Dinner! 2008

[David Ross]

A couple of recent dishes:

Oyster Empanadas served with Salad Greens, Roasted Red Pepper Sauce, Tartar Sauce and Queso Fresco Cheese. The stuffing for the empanadas was a mixture of chopped fresh oysters, cilantro, lemon juice, lemon zest and diced jalapeno.

Chicken roasted on my Weber Grill rotisserie, served with Shoestring Fries and Leeks Vinaigrette.

[Shelby]

Oyster empanadas! Tell me how!

[monavano]

Pizza Margheritta. The fresh mozzarella was good, but it didn't get any gooey pull. Maybe I need to add regular shredded mozzarella???

[David Ross]

A couple of recent dishes:

Oyster Empanadas served with Salad Greens, Roasted Red Pepper Sauce, Tartar Sauce and Queso Fresco Cheese.  The stuffing for the empanadas was a mixture of chopped fresh oysters, cilantro, lemon juice, lemon zest and diced jalapeno. 

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Usually I make traditional Empanadas with a spicy beef filling, so using oysters was a bit of an experiment.

The oyster Empanadas are really easy to make. For the stuffing, I chopped up fresh oysters and added cilantro, lemon juice, lemon zest and diced jalapeno. I thought about adding bread crumbs or mayonnaise as a binder, but I left it out because I didn't want to water down the taste of the oysters.

Technically, these were not really Empanadas because I used store-bought wontons to hold the oyster stuffing. Traditional Empanadas are made with a flour based dough. I usually make the dough the old fashioned way with Masa Harina and Lard.

This time I used wonton wrappers because I had forgotten to buy the Masa Harina at the store-so technically they were more on the Potsticker side than the Empanada side.

You roll out a small round of dough, place about a tablespoon of the oyster stuffing in the center and then fold over the dough to form a little moon-shaped dumpling.

Some people bake Empanadas, but I like to fry them so they are extra crispy. You deep-fry the little packets in hot oil at about 350 just until they turn golden-no more than about 2 minutes. Surprisingly, (and just the way I like them), the oyster chunks in the stuffing weren't overdone, still slurpy and delicious.

[C. sapidus]

Elder son was away at basketball camp this week, so we welcomed him home with grilled rib-eye steak, sliced into salad for the grown-ups. For the dressing, we gave cilantro, garlic, palm sugar, white pepper, lemon juice, and fish sauce a whirl in the blender. Leftover rice to fill any lingering empty spots.

[Jmahl]

Last week I had Menudo prepared by Tio Chago in Saltillo Mexico. It was a revelation. Not that funky smell. This was it. The textures, contrast of tastes, aroma.

Wow. It changed my whole opinion of menudo.

Jmahl

[monavano]

Risotto with parmesan, fresh peas and scallops.

[RAHiggins1]

Green Beans and Zucchini fresh from my garden with onions and capers. Other ingredients were olive oil, salt, pepper, and some dried basil (was out of fresh).

Edited June 30, 2008 by RAHiggins1 (log)

[Kim Shook]

David - oyster empanadas!!! That sounds like fun! I would love those, I know!

monavano - I think that is the only reason to use the shredded stuff - the stretch. I use both - one for flavor and the other for the authentic 'streeeeetch' .

Bruce - that is a beautiful steak salad - so much better looking than any I've ever seen in any restaurant!

We had company for the weekend, so I got to indulge myself and do a lot of cooking!

Dinner Saturday was proscuitto-fontina lavosh roll and fruit salad. We also had pickles and chips and tabbouleh. This was supposed to be lunch, but breakfast was so late that we didn't get hungry until dinner time (this happens a lot at my house):

Sunday dinner started with the panzanella I learned to make at my lesson with Chef Roberto Donna last summer:

It was delicious! Everyone looked askance at it, but loved it once they tasted it!

I also did a pan sauteed flank steak with a red wine sauce, corn, Dana's boursin potatoes & roasted asparagus:

The steak was supposed to be 'Light', except that the sauce seemed a little thin to me, so I swirled a little butter in at the last minute. That helped a lot ! Our guest just loved the potatoes especially! Thanks, again, Dana!!

Dessert was this trashy delicious thing:

It is a 'torte' made from ice cream sandwiches. More about it on the dessert thread.

