Dinner! 2005

[bilrus]

Shaking Beef (scroll down about 1/3 of the page to see recipe) from Charles Phan of the Slanted Door.

[helenas]

Potstickers with monkish and herbs (garlic chives, scallions, basil and cilantro).

Outstanding rich dipping sauce from Patricia Yeo. Reused the idea of adding some heavy cream to the filling.

Avocado mashed with cilantro, scallions, lemon juice and red yuzu kosho, on tomato wedges.

[little ms foodie]

Salmon with braised cucumber and fennel served with a green salad

[lexy]

Anyway, I made chickpea dumplings in yogurt sauce (a very bastardized version of pakodi kadhi), and it was just wonderful. I boiled the dumplings and then simmered them in the spiced yogurt sauce.

Off to pack and clean out the fridge, out for ice cream later.

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These sound tasty, would you mind sharing what's in the dumplings?

And have fun on your trip, it sounds fantastic!

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Hi Lexy,

Traditionally pakori are dumplings made with chickpea flour (besan), spices and water and then deep fried. Now I didn't have chickpea flour but I did have leftover chickpeas, and I just went from there. I generally make things up as I go when cooking using sight/smell as guidelines, so I don't have measurements.

In a food processor I blitzed a handful of chickpeas with about an equal amount semolina and seasonings. I used cumin, coriander, fresh parsley, salt, etc. The mixture should look like a coarse meal. Add enough water to make a thick paste, maybe a couple tablespoons.

Bring stock or water to a boil. Just before cooking the dumplings add a pinch of baking soda and blitz one more time. You want to encorporate air into the batter so they are nice and light.

Drop them by tablespoons into the stock/water and cook for about 4-5 minutes. The dumplings will be completely irregularly shaped and they should be floating. Remove with a slotted spoon.

You can then simmer the dumplings in a sauce of your choice.

I enjoyed them, and they reminded me of a light type of gnocchi.

I used semolina flour because I figured it was closest to chickpea flour, you could also make your own chickpea flour or use another type of flour. Or make a real kadhi dish like this recipe.

Whew, now off to the airport!

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Thanks for the recipe. I actually happen to have a little leftover chickpea flour sitting around, so this looks like the perfect way to use it up.

[Chufi]

Gratin of belgian endive and jambon d'ardenne, with a gruyere/dijon mustard sauce.

Parsley lemon pasta.

more of those fantastic green tea cookies for dessert.

[Jake]

Klary, I'm intrigued by the green tea cookies. Do you have a recipe, or were they purchased?

[Chufi]

Klary, I'm intrigued by the green tea cookies.  Do you have a recipe, or were they purchased?

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take a look at the green tea cookie thread.

scroll all the way down for my cookies

I used JasonTrue's recipe, the link is in post #13

They are my new addiction!

[Jake]

Klary, I'm intrigued by the green tea cookies.  Do you have a recipe, or were they purchased?

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take a look at the green tea cookie thread.

scroll all the way down for my cookies

I used JasonTrue's recipe, the link is in post #13

They are my new addiction!

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Thank you, Klary. I'll definitely be making these (without the chocolate as you did).

Dinner tonight needs to be something easy the athe SO can have when he gets home late. I'm thinking fritatta at this point, with cremini, wild leeks, fiddleheads.

[little ms foodie]

Gratin of belgian endive and jambon d'ardenne, with a gruyere/dijon mustard sauce.

Parsley lemon pasta.

more of those fantastic green tea cookies for dessert.

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More questions for you

jambon d'ardenne, I haven't heard of this? Is this a regional specialty? Also the sauce...Is this something you make and serve on the side?

[racheld]

Lobster bisque and an enormous shrimp cocktail for Hubby, with a disgusting "pink" sauce he likes---ketchup, lemon zest, mayo and Worcestershire.

Lovely buttery skillet toast.

I'm not a seafoodie, so tuna salad on popcorn rice cakes for me. Following the theme as best I can.

Vanilla tapioca for dessert.

Two amaretti each at 9 p.m., during Apprentice Finale.

[Grub]

Fillet Mignon and roasted potatoes done on the BBQ, boiled baby carrots, and Béarnaise sauce.

