Dinner! 2010

[dcarch]

I made chimchurri sauce for the first time. Now it's one of my favorite things ever.

Steak looks perfect. How was it cooked? Sous vide?

dcarch

[Kim Shook]

Rico – thank you for the good wishes! I am all better now. Your chimchurri looks fantastic. It is one of our favorite “steak sauces”.

Harry – lovely dish – looks delicious and it is beautifully plated. I’m no chef, either, but you’ll find everyone here at this thread very friendly, helpful and welcoming, I think. I don’t even get razzed when I make Sloppy Joes !

Mr. Kim made some of his wonderful split pea soup for a charity fund raiser at work. We had some leftovers for dinner the other night with a salad:

We had Mr. Kim’s mom over last night. Pre-dinner nibbles:

Olives, pickles, some peppers that she had pickled and sesame crisps.

Dinner was soup, sandwiches and salad. My chicken noodle soup:

Apple, fennel and endive slaw:

Ham, turkey and Swiss on raisin bread Panini:

Dessert was Granny Smith sorbet:

And fig, apple mascarpone tart w/ Dulce de Leche:

[David Ross]

Last night, my first batch of Duck Confit this Fall, served with "Pommes de Terre Macaire" and a watercress salad-

[percyn]

Nice Thali Jenni. Care you share your rabri recipe? That Thali makes me feel it is OK to not have meat in an occasional meal (you have no idea how big a deal that is ).

As proof - dinner from a few nights ago:

Korean BBQ Short Ribs (Gal Bi) w/Rice & Lettuce Wraps

The leftovers were made into Loco Moco for brunch

[Jenni]

Nice Thali Jenni. Care you share your rabri recipe? That Thali makes me feel it is OK to not have meat in an occasional meal (you have no idea how big a deal that is ).

Thank you percyn! I can barely call it a recipe, it is simplicity itself. Please note (just for the sake of clarifying terminology), I have always called it basundi when the milk has been reduced by half, and when it is reduced to just a quarter it is rabri. The texture is much thicker, words sometimes used to describe it once cool are "semi-solid" and "set".

I took a litre of whole milk (good local farm stuff, rich and creamy and also unhomogenised) but you could start with more. This was merely my effort to make it so we didn't have loads of sweet, tempting leftovers! Put it in a good heavy bottomed pan with a few cardamom pods. Bring to a boil, stirring all the time, then turn the heat down so that it just gently simmering. Cook slowly, stirring frequently to prevent sticking and also to stir the creamy skin on the top back into the milk, until reduced to a quarter of the original amount. Add about 100g of sugar (this is for 1 litre of milk), or to your taste, towards the end of the cooking time when the milk is nearly fully reduced. The milk will have taken on a pinkish hue and become lovely and thick. Pour/spoon into individual katori or a serving bowl and cool. Serve, garnished with nuts (especially pistachio), if desired.

You can add other spices such as saffron and nuts to the milk whilst it cooks, but I like it pure and simple. You will notice that I didn't even garnish my serving with nuts.

Edited November 6, 2010 by Jenni (log)

[dcarch]

Such great meals everyone! Very international.

I made roasted pork with crackling rind.

dcarch

[heidih]

dcarch- pork is magnificent of course and the crackle on the rind spectacular. Is that a wilted mustard type green underneath? I think that would be lovely to counterpoint the richness of the pork.

[mgaretz]

Kim - the apple fennel and endive slaw looks wonderful!

[suzilightning]

yesterday for john it was whole wheat spaghetti with red roasted peppers, artichokes, sun dried tomatoes and shrimp. cinncinati chili over the pasta for me -technically it was 3 way since i had minced shallots, grated cheddar and there were beans in the chili.

tonight it was use up a poached chicken breast and, since it is cool here, i minced it up, added it to some sauteed onion and shallots. flour and chicken stock with some carrots, peas and potatoes. into a pan and some short pastry on top for homemade pot pie. there is enough for john to have an individual one at work monday.

there is a turkey breast upstairs in an apple cider brine. to be accompanied by some haricot verts and yellow beans from the freezer, some mashed potatoes and gravy.

am planning the american thanksgiving menu...

[David Ross]

The weekend duck and potato theme continued tonight with Slow-Roasted Duck with Creamy Mustard Cabbage and Roasted Potatoes.

I've been doing roast duck this way for years and it always turns out fantastic-tender, juicy meat with crisp skin. I brined the duck for about 8 hours in a simple mixture of water, salt, bay leaf, peppercorns and chopped onions. Pricked the breast to help render the fat and into a 275 oven for 3 1/2 hours. During the last 1 1/2 hours of roasting I added some peeled and quartered Russet potatoes to the roasting pan. Turn up the heat to 375 for 1/2 hour and then to broil for 6 minutes to crisp the skin. During the roasting I baste the duck and potatoes with the rendered duck fat. I also add about 3/4 cup water to the roasting pan so that the duck fat doesn't burn during roasting.

The cabbage is very easy. Start with frying some chopped, smoked bacon until crisp, then add in a small diced onion. Add shredded cabbage, (tonight I used Savoy cabbage), and saute in the bacon fat until wilted. Add a couple of tablespoons of capers and some celery seed. Add cream or sour cream to make a thick sauce and a couple of big spoons of Dijon mustard. Season with black pepper.

[Blether]

Very nice, David Ross - both these meals, but especially for me, the first. Great picture.

Sunday night and it was lazy comfort food, British style, after a busy day - fish, chips & beans. Frozen fries and tinned beans are reasonable solutions of their kind. Frozen breaded fish isn't so good, though, and I bought the sea bass fillet (still convenient) fresh for cutting up, and breaded it myself for shallow-frying:

New camera, too (Fujifilm Finepix F80 EXR) that has done a better automatic job of the white balance in this location than the old F4500 ever did.

