Dinner! 2011

[nickrey]

Posted this over on "Cooking with Modernist Cuisine thread."

Thought I'd post it here too as it was dinner and many of you are possibly not looking over there.

72-hour sous vide cooked beef cheek pastrami. Served tonight with mashed potato, Red Cabbage with Wine, and an Israeli pickle.

[robirdstx]

Dinner last night was Fried Catfish Tacos. The white sauce was a combo of mayo, drained yogurt, lime juice, and pickled jalapeno juice. Very tasty!

[Borgstrom]

Sudden burst of energy on a Tuesday night: made a salmon souffle (New Basics recipe) with the remnants of the hot-smoked salmon I made last week, plus some sous vide asparagus using Modernist Cuisine best bet (15min/85c). Asparagus looks kind of naked without a sauce, but was very nice/light after some heavy meals over the weekend.

Edited March 30, 2011 by Borgstrom (log)

[DeliciouslyLekker]

I visited a toko (Asian grocery store) earlier this week so we've been eating Asian almost every evening (and sometimes lunch for me as well!). Besides pho, I also ate kimchi fried rice, Pad Thai, UFO noodles (out of a box) and nasi goreng.

Tonight, I had curry laksa. My boyfriend had pizza as he's not a noodle person haha.

[Kim Shook]

judiu - I'm sorry - I should have said that that was also store-bought (in the interests of getting dinner on the table FAST). It was from Harris Teeter's deli section. We don't have a Harris Teeter here in Richmond, but found it in NC when we were at the OBX that weekend. It is one of our favorites and we always grab some when we get near a Harris Teeter.

toolprincess - I love your meatloaf repurposing! I have the same infection and think that would be a GREAT dinner! Hope you feel better soon!

Ann - Those halibut cheeks look positively succulent!

Nick - beautiful pastrami. It looks so tender and perfect.

robirdstx - I have been craving fish tacos lately and no one here has really good ones - those look fantastic and I love, love, LOVE the sound of the white sauce!

Borgstrom - salmon souffle sounds lovely - I have the book, I'll have to look up that recipe!

I am doing all of my food enjoyment this week vicariously - I'm battling an upper respiratory infection and trying to prep for a dinner party on Friday night. Last night I made two kinds of cooky dough and curry leaf rolls to put in the freezer and ate leftover Chinese take out! Thank you all for your contributions!

[robirdstx]

robirdstx - I have been craving fish tacos lately and no one here has really good ones - those look fantastic and I love, love, LOVE the sound of the white sauce!

...I am doing all of my food enjoyment this week vicariously - I'm battling an upper respiratory infection and trying to prep for a dinner party on Friday night.

Hi Kim, I hope you are feeling better real soon. When you are up to satisfying that craving for fish tacos, check out this eG thread - that's where I got the inspiration and tips for my white sauce.

[dcarch]

DeliciouslyLekker, Very nice Beef Pho.

kayb, very healthy and tasty looking flax seed potato bread, and you did a good job with the Caribbean meal.

rarerollingobject, Love that Buffalo mozzarella, rocket proscuitto salad. The sous vide salmon is just the way I like it cooked. “---Chinese lion's head meatballs, also disappointingly lacking in actual lion's head.” LOL!

patrickamory, your curry of chicken is beautiful.

Dejah, Wow! AAA prime roast done with AAA skills. I am very impressed by the duck breast dish.

Kim, your shepherd’s pie, and roast chicken backs look like quite a feast.

Ann_t, You have done great justice to precious Halibut, and the shrimp cocktail.

nickrey, Lovely sous vide beef cheek pastrami. Do you have a copy of the Modernist Cuisine?

robirdstx, beautiful plating, your Fried Catfish Tacos.

Borgstrom, Nice plating sous vide shank. I went and immediately got myself some marrow bones.

-------------------------------------------------

So I made some roasted marrow bones. The bones were also smoked with rosemary first.

Of course I had to make some bread also for the marrow.

Dcarch

[heidih]

Is that a whole wheat with apricot bits?

[nickrey]

nickrey, Lovely sous vide beef cheek pastrami. Do you have a copy of the Modernist Cuisine?

Sure do and that's where it came from. My wife asked if we would need steak knives and I said, no, just a spoon.

[Genkinaonna]

I finally got up the courage to use the pressure cooker I just bought. Lentil soup with ham in 20 min! I'm so excited to start experimenting. This bowl had chili oil and greek yogurt as a garnish, the soup is flavored with tomato and pepper paste and cumin along with the ham and some carrots and chicken stock. It's kind of a riff on a turkish lentil soup, with the decidedly non-turkish addition of lots of pork!

[rarerollingobject]

Great looking meals, everyone! Esp. all the bone marrow..yum.

Dinner here was a beautifully simple sauteed chicken with roasted grapes, from this recipe by Rozanne Gold. Amazingly tasty for a recipe with three ingredients; grapes, chicken and butter.

With a simple green salad on the side, and a earthy Nebbiolo.

[CFT]

How on earth can chicken, butter and grapes look so luscious?

[robirdstx]

Thanks to this post by JAZ on the Chicken Skin - Do You or Don't You? thread, we had Turkey Thighs Braised in Sherry Vinegar Sauce, with Crispy Skin, for dinner last night.

And following JAZ's suggestion to serve this dish with polenta, I used Sara Moulton's Creamy Baked Polenta recipe, which can be found here in RecipeGullet.

Edited April 1, 2011 by robirdstx (log)

[MiFi]

Ginger Star Anise Briased Chicken

Duck Salad

Pork chops w/lemon caper sauce, polenta, braised chard

[DeliciouslyLekker]

Everything looks so yummy here.. Haven't actually decided what to have for dinner yet and you guys are making me hungry!