I've struggled with Hollandaise sauce for quite some time now, and while I enjoyed the simplicity of an Auguste Escoffier recipe I was shown here on eGullet (no double boiler required), I found it to be too buttery for my tastes. The CIA Professional Chef recipe was more complicated and time consuming but it produced a far better sauce (well, according to my tastes). This time I tried their Béarnaise sauce, and it came out great.

Since the CIA book's quantities are restaurant sized, I scaled thing down -- this makes about 1.5 cups worth of sauce:

1/2 tbsp shallot (sometimes I use red onions)

1/4 tsp crushed black peppercorn

2 tbsp tarragon vinegar (I just used white wine vinegar)

2 tbsp water

1 tbsp fresh tarragon -- leaves and stems separated

1 tsp dried tarragon

2 egg yolks

1/2-3/4 cups butter

1 tbsp fresh chervil (I just use Italian/Flat leaf parsley)

Dash salt and white pepper to taste

1. Melt butter, set aside.

2. Simmer shallots, peppercorns, tarragon stems and dried tarragon in vinegar until almost dry.

3. Add water, and strain (through cheese cloth) into double boiler.

4. Add yolks and whisk until thickened. (I couldn't get it to thicken until I added butter though).

5. Stir in butter in a thin stream. Keep stirring until thickened.

6. Add chopped, fresh tarragon leaves and chervil (parsley).

7. Season with salt, finely crushed white peppercorns.

[Chufi]

Grub, that Bearnaise looks luscious!

Gratin of belgian endive and jambon d'ardenne, with a gruyere/dijon mustard sauce.

Parsley lemon pasta.

more of those fantastic green tea cookies for dessert.

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More questions for you

jambon d'ardenne, I haven't heard of this? Is this a regional specialty? Also the sauce...Is this something you make and serve on the side?

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it's a kind of dry, cured ham from Belgium.. quite salty.. it was from the supermarket and not very high quality (can be extremeley good though) but good enough for the gratin.

I mixed cream, grated gruyere and dijon mustard, poured it over the the belgian endive that was rolled in ham, and baked.

[binkyboots]

roast chicken, roasted with some interesting herb and flower mix I bought at a farm shop.

with that, jersey royals (delicious!), brocoli and cauliflower

made a kind of creamy chicken gravy too.

[FoodMan]

Wednesday:

- Savory Bankok waffles, dipping sauce, homemade chilli jam. These are from Alford and Duguid's baking book and they are fabulous. You can also find the recipe here if you are interested.

-Shrimp pad thai

Thursday:

Lebanese white beans with beef and tomato in the crock pot, served with rice cooked with samen.

Elie

[helenas]

Turmeric shrimps and scallops with coconut milk and asparagus.

[little ms foodie]

We had planned on King Crab legs tonight but then i saw someone else's picture of the legs with oysters so we added kumamoto's to the menu too. Then I decided that I haven't really seared scallops before and I wanted to play. Then I remembered that I had some great pate from D'Artagnan in the fridge. Dinner tonight......

(sorry, having problems with the rotate edit function again!)

Bethel Heights Pinot Blanc (OR) in the glass

[Behemoth]

Chufi, I made an endive gratin with prosciutto a few months back but felt it was missing something -- mustard sauce, obviously! Sounds great.

I have been really bad about cooking dinner since A is out of town. I tend to make things for my own entertainment rather than for nutrition. First day I made multigrain bread, so dinner was toast with an omelette. Not too bad. Yesterday I made fresh pasta (ate half with just butter and parm, stored the rest) and today I made this eggplant tomato pasta stew my grandmother used to make when I was a kid (giant vat in the fridge for the next couple of days, reasonably healthy) and:

Strawberry rhubarb tart experiment. It is the first pie I've made out of Rose Levy Berenbaum's book. It is really good but I need to start eating salads or none of my clothes are going to fit in a month!

(Sorry about the fuzzy photo, my regular photo editing software is off with A's laptop.)

[jzchef23]

No Photo. But last night was seared U-10 scallops dusted with dried porcini and a simple white wine pan sauce to start. Charcaol grilled veal rib chops with a truffle compound butter smashed fingerling potatoes and grilled zucchini. And a fat scoop of chocolate peanutbutter ice cream for dessert!

