Dinner! 2013 (Part 4)

[Ann_T]

Robirdstx, beautiful presentation.

Patrick, the green beans are simmered with a little garlic and a couple of strips of bacon, in chicken broth.

Dcarch, nice photos.

Panaderia, Rich gravy and mashed potatoes. YUM!

Bruce, another meal of yours that I would love.

Cookalong, what a lovely three course dinner.

Rotuts, I love spaetzel but never thought to serve it simmered beans.

MM, I'm in awe.

Franci, I've made eggplant rolls but never thought to fill them with pasta. What a great idea.

This dinner tasted much better than it looks.

Homemade corn tortillas - Pork Enchiladas - refried black beans.

[mm84321]

Thanks everyone. Steve, they are orange blossom marshmallows filled with a Chartreuse gelée, raspberries, Chartreuse ice cream and zucchini flower beignet.

[liuzhou]

This dinner tasted much better than it looks.

Looks just fine to me.

[basquecook]

We cooked another dinner for 30 people this weekend. My wife and I use our house as a catering space. Sometimes it is 30 random people, other times, people will book the whole place out. This weekend, it was a birthday party for 30 people, we served 8 courses..

1)We started with an oyster slider. Fried oyster, purple slaw, then topped with kewpie mayo and sriracha. Sort of drizzled over both. Looked really pretty.

2)Lobster buratta salad again. Same as last time minus pickled peaches (we ran out) Poached lobster, grilled peaches, corn, tomatoes, lobster oil, thai basil and saba.

Obviously, this is incomplete, prior to dressings and finishing basils.

3)We then sous vide eggs, served over farro that was toasted again, tossed in a ginger scallion dressing. Topped with burnt shallots and tarragon oil.

4)Poached salmon sitting on a fava bean and pea puree. Topped with a carrot sauce.

5)Pork belly sitting in a melon soup. It was a play on prosciutto melon.

6)Individual pavlova cakes, topped with a lavender cream and topped with strawberries.

7)Chocolate Semi Freddo, topped with grand marniere cherries. Also, we added toasted farro that was little super crispy. We took leftover farro and cooked it in on a sheet tossed in oil at 400 for about an hour. The turned into these crispy little nuggets. Added a nice texture to the semi freddo.

So, dinner ended at about 11 pm. The group continued to drink until 1 am. Being that we knew this group was younger and we told them they can stay as long as they want, we planned ahead by brining 42 pieces of chicken or so. We fried chicken in and served it with a sriracha honey. Last guest left at 3 am. Almost a 24 hour day for us.

One piece of chicken leftover which I managed to eat for breakfast the next morning.

Edited July 29, 2013 by basquecook (log)

[pastameshugana]

...we planned ahead by brining 42 pieces of chicken or so. We fried chicken in and served it with a sriracha honey.

That sounds very yummy.

BTW - you regularly host 30 at your house? And cook for them?! I'd be fascinated to see pictures of your kitchen and entertaining space.

Do you book things word of mouth, online (especially when it's random people?) or ?? - sounds like a fascinating idea.

[Baselerd]

Probably doesn't need to be said - but that lobster dinner looks fantastic mm84321. Here's a little after-dinner cheese plate:

Délice de Bourgogne, candied almonds, cherries, almond crumble, strawberry fluid gel, and freeze dried strawberries.

[basquecook]

Probably doesn't need to be said - but that lobster dinner looks fantastic mm84321. Here's a little after-dinner cheese plate:

Délice de Bourgogne, candied almonds, cherries, almond crumble, strawberry fluid gel, and freeze dried strawberries.

One of my daughter's favorite cheeses. Better than butter is the tag line at our house.

Edited July 30, 2013 by basquecook (log)

[Rico]

Had some friends over the other night, so went with a play on steak and potatoes. There's a butcher up North of me that sells chuck in rectangular cuts (maybe 2"x2"x8") so I bought a couple, seasoned them, jaccarded them and put them in the SVS at 132 for seven or eight hours. Seared them in beef fat after.

Had fun with the 'potatoes' aspect; made gnocchi and a cheese sauce with aged cheddar. Some home-cured bacon and garden chives gave it a mac-and-cheese-meets-baked-potato feel.

[rotuts]

Im always interested in Chuck. if you do this again, Id love to see the piece pre-cooked. its always a challenge to figure out just what muscle groups you get in 'Chuck' vis a vis the '7-bone' cut which I use to get back then and look for the blade muscle.

[Baselerd]

Probably doesn't need to be said - but that lobster dinner looks fantastic mm84321. Here's a little after-dinner cheese plate:

Délice de Bourgogne, candied almonds, cherries, almond crumble, strawberry fluid gel, and freeze dried strawberries.

One of my daughter's favorite cheeses. Better than butter is the tag line at our house.

Yeah it was actually the first time I've tried it. I thought it was quite good - extremely creamy.

[Franci]

Very Ottolenghish dinner: two of his recipes contemplating feta and zereshk: chicken thighs and couscous cakes. Loved the cakes.

[furzzy]

Tonight for dinner we had eggplant rolls a la Norma

image.jpg

Oh my - would you be good enough to tell about this? What filling? Cooked how? etc...thanks

[heidih]

Tonight for dinner we had eggplant rolls a la Norma

image.jpg

Oh my - would you be good enough to tell about this? What filling? Cooked how? etc...thanks

furzzy - Franci explained it a bit further up:

Thanks Emily, yes, the rolls have spaghetti inside. I think this is one of the many reinterpretations of pasta alla norma.

