Dinner! 2010

[kayb]

That's black garlic sauce.

What ingredients are in that sauce? Is there a taste to which it is akin?

I assume you know what is black garlic (aged garlic). I use EVOO, balsamic, a little red wine, a little soy sauce and a lot of black garlic, all pureed into a thick sauce.

The taste is very interestingly sweet, It's not like anything I can compare it with. Black garlic does not taste like garlic at all.

dcarch

Where would one find black garlic? Is there an online source? I feel relatively certain I couldn't find it around here....

[dcarch]

If you are in the USA, some Whole Foods have it. Amazon.com has it, and on eBay also.

There are many others if you google it.

wonderful new ingredient to give drama and taste to your recipes.

dcarch

[suzilightning]

friday night was pasta night at the eyrie. john wanted shrimp with artichokes, olives, capers and lemon olive oil. i wanted meat sauce.

took the meat sauce, some lactaid cottage cheese that i drained most of the day, some grated hard cheeses and some no cook noodles and made 2 lasagnas. one for dinner last night with leftovers for the beginning of this week and one went into the freezer. will take it up to my sister-in-law to put in her freezer for christmas so john can have something he can eat since she makes hers with full fat mozzarella and ricotta. the one thing i have found, though, is it is best to dip the no cook noodles in hot water before layering them. don't have a pasta machine and no access to fresh pasta sheets - which i would love to find so, since i do lasagna only about once a year or so these sheets work well for me.

leftovers, another set of portugese sweet bread, finish the prep on my turkey stock and then a turkey, spinach and pasta casserole with some hard cheese and garlic panko crumbs.

john is currently making his version of french toast. that means 6 eggs beaten, white bread dipped in the eggs then a hard, hot, fast fry in some olive oil and then served with homemade applesauce - currently northern spy - and maple syrup...from one of the 6 half gallons in the basement.

[ChrisTaylor]

Hamburgers a la Larousse Gastronomique.

[Kim Shook]

David – that veal looks amazing!

Scottyboy – I want that hamburger. The onions are especially calling my name.

dcarch – Your scallop/pumpkin dish is gorgeous and I am intrigued by the sound of black garlic – must see if our Whole Foods carries it.

I cooked all day today and somehow, we never had breakfast or lunch! I guess we just snacked! I did some Christmas cooking - this morning I made Sour Cream-Cheddar potatoes for 50, Brunswick stew for Mr. Kim to take to work for a soup sale to benefit the Food Pantry and started my Christmas gravy. The wings, carrots and celery – tossed with Bell’s Seasoning, pepper and a tomato paste/olive oil slurry. All roasted and gorgeous:

Then they got covered with broth in deep stock pot and simmer for a few hours to make stock:

When I get home from work tomorrow, I’ll use the fat to make a good, dark roux, the stock to make the gravy and then I’ll add in the shredded wing meat to ‘heft it up’. I also made croutons for the salad (it’s the only green vegetable allowed on MY Christmas table ) and cornbread for the oyster dressing.

The stew:

Brunswick stew is just plain ugly, but SO good!

Jessica came in and borrowed the kitchen for two hours to make some things for a ‘Friendsgiving Dinner’ potluck. Corn casserole:

Sweet potato soufflé:

And a gorgeous apple galette:

She is definitely the pie queen in this family!

We actually did have dinner (there was some doubt after all the other cooking today):

Grilled chicken with BBQ sauce, rice pilaf (from a bag – you nuke it for 90 seconds and it’s done – it was pretty good, too) and some stuffed delicata squash that Matthew might (or might not – those raisins got a little dark – though, not QUITE as dark as they photographed!) recognize. Mr. Kim really loved the squash and I would eat it to be polite (this is saying a LOT for me – I don’t eat ANY kind of squash).

[ScottyBoy]

That corn casserole is killing me! Along with everything else, great post, I'm starving now!

[Rico]

Kim, that's a lot of food ... a lot of really, really good looking food. Looks like you batted 1.000!

Scottyboy, those burgers look phenominal. Just outstanding.

ChrisTaylor - That project seems to be coming along nicely. I'd be a happy participant, that's for sure.

Asparagus and Prosciutto Tartines from an '09 Food and Wine (think it was September).

[Blether]

That looks great, Rico. Can you say a little more about the tartines ? It looks like the cheese is nicely melted, but the prosciutto naturally raw. How did you prep the asparagus ?

[Rico]

Thanks, Blether. It was actually a multi-toasting process, with a couple minutes for the bread alone, then:

Tapenade and shallots under slices of fontina and mozarella. Broil for another minute or two.

Add the Asparagus (which was lightly boiled in salted water) and on top of that, the gruyere. Another minute or two of broiling. Then add the tomatoes (which had been browned a little in the frying pan) and the prosciutto on top. I posted it on my site (link on the signature) with some more details if you want them. Regardless, it was some effort, but it turned out really well.

[ChrisTaylor]

Rabbit stew with lemon and garlic from Larousse Gastronomique.

[Dejah]

Yorkshire puddings from last weekend's roast, served with fresh green peppercorn cream sauce. No picture of the sauce as it was really no-descript but delicious.

