Dinner! 2012

[Franci]

What a nice meal, Scotty!

Too bad I didn't know you when I lived in SF

And RRO, I love pork belly. I'm looking forward to move back in a place where I can find those ingredients.

Tonight we had roasted sea bream with chards and hummus>

[nikkib]

Thanks Jeff! Both carbonaras look delicious!

[C. sapidus]

Rare RO – Sounds delicious! I always enjoy Korean food, but it is one of the few (only?) garlic-and-chile-centric cuisines that I have not explored much.

Franci – Great, now I’m craving hummus.

Thai tonight:

Stir-fried beef curry – Thinly-sliced strip steaks stir-fried with red curry paste, Anaheim chiles, red bell peppers, sliced onions, ground peanuts, lime leaves, and a sauce of coconut milk, fish sauce, and sugar. Garnished with coconut cream and cilantro.

Cucumber salad – Cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic, chiles, rice vinegar, sugar, and fish sauce. One of my favorite versions.

Jasmine rice

[patrickamory]

Gorgeous pics Bruce. I'll be making Thai on Monday but I doubt it will look as pretty as that.

I got some of Ottomanelli's excellent sweet sausage yesterday. Brown them over high heat in a cast-iron skillet, added chopped fresh fennel, salt and pepper and sauteed until the fennel was just done, still crunchy. Chopped parsley on the top. Simple and very satisfying.

Served with my now ubiquitous Algerian chickpea dersa cooked in the tagine. Used RG garbanzos, but this time soaked them overnight and then a second time during the day, with a little bit of baking soda which is supposed to stop the skins from slipping off. This worked nicely, and I think these were my most successful chickpeas yet, creamy but with a slight pop when biting into them. My partner was feeling sensitive to spice so I replaced the chile powder with a small amount of ground fennel seeds to match with the sausage disih. Served on couscous with more chopped parsley.

[Kim Shook]

percyn – gorgeous braciole! One of my absolute favorites and I hardly ever make it. Do you cut the meat yourself, or do you have a butcher that will cut it for you? We have friends in Philly that sent us a ton of it already cut from their Italian butcher and I had a braciole-fest!

Franci – the shallot sauce sounds delicious – and not too hard to make. That would make an outstanding weeknight meal, I think.

RRO – your brazen hen is lovely. The skin is perfect.

Jmahl – Happy birthday! Great looking pizza. Nice, chewy crust, right?

Bruce – Fish sauce is my new ‘secret ingredient’ (Michael Ruhlman puts it in his fantastic mac and cheese), but I never thought of putting it in cucumbers. I am definitely trying this.

Dinner last night was Short Sugar’s BBQ (from a trip a few weeks ago to Reidsville NC). We started with Shriner Brunswick stew:

Mr. Kim (who is being really disciplined about low carb) had a spinach salad with roasted peppers:

His plate with BBQ, slaw and pintos:

My plate with a BBQ sandwich, pintos and TOTS:

I am obviously NOT going the low carb route.

Mr. Kim’s dinner tonight:

Egg salad, ham, the never ending pintos and slaw.

My plate (w/ CARBS):

Egg salad and ham sandwich, slaw and chips. Those chips were THESE chips:

Which I found at a Dollar Tree in NC. Our local Dollar Tree does NOT sell Zapps. Which is a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. They are so good – like a mix between Salt & Vinegar and BBQ. Mr. Kim ate just ONE. Lucky for him they weren’t Lays : .

[EnriqueB]

So many wondeful dishes, make me hungry!

Here are some of our latest dinners:

Marmite Consommé from Heston Blumenthal at Home, with noodles, scallions, and enoki mushrooms. Used agar clarification.

Season vegetables en coccotte - fennel bulbs, onions, carrots, small potatoes, celery stalk, celery root, dark chicken stock, mushrooms, fresh beans (don't know the type in english), peas, ibérico ham in small dices. No picture of the plating.

