Surf n Turf

When I first moved to Edmonton I was living in a townhouse that had ample storage place. The kitchen had enough cupboards that I could place all my kitchen stuff in them, and I still had empty cabinets to spare. I had a huge pantry with lots of shelving as well. After a couple years in that condo, I made the move into an apartment. While there is so much about my apartment that I like better than my condo, I really lost out on a lot of storage areas.

This has made things trying at times, but in the most recent weeks I was so frustrated with this that I felt like throwing out all of my belongings. Instead of throwing everything out, I got rid of a lot of things that I had been holding onto for no reason. I knew that to create more storage space I needed to buy a couple bookcases, so on Saturday I went to IKEA.

I invited C to tag along. One, because she loves IKEA, two, because she has an SUV, and three, because I just plain love her company! Since C was so generous with helping me transport my purchases, and helping me carry them into my apartment, as well as helping me put them together, I made her dinner.

A while ago my doctor told me that I have high cholesterol, and I needed to change my diet. He told me to eat lots of almonds, fish, fruit and vegetables. He warned me against red meat and butter. The meal I made for C would make my doctor cry. I almost cried too, it was so good. I will warn you, this meal is not for anyone who is watching their waistline, or is concerned about their arteries.

I'll start with my least favorite from the menu. The roasted cauliflower. I have had no previous experience with roasting cauliflower. To be honest, I wanted to boil it but the rest of the dishes were using up my burners. I poured some oil on the cauliflower and season it with salt and pepper. I placed it in the oven at 350 F. About 15 minutes into it I noticed that the cauliflower was still raw hard. So I poured some water into the dish so it would steam at the same time. This didn't work. So we had cauliflower that was still sort of hard, and not at all fork tender. Though really, once you see the rest of the meal you will see why we didn't care too much about the cauliflower.

I still think it looked pretty. I will get to the sauce on top of the cauliflower momentarily. Right now, I want to talk about the potatoes. I made the potatoes using a recipe from Nigella Lawson's How To Eat. You boil new potatoes until they are fork tender. (I used red potatoes for color, and to make them pretty I peeled a strip off the potato around the middle). Once tender, you drain the potatoes and toss with a bit of butter until the potatoes are glossy. Then you pour a bit of truffle oil on the potatoes, being careful not to use too much or your potatoes will smell like a barnyard. Nigella's words, not mine.

Truffles are an extremely decadent and expensive ingredient. I know I couldn't afford to every use them, and a lot of recipes use truffle oil to bring a bit of the decadence to the dish without having to actually use the truffles. When my friend D came to visit me she brought me a present, and when I opened it to find truffle oil I was ecstatic.

I loved the bottle so much I have to show a picture of it, as well as a picture of the potatoes.

The truffle oil adds a certain taste that I can't identify. It's very earthy, but something about it reminds me of something I had once. A very nostalgic and comforting ingredient.

The sauce on top of the cauliflower is a Bearnaise sauce. It also came from Nigella's How to Eat. You can find the recipe here. This links to a recipe for steak with the Bearnaise sauce, but we only used the recipe for the sauce.

The Bearnaise sauce's main ingredient is butter. And it is delicious on steak. To make my steaks I took two new york strips, rubbed them with oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and placed on my hot grill pan for about five minutes on each side. I was careful not to move them once placed in the pan, and I let them rest under foil for five minutes after they came off the pan.

Since this meal wasn't already completely indulgent, I made scallops as well. To make the scallops I heated a bit of oil and butter in a pan, and when it was hot I placed the scallops in to sear. To sear the scallops the oil and butter must be hot, and once placed in the pan they cannot be moved. When meat of any kind (including shellfish) is placed in a hot pan the meat sticks to the pan. If it's moved right away it will tear. You have to wait until the meat naturally lets go of the pan so it can be moved. The scallops take roughly one minute on each side to cook. They are finished when both sides are brown and the middle is opaque. DO NOT OVERCOOK THE SCALLOPS.

To serve, I place the steaks on a plate, poured the Bearnaise on top, and then placed the scallops on top of the saucy steak. Then I took the pictures, and drowned the scallops in more sauce after that.

I was eating the steak and scallops separately until C told me if you take a bit of steak with a bite of the scallop it tastes really really good. So I took her advice, and she wasn't lying. When the two are put together something very magical happens. I'm not joking. Please try it.