Dinner! 2009

[Octaveman]

Thanks Marlene. It was certainly the best version I've made to date. My wife had to fight me for the last few pieces.

[Marlene]

Thanks Marlene.  It was certainly the best version I've made to date.  My wife had to fight me for the last few pieces.

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Cough cough. Ahem. Recipe perhaps?

[Octaveman]

Cough cough.  Ahem. Recipe perhaps? 

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That's me for ya...always keeping them wanting more.

Here it is....

Ingredients:

7-up

4-5 lbs korean style short ribs (aka Flanken I think)

3 cups lite soy sauce

1/3 cup of honey

10 cloves garlic crushed

2 Tbls grated ginger (pulp and juice)

6 green onions loosely chopped

1/4 cup sesame oil

1/4 cup sesame seeds

1 large brown Asian pear, smashed

2 Kiwi's, skinned and crushed

First, marinate the meat submerged in the 7-up over night. This is to tenderize the meat.

Second, combine rest of the ingredients and marinate the meat again over night. Squish fruit in your hands to get the pulp and juice into the concoction.

Third, cook quickly over VERY hot coals or gas grill. Eat with slivered green onions, soy bean paste, ball of rice inside a lettuce leaf like a lettuce wrap. I got tired of making the lettuce wraps and just started mackin down on the meat by itself.

[Marlene]

Thank you!

[mgaretz]

Sirloin steak with homemade whole durum wheat pasta with a porcini-cremini mushroom sauce.

The sauce recipe:

1/2 shallot - diced

1 oz dried porcini mushrooms

4 ozs sliced fresh cremini mushrooms

3/4 cup warm water

1/4 cup cream sherry

1/2 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp sea salt

fresh ground pepper to taste

2 tbs butter

2 tsp cornstarch

Rehyrdate the porcini in the warm water for 30 minutes. Drain, reserving the liquid. Add the salt, soy sauce and cornstarch to the mushroom water, stir well and set aside. If necessary, chop the porcini into smaller pieces.

Heat the butter in a small sauce pan over medium heat and then add the mushrooms. Saute for about 5 minutes and then add the shallots. Continue to saute for another 5 minutes. Add the pepper. Deglaze the pan with the cream sherry and cook another minute or two. Stir the mushroom water to redistribute the cornstarch and add to the pan while stiring. Continue to stir until the sauce turns brown and thickens, about 2 minutes. Serve.

[tlm5150]

Vegetarian "Diver Scallops", pasta in a white wine butter and garlic sauce and broccoli.

Kinda an experiment, but I took trumpet royal mushrooms and cut them about the size of scallops and seared them in butter and oil after letting them sit, salted for about 45 minutes. I cooked them a shade too long, but the flavor was good.

[sadistick]

Vegetarian "Diver Scallops", pasta in a white wine butter and garlic sauce and broccoli.

Kinda an experiment, but I took trumpet royal mushrooms and cut them about the size of scallops and seared them in butter and oil after letting them sit, salted for about 45 minutes. I cooked them a shade too long, but the flavor was good.

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That's a lot of salt!!!

[OliverB]

pizza on the bbq! doesn't get any better :-D

[mgaretz]

Grilled salmon with an orange zinfandel mustard sauce, basamati rice with some leftover mushroom sauce from the previous night (see previous post back a few).

[Kim Shook]

I was so busy last night (out of town guest coming by to visit our daughter, end of the week chores, etc.) that I had no business EATING much less cooking , but I NEEDED to cook (y’all know what I mean) so I made some fries:

with some cool black Mediterranean sea salt that I found.

And tried out a new recipe for hush puppies that a friend sent me:

Much, much better than last time! These were lighter, much more flavorful and just better all around!

[menuinprogress]

Mapo Tofu - our best version to date:

and our first try at Char Siu Bao:

While we still need some work on the bbq pork filling, the buns themselves were perfect.

[mgaretz]

We too had bbq pork that I stir-fried with Chinese mustard cabbage (gai choy), mushrooms and a touch of red pepper flakes. Finished with a sauce that consisted of hoisin sauce, cream sherry, sesame oil and cornstarch.

[Robert Jueneman]

Sous vide chicken breast (originally posted on the sous vide thread):

My previous attempt at chicken breast was rather unimpressive, but tonight was much better.

I picked up a package of three chicken breasts, pulled off the skin, Jaccarded them for tenderness, applied S&P, and vacuum packed them with my FoodSaver Professional III. I then pressed them with my palm to make sure that they were less than 30mm thick.

I froze two, and cooked one tonight -- one hour at 63.5C/146F.

I was trying to follow a Julia Child recipe for chicken breast and mushrooms, so I took a big bag of white mushrooms (perhaps 2 cups?), cleaned them and sliced them, and threw them in a pan into which I had already put 1/2 a stick of butter and some chopped shallots, mildly sautéed.

After the sliced mushrooms were nicely sautéed, I should have added some cream, but I didn't have any. Fortunately, I had some irradiated whole milk on the shelf, so I added a pint of it, plus another 1/4 stick of butter (almost cream, right?), added the juice from the SV chicken, reduced it a bit more, then added the chicken to the pan, and waited until the sauce seemed sufficiently reduced.

A little smoked paprika finished it off.

