Dinner! 2008

[C. sapidus]

Shelby, thanks! Good luck getting un-rutted.

Parmhero, beautiful!

PercyN, that salad does sound amazing. I look forward to seeing you decipher it.

Tonight’s dinner is over on the even quieter Thai cooking at home thread (clicky).

[Dr. J]

Great meals everybody. Great looking tempura parmhero.

Ok so I had told myself a bunch of times that I never wanted to make my own pasta, so I woke up last week and said I want to make pasta from scratch. My actual motivation was a dish I saw in one of Ramsey's kitchen nightmares. In the episode he challenged the cooks in the restaurant to make a dish with oxtail and the winning dish was to be put in the lunch menu. I decided to re-create not the winning dish, but one of the loosing dishes where the chef got the oxtail meat and wrapped it around pasta. I had no clue how the guy did it, they just showed it briefly but I thought it would be a good idea.

Since I had never made pasta before I figured I'd make a simple pasta dish to se the results.

First pasta recipe was flour, eggs, olive oil. Came out ok, not exactly what I wanted.

So I made the oxtail and made the pasta. First attempt was to wrap the cooked oxtail in the pasta and steam it. Epic failure, didn't have the right consistency and didnt go well.

Second attempt was the pasta made with flour, eggs, milk. I cooked the pasta first then wrapped it. Failure 2, the while the pasta tasted better, still the combination was nothing to write home about.

My next attempt would be to use different quantities of semolina flour and see how those go. I am not trying the dish again just because I don't see any potential in the dish, any advice here would be welcome.

So I thought about maybe if I put some sweet potato inside it would sweeten the dish and make it taste better, but I had given up on using pasta so I came up with this dish. Rice made with walnuts and cilantro. Then I boiled some sweet potato and filled with the oxtail. Topped it with some QP and tonkotsu sauce and finally success. This dish came out very tasty and am glad I didn't waste all the oxtail in experiments.

[tkassum]

I made "Yabba Dabba Do" from the French Laundry Cookbook.

This was the finished product.

Thanksgiving dinner on the way. Photos will be taken. Fun will be had.

My Phood Photography skills are not quite perfected yet. Any guidance to sites with suggestions would be appreciated.

TK

http://fumblingchef.blogspot.com/

[suzilightning]

tonight is the annual manhattan clam chowder dinner for johnnybird. i already have the oatmeal bread and portugese sweet bread rising though, sadly, there will not be any little kitty footprints through the towel to help it rise again this year.

i have selected my dinner for tomorrow: maultashen with beef broth and carmelized onions, oven roasted cauliflower, some black forest ham and afterwords i'll start on a set of white fruitcake.

[Kim Shook]

Percyn – sometimes I see a dish on eG that makes me think, other times I see one that makes me immediately hungry, no matter when I last ate. Occasionally, I see one dish that does both! That poached egg and brioche dish was one of the occasionals! Awesome!

Dr J – beautiful pasta – especially for a first time. I am envious!

Suzi – I, too, miss kitty footprints this time of year. My boys loved the tree and the oyster stuffing and stalked the turkey and Banshee (my little girl kitty) liked carrying off all the rubber bands from around the wrapping paper.

I’ve been filling the Christmas freezer and dinners have been ordered out, eggs, cheese and crackers, etc. but I finally cooked a dinner:

mostly leftovers – Panini made with bagels from the freezer, ham, American and Swiss and some chicken soup from when Mr. Kim was recuperating. I don’t care what you make them with, Panini are good!

[Ce'nedra]

My my look at all this food galore!

Dr. J: That fresh pasta looks heavenly and almost as if it'll melt in my mouth (not that pasta is supposed to but it looks soo good!).

And your sweet potato looks like a golden crown MMM...

Kim Shook: Your 'leftovers' look like a pretty warming meal to me. I'd like some of that right about now.

As for me, this is pretty old but I figured I had nothing else to post at this point. It's on to discovering my roots with our family friend bringing over freshly made Teochew dumplings, also known as Koo Chye Kueh.

They arrived steamed but me liking all things a little crisp and golden, I pan fried my dumplings.

Here are the bottoms flipped up

Plated -the dumplings are fairly large and plump

Served with sauce (combo of soy, sesame oil, palm vinegar and a little sugar)

The filling of pork & prawn with chives spilling out

Edited November 27, 2008 by Ce'nedra (log)

[Toufas]

stuffed pork shoulder with double fried chips, mushroom and cheese sauce on a plate i didnt wipe down before taking the photo

its sage stuffing, nothing special.

