Dinner! 2012

[MikeHartnett]

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.

Awesome. Thanks!

[Todd in Chicago]

Greetings from Chicago!

Tonight was seared diver scallops with Edamame puree and a spot of siracha, served on a mound of red quinoa. Carrots were sousvide with Vadouvan curry. Plating was amateurish and puree was "supposed" to be a more of a foam with my ISI (guess I need to use two carts?), oh well still learning. Taste was better than it looked fortunately. ;-)

Dessert was chocolate gelato (store bought) with raspberry powder (dehydrated raspberries into the Vitamix!).

Pre-cooking beverage was the Cocoa Mole beer.

Not a bad night at all!!

Todd in Chicago

[SobaAddict70]

thanks Nikki.

Welcome, Todd, to the dinner thread.

C. sapidus -- delicious as usual.

robird -- that sounds like an idea for the future.

Tonight:

Fava bean and ramps ragoût, with soft-cooked farm egg

Stewed chickpeas, with slow-cooked onion, broccoli rabe and pecorino cheese

[patrickamory]

Dry red curry of pork shin with green peppercorns:

Heavenly beef:

[FrogPrincesse]

Slowly recovering from the flu. A simple dinner.

Garlicky braised cauliflower with capers (recipe from Russ Parson's How to Pick a Peach). Good flavors. There was something missing so I sprinkled some parmesan at the end - much better. But I have to say, I prefer the texture of roasted cauliflower vs. braised.

Then an arugula/cucumber/mint/feta salad (not pictured).

And finally, dessert. The brownies from David Lebovitz's Ready for Dessert. Always delicious. I used Valrhona Caraïbe so they were especially decadent tonight.

[rarerollingobject]

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

It tasted unbelievable! It really was incredible, in the way that anything involving lots of butter, sugar and garlic will. Here's the recipe (not my blog); highly recommend it.

Lovely food, all. Especially like Soba's beautiful vegetables, patrickamory's beef, robirdstx's beans, Rico's chicken, Bruce's ineffably wonderful curries, and FrogPrincesse's brownies..mmmm. And Todd in Chicago: greetings!

I made thisgenius recipe from Rozanne Gold; sauteed chicken with roasted grapes and grape demi glace. This is SUCH a good meal. Roasting a grape brings out incredible depth and sweetness, and whisking cold butter into the grape sauce is always going to be a winner.

And The Salad of Afterthought.

[rotuts]

patrickamory:

wonderful looking beef: would you share your Rx and technique?

many thanks!

[MikeHartnett]

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

It tasted unbelievable! It really was incredible, in the way that anything involving lots of butter, sugar and garlic will. Here's the recipe (not my blog); highly recommend it.

Excellent! I own Ottolenghi's Plenty (I actually made the cucumber salad with garlic and ginger last night), so I'll have to get to that recipe soon.

[percyn]

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!

Kim, the Braciole was pre-made by the butcher, I just had to brown and braise.

So many great meals here but have to give special shout-out to Bruce's beef curry and cucumber salad, EnriqueB's Tortilla de patata and consommé, RRO's pork belly and Soba's many spring creations.

Patrickamory, do you have a more detailed recipe for the eggplant khoresh? It looks amazing and I have a bunch of eggplant to use up soon. And that Heavenly beef was just added to my must try list.

Scotty, I will be in Napa next month. Would love to be able to find time to make it to Oakland to taste your amazing food.

Yesterday's dinner was Sous Vide pork roast which I pan seared with sweet potato puree, asparagus and mushrooms.

[robirdstx]

So much good looking food! I would like to have several of FrogPrincesse's brownies and a huge slice of Percyn's roast pork, please.

Tonight we had a family favorite:

Chicken Parmesan with homemade sauce and steamed broccoli

[patrickamory]

Hi guys,

The heavenly beef comes from David Thompson's Thai food, and the eggplant khoresh from the new edition (25th anniversary edition) of The Food Of Life by Najmieh Batmanglij (confusingly the old edition was called The New Food of Life). The recipe was not in the first edition. Batmanglij re-created it from descriptions of a dish dating from around 1400. Obviously the tomatoes are a more recent addition.