The results were absolutely delicious. I might use "real" cream the next time, but otherwise I wouldn't change a thing.

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Update, round two.

Same time and temperature, but this time I measured the mushrooms (1 lb), and used some 1/2 pint whipping cream (instead of a pint of whole milk plus additional butter), plus 1/4 cup of sherry while the mushrooms were sautéing. I forgot the shallots, however.

Contrary to my expectations, the results were not as impressive -- a little blah. Not enough cream, or not reduced enough, perhaps? It didn't seem to coat the chicken as well, and looked a litel gray. Perhaps the sherry diluted things too much?

The side dish was a hit, however -- asparagus with sriracha mayonnaise. 1/2 cup of mayo, two generous splashes of Hoy Fung sriracha hot sauce (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/dining/20united.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all) and the juice of 1/2 a lemon, plus ground pepper.

My wife loved it, and she doesn't normally like spicy sauces.

Now, if I could just figure out how to post a picture, I would do so! Check back!

Bob

Edited May 23, 2009 by Robert Jueneman (log)

[suzilightning]

yesterday was gorgeous so, since were were working outside, i decided a small, snacky type dinner would be best

oven roasted shrimp with cocktail sauce, chicken salad, cherry tomatoes and hard boiled egg. the rest of the eggs were turned into egg salad for johnnybird's lunch today while i'm at work.

[nikkib]

Mapo Tofu - our best version to date:

and our first try at Char Siu Bao:

While we still need some work on the bbq pork filling, the buns themselves were perfect.

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ooh could you post the recipes- they look amazing!

[Shelby]

Shrimp Alfredo with roasted asparagus

[Kim Shook]

Menuinprogress – your Char Siu Bao looks wonderful. I’d love to try making them sometime.

Shelby – lovely shrimp alfredo and a beautiful picture!!!

Tonight’s dinner was a salad, a baked pasta w/ Italian sausage, spinach, tomatoes, pesto, ricotta, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses and pancetta-Fontina biscuits:

The pasta was a recipe that I got off the food network. It was very good. I adapted it a bit – used shells instead of ziti, shredded the spinach instead of leaving whole, used fresh mozz instead of…whatever the processed stuff is called – aged? But it was really good and we’ll be eating a lot of it in the next few days – the recipe said it would serve 6-8, so I halved it and ended up with enough for 8 – 10 people !! The biscuits are another food network recipe. They were wonderful. The recipe called for serving them with a vanilla/cinnamon/sugar butter, but I thought that sounded weird, so I left it off.

Dessert was a disappointment:

We stopped at a new cupcake place near us. The chocolate frosted one is called ‘Chocolate Covered Strawberry’ – strawberry cake filled with strawberry puree frosted with chocolate Buttercream, the other is key lime – graham cake filled and frosted with key lime Buttercream. Both were bad – sour, off tasting fillings, tough cake and the chocolate frosting was crusted and overly sweet. Cupcakes finally get to Richmond and they are no better than supermarket ones – just ‘fancier’ and $2.75 a piece!

[percyn]

Made some Kalbi (Korean BBQ ribs) the other night.  Was given some tips on how to make the meat super tender and for extra flavoring in the marinade.  I must say it was the best I've had.

Care to share the secret?

How about the Mongolian Beef recipe Marlene mentioned?

Cheers

Percy

[percyn]

Rotisserie Chicken w/Edamame Salad on a sauce I made with the chicken juices, Madeira wine and smoked paprika.

[menuinprogress]

ooh could you post the recipes- they look amazing!

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The recipe we used for the tofu was "Pock-Marked Mother Chen's Bean Curd" from Fuchsia Dunlop's "Land of Plenty". This version online is almost identical to the recipe in the book.

For the buns, we used a recipe from SheSimmers.

[Kim Shook]

For dinner tonight I made Rachel Ray’s Blue-rugala burgers. Stupid name, great burgers! I used WF grass fed ground beef. You add garlic, parsley and Worcestershire sauce to the beef and then caramelize some onions adding brown sugar and brown mustard to them. When the burgers are done you top them with Cambazola cheese, the onions and arugula. I served them on brioche buns. Really terrific burgers. Alongside, I served corn and slaw”:

[violetfox]

Looks and sounds delicious, Kim!

Six days left on my lease, so I'm cleaning out the fridge ad pantry.

Tandoori duck breasts with fresh maple-rhubarb chutney, buttered Texmati rice, green beans with almonds.

[Kim Shook]

Dinner tonight was Slow Cooker Chinese Orange Beef – this was actually pretty good. Because of being cooked in a slow cooker, it was more like Chinese pot roast, but that was ok with us and the flavor was great. I also served Ramen noodles:

[C. sapidus]

Mmm, everyone has shared so many lovely dinners.

Madras style beef curry, cucumber raita, red chutney, and fragrant rice (from Camellia Panjabi’s 50 Great Curries of India); stir-fried green cabbage with fennel seeds (bhuni bandh gobi, from Madhur Jaffrey); and a green salad. Dinner guests left quite full and reasonably happy. This was my breakfast plate, but it seemed more appropriate on the dinner thread.

[tlm5150]

Because we're adults and we can get away with this, we had dessert for dinner 2 nights ago.

Shortcake, Mixed Berries, Brandy and Amaretto whipped cream.