Dinner! 2012

[Kouign Aman]

Kim Shook, good to see you posting again!

Dinner:

fried rice and mixed vegetables = a green baby-bok choy-shaped vegetable (but not bok choy), onions, mushrooms, garlic, fermented black beans

[robirdstx]

Dinner the other night:

Chicken Scaloppini in the style of Romano's Macaroni Grill.

[nikkib]

Kim!!! Welcome back - it's funny my iPhone opened at your pictures and I instantly knew it was you! Don't abandon us again... What with you and RRO being MIA the dinner thread has not been the same....

[Shelby]

Kim!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, how I've missed you!!! Congrats on the retirement--I know you'll enjoy the heck out of it

Lovely food--I want your NYE meal right now with a double helping of the scalloped tomatoes.

[Jmahl]

This was a first try at Gumbo. Adopted a recipe by reviewing three different recipes, two in reference books and one on the web. According to comments - it worked.

P.S. The level of cooking on this string just continues to take takes my breath way.

[Franci]

Tonight we had

Sole roe on toast

fried sole. I tried Ad hoc at home batter. My son really liked it. I'm not a huge fan of "fish & chips" kind of batters so enjoyed more my anchovies

Some stuffed anchovies, which were all mine...since in this house stuffed food is not appreciated (no ravioli, dumplings, etc) plus some plain butterflied. And some raw fennel on the side.

[Franci]

Tonight we had

Sole roe on toast

fried sole. I tried Ad hoc at home batter. My son really liked it. I'm not a huge fan of "fish & chips" kind of batters so enjoyed more my anchovies

Some stuffed anchovies, which were all mine...since in this house stuffed food is not appreciated (no ravioli, dumplings, etc) plus some plain butterflied. And some raw fennel on the side.

[heidih]

Tonight we had

Sole roe on toast

'The sole roe on toast looks delicious. What is that little salad in the middle of the anchovies? Looks like carrots and chickpeas. I currently need to use those two ingredients.

[percyn]

Welcome back Kim.

Pan fried Masala Grouper on a Curried Israeli Cous Cous and Garbanzo beans (store bought)

Fish Tacos

Edited February 4, 2012 by percyn (log)

[ScottyBoy]

Yum, it's heating up in here. I'm hungry!

[Blether]

Nice to see you, Kim. And Franci, the roe on toast looks great to me, too.

I pulled another lamb shoulder - the two of us were so busy it sat in the oven for an hour after the oven switched off by timer (last-minute accompaniments were therefore zapped spuds and zapped sprouts). I adjusted the salt to 0.4% w/w and paper-towelled the meat before putting it in the oven, and both meat and gravy came out really well.

Ingredioents in this dinner are: lamb, potatoes, brussels sprouts, flour, water, salt

[dcarch]

Blether, wonderful looking pulled lamb.

percyn, very nice platting, Grouper on couscous.

Franci, you take great pictures of wonderful dishes.

robirdstx, yummy Chicken Scaloppini.

Kouign Aman, Very healthy dishes, they look delicious.

Kim Shook, Well, we miss your cooking. I am glad you are back. Fantastic dishes you have been hiding from us.

Anna N, butter chicken, sounds intriguing.

SobaAddict70, beautiful Penne with cauliflower.

mm84321, thank you for continue showing your amzing creations.

Keith_W, I think your salt baked fish looks very impressive.

ScottyBoy, the Chicken tetrazinni looks very appetizing.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A few recent meals

Dcarch

Sous vided Drumsticks with steamed cauliflower.

Simple Mac & Cheese

Deep Fried Pork on lettuce

Big Red Ruby with Bean Sprouts

[David A. Goldfarb]

Nice photos/presentations, dcarch.

Last night: Turned leftover beef shortribs braised in beer into ravioli, and turned the strained braising liquid into a sauce. I feel a major dumpling phase coming on. No photos this time.

[kayb]

dcarch, that's gorgeous. Particularly the cauliflower.

Kim, glad to see you back!

Pics from last weekend, the pot roast of which I posted the pre-cooking photo upthread

After my son and I decimated it....

My portion

Last night, as I'd found some nice mandarin oranges at the Farmers' Market (no, they aren't local), I had pork chops with orange sauce, with potato salad, steamed edamame and sliced tomatos. Just had an urge for potato salad, not that it really went well with the pork.

[Franci]

What is that little salad in the middle of the anchovies? Looks like carrots and chickpeas. I currently need to use those two ingredients.

Sorry for the late reply. I also needed to use those. I simply cooked in the oven with a whole clove of garlic, some thyme, piment d'espelette and paprika, EVO and salt. Just the time to soften a little bit the carrots.

I pulled another lamb shoulder - the two of us were so busy it sat in the oven for an hour after the oven switched off by timer (last-minute accompaniments were therefore zapped spuds and zapped sprouts).

That looks so good!!! Lamb shoulder in one of my favourite cuts. I just love it .

