Dinner! 2013 (Part 4)

[rod rock]

@mm84321 Classy and wonderful!

I had some pasta with tomato sauce last night. Not bad but yet nothing special.

[Anna N]

On Tuesday night the cupboard was bare! From three very tired leeks, a smidgen of wilted celery and some leftover beef I cobbled together a simple stir-fry. Despite its humble ingredients it served me well.

[Anna N]

Last night I made my first dish from The Hakka Cookbook discussed over here

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/145687-the-hakka-cookbook-by-anusasananan/?p=1931622

Stir-fried bean sprouts, beef and pickled mustard greens. It is missing the slivered red pepper which would have improved its appearance if not its taste. It also called for flank steak but I used tri-tip.

[nickrey]

Asparagus in season here.

Simple dinner of seared asparagus, scallops, and Romesco sauce.

[dcarch]

I get many of my cooking ideas from the incredibly diverse creations on this forum. Thank you everyone. Very inspiring and motivating!

Trying a few new ingredients.

dcarch

Sous vide lamb chops, Calamansi sauce from my little tree, on roasted peppers.

Shrimps in Pandan (screwpine) leaf sauce, with purple rice on home grown sweet potato leaves.

[jayt90]

What's the good looking crusty carb in the middle?

The carb is leftover smashed garlic potatoes. They are Kennebecs, a tip from Dave Solomon. Perfectly oval, thin skinned and paper white flesh, with good flavor. The cream in the preparation allowed slow cooking on a ceramic no stick to get the crust.

The corn is a first generation hybrid, possibly Golden Bantam. A good balance of starch and semi sweet corn flavor, much better than the sugar bombs that are hybridized now. Sadly, mine are finished for the year.

[rotuts]

Sous vide lamb chops

what's your time and temps for SV LC's? various cuts? looks very very good.

[Emily_R]

I recently moved to New Orleans and so have been taking advantage of fresh local shrimp! Dinner two nights ago was shell-on BBQ shrimp, with ciabatta to soak up the sauce and zucchini butter ( shredded Zukes and garlic, slow cooked in olive oil ). I don't know why this picture is loading sideways, and can't seem to fix it, but you get the idea...

[sigma]

Sous vide lamb chops

what's your time and temps for SV LC's? various cuts? looks very very good.

They look overcooked to me. Not temperature wise, but time. The texture seems to have deteriorated, and my guess is that it was in there more than three hours.

[dcarch]

Sous vide lamb chops

what's your time and temps for SV LC's? various cuts? looks very very good.

Sous vide lamb chops

what's your time and temps for SV LC's? various cuts? looks very very good.

They look overcooked to me. Not temperature wise, but time. The texture seems to have deteriorated, and my guess is that it was in there more than three hours.

Lamb loin chops were marinated for a few hours, then bagged and frozen. A few weeks later, the bag, frozen rock hard went into the SV cooker at 130F directly, no thawing. 3 hours later, seared and served.

Exactly the way I like lamb loin chops done.

4 hours SV for lamb loin chops for most people, IMHO, is not overcooked. As a matter of fact, for food, there is no such thing as overcooked if someone else likes the food cooked in certain way. I have a big problem with people who make fun of others if they want their steak well done, with ketchup on top.

But I do appreciate your comment, and I thank you.

Going to pour myself a glass of Opus One, with ice cubes. :-)

dcarch

[Emily_R]

Dcarch -- those lamb chops look perfect to me! And love your shrimp picture -- can you describe what pandan leaves taste like to those of us who have never encountered them?

[Baselerd]

Looks good dcarch. Not only did you plate it very well, but you resisted feeding the troll too much...

[dcarch]

Thanks guys.

Pandan leaves imbues a very nice grassy herby flavor to food. Not a overwhelmingly powerful flavor. Pandan is used often for rice, so it works well with the purple rice. The surprise was the combination of Pandan and sweet potato leaves. Sweet potato leaves have a mouth feel like spinach, and an after taste like artichokes, that pairs well with the pandan flavor in a very interesting way.

dcarch

[scubadoo97]

Dcarch, always very fun and interesting plating. Lamb looks perfect to me too

[mm84321]

Onion soup, comté croutons

mm84321, could you please give some hint on the preparation of that wonderful-looking soup and croutons? Would love to prepare it.

Sure. The soup is simply made by coloring sliced onion in a pan without fat, then adding broth (in this case, I used frozen stock from a pot au feu I made last winter!) simmering for an hour with a star anise, then infusing for another hour. The onion is colored in a pan, again, no fat, then seasoned with fleur de sel and pepper and cooked en papillote with a piece of bone marrow until quite tender (325ºF oven for maybe an hour, size of onion depending). The croutons are made by coating cubed comté in flour, eggs and breadcrumbs, then frying at around 340ºF until golden. It's a nice recipe.

[dcarch]

Spinach texture with artichoke flavor sounds incredible! I just moved to New Orleans, and will surely be growing some sweet potatoes here in the future (they do well in this tropical climate) -- I'm excited to know i can eat the leaves too!

