Dinner! 2007

[DesertCulinary]

We had a good ol' meat and potatoes night tonight!

Vermont Cheddar Mashed Yukon Golds

Sesame-Crusted Beef Tenderloin Steaks with Pineapple, Mango, and Red Pepper Relish

[Nishla]

Damn, Shalmanese, that whole lineup is pretty impressive!

Marlene, I want those brownies

First, a couple dishes from last week:

Green beans sauteed with garlic, chorizo and shallots:

Avocado with sardines and sun dried tomato:

The sardines were a bit fishier than I liked, but the whole salad was tasty.

On the weekends, we've been trying to make dinners for friends. This past saturday, we had my officemate and her husband over:

Started with fingerling potato skins filled with the potato innards mashed with cream cheese, bacon and scallions:

Soup of white sweet potato and apple, topped with vanilla oil and apple skin crisps:

Carbonara made with perciatelli (like very thick spaghetti with a hollow center):

Steak with wilted arugula and mashed potatoes with lots of butter and cream

We picked up this ribeye at Savenor's, and it was probably the nicest piece of meat I've ever purchased. Just seasoned with salt and pepper, then seared in a cast iron pan.

Finished with bananas foster on vanilla ice cream, but it was devoured too quickly for photos

[ludja]

Two birthday celebrations between myself and another couple who enjoy French food and wine seemed like a good opportunity to cook a joint meal from Paul Wolfert's "The Cooking of Southwest France". Here is the menu and a few photos from the dinner. Other photos and detailed descriptions of the dishes are in this post on the thread dedicated to cooking from the book: click

Goat cheese and truffled tapanade pastries

Artichoke hearts stuffed w artichoke relish and reggiano parmigiano

Cremant:de Bourgogne Bailly-Lapierre (sparkling Rose)

(These hors d'oeuvres were the only items not from the book.)

Torchon of Foie Gras with Toasted Brioche

2001 Sauternes Chateau Raymond-Lafon

Salmon Rillettes with Salade Frisee and Toasted Bread

2005 Coteaux du Languedoc Ermitage du Pic S'Loup (white)

Asparagus with Asparagus Sauce

Chicken Thighs with Pineau de Charentes

Casserole of Duck Breasts with Potatoes as in Bigorre

2003 Bandol Domaine de Terre Brune (Provence)

2004 Irouleguy Arretxea Therese et Michel Riouspeyrous (French Basque)

2004 Collioure La Pinede Domaine de la Tour Vieille (Languedoc)

Spiced Red Wine Sorbet with Raspberries

Gateau Basque

2004 Collioure et Banyuls Vendanges Domain de la Tour Vielle, (red dessert wine from Languedoc)

We were able to find two wines that Paula Wolfert specifically mentioned in the book—a full-bodied red from Irouleguy (French Basque) and the Banyuls red dessert wine produced in the Lanquedoc. Other wines were from Languedoc and other points south—Burgundy, Provence and Bordeaux. Credit for procuring the wines goes to knowledgeable and generous friends with a little help from Kermit Lynch’s wine shop in Berkeley. Pineau de Charentes was used to make the wonderful chicken dish. I tasted a bit from the bottle as well; this is a very interesting fortified wine.

Goat cheese and truffled tapanade pastries (Gateau Basque in the foreground)

,,,

Asparagus with Asparagus Sauce

It was a wonderful and despite the amount of great wine we drank-memorable-dinner!

[The Blissful Glutton]

Carbonara made with perciatelli (like very thick spaghetti with a hollow center):

Looks gorgeous. One of my fave pasta shapes for carbonara. Perfect amount of pepper too.

Edited March 27, 2007 by The Blissful Glutton (log)

[Shalmanese]

Shal - a second 'yay' on your knife skills!  You really can read through the slices!  And that tart had me feeling faint.  Any chance of a recipe?

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You'll have to ask Ling, it's her recipe.

[Shalmanese]

Whole Foods have the new season halibut and I've never cooked it before so I decided to give it a try and I made a Halibut en papillote with Parsnips and Green Apple with a Brown Butter Apple Sauce:

Simmered the parsnips in water laced with some salt, sugar and lemon juice, seasoned the fish with some Hawaiian Red Salt and Pepper and threw in some Apple slices, Lemon slices and Lemon Zest and then topped it with a healthy glug of olive oil and some Moscato wine.

In honour of this thread, I made a brown butter apple sauce. Let some butter brown with some lemon zest and then threw in diced apples and some sugar and let it cook. Finally, garnished it with a fish skin chip. Maldon sea salt on some fish skin and then into a hot pan with another hot pan on top to keep it flat. So simple yet sooo crispy.

The sweetness of the parsnips, tartness of the apples and sweet nuttiness of the sauce played perfectly off each other and produced an amazingly light, tender fish infused with a delicate perfume.

For dessert, I had a Plum and Peach Galette, made from fruit picked at the peak of summer that I had in my freezer:

[little ms foodie]

Nishla that all sounds amazing!!!!

Kim you are funny!

[rockdoggydog]

Beautiful dinners everyone!

My own dinner was posole, rice, beans, and tortillas.

Getting started

Just about ready

Soup's on

Rocky

[GTO]

Oh, God! Where to start?

Everything looks good.

Rocky - Your soup looks awesome

Nishla - I had a good long stare at those mashed potatoes, very nice.

