Dinner! 2010

[ScottyBoy]

Dinner!

Grilled eggplant

Sous vide then grilled ribeye

Sous vide pork loin, butter poached carrots, garlic and artichokes. Poultry demi-glace.

Same setup but with that ribeye

Upside down fig cake

[SobaAddict70]

Leftovers, however this was served as an appetizer:

Herbed goat's milk ricotta cheese, with heirloom tomato confit

Ricotta cheese: Mix 1 cup fresh ricotta with 1 tablespoon each chopped tarragon and garlic chives, along with a pinch of salt. Set aside and chill for an hour.

Tomato confit: Halve 1 pint heirloom cherry tomatoes (I used a mix of Sungold and Yellow Pear); peel 3-4 cloves of garlic. Combine in a baking dish or roasting pan along with 2-3 bay leaves, salt, black pepper and olive oil. Roast for one hour at 325 F.

To assemble, spoon cheese in the center of a plate or shallow soup bowl. Top with tomato confit (and chopped herbs, if you like). Serve at once.

[djyee100]

An eclectic mix of dishes for dinner lately, as I try to take advantage of abundant summer fruit, sales at the market, and the contents of my CSA box.

Salmon was on sale, so I bought a big piece for a quickie dinner of Thai Basil Salmon.

This is basically the same as the Thai Basil Chicken recipe that I posted upthread. I substituted 1 lb salmon chunks for the chicken, and red fresno chiles for the serranos. The recipe is here, my post #23875, dated 2 July 2010:

I borrowed Alice Waters' newest cookbook, In The Green Kitchen, from my public library, and I've been cooking from it. Various side dishes and a dessert from the book have shown up on the dinner table in the last week. I haven't decided whether or not to buy the book, though I like everything I've cooked from it so far.

This Sauteed Corn with Chile didn't look like much when I finished it in the skillet, but then I tasted it and it packed a punch. Very good! And very spicy with toasted cumin, fresh chile, and black pepper.

To make Sauteed Corn with Chile: Toast 1 tsp cumin seeds in a pan, let cool somewhat, then grind it in a spice grinder. Chop 1 large clove of garlic. Seed and chop 1 fresno chile pepper. Cut the kernels off 4 ears of corn, for approx 4 cups of fresh kernels. In a 10" saute pan over medium heat, add 2-3 TB olive oil and the garlic. When the garlic is sizzling, toss in the ground cumin and the chile pepper. Let cook for a minute until the mixture is slightly golden and fragrant. Add in the corn kernels, stir occasionally, and let cook for 3-4 mins until done. Season with salt & pepper. My variation of a recipe in Alice Waters' In the Green Kitchen.

There's a cooking video of the original recipe online:

http://alicewatersgreenkitchen.com/Episode02.html

Still flipping through the book, I decided to try Greens with Ginger and Chile. This recipe may be of Indian origin (I'm guessing from the blurb in the cookbook). The fresh ginger and chile flavors infuse the greens. The greens smell wonderful, and they're not too spicy. The recipe calls for amaranth greens. Never heard of them. But I had plenty of bok choy in the fridge, and that went into the pan.

The recipe for Greens with Ginger and Chile is here. These greens are a welcome change from the usual Asian stirfried greens in my house.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/food/7042384.html

The last of the fresh corn from the market (on sale, 5 ears for $1, & locally grown!) went into Cornbread from In The Green Kitchen.

I baked this recipe with some blue cornmeal that's been hanging around my freezer, an heirloom variety called Blue Hopi. The raw cornmeal is blue-ish, but it bakes up to a more appetizing tan color. I usually don't add fresh corn into cornbread, because the cornbread comes out too heavy. But this recipe produced a cornbread with a light texture and good flavor.

