Dinner! 2014 (Part 4)

[Dejah]

Great food and pretty dishes to hold them!

 

Busy day of dunging out 3 closets yesterday, so I had Coconut Chicken Soup (more like stew) in the slow cooker:

 

 

Hubby added some jasmine rice to his dish. I added fresh beansprouts and sugar snaps for more vegetables!

[Kim Shook]

Shelby – you are a sweetie!  Love the name ‘Quickles’!   What kind of cucumbers are they?

 

Dejah – that chicken sounds so good.

 

Basquecook – your lasagna dinner looks and sounds so delicious from start to finish.  Those cherries!!!  I wish I had time to make a pie this week.

 

Blether – gorgeous quiche!  I love the looks of the leeks – so melty and tender.

 

It turned out to be a good thing that I had my mother’s leftover stew when I made the CI roast that I was talking about. This is not a recipe that I will exactly duplicate again.  For one thing, it made almost NO gravy (isn’t gravy the point of pot roast?).  Momma’s stew, with the solids strained out, made great gravy!  The CI method involves lining a roasting pan with heavy duty foil, placing vegetables in the bottom and drizzling with soy sauce.  Then a rub consisting of cornstarch, onion powder, brown sugar, salt, pepper, garlic powder, espresso powder, thyme and celery seed is rubbed on the meat.  It is then wrapped up and cooked at 300F for 4 1/2 hours.  This is what it looked like out of the oven:

Covered in goo that I scraped off:

http://www.cookskorner.com/forums/uploads/1406080528/med_gallery_3331_114_139917.jpg

And with a nasty ridge of uncooked rub:

And, as I said, NO gravy.

 

Once I cleaned it up and sliced it, it tasted very good and the vegetables were perfectly tender and extremely tasty (not a whiff of soy sauce):

 

I served it with creamed squash and corn:

 

and Momma’s stew liquid made it delicious:

 

I like the foil method – no roasting pan to clean up.  Everything cooked to a perfect texture.  And the flavor was really good.  I’m thinking that I keep the foil, vegetables, soy sauce and meat.  That I jettison the cornstarch (I suspect that is what made the rub so gelatinous and icky) from the rub and try again sometime.  

[rotuts]

"""    300F for 4 1/2 hours.  """

 

veg were OK this way ?

 

do you recall where in the CI Massive Compendium (s) this was mentioned ?

 

Id like to look it up.

[mm84321]

Baked Saint Pierre, mashed zucchini, mixed lettuces and crostini

 

[Franci]

Not much cooking lately, also tonight. But this was soooo, so good, I had to share. Shelsky's blue fish. My new replacement for the French foie gras. Pork belly of the sea.

 

 

 

 

[Smithy]

Franci, that is gob-smacking gorgeous. There are rare times when I regret moving away from Big City life. Your post and photos bring me such a pang.

What did you eat that with? Freshly toasted slices of some toothsome bread? Crackers? Slices of the best vegetables available? Or merely the very best, most ethereal wine? ;-)

[Kim Shook]

Rotuts – The vegetables were fine for me.  Pot roast style – very tender and they had absorbed all of the flavorful juices, but not mush.  The recipe was actually from the Cook’s Country TV show.  Here’s the link: http://www.cookscountry.com/recipes/6366-chuck-roast-in-foil?incode=MKSKZ00L0#.

 

Franci – oh, dear!  Shelsky’s looks wonderful!  How I wish we had access to a place like that.  Beautiful fish!

 

Dinner tonight was a big salad with ham and eggs and some peppers from the farmer’s market and my in-laws’ garden:

I know those eggs look awful.  That green ring seems to come and go at will, no matter how I cook my eggs.  I do them EXACTLY how you are supposed to and sometimes I get perfect yolks and sometimes I get the Herman Munster halo.  Grrrr.

 

 

Cheese, corn and a new recipe:

Hawk’s Hill Cheddar (out of Harford County MD) and a little knob of delicious, but unfortunately anonymous bleu.

 

 

The new recipe was from David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen.  I did the Indian Cheese Bread.  After much agita I got four good ones out of six, so not too bad.  They are basically naan stuffed with cheese and were delicious. 