[Megan Blocker]

Carbonara made with perciatelli (like very thick spaghetti with a hollow center):

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Everything looks great, as usual, Nishla.

Quick question - how is pericatelli different from bucatini?

[ludja]

The posole looks perfect, rockdoggydog! What type of red chile and posole did you use? Any other secret ingredients?

You should also post this on the posole thread if you haven't already. One of my favorite dishes and one that I only had for the first time about 6 or 7 years ago.

[rockdoggydog]

Thanks guys. Normally I use ancho or pasilla chiles, but when I discovered I was out of both after committing to the dish last night I substituted harissa instead. The hominy is Rancho Gordo hominy available here.

Rocky

Edited March 27, 2007 by rockdoggydog (log)

[Toliver]

....And double fudge frosted brownies

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Where are the Food Porn police?!?

That looks positively decadant. Thanks for posting the pics, Marlene!

[Octaveman]

You beat me to it Toliver...that brownie just...um...WOW...my mouth AND eyes are watering that's how good that looks.

[doughgirl]

And double fudge frosted brownies

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Oh my.....any chance you could share you recipe or point me to the cookbook you used....those look heavenly and exactly the kind of brownie I'd like to eat! Everything you made looks just wonderful!

[doughgirl]

We had a good ol' meat and potatoes night tonight!

Vermont Cheddar Mashed Yukon Golds

Oh goodness, I could just dive right into the bowl of mashed potatoes! Those look so good!

[Marlene]

The recipe is in RecipeGullet - Double Fudge Chocolate Brownies I did add half a cup of chocolate chips to the batter.

[Chufi]

ludja what a wonderful French feast! Thanks for reminding me that I still have the salmon rillettes on my wishlist. And the gateau basque looks wonderful.

Nishla there is something about your food that really strikes a chord with me, it's always interesting and inspiring and delicious! That soup looks simply stunning.

Our dinner tonight was nothing remarkable, just a bowl of pasta with tomatosauce, with some olive oil & vinegar tossed arugula on top. But it was remarkable, because it was the first Balcony Dinner of the season! So that's what I wanted to share with you all

[doughgirl]

The recipe is in RecipeGullet - Double Fudge Chocolate Brownies  I did add half a cup of chocolate chips to the batter.

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thanks! I think I'll try them right now!

Edited March 27, 2007 by doughgirl (log)

[Marlene]

You're welcome! The other thing I do is use a square springform pan for these, but it's not as important since you're going to turn them over and frost the smooth side anyway. I just always have problems getting my squares out of a regular pan.

[racheld]

We had a good ol' meat and potatoes night tonight!

Vermont Cheddar Mashed Yukon Golds

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Definite DIVE!!! And I've never understood before the lure of climbing a mountain. . .

Wow. You DO know how to lead with your best shot. That's a picture for the Wall of Fame.

Welcome, DesertCulinary!

Marlene--- there you go again, with the Walk Right In chocolate.

And Great Big Ole Kudos to everyone---every day and every picture is a lovely surprise and revelation.

I've steamed some cauliflower and dressed it with lime-seasalt butter, and have a pot of little Calrose pearls awaiting the lamb curry with coconut milk. Fruit salad on the side.

[legourmet]

Now Germany's asparagus season started. I've got the first white asparagus on our farmer's market. The logical consequence was an asparagus dish for today's dinner.

Suckling veal rack in a herbed crust with baked white asparagus and rosemary potatoes.

Served with two sauces: Veal demi glace and sauce bearnaise.

Because of the beginning of spring we had rhubarb jelly with strawberry tatar and quartered strawberries with mascarpone cream.

[markk]

My local supermarket (Shop Rite) has been having organic Tilapia, which is seriously delicious. I've had lots of experience eating whole tilapia (in Chinatown, NYC, they have them alive, and they steam them whole to order) and they are exquisite - the fish has a light and fluffy texture, totally unlike the farm-raised (non organic) Tilapia fillets that are everywhere which are dense and leaden. (Besides, I've never understood how they can farm fillets only.) But the organic fillets are light, fluffy, and delicately flavorful, and really taste like you just took them off the bone of the whole cooked fish.

I topped mine with fresh oregano, a hint of garlic, a hint of sea salt, and lemon slices, drizzled it with a great Greek olive oil, and added a little white wine. Then I covered it in parchment (too lazy to make packets) and baked it.

Covered:

Uncovered:

After I plated the fish, I reduced the liquid for a minute and poured it over:

It was really delicious, but I think a lot of the credit goes to the quality of the fish.

[Becca Porter]

Baguettes that I made from a recipe in How To Cook Everything, chicken fricassee, from Cook's Illustrated, and roasted maple-mustard green beans also from CI.

[C. sapidus]

Markk: Thanks for the information about organic tilapia. I will keep an eye out for it. More information about organic tilapia (click) from Aquaculture Production Technology.

Becca Porter: Nice dinner, and beautiful baguettes!

We started with a family favorite: Vietnamese Napa cabbage and shrimp soup (canh cai kim chi nau tom). Jasmine rice is a nice addition at the table.

The main course was stir-fried beef with chiles and basil and more chiles (neua pat bai grapao). More information on Thai cooking at home, where you will also find Gabriel Lewis’ excellent pictorial tutorial on using a mortar and pestle to prepare Thai curry pastes.