Dinner! 2011

[SobaAddict70]

Looks great, Heidi.

Salads for dinner tonight.

Lamb's quarters (wild spinach) and Campari tomato salad, with cow's milk ricotta cheese, garlic scapes and crispy lemon zest.

Salade parisienne with sauce moutarde.

Clockwise from upper left: cold leftover roast poussin, Campari cherry tomatoes, new potatoes fried in French butter, hard-cooked wild turkey eggs, blanched green beans and French breakfast radishes.

Because if it's French, it must be good.

[menuinprogress]

Lamb's quarters (wild spinach) and Campari tomato salad, with cow's milk ricotta cheese, garlic scapes and crispy lemon zest.

Salade parisienne with sauce moutarde.

Those both look fantastic!

[Emily_R]

Agreed -- SobaAddict those look amazing -- that pillowy cloud of ricotta, the crispy potatoes, and the poussin looking so moist... Sigh. Feed me please?

[SobaAddict70]

Thanks guys.

Ricotta gnocchi tonight. More later.

[Dakki]

Great food everyone!

This was supper - quesadillas with rajas and longaniza.

If we're taking excuses for bad pics this week, I got home kind of late and the sun was already down by the time I finished throwing these together. Also I was hungry and the food was getting cold, and the dog ate my good pics.

[gfweb]

Assume nothing. Is the soup frozen? Powdered?

So sorry honorable gfweb. I am afraid I can't disclose to you. It is a thousand year old secret recipe bequeathed to me by an inscrutable supreme Chinese culinary master, who was a direct descendent, from a royal master chef of Emperor’s Forbidden kitchen.

Make soup stock with gelatin. After gelatin is set, chop it up to mix with filling to make bun. After the buns are steamed, the gelatin/stock is melt and becomes the soup.

dcarch

Ancient Modernist Cuisine!

[Blether]

... This was supper - quesadillas with rajas and longaniza...

I'll bite. What's a Raja, and what's a longanisa ? Even my eG post spell checker doesn't know them.

[Dakki]

Rajas are chiles (in this case jalapeno) cut into thick strips, usually sauteed. Some pickled chiles are also cut like this. Longaniza is a type of sausage. It's a bit like a non-crumbly chorizo.

[SobaAddict70]

Good stuff, Dakki.

If you think it looks more "yellow" than normal, you'd be right. I used a chicken egg from Quattro's.

I'm afraid the ricotta gnocchi demo in my Foodblog didn't specify the desired thickness when I roll them out. Here's a closeup shot that gives you a good idea.

M. Hazan's tomato sauce, adapted from Marcella Cucina: one can crushed tomatoes, 4 tablespoons unsalted French butter, 1 onion cut in half. Simmer until droplets of fat separate from the sauce, about 1 hour. Taste for salt and pepper. Discard onion -- although if you're like me, that's the best part!

Edited June 16, 2011 by SobaAddict70 (log)

[Blether]

... M. Hazan's tomato sauce...

I start to feel blue if I ever get to having no wee containers of that sauce left in the freezer. Gorgeous-looking gnocchi, though without a standard-sized prop I'm little the wiser as to size

Edited June 16, 2011 by Blether (log)

[rarerollingobject]

So many great things here..SobaAddict70, beautiful food. Dakki! Your meals are amazing, I always look out for them! And heidih, the way you use vegetables really jives with me..just the sort of dishes I'd make.

I forgot to take a picture of the meat pre-cooking to show you how beautifully marbled it was, but dinner here was wagyu, asparagus and enoki mushroom rolls, glazed with mirin, sake, soy and honey.

Side of green beans in a miso, walnut and ginger dressing.

[Mr Holloway]

rarerollingobject inspired me to make this.

dcarch

This is an excellent pic

Shane

[heidih]

... This was supper - quesadillas with rajas and longaniza...

I'll bite. What's a Raja, and what's a longanisa ? Even my eG post spell checker doesn't know them.

I am a huge fan of longanisa. here is someone's blog post about them. I actually like the brand shown but in the spicy version. A favorite sandwich with crusty bread and marinated cucumber and onion.

[rarerollingobject]

dcarch

This is an excellent pic

Shane

It is..I just woke up from a dream that seemed to concern XLB entirely, opened up eG and first thing I saw was this pic again.. now I have a tremendous craving for them, and for that I blame/thank you, dcarch!

