Dinner! 2011

[ScottyBoy]

First try and making soup dumplings and pot stickers. Fillings were good but could use some practice with wonton wrappers and the fresh dough I made.

[Shelby]

Vegetables, redux:

More of those marvelous tomatos (Shelby, wish I could get some of them to you!), butterbeans, new potatos roasted with black truffle oil, sea salt and grated Parmigiano, an ear of corn on the cob, and a slice of leftover ham from Christmas, vac-sealed and frozen until this week.

Ham had a sort of watery taste/texture to it. Anyone had that experience with cured, vac-sealed, frozen ham? I didn't do anything other than thaw it out. open the pouch and eat it; I tend to like my ham cold.

Ohhhhhhhh, I'm DROOLING. I have one tomato that's almost ready to pick and I can't WAIT.

Beautiful meals, everyone!

[pastameshugana]

Scott - I don't think I'd ever get inked, but if I did, you're wearing the only tattoo I could ever get.

...and beautiful piggy skin.

[kayb]

Scotty, love the pig. I was so proud of my Boston Butt last weekend...have yet to try the whole pig route. Tattoo is cool, too. And the dumplings look just gorgeous.

Dakki, great tacos, and I have to go google to find out what chistorra is.

Jan V, I had to look up onglet, too. That looks delectable.

[ScottyBoy]

Oh thanks all, it's my grandmother's silverware, I have the forks on the other arm

[Jan Virtanen]

I made French Laundry ratatouille. I actually put some soffritto to the piperade. Realising it wasnt needed for piperade in Kellers ratatoille. But it didnt hurt

I like this recepy. Whats yours favorite ratatouille receipt?

[suzilightning]

scotty - just to reiterate everyone else - WOW what an image.

the first south jersey corn has come in and our local corn will be available the middle of next week. also found some local tomatoes that tasted like tomatoes. made a blt on toasted rye for lunch with some of those tomatoes.

dinner is finishing as i type and finish the laundry. squabs that were stuffed with some bacon, garlic and sage leaves, sauteed in some olive oil then pan braised with some stock and white wine. will serve with some white and wild rice that is cooking as well as some asparagus.

tomorrow sandwiches as we check all the bluebird boxes on our run. i'm trying some uncured turkey hotdogs. new england rolls, sauerkraut with beer, the white corn and either potato salad or pasta and red bean salad.

will also do the food for at least the first two or three days : salmon cakes and poached chicken breasts. the salmon cakes can be paired with leftover rice for a dinner or served with tartar sauce to be eaten for lunch or even breakfast. the chicken can be sliced for a sandwich or chopped and made into pot pies - again for lunch or dinner. a little container of one of the salads and john is covered even if he has to work until 8 or later. course when he comes home there is smoked salmon or even some eggy potatoes for a late night snack.

[kayb]

A burger, sans bun, with a topper of bacon jam, spooned on while it was still on the grill so it'd get nice and warm and melt into the patty. Yum! Roasted sweet potatos with leftover barbecue dry rub, glazed with honey chipotle butter. Greek-ish salad -- tomatos, cucumber, onion, olives, in an olive oil and lemon viniagrette with oregano, topped with probably-too-much crumbled feta.

And a ginger mojito.

Edited July 10, 2011 by kayb (log)

[ScottyBoy]

Fried some sardines, porcinis and a lemon ricotta stuffed squash blossom.

Peas, pea and basil puree, rock shrimp and a rockshrimp-lemon stuffed squash blossom.

Having a pot of fry oil is dangerous sometimes, I'm stuffed with fried foods...

[rarerollingobject]

WOW - scottyboy, that pig.. And the squash flowers look lovely too. I can taste the crunch from a hemisphere away.

Dakki - that meal is just beautiful. I'm quite entranced by texture of your tortillas..I don't know exactly what I mean by that, other than I'm jealous I'll never find ones as good as those here!

Jan Virtanen, your ratatouille is gorgeous. It's actually something I've never cooked, but that picture makes me want to.

And kayb - a ginger mojito! Delicious.

Here it was a pretty simple seared skipjack tuna sashimi. Or tataki, I guess. Got a nice charry crust on it and served on salad leaves dressed with umeboshi (sour plum), soy sauce and camellia oil. I try not to eat or buy tuna that much unless I can be sure of its provenance but a friend caught this one a few hours before with a good old fishing rod, so I feel OK about it.

[nickrey]

After all these wonderful home-made dumplings that have been posted recently, I've ordered Andrea Nguyen's Asian dumpling book. Will post some of the experiments as they progress after the book travels from US to Oz.

[Dakki]

Dakki - She was a 60 pounder. What camera did you use for the tacos? That is really nice for no post-processing.

Thank you very much ScottyBoy. The camera is a Canon Powershot A590 IS, and the shot was done offhand in natural light.

I don't think I sufficiently expressed my admiration for your pig before. This is the kind of cookery I enjoy the most and your post shows me how far I still have to go. I'm intensely jealous.