Spanish potatoes omelette "Tortilla de patatas", a must in every spanish home :-)

Tom Yum consommé. Used gelatin-frezze-unfreeze clarification

Pressure-cooked mushroom risotto and sous-vide ibérico pork cheeks, the cheeks were cooked 36 hours at 65ºC, then coated in heavy cream, breaded with panko and deep fried for one minute.

[rotuts]

EnriqueB:

your tortilla Espanola looks magnificent! (forgot how to get the en-yeh)

[ScottyBoy]

Trek dinner party! (Yes, I am a nerd)

Parthas a la yuta - Braised dino kale and watermelon radish

Andorian tuber root - parsnips with modernist cheese sauce dyed blue

Alvas - Olives

Asparagus in yamok sauce - Reduced Soy sauce, mirin and chicken stock

Gladst - Black trumpet mushrooms

Targ in blood wine - Pork loin and braised shoulder with port syrup

Jimilian fudge with squil syrup - Chocolate tart and salted caramel

[Paul Bacino]

ScottyBoy..

Cool.. we also like Mission Chips

[TheTInCook]

Cool. I've always imagined yamok sauce would taste kinda like A1 steak sauce.

No Romulan Ale? For shame...

[ScottyBoy]

Oh I wasn't in charge of the booze. Plenty of blood wine and Romulan ale for all! One of the guys makes his own stuff with labels and everything.

[Paul Bacino]

Kinda a Volunteer type O meal! Left over growers from last yr!! So don't pull your herbs and till the garden yet!!!

Collard Greens- tarragon -- are alive!! Fresh Oyster mushrooms( I didn't find any Morels--but found these)

So this is braised Collared Greens, First Halibut of the season ( tarragon beaurr blanc sauce )-- I love potatoes and sea food , Oyster mushroom ragout , from the yard asparagus..

Edited April 1, 2012 by Paul Bacino (log)

[mm84321]

Filets de sole normande

[patrickamory]

My partner who is of Persian descent made an eggplant khoresh tonight. Absolutely delicious! He made it in the tagine and I think that worked perfectly - the Persians apparently historically used a tagine-like clay pot for cooking. The khoresh starts with onions sauteed in ghee, and also contains chicken thighs, tomatoes, an entire teaspoon of ground saffron dissolved in rosewater, caramelized eggplant, cinnamon, golden raisins, barberries and lime juice:

Of course no Persian meal would be complete without a tahdig:

[ScottyBoy]

patrickamory - Whoa, had to look tahdig up, sounds awesome!

[rarerollingobject]

Bruce - lovely as usual. Beautiful colours in your photo.

Kim - love the look of the BBQ! My main goal in life is to do a roadtrip of the US tasting BBQ from all over..one big BBQ crawl.

EnriqueB - wonderful food. I always admire the variety in your meals!

patrickamory - a man who cooks like that is a keeper. That tahdig looks perfect..I bet the crust was crispy as hell. Mmmmm.

It's fresh horseradish root time here - I found a beautiful one and so built a meal around horseradish butter; steaks to slather the butter on, green salad with more grated horseradish in the dressing, and caramelised fennel as a side. Followed the Ottolenghi recipe, caramelising it in butter, sugar and fennel seeds, before stirring in garlic, lemon zest and fennel tops. And a bit more horseradish.

Edited April 2, 2012 by rarerollingobject (log)

[MikeHartnett]

rarerollingobject, that fennel looks unbelievable. How'd it taste?

[Rico]

Bruce - For some reason, I decided to plant three different kinds of cucumbers, two plants each this year. You can bet I'll be riffing on that cucumber salad (that is, unless there's a specific recipe somewhere).

Kim - Zapp's. Glorious Zapp's. I also am a big fan of the Voodoo, but if you put a bag of the Jalapeno in front of me, you've made a new best friend.

Scottyboy - I never saw them eating food like that on the Enterprise. If following Star Trek gets me a plate of that food, though, I'm all in.