I cooked really al dente some spaghetti ( de cecco, only 3 minutes) and sauteed in a bit of tomato sauce for a minute more, so the pasta could absorb some of the sauce. You need to keep it quite al dente or it will overcook. I sliced and salted the eggplants, rinsed them and dip-fried. I poured a bit of tomato sauce in a oven pan and started to assemble my rolls: slice of eggplant, a bit of grated ricotta salata (which I didn't have and replaced with Turkish white cheese), a bit of the spaghetti and a spoonful more of sauce if necessary and a leaf of basil, rolled and placed in the pan, keeping the rolls tight. A light drizzle of sauce, some grated ricotta salata and it went in a very hot oven to get some browning, just 10-15 minutes, watching it would not get dry. It is best it let it rest until it's warm.

[furzzy]

All this talk of lamb lately gave me a craving. Hence: roast spring lamb with red-wine and mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, and asparagus.

Lamb.jpg

Panaderia Canadiense Going to let my ignorance hang out here. Question about "spring lamb" - I've only been able ever to get "spring" lamb in the spring, mostly mid-spring. Also, since we like domestic lamb far better than that sourced from Aussie/New Zealand, my guess has been that the lambing takes place in Feb/Mar - & maybe Apr - and I'm looking for 6-8 wk lamb, never frozen. I just ordered a rack from D'Artagnan, fresh. I'm eager to hear your input - on anyone's.

Please be kind enough to disabuse me of anything where I'm wrong.

[furzzy]

beef chuck ribs on the smoker all day.. pulled at 195 F internal temp. done very simply with cherry wood smoke a dry rub and apple cider based spray mop. side of baked beans.. Bush's not homemade though.

What are chuck ribs?

[dcarch]

Dcarch, I'm deeply jealous of your pandan sole. And can you give us a process for the rice puff shells? Those look like something I'd like to try with quinua.....

Thanks, PC. I was able to source some frozen Pandan leaves.

Rice crispy shells; Really nice to make, great for snacking too.

1. Cook rice in flavored water, like chicken stock or beef stock.

2. Let rice cool down, then sandwich rice in between two sheets of produce bag plastic.

3. Use a rolling pin and roll rice into a thin sheet about two grains of rice thick.

4. Completely dehydrate the sheets of rice.

5. Deep fry the sheets. The rice puff up very quickly in hot oil.

6. Remove the rice sheets, careful not to make them too brown. Drain the sheets on paper towel.

7. while the sheet are still very hot, you can bent and form them into shapes.

dcarch

[scubadoo97]

Rico, great color on your steak

[Ann_T]

Nicolai, Great photo.

Small presalted Prime Rib. Grilled.

Just big enough for two.

[Rico]

Im always interested in Chuck. if you do this again, Id love to see the piece pre-cooked. its always a challenge to figure out just what muscle groups you get in 'Chuck' vis a vis the '7-bone' cut which I use to get back then and look for the blade muscle.

I certainly will - I'm in pretty good with these fellas, too, so they'll likely take the time to explain exactly how and from where on the animal they're cutting it; they're one of the few whole-animal butcher shops in the area, and are always eager to talk shop.

Scuba - Many thanks! Though I must admit it likely has more to do with the quality of meat than anything I might have done to it. Basically, all I had to do was make sure I didn't screw up the searing part!

[ChrisTaylor]

That prime rib looks incredible.

[Ashen]

beef chuck ribs on the smoker all day.. pulled at 195 F internal temp. done very simply with cherry wood smoke a dry rub and apple cider based spray mop. side of baked beans.. Bush's not homemade though.

What are chuck ribs?

Chuck ribs are short ribs from the chuck primal.. specifically rib bones 1-5 although this rack only had four bones. It makes me wonder if the butcher sneaks bone 5 into a prime rib roast to get a bit more money for it.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Ashen (log)

[Baselerd]

That prime rib looks delicious. Nice photography too.

Here's something I made out of The Uchi Cookbook recently:

Hamachi sashimi, apple-curry gastrique, kimchi oil, dehydrated apple chips, dehydrated fennel chips, shaved fennel, green apple slices, fennel pollen.

[chefmd]

Baselerd, Wow!

Makes me want to run to my dehydrator and start making fennel chips. Also, your hamachi looks exquisitely fresh. I need to start reading Uchi cookbook.

[Baselerd]

Thanks - the fennel chips were pretty tasty, and very easy to make. The recipe has you slice the bulb as thinly as possible (I used a mandoline), brush with simple syrup, and dehydrate overnight. I set my dehydrator to 120 F, seemed to work well without discoloring the chips, and i layed them between two mesh sheets to keep them flat during the process. Luckily, there's a sushi restaurant near me that doesn't mind selling some of their sashimi meat in blocks. If it weren't for that, I don't think I would even be able to get Hamachi (unless I ordered online).

[Steve Irby]

Baselerd - What a great looking dish. And thanks for the tip on drying the fennel. Was the apple pressed also? I tried to dry some apple slices with mixed results with a little bit to much warping and browning for a nice presentation. Do you think a little lemon juice in a simple syrup would work?