Sunday: Some things are simply not available in the tropics

The plan for today was to get groceries, and then make meat pies for dinner.  The last minute decision was to make both this recipe for traditional UP pasties, and also make my own "blasphemous" concept of a meatpie.

However, this was thwarted by the fact that rutabaga does not exist in Hawaii. I looked at four different grocery stores (WF, Safeway, Foodland, Times) and only at the last did I find any reference to them at all. Under the sign that mentioned that rutabagas are in fact something that exists and can be eaten, I found this:

None of these things look like rutabaga.  That makes any attempt to do a meatpie battle between traditional and blasphemous unfair. I can't claim it's a fair battle if I skip a vital ingredient.  The WF guy claimed that they get rutabaga in for the holidays, and the sign at Times suggests that they have them periodically.  I will be able to do this battle at some point, but that won't be today.

After spending way more time than I wanted driving to all the grocery stores I could think of, I got to work making my meatpie filling.  Here's a vague ingredient list (no play by play on this, because those are harder to do):

• 1/2lb bacon (this ended up being closer to 1/4 by the time I finished nibbling)
• 1/2lb ground beef
• 1/2lb ground pork
• 1/2lb ribeye steak
• 2 onions, sliced thinly
• 1/2 carrot, quartered and thinly sliced
• 3 yukon gold potatoes, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 big portabello mushrooms, diced
• can of beef broth
• some marsala
• 1/2 oz dried porcini (although had I known I'd be driving all over, I'd have picked this up at Foodland, where the wine people have this in bulk at half the price)
• 1tsp-ish each rosemary and sage

Ok, here are the steps. Each step is followed by an implied "let cook" or "mix together and cook for 10-15 minutes."

1. Fry bacon in dutch oven, remove when cooked fully, and remove and reserve bacon grease.
2. Add porcini to a saucepan with some water, and simmer to rehydrate.
3. Add steak to dutch oven, and sear on both sides. Remove to the bowl with the bacon.
4. Add back a bit of grease and then add onions, and cover until the onions have been broken down into a nice jam.  I didn't want these to caramelize, just be fully cooked and browned.
5. Scoot onions to one side of the pan, and then add ground beef and pork and brown.
6. Mix meat and onions, scoot, and then add potatoes, carrot, and garlic.
7. Add mushrooms to mix.
8. Chop bacon and slice steak into quarter inch strips and add.
9. Add beef broth, marsala, and herbs to pan with porcinis, and bring to a boil.
10. Add liquid to dutch oven, and stir to mix
11. Add some of reserved bacon grease to now-empty saucepan (1 tbs-ish?), and add equal amount of flour to form roux. When it turns golden, ladle sufficient liquid back to form a thick gravy.  Add gravy back to dutch oven, and stir to mix.
12. Salt and pepper to taste.

The plan was to use this as the filling for my meat pie, using my pie crust recipe.  The idea was to put a bottom crust into a greased ramekin, dock, and then parbake until set and slightly browned.  Then, fill the shell with the stew, and top with another piece of crust, splash on some eggwash, and then return to the oven to finish baking.

However, after spending a large chunk of the afternoon driving around, I didn't really feel like fighting the heat and humidity in an effort to make a pie crust.  I decided to just switch around the whole plan and just have a bowl of stew for dinner instead.  I might pick up some prepared pie crust tomorrow, and use that instead. It's also not completely impossible that I'll feel motivated to make my own.  Anyway, the resulting dish:

I paired it with a thick chunk of sharp cheddar ("vintage" I believe is what the label called it).  If I had had a baguette that wasn't construction grade, I would have added a slice of that as well.  I needed to add a bit more salt to the final product, something that wouldn't have been necessary if I'd remembered that I had planned on adding an umami burst to the liquid component by adding a couple anchovy filets, a healthy splash of Worcestershire sauce, and some tomato paste from the tube in the fridge.  That should have added enough residual salt to correct things.

Now, given that I'm unlikely to be cooking lobster anytime soon, I'll add this picture without further comment: