Dinner! 2007

[Becca Porter]

Michael, I don't know where it went. Thanks for the heads up.

[gfron1]

Last night I made Jambalaya ala Auntie Young. She's a woman that I paid calls on as she aged who lived in uptown New Orleans. I was thin as a rail back then (now I'm thin as a stick), and she would always try to plump me up. In this version I added shrimp, andouille, chicken and some Spanish chorizo picante just because I had it around. My spouse was embarassed that I took a picture of our Rose, but I thought it was a good wine and a good pairing.

[little ms foodie]

some fellow food enthusiasts got together for our quarterly French cook together but this time we decided to include French colonies. Printempts Deux:

Abra made banana jalenpeno fritters with a red pepper dipping sauce

LEdlund made duck liver pate and her Mr. made a fabulous cocktail also called Printemp!

Then we sat- 14 at the table - and started the meal!

I made roasted shallot custard for the amuse bouche

Seagal made a fabulous poisson cru with home fried taro and other chips (sorry I can't remember the 2 other types but they were awesome!)

Abra was back up with a soup of lemongrass and ginger which was soooo good, she also sauteed some shrimp in garlic for a garnish.

she also brought us tastes of a jackfruit soup she had first thought of serving- this is served room temp and was VERY spicy!!!

TallDrinkOfWater and I did the salad course, the French Laos Fushion Salad out of HSSS

malarky made the wonderful chicken from Wolfert's SW France- this is in the style of the Bearn

Eden made a to die for lamb dish which I can't remember the name of!

All these dishes had their own wine pairings!!

Cheese course next put together by Allyson

and then came dessert................

Bill made salt carmel ice cream which we sucked down without taking a picture! and then Sparrowsfall made a creamy carmely dessert too- help, can't remember the name but again it was dish lickable!

[sanrensho]

Abra was back up with a soup of lemongrass and ginger which was soooo good, she also sauteed some shrimp in garlic for a garnish.

This looks/sounds amazing. Is it a coconut milk base (like a tom kha gai), or something else entirely?

[little ms foodie]

Abra was back up with a soup of lemongrass and ginger which was soooo good, she also sauteed some shrimp in garlic for a garnish.

This looks/sounds amazing. Is it a coconut milk base (like a tom kha gai), or something else entirely?

←

If abra is around I'm sure she'll jump in but I do remember her saying it was coconut based I believe

[markemorse]

I almost tried making a coconut-based jackfruit soup this week....I'd love to know what you did (Abra) and why you didn't serve it (other than overspicyness).....

thx

mark

[hathor]

Good lord. I'm so glad the French colonies were invited.

[jrt]

My spouse was embarassed that I took a picture of our Rose, but I thought it was a good wine and a good pairing.

←

Never, ever get embarassed about rose.

(Ever.)

[Dianne]

Wow, you folks in Seattle really know how to live. What a fabulous looking meal.

[lucylou95816]

Wendy

That meal looks fabulous!

[David Ross]

little ms. foodie-Wonderful Copper River Salmon! It looks so juicy and delicous on the cous cous. Great combination.

For those of us who live in the Northwest, (I'm in the Eastern part of Washington), we have the opportunity to be the first people in the lower 48 each Spring to taste this delicious salmon. It comes from the Copper River in Alaska. The season is very short and the price tends to be high because only a small amount of salmon are harvested. The meat is almost red in color due to the high oil content of the salmon. And it's that oil that makes it moist, tender and delicious. People actually put in advance orders at their fish counter to reserve one of these precious salmon. The season must be good this year because in my fish market it was only $14.99 a pound last Friday. That is cheap considering the fact that in recent years Copper River Salmon was as high as $35.00 a pound in my area.

The fishermen in Alaska and some of Seattle's best restaurants sponsor a competition each year to see who can be the first to get Copper River Salmon onboard Alaska Airlines and down to Seattle in time to get on the evening's dinner menu.

Here are photos of Friday night's dinner. The Copper River Salmon was the entree.

The starter was a take on a recipe I got from the Roux Brothers Le Gavroche cookbook-with a few of my own changes. It is a salad of watercress tossed with a black truffle vinaigrette. The dressing is actually the consistency of thick mayonnaise rather than the runny consistency of a traditional vinaigrette. The recipe called for presenting the salad in a 'bowl' made of melted parmesan-like a parmesan wafer. I served the salad on a 'crouton' that I sauteed in lots of butter. I added the fresh radishes on the side with some more of the truffle vinaigrette.

I seared the salmon, skin side down, in olive oil and butter for about 4 minutes, then turned it over and roasted it meat side down in a 400 oven for another 7-8 minutes. I basted the salmon a couple of times with some of the pan juices to get the skin really crispy. (I love crispy salmon skin, it's sort of the 'chip' with the fish). I made a beurre blanc sauce and added a bit of fish stock for some extra flavor. I served the salmon on a bed of asparagus, morels and baby yukon gold potatoes. The fresh morels in our area finally came down in price-from $45 a pound three weeks ago to $25 a pound last week. The morels are huge this year, about the size of your thumb, so you only need a couple for each serving. The garnish is a little sprig of chervil that happened to have flowers-a great little flourish for my photo.

The dessert was also from the Le Gavroche cookbook. It is a chocolate sponge cake bottom with a thick top layer of chocolate mousse. The sauce is a mint creme anglaise. I would probably fine tune the recipe a bit in the future-I wouldn't add ground almonds to the cake layer because I didn't like the texture of the nuts in the cake. Otherwise it was very good. The chocolate mousse is very thick and dense, not like the airy chocolate mousse you might imagine. The texture was closer to the texture of a chocolate terrine. I used bittersweet chocolate to enhance the chocolate flavor. As they say, a little goes a long way.

[David Ross]

Then on Saturday night, I made a lobster risotto. I had some of those local, fresh morels and local asparagus left over from the Copper River Salmon dish so I just had to use them up. I used lobster stock for the cooking liquid-it adds another hint of lobster flavor to the finished risotto. For the garnish I used another tiny sprig of that beautiful flowering chervil that I used on the salmon the night before. This risotto was REALLY GOOD.

[Abra]

The jackfruit soup started out as this Breadfruit Vichyssoise. It turns out that you can't actually get breadfruit here, so I used canned green jackfruit, which is supposed to be a substitute. The habanero was too much except for a tiny portion, and the jackfruit itself was basically flavorless. Plus, the soup was a hideous khaki color.

Here's the Cream of Ginger with Lemongrass Soup. I strained it and used the remaining lemongrass and ginger solids, ground up with some lime leaves, to make a little marinade for the shrimp, which I added because the soup is rather plain. It was mild and delicate, and could have used a little more lemongrass.

The fritters were West African Banana and Chile Fritters. I tweaked these a lot, adding more chile, a LOT more salt, and after frying up a test one, a small heap of baking powder. They need a dipping sauce, and I used a red pepper jam made by a friend.

[sanrensho]

Here's the Cream of Ginger with Lemongrass Soup.  I strained it and used the remaining lemongrass and ginger solids, ground up with some lime leaves, to make a little marinade for the shrimp, which I added because the soup is rather plain.  It was mild and delicate, and could have used a little more lemongrass.

Thanks Abra and little ms foodie. I look forward to trying this recipe soon.

[dockhl]

Abra~

I am amazed that the ginger/lemongrass soup is not only NOT coconut based but uses powdered ginger! Who'da thunk?

Were the Banana fritters a little sweet?

What an interesting meal. I am jealous that we don't do anything like that around here. Maybe we need to start..............

HEY ! Central Coast eGulleteers!

[DanielM.]

Salmon Niçoise

[little ms foodie]

The jackfruit soup started out as this Breadfruit Vichyssoise.  It turns out that you can't actually get breadfruit here, so I used canned green jackfruit, which is supposed to be a substitute.  The habanero was too much except for a tiny portion, and the jackfruit itself was basically flavorless.  Plus, the soup was a hideous khaki color.

Here's the Cream of Ginger with Lemongrass Soup.  I strained it and used the remaining lemongrass and ginger solids, ground up with some lime leaves, to make a little marinade for the shrimp, which I added because the soup is rather plain.  It was mild and delicate, and could have used a little more lemongrass.

The fritters were West African Banana and Chile Fritters.  I tweaked these a lot, adding more chile, a LOT more salt, and after frying up a test one, a small heap of baking powder.  They need a dipping sauce, and I used a red pepper jam made by a friend.

←

thanks abra, sorry about the coconut thing- I did think it was in there! I am definately making that soup- yummy!

[rooftop1000]

the food was on the countertop, the camera was on the countertop...if only the camera had jumped up and taken some pictures

Oh well, we started with a

White Peach Sangria

2 bottles of Pinot Grigio

1 can of Goya peach nectar

almost 1 pint of Peach schnaaps

half an orange squeezed in

half an orange sliced

lemon sliced

lime sliced

peach sliced

moved right into a chipotle spinach dip and salsa dip with Doritos

next pulled smoked pork butt, smoked chicken thighs, cole slaw, rolls and grilled corn

followed by cheesecake and groaning

tracey

[SeaGal]

The jackfruit soup started out as this Breadfruit Vichyssoise.  It turns out that you can't actually get breadfruit here, so I used canned green jackfruit, which is supposed to be a substitute.  The habanero was too much except for a tiny portion, and the jackfruit itself was basically flavorless.  Plus, the soup was a hideous khaki color.

Here's the Cream of Ginger with Lemongrass Soup.  I strained it and used the remaining lemongrass and ginger solids, ground up with some lime leaves, to make a little marinade for the shrimp, which I added because the soup is rather plain.  It was mild and delicate, and could have used a little more lemongrass.

The fritters were West African Banana and Chile Fritters.  I tweaked these a lot, adding more chile, a LOT more salt, and after frying up a test one, a small heap of baking powder.  They need a dipping sauce, and I used a red pepper jam made by a friend.

←

While Abra wasn't too happy with the bread/jackfruit soup, many of us at the table loved it. It was served cold and was highly seasoned and oddly enough, provided a great counterpoint to the warm ginger and lemongrass soup--which was so good!

The fritters reminded me of a spicy, tropical corn fritter and the red pepper jam was a perfect foil for them. The only problem for me, was that I got there later and so didn't get to try them warm. I'll bet they'd be even better hot out of the fryer.

[SeaGal]

some fellow food enthusiasts got together for our quarterly French cook together but this time we decided to include French colonies. Printempts Deux:

Seagal made a fabulous poisson cru with home fried taro and other chips (sorry I can't remember the 2 other types but they were awesome!)

←

The other two chips are a Korean purple sweet potato and a yellow yam (that's what it was labeled at the Asian market I got them from anyway), which on further research may have been either a Japanese sweet potato (kotobuki) or a Jersey sweet potato.

[christine007]

Holy crap, what an awesome run of meals!

I'm still in a food induced coma.. no pics, but we hauled out the Webber kettle grill and made BBQ chicken, hot dogs, and mixed grill of portobella mushrooms, corn on the cob, onions, tomato slices and mixed peppers. Served along with pasta salad, cheesy potato gratin, deviled eggsand fruit salad.

Pop to drink. (we're not wine at dinner drinkers.)

[C. sapidus]

Wow, that’s an envy-inspiring dinner in the PNW. You folks set a high standard!

Stephanie: Beautiful carnitas!

. . . a cucumber and carrot salad with toasted cumin, cayenne, vinager & sugar (thought of Bruce!) . . .

←

Aww, thanks Wendy.

Inspired by Yunnermeier’s Malaysian blog, we made spiced braised Nyonya pork (seh bak); Javanese cucumber and carrot pickle (acar timun); and Nyonya sambal (sambal belacan); all from Cradle of Flavor. Shallots, galangal, Chinkiang vinegar, and black soy mingled with whole cinnamon, star anise, and cloves, while big cubes of Boston butt slowly braised to create an incredible sauce. Plates were licked, and rightly so.

I hurried the final reduction to have dinner on the table before the boys’ bedtime. Next time I will allow an extra hour and trim less of the internal fat. Like rendang, this dish is ready in its own good time.

Edited May 29, 2007 by C. sapidus (log)

[Chufi]

Wendy and all you PNW eGulleters, wow what a feast! Everything looks great but I have to single out this one:

Abra made banana jalenpeno fritters with a red pepper dipping sauce

←

I'd recognize a plate of Abra's food from a thousand miles away

Here's our final healthy dinner form last week, noodles with beef and celery and chili black bean sauce. There was a salad of cucumbers, yellow peppers and mint on the side.

Saturday we had a bottle of wine, I made pizza and after that we went out for icecream

Yesterday we had some friends over for dinner.

Walnut-roasted red pepper paste, grilled eggplant with creamy tahini sauce, and my home made pitta! I was so proud of those puffy little breads!

After that we had the slow baked lamb with potatoes from Paula Wolferts Slow Meditteranean. The lamb is marinated (and cooked) in milk flavored with fennel seeds, garlic and rosemary. Pecorino and breadcrumbtopping. It was really good. We had some roasted cauliflower and a tomato salad on the side.

raspberry cheesecake with blueberry compote

[Shaya]

What a beautiful page of food.

I love your pita, Chufi. Just beautiful. That lamb looks wonderful, and the topping of potato and cheese, yum. How did you keep the topping from drying out while the lamb cooked - was it covered the whole time?

PNW folks, that dinner looks amazing. I love the soups, the chips, the chicken and lamb...wow.

Bruce that dinner looks really tasty.

[Emily_R]

Chufi! Looks divine! I'm wondering if you could share your pita recipe -- I have tried several, and while all tasty, have never managed to get any to consistently puff. Yours look incredible!

Emily