Dinner! 2012

[mm84321]

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

I just sliced the truffles about 2mm thick, then punched out rounds using the end of one of my metal pastry tips. Same thing with the celery, carrots, and cucumber

[percyn]

Beautiful dish (as usual) Max. Are those truffles sandwiched in Scallops and wrapped in Spinach?

[Paul Bacino]

Beginning Spring Onions Run and Tomato Salad with Red Wine Vinegar and Oregano/Sweet Basil

[mm84321]

Beautiful dish (as usual) Max. Are those truffles sandwiched in Scallops and wrapped in Spinach?

Indeed! Though, I believe the correct term is "contiser".

[ChrisTaylor]

My first dish from Passard's new vegetarian book. Tagliatelle and ceps (well, portobellas and oysters) with lemon, thyme and olive oil. The pasta/portion size was Passard's own suggestion for taking the entree-sized dish and turning it into a main.

[jayt90]

Risotto with shrimp, garden greens

The rice is Calrose, and came out of a pressure cooker in six minutes.

[C. sapidus]

Steak twice in a row . . .

Kebabs – strip steak cubes; and red bell pepper, onion, and grape tomato – brushed with a lemon juice and garlic mix on the grill. Served with pita bread.

Ribeye steaks with our usual marinade of soy sauce, black pepper, and garlic. Mrs. C dry-fried mushrooms and made quinoa with barley. Eternal cucumbers.

[Kim Shook]

Elizabeth – thank you for the explanation – they went from sounding disturbing to sounding intriguing !

percyn – how did you do the ‘base of bacon’? It looks fantastic.

Norm – oh, my – that cheesecake!!!

This weekend, we got some gorgeous pork chops at our favorite butcher shop, Belmont Butchery:

I knew that I wanted pan fried chops, so I had them cut to ¾” thick. We had these last night. I also made braised red cabbage, applesauce and biscuits. The chops turned out so good:

I love pan fried pork chops, but never make them with grocery store pork. I haven’t cared much for grocery store pork since it became ‘The Other White Meat’. It’s not too difficult to fix up a thick chop or roast with sauces and brines and braising, but a plain fried pork chop with no embellishments other than salt, pepper and flour needs REALLY good pork. And this was – the fat fried up crisp and tasty, the meat was really porky and tender. We ate every morsel but the bone.

I made some red cabbage to go with the pork chops. It’s a recipe from “The New Basics” – my usual. The cabbage is braised with red wine, onions, vinegar, raisins, apples, brown sugar and bacon. Before:

After:

I also served applesauce and sweet potatoes:

And biscuits:

I put together rather an odd dinner tonight. We found some low carb rice noodles (Guilin Vermicelli) at our local Asian market this past weekend. I had some chile-seasoned chicken stock in the freezer, so I made Mexican Pho, I think :

Mr. Kim’s with sriracha and pickled jalapenos!

Main course was garlic shrimp (with lots of crunchy focaccia) and zucchini:

[patrickamory]

Beautiful pork chops Kim.

[Paul Bacino]

Mexican Pho .. Good Work Kim ... all the way around!!

Scott/Max/Bruce wonderful stuff

Edited June 6, 2012 by Paul Bacino (log)

[rod rock]

Im thinking to make some pasta ravioli filled with cheese and cream for dinner, wish me luck!

[ChrisTaylor]

Didn't cook tonight--'tis my anniversay. And so, to Melbourne's Cutler and Co, one of the restaurants I'd highly recommend to anyone visiting my part of the world.

Naturally, the degustation was the way to go. And, true to form, I forgot to take my camera and had to rely on my girlfriend's camera phone photos. Most of the photos are too blurryshituseless to bother uploading. Luckily I got detailed-ish notes.

Selection of appetisers: foie gras parfait cigars, Sydney rock oysters, olives (maybe it was the variety or maybe they just hadn't pickled them for as long as someone else might, but they'd retained a certain bitterness--I liked this, my partner didn't) and smoked/pickled octopus.

