Dinner! 2005

[Megan Blocker]

Fabulous ideas, Daniel and BryanZ! I will definitely be trying both of those...

Dinner tonight (chez maman, in Fresno) was roast chicken (rubbed with butter, showered with salt, and roasted with the gizzard, liver, etc. in the cavity) with a reduced jus (thyme added), green salad (romaine and mesclun) with an orange-hazlenut vinaigrette and candied walnuts, and garlic bread (my little bro's particular request). All quite yummy, though no photos to show for it...

Missing New York!

[vkn]

Very good-looking chicken dish!

One thing that stood out in your ingredient list was the soy sauce. Please talk about your use of soy sauce in the dish. Is that unusual in your cooking?

Hi Pan – We are so delighted to know that you liked our chilly chicken recipe.

Soy sauce is one of the essential Indian cooking ingredients. It is not unusual that we use it in salad dressing, as a marinade for chicken or steak, and in most of the stir-fried dishes like cauliflower manchurian, all chinese-style fried rice, chilly chicken, ginger chicken, pepper chicken, just to name a few, for its richness of flavor, saltiness, viscosity, to enhance color, enhance aroma, etc. Perhaps, soy sauce was migrated from China to almost all other cusines of the world. We love it as a substitute for monsodium glutomate (ajno motto). Hope this info helps. Cheers!

[Shalmanese]

Professor Shalmanese's Cooking School - Day 2

Ceviche of Kingfish with Shallots and Coriander

Mussels steamed with White Wine, Shallots, Cherry Tomatos and Cream, served with a Ciabatta Loaf

Orange Segments in Cerviche Marinade

We ate this, on the patio watching the sun set:

[percyn]

Wow Shalmanese, some great looking dishes.

I have a bit of catching up to do...

A few days ago, I made...

Roasted Chestnut Soup - with a shot of Armagnac

Then came the short ribs from the Sous Vide machine after 36 hrs @141 F.

Served with a porcini and bordeaux demi glace sauce

Couldn't resist adding an egg to the left over sauce after adding a bit more red wine

Yesterday, I bought a rotisserie chicken to make

Curry Chicken Salad

Crisped up the chicken skin and made a pan sauce from onions, crimini mushrooms, chicken stock, white burgundy, kapers, etc

And the wines we had with our dinners

[Daniel]

Great stuff Percyn... I had to comment, I drink that Bordeux a lot... Do you like it, is there something you better you would suggest..

[Megan Blocker]

Wow, Percyn! Those dishes look fantastic...I have to admit, I'm a sucker for curried chicken salad, and I'm willing to bet yours is among the best.

And Shalmanese - gorgeous!!!

[BryanZ]

Christmas Eve dinner was:

Asparagus with a truffle cream sauce. I didn't have any truffles on hand so I freely used the Dartagnan truffle butter and my truffle salt. I sprinkled this with some bread crumbs lightly fried/toasted in a bit of olive oil.

Percyn beat me to the chase here, but I served beef short ribs sous vide as my first meat dish. I drizzled the short ribs with a super concentrated beef/ redwine jus. The accompaniments were mashed potatoes and parsnips, blanched then sauteed zuchinni, and a mixture of wild mushrooms--chanterelles, oysters, maitakes, and shiitakes--with red wine and demi glace.

I'd also been inspired by the "dry-aging meat" thread so I picked up a little boneless rib roast and have parked that in my fridge for the past week. It was my first time dry aging and it was delicious.

I also want to give a huge anti-shoutout to Smoking Loon Pinot Noir. I had bought this a few months back, thinking I would drink it at school as a crappy but drinkable sweet red, but ended up forgetting it at home. We poured it tonight, and, oh my god, it was terrible. One of the worst wines I've ever had in my 19 years.

Edited December 24, 2005 by BryanZ (log)

[legourmet]

Christmas dinner was a three course meal

Fried scallops and prawns on orange flavoured bisque and basil leaves.

Marinated angler with caramelized beets and fried potatoes on pumpkin sauce

Sweet ricotta dumplings with sliced oranges and caramelized julienned orange peel.

Sorry no photos. I've been too busy with cooking and serving for 8 persons, that there was no time to make photographs.

Tomorrow's lunch will be

Homemade Graved Lax with dilled mustard sauce

Braised rack of deer with chocolate-ginger sauce and bohemian dumplings

Crepes suzettes

[Jmahl]

Tonight, a Beef Minestrone based on a recipe developed over the last fifteen years. It was very good tonight, but tomarrow it will even be better.

It is accompanied with a great bottle of Stark Shiraz 2002 unfiltered and unfined from coastal South Africa. If you see, it buy it. Its got it all.

Comment on my fellow thread members, after seeing the last few pages of posts, if you haven't noticed you guys and gals are food obsessed. Its a nasty habit, hard to break. I know from where I speak.

Seasons greetings and G-D bless the French, they want to have gluttony dropped as a mortal sin.

Jmahl

[purplewiz]

The miracle of the tomatoes....

