shaver

Coop has been exhorting me to “marinate with miso”:http://coop.deadsquid.com/2004/01/index.html#20040101, and recommended, especially, “this recipe”:http://www.wolfgangpuck.com/recipedetail.php?Alias=REWP3099. That does look good, indeed, but I’ve had very little sake luck of late (both LCBOs that I went to were out of it, against all expectations). So I figured, sure, that recipe was finely honed by Wolfgang Puck and Nobu Matsuhisa, but how hard could it be to make miso and booze tasty? I decided to throw caution to the wind and marry my nice red-brown miso with a bottle of “Dragon Stout”:http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/rateresults/221/747/ that I just happened to have lying around. We’ll see how it is when I pull the flounder out on Friday (that is not a euphemism for anything, “beltzner”:http://www.beltzner.ca/ifeelafel/archives/000449.html#000449) but it sure smelled like a winner.

That didn’t resolve tonight’s dinner issues, though, so I brined some chicken breasts with lemon zest and pepper, and then pan-fried them to what I consider to be within the bounds of perfection. Since I’d had such fantastic luck with the technique during Sunday’s impromptu “steak au poivre pour quatre”, I figured I’d try my hand at a reduction sauce to finish up, and it turned out pretty darned well itself. A little heavy on the lemon — the sauce was “bright” in that “do not look into laser with remaining eye” sense — but otherwise a fine piece of work. As a bonus, deglazing is a great way to make the cleanup a lot easier.

Tyla made a very nice salad.