And then you have to rub it in with the potstickers (love the B&W shots btw) and the fried squash blossoms. I call disloyal competition!

Finally, sweet ink, dude.

Dakki, great tacos, and I have to go google to find out what chistorra is.

Thank you, kayb. Chistorra is a sausage originally from the Basque country, brought over to my part of Mexico by settlers from that area, then "mexified" over the years by local charcoutieres and blah blah blah. BACON JAM?! GINGER MOJITOS?!

Dakki - that meal is just beautiful. I'm quite entranced by texture of your tortillas..I don't know exactly what I mean by that, other than I'm jealous I'll never find ones as good as those here!

RRO, thank you. The trick to corn tortillas is to heat them (if they need heating - a real purist will eat them still hot from the tortilleria, the tortilla bakery) fast enough - in fat (as in this case) or directly over the burner. I'm lazy and buy mine shopmade but I'm sure there's a source for nixtamal corn flour in AUS - if you use that, you'll get superior results compared to mine.

And, seared tuna with umeboshi-dressed greens. Are you trying to make me move to Australia?

[Broken English]

Pan roasted duck breast, creamy polenta, snow peas, shiitake mushrooms, honey soy jus (made from the stock I made from the duck carcass.

I was quite happy with it, though I can't imagine not being happy whilst eating duck.

[Broken English]

Here it was a pretty simple seared skipjack tuna sashimi. Or tataki, I guess. Got a nice charry crust on it and served on salad leaves dressed with umeboshi (sour plum), soy sauce and camellia oil. I try not to eat or buy tuna that much unless I can be sure of its provenance but a friend caught this one a few hours before with a good old fishing rod, so I feel OK about it.

That looks great. I have never really had much to do with eating skipjack tuna, we used to just use them for marlin bait. Are they anywhere near as good as Yellow or Bluefin?

[rarerollingobject]

That looks great. I have never really had much to do with eating skipjack tuna, we used to just use them for marlin bait. Are they anywhere near as good as Yellow or Bluefin?

No.

But it's tuna-ey enough to satisfy, and since all my o-toro and chu-toro eating over many trips to Japan in my lifetime have quite possibly depleted the ocean's stocks proportionately enough for about 50 people, I have some compensating to do.

[Broken English]

Haha, I can relate to that. May just stick to serving them as an amuse bouche for blue marlin then.

[ChrisTaylor]

Cheesburgers. The patties were made from no more than salt and freshly, coarsely ground chuck steak. The sauce was made from ketchup and Dijon mustard with a few drops of Maggi seasoning.

[Emily_R]

Had some ham left over from a previous meal, so last night I made open-faced Croque Monsieurs. Sourdough bread then ham, smothered with mornay sauce, topped with more gruyere and broiled. SO GOOD. Served with a lemon-dressed salad and sparkling white wine to cut through the richness.

I've got an extra cup and a half of mornay sauce left over, so am thinking about smothering some broccoli with it tonight!

[mgaretz]

Last night we had baby backs sous vide at 143f for 22 hours then finished on the grill. Yummy!

[harrysnapperorgans]

We had pan fried snapper on roast vegetables and salad greens with a lemon vinaigrette.

Terrible laptop photo, but you get the idea. It was very tasty (my wife looks pretty happy!)

I brought a whole fish for a change, filleted it myself (that was a first) and I'm going to make stock with the carcass.

The fish could have been better - I was trying to get the skin really crispy, but the fillets weren't very thick, and I didn't want to overcook the fish, so I took it off the heat before the skin got to where I wanted it. But the fish was cooked well. Next time I'll know that to get cripsy skin, I need to get hold of thicker fillets.

[Blether]

... to get cripsy skin, I need to get hold of thicker fillets.

Or crank up the heat ?

[David A. Goldfarb]

From market...

...to table--

The shrimp from Keawa Nui Shrimp Farms were tossed with sesame oil, local tangerine, crushed red pepper, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, Hawai'ian salt and black pepper and grilled. The green vegetable is local alogbati (aka "Malabar spinach"). Short grain brown rice, Leffe Blonde.

Edited July 11, 2011 by David A. Goldfarb (log)

[Norm Matthews]

We had a seafood dinner here in Kansas yesterday.. steamed clams, stuffed mussels, salmon appetizer 'pizza' and a grilled salmon which i turned into a spread -or salad- with sour cream, mayo, onion, cilantro, dill, red pepper flakes and hickory smoked salt-not pictured. Mussels stuffed with minced ham, onion, garlic, butter white wine and bread crumbs and topped with parm. cheese and parsley.

Edited July 11, 2011 by Norm Matthews (log)

[ScottyBoy]

Yum, last few posts....I want seafood!

[FrogPrincesse]

Yum, last few posts....I want seafood!

With Peter the Eater blogging this week, I anticipate more wonderful seafood!