To make this Cornbread: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, combine 1 2/3 cups cornmeal, 1 2/3 all-purpose flour, 2 1/2 TB sugar, 4 tsp baking powder, 1 1/2 tsp salt. In a smaller bowl, combine 2 eggs with 1 2/3 cup milk. Melt 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter in a small saucepan. Cut off the kernels from 2 ears of fresh corn, for about 2 cups of kernels. Add the egg mixture to the cornmeal mixture, then stir in the melted butter and corn kernels. Do not overmix. Heat a heavy 10" ovenproof pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 TB butter to the pan, and move the butter around so that it melts and greases the inside of the pan. Pour in the batter. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 35 mins until the top and sides are golden and a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Let cool for at least 5 mins before cutting and serving. My variation of the recipe in Alice Waters' In the Green Kitchen.

I've overbought fruit at the farmers market, because the late season summer fruit looks so good, so I decided to unload a bunch of nectarines and some blackberries into a Nectarine and Berry Cobbler.

I served the cobbler with a pitcher of cold cream at the table. It tasted great. The recipe for this cobbler comes from In The Green Kitchen. A basic recipe is also in The Art of Simple Food. Nectarine slices and blackberries are tossed with sugar, flour, lemon zest, and lemon juice, then topped with cream biscuits. I made a half recipe to fit a 9-inch ceramic pie pan. The recipe is available on Googlebooks, Page 127, here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=NA4w9AMKSfYC&pg=PT36&lpg=PT36&dq=alice+waters+nectarine+berry+cobbler&source=bl&ots=6Dym_mDlwU&sig=UjuaNUkJqMLShtbk6oG2UwCB6iE&hl=en&ei=nguHTOb-EIL2swPE2oGbCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

For the Cream Biscuits, this blog has an adapted recipe:

http://www.ezrapoundcake.com/archives/2796

[Rico]

The food on this board - wow. So far this page alone has made me decide to buy a sous vide doohickey, a pasta maker and rib holders. Now if I could just fly you all into Dallas to teach me how to use them ...

As it is, I've been lazy, so I decided to stop being lazy and start making something that didn't involve smoking large hunks of meat. Cool, tropical-stormy weather? Chicken Sauce Piquante.

Super spicy; needed some tums before bed ...

Judging by the other pictures here, my Nikon Coolpix and I are going to have to go over to the photography thread to learn how to use each other.

[amccomb]

Upside down fig cake

I really really need this recipe!

Edited September 8, 2010 by heidih
fix quote tags (log)

[amccomb]

Chicken with Chillies:

How do you make this?? It's one of my husband's favorite dishes.

[SobaAddict70]

Summer vegetable tian.

This version has three types of heirloom tomatoes, along with eggplant, zucchini and onion.

Closeup shot. The spindly things are rosemary needles.

[ScottyBoy]

I really really need this recipe!

1 1/4 sticks butter

1/2 C light brown sugar

2 T honey

10 fresh figs stems off and halved

1 1/2 C flour

1 1/2 t baking powder

pinch of kosher salt

3/4 C sugar

1 cap full vanilla

2 eggs

1/2 cup whole milk

Oven to 350

Butter a 9x2 inch cake pan and line the bottom with parchment. Melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a sauce pan, incorporate sugar, honey and cook until smooth. Pour into the cake pan. Place the figs cut side down all over the pan.

Whisk flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In a stand mixer whip the remaining 8 tablespoons butter, sugar and vanilla for like 3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time until smooth. Lower the speed and mix in the dry ingredients in 3 parts alternating with the milk. Pour the batter into the cake pan.

Bake at 350 for about an hour, use the toothpick test. Let it cool for another hour before flipping over onto a plate to un-mold. EAT!

[SobaAddict70]

Sautéed shrimp, with chanterelle mushrooms and frisée

Credit to Marc Murphy, of Landmarc in NYC for the inspiration.

[Prawncrackers]

Chicken with Chillies:

How do you make this?? It's one of my husband's favorite dishes.

It's embarrassingly simple to make and kinda like a cupboard clearout for me this time.

Prepare your meat:

In this dish I used four small chicken thighs, cut into small cubes. Not too fastidious about taking the skin off, if it stayed on then it went into a light marinade of shaosing and soy sauce for half an hour.