Edited November 7, 2010 by Blether (log)

[Prawncrackers]

Duck looks fantastic David, I'm a big advocate of the combination slow oven bake then crisp under the grill/broiler method too. Works wonderful well with pork, never fails too get crispy crackling skin that way. In fact that's surely going to be on the menu soon...

Blether, fish and chips is total comfort food for me too but i'm more of a mushy peas kind of guy. What's the chippy scene like in Tokyo, can you get a proper fish supper over there? I don't think i ever came across one the times I've visited.

[Blether]

... What's the chippy scene like in Tokyo, can you get a proper fish supper over there? I don't think i ever came across one the times I've visited.

We don't have a chippy scene. What there is, is fish 'n chips served in British and Irish pubs - some mediocre, some reasonable and one or two rather good. Stand-outs for me are the chips at Dubliners - big, fat, crisp things with fluff all the way through (the fish is just OK-ish) - and fish & chips from the mobile van operatyed at events by the Nishi-Azabu pub Grail. Grail has sent its staff on tours of Scotland to familiarise themselves with the food & drink, but I've only visited the pub location once and the room itself didn't inspire me to go back.

Did I remember once that there had been a Harry Ramsden's branch here ? I'm not sure, and if there was it didn't stay open long enough for me to get to it. On a related-yet-unrelated note, Pret a Manger were here for a while, and their sandwiches were an oasis of quality, but they didn't last long either. Something to do with inspired decisions like the one to rent a top central-Tokyo location (Fukoku Seimei building in Hibiya) and only open during the day ?

I too often have a doomed hankering for a haggis supper.

[plum tart]

I had a 4 gram white truffle from Alba. I made pasta al burro with homemade pasta, artisanal butter and some freshly grated parmesan. Then I grated the truffle all over the pasta and chowed down while it was still hot. Red wine of course and after veal marsala followed by a fennel salad dressed with aged balsamic and extra virgin olive oil from Spain.

Very sad that the meal is over. Certainly can't afford another white truffle from Alba this year. I am just so grateful the grocer would sell pieces of truffle.

[ChrisTaylor]

Last night: braised beef ala Creole. A recipe from Larousse Gastronomique with a few modifications that, mostly, involved ingredients I wanted to use up.

Tonight I start my new project--cooking every recipe in Larousse, making as few concessions as possible--with roast chicken, baked potatoes with garlic and braised leeks.

[Kim Shook]

David – gorgeous duck (both meals)! And those potatoes really caught my eye (again, BOTH meals)!

Bruce – I really need to find that cut of short ribs and make some Korean BBQ – it always looks so good! And I like the look of your macaroni salad on your lunch plate – how is that put together?

Mark – thank you – we finished it up this weekend and it was STILL crisp and good. I’m glad to have found that recipe!

Blether – your fish and chips meal looks delicious and I have a place in my heart (and my kitchen) for frozen fries!

Dinner last night was a clean out the fridge football feast. I had a couple of duck livers, so I made a teeny little ramekin of pate:

Absolutely fabulous and so easy! Why have I not been making pate all my life?

I tossed out pickles, olives, bread and some sopressata on the counter and we just piled our plates:

There was also some leftover fennel-apple slaw.

[Le Master]

Sopressata. Mmmm.

[Rico]

Kim, that clean out the kitchen football feat looks awesome. And let's see ... dinnertime football means that the Cowboys were getting stomped while you were eating? Sigh.

Blether, the fish and chips look great. Frozen fries or not, I'd dig into that.

David - I love duck, and I love those photos. So ... yeah, that kind of made my morning.

Gettin' cool in Dallas. Figured it was time for soup. Garden Vegetable from good ol' Alton.

[ChrisTaylor]

Last night I had roast chicken with baked potatoes and braised leeks. The chicken and the vegetables were from Larousse, making them the first three recipes I've knocked over in my attempt to cook the book cover to cover.

[Kim Shook]

Rico - yep - the Cowboys getting stomped was all the dessert this Redskins fan needed (gotta find my football fun somewhere since the Skins suck so bad!). That soup looks wonderful, BTW.

[Kim Shook]

Breakfast for dinner tonight. Alton Brown’s French toast, serendipitous pancakes, ham and apples. The pancakes were serendipitous because I had lots of custard leftover from making the French toast, so I dumped in some flour, baking powder, salt and sugar and made them. I had some leftover apple syrup from Sunday breakfast and some orange maple syrup from a week or so ago and heated them up together. This was a good dinner!

[menuinprogress]

Working with barracuda for the first time, we did some fish tacos with black beans and rice:

My internet research on barracuda turned up pretty mixed reviews, but we really enjoyed it. It had a soft texture and a really good fishy-but-not-too-fishy taste.

[ChrisTaylor]

Recipes 5, 6, 7 & 8 from my Larousse project.

• Chicken with archiduc sauce
  
• Cucumber salad with vinaigrette
  
• Green beans
  

Edited November 10, 2010 by ChrisTaylor (log)

[Rico]

Chris, that's an ambitious task, to be sure - but you're definitely starting strong! Looks great.

Menuinprogress - That's looks great, but ... barracuda? I've never ever thought that you could eat that. And now I've got the Heart song stuck in my head. Ooooooooooh - BarraCUda!

Kim - Your photos make me think that if I lived at your house, I'd be happy most of the time.

Made a chicken/mushroom/mustard thing from a September 09 F&W. Pretty derned good.

[ScottyBoy]

Last night some Salmon, risotto made with shellfish broth, corn and peas. A reduction of port with black garlic butter to finish.

Tonight!

28oz grass fed dry aged cowboy steak.