[Grub]

Grub, that Bearnaise looks luscious!

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Thanks very much! It really tasted great, too. Didn't get very good grill marks on the steak though -- at least the photo doesn't show much -- the level of excellence on the pictures shown in this thread makes it a little intimidating to post my attempts... Thanks.

[Susan in FL]

No Photo. But last night was seared U-10 scallops dusted with dried porcini and a simple white wine pan sauce to start. Charcaol grilled veal rib chops with a truffle compound butter smashed fingerling potatoes and grilled zucchini. And a fat scoop of chocolate peanutbutter ice cream for dessert!

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Sounds wonderful! ...my kind of food.

My last selection from the soft food menu -- hurray! -- was buttery baked flounder and angel hair pasta with a garlic and anchovy sauce.

Tonight's dinner will include meat and vegetables!

[Ktepi]

Saturdays we go to the farmer's market and the butcher's -- which doubles as our seafood source on the rare occasions when we get it; having moved to Indiana from New Orleans, seafood almost always comes in two flavors here, "disappointing" and "can't afford it." Today was an exception to that.

Saturday night dinner is always dictated by what we bought that I want to use at its freshest, so tonight was shrimp and grits -- stone-ground yellow grits with cheese curds and garlic greens, all from the market (including the grits), and freshwater prawns (from the butcher) with baby kale (market), mojo, and Tabasco (home :)).

The prawns are odd. They're enormous -- the heads are as large as "jumbo shrimp," and they have large front legs like lobster legs -- but more oddly, when they were cooked they became flaky like firm whitefish. They were good, but I've never had any shrimp like that before.

Dessert, rhubarb pie with green tea ice cream. My mother sent me a large box full of rhubarb from her patch, which was transplanted from the 200 year old patch outside the house I grew up in. I'm going to have to freeze a bunch of it ...

[bilrus]

Saturdays we go to the farmer's market ...

Saturday night dinner is always dictated by what we bought

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Same here today. Dinner was courtesy of the Farmer's Market. Aside from a bit of goat cheese and my dijon vinagrette, everything for dinner came from the market this morning (eggs, lettuce, maitake mushrooms, spring onions):

Edited May 22, 2005 by bilrus (log)

[Andy Lynes]

Organic Salmon with lentils, bearnaise and new season's oil from a tuscan estate.

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Moby - very nice looking dish. How did the oil work with the bearnaise? Can you tell us how you prepared the lentils? Thanks.

[Susan in FL]

OK. Humor me and take a look at the "Welcome Back to Regular Food Dinner" (Feast) that Russ cooked last night, and then I will stop whining about how awful it is to be restricted to soft foods. ...At least until I have the second surgery.

I still am not feeling well, so I have been taking advantage of being waited on as long as I possibly can... not to mention being able to "order" what I want to eat.

Grilled Strip Steaks with a deliciously intense red wine reduction sauce

and mashed potatoes, with an appealing "retro" presentation

Sauteed sugar snap peas and mushrooms

Grilled heart of romaine, with a salad-vegetable vinaigrette

Vidalia Onion grilled with butter and balsamic vinegar

Poached pear with ginger and Port, with tastes of Stilton and Saga Bleu

We drank Rodney Strong Cabernet with dinner and Graham's Port with dessert.

Thank you, Russ.

[Chufi]

Congrats Susan! That steak must have tasted wonderful.

Our dinner last night was asparagus feast. The classic way: white asparagus with boiled eggs, steamed potatoes, very good ham and lots of melted butter. Viognier in the glass. The weather was nice so we could have dinner on the balcony. It does not get much better than this..

Today another feast, although very different: chicken in Mole Poblano, thanks to the Mole cookoff. With the chicken, side dishes of guacamole, corn cakes, mexican rice, black beans, sour cream-chipotle sauce, and a green salad. Picture can be seen here (in post #63)

bananacreams with toasted pine nuts and chestnut honey for dessert. Fleurie, brought from Burgundy, in the glass. It was a good weekend...

Edited May 22, 2005 by Chufi (log)