I had no dinner planned for tonight, since we thought we were supposed to be meeting friends, but somewhere something didn't connect, and the plans weren't there. Fortunately, I had some hamburgers in the freezer, so I grilled them up and topped them with Swiss cheese and salsa.

I had the lettuce for a salad, but no tomatoes. I don't care if they're out of season, I like tomatoes with my tossed salads, and they just aren't the same without them. The only tomatoes we had were some old homegrown ones, picked green last October, and which are somewhat overripe/dried out about now. (They'll be fine in the sauce I'm planning to make.) But what the heck, I decided to rummage around in the bag and see what was there.

Miraculously, I found about half a dozen tomatoes that were just about perfect for eating raw. So we topped our salad with homegrown tomatoes on Christmas Eve - and they were very good indeed!

Marcia.

[Eden]

A quiet day at home cleaning the house for tomorrows fest, and a low key dinner because tomorrow's won't be...

salad of mini tomatoes w/goddess dressing

grilled pesto sausages (aidell's)

Michel Guerrard's celery root & apple mash (thank you Paula Wolfert!!!)

Dessert was a few of the assorted cookies we've been given over the last week.

I still need to make a batch of toffee, but then I'm goofing off for the rest of the evening

[Daniel]

Gorgeous Bryan.. I see you are taking advantage of coming home and cooking... Looks like an amazing dinner and I am sure you family is as impressed as I am..

[Chufi]

Merry Christmas everybody!

Last night we had a very non-traditional Christmas eve dinner for 25.

first, lots and lots of hors d'oeuvres..

ginger meatballs with hoisin sauce

tortilla wraps with blackbean chipotle puree, creme fraiche and coriander

smoked mackerel mousse

cheese plate with nuts, dried fruits and homemade eggplant chutney

charcuterie platter

Celeriac tarts with bacon

Best dish: parsnip fritters with blue cheese mayo

After that I made pizza's.. onion/ anchovies / olives, and tomato/chorizo/ rucola:

Giant pizza's.. I made 4 of those...

Lots of cookies to finish: green tea shortbread and cocolate chip/oatmeal/peanutbutter.

[vkn]

Merry Christmas everyone!

Cooking rice is always a blissful experience especially when it turns out light, fluffy, non-sticky, non-gluey. Cozying up at home on a Christmas holidays, we cooked our favorite Vegetarian Fried Rice today. Cheers!

[Alinka]

Alinka, ok, no studio, but do you have a special lense that does such close focus?  I want my pictures to look just like yours!

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Abra, no special lense. With you in mind, I provide the technical details to my latest photo. Hope this helps!

[Alinka]

Christmas Eve dinner was:

Asparagus with a truffle cream sauce.  I didn't have any truffles on hand so I freely used the Dartagnan truffle butter and my truffle salt.  I sprinkled this with some bread crumbs lightly fried/toasted in a bit of olive oil.

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I meant to say yesterday: these two are just gorgeous! Sooo want ribs!!

[Shalmanese]

Professor Shalmanese's Cooking School - Day 3

Lunch:

Clam & Corn Chowder with Sun-Dried Tomatos

Grilled Baby Snapper over a bed of Mushroom & Brown Rice with a Tomato-Chilli Jam

Dinner:

Grolsch

Garden Salad

Turkey with Mashed Potatos, Cranberry Sauce, Pan Gravy and Roasted Vegtables

Pomegranite Sorbet

Midnight Snack:

Toasted Ciabatta with Tomato-Chilli Jam, Jarlsberg Cheese & Muscatel Grapes

Edited December 25, 2005 by Shalmanese (log)

[BryanZ]

Best dish: parsnip fritters with blue cheese mayo

I'm slowly rediscovering parsnips. They're such a humble vegetable but so delicious and complex.

How does one make pomegranate sorbet? I've got an extra pomegranate sitting around and a sister who makes all my ice creams and sorbets with nothing to do.

[racheld]

Best dish: parsnip fritters with blue cheese mayo

I'm slowly rediscovering parsnips. They're such a humble vegetable but so delicious and complex.

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Me, too!!! I have a dozen of the pencil-size ones roasting in the oven this minute, with a little slick of olive oil and a bit of seasalt.

They'll go nicely with our 5 o'clock dinner of: Salade Composee' of Hearts of Palm, lemon-simmered artichoke hearts, button mushrooms, avocado and the last two homegrown tomatoes from our Summer bounty (homemade tomatoes for Christmas!! YAY!!!). Relish tray; Cornish hens rubbed with soy sauce, thyme butter and garlic, roasted with more butter inside; Cornbread dressing; Giblet gravy; A platter of steamed broccoli and cauliflower florets, tossed in lemon butter and topped with strips of roasted red peppers; Pineapple au gratin; Cranberry sauce; Powderpuff rolls; Chris' obligatory green Jello stuff.

