pan was so hot that the meat was cooking to quickly (it would have been done about an hour too early). I left one burner on low on the opposite side of the grill, and left it open for a little while to cool the pan down. Glazed with blackberry syrup every 15 minutes. Cooked about 1 hour to 120* in the center and pulled to rest tented for 20 minutes.

I hosed up the sauce from the drippings in the pan so I had to start over. Lost all of the crunchy goodness, but didn't want a burnt sauce. So, I cleaned out the pan, threw in some fresh syrup, and sherry cooking wine. I probably could have added some spices or other flavors into it, but I didn't think it needed it.

I cut the meat in 1/2-3/4 inch slices, and drizzled with the sauce. Since we had so many dishes for everyone to try, I couldn't do much more than that.

According to my wife, whom I rely on for honesty about my cooking, my dish was the best of the four, with the chicken coming in a close second. The beef tenderloin was over cooked, even though it was pulled at 125* (maybe time for the owner to check that temp probe). The horseradish sauce was fantastic. The pan fried steaks were at the bottom of the barrel, wrong cut of meat or something. They were good, but something was off about them. Could have been with so many foods already tasted the appropriate flavors got lost.

I have to admit I agree with her. I too liked mine the best, but then I'm probably a little biased.

After dinner had settled in for a while I did grilled pineapple (another first for me). Really simple, and very good.

Matt
 
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