Workplace Culinary Exploits: Part 1

Jack, Chris, Marcus, and I happen to be pretty big foodies; the fact that we all work together in a restaurant/bar is rather conducive to this shared interest. A few weekends ago, we decided to formalize our impromptu series of late-weekend-night culinary experiments--based initially around the application of Jack's homemade habañero sauce to various, inexpensive proteins purchased from the grocery across the parking lot--into a more serious competition of sorts. [We're quite a competitive bunch, but more on that in a later post...]

It's a simple concept: whenever it's your "turn," you supply the recipe and enough raw ingredients to feed everyone--including bussers and bartenders--and you just try to out-do the last guy's dish. I was off on Friday night, so I missed out on Jack's bourbon-marinated, grilled pineapple porkchops (which I heard were excellent), but my turn came up next, on Saturday. I fell back on an old standby of mine: seafood steak with homemade mango salsa.

I started the salsa first so its flavors could get all nice n' comfy together for a few hours before the meal:

4 mangoes, peeled, cored & roughly diced
3 fresh jalapeños, finely diced w/ seeds still in
1 medium red onion, finely diced
Fresh chopped basil
Juice of 1 lime

The store was out of my first choice in proteins, Mahi-Mahi, so I settled for some nice looking Swordfish steaks on my friend Flip's recommendation from behind the seafood counter. About an hour before grilling time, I threw the Swordfish into simple marinade of soy sauce, white pepper, and the juice of a couple limes. Right before the steaks were ready for the grill, I prepared another sauce of mayonaise, honey, white pepper, and the juice and zest of one lime. After draining the first marinade liquid from the steaks, I lightly applied some of the mayo/honey mix to the outside, and immediately grilled for roughly 2 minutes per side. After letting them cool a bit, I covered each steak with some salsa, dressed the plate with the rest of the mayo/honey sauce, and served with a side of flash-steamed, sauteed asparagus.

There were 8 happy mouths that night. There will be more to come.