Lovely dinners and a wonderful holiday season to all!!

rachel

[Abra]

Christmas Eve supper was a nibble buffet

Ginger-Garlic Hummus with Crudites and Salt Roasted Potatoes

(the salt-roasted potatoes sort of look like cat turds, but they taste wonderful) and gravlax with dill-mustard sauce, aged Beemster and Gruyere, and Dorothea with Marigold Petals

This was my first time making gravlax, and it wasn't really cured after 48 hours. It was delicious, but not yet really dried. You can see how moist it still was

We also had Chufi's Dutch parfait, made with homemade advocaat and a pudding made with Dutch bitter almond macaroons (on top is a bit of sour cherry preserve and some candied angelica sent to me by jackal10)

and a platter of assorted Mediterranean bought sweets, plus some Latin Lace Florentines that I made with chipotle

That fluffy, hairy white stuff was the sleeper hit of the evening. Pismanije is a sort of cotton candy, not too sweet - each little cube pulls apart and fluffs up to about three times its size.

We drank Gluhwein and lingonberry-cava cocktails with all this, and had a very merry, if sugary, time.

[hzrt8w]

I found some lovely, fresh Shiitake mushrooms in the grocery market. I could not miss this wonderful treat. There is nothing like the wild, earthy taste of fresh Shiitake mushrooms. Here is my interpretation of the classical "Moo Goo Gai Pan" dish (a direct translation from the phrase "Mushroom Chicken Slices"), popularized by early Chinese restaurants in the USA. I cooked the fresh Shiitake mushrooms along with some fresh Enoki mushrooms. I found that they go very well together. Just mushrooms, no more. I found that many Chinese restaurants add all kinds of vegatables such as snowpeas, carrots, bamboo shoots, green peas, water chestnuts and celeries in making this dish. Doing so, in my opinion, only adds distraction to the true wonderful taste of fresh mushrooms.

Recipe here.

Edited December 25, 2005 by hzrt8w (log)

[Megan Blocker]

Best dish: parsnip fritters with blue cheese mayo

I'm slowly rediscovering parsnips. They're such a humble vegetable but so delicious and complex.

How does one make pomegranate sorbet? I've got an extra pomegranate sitting around and a sister who makes all my ice creams and sorbets with nothing to do.

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I, too, am on a parsnip kick these days - those fritters look delicious. All of it looks delicious. Great job, Klary!

[Pan]

[...]Here is my interpretation of the classical "Moo Goo Gai Pan" dish (a direct translation from the phrase "Mushroom Chicken Slices"), popularized by early Chinese restaurants in the USA. I cooked the fresh Shiitake mushrooms along with some fresh Enoki mushrooms. I found that they go very well together. Just mushrooms, no more. I found that many Chinese restaurants add all kinds of vegatables such as snowpeas, carrots, bamboo shoots, green peas, water chestnuts and celeries in making this dish. Doing so, in my opinion, only adds distraction to the true wonderful taste of fresh mushrooms.[...]

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I'm guessing all those other ingredients are cheaper than the mushrooms.

The dish looks great; I'll have a look at the step-by-step pictorial now.

[BryanZ]

This holiday season has been rather unfortunate for my family. My grandmother was diagnosed with stage IV cancer in most of the major organs of her body. Needless to say, this is hard on all of us, as we usually spend Christmas at her house in Utah. To make matters worse, my mother is traveling overseas over Christmas, so my sister and I decided we wanted a little bit of Christmas nostalgia.

I debated putting this meal in the gallery of regrettable foods, since, well, some might call it regrettable--under normal circumstances I would say it is. Regardless, this is the "Christmas dinner" I prepared tonight, as inspired by my grandmother.

The pomegranate sorbet was a bit of an afterthought inspired by Shalmanese.

"Overcooked" haricort verts ("green beans") sauteed with bacon and vinegar

A potato gratin of sorts with Campbell's Cream of Chicken Soup and caramelized minced onions, topped with Kraft Cheddar cheese (I shudder when I think of the ingredients that are in this)

Bone dry pot roast, also overcooked and smothered with thick gravy

Edited to add: finding an open grocery store on Christmas day is something I never want to do again. I drove all across New Jersey trying to find someplace that had something that resembled a "pot roastable" piece of beef. I ended up an obscure Asian grocery and had to ask the Chinese butcher to get the beef from the back.

Lime jello umm jello cream thing-it's lime jello and Cool Whip (ahhhhh!)

Pomegranate sorbet- a bastion of clean, pure flavors in a meal of American cuisine circa 1960

My father was pleased with this meal. He said it was just like the good old days.

Edited December 26, 2005 by BryanZ (log)

[Megan Blocker]

Bryan, so sorry to hear about your grandmother - my thoughts are with you and your family.

Looks like you did a great job of making a classic meal edible! The green beans look especially good to me, and the bacon and vinegar make me think of our posting friend, Daniel!

The pomegranate sorbet sounds delicious.

Again, all the best to you in this tough time - I know cooking helps see me through the rough patches, and it seems like it helps you, too.