Edited November 27, 2008 by Toufas (log)

[menuinprogress]

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Those look fantastic! Is there a recipe for them online somewhere?

[Ce'nedra]

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Those look fantastic! Is there a recipe for them online somewhere?

←

Sorry I can't seem to find any recipes for it online.

However, I do plan to ask my family friend how it's done

[percyn]

Where are all the Thanksgiving pics??? People still recovering from yesterday's meal? Well, here is my contribution....

This year we had a small gathering of 6 at my Aunt's house. My Aunt made the Turkey along with other sides like mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, gravy, coleslaw, broccoli, etc.

and I made Prime Rib

For dessert we had Pecan, Pumpkin and Apple Caramel Nut pies

We were soooo full we could not eat for days....OK, for a few hours...for lunch I made a sandwich out of the leftover cranberry relish, casserole, stuffing and turkey

[David Ross]

Every now and then I make a homemade hamburger for dinner. Nothing I've found locally from a restaurant comes close-although I do prefer restaurant fries over the fries I attempt to make at home.

Two weeks ago I travelled to Oregon to visit family. On the way home I stopped at a Whole Foods market South of Portland. Unfortunately, we don't have a grocery store on the level of Whole Foods in Spokane.

I bought some "Organic, Grass-Fed Hamburger" because I've been interested in this current debate as to the merits and taste of Grass-Fed beef over traditionally raised beef-ie. pasture-fed and then fattened on grain and/or corn in a feedlot.

I found these beautiful brioche hamburger buns from a bakery in San Francisco. Sorry, I can't give the bakers their due credit because I ate all the buns and the wrapping went in the recycling bin before I got the name of the bakery!

I dress my burgers with shredded iceberg lettuce, dill pickle chips, thousand island dressing and cheddar cheese. Instead of my normally feeble attempt at fries I made passable homemade potato chips.

The minute the burger hit the pan it smelled very "beefy"-just like I remember the hamburgers my Grandmother cooked on our family cattle ranch many years ago. I was anticipating becoming a "Grass-Fed" fan. Then I tasted the burger.

It was good-very juicy and very flavorful. It wasn't sweet like buffalo, but it didn't have the beef flavor I'm used to. I wouldn't describe the taste as "grassy" or "herbal," it just seemed to taste a bit off. I'm usually not at a loss for words when describing foods, but in this case I can't really find the exact words to convey the taste of this beef.

Let's leave it at I'm not going to buy more grass-fed beef. Organic, probably. Naturally-raised, yes. But good or bad, maybe my taste buds are numb to grass-fed beef. I think I'll stay with cattle who graze on grass, then are finished with corn and grain. Enjoy the picture.

[David Ross]

From a technical standpoint, the grass-fed beef did not shrink during cooking and it didn't seep out water like you find when cooking with the basic, "10% solution added" hamburger you buy at the supermarket.

Edited November 29, 2008 by David Ross (log)

[rooftop1000]

David my husband says that grass fed beef tastes a little livery to him...

tracey

[David Ross]

David my husband says that grass fed beef tastes a little livery to him...

tracey

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Thank you, that helps me a bit. I'd say a touch of a liver taste, along with the flavors of grass and herbs, a bit more sweet than salty, and bordering on "gamy." I think it's an acquired taste. But for me, not really worth the extra cost. The hamburger I bought was $12.99 a pound.

Edited November 29, 2008 by David Ross (log)

[PopsicleToze]

Thanksgiving was a success with no great disasters. We didn't even burn the rolls, and I think that's a first. These were my contributions:

Fried turkey

Garlic and Rosemary Roasted Pork Loin

Rolls - rising (the camera ate the picture of them baked evidently)

But the star of the show was definitely the Coconut Almond Cream Cake. I baked the cake and made the filling the night before, and iced the cake Thanksgiving morning. It was a bit time-consuming, but definitely well worth it.

I was worried because I'm definitely not a baker and the instructions said to "pour the batter" into the cake pans. The batter was not really pourable and had to be spread into the pans with a spatula. I crossed my fingers and kept going.

Coconut almond filling -- ready for top layer

Finally finished

[prasantrin]

PopsicleToze--is that Brooks' Coconut Almond Cream Cake? It looks awesome!

Edited November 29, 2008 by prasantrin (log)

[PopsicleToze]

It sure is. When I saw it in Southern Living, I thought I had seen that cake before -- so I read the article and lo and behold -- it was Brooks' cake. It was my first cake ever made from scratch. Everyone loved it.