[C. sapidus]

Genkinaonna, gorgeous lentil soup!

Stir-fried salmon with chiles, Thai basil, and yard-long beans. Stir-fried Napa cabbage, snow peas, and mushrooms with garlic, fish sauce, and fermented soybean paste. Jasmine rice with coconut milk and chicken broth (the boys' favorite).

[Dejah]

Thank goodness admiring the food porn here doesn't add weight...or does it!? My scales say...maybe...

Weekend, more time for cooking and eating. Tonight, pan-seared scallops with 2 sauces: one home-made with hoisin and lime juice (similar to the one I used for duck breasts sans the garlic. The other is bottled mango chutney.

Does wild rice get stale? I've had this bag for over a year. Not all the grains "split" so some were chewy. It was a pilaf with carrots, celery, onion, walnut, cranberries. The final result was chewier than I expected. The walnuts and cranberries went well with the scallops.

[Genkinaonna]

Those scallops look great! Mine never turn out that well, I think I'm just too impatient and I don't let them sit long enough...

Tonight it was chicken pot pie with chicken I did in the pressure cooker (which coincidentally I'm LOVING) and the standard herbage, carrots, potatoes, etc, with a crust that was halfway between a pie crust and a biscuit. It was well received, but I thought it was a little underseasoned. I'm pondering what to do with the rest of the beautiful chicken stock that resulted from the cooking of said chicken, I'm thinking maybe a risotto might be in the works for tomorrow...

[Jen Rehm]

Pulled Lamb Sandwiches with red wine BBQ sauce, goat cheese mayo, quick pickled red cabbage on a club roll.

Did a leg of lamb in the pressure cooker with red wine, garlic, carrots, celery, onions, cloves and worchester sauce for 60 minutes. BBQ sauce with Bordeaux, garlic, cumin, brown sugar, ketchup, and worchester. Goat cheese whipped into mayo with parsley and a dash of lemon. Red cabbage 50/50 mix of apple cider vinegar and sugar.

Wish I had a pic, the bright cabbage looked great on top of the lamb and the little flecks of green parsley in the mayo, but we ate it too fast

That's a keeper-

jen

[David Ross]

A couple of dishes from recent dinners using the Pan Saute and Oven-Roasted method that we've been discussing here.

Monkfish with Blood Orange Vinaigrette and Tangerine, Sauteed Red Chard, Crispy Shallots-

New York Strip Steak-

[patrickamory]

Spaghetti with sausage sauce from the River Cafe Cookbook. These photos do not give a sense of just how rich this is - caramelized Italian pork sausage meat, caramelized red onion, red wine, nutmeg, cream and reggiano. It reminds me more of beef bourgignon than bolognese - it's at least halfway to France, and takes nearly 2 hours to make.

[Kim Shook]

rarerollingobject – those roasted grapes look seriously amazing!

Bruce – the stir fried salmon meal looks fantastic. I am stealing the cabbage/snow pea/mushroom idea. And how in the world do you stir fry salmon without it becoming hash?

Dejah – beautiful scallops! What a perfect sear you got.

Jem – you bet that’s a keeper – I can tell that even without a picture. I’ve saved your directions and description and will be trying that. Between you and Genkinaonna, I’m inspired to get out my pressure cooker and get busy.

We had Mr. Kim’s mother over for dinner last night. I love cooking for her because she is so adventuresome and likes almost everything. We started with a chilled curry apple soup that an online friend who lives in China recommended:

Served with Monica Bhide’s curry leaf bread made as rolls:

And some goodies to spread:

green olive tapenade, tomato jam and hummus. The jam and hummus were purchased, but I made the tapenade. We had a version of this at a party awhile back and the caterer told me what the ingredients were – I took her list and added some anchovy paste – very, very good!

The main course included Dianne’s Garlic Shrimp:

delicous, as always. With some crusty bread for sopping, of course:

Couscous with shallots, currants and hazelnuts, cooked a different way than I usually do:

The method was one from the February 2011 issue of CI. Instead of the standard – bring the water/stock to a boil, add the couscous, cover, let sit and fluff – you toast the dry couscous in the pan with butter for about 5 minutes and then add the liquid, which boils immediately. Then you cover and let sit. I’d never done it this way and it was a huge improvement over the other method – nice, separate grains and not too dry.

A simple salad:

Just greens with olive oil, orange muscat vinegar and S&P.

Dessert was cookies. The (very) good:

And the not-so-much:

(Explanation here)

[Genkinaonna]

Kim-Those shrimp look great! Recipe? And my girls would love the alarmingly pink cotton candy flavored cookies! As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that's their idea of heaven!

David-how do you make your crispy shallots? Mine never turn out just right. Although that knowledge might be a dangerous thing, I'd be eating them constantly...

[David Ross]

Kim-Those shrimp look great! Recipe? And my girls would love the alarmingly pink cotton candy flavored cookies! As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that's their idea of heaven!

David-how do you make your crispy shallots? Mine never turn out just right. Although that knowledge might be a dangerous thing, I'd be eating them constantly...

Very easy. I slice the shallots into thin rings then soak in milk, then dust in either flour or a prepared deep-fry mix, then deep-fry in canola oil for about a minute. You have to watch them so they don't burn because if they do they taste awful.

In a pinch, I'll buy fried shallots at the local Asian grocery store. Crispy and tasty but never as good as homemade.

[Kim Shook]

Kim-Those shrimp look great! Recipe? And my girls would love the alarmingly pink cotton candy flavored cookies! As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that's their idea of heaven!

Thanks for the cooky love. Kerry gave me an idea for maintaining the Pop Rocks power, so I'll be trying them again!

The shrimp recipe is Dianne's - a member here at eG. They are a favorite of ours - such an easy preparation that I make them a LOT! Here is the recipe.