Dinner! 2013 (Part 3)

[basquecook]

Steak on the big green egg last night. Grilled asparagus and roasted potatoes. Served with a bernaise sauce.

To start we had a salad made from lettuces and herbs from the garden, with blue cheese and bacon.

Ate outside, perfect weather.

[mm84321]

Salmon belly with garbanzo beans

Mm84321, your garbanzos look a lot greener than the ones I am used to seeing - is that what they look like fresh?

Yes. These were fresh. I blanched them, then peeled their skins, finished by warming in butter, lemon zest and juice, a bit of olive oil and then added some arugula to wilt in the pan.

Cured salmon with potatoes, dill, other things

Would you tell me what other things? Apparently the potato is puréed. Little garnish of shallot (?) & dill. And is the white a soft cheese w/dill? Kind of bread?

I'm having a dinner party in couple of weeks & this looks/sounds like a perfect app, instead of the same old tartare I'd been hoping to replace with something more festive. Or this might even make a great amuse!

Thanks for anything you're willing to share.

Sure. I actually found out this morning that fish was just regular wild Alaskan King, though I had thought it was sockeye from the color, that is just the result of the curing process. Cut the salmon into fillets and cure for 8-10 hours in a mixture of 100g coarse sea salt and 80g caster sugar. Rinse, dry, then marinate in olive oil for at least 4 hours. The salmon is sitting on potatoes which are sliced 3mm thick, then cut out with a 3cm round, blanched in salted, boiling water, drained, and marinated in olive oil seasoned with thyme, bay leaf, a crushed clove of garlic and salt. On top are carrots, sliced on the bias, blanched, not refreshed and added to the marinade with the potatoes. Then sliced spring onions (but you can use shallots) blanched, shocked in ice, drained, then also added to the potato marinade. You can do all of this the morning of or night before. On the side of the plate is whipped cream seasoned with dill, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Be generous with the dill, and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours to let the flavors infuse the cream. Serve with toasted country bread.

[mm84321]

I forgot to mention, the potatoes should be warmed in their marinade before serving.

[Ranz]

Leek and Potato soup.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Ranz (log)

[Franci]

Tonight I made pizza again. And no fuss asparagus and eggs

[Plantes Vertes]

Tonight I made pizza again. And no fuss asparagus and eggs

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Franci, perhaps you can answer an ignoramus's pizza question; is a typical Italian pizza with or without cheese? It's not a dish I've explored very much as I find the commercial ones available here quite nauseating, and so I have assumed I don't like it, but yours look fantastic. I'd like to know what the original preparation is like. Thanks!

[Dejah]

Ann_T's lamb riblets had me wanting lamb, cumin lamb to be specific. But, I forgot to pull the lamb out of the freezer, so I made Hunan cumin beef instead as I had top sirloin in the fridge.

Instead of the 15-20 dried chilis this dish often calls for, I used Old Mother Chili oil, 4 chopped dried hot chili peppers from my garden last year, cumin powder and cumin seeds. It was hot enough and full of cumin flavour. I love it when I bite onto cumin seeds!

[Ashen]

Ann_T.. that greek platter is making me crave lamb and horiatiki salad very badly.

Franci.. that pizza looks amazing.. what kind of anchovies are on it?? and is that slices of garlic?

[ericparkr]

My Favorite Lemon Spaghetti with Chicken and Spinach.............

[Keith_W]

Another roast chicken dinner.

Chicken: injected it with a brine made from milk, pepper, and 4% salt. The milk was brought up to 90C with 2 tbsp of black peppercorns then left to infuse. It was then dunked into boiling water to tighten up the skin, then brushed with a mixture of paprika, salt, and melted butter. I left it in the fridge to air dry for two days to help the skin crisp up. It was then slow roasted at 100C to an internal temperature of 60C, rested for 45 minutes, then returned to the oven at 250C to crisp up the skin.

Pan roasted fennel (as per Ottolenghi): cut into steaks then seasoned and seared on butter, then into the oven to finish cooking. Sprinkled with lemon zest.

Chanterey carrots: microwaved for 3 minutes then briefly sauteed.

Chicken jus: a simple reduction of chicken consomme. I'm not quite sure why it went cloudy. The consomme was clarified using Heston's freeze gel clarification method. It was a gorgeous crystal clear liquid when I started, but after hard boiling it turned cloudy! Perhaps I caused the proteins to clump together? The intention was to present a beautiful crystal clear chicken jus, but it didn't quite turn out!