My first two were the burned ones upper right and upper middle.  The rest looked like the other two – nicely toasted and puffed with just a couple of charred areas.  My problem with the recipe is an old one with me.  Whenever a recipe calls for heating up an iron skillet on high heat until it is screaming hot and then cooking something in it, I should know better.  It just doesn’t work for me.  I have wonderful, properly seasoned, old skillets (one of them belonged to my greatgrandmother – it is probably 100 years old).  But I put anything in a screaming hot skillet and it pours smoke and instantly carbonizes.  It triggers my asthma and I start coughing and then I have smoke, burned food and a skillet with half a hamburger welded to it to deal with.  Then I start all over again at a lower heat in a new pan!  So that’s what happened tonight  .  I figured, “here I am in the 21st century in the United States of America – I’m using a fricken non-stick pan on medium high heat.”  They were perfect.    

Edited August 22, 2014 by Kim Shook (log)

[Blether]

...

 

Blether – gorgeous quiche!  I love the looks of the leeks – so melty and tender...

 

 

Thank-you, Kim    Your cheese naans look great!

 

A week earlier I made this Quiche aux Saucisses et Poireaux

 

 

 

- using my home-ground bulk sausage instead of chipolatas (and getting the girth very different!), shaped and rolled in flour.

 

 

That's what put me in mind of a hybrid when I wanted to use up some of my Parmy Reggie.  Half the amount of leeks, stop before pureeing them, make up with quiche custard and the cheese.  I particularly like this combination.  Like JG's, and as she says of it, it's a complete meal by itself.  I've used a low-fat crust, the custard is milk not cream, and with parmesan packing so much flavour relative to the weight you use, it's very much less rich (and less expensive) than quiches at there most extravagant can be.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Blether (log)

[Franci]

Franci, that is gob-smacking gorgeous. There are rare times when I regret moving away from Big City life. Your post and photos bring me such a pang.

What did you eat that with? Freshly toasted slices of some toothsome bread? Crackers? Slices of the best vegetables available? Or merely the very best, most ethereal wine? ;-)

 

Smithy, no bread! Strange combination, we had with fish fragrant eggplant and some Alsace grand cru.

[basquecook]

Started with stuffed zucchini flowers.. ricotta and anchovies. 

 

 

Red snapper stuffed with herbs, tied and then put on the grilled.. 

 

 

Served with roasted potatoes, a salad of mixed lettuces from the green market and then kale stewed with tomatoes, chickpeas and cauliflower

 

For dessert homemade cherry pie and chocolate chip ice cream

[huiray]

Kimchi Noodle Soup last night. ;-)

 

The base was this.  Augmented w/ Chinese roast pork (store bought; nice long ribs) simmered a short while w/ the stock/water/broth.  This also converts the skin to the typical sort of nice sort-of crunchy-pliable (like biting into calamari) roast-skin-softened-in broth skin.  I enjoy the texture.  Plus additional baechu kimchi, baby Shanghai bok choy & chopped scallions.  The noodles were pretty good for the instant type; relatively thick, bouncy and with that desired slight chewiness. 

 

 

[Blether]

Started with stuffed zucchini flowers.. ricotta and anchovies. ..

  

... For dessert homemade cherry pie and chocolate chip ice cream

 

 

Hey, bc, looking good as usual.  You mentioned your pie crust earlier:  what are your secrets?

[basquecook]

It's a feel thing. Butter cut in cubes and frozen, sugar, salt, four, water. It's like pasta dough, I just eye it. Roughly 5 cups flour 4.5 sticks of butter. close to three tablespoons of sugar 2.5 tablespoons of salt would be a rough estimate. Makes 4. So I can either do 4 pies or two closed pies. I usually have a couple of doughs in the freezer or fridge.

But I make pasta dough for 100 people or 5 people and just arrive where I need to be.

Edited August 22, 2014 by basquecook (log)

[Blether]

That sounds like a standard sweet shortcrust, but with the butter cut back by about a quarter.  Does that sound about right to you?  It's great to have pie dough in the freezer, isn't it?

