Dinner! 2010

[percyn]

WOW ! Very nice dish Nick.

[Kim Shook]

kayb – thanks for the recipe link!

djyee – I’ll let you know when I post the recipe for the burgers – probably tomorrow! That’s a good idea for the salad dressing – it would make a really good chicken marinade!

Nick – that salmon is just beautiful! I love seeing such care and effort on a meal!

Last night’s dinner was steak with mushroom cream sauce and Boursin potatoes:

Both recipes are from friends at Marlene’s Cookskorner.

I also did Brussels sprouts sautéed in bacon grease w/ bacon. Wonderful dinner – we LOVED the sauce (I ate mine without the mushrooms) and, as always, those potatoes ROCK!

I got a craving tonight just as I was leaving work:

Spiced shrimp and cocktail sauce.

Crackers and Boursin

And the inevitable salad :

Mr. Kim’s with the still good paprika dressing and mine with 1000 Island, which, to me, is the only possible dressing with shrimp.

[Kim Shook]

Dinner last night was a copy of an amazing burger that someone on Marlene’s made. He used the NYT method for the burger (packing the meat only enough to hold it together and cooking with a combination of searing stovetop and then roasting). I don’t think that I’ll ever use another method to cook a burger...

I made this dressing for Christmas and, obviously overestimated what I would need. We still have a TON of it...

Kim, do you have a link for the burger recipe? I've missed reading that one.

As for the salad dressing, if it's an oil, vinegar, herb combination it might taste good as a marinade for some roasted veg. I rub leftover salad dressing on chunks of potatoes, carrots, eggplant, peppers, zucchini, and roast the veg in a hot oven (400-425 F) until the vegs are tender and golden brown.

djyee - Here's the recipe for those incomparable burgers!

Edited January 20, 2010 by heidih
Fix link (log)

[robirdstx]

Bar B Q Pork Ribs and Cannellini Bean, Red Onion, and Arugula Salad,

and homemade bread.

[Aloha Steve]

Bar B Q Pork Ribs and Cannellini Bean, Red Onion, and Arugula Salad,

and homemade bread.

Nice looking ribs, did you make on the grill or oven?

Very nice crumb on the bread too!

[robirdstx]

Bar B Q Pork Ribs and Cannellini Bean, Red Onion, and Arugula Salad,

and homemade bread.

Nice looking ribs, did you make on the grill or oven?

Very nice crumb on the bread too!

Thanks! I used both the oven and the grill. After I season the ribs, I cover them and bake them in the oven for one and quarter hours at 450F. Then, after they are cooled a bit, I brush them with the sauce and wrap tight in foil and set aside for up to two hours. They are finished on a medium grill, just to warm them up and put on a bit of char.

And thanks, too, about the bread. Baking bread is very new to me but I think its starting to make sense but much more practice is needed.

[Blether]

A simple beef stew, clapshot & sprouts, presented ... well, carelessly. Personally I like to think my presentation is artistic in its own way, that is to say even if it looks like it fell off a lorry, it does taste good. I sound like I'm trying to steal prawncrackers' signature, but in my case it's not so much becoming modesty, as the simple truth. That said, this one was a culinary triumph because all the elements tasted really, really good. The combination is of course classic Scottish/British winter food.

The beef stew is beef, onion, carrot & turnip & a very little flour sprinkled on after browning. The flavourings are salt & pepper, bay leaf from the long-suffering tree on the balcony, lemon and just enough cayenne to give a very subtle bite (like 1/4 tsp for 2lbs meat). I trimmed the fat cap and the triangular strip of harder, grainy fat from between two muscles and rendered the dripping, which I used to brown the meat, and then (augmented with a little bacon fat when it looked scant) the onions. The cracklings went back into the stew with the browned meat and browned onions. (I pre-salted the cubed meat overnight after I trimmed off the fat). The carrots, bay, cayenne, the lemon juice and the two lemon halves went in from the start of stewing, and the turnip chunks 30 minutes before the end. (Actually I didn't mean to cook the meat till it was quite so falling-apart).

The clapshot had just enough butter to come through in the flavour - about 1.5-2oz for 3 people, and is about 2/5 turnip. They're a bit watery, which in turn means you don't need to loosen the mash with milk.

I microwaved the sprouts on high / 600W for about 4 minutes per serving, in a plastic bag with the top just turned underneath rather than sealed. They need to cook for about a minute after the bag puffs up tight with steam. Sprinkled with just a little salt to serve.

[robirdstx]

My version of Crawfish Monica with fresh homemade fettuccine.

The crawfish tails in butter with chopped green onions and garlic.

Plated dish, with chopped parsley garnish.

[Blether]

Yesterday: the world's hottest shoulder-clod chili with brown lentil soup and toast

Tonight, the world's hottest chili with eternal clapshot & broccoli, followed by this:

Hot Marmalade Pudding from Shirley Spear's The Three Chimneys: Recipes & Reflections cookbook, with a wee dollop of clotted cream (80% reduced in the supermarket last Sunday. Sold). I cheated by 'steaming' it in the microwave (2/3 recipe, 8 minutes) instead of over a bain marie (recipe says 2 hours), and it worked well.

Edited January 22, 2010 by Blether (log)

[violetfox]

Wow, hot marmalade pudding sounds and looks incredible!

Anyway, dinner is good old ratatouille from Mastering the Art of French cooking, Vol I with brown rice pilaf. I hadn't made ratatouille in quite a while and had forgotten how much I love it - warm, lukewarm, cold, by itself, in an omelet, etc etc etc. Very comforting.

