Dinner! 2012

[Panaderia Canadiense]

What is that, mm? It's gorgously modern-artesque....

[mm84321]

What is that, mm? It's gorgously modern-artesque....

Thanks. The center is a rosace of black truffles sitting atop a smoked bacon béchamel. Egg yolk cooked slowly in olive oil on top of that, then an asparagus cream poured around, and beignets filled with more of the béchamel sauce and asparagus tips.

[ScottyBoy]

Beignets? Those look dead-on for baby sunburst squash, you are very talented my friend.

[heidih]

Beignets? Those look dead-on for baby sunburst squash, you are very talented my friend.

I was convinced they were little yellow summer squashes! Lovely and playful presentation

[mm84321]

Ha. From that angle they actually do look like squash.

Here's a closer shot:

They are just little balls of butter, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, twice, deep fried, then you poke a little hole to let the melted butter escape, pipe in some béchamel, and then insert a blanched asparagus tip.

[SobaAddict70]

That's pretty neat.

I realize I've been remiss posting on this thread, ah well.

Zucchini "pasta" with heirloom tomatoes, shallot and herbs.

I suppose 'shaving' is the my 'in'-thing this year, at least with some stuff I've done so far.

Broiled monkfish (from Blue Moon Fish), stir-fried pea shoots with roasted ramp bulbs.

Ramp bulbs were roasted with extra-virgin olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper and subbed instead of garlic. Pea shoots are your standard Cantonese stir-fry, with sesame oil and white pepper to finish.

Rock shrimp, bluefoot mushrooms (Psilocybe caerulipes for the botanically inclined), asparagus

Spinach tagliolini pasta with uncooked heirloom tomato sauce (heirloom tomatoes, shallots, mint, oregano, sea salt, black pepper, capers)

Rock shrimp with Indian spices, heirloom tomatoes and cilantro

No pic of tonight's dinner -- dal, rice, mint raita and mango juice.

[C. sapidus]

Twyst – A big shout-out for your gorgeous soft-shell crab. One of my favorite foods, and too soon gone.

Soba – Scientific names always enhance a meal. Beautiful stuff, particularly the shrimp dishes.

Dinner for one tonight, so I tried a new recipe from Dancing Shrimp. If Kasma calls it spicy . . .

Southern-style spicy tamarind bay scallops with crisped shallots and garlic –Dried chiles, fresh chiles, and Sriracha for heat; Maggi and fish sauce for umami/salt; tamarind and brown sugar for sweet/sour; fried shallots, garlic, and onions for savor; scallions, cilantro, and more chiles for garnish. Served on a bed of lettuce, and enjoyed with jasmine rice.

[lochaven]

A very busy Spring and Summer and finally able to get in here again. As it has been said before, great inspiration from everyone, from prep to photos. To add to the great seafood above, last night's dinner.

Broiled Copper River Sockeye with tarragon reduction, stuffed tomato (with a bit of pico de gallo and panko), and almost the star of the dish, roasted thyme potatoes in duck fat. Great salmon can certainly take all these flavors well.

The roasted potatoes.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Like Soba, I've been remiss in actually posting my own food here (largely because I've been so busy that I've been eating truly awful things....) Unlike Soba, I don't have a whole lot of yum to show you.

Here's the first respectable thing I've cooked in nearly a month: Beef Stroganstuff (using yogurt, not cream, so not a proper Stroganoff) with dried slimecaps (Suellius luteus) and king bolete. I had sirloin scraps, which made all the difference.

[patrickamory]

Bruce, the crispy tamarind bay scallops look lovely. David Thompson?

I made Boston-style baked beans. It was a weeklong process. Recipe devised from several John Thorne recipes, mainly because I didn't have the right ingredients to make any single one of them. This is mainly a combination of his "Up-North Beans" and his "Downeast Baked Beans" from Serious Pig.

First, we made salt pork by taking pork belly from Eataly and soaking it in a brine of salt and brown sugar for four days:

We fortunately have lots of extra in the freezer for summer chowder.

Next we soaked Rancho Gordo's EXCELLENT Jacob's Cattle beans overnight:

And then put them in the dutch oven and boiled and simmered them with their soaking liquid "until a sharp breath will split the skin of a bean" (this direction has got to come from one of the old recipes Thorne researched), and drained them, reserving the cooking liquid:

Meanwhile, boiling water gets poured over the salt pork pieces and left to soak for a few minutes, then drained.

The next step is to combine the beans with the salt pork, along with molasses, rum, mustard powder, salt and pepper, and then add back enough bean liquid to be visible through the beans, and bake for 5 1/2 hours at 250 degrees. Every so often you have to check that there's still a minimum of liquid, and add back bean liquid as necessary, moving on to water once the bean liquid has run out; here's a shot partway through the baking process:

And at the end:

[ScottyBoy]

Cured in salt/sugar overnight, applewood smoke for 1 hour, sous vide at 155 for 18 hours. Braised black lentils and port-bone marrow sauce.

[Paul Bacino]

My Rendition of Pho..

Clean out the refrigerator for Meat and Bones stock-- I added back in thin slices of Flat Iron steak to finish

[mm84321]

Ivory King Salmon. Sauce Choron.

[Anna N]

A pantry meal tonight. Corn and salmon cakes with horseradish/sriracha mayo. Simple but tasty.

[Kim Shook]

Stash, avaserfi, Anna, Paul, Bruce – well, thanks y’all. I was all keyed up to go out in a while for some really good ribs at a favorite local place that just opened a new location right near us. Now what do I want? SCALLOPS!!!

Hassouni - Bún Tôm Heo Nướng sounds and looks really, really good.

dcarch – your ribs look fantastic and I love that you mixed up the corn with the crawfish – they are the perfect pairing, so why not some of each in each bite!

