Live the Live ™

I’ve been substituting maple syrup for honey in a variety of recipes lately, and I found that I prefer it. Doesn’t matter if it’s in a barbecue sauce, a marinade, or, in this case, cornbread. Pure maple syrup just makes the recipe better!

1 cup yellow corn meal
1 cup all-purpose flour (gluten-free flour works great, too)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 large eggs, beaten
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup real maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a bowl, combine the corn meal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Mix them together well.

In a separate bowl, combine the milk, eggs, butter, vanilla and maple syrup.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir them together until they’re just blended. Don’t overmix.

Grease an 8 x 8 pan with oil (I used avocado oil), and pour the batter into it.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown.

To make this corn bread gluten-free, simply substitute a GF flour for the all-purpose flour. I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free 1 to 1 Baking Flour with great results.

And to reduce the dairy, oat milk is a good substitute for the milk. (But quite honestly, whole milk really adds to the richness and moisture of the corn bread.)

I even baked this once without the eggs (not on purpose!) and it came out a bit drier, but still really flavorful.

I love fried shrimp. It’s like seafood candy. And I’ve got a really easy method of making it.

For me, the secret to great fried shrimp is a light batter. I’m not crazy about the heavy, almost pancake mix-like batter that is used in some restaurants for shrimp or onion rings.

As I looked through many recipes, I found that the secret to a lighter batter is rice flour. I didn’t have any in my cupboard per se, but then I found a bag of Bob’ Red Mill Gluten_free 1 to 1 Baking Flour, which turns out to be mostly rice flour. I decided I would use that, scooping a couple of cups of it into a bowl.

My go-to seafood seasoning is Chef Paul Prudhomme Seafood Magic. I added a couple of tablespoons of that to the flour, and mixed it well.

In a separate bowl, I scrambled two eggs.

I use only wild-caught American shrimp, never the nasty stuff from Asia. Thawing the shrimp is simply a matter of placing the frozen shrimp in a bowl, and covering them with cold water (never warm) and in a couple of hours, they’ve thawed out. Then I drain the bowl, and dry the shrimp with paper towels.

In a pan on the stove, I have about an inch of grapeseed or avocado oil, heating it to about 325°, using a thermometer to check.

Cooking in batches, I put about a dozen shrimp into the eggs, coating them well, then transferring them to the flour mixture, coating them well again, and shaking off the excess. Then I carefully put them in the hot oil. About 30 to 45 seconds on each side is all the shrimp needs to be perfectly cooked. I drain them on paper towels, and they are ready to eat!

I love a little remoulade sauce to go with my fried shrimp, so I grab some mayo and Dijon mustard, and mix them in a bowl to my desired ratio. (Sometimes I like a lot of mustard…other times, not so much.) To this, I add another great “cheat:” Tony Chachere’s Original Creole Seasoning–again–to taste.

Now I’m ready to eat!

Bottarga is a classic Italian ingredient. It’s a fish roe pouch–usually from grey mullet, sometimes tuna–that has been salted, cured, and dried. If you’re a fan of anchovies or squid ink, you’ll enjoy the softer expression of salty fishiness that bottarga offers.

Very often, bottarga comes in a chunk, and you have to grate it yourself. But I received a packet of already grated bottarga as a gift, and I went online to find the most simple preparation I could find to highlight the flavors, not hide them.

The ingredients sounded perfect, and it didn’t hurt that I had them all at home: pasta, olive oil, garlic, lemon, parsley, red pepper flakes, and of course, the bottarga.

This recipe is technically 3 servings, but I ate the whole darn thing the first time I made it!

It doesn’t hurt to have a small kitchen digital scale for this, since measurements are most accurate in grams.

1 oz (30g) grated bottarga
1/4 cup (60ml) extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove
Red pepper flakes, a large pinch
Kosher salt
6 oz (170g) spaghetti or other long pasta
1/4 cup (8g) loosely packed parsley
1 1/2 teaspoons (8ml) fresh lemon juice
Zest of 1/2 lemon

Grate the bottarga if you bought it as a lobe, and set it aside.

In a large skillet, combine the oil and garlic. Cook over medium heat, turning the garlic occasionally, until it’s deep brown on both sides, about 5 minutes. Remove the garlic from the skillet and discard it. (Or eat it!)

Add the red pepper flakes and continue to cook, stirring for about 30 seconds, until fragrant.

Remove the skillet from the heat and add all of the grated bottarga, and stir it until it’s well combined with the olive oil.

Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta to just before al dente. You want it firm. Just before the pasta is ready, transfer 1/4 cup of the pasta water to the skillet with the olive oil/bottarga mixture and stir it to combine.

Using tongs, transfer the pasta to the skillet.

Rapidly stir the pasta in the skillet until it has mixed with the olive oil mixture and it has emulsified into a nice sauce. Add more pasta water if needed.

Add the parsley, lemon juice and zest, and stir to combine. Season with salt to taste.

As recently as a couple of years ago, I had never heard of beef flap. But I purchased one from Slanker’s, a distributor of grass-fed beef out in Texas, and it’s become one of my favorite cuts of beef.

You won’t find beef flap in most supermarkets…at least I haven’t been able to find it…so online ordering may be one of the only ways to give it a try.

Beef flap is also known as bottom sirloin butt, and it comes from a part of the cow where flank steak comes from, only farther back. So it has its similarities to flank.

Beef flap is wonderfully marbled and is fantastic for a variety of dishes, including fajitas, stirfrying, or just enjoying it grilled.

I’ve marinated beef flap in many different ways, with Asian flavors and classic American BBQ spices, but one of my favorite ways is to give it a marinade that is similar to Italian dressing.

Some folks actually use bottled Italian dressing to marinate meat, but I prefer to make my own.

Olive oil
White wine vinegar
Salt
Pepper
Granulated garlic
Granulated onion
Dried oregano

Combine these ingredients in the proportions that you like in a bowl, mixing thoroughly.

I like to trim the beef flap, removing any silver skin that might be on it, and cutting it into pieces that are about 4” square and 1/4” thick. If the meat is too thick, I slice it lengthwise in half, to make a thinner cut. I place all the beef in a Ziploc bag, pour the marinade in, squeeze the air out of the bag and then seal it tightly.

I squish the bag all around to make sure that the marinade makes contact with all the meat, and I place the bag in the fridge overnight. (I usually put it in a bowl or tray, just to avoid any accidental spillage.)

The next day, I remove the meat from the fridge and let it come to room temperature before I cook it on a hot hardwood charcoal grill.

Beef flap cooks quickly on the grill, especially if you like it medium-rare, but because it has that fat marbling, it still stays juicy even if you like it well done.

And if you can’t get outside, a hot cast iron grill on the kitchen stove works just as well!

Happy Father’s Day!