RRO - I'm with MikeHartnett on this one. Gorgeous looking food; I've never tasted caramelized fennel before, and am intrigued, to say the least.

Oh, and when you make your Texas swing on the road trip, be sure to let me know!

I've been cooking a lot from Bouchon, and last night was the Simple Roasted Chicken. It's not a misnomer - salt, pepper, and a little thyme make up the ingredient list (along with the chicken, of course). I also threw some corn cobs with salt and olive oil on the grill.

[robirdstx]

Rico - lovely chicken.

I hadn't made pasta in what seems like forever, so today I did. Dinner:

Fettuccine with Prosciutto and Peas. I really need to make pasta more often. So good.

Edited April 3, 2012 by robirdstx (log)

[SobaAddict70]

I like how one of the red shirts is a clone of William Riker.

USGM is starting to come into its own with the appearance of ramps, spring lettuces and other interesting vegetables. I love it.

Tonight:

Dandelion greens, sautéed ramps and baby carrots

The dandelion greens and carrots were briefly simmered in lightly salted water, then blanched and combined with ramps sautéed in olive oil, salt and red pepper flakes. Lemon juice/olive oil dressing, salt and pepper.

Spring lettuce salad with salt-and-vinegar Roseval potato chips, roasted shallots, hard-cooked farm egg and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

The salad has two components that can be made in advance -- roasted shallots with olive oil and sherry vinegar, and the potato chips. Otherwise, it becomes simply a matter of assembly.

Roseval is an heirloom fingerling potato, originally from France. Has a reddish skin, with pale ivory and pink-toned flesh; develops a robust, buttery flavor when cooked and is especially delicious roasted, sautéed or in salads. Substitute La Ratte or Russian Banana fingerlings if unavailable.

[nikkib]

Soba both those dishes are calling out to me right now, especially the salad - spring is here!!

[C. sapidus]

I am craving vegetables now, thanks to patrickamory’s eggplant khoresh and RareRO’s caramelized fennel. Beautiful!

Fish sauce is my new ‘secret ingredient’

Welcome to the fish sauce club! When in doubt, add fish sauce . . .

My main goal in life is to do a roadtrip of the US tasting BBQ from all over..one big BBQ crawl.

Rare RO - thank you! Maryland is better known for crabs than BBQ, but if you find yourself out our way it would be inhospitable of us not to hook you up with some backyard smoked butt.

Bruce - For some reason, I decided to plant three different kinds of cucumbers, two plants each this year. You can bet I'll be riffing on that cucumber salad (that is, unless there's a specific recipe somewhere).

Rico – thanks, and your chicken looks classic. Try “northeast cucumber salad" (tam taeng) from Thailand the Beautiful Cookbook – link here. We subbed rice vinegar for tamarind juice, but like it either way.

Indian spicy fish curry with coconut sauce – Chunks of halibut marinated with a paste of onion, garlic, and ground chiles, mustard seed, coriander seed, and black pepper. The fish is fried partway, simmered with coconut milk until nearly done, finished with rice vinegar and cilantro, and then topped with fried onion and ginger slivers.

Mixed vegetable pilaf – basmati rice with chopped cauliflower, shiitake mushrooms, and red bell peppers, flavored with black cardamom, cumin, green chiles, ginger, onion, coconut milk, cilantro, and garam masala.

Mrs. C made the un-pictured salad.

[MikeHartnett]

C. sapidus, that fish curry looks delicious. Where's the recipe from, if you don't mind?

[C. sapidus]

C. sapidus, that fish curry looks delicious. Where's the recipe from, if you don't mind?

Thank you very much, Mike, I don't mind at all. The recipe is "spicy fish curry with coconut sauce (masaladar nariyal-macchi kari)" from Neelam Batra's 1,000 Indian Recipes.

[robirdstx]

Dinner tonight:

Grilled Garlic Sausage on homemade Flour Tortilla

and Cannellini Beans with Sage Leaves from my garden.