Sigma, please go away.

Sweet potato looks nice in the garden, flowers like morning glory. Leaves are kind of expensive at a farmers market. Grows very well in the garden, if you can keep slugs out.

dcarch

[Ann_T]

So many wonderful meals.

Nickrey, I keep coming back to look at your scallops. Lovely dinner.

Roast Chicken tonight. Chicken was presalted yesterday and roasted today - 500°F high heat.

One night this week we had wings with homemade fries. Dipping sauce was a homemade Plum sauce (made by a friend) that I spiced up with a little hot chili sauce.

[nickrey]

Actually the lamb looks extremely well cooked. It is hard for people who do not understand what sous vide cooking is and how it works to understand what it does to meat. With high heat seared meat if you want it rare it is typically overcooked on the outside and undercooked in the middle. With sous vide cooked meat there is no gradient (apart from a sear on the outside). This lamb would be very moist and succulent; cooked but not spoiled and not at all grainy. People who don't tend to like it are used to conventionally cooked meat and all its idiosyncrasies (and dare I say faults?) The slight tears in the texture would be from slicing. I've had overcooked sous vide meat (failed experiments) and it is more homogeneous in texture than this and unpleasantly mushy.

Edited September 20, 2013 by nickrey (log)

[Ashen]

Beautiful dishes dcarch.. I only recently discovered Calamansi/Calamondin while visiting family in florida. I love the flavour, in fact I like sour flavours so much I was eating them like grapes.

Question about the shrimp. Did you brine them before cooking?

[Keith_W]

Dipping sauce was a homemade Plum sauce (made by a friend) that I spiced up with a little hot chili sauce.

Beautiful meal. BTW I have been hunting high and low for a recipe for home-made plum sauce. Would your friend be kind enough to share it?

[EnriqueB]

Sure. The soup is simply made by coloring sliced onion in a pan without fat, then adding broth (in this case, I used frozen stock from a pot au feu I made last winter!) simmering for an hour with a star anise, then infusing for another hour. The onion is colored in a pan, again, no fat, then seasoned with fleur de sel and pepper and cooked en papillote with a piece of bone marrow until quite tender (325ºF oven for maybe an hour, size of onion depending). The croutons are made by coating cubed comté in flour, eggs and breadcrumbs, then frying at around 340ºF until golden. It's a nice recipe.

Thanks! Bone marrow cooked with the onion sounds incredibly. Is it raw bone marrow, and out of the bone, or in-the-bone?

[basquecook]

So impressive all. Beautiful meals as always.

I tried to take photos last night. I just "forget to remember" Last night 2.5 inch steaks cooked on the Big Green Egg. To start there homemade pasta with butter sage sauce. Pasta was mostly egg yolks. Then Caesar Salad. There was also roasted potatoes with the steak.

As we were having company, there was dinner for our daughter.

Instead of butter and sage, she got pasta with butter, cheese and cream.

Salad and a pork chop.

Edited September 20, 2013 by basquecook (log)

[dcarch]

Ashen, Thanks. I am happy with my little Calamansi/Calamondin tree in a pot, It looks nice in the house with lots of oranges on it. I am also happy with my Meyer lemon tree and Yuzu orange tree. They are all in 5 gallon pots. They all have nice fragrant flowers to make the house smell wonderful. I highly recommend everyone to have these dwarf citrus plants, great for cooking. The shrimps were air dried in the refrigerator, not brined.

Nickrey, thanks. The look of the texture and color of the chops is a result of at least two factors. They were marinated in sauce, You can see the gradient from brownish to red near the bone because the bone prevents the penetration of the marinade. The other factor was I used a freshly sharpened razor sharp blade to slice the meat. After reading the “Sharpening” thread, I gave the knife a hair-splitting sharpening. The sharp edge gave the meat a different light reflectivity to the meat fibers.

dcarch

[mm84321]

Sure. The soup is simply made by coloring sliced onion in a pan without fat, then adding broth (in this case, I used frozen stock from a pot au feu I made last winter!) simmering for an hour with a star anise, then infusing for another hour. The onion is colored in a pan, again, no fat, then seasoned with fleur de sel and pepper and cooked en papillote with a piece of bone marrow until quite tender (325ºF oven for maybe an hour, size of onion depending). The croutons are made by coating cubed comté in flour, eggs and breadcrumbs, then frying at around 340ºF until golden. It's a nice recipe.

Thanks! Bone marrow cooked with the onion sounds incredibly. Is it raw bone marrow, and out of the bone, or in-the-bone?

Raw marrow, out of the bone. I swore to myself I'd never take a picture of an onion again, but this was from last year, so here you go:

[Ann_T]

Dipping sauce was a homemade Plum sauce (made by a friend) that I spiced up with a little hot chili sauce.

Beautiful meal. BTW I have been hunting high and low for a recipe for home-made plum sauce. Would your friend be kind enough to share it?

Keith, I will be happy to ask her.