[Lonnj]

So I've been lurking in the dinner thread for a long time, and finally have some pictures I'm proud enough of to post. Last night I used up some of the Thanksgiving leftovers by making Turkey Tetrazzini (yet managed to produce even more leftovers).

Tonight, inspired by a trip to the local asian grocery store (Uwajimaya, for you northwesterners), I made potstickers (first time for me!) and Tom Kha (Thai lemongrass and coconut soup). It was all really good, but I screwed up and left the lemongrass out of the soup (facepalm). I made it better with some lemon zest and lime juice, but it just wasn't as good as it should have been.

Potstickers Step One. Turn this:

into this:

Step Two. Mix w/egg, Worcestershire, sesame oil, salt, pepper, egg, etc.

Step Three. Make Dumplings

Step Four. Make dipping sauce. I should have done this hours earlier to let everything mellow out and blend. It's chili flakes, fresh ginger, garlic, scallions, soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar and sesame oil.

Step Five. Steam-Fry.

Step Six. Gorge Self.

And a few of the Tom Kha. Note the absence of lemongrass. I used monkfish as the meat and the fish was incredible.

[dockhl]

Beautiful pictorial, Lonnj, and gorgeous looking food! Welcome, we look forward to more lovely posts

Kathy

[Kim Shook]

Ce'nedra – the Shook house was salivating over those dumplings! They are beautiful and look so good! If I had a family friend who could make those, I’d ask for a lesson!

Percyn – no Thanksgiving shots from me, we ate at my MIL’s and my only contribution was sweet potato soufflé (don’t get excited, it’s just a name – no true soufflé-ing went on) and Jessica made a delicious apple gallette. My in laws think I’m totally odd for taking pictures, so I don’t bother with their meals . Your dinner looked wonderful start to finish, but I admit, my favorite part would have been that open faced sandwich at the end and I’d have had that at about midnight Thurday, if I’d remembered to pack up some gravy when I did our leftover packages !

PopsicleToze – I am just awestruck by that gorgeous cake! The crumb looks absolutely perfect. What an impressive first effort, too! Which SL was that in? I get the annual every year and I want to find that recipe!

Lonnj – I’ll just ditto Kathy! Wonderful food and your potstickers are works of art. Keep ‘em coming!

Here’s my contribution:

Well, it’s not dinner yet, but it will be on December 24th! I started my gravy. This is the roasted veg and turkey wings. They looked so pretty and there was no one here to admire them, so I thought I’d show my online buddies, who will appreciate the sight. They are all simmering away in broth at this moment to be strained later. Then, as soon as they are cool enough, I’ll pick the meat from the wings and defat the stock and start a long, slow, dark roux. This probably won’t go into the freezer until tomorrow night. I should have started yesterday, but the day got away from me.

[Prawncrackers]

Fantastic dumplings Lonnj, great to have you break cover!

Tonight i made steak made using the slow method discussed in Fat Guy's recent thread. I was dubious initially but seeing the results i am a total convert. Great crust on the steak and what i enjoyed most about the method was that it felt very controllable. Started with a longhorn rib and served with a simple salad and bernaise:

For starter we had roasted pumpkin & garlic soup with chorizo & pistachios:

I had a lot of pistachios leftover from the baklava i'd made earlier in the week!!

[3j2l3a]

i cooked a delicious dinner for myself last night! i'm tempted to cook it again tonight - if i do, i'll be sure to post pictures...

bought a 1/2lb. of fresh shrimp from my local seafood vendor (shells still on). shelled the shrimp, let them sit in a bit of olive oil, lemon juice, black pepper, and kosher salt, while i prepared the rest.

sauteed some chopped shallots in a pan with olive oil. once browned, i sauteed a couple of handfuls of baby spinach in the oil and shallots and turned the heat down to low. while simmering, i halved some plum tomatoes and added those to the pan, sauteeing everything together.

in another pan, i sauteed some more shallots in olive oil, and then added the marinated shrimp.

once everything was cooked, i plated the shrimp on top of the spinach/tomato/shallot mixture.

DELICIOUS! (and healthy, too...)

[menuinprogress]

Awesome looking steak from start to finish, Prawn! I need to try that cooking method.

[percyn]

...I had a lot of pistachios leftover from the baklava i'd made earlier in the week!!

Prawn....it all looks delicious, especially the Baklava....may I request the recipe?

[DutchMuse]

For a snowy night in Chicago, I grilled a Dakota Farms Bone In Rib Steak with Belgian Frites (double fried and made with fingerling potatoes) and asparagus:

Edited December 2, 2008 by DutchMuse (log)