The first course proper. Swordfish sashimi with fresh wasabi, cucumber and avocado. The avocado was a nice foil for the wasabi, but make no mistake: they didn't fuck around with wasabi.

Second course: chicken broth with abalone, spanner crab and congee. The first abalone dish I've had--so far as I can recall--that I've actually enjoyed. The broth was very heavily seasoned and brought to mind pho/ramen/et al.

Third: hay-baked carrots with goat's curd and puffed grain. Up to this point, the carrots were my favourite dish. They retained a nice firm texture (I hate mushy carrots) but had the sweetness of baked/roasted/etc carrots. Worked well with the goat's curd and the popcorny flavour/crunch of the grains.

Four: fried duck leg (think a cube of soft, giving duck flesh with a crispy coating--a highlight of the meal [i mean, a big bowl of those cubes and some beers? Life would be good ... and short]) with smoked duck breast, a chunk of morcilla and baby beetroot. This was a step above the carrots, I think. Despite the sound of the dish--this could be a real stodge fest, as much as I like that kind of thing sometimes (especially when duck and blood sausage and root vegetables are involved)--it wasn't really that heavy, I guess because the portion was quite small. I've had a few degustations where there's, yes, that AA Gill sensation of being 'waterboarded with food'. Too much, too rich, too soon. Sydney's Quay is--or, at least, was, when I went there--a big offender on that front, but Cutler and Co.'s degustation is sensibly paced with nice portions. Anyway. The duck. Very good. The whole thing--the sweet beetroot, the crispy/soft duck leg, the blood sausage--got along famously. If anything, the slice of breast, as much as it pains me to say anything vaguelly bad about my favourite animal, wasn't really needed. But, I mean, if someone really wants to overdo it with nicely cooked duck, or duck in any form, I'm the last person who'll tell them to stop.

Five: the obligatory beef course. I tend to dislike--or, rather, get bored of--the obligatory beef courses. I'm much more interested when someone decides to give me game, say, such as Attica's wallaby course, for the final savoury dish, as I think the beef thing is mostly done because people expect it from a high end meal. Anyway, this beef course offered portions of peppered strip loin and braised short rib. The short rib was, as expected, really awesomely beef and very good, whereas the strip loin was ... as much as it was nicely cooked/seasoned, merely good. But by default I always prefer things like short rib/chuck/cheek to those sorts of cuts, so I guess that's my own biases ninjaing in.The beef was served with kohlrabi (the root part, not the leaves) and caramelised onion--as in a puree of onion served inside the outer layer or two of a caramelised pearl onion. Nice touch, that.

The cheese course brought together Pyengana cheddar (a mild cheddar from a place in Tasmania called Pyengana), shards of lavosh and sultanas. This course was just okay. I mean, it's a nice cheese and all, but it really needed something--maybe some creamy element, maybe some more sultanas, maybe a syrup of some kind, but something--to take it to the next level. I got that probably the intent was for the cheddar (which is presumably quite expensive if you were to go to a deli and buy it by the slice/block/wheel/crate, as it's featured on both of the nice degustations I've eaten in the past couple of months) to be the star, but ... man, maybe I'm just not enough of a cheese nerd to get it, maybe merely liking most cheeses to some extent just isn't enough.

Then came a palate cleanser--sheep's milk yoghurt with a sorrel/celery granita.

Dessert took the form of violent icecream with chocolate ganace, a cherry ... sauce/coulis/puree (I'm not really up on my cake terminology once you got beyond pate sucre and curd and choux) and a sponge. The sponge was, I found out, the sort of microwave-in-a-few-seconds hazelnut sponge that Albert Adria makes. Made. Maybe invented, even. Or at least popularised.

Finally, the petit fours: chocolate peanut butter cups

In all, an excellent meal. And no dishes or effort.

[percyn]

percyn – how did you do the ‘base of bacon’? It looks fantastic.

