Yesterday we cooked up some delicious beef tenderloin for dinner. We were twelve for dinner and we had four Chateaubriand's and some prime skirt steak to prepare. Beach houses are not normally equipped for serious cooking, particularly for large cuts of meat in large quantities. Thankfully, we travel with food and cooking in the mind. We unearthed our old FoodSaver for another tour of duty and packed our PolyScience circulator, which is often used for off site kitchens, although this is its first trip to the beach.
By cooking the meat with the immersion circulator we were able to keep the oven free to make bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers and baked potatoes and the grill was available to cook the many ears of corn. Perhaps we were a bit too efficient because we only used the stove top for searing up some scallops, which served as the appetizer to meat fest 2008. On the plus side, clean up was incredibly easy and no one was scrubbing pans far into the night. This is a very important thing when on vacation.
Tonight we have plans for lobster for eleven people. While I may work on a batch of seven minute risotto, the star of the show must be that big red crustacean. I believe that we, and our traveling kitchen are up for the challenge.