[basquecook]

That sounds about right. Yeh, it's so easy once the crust is done. And The results are so impressive

[Toliver]

I like the foil method – no roasting pan to clean up.  Everything cooked to a perfect texture.  And the flavor was really good.  I’m thinking that I keep the foil, vegetables, soy sauce and meat.  That I jettison the cornstarch (I suspect that is what made the rub so gelatinous and icky) from the rub and try again sometime.  

What about adding some sort of liquid so you get, at least, a start for a sauce? Like adding some beef stock or veggie stock? After roasting, you could add a slurry to the juice and make a gravy.

Or do you think that would change the outcome of the recipe?

[Shelby]

Turkey sandwiches again....you can never have too much of a good thing.....

 

 

[patrickamory]

Just got back from two weeks on an island in Maine, so apologies in advance for the mega-post, or posts as it may turn out to be. 

 

One of my favorite seafood chowders on earth at the Maine Diner in Wells during the drive up:

 

 

A 14-pound prime rib, from French & Brawns in Camden, roasted at 160F for seven hours and served with its jus. Meltingly tender:

 

 

Lobsters delivered to our dock, steamed and served with corn on the cob, no-knead bread and a magnum of Chorey-les-Beaune - and the leftovers turned into lobster rolls the next day:

 

 

 

 

[Norm Matthews]

Shelby, are those bread and butter pickles?  

[patrickamory]

Part 2 of our Maine dinners.

 

Chile powders made from whole dried chiles brought up from New York. Clockwise from lower left: cascabel, ancho, pasilla. These formed the basis of two Texas reds, one less spicy (more pasilla, and generally simpler), and one fiery (less pasilla, more of the other two plus a generous helping of minced fresh habaneros, crumbled dried pequins, and some secret ingredients). The recipe uses only different cuts of beef fried in suet with onions and garlic - no tomatoes and beans are cooked and served separately. Unfortunately only a pic of the chile powders here:

 

 

Homemade pâté à la Jane Grigson, featuring a trio of different lards and hours of finely chopping meat by hand:

 

 

 

Steamers, dug locally:

 

 

(a highlight of the trip btw)

 

Spatchcocked roasters, marinated Thai style à la Kenji, grilled, and served with Naomi Duguid's Burmese sweet and tart chile-garlic sauce (many ingredients had to be brought up from NYC for this one too), served with a spicy slaw:

 

 

 

The local produce in Maine is exquisite, poignancy (and doubtless flavor) added by the short, sharp growing season and the sea salt air and soil - the fresh corn, onions and especially the purple yellow garlic are key ingredients in many of the meals pictured here, but this one heirloom tomato will have to suffice to represent for all of them:

 

 

More to come...

Edited August 22, 2014 by patrickamory (log)

[patrickamory]

Third and final Maine vacation dinners post.

 

(It should be noted that we had simple burgers and dogs on a few nights - not all the time was spent cooking!)

 

3 1/2" thick porterhouses from French's in Camden. Grilled NYC steakhouse style:

 

 

 

Island oysters - really terrific, found in restaurants up and down the coast, but these were raised and bought a mile from our house. We got 100 of them, which is a lot of shucking - served two ways:

 

 

On the way back down, wonderful fried clams at the Sea Basket in Wiscasset (go there over the way overhyped Red's! yes I know they serve different things, but you can do way better for lobster rolls, trust me):

 

Edited August 22, 2014 by patrickamory (log)

[PattyO]

I'm a New England girl - you did wicked good! 

[Blether]

... A 14-pound prime rib, from French & Brawns in Camden, roasted at 160F for seven hours and served with its jus. Meltingly tender:

 

prime_rib.jpg

 

 

 

Great stuff, Patrick, in all of these posts.  I think I want some of everything.

 

You didn't really roast at 160F, though, did you?

[patrickamory]

Blether thanks. These meals were a group effort and I was only peripherally involved in the preparation of the roast, but I've just confirmed that it was 7 hours at 160F, followed by a brief sear under the broiler for a few minutes. It had previously been salted and allowed to rest on a rack in the fridge for 2 days. I'll admit I was skeptical, but it was the some of the best roast beef I've ever had.

[Blether]

Got it - it was the browning in particular that threw me.  160F is like 77C, which is close to sous vide, but without the vide.  Do you know what it was roasted in?  What oven holds that temp?