Blackberry Steak Stuffed with Bleu Cheese, and Candied Pecans

I just delivered this month’s recipe to my patrons on the Patreon service. This month the recipe is:
 
Blackberry Steak Stuffed with Bleu Cheese, and Candied Pecans
Hibiscus Flower & Wine Salad

About this recipe:
This recipe is a work in progress. Part of why I experiment with these ingredients is because I have them on hand. When I’m trying to build a new recipe, it may take me a dozen tries. I usually start out with the base flavor (in this case, just the blackberry jam, vodka, and steak) then I build on top of the base flavors. The first round of just blackberry and steak needed something to balance it out. My first thought was a bright acid, like lime…but that ended up not working. Then I tried the heat from the jalapeno vodka, and that lifted the warmth—but then it needed more of a savory net to hold the flavors together on the palate. Adding rosemary, thyme, and blue cheese turned this steak into a savory, near dessert-like centerpiece. (Next iteration will try a glaze)

Rosemary and Thyme. Rosemary is always a win with earthy meats, and thyme is a perfect balancer for acidic fruits. I chose to powder them in the pestle with salt, to get a more even distribution to the flavor for the meat roll.

​The steak came from a local beef share I purchased last autumn. I’m always looking for new ways to cook beef, and was hoping to find a near dessert-like flavor experience with local grass-fed beef. BEEF # 654

The Blackberry Jam was made by me, from local foraged blackberries. The base ingredient was used for the Orc’s Blood Blackberry Liqueur I make; the jam is a byproduct of the liqueur process. I’m ever on the lookout for new ways to use these ingredients.

Jalapeno Vodka, was made here at the Elder Glade last autumn. It’s simple consists of one slivered jalapeno, and a half quart of vodka, slowly extracted in the sunlight for several month. It turns out—its WAY TOO HOT for me to drink, even when I mix it, but it makes a great little heat kick to something like this dish.
I’ve almost always got candied pecans in the pantry. I’ve almost always got some type of blue cheese in the fridge. I try to stay stocked through the winter on staples I know I can use in several configurations and recipes.

​The dried hibiscus flower was a new item I picked up at Trader Joes, and I’ve been trying to figure out new ways of using this interesting ingredient. It’s sweet and chewy, and goes fabulously on salads. More to come on this one, I think. 

Sea Siren rose. It’s both sweet and dry. It worked well as the base for the vinaigrette for the salad. And it paired well with the blackberry steak. At twelve bucks a bottle it wasn’t a bad purchase, but I do tend to like my roses on a bit more on the sweeter side. For what I used it for, I’d probably stock a couple of bottles in the pantry.

Why I cook:
I’m not what you’d call a good cook. I’m mostly just curious, and I like to eat.

Experimenting with food and flavors helps my creative writing. Why? Sensory information, as well as problem solving on the fly. When I’m trying to connect flavors to emotional or mental responses, in the kitchen, it also helps me to draw up those emotional/flavor profiles in creative writing. It creates a resonance in the language and the experience. It can be a frustrating process. But it can also be exhilarating when you actually nail it.

Even though I’m often working with things I have on hand, or recipes I’ve made such as the Orc’s Blood, or Beetle Juice--I try to imagine what my fictional worlds and characters would do with the ingredients. I write a lot of scenes around food, trade routes, foreign edibles, and sensory experiences.

Obviously, few of my characters, if any, would have had access to Earthbound culinary schools. How then, do I write meals and ingredients into my story when there needs to be a foreign, otherworldly strangeness to the culinary descriptors? Enough recognizability to create frame of reference for readers, but enough uniqueness to lend credibility to a fantasy based world and story?

If they have some of the same ingredients, such as blackberries, would they be using them in the same way we would on the Pacific Northwest coastline? Or would they treat them altogether differently. (An example of location-based food concepts is this: In the Pacific Northwest, blackberries overrun nearly everything. They are often called a nuisance or “junk berries”, but drive a thousand miles east, over the Rocky Mountains, and people covet blackberries enough to pay a small fortune per pound.)

The blackberry steak was an attempt to make the leap toward a dessert profile with a meat base. Meats, beef especially, is its own savory, fatty, umami experience. But what happens when you add sweetness, and an acid? What happens when it’s deep winter on the fictional world of Aria, and they’re pulling out the autumn preserves for a special occasion…would they use blackberry jam to make a treat out of a mid-winter roast?
I can’t say my characters prefer the dessert meats, but what if they do…then I’d need to know how that tastes, so I can write about it. It’s purely hypothetical.

A fun hypothetical question you get to eat afterward. Win!

Curiosity is the seed of creativity, and I’m curious as hell how some of these flavors/textures/smells fit together, especially in the context of an alternate world and myth-based reality. Are the dishes I make good in the culinary sense? Probably not. It’s hit or miss, really.

​But it’s fun, and it adds a whole new level to my writing, and for that, it’s totally worth the effort. 

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