Kim, beautiful Pork chops and great idea for the "Mexican Pho"

The "bacon base" is very easy - simply cut your favorite back strips into 1/4 in pieces, place in hamburger mold and top with ground beef. Lightly pack it together and sear bacon side down in a cast iron pan. Optionally you can put a layer of cheese between the bacon and burger. I got the idea from a place featured on Triple D (Diners, Drive-ins and Dives) on Food Network.

Enjoy!

Cheers

Percy

[SobaAddict70]

so I made way too much dal as usual which means I've been eating mostly Indian (dal, rice, pickles, chutney, raita) for the past few days.

however here are a few highlights...

First attempt at homemade bread from scratch.

Don't point fingers, it's not polite. LOL. Not bad, but not exactly what I was hoping for.

There'll be more attempts in the near future, of that you can be certain.

A couple of "slices"

Tomato and bread salad (plum tomatoes, homemade bread, Kirby cucumbers, extra-virgin olive oil, white wine vinegar, sea salt, black pepper, chives, shallots, capers)

Fried paneer cheese, with spiced tomato sauce and green Persian raisins

Edited June 6, 2012 by SobaAddict70 (log)

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Soba, that's not a bad first loaf at all - you've got a lovely crust and good crumb. Whole wheat?

Also, I totally want in on the fried paneer.....

[SobaAddict70]

Panaderia -- it's supposed to be "Classic Sandwich Bread" from page 661 of Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone".

I rarely cook directly from cookbooks unless it's something I've never made before. In the case of bread (and baking in general), I am a baking n00blet. More green than anyone.

Thanks for the compliment.

[FrogPrincesse]

SobaAddict70: Your panzanella salad looks so delicious. What a great use of bread!

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Panaderia -- it's supposed to be "Classic Sandwich Bread" from page 661 of Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone".

I rarely cook directly from cookbooks unless it's something I've never made before. In the case of bread (and baking in general), I am a baking n00blet. More green than anyone.

Thanks for the compliment.

Ok, looks like the only real "problem" (and it's something we've all done at least once, if not more frequently) was not enough grease on the baking pan. You wouldn't think that bread would stick as badly as it does to baking dishes, but I've found that it's best to butter even nonstick receptacles (excepting silicone mats) to avoid sadness.

What is it about the loaf that makes you think it was a failure?

[ScottyBoy]

A bit too busy to take many pictures but we had a potluck finally at my new place. Lobster soup, parsnip soup, mussels, fresh bread, smoked pork belly, carnitas, key lime pie and 4 different ice creams were had. 18 hours later and I'm still full!

[SobaAddict70]

Panaderia -- it's supposed to be "Classic Sandwich Bread" from page 661 of Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone".

I rarely cook directly from cookbooks unless it's something I've never made before. In the case of bread (and baking in general), I am a baking n00blet. More green than anyone.

Thanks for the compliment.

Ok, looks like the only real "problem" (and it's something we've all done at least once, if not more frequently) was not enough grease on the baking pan. You wouldn't think that bread would stick as badly as it does to baking dishes, but I've found that it's best to butter even nonstick receptacles (excepting silicone mats) to avoid sadness.

What is it about the loaf that makes you think it was a failure?

The pan was oiled completely with olive oil prior to the loaf being baked. It slid right out.

As you can see, there's not enough 'rise', which I attribute to the dough being maybe too 'wet' prior to going in the oven. Also, it felt like I was kneading a dough-covered waterbed as the dough's texture never lost its stickiness. Maybe I didn't knead it that long, or maybe I added too little dry ingredients to wet, or perhaps I didn't sift when I should have. I'll be looking at other recipes and methods, including so-called 'no-knead' bread fairly soon.

[jayt90]

Panaderia -- it's supposed to be "Classic Sandwich Bread" from page 661 of Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone".

I rarely cook directly from cookbooks unless it's something I've never made before. In the case of bread (and baking in general), I am a baking n00blet. More green than anyone.

Thanks for the compliment.

Ok, looks like the only real "problem" (and it's something we've all done at least once, if not more frequently) was not enough grease on the baking pan. You wouldn't think that bread would stick as badly as it does to baking dishes, but I've found that it's best to butter even nonstick receptacles (excepting silicone mats) to avoid sadness.

