Marinade of the moment
For me, summer is all about taking joy in the moment. Falling asleep on a really hot and humid night; the ceiling fan on full blast, all the windows open, the sounds of the bugs pulsing in the night. Walking along and seeing a linden tree covered in red admiral butterflies. Waking up in the morning to the almost prehistoric sound of our resident sand hill cranes. Summer is meant for capturing those moments through sight, sound, smell, and taste. Sometimes it’s kicking back with some Van Morrison on the stereo, a crisp, minerally white from the Loire Valley in my glass, and a beautiful piece of meat on the grill.
Meat is good, but marinated meat is better, and it has to be marinade of the moment…not some off-the-shelf, bottled stuff that speaks of nothing. Marinade should represent what your palate craves at that moment; spicy, sweet, salty, smoky, tart, pungent…you get the picture.
This flank steak had a nice soak in a lovely chili marinade fashioned from a dried Guajillo chili, a couple of dried chipotles, 4 or 5 allspice, 2 cloves garlic, 4 or 5 cloves, a pinch of black cumin seed, 1/2 cup of olive oil, a sizeable slosh of cider vinegar, and a glop of honey. No big deal, all just of the moment. I ground the dried spices in the spice grinder, dumped everything, including the whole dried Guajillo into the blender, let it rip on low for a minute or two while I tidied up and it was done.
Nothing says summer quite like ice cream sandwiches. I know it’s possible to get quite fancy with this frigid treat, but as usual I tend to go more towards the soulful, easy, interpretation. This one is simply made from my standard chocolate chip recipe with the adaptation of using all brown sugar and an extra egg. Why mess with perfection you ask? I have more brown than white sugar and I was looking for a thicker, softer, yet sturdy cookie. My usual recipe turns out thin, chewy yet crispy cookies that have never handled the extra load of ice cream well. These did the trick and Dexter declares them “2 thumbs up!!”.
4 Responses to “Marinade of the moment”
1 Lydia 28 June 2007 @ 12:39 pm
Nothing better than a nice, spicy flank steak, cooked on the grill!
2 Katiez 28 June 2007 @ 1:17 pm
I always make my marinades as well - in the beginning because I couldn’t buy any here. I have 6 bottles of vinegar with a permanent place on the counter come summertime. Anything else goes in just because I feel like it.
Love the ice cream sandwich! - and just the right size!
3 Trig 29 June 2007 @ 5:54 am
God I’d love to be able to pull the bbq out again, but after some great sushine in March/April the weather in England has sadly taken a turn for the worse. We’ve had flash flooding in parts of the country, with a few flood-related deaths to report. I envy your enthusiasm for your weather, and I look forward to sharing your cheerful mood when the weather here gets its act together.
4 vanessa 30 June 2007 @ 2:53 pm
Lyida, while that is so true I know that the pork chops I’ll be grilling tonight will be exquisite too.
Katiez, now that’s what I’m talking about…good job!
Trig, not to worry my dear, you’ll soon be off to sunny Catalunya…but what about Mike…will he be left to suffer and fend for himself?
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