Garnish: fennel fronds, lemon zest, nasturtium.

[Franci]

Franci, perhaps you can answer an ignoramus's pizza question; is a typical Italian pizza with or without cheese? It's not a dish I've explored very much as I find the commercial ones available here quite nauseating, and so I have assumed I don't like it, but yours look fantastic. I'd like to know what the original preparation is like. Thanks!

Plantes Vertes, pizza is generally with cheese. But...when I made it a couple days ago, I called it focaccia with tomatoes. In Puglia, where I'm from, what Americans would call a deep dish pizza, a thick pizza, is actually called focaccia col pomodoro, pizza is thin, in my area. In other parts of Italy focaccia means: no tomatoes. Generally the thin pizza has cheese.

To make this tall kind of pizza, or red focaccia, if you prefer, I use the method for the typical focaccia from Puglia. It's very simple, it's a very wet dough, highly hydrated, percentage depending on the flour I use. If I use the traditional durum flour (which absorbs more liquid) or high gluten flour I can use more water. This time I used a general all purpose french flour that is not very high in gluten and the pizza was very good, better than a couple days ago.

For 2 pizzas (pans diameter about 28 cm), I use 500 g flour, 1 teaspoon instant yeast, 2 teaspoons salt and water about 70-75-80% on flour. For this kind of dough I don't even like to use my mixer because I feel I do a better job by hand, it's better then going to the gym.

Than I let it rise until I see it is starting bubbling nicely on top and after that I generally refrigerated for some time, like some hours or more, I bring back to room temperature and, if needed, finish rising (when it's full of bubbles is ready), then I divided it into the two pans, very well oiled and I immediately flip my blob of dough, so it gets all oiled and it's easier to stretch by hand in the pan (and doesn't stick to your hands). You season with tomatoes, salt and some oil and let in rise again (covered maybe with an inverted bowl). it goes in a hot oven (220-230C) for about 20 minutes or until the color tells you it's ready. I cover the pan with a tea towel for some minutes before sliding the pizza on a rack. A taller pizza is softer, thinner crunchier. Give it a go, not difficult at all. My son prefers so much more this kind of pizza.

Ok, here a link to see how we "beat" the dough. You can skip all the chatting and go directly at the very end 4 minutes 30. I do it for about 10 minutes until I see the gluten is stronger, you'll see the dough starts forming big bubbles.

Ann_T.. that greek platter is making me crave lamb and horiatiki salad very badly.

Franci.. that pizza looks amazing.. what kind of anchovies are on it?? and is that slices of garlic?

HI Ashen, I wanted to do here the pissaladiera from Ventimiglia, the Italian version of the nicoise pizza. They generally add also some onion to the tomatoes but didn't have time for it. So I added only the other usual ingredients: capers, slivered garlic, and anchovies (mine, under brine, like common in this area).

Edited June 6, 2013 by Franci (log)

[Ann_T]

Keith, Wow! That is one beautiful roast chicken dinner.

Franci, I love simply dressed pizza. Beautiful crust. I might have to make a pizza for dinner.

Mexican Chicken Rice Soup - Caldo Tlapeno.

[Plantes Vertes]

Franci, thank you so much for sharing your pizza wisdom. I'm going to try it! Just have to get some flour; I'll do it tomorrow and show how it turns out.

[Keith_W]

Franci, 70-80% hydration for pizza dough is very high indeed. I have done experiments with pizza dough, and I found that the dough becomes difficult to handle at hydration levels above 65%. Once you go to 70%, by my experience this is the tipping point between what I would call a "dough" and a "batter". High hydration doughs are difficult to handle - they stick to everything, require a lot of flour to lubricate, and are fragile. They seem to keep this property even with prolonged kneading.

Of course, I acknowledge that the ideal hydration point depends on the flour you are using, which is why I usually make my pizza doughs with a hydration of 60% and then start adding water and observing how the dough behaves.

[Plantes Vertes]

Franci, 70-80% hydration for pizza dough is very high indeed. I have done experiments with pizza dough, and I found that the dough becomes difficult to handle at hydration levels above 65%. Once you go to 70%, by my experience this is the tipping point between what I would call a "dough" and a "batter". High hydration doughs are difficult to handle - they stick to everything, require a lot of flour to lubricate, and are fragile. They seem to keep this property even with prolonged kneading.