Tonight my fridge was truly a desolation...I had a little bit of ragu' alla bolognese and we had some undersauced tagliatelle. I steamed some shrimps for the children with some napa cabbage and carrots.

And I was still hungry. So, I pulled out my dessert: two slices of paiou with a foie gras torchon which I poached in a spiced wine.

[ScottyBoy]

Oh man, you whip out the cured foie all the time!

[kayb]

I have made tonight, for the Super Bowl, the absolute best meat loaf I've ever made, inspired by the New York Times.

It started with a mix of ground beef and pork, combined with the usual eggs and bread crumbs. The spice, though, was my customized barbecue dry rub. That went down on top of five strips of country bacon.

That got topped with barbecue sauce and three more strips of bacon, fried and chopped. Then, using the bacon strips to help the process along, I commenced to roll.

Rolling completed, loaf was centered on the foil-covered pan.

Then transferred, using the foil, to a loaf pan for baking. There it was topped with more barbecue sauce and baked.

And sliced.

And plated, with last night's leftover potato salad.

I know it was horrifically unhealthy, but the NYT version used a pound and a half of bacon and a pound and a half of Italian sausage. I felt positively virtuous by comparison.

Go Giants!

[patrickamory]

Marriage of techniques from two people who didn't much care for one another. I made the ground beef for the hamburger by chopping hand-cubed choice chuck, Richard Olney-style (from the Beef & Veal volume of The Good Cook series). You "hash" it rapidly with two knives, rolling it up and continuing until it's thoroughly minced. It's a very different style from any kind of ground beef that I've had - much more unctuous and soft in the mouth.

Then I cooked them according to a James Beard recipe from Beard on Food. I ate two of these. I am not going to live long if I continue eating like this.

Spread the ground beef on a board. Grate half an onion into it, grind a generous amount of fresh pepper, and add a tablespoon of heavy cream. Mix completely with your hands (this is the opposite of the orthodox technique for making burgers), and shape into 6-oz ball-like patties.

Put a mixture of butter and olive oil in a cast-iron pan over high heat and add the burger when hot; season each side with salt and pepper, cooking 4-5 minutes a side for a very rare interior (which will not, however, be pink - the cream sees to that). You want a good crust on the outside.

Serve on buttered English muffins. Beard recommends no condiments, a rule I've usually observed (guests don't like it). He writes: "Salt this creamy, oniony, peppery hamburger before serving it on a buttered bun or English muffin." The intensity of the grated (practically juiced) onion, and the creaminess of the cream, is intense. This time I added some French's yellow mustard to the second one, and it was a good combination.

Pretty much absolute heaven.

[Paul Bacino]

Super Bowl Party!!

Mexican Chopped chicken Burger ( breast chxn meat, flax seed, chorizo, Taco bell seasoning, Mexi-cheese .. pepper ) with avocado and red onion/Serrano pickle..

Blue cheese slaw and tator cake!!

[FrogPrincesse]

A pastured chicken seasoned with lemon, garlic, rosemary, and roasted on the grill.

[Kouign Aman]

dcarch, your plates always amaze me in your use of shapes, flowers, colors, and now a 'tree'.

In general, the plating and photography in this thread has taken several steps up. Its like opening a glossy magazine, these days.

...Turned leftover beef shortribs braised in beer into ravioli....

Thinking like David's has had me wanting to learn to make pasta for some time now.

Yesterday, I finally did it, & we made linguini alfredo for dinner which was a great success, with oranges and steamed spinach sides. The noodles were more toothsome (chewier in a good way) than the dried linguini we usually use.

My phone seems not to know where to focus.

The cooked linguini

linguini alfredo

I was disappointed that I could not roll the pasta thin enough for decent ravioli. We made a few industrial strength ones for grins and giggles. They tasted ok, but there was just too much pasta. How do you all do it? Softer recipe? Special pasta roller ('cause I need a new toy in the kitchen), other?

[Anna N]

Played along with this topic yesterday and made duck hash:

Tasted much better than the photo suggests.

[Kim Shook]

Thanks so much for the welcome backs! I like being missed!

KA – those vegetables look delicious and I’m not a big veg fan. I could eat a pile of those gorgeous onions, especially!

Shelby – those scalloped tomatoes are fantastic. Neither of us are fans of stewed tomatoes, but Mr. Kim’s stepmom made them a few years ago and we ate them to be polite. I think that the two of us ended up scraping the casserole for every last drop!

Franci – I love the battered fish AND the anchovies! I really like the idea of raw fennel with the fish – great idea!