[Reconstructing Dinner]

Two nights ago, cheese pupusas from WF well dressed -- smoked pork, corn salsa, avocado, grilled veggies, rice. Darn tasty, although homemade pupusas are better. Anyway, I smoked a 7 lb pork shoulder for Memorial day and was able to steal away a few lbs and freeze it. Wrapped in foil in a 300 degree oven, it reheats really well.

Dinner last night was a wonderful combination of leftovers turned into Mexican pork tortas (sandwiches). Smoked pork shoulder, again, slaw (finely sliced cabbage, corn salsa, and grilled vegetables), avocado slices, queso fresco, lime and a drizzle of my latest experiment -- cilantro and garlic infused olive oil. I might use a less flavorful oil next time to bring out the other flavors more, but it was good. Oh, and I made chipotle mayo (half mayo, half greek yogart worked well). All this on toasted Kaiser rolls. The pictures didn't quite turn out, so I'll have to keep working on that part of it.

[nakedsushi]

Grilled bread salad (recipe from Bittman) made with leftover baguette from the weekend, and a savory steamed egg custard. Nothing fancy.

But it did get washed down nicely with a home made mojito made with mint from my mint plant.

[Daniel]

Pizza Margheritta. The fresh mozzarella was good, but it didn't get any gooey pull. Maybe I need to add regular shredded mozzarella???

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Very pretty..

[monavano]

Pizza Margheritta. The fresh mozzarella was good, but it didn't get any gooey pull. Maybe I need to add regular shredded mozzarella???

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Very pretty..

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thanks! that was my hubby's pizza.

[Dr. J]

Simply Offal

We lucked out this week.  Normally, it’s tough to find tripe, but we stumbled onto several packages in the meat section.

When I was young (heck, even now, when I’m borderline senile) I liked Chinese tripe, and that honeycomb feel to it.  But, when I first went to Italy, I really feel in love with tripe, slow cooked in tomato sauce.  At that point I was hooked.  Now, if we find tripe, we buy it.  I’ll figure out what to do with it once I have it.

We dragged this home, and on Sunday began cleaning it.

My plan was to follow (as close as I could) Rodriguez’s Latin Ladles recipe for Buseca – garbanzo beans and tripe soup.

A trigger for this was the fact that I had both chorizo (spicy) and morcilla (blood) sausages that a friend brought me from Portugal (yeah, I know, they call it a slightly different name in Portugal, but I remember the names from Columbia, and they’re Spanish…so there!).

First step, as I said, was cleaning it.  Health standards are a little different here, so we went through several rinses and vinegar (1 tbsp per gallon water) baths for the first evening and day.

Then we sliced up the tripe into one inch squares, and boiled it in chili flakes, oregano, bay leaves, thyme, and water and vinegar.  That took about an hour or so.

When that was done, we drained the tripe, and then cooked some onions, garlic, tomatoes, and more bay leaf, and, when it had merged a bit, tossed in the tripe, beans (chickpeas/garbanzos, and white beans), some veal stock, and then let it reduce slowly.

Today we added in some carrots and fresh chopped parsely, and then I turned my eyes to the sausages.

The chorizo was a nicely gnarled thing of bright greasy red, looking like an angry disease vector.  I cut this into happy little bites, and then looked to the morcilla.

Oh, you’ve got to like morcilla.  That dark, thick, clotted mass of blood, with solid hunks of white congealed fat in there.  I did hesitate for a moment, consider the option of just frying this and taking it on its own with some sour cream and avocado. 

But, no, I had a mission.  And that mission was to create this soup!

Plus, I like Doug Rodriguez’s food.

Once the sausage was cooked through, I hit it with a handle of fresh basil to open our noses, and then served it with rice on the side.  (The recipe calls for rice to be added directly to the soup, but Yoonhi pointed out that this doesn’t do as well in leftovering).

And there we found ourselves, comfortably settled with a thick, luscious soup of blood, guts, and more guts.  The tripe has come the way I want it, soft and yielding in the mouth, but with that bit of texture that slightly tickles as you chew it up.

And I’m a sucker for soft chickpeas.

Okay, that’s enough for now.  There’s plenty left, so tomorrow I’ll see if this ages as well as I think it will.

Cheers!

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Great dish Peter. Growing up this was a typical dish I ate (brings me back). Sans the Morcilla, we normally fried that. Although, dropping it in the stew sounds like an awsome idea.

Great work man.

