The Perfect Steak

Valentines Day has passed, so that means I had finally made my steaks! My sister came home for the weekend and we decided to cook for ourselves. We went to the store and bought to filet mignons; I was pretty satisfied with the price.

The process on how to make the perfect steak:

1. Rub salt over the steaks, and then let them sit for a half an hour.
2. After the half an hour is up, wash the salt off the steaks. The salt allows the moisture to soak in, so it will be more flavorful than usual and overall taste much better. I would associate the term brining in with this.
3. Than searing the steaks in oil. I was a little uncertain about this at first, because I didn't want to burn it all and overall ruin the whole steak in the process. I put the steak in the oil and let it sit for about two minutes and then flipped it. I did the same thing on the other side, and then set it aside on a tray to put in the oven.
4. I minced up some garlic cloves, and dropped them into the pan with the oil and steak juices. I put the heat on low and let the sauce cook on its own for a couple of minutes.
5. Earlier on, I set the computer to 350 degrees. I put the steaks in the oven and then after five minutes, poured some of the garlic sauce onto the steak and let it cook more into the oven.
6. I checked every two minutes or so, and put a meat temperature thermometer into it. The correct temperature for a nice medium rare steak would be 130 degrees.
7. Once the steak is at the right temperature, take it out and let it sit for ten minutes. This allows for the juices to compact together and make the steak juicer.

• Brining: "Salt is added to cold water in a container, where the meat is soaked anywhere from 30 minutes to a few days. The amount of time needed to brine depends on the size of the meat" (Wikipedia). 

I was impressed and delighted when I tasted my steak. It came out very nicely, as my sisters did too. The only thing that I think I could have improved on would be that I would have cooked it for a minute less. My sisters steak was rarer than mine, and I would have preferred if mine was like that too. Next time I'll just cook it at a lower temperature, because even if it is under 130, it would still be cooked enough to eat.

I also liked the steak was pretty on the outside. Sometimes when I make food, it is not that appealing to the eye. I would like to work on my style a lot more when it comes to cooking. 

 Two days ago, I had made some cocktail meatballs that I enjoyed very much. I did not take pictures this time of the steps though, which is upsetting... I would probably have to remake them. The meatballs were pretty tasty. The sauce was whiskey mixed with some mustard. It's actually more of a glaze, which I think is better! At first, I thought I wouldn't like this recipe but it turned out to be tasty! 

I really want to make that layered macaroni and cheese too. The problem is that the cheese cost a lot of money, so I would have to be asking my mother about a loan for cooking this. I would soon also like to incorporate turkey burgers into the mix. I really like burgers in the first place, and I want to try something that I haven't before. I've eaten turkey burgers before, but I would like to just make it different this time around instead of the usual condiments on it. 

Messing Up

When I'm cooking, I absolutely hate messing up. A trigger in my brain goes off that I failed, and that I will not be able to do it again. But I think it is significant for all cooks to fail a couple of times, or a lot. If the cook didn't mess up, then they couldn't find the different ways to make it taste better or the correct way to cook it, so the chef wouldn't mess it up again. I know my many weaknesses when it comes to cooking.

Recently, I attempted to make donuts. I poured oil into a pan, and than put it on a medium temperature to slowly heat it up. I made the donut dough with the usual baking ingredients, adding some extra vanilla and cinnamon in it. I always have a bite of the dough, because your baking and the dough is the absolute best part! So, the dough tasted really good, which made me very excited to eat these donuts. The next step was to fry them, and this is where it went wrong. The oil was at the right frying temperature. The way that I had tested it, was that I put the end of a wooden spoon into the oil and it began to bubble around the end. Then I put a single donut in at a time, and cooked it quickly until golden brown. I also used plastic tongs at first (horrible idea, just bends them). I took the doughs out of the oil, and waited a couple of minutes for them to cool off. I took the oil off the stove, because if the oil got a certain temperature to catch on fire. Never put water and burning oil together. Once five minutes have passed, I bit into the donut and it tasted gooey. That means it's really undercooked... :( 

Another one of my failures was that I put way too much garlic salt into my garlic butter sauce. It only needs a slight seasoning of garlic salt, and more on the butter side. It was much better when I did it the second time!

Now, I am also really bad at breading chicken. It's not the technique, it was the breading. The breading I used was under seasoned, and practically tasted like nothing. I was pretty disappointed. I also tried a second time and messed up again, with the fear of over seasoning and making it taste bad. Unfortunately, the chicken's breading was flavorless again. The chicken was delicious though! I'm pretty proud of juiciness of the chicken, and the perfect color of white. (The chicken should never be pink). The next time I am going to bread the chicken will be successful! The chicken had to be at a temperature of 160 to be done. Then I let it sit for ten minutes so the juices were compacted in the chicken, so when I took a bite of it, my mouth would water and my taste buds would be fulfilled. 

This is my breaded pork, where the breading was successfully done. I also made some four cheese pasta next to it. I still have the skin on chicken, because I like the meat like that. It's your choice to take it off. 

Next Recipes

1. I have a delicious pork recipe that I'm going to try soon. My mom's recipe is what I am basing it off, and it's like a Pork Wellington. The pork will be wrapped around Prosciutto and a puff pastry. There will be goat cheese to give it that extra flavor. I don't know what other mixtures would go together yet. I was actually thinking of maybe putting pesto instead of the cheese, because I think that would taste really good together. 
2. My next recipe would be a 5-7 layer mac and cheese. It may be seven or it may be five cheeses. I wasn't sure where I wanted to take it. I feel like the over combination of cheeses may be to strong. I was thinking about searing the ham and bacon with garlic, and then adding it into the mac and cheese. Also, maybe mixing in some breadcrumbs and some hot peppers. 
3. Red Velvet pancakes. I would add some sweet cream cheese sauce and some toasted cinnamon pecans, and that would be a breakfast to enjoy! Another batch of pancakes would be blueberry pancakes with some extra vanilla snuck in, and maybe the same sauce. 

Than of course my birthday is coming up, so I want to make something then too! It may be the mac and cheese recipes, since all of the cheeses make the price go up. I'm hoping to be able to eat the macaroni along with my delicious ice cream cake.