[rarerollingobject]

... This was supper - quesadillas with rajas and longaniza...

I'll bite. What's a Raja, and what's a longanisa ? Even my eG post spell checker doesn't know them.

I am a huge fan of longanisa. here is someone's blog post about them. I actually like the brand shown but in the spicy version. A favorite sandwich with crusty bread and marinated cucumber and onion.

Interesting..that blog post suggests cooking them in a frying pan lined with foil to avoid the burnt on sludge on the pan..I cook sweet Thai sausages that kill my pans in a similar way, I can't believe I never thought of pan frying directly on foil! Genius.

[heidih]

... This was supper - quesadillas with rajas and longaniza...

I'll bite. What's a Raja, and what's a longanisa ? Even my eG post spell checker doesn't know them.

I am a huge fan of longanisa. here is someone's blog post about them. I actually like the brand shown but in the spicy version. A favorite sandwich with crusty bread and marinated cucumber and onion.

Interesting..that blog post suggests cooking them in a frying pan lined with foil to avoid the burnt on sludge on the pan..I cook sweet Thai sausages that kill my pans in a similar way, I can't believe I never thought of pan frying directly on foil! Genius.

I use a 59 cent disposable pan in the oven when I cook mine. I prick them and add a hint of water and loosely cover with foil at the beginning. Then I drain some of the fat and finish uncovered on high heat till crispy.

[Dakki]

heidih, I don't think Filipino longaniza (or, as Wikipedia would have it, longganisa) is the same as what we get here; I know the pinoy version of adobo is quite different from the Mexican (which in turn is quite different from the Spanish), for instance. Nevertheless I'm sure it's delicious (and I'm quite curious to try it).

rarerollingobject, thanks for your encouragement. You're making me blush.

[mgaretz]

Tonight I made home-baked tofu with yu choy, red pepper, onion, cabbage and carrots stir-fried with a soy-oyster-cream sherry-orange sauce. Served with basamati rice.

[rarerollingobject]

Crispy pork belly, sliced and stir fried with greens and sweet soy (snowpeas, beans, broccoli, choy sum). I'm calling this Thai-ish because I used palm sugar and fish sauce, and doused with lime juice at the end.

[judiu]

RRO, if I live any closer to Australia, you'd find me on your doorstep! That pork belly meal is a thing of beauty!

[David Ross]

Doing some Chinese cookery this weekend. (Also posted in the Chinese Eats at Home topic here).

Last night,

Deep-Fried Riverbarb, (a delicate white fish), with a sauce of Garlic, Ginger, Sesame Oil, Chili Oil and Chinese Black Vinegar-

Beef Chow Fun-

(Sorry the noodles are buried under the beef). I used flank steak for this dish, and cut the steak in half, then sliced into thin strips. I typically "velvet" meat in a mixture of cornstarch, liquid and egg white, but I've read some recipes that also call for a bit of baking soda. The mixture for the beef included baking soda, cornstarch, soy sauce and Chinese rice wine-no egg white. That bit of baking soda must have caused some sort of reaction because this was the most tender stir-fried beef I've ever had.

The sauce is simply mashed fermented black beans, Chinese rice wine and some oyster sauce. I added some shredded carrots, green onions and baby bok choy for a vegetable element.

[Dakki]

RRO, that pork belly looks and sounds delicious!

David Ross, the beef looks good, but I really, really like the presentation on that fish.

[David Ross]

RRO, that pork belly looks and sounds delicious!

David Ross, the beef looks good, but I really, really like the presentation on that fish.

Thanks, the fish is such a simple dish. My Asian market sells frozen Riverbarb already cleaned and scored. I dust it with potato flour and deep-fry in 375 canola oil for 3-4 minutes. Then just stir the garlic and ginger into the oils, pour over the fish and drizzle some black vinegar around the fish. The flesh is white and delicate, like a rainbow trout, yet the flavor is delicate and buttery. Delicious.

[David Ross]

Tonight I went with a "Steamed Chinese Dishes" theme.

Steamed Copper River Salmon with "Crisp" Chili Oil and Soy-

And the medium-rare Salmon-

(Read our discussion of the 2011 Copper River Salmon season here).

[rarerollingobject]

Love the look of that salmon, David Ross.

Dinner here was more pork; pork shoulder braised in milk. Served with steamed kale and rice, the curds of the milk sauce were mighty tasty (if not too photogenic).