Prepare your other ingredients:

Finely mince one big clove of garlic along with the same amount of ginger. Cut two scallion whites into chicken sized batons. Dry fry half a teaspoon of whole Sichuan pepper with a teaspoon of salt until aromatic then grind into a powder. Reserve a teaspoon of whole Sichuan pepper and a handful of dried chillis. Literally a handful, as if they were selling them by the hand at the market and you only had enough money to grab one handful! I used dried Kashmiri type chillies this time, but ideally you should use the round Sichuan ones.

Cook:

Just before deep frying the pieces sprinkle them with cornflour, fry them till they're brown, drain and set aside. In two tablespoons of clean oil, gently fry the garlic, ginger and scallion. When they have softened a little toss in the whole Sichuan pepper and chilli and toss everything together being careful not to scorch the chilli. Add the chicken pieces, season to taste with the ground pepper and cook together for a couple of minutes so that the meat picks up all the aromatics. Serve and EAT.

Apologies, for such a simple dish I've seemd to have waffled on a bit. By the way, the addition of peanuts or cashews is very good too. Enjoy.

[dcarch]

Hey guys! Are we having fun or what?

Beef tenderloin with pineapple.

dcarch

[ScottyBoy]

Great thing about testing new recipes for work is. DINNER!

Sous vide pork shoulder agnolotti, bacon nage, truffles and herbs.

[kayb]

"dcarch, I don't know what you do for a living, but you need to set up shop with Prawncrackers as professional food stylists and photographers. I'm contemplating making a collections of y'all's photographs to post on my kitchen bulletin board to inspire me. Beautiful, beautiful meals!"

That's quite a compliment, kayB. Thanks.

I am just so overwhelmed by all the amazing display of food art here!

I make BBQ ribs with mango sauce and a blur berry lime jello.

dcarch

Oh. My. God. That is absolutely gorgeous.

[kayb]

Quite ashamed of my presentation skills, but at least the food was good.

Chuck eye steak, garlic mashed redskin potatos, purple-hulled peas.

Meat loaf. I make mine in my deep dish pie plate, because I like a larger portion of the crusty outside (though I overdid the ketchupy topping and this one didn't get so very crusty). A pound of ground beef, half a pound of ground pork, half a pound of ground veal, sauteed onion and garlic, oregano, basil, thyme, salt and pepper, cracker crumbs, an egg. Topping of ketchup thinned a bit with Coca Cola.

Meatballs. Same 2:1:1 plus other stuff mixture as the meat loaf, with the addition of about 3/4 cup grated parmegiano. Roasted and bagged, to become meatball sandwiches for my 15-year-old, who loves meatball sandwiches more than life itself.

Edited September 11, 2010 by kayb (log)

[Doodad]

Cochinita Pibil with corn, butternut squash, guac and pickled onion/hanero salsa, fried okra and nopales. The nopales fried were great; they develop a lemony flavor that was incredible.

[robirdstx]

Sausage and Mushroom Pizza using Reinhart's Pizza Americana Dough recipe from American Pie. This dough was very easy to work with and made a nice crust that baked up crisp all the way to the center of the pie even though we loaded it with toppings.

[ScottyBoy]

Um yeah I could go for a piece of that right now..............

[C. sapidus]

Took a rare break from home renovation to post tonight’s dinner. Looks like y’all have been busy cooking fantastic and imaginative meals!

Pan-roasted chicken with garlic, rosemary, and white wine. Spaghetti with peas, parmesan, and Aleppo pepper flakes. Heirloom tomatoes from the garden. Mrs. C broiled various CSA eggplants with rosemary, garlic, and olive oil, and prepared marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes (not pictured). Served with cheap Pinot Grigio and crusty bread.

[Blether]

A few recent meals: first, the denouement of the Syrian meat loaf (see: Breakfast), served appropriately cold for July with a potato salad:

Next, the 1.8kg yellowtail (inada/wakashi) I've mentioned elsewhere (e.g. fish curry in Breakfast):

That chef's knife has a 10" blade, to give a better idea of the size of the fish. I baked the fish back in July, and it lasted well for cold eating in various ways, until the last of it went into that curry.