[Rico]

Well, I'd like to start this off by saying I'm kind of dumb. Who knew precooked mussels wouldn't be as good? All of you, I bet, because you're not as dumb as I am. Thankfully, this still turned out pretty well and tasted good. But not nearly what it would have been if I'd used fresh mussels. Lessons learned, I suppose ...

Mussels, white wine, and linguine.

[PopsicleToze]

Two desserts from Thanksgiving Dinner

[Kim Shook]

Dinner tonight:

Country fried steak, mashed potatoes, butter beans and my MIL’s incomparable yeast rolls.

With gravy:

There ARE leftovers, so I’m thinking steak biscuit sliders for breakfast tomorrow!

[ScottyBoy]

I would like some of your leftovers please

[Jmahl]

Duck Breast rosted on an electric rotisserie with orange wine sauce. The legs will be dinner Sunday.

[ChrisTaylor]

Last night I cooked my 25th, 26th and 27th Larousse recipes.

The highlight:

Cooked in duck fat, of course.

[Prawncrackers]

I've been hankering for a good Reuben sandwich ever since visiting Katz's in New York. It was the first thing we ate on holiday, we landed, checked into the hotel and jumped into a cab to go straight there. I adored my Reuben but the wife was a little disappointed with her corned beef on rye.

So where can I get a good Reuben here in the UK? Well as everybody knows, nowhere, good pastrami just doesn't seem to exist! So I've been brining a piece of brisket for a few weeks and even though the weather has been pretty bad I managed to smoke it for a couple of hours on my Weber kettle. Finished in the oven and left overnight. Slicing the cold pastrami the day after got me very excited indeed, it looked very promising. I like slicing my pastrami from cold as I can control the exact amount. A quick zap and assembly had me transported back to Houston St. My wife declared it was better than her Katz's experience with the corned beef, but I wouldn't dare to compare my Reuben to theirs. It was darned good though:

The farmed turbot at the market has been really good lately. Usually I would normally steamed it whole in the typical Cantonese way but last week I decided to butcher one up to pan roast for the first time, saving the livers of course (I had two fish). I made a brown shrimp butter sauce and mixed in the mashed up lives for extra unctuousness. I decided to serve it off the bone with a simple salad and boiled potatoes:

I found out today that one of the most difficult things to do is splitting a marrow bone vertically with a small saw, i was trying to replicate this dish. But split it I did and I roasted it with some sweet red onions. I wrapped the ends in streaky bacon as I was paranoid of leakage but it didn't really work. The bacon bits were nice in the parsley salad though and the final mess on the sourdough toast tasted a-ma-zing:

The marrow bone in the picture was resting on a bed of pork cheeks. I made a ragu with them in the pressure cooker, perfect looking little meatballs that when approached with a fork collapsed into juicy piles of meat:

[david goodfellow]

I had best get down to the market for some Turbot. I assume its Birmingham Wholesale?

Last time I bought some Porterhouse steak from the abbatior (following that meal) I asked the butcher if he would sell me some bones, he gave me them free of charge. I asked him if he would cut them in two for me. It took him a few seconds on his bandsaw.

The steak was nearly as good as The Hawksmoor one. As yet I have not cooked the bone marrow but I am really looking forward to it.

[jnash85]

Duck Egg Spaghetti Carbonara

I need a better camera....

[Prawncrackers]

I had best get down to the market for some Turbot. I assume its Birmingham Wholesale?

Last time I bought some Porterhouse steak from the abbatior (following that meal) I asked the butcher if he would sell me some bones, he gave me them free of charge. I asked him if he would cut them in two for me. It took him a few seconds on his bandsaw.

The steak was nearly as good as The Hawksmoor one. As yet I have not cooked the bone marrow but I am really looking forward to it.

Yup David, at the wholesale market. Turbot is between £8-£9 per kilo, that fish you see was just over tenner. The paler skin fish at the moment are better eating then the dark ones, they have a muddy flavour.

Even if they are free I'm not sawing my own marrow bones ever again, not vertically at least, it was a real pain in the arse! I ate a brilliant steak the other day David, bought from Deer and Dexter when I was visiting Cartmel. I know you get around, if you ever see any of their produce on your travels I would not hesitate to buy the lot.

[Emily_R]

No photo, but for anyone looking for something yummy to do with leftover turkey, I made a dynamite Turkey-based Sopa Azteca (aka Tortilla Soup) based off of Rick Bayless's recipe here -- http://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/view?recipeID=51. I used less broth (used maybe 5 cups of turkey broth, and replaced cooked turkey for the raw chicken... It was really satisfying and flavorful...

[percyn]

Prawn, that pastrami looks better than Katz's.

Next time you are in NYC, shoot me a note.

[ChrisTaylor]

Last night: Larousse Gastronomique's moussaka and rice a la grecque.

Tonight: chicken cooked in beer, sauteed potatoes and asparagus.

[ScottyBoy]

Prawn, that pastrami looks better than Katz's.

Seriously, I can't even look at that without my tummy grumbling, nice work.