Of course, I acknowledge that the ideal hydration point depends on the flour you are using, which is why I usually make my pizza doughs with a hydration of 60% and then start adding water and observing how the dough behaves.

Thanks Keith; I'll bear that in mind in my experiment.

[Franci]

Franci, 70-80% hydration for pizza dough is very high indeed. I have done experiments with pizza dough, and I found that the dough becomes difficult to handle at hydration levels above 65%. Once you go to 70%, by my experience this is the tipping point between what I would call a "dough" and a "batter". High hydration doughs are difficult to handle - they stick to everything, require a lot of flour to lubricate, and are fragile. They seem to keep this property even with prolonged kneading.

Of course, I acknowledge that the ideal hydration point depends on the flour you are using, which is why I usually make my pizza doughs with a hydration of 60% and then start adding water and observing how the dough behaves.

Keith, maybe I used the word dough improperly, to make this pizza, or as I call it, focaccia, you do need sort of a batter. It will stick to your hand like crazy when you beat it (did you see the link of the woman beating the flour and water?) then, when you basically pour in the pan (no extra flour needed) you use oil to coat the dough which we'll help you spreading it in the pan.

This maybe a more useful link on how is going to look. Also in the video they cover it with a towel as I do.

Plantes Verdes, I hope it works well for you.

[rotuts]

fantastic link, thanks you! how long do you cover with the towel?

even I might be able to make this!

[Franci]

fantastic link, thanks you! how long do you cover with the towel

Just 5 minutes, not much.

Tonight, the rest of the family had spaghetti with zucchini trombetta. I had a not-a-parmigiana, super easy. I'm going to make this again and again, until the end of the summer.

[Keith_W]

Franci: I see, thanks for the link. That focaccia batter is in line with what I have experienced in the past with that level of hydration. I was thinking to myself that with that much water in it, it would be impossible to roll out ... but I see that they actually pour out the batter in that video. High hydration does also give you a softer, lighter, and more airy dough and I am sure it would make a beautiful foccacia. I have to try it myself

[heidih]

Franci! you have to give us some details on the eggplant dish

[Ann_T]

Had a craving for Pizza, thanks to Franci.

Sausage and Mushroom.

I made the dough about mid morning. Normally when I make pizza I make the crust with dough that has been given a long fermentation.

I mixed the flour, water (77% Hydration) and yeast in a Magic Mill and left it for about 25 or 30 minutes for the dough to absorb more of the water. Then I added the salt and let the machine knead until it came together enough that it could be tipped on to a floured board and handled just enough to shape into something resembling a ball, and then placed in a oiled container. After the first rise, it was knocked down and shaped again. Covered and refrigerated. until around 4:00. Took it out and left it on the counter to come to room temperature.

[rotuts]

now I need to fined that focaccia pan or something similar. any ideas?

[liuzhou]

De-boned rabbit leg stewed in a stock made from the rabbit bones, with leeks and cèpes, spiced up with chilli, Sichuan single head garlic and Sichuan peppercorn oil. Served with rice and stir fried greenery.

Edited June 7, 2013 by liuzhou (log)

[Franci]

Ann_T, your pizza looks awesome!!!

Rotuts, usually are used blue steel pans for this (I think in the last video I linked they just use a tart pan, coated. I admittedly use also my staub cast iron pan.

Franci! you have to give us some details on the eggplant dish

Heidih, this dish to me falls into the highly appreciated category of minimum effort maximum result.

Slice some eggplants thickly (like 3/4 of an inch), salt and leave in a colander for an hour (more for texture I suppose than for the bitterness). Rinse, squeeze some water out pressing with the palms of you hands and pat dry.

Preheat the oven at 400 F. Oil a sheet pan and dust with some breadcrumbs or panko. Salt and beat some eggs and dip each eggplant slice in the egg, shake a little, before dropping in the pan without overlapping. On each slice spread a bit of tomato sauce, add a piece of mozzarella and sprinkle some grated parmigiano or pecorino, a drizzle of evoo and bake for 20 minutes. Turn off the oven, add a leave of basil to each slice, if you wish, and let rest in the oven until lukewarm, right temperature for eating them.

Next time, I'll see what happens if I do not salt the eggplants, because otherwise, 5 minutes to put them together.

Edited June 7, 2013 by Franci (log)

[Franci]

Tonight we had bulgur and freekeh salad with preserved lemons and barberries, Greek yogurt and pan fried chicken breast