Blether – the lamb looks so amazingly luscious and tender. I really need to do this sometime soon. I really like lamb and grew up on it (thanks to my English stepdad), but my mom always roasted it. I like it very much that way, but didn’t discover braising until I was an adult and now almost always prefer that method.

dcarch – gorgeous, delicious looking food – all of it. But I really was drawn to the deep fried pork in lettuce. How is the lettuce prepared? It looks only slightly wilted. It reminds me of one of my favorite dishes that a local Chinese restaurant prepared, except they did it with duck.

kayb – ooooh, pot roast! Time to make some before there isn’t even any semblance of winter left (pouting here over this mild winter we’ve had). Just gorgeous. And that meatloaf!!!! I want that tonight! I’ve printed out your notes and will put them in my ‘to try’ file. How many lbs. of meat you reckon?

Anna – yum, duck hash! I’ve made beef and lamb, but never duck. It sounds wonderful.

This year the Super Bowl food was really Mr. Kim’s show and he did GOOD! The menu:

Brisket Sandwiches

Mr. Kim’s Chili w/ all the fixings

Slaw

Cornbread gems

Chips & Dip –

Feta dip

Jalapeno and Cheese dip (mix)

Salsa (purchased)

Cheese & Crackers

Almond Joy Brownies

A friend brought veggies & dips, fruit & dips, pigs in a blanket and pound cake .

I tried a new (to me) technique with the slaw. According to all the food experts, you should salt and drain the cabbage to release the excess water. I didn’t care for the texture at all – it was too limp and I even thought that it lessened the tang of the cabbage. I won’t bother with this step again. The feta dip was a recipe that I found online and it was so bland that I had to fix it up with everything in the kitchen. The almond joy brownies didn’t work very well either. It was a brownie mix fix up – par bake the brownies, top with coconut, chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk and sliced almonds and bake. The brownie layer ended up being about 1/4-inch thick with the weight of all the toppings and they were just way too sweet. I was going for a thick brownie with a thin layer of topping and it just didn’t work for me. So it was not a stellar day in the kitchen for me . Mr. Kim, on the other hand, SHINED!!! His chili was delicious, as always. Its basic American chili with a few interesting additions. Not too spicy, but not bland either. We love it.

The real star of the show was the brisket. He had never smoked brisket before and was a little hesitant about doing something new for guests. He said that going without a safety net was MY thing – I am forever trying new recipes for company. He’s the practical one – getting it right before the public debut. But I had faith in him - and there is a wonderful fellow at Marlene’s site (cookskorner.com) that is an expert – does competitions and all. He was online with Mr. Kim all day on and off and very generously offered advice and answered questions. This is something that I find again and again in the cooking world. The recipe hoarders are vastly outnumbered by the folks who give information gladly and freely. Between the two of them and a lot of internet research we feasted on smokey, beefy ambrosia! Besides the smoking, the rub was great, the mopping liquid was drinkable and the sauce was fantastic – everyone loved that.

Showtime:

That would be AM.

Rub applied 24 hours in advance, wrapped and refrigerated:

We got the big piece at our wonderful Belmont Butchery and the little piece at Kroger. We were afraid we wouldn’t have enough with just the big piece.

Ready for the smoker:

Getting started:

The mopping liquid:

And a nice, clean mop. How do you clean those things, by the way?

A little while in:

Farther along:

Gorgeous, melty FAT:

The small piece went on later:

Done:

Smoke rings are still like magic to me. The small piece is destined for burnt ends!

My contributions:

Limp slaw.

and tooth-achingly sweet, overly gooey brownies. Sigh.

My friend’s pound cake:

Perfect, as always. Really – this is one of the top 5 pound cakes I’ve ever tasted.

[Franci]

Oh man, you whip out the cured foie all the time!

Every time I see the raw foie on offer I grab it! It paid for it 19 euros, cheaper than the calf's liver at my butcher.

I have made tonight, for the Super Bowl, the absolute best meat loaf I've ever made, inspired by the New York Times.

Kayb, your meat loaf looks really good!

I was disappointed that I could not roll the pasta thin enough for decent ravioli. We made a few industrial strength ones for grins and giggles. They tasted ok, but there was just too much pasta. How do you all do it? Softer recipe? Special pasta roller ('cause I need a new toy in the kitchen), other?

How did you roll it? by hand or pasta machine?

I know this is in Italian but watching is helpful

Played along with this topic yesterday and made duck hash:

Tasted much better than the photo suggests.

I'm sure it tasted very good. I'll have to try it.

Kim, what a nice brisket!

Blether's lamb was in my mind at the butcher's this morning. So we had lamb shoulder with saute' chards

[Kouign Aman]

How did you roll it? by hand or pasta machine?

I know this is in Italian but watching is helpful

Based on that, I was one egg short (~ 375 g flour, 2 XL eggs, 1 egg white) - she has 1 large egg per 100 g.

Either I could add the entire 3rd egg, or another white next time and end up w somewhat softer pasta.

Other than that, it looks like what we did, and the textures we worked w.

I just need to add a lot more time to roll the sheet out.

Thanks, what a fun video.

Edited February 6, 2012 by Kouign Aman (log)