Glad people are enjoying the meals.

[Kim Shook]

Enrique – absolutely gorgeous tortilla! Thanks for showing the cut pieces too.

Patrick – the tahdig is just beautiful. I remember being extremely interested when Hassoumi described and showed it on his recent blog. Your partner’s version looks perfectly browned and crisp. I find it interesting that you say “Persian”. One of my English cousins was married to a young lady who was very specific about being Persian and would strenuously correct anyone who said that she was Iranian.

RRO – when you do your BBQ tour, let me know. I’ll join you for the NC section! That is actually something that I’d love to do, too. I was raised on central NC BBQ, but I have absolutely no prejudices about BBQ – I love it all: beef, pork, chicken, sauce/no sauce/tomato-based sauce, NC, TX, SC! Your horseradish meal had me banging my forehead on the desk. I want that fennel!!! Good GOD it looks fantastic. Thanks so much for posting the link to the recipe. I keep noticing recipes for roasted grapes – I guess that means I’ll be trying them soon!

Rich – I came home with 4 bags of VooDoo, 2 bags of Salt & Vinegar and one bag of the Hotter N Hot – even with Mr. Kim being on South Beach, the jalapeno is GONE – and I don’t eat anything spicy!

Robirdstx – oooooohhh! Beautiful glisteny, tender pasta! I want that for dinner. And where’d you get that freaking GORGEOUS sausage, girl??? Wow! I want one of those right next to my pasta. I have to remember wrapping sausages/dogs up in tortillas – Mr. Kim is doing South Beach and I think he’ll appreciate that trick when he gets a little further along.

Stash – beautiful spring salad! So that’s where your breakfast eggs went !

For dinner last night, I started with a salad:

Mr. Kim started with broccoli – cheese soup:

This soup was a bit of an experiment. I found a great deal on broccoli a while back and bought much more than we could eat before it would go bad. I thought of making soup with it. When I did some internet research, people seemed to have uneven success with freezing the soup. I made a couple of adjustments to the recipe that I thought might help stabilize it for freezing. I subbed evaporated milk for half of the 1/2&1/2 called for and Velveeta (I know, I know – but it works for freezing so well and if the rest is Cheddar, we like it just fine) for half of the Cheddar. It froze, thawed and reheated very successfully.

Then we both had eggs baked in baby spinach and bacon:

We both liked this dish a LOT. I slightly over cooked it (so no money shot) – next time I will take it out sooner. But the combination of the spinach and egg and Parmesan cheese was great.

[robirdstx]

Hey Kim, you too can get that sausage. We are lucky in that we can get it at our local HEB grocery store, but they also do mail order. My DH used to drive up to Elgin to Meyer's when we would run out and get ten pounds of the garlic links. I'd just divide them up and keep them in the freezer. Do a search on Meyer's Sausage and their site should come up.

Edited April 5, 2012 by robirdstx (log)

[percyn]

RRO – when you do your BBQ tour, let me know. I’ll join you for the NC section! That is actually something that I’d love to do, too. I was raised on central NC BBQ, but I have absolutely no prejudices about BBQ – I love it all: beef, pork, chicken, sauce/no sauce/tomato-based sauce, NC, TX, SC!

...

Not to go off-topic, but I think it would be great if a few eGulleters could get together and do a BBQ crawl. I signed up for a KCBS (Kansas City BBQ Society) judging class next week, just for fun and would love to sample BBQ from various regions.

Happy to rent a luxury coach for the roadtrip.

[mm84321]

Quail stuffed with foie gras

Edited April 5, 2012 by mm84321 (log)

[ChrisTaylor]

Oh yes. That, mm84321, I want for my breakfast.