Finally, I noticed a pair of soft salmon roes at the market for only 100yen. They were big, too, must have been 3/4lb at least, all in. I've wanted to make 'friture de laitance' as I've mentioned elsewhere, ever since reading Jane Grigson's comment in her Fish Book, "this is one of the best recipes in this book". I didn't think salmon and herring soft roes would be different enough for it to be an issue, and I went right ahead and used these ones.

I stripped the blood vessel from the length of one of the roes, blanched at the tear in the sac, and left the other on. It turned out removal was the best policy. The tear did not develop into any great problem.

I followed her directions for a simple flour/water batter with whipped egg white folded in, and was pleased with it. I shot the picture a bit too quickly, I think, so that the excess oil had not fully drained off. As usual, I was more intent on the eating than the display.

Jane recommends sauce moutarde, a mustard-enhanced veloute of half milk and half fish stock. That's a lot of kerfuffle for one serving, so I improvised with the egg yolk left over from the batter-making, augmented with a teaspoon or two of konbu ponzu stirred in. The egg was one of my usual well-flavoured brand, and I was very pleased with this dipping sauce (though I'll allow that what with the bird's egg and the fish's sperm, I may be creating a monster, "neither fish nor fowl" brought to awful life).

It was certainly good. Now I'll have to make all the remaining recipes to see if I agree with her overall assessment

Edited September 13, 2010 by Blether (log)

[Rico]

You have all inspired me to take better pictures. Of course I would get inspired to take better pictures right before I have to take a picture of chili. Not some beautiful, multicolored seafood dish, but chili. I did my best.

Anyway, chili meant good luck for the Cowboys last year.

Not so much this year, apparently.

But it was made with some smoked brisket I had left over as well as chorizo. It had a strong yum factor.

[ScottyBoy]

That's a nice photo, way to dress up a bowl of chili! Close up well-cropped shots with natural light are best. Also helps to have some editing software to tweak levels after you get the pic on your computer. Just an example of how far I've come and what can be done with just those simple rules, funky chicken and now pretty fish.

Edited September 14, 2010 by ScottyBoy (log)

[bmdaniel]

Rico -

Your picture looks very nice, but I am not sure how I feel about a Texan posting a picture of chili with beans.

[Lupinus]

Ricotta gnocchi in a quick sauce of bacon, shallot, garlic, tomato, splash of red wine, and parsley. Finished with good evoo some crushed chili and a dallop of ricotta added at the same time as gnocchi.

[Rico]

That's a nice photo, way to dress up a bowl of chili! Close up well-cropped shots with natural light are best. Also helps to have some editing software to tweak levels after you get the pic on your computer. Just an example of how far I've come and what can be done with just those simple rules, funky chicken and now pretty fish.

Thanks, ScottyBoy, for the kind words and encouragement; I feel like I've got a long way to go until I get photos that look like either of those photos, not just the second one ... but hell, it's fun learning!

Rico -

Your picture looks very nice, but I am not sure how I feel about a Texan posting a picture of chili with beans.

To be honest, I don't know how I feel about it, either. Actually, I do - I feel bad about it, and I don't endorse it except in this case because it was awesome. But at the very least, I never led anyone to believe that I believed this to be 'Texas-style' chili.

Anyway, I had the chili again tonight but wanted to make something I could photograph, so I made roasted tomatoes with garlic, alomonds and gorgonzola. And some other ingredients, too.

[suzilightning]

rained off of the hawkwatch by 3 pm - back to 9 hour days tomorrow. had a quick chance to shop and picked up toaster strudels for johnnybird, fresh cantaloupe for me along with some cottage cheese and yoghurt. got a cauliflower that will either be pureed(john's preference) or roasted(mine) to go with the pot roast we will have for dinner tomorrow - guess who wins this one?

besides the pot roast in the oven there is some gravy with meatballs on top of the stove for dinner tonight. some pasta with gravy and some sauteed yellow squash as well.

the birds should be flying big time over the next week so we will be living on chicken sandwiches, pb & j, yoghurt, cottage cheese, fruit and dry fruit loops.

though i did score some mallomars to induce the broadwings and eagles in......