[C. sapidus]

Culture clash dinner:

Cari ga: Vietnamese chicken curry with sweet potatoes and carrots. The gravy, rich with coconut milk and fragrant with shallots, garlic, lime leaves and lemongrass, somehow reminded Mrs. C of a korma. The chicken was rubbed with curry powder, salt, and sugar before browning. This recipe, from Curry Cuisine, will definitely be made again.

Ghee rice: Basmati rice, steamed and tossed with ghee and salt. Ghee was probably overkill since the curry sauce was so rich.

Spinach with brown butter and walnuts: Leftover from earlier in the week. A little salt brought out the brown butter flavor nicely.

[robirdstx]

Pizza!

Crust made with Zoe's Artisan 5 Minute Dough (10 days old) and topped with a tomato sauce, crumbled pork sausage, Spanish chorizo, pepperoni, mushrooms, black olives, a little bit of chopped jalapenos and sweet and red onion, fresh and shredded mozzarella.

Pizza ready to go into the oven!

Pizza baked and ready to be sliced!

[jsmeeker]

Fried Catfish and hush puppies

[kayb]

Most notable meal of the week was chicken cutlets, made from boneless, skinless breasts pounded thin, dredged in seasoned flour, dipped in egg wash, and coated in panko, fried over medium high heat until golden (maybe 2 minutes on a side, tops). Perfect degree of doneness. A sauce made of shallots sauteed in butter, white wine reduced by half, some lemon juice, some paprika, and thickened with a little dollop of butter and flour. Served with zucchini fritters, glazed baby carrots and mashed potatos.

No photos because I was cooking in someone else's kitchen and didn't have my camera with me.

[powerplantop]

Made up a diet plate. Hamburger steak, fried spam, fried rice, fried egg mushroom gravy, macaroni salad with kimchi on the side.

[robirdstx]

Saffron Risotto with Green Peas and Parsley

[mgaretz]

Today's dinner was my chunky red sauce with homemade angel hair pasta, mixed green salad with my balasmic vinaigrette dressing, followed by homemade apple pie.

Ironically, even though our dinner guests were two gold-medal winning photographers, no one took pictures!

[sadistick]

Made up a diet plate. Hamburger steak, fried spam, fried rice, fried egg mushroom gravy, macaroni salad with kimchi on the side.

lol

I hope the 'diet plate' was a joke.......

[djyee100]

For tonight's dinner, Grilled Steak with Herbs, from Alice Waters' Art of Simple Food, carrots tossed with picholine olives, and roasted potatoes and celery root. The carrots were cooked with a little butter in a Chinese sandpot, then tossed with chopped picholine olives to make them zingy. The potatoes and celery root were cut into cubes, rubbed with olive oil and S&P, then roasted in a very hot oven (450F). The steak with herbs is one of my perennial favorites. The recipe calls for grass-fed beef, but I have cooked this recipe with regular ol' sirloin and ribeye steaks, and they come out delicious. The recipe is here:

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/grilled-sirloin-steak-with-herbs

[nickrey]

Dinner tonight was Vitello Tonnato (base recipe courtesy of Marcella Hazan).

Cooked veal escalopes sous vide at 57 degrees. Chilled in ice-bath and kept in refigerator.

Dressing was home-made mayonnaise, half extra virgin olive oil, half grapeseed oil. This was combined with anchovies, rinsed salted baby capers and lemon juice to taste. The dressing was also refrigerated.

Garnished with slices of lemon, slices of olive and parsley oil.

[Kim Shook]

robirdstx - gorgeous pizza!

Jeff - love that fried stuff! Your catfish is really beautiful.

powerplantop - everything looks wonderful, but I am mesmerized by that perfectly fried egg!

Last night I made fennel soup gratin. It was so wonderful and warming. Mr. Kim came in from a late meeting after 10 o'clock and said that it was the perfect meal for that time of night.

The caramelized onions and fennel:

Is there anything prettier?

The soup:

Finished with bread cubes and melted Gruyere:

[robirdstx]

Sunday night was steak night, sorry no photos but there were leftovers and I used them for dinner last night.

Steak and Jack Cheese Melt On Toast served with deli mustard.

Artisan Bread baked in my dutch oven.

Edited January 26, 2010 by robirdstx (log)

[LizD518]

No pictures, but I had an Indian dinner last night with recipes from "The Food of India".

Black Eyed Peas with Mushrooms and Tomatoes: Really earthy and delicios. The hottest of the dishes I made

Punjabi Cabbage: Stirfried cabbage finished with butter for some nice richness

Kheema Matar: Recipe called for ground lamb, but I made it with turkey. It was delicious, although I made it less hot that the recipe called for.

Served it all with some plain yogurt to help cool the heat. I like med spicy/hot foods, probably much milder that some others around here!

[Peter Green]

This was a day when things at the store looked good.

First, some Indian potatoes. Small, round, happy things that reminded me of Bogota.

We did these with a melt of cheese: a mix of French brie and German blue (the German blue is extremely creamy, and gooey).

For a main, fish and pasta.

I fried the skin side, and then cleaned the pan, put in some decent olive oil, some roast yellow peppers, and nestled in the fish. A squirt of lemon for flavour, bring it to heat on the range, some rosemary, and then pop the pan into the oven.

For the pasta, a boil, a drain, and then a quick fry up in the wok with some more olive oil, fresh slices of garlic, and, for fun, some of the last of my Marks & Sparks smokeless bacon crumbled up.

Edited January 26, 2010 by Peter Green (log)

[percyn]

Great meals robirdstx and Peter.

Dinner from the past few days:

Asian Glazed Short Ribs on Sweet Potato Souffle and Corned Bread

and a version of Hainanese chicken rice