Dinner! 2005

[ChefCrash]

Focaccia and pizza Margarita in the same pan.

12 minutes later.

Served with Jacob's Creek mary lou.

[purplewiz]

Tuna salad sandwiches and a small salad. I have a cold and can't taste anything, so I made stuff I didn't have to taste and adjust seasonings in.

Marcia.

[BryanZ]

Medallions of lobster tail cooked sous vide with black truffle butter and poricini mushrooms over risotto-style pasta. The pasta was cooked slowly in lobster stock by adding one ladleful of stock at a time and stirring until the liquid is absorbed, similar to a risotto. This is one of my favorite ways to prepare pasta, as it imparts flavor into each piece of pasta and gives the dish a creamy texture.

Halibut with a light asparagus cream sauce. I love the combination of halibut and asparagus (the idea for the sauce was suggested by the g/f); the sweet, grassiness of the asparagus goes great with the fish.

[Susan in FL]

Hello Dinner Thread Buddies from the San Diego Airport where we just ate nachos and burritos courtesy of food vouchers from United Airlines, waiting for our delayed luggage to arrive! ...No photos, but in a week or two, I will have some catching up to do including some good photos of dinners/Christmas in Key West.

[Chris Amirault]

Bryan, you sure know what to do with your winter break, man.

[I_call_the_duck]

Bryan, you're the king of sous vide. I gotta try that pasta risotto-style.

Last night was more freezer fun. Mr. Duck did most of the cooking, so I unearthed some hamburger that we got from the farmers market. We had hamburgers with onions and peppers, mashed potatoes, and sauteed spinach. And some leftover wine from the night before. No pics. Too lazy to go upstairs to get the camera.

[Grub]

Man, it was nasty out there tonight. Rain and leaves and general unpleasantness. Ugh. Got an umbrella rigged up, and lit some coals up -- trying not to burn the brolly down or anything. It's a challenge, grilling things in the wintertime, but I guess I'm spoiled and should be grateful that it ain't snowing, and that I'm not being attacked by wolves and lynxes and polar bears and whatnot.

But uh, me make seekh kebabs. Voila!

[Chufi]

The pasta was cooked slowly in lobster stock by adding one ladleful of stock at a time and stirring until the liquid is absorbed, similar to a risotto.  This is one of my favorite ways to prepare pasta, as it imparts flavor into each piece of pasta and gives the dish a creamy texture.

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only on EGullet... what an interesting idea!

Susan, the Dinner! thread misses you! can't wait for your report!

[gini]

I had a Hannukah dinner at my house last night with 3 friends. I actually don't really like lattkes, but they were requested so I made two types: potato and zucchini. The zucchini fritters had gruyere and cayane pepper in them, but the potato were "traditional." With them we had a potted whole chicken with onions and black peppercorns as well as some cranberry sauce. My friends loved sour cream on their lattkes, but weren't so enthused by the applesauce. Go figure.

The chicken was great, and the company was better.

[Shalmanese]

Medallions of lobster tail cooked sous vide with black truffle butter and poricini mushrooms over risotto-style pasta.  The pasta was cooked slowly in lobster stock by adding one ladleful of stock at a time and stirring until the liquid is absorbed, similar to a risotto.  This is one of my favorite ways to prepare pasta, as it imparts flavor into each piece of pasta and gives the dish a creamy texture.

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Do you find the pasta to be significantly different that just being cooked in lobster broth? Is there any point to the single ladles? It seems to me that pasta doesn't absorb liquid in the same way as rice does so the same effect would be achieved either way.

[Shalmanese]

Professor Shalmanese's Cooking School - Day 8

Breakfast:

Plum Smoothie

Lunch:

Chicken & Mushroom Risotto

Dinner:

Autumn Squash Soup with Garlic Croutons, Proscuitto & Creme Fraiche

Gnocci with Tomato, Chilli & Proscuitto

Peaches & Plums with Home-made Yogurt & Honey

[Shalmanese]

Professor Shalmanese's Cooking School - Day 9

Lunch:

Sesame-Chicken Noodle Salad

Miso Soup

Dinner:

Peking Duck, Crab with Noodle, Crispy Skin Duck, Soya Chicken, Sea Cucumber with Shittake Mushrooms, Mapo Dofu, 2 types of Chinese Greens & Fried Rice.

[Eden]

Riffing off a meal from Abra's recent blog we had Michel Guerard's Celery root & apple puree and Potatos (and Carrots-my addition) of Quercy from Paula Wolfert's Cooking of SW France, along with Chufi's Butter Braised Beef.

I have to say Abra was right (no surprise) this combination was wonderful!

and I want to revisit the full meal next time.

The carrots were my addition, both because Abra had mentioned wanting a bit more color on the plate, and because I am a carrot fiend. They tasted fabulous cooked in the goose fat along with the potatoes.

We skipped the salad to start with (limited time available, and a friend who for health reasons shouldn't have duck) and just had some cheeses and house cured olives. One of my guests hates almond paste, so instead of the speculaas we finished with a bit of eggnog ice-cream and cherry clafoutis from the Silver Spoon cookbook trying to round out the pan-European menu theme by adding in a French dish ala Italy and in fact I found the italian clafoutis recipe a bit cakier than usual.

I love chufi's butter braised beef! but warning to future cooks, if you have skin that is sensitive to grease, do NOT prepare this the night before you want to look nice for a big party such as new years eve!

edited for typos

Edited December 31, 2005 by Eden (log)

[BryanZ]

Medallions of lobster tail cooked sous vide with black truffle butter and poricini mushrooms over risotto-style pasta.  The pasta was cooked slowly in lobster stock by adding one ladleful of stock at a time and stirring until the liquid is absorbed, similar to a risotto.  This is one of my favorite ways to prepare pasta, as it imparts flavor into each piece of pasta and gives the dish a creamy texture.

←

Do you find the pasta to be significantly different that just being cooked in lobster broth? Is there any point to the single ladles? It seems to me that pasta doesn't absorb liquid in the same way as rice does so the same effect would be achieved either way.

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Surpisingly, it is quite different. The slow addition of the stock and constant stirring really give the pasta a creamy risotto-style texture. It's really nothing like pasta prepared in the traditional way. Just like any risotto, you can easily stir in other vegetables like mushrooms, asparagus, etc, about halfway through the cooking process. Throw in a handful of cheese at the end and you're set.

[Jason Perlow]

New Years Eve was lobster. Oh what a lobster.

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Rachel: We bought a very large lobster (again). This time I stuffed it with a Ritz cracker based seafood stuffing (bits from the lobster's legs, chopped shrimp and bay scallops, a take off of Alton Brown's recipe - hint, have the store par cook it to kill the beast, and have them break the claws and cut it in half while they're at it!). We started with an appetizer of shrimp cocktail, and had sides of steamed baby broccoli (new at Han Ah Reum) and spinach souffle stuffed baked potatoes.

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[hzrt8w]

Ox Tail and Tomato in Clay Pot (番茄牛尾煲)

This Chinese dish is made by stealing some techniques from French and Vietnamese cookings. The taste of the soft ox tail after 2 hours of simmering in tomato sauce with lemon grass and star anise/clove flavor is just wonderful.

Recipe here.

Edited January 1, 2006 by hzrt8w (log)

[Chris Hennes]

NOTE FROM MANAGEMENT: This topic is continued in Dinner! 2006