[suzilightning]

john was too hungry for photos...

chicken marinated in mojo then baked and finished on the grill, for me it was potato gratin with tons of cheese and green beans with garlic.

[Megan Blocker]

I'm visiting my friends Nick and Louisa in Ohio, and on Sunday we had a pork belly-off. Louisa has to develop a pork belly recipe for a novel she's writing (it's about a chef and a restaurant critic, and there will be recipes laced througout the book), so we thought it would be fun to try a few different things. Her recipe will be autumnal and focus on apples and walnuts, so she tried braising a piece of pork belly in cider, then searing it and serving it on top of fresh apple and spiced, candied walnuts.

I made my belly by braising and searing, then serving topped with slices of homemade pickled jalapeno and a watermelon salad (watermelon marinated in lime juice, basil, mint and jalapeno, tossed with fresh mint and basil before serving) and some cucumber. This turned out really well - I especially liked the fresh, cool salad with the hot, meaty pork.

Nick made a take on pork milanese - he made a napoleon out of fresh arugula and broiled tomatoes, then topped the napoleon with breadcrumbs. Alongside, he served a lemon compote - it was SUPER lemony, and we decided it should come in smaller dollop.

His was, by far, the most elegant plate.

Finally, Louisa made a second version, which was supposed to barbecue-esque, but turned out almost candied (pork belly pralinee, she's calling it). Pork belly with a maple-bourbon glaze, served with a minty slaw. Yum.

[Shelby]

Last night was pizza night!

Venison, mushroom and black olive

This one was SO good.

Razor clam, mushroom, olive topped with smoked salmon and caviar

[Lisa2k]

I made a shellfish 'type' of cannelloni last night, with homemade pasta squares, shrimp-scallop mousse with chunks shrimp and scallops folded in, served over a shellfish-truffle butter reduction, and a quickly cooked tomato concasse with a little seafood demi-glace. I got the idea from a recipe I saw on Epicurious, and tweaked it. There were many steps, so I decided to just add some stock photos, the rolled cannelloni prior to baking, and the finished dish.

Shrimp shells, scallop abductor muscles and mire poix, being sauteed then deglazed with white wine.

After the white wine has reduced.

Adding water, a little of the seafood demi-glace, herbs, and a bit of tomato paste.

Numero uno of 12 cannelloni..lol

The finished dish. I didn't roll the pasta as thin as I would have liked, since I was running out of time, but it was still quite tender and tasted delicious. I broiled it on top for a little 'crisp bite', prior to topping with tomato concasse.

Have a Happy 4th of July all!

[SobaAddict70]

Mujadara

I used coconut milk in place of water. Served with Moroccan carrot salad and harissa.

[C. sapidus]

Beautiful pizzas, Shelby – I’ll take a slice with razor clams, please.

Barbecued ribs with an ancho rub, and side dishes from Smoke & Spice - buttermilk biscuits, smoked Portobello mushroom salad, and smoked sweet potatoes with orange-walnut butter. More about the ribs on Pork Ribs – Baby Back and Spare (clicky).

[Tri2Cook]

Beautiful pizzas, Shelby – I’ll take a slice with razor clams, please.

Barbecued ribs with an ancho rub, and side dishes from Smoke & Spice - buttermilk biscuits, smoked Portobello mushroom salad, and smoked sweet potatoes with orange-walnut butter. More about the ribs on Pork Ribs – Baby Back and Spare (clicky).

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Ribs and biscuits. Yeah, I'll take a supersize order of that please... but will it offend the Chef if I request just plain butter on my sweet potato?

[David Ross]

Two nights ago, Fried Razor Clams served with Linguine that I sauced with a Grapefruit Hollandaise and garnished with Green Beans.

[Lisa2k]

Beautiful pizzas, Shelby – I’ll take a slice with razor clams, please.

Barbecued ribs with an ancho rub, and side dishes from Smoke & Spice - buttermilk biscuits, smoked Portobello mushroom salad, and smoked sweet potatoes with orange-walnut butter. More about the ribs on Pork Ribs – Baby Back and Spare (clicky).

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Damn, C, that's a dish I would get on my hands and knees and beg for. I'll also happily take several loaded plates, not to mention I want to smother my palate with that sweet potato!

[Daniel]

Pizza with speck

[Daniel]

Miss A's Pa made some chicken.. Marinated in a citrus, garlic blend..

And smoked some ribbers.

Edited July 6, 2008 by Daniel (log)