Hanger Steak

I had my first hanger steak recently. I hadn't heard of it before. It's a particular cut of meat -- named hanger steak because it hangs down from the diaphragm of the cow. My friend's boyfriend found it at Sasloves Meats in the market and decided to try it. He marinated it in an Asian inspired marinade with lemon grass, soy sauce, ginger, garlic. At first, when he fished the steak out of the marinade, I thought it looked more like a liver than a steak. The meat was very grainy and covered with a membrane. I hear it's best to cook hanger steak over high heat -- to broil or sear it. The smell was amazing. Damian pan fried the steak in butter and then cut it into thin slices. Then he drizzled a reduced sauce over it. He served it with roasted asparagus coated in sesame oil and a fennel salad. The steak was very tender. The meat has a more intense taste to it than other steaks I've had before -- it actually made me think a bit of kidney. I was at a cooking class a few nights after the meal and the chef who was teaching the course mentioned hanger steak. It's apparently becoming more popular in North America. Damian bought the steak for nine bucks, but I don't think it's going to stay at that price once more people start paying attention to it.

Passover Brisket

I never knew brisket was a Passover food. But recently a friend had a bunch of people over for Passover Dinner and the star attraction was the brisket. Passover was over a month ago, but then again, my friend is not especially observant. There was no seder plate (probably because the rest of us aren't Jewish) but the food was great. She had slowly cooked the brisket the previous day to a tenderness where the meat immediately crumbled when poked by a fork. You could definatley taste the brisket had been well coddled. I think at some point, the cooking process included pouring half a can of beer of it. For dinner, we also had a beet and dill borscht, carrots candied in honey and kugel -- which was egg noodles baked with sour cream, eggs, sugar, butter and other foods you combine only for a festive occasion. All the dishes were dishes my friend grew up with at Passover. She found the recipes on-line. I've been meaning to ask her for the brisket recipe.
Someone recently wrote a cookbook featuring recipes all made with bones and she had an interesting theory about why big, meaty dishes are popular at holidays. Historically, it's because people couldn't afford to eat a big kill except for special dinners. But there's also something communal about carving into the same cut of meat for everyone at the table to share that makes it an enduring tradition. She argues that meaty dishes -- especially those with bones in them -- demand more attention at the table than a chicken breast or ground beef ever would. There's something majestic about bringing a whole, roasted turkey or leg of lamb into the dining room.

Ginger Cookies

So the back story to my ginger cookie recipe is that for awhile I was addicted to the ginger cookies that came out of the kitchen of Ginger n’ Bears -- a store that sold ginger products and teddy bears on Sussex. They were extremely moist, chewy, spicy and all crackly on top. And popular. You had to order the cookies in advance. The woman who owned the store would not share her recipe. Which was understandable. So I started trying to figure out the recipe in my kitchen. It got a bit obsessive. More butter in one batch. Freshly grated ginger in another. One less egg. I was giving away ginger cookies daily for two weeks. And at the same time, I was constantly at the Ginger n’ Bears store buying ginger cookies to compare mine with their’s. I got ginger cookie fatigue at batch #6. It’s kind of close to the Ginger n’ Bear recipe, but I think it’s a little bit dry. I haven't really made ginger cookies since then. And the Ginger n’ Bears store has since folded so I have only fuzzy memories of the perfect ginger cookie. Anyway, all this to say that someone brought in ginger cookies to work this week. And as I munched away at a ginger cookie, I slowly realized I knew this cookie. It was my ginger cookie, version 6. Some of the people I had given cookies away to had asked for the recipe afterwards. So it was kind of cool that my cookie had popped back into my life without me baking it. Now I'm thinking of trying for batch #7. I’ll attempt it for Tasha’s garage/bake sale in two weeks. The cookie recipe is at porcelainspoon2.blogspot.com