What is it about the loaf that makes you think it was a failure?

The pan was oiled completely with olive oil prior to the loaf being baked. It slid right out.

As you can see, there's not enough 'rise', which I attribute to the dough being maybe too 'wet' prior to going in the oven. Also, it felt like I was kneading a dough-covered waterbed as the dough's texture never lost its stickiness. Maybe I didn't knead it that long, or maybe I added too little dry ingredients to wet, or perhaps I didn't sift when I should have. I'll be looking at other recipes and methods, including so-called 'no-knead' bread fairly soon.

The pan appears to be 8"x8" which requires a lot of dough and high sides to produce a loaf rather than a focaccia . A rectangular loaf pan (8"x4") or even a free form might be appropriate for the amount dough you had.

[Prawncrackers]

Gosh i've not posted on Dinner! since March (i checked), I have been really lazy! But i have been vicariously enjoying all your dinners

We have some beautiful native lobsters here in the UK, the meat is dense and sweet which made me think about pairing it with my favourite fruit - mango. Alphonso mango to be precise, lashings of it with coriander, tomato, daikon, mint and a lime & fish sauce dressing, The lobster was simply chargrilled with some lemongrass. A really stunning dish, one of those where as soon as you've eaten it you're thinking about when you can cook it again:

Now i know how you all like a good steak on this thread so here's a dry-aged (about 6 weeks) Hereford rib on the bone. This is a typical British pure grass-fed cut of beef, not extravagantly marbled but just packed with natural beefy flavour. The aging made it wonderfully tender, simply grilled again with some salad and chimichurri:

[SobaAddict70]

Panaderia -- it's supposed to be "Classic Sandwich Bread" from page 661 of Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone".

I rarely cook directly from cookbooks unless it's something I've never made before. In the case of bread (and baking in general), I am a baking n00blet. More green than anyone.

Thanks for the compliment.

Ok, looks like the only real "problem" (and it's something we've all done at least once, if not more frequently) was not enough grease on the baking pan. You wouldn't think that bread would stick as badly as it does to baking dishes, but I've found that it's best to butter even nonstick receptacles (excepting silicone mats) to avoid sadness.

What is it about the loaf that makes you think it was a failure?

The pan was oiled completely with olive oil prior to the loaf being baked. It slid right out.

As you can see, there's not enough 'rise', which I attribute to the dough being maybe too 'wet' prior to going in the oven. Also, it felt like I was kneading a dough-covered waterbed as the dough's texture never lost its stickiness. Maybe I didn't knead it that long, or maybe I added too little dry ingredients to wet, or perhaps I didn't sift when I should have. I'll be looking at other recipes and methods, including so-called 'no-knead' bread fairly soon.

The pan appears to be 8"x8" which requires a lot of dough and high sides to produce a loaf rather than a focaccia . A rectangular loaf pan (8"x4") or even a free form might be appropriate for the amount dough you had.

I agree with you, however you should also note that I cook primarily for one.

The recipe I followed produces enough dough for 2 loaves of bread. There's no way I'm going to eat that much bread in the space of a week. I would be bored by Day 2.

That being said, I have the other batch resting comfortably in the fridge, in an oiled bowl sealed with plastic wrap. I'll probably take it out to play this weekend and knead it properly. I don't have any loaf pans which I would need to buy in order to make a proper sandwich loaf. That's not a priority.

Right now, all I'm concerned with is establishing technique. The intricacies can come later.

[C. sapidus]

Scrolling up from the bottom of the page, I instantly recognized Prawncrackers' pictures before I reached the always-welcome panda. Don't be such a stranger!

[Anna N]

This will be my 3rd attempt to post! Hope it doesn't time out again. SobaAddict: That bread looks delicious and using it in the salad - a brilliant idea. Tonight a simple salad with a sherry vinegar dressing and some roasted shrimp:

Light but satifying and I had room for a "tipsy affrogato". Vanilla ice cream, strong coffee and a splash of Frangelico.