Civic Holiday Weekend

Over the civic holiday weekend, our friends Erik and  José  came up for a visit.  I wanted to have a special dinner upon their arrival, after all, they have been driving for 9 hours form Brooklyn, New York.  Having said that, they may not be up for my usual culinary adventures with new and untested recipes, which sometimes do not turn out as planned.  The dinner menu was Panzanella Salad, grilled beef sirloin and ribs and cold cucumber yogurt soup.  I could not help but to test one new recipe with them.

Cold Cucumber Yogurt Soup

I prepared the soup the night before to make sure that it would be perfectly chilled and the ice cubes would be ready to go.  Oh those ice cubes with mint were such a delight!  Unfortunately it was not one of those nights that retain the heat from daytime, the melting ice cube would have added more minty flavour in the soup.

The soup was definitely a success, another new favourite for summertime.  The mosquitoes that joined us during our alfresco dinner, not so much.

http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Cold-Cucumber-Yogurt-Soup

Grilled Garlic Artichokes and Gilled Skirt Steak

On the holiday Monday I had Lee joining me in the kitchen.  I had been planning and dreaming up an amazing meal of grilled lobsters until we arrive at Whole Foods and discovered that they do not sell live lobsters. Apparently, lobsters are not fed while kept alive in the tank and that was too cruel for Whole Foods.  Eating them is probably a lot more cruel, if you ask me.

At last minute we picked up a beautiful piece of skirt steak because I remember a recipe from Chef David Lee that I had wanted to try.  We also purchased some artichokes for sides -  they always seem to be the most interesting vegetable that one sees.  Too bad about cooking them

The last time I had the artichoke challenge it did not go very well.  It was a lot of work, a little to eat and just simply not worth the trouble.  We decided to give it another chance on the barbecue but sadly I had to say artichokes are better off as decorative items because they did look spectacular.  We followed the recipe but the leaves were hard and the edible section was minimal.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/grilled-garlic-artichokes/

Skirt Steak, hanger steak and flank steak: I had tried them all at restaurants but I could not recall the difference, except they are fairly thin but flavourable.  I chose skirt steak upon the butcher's recommendation for that night, it was less than $15 for a sizable piece of beef.  Further research shows their great difference and I really need to try the other two very soon.

http://www.goodfoodstories.com/2012/02/27/hanger-skirt-flank-flatiron-steaks/

Chef Lee's recipe had stressed not to marinate the meat before hand, which I thought was a little odd.  I imagine the reason is to let the flavour to come out on its own.  The cooking time was a bit short too even for someone who loves medium rare, I ended up throwing it back on the grill for almost twice the time.

The meat was definitely full of flavours but there were some small tendons that ran lengthwise that were so stiff that required some snipping with scissors. Next up: hanger steak!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/recipes/david-lees-hanger-steaks/article4204167/

Soup 8/10
Artichokes 4/10
Steak 7/10