Twyst – soft shells win. Always. Hands down. Oh, my. I haven’t had one yet this summer.

Scotty – if you would make me a bowl of that lobster soup without the sirachi (super taster ), I would get on an airplane tonight. Just amazing.

Elizabeth – I like the idea of stroganstuff – starting with the basic idea of stroganoff, but using what you have on hand or can get. I have to confess that the name slime caps took me aback. When I Googled ‘Suellius luteus’ and found that they do indeed have slimy caps, I blanched a bit. I don’t eat mushrooms (they are always cut VERY thick in my stroganoff so I can eat around them), but SLIME??? <shiver>

Anna – your pantry meals are much, much more impressive than mine! I really like your method of putting corn in a salmon cake. I got a great recipe from Suzi for fresh salmon cakes and I think I’ll add corn next time I make them.

Dinner a couple of nights ago was steak, broccoli and corn. The steaks were crappy Omaha Steaks filets that a lovely, but clueless person gave us for Christmas. They looked great and I cooked them perfectly medium rare, but except for the mushrooms on top and the A-1 that we used, they were basically tasteless. Even the bacon they were wrapped in was crappy. The corn was from the grocery store (and pretty good for May), but the broccoli and mushrooms were from our CSA and were great. At least Mr. Kim and Jessica said the mushrooms were great – I don’t indulge.

The other side dish was kohlrabi greens. Even Mr. Kim couldn’t eat them and he LOVES most vegetables.

No great loss since they came attached to a kohlrabi in our CSA box. I was doing some research on kohlrabi recipes and found some for the greens. At least I tried.

Awhile back someone at here (I think it was FrogPrincesse) did a piece of fish wrapped in prosciutto and roasted. It looked so good that I tucked the idea away to try. Cleaning out the freezer yesterday, I found a nice big slice of prosciutto. We got some cod last night and tried it out. Out of the oven:

Along with some grape tomatoes that I roasted with the fish. I did nothing but add a little pepper to the fish before I wrapped it. I tossed the tomatoes with a little olive oil and S&P. The fish was really fantastic. Moist and deeply flavored from the ham. An amazingly easy dish and really impressive – I wouldn’t hesitate to do it for company. Topped with a quick shaved fennel and orange salad (fennel from our CSA box – salad was also really good) and served with peas (CSA), broccoli (CSA) and some really good bread from a local bakery:

I also reworked some leftover quinoa from the detestable mustard green dish to make a salad with pimentos and zucchini (CSA):

Mr. Kim liked this a lot.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Elizabeth – I like the idea of stroganstuff – starting with the basic idea of stroganoff, but using what you have on hand or can get. I have to confess that the name slime caps took me aback. When I Googled ‘Suellius luteus’ and found that they do indeed have slimy caps, I blanched a bit. I don’t eat mushrooms (they are always cut VERY thick in my stroganoff so I can eat around them), but SLIME??? <shiver>

Kim, the name is misleading. Slimecaps are almost never used fresh, where the texture is more than offputting, even for a diehard fungus fan like myself. In the Ecuadorian kitchen, they're exclusively a dried mushroom, which process allows their marvelous flavour to develop and concentrate. As ingredients go, I'd consider them less in the range of a mushroom, and more in the range of magical umami chunks; I generally rehydtrate them into whatever I'm using in lieu of cream - last night, that was yogurt cut with milk. I've also been known to powder them in my mortar and pestle and add them whenever I think a dish lacks that certain yummthing.

I'd be hard-pressed to actually describe the taste of Suellius, though. They make creamy things taste creamier, rich things taste richer, and overly salty things taste less salty (and hence they're a go-to when using bacalao.)

[C. sapidus]

Patrick – Thanks! The recipe was from Kasma Loha-Unchit’s wonderful (but sadly out of print) Dancing Shrimp, as is tonight’s dinner. Oh, and your beans look killer.

Kim – Ribs and scallops would make an unconventional surf ‘n turf, but right now I’m craving prosciutto-wrapped fish.

Paul – Nice pho!

Thai shrimp salad – blanched shrimp, tossed with sliced lemongrass, shallots, cilantro, mint, and a sauce of lime juice, fish sauce, roasted chile paste, sliced bird chiles, and sugar. The lime juice finishes “cooking” the shrimp, like a Thai ceviche. Mrs. C prefers the texture of chopped shrimp, so that’s what I did and she had seconds.

Stir-fried yard-long beans - with fermented black beans, sliced garlic, rice vinegar, chicken stock, and sesame oil.

Coconut rice – to welcome younger son home.

[percyn]

Made some burgers in a cast iron skillet.

The base of the burger was bacon pieces and the burger was stuffed with cheese and onions.

Edited June 4, 2012 by percyn (log)

[patrickamory]

Thanks Bruce. I do use Kasma's website as a reference for information, techniques, ingredients and occasionally recipes, but I've yet to pick up either of her books. I do have them on my list, but I'm running out of space for cookbooks!

[ScottyBoy]

Yet again but such a simple and quick dish to throw together late-night. Carbonara, speck instead of guanciale.

[Norm Matthews]

Son's GF's birthday is tomorrow and she wants cheesecake instead of a cake so I made this one. It has a sweetened sour cream 'icing' and is topped with half strawberries and half raspberries. The glaze is Cointreau and raspberry sauce. She also wants steak for dinner so I will do some shell steaks on the grill along with roasted potatoes, corn, zucchini and green beans with onions and mushrooms.

[mm84321]

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Norm, omg, I want that cake in very undecent ways. Your son's got a very lucky GF.

mm, are those truffle medallions in the veggie mix? Care to share your technique?

[ScottyBoy]

Hehe, another mm mystery concoction.

[ScottyBoy]

Oh and two of my favorite things, cheesecake and strawberries GIVE ME A BREAK!