[Todd in Chicago]

Hi guys,

The heavenly beef comes from David Thompson's Thai food, and the eggplant khoresh from the new edition (25th anniversary edition) of The Food Of Life by Najmieh Batmanglij (confusingly the old edition was called The New Food of Life). The recipe was not in the first edition. Batmanglij re-created it from descriptions of a dish dating from around 1400. Obviously the tomatoes are a more recent addition.

Glad people are enjoying the meals.

Patrick....

I'm not sure I've ever had "Heavenly Beef"; upon looking it up it indicates it is akin to beef jerky. Is that right? I've had something that *looks* like that Heavenly Beef at a Chinese restaurant in Chicago called "Ben Pao" (which is no longer open), and they called it 7 flavor beef. Just curious, as it looks pretty tasty.

Thanks...

Todd in Chicago

[FrogPrincesse]

Dinner tonight: grilled duck breast with shallot vinaigrette and roasted kabocha squash, followed by a green salad.

[David Ross]

One of Batali's great recipes, Olive Oil Poached Fish. The original recipe calls for Halibut, but any firm flesh fish will work. In this case, I used Alaskan Cod.

Layer a deep casserole dish with lemon slices. Place the fish on top of the lemon slices, season with salt and pepper. Add some capers and parsley on top of the fish. I added some garlic cloves and bay leaves to the pot, (which isn't called for in the recipe). Slowly pour in enough olive oil to fully cover the fish. Cover the pot and roast the fish in a low, 250 oven for about 1 1/2 hours.

Delicious when served with creamy mashed potatoes and steamed green beans.

[avaserfi]

duck breast and skin / bruleed sweet potato / almonds / sweet potato-tonka-espresso puree

[percyn]

Quail stuffed with foie gras

WOW!

How do you stuff the quail with foie gras such that it does not melt out, or is that the point of the dish?

[judiu]

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

What, no plomeek soup? (I'm a nerd, too!)

[mm84321]

Quail stuffed with foie gras

WOW!

How do you stuff the quail with foie gras such that it does not melt out, or is that the point of the dish?

Thanks. It's quite simple. You fillet a breast open, making sure to keep an even layer of both meat and skin, then place a slice of precooked foie gras inside, then roll it back up. I actually made this dish again today, since I had some quail leftover.

[patrickamory]

Todd, Thompson gives the Thai for heavenly beef as "neua sawarn". Here's how I made it.

- 1 lb beef (Thompson calls for rump, I used a heavily marbled cut I got in Chinatown that was simply marked "steak" - it resembles what the Koreans use for bulgogi and galbi, so it may have been sirloin or from the rib), cut into 1/2" strips

- 1 tbs chopped coriander (cilantro) roots (use 1 1/2 tbs chopped stems and leaves if roots not available, but try to get cilantro with roots attached - it makes a difference)

- large pinch of salt (I go heavy here)

- 2 tbs chopped garlic

- 15 white peppercorns

- 4 tbs palm sugar

- 3 tbs light soy sauce

- 2 tbs coriander seeds, lightly crushed

- vegetable oil - enough for deep-frying

Slice the beef. Pound the coriander roots, salt, garlic and peppercorns into a paste with your mortar and pestle. Mix paste thoroughly with palm sugar and soy sauce in a large bowl. Add beef and rub the marinade into it thoroughly with your hands. Marinate for 3 hours at room temperature or overnight in the fridge, turning periodically.

Press the crushed coriander seeds into the marinated beef.

Preheat oven to warm. Place the beef strips on racks over trays to catch any drippings, and dry the beef until almost all the moisture (but not all) has left it. That was about 3 hours in my oven at this time of year.

Bring vegetable oil to 325-350 F in a deep pot. Deep-fry beef strips in batches. Maybe about 30 seconds per batch, or to taste.

Remove beef from oil to plates lined with paper towels.

Serve with chili garlic sauce, nam pla prik, and sweet Thai chili sauce.

[jnash85]

Inspired by my shameless love of Pei Wei's Caramel Chicken