Dinner 2015 (Part 1)

[CatPoet]

 

Chinese cashew chicken, well as close as I can get it.  We don't have that much Chinese immigrants  here and the  Chinese restaurants  serve the same food and it is make by a guy from Malaysia, yeah he is the head chef for all  4 Chinese   restaurants and that includes the Mongolian  BBQ.  The Thai food how ever is ace, since we have a lot of Thai women here.

[Shelby]

Venison steaks last night

 

[huiray]

Various meals.

 

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Leftover duck leg & vegetables augmented w/ fresh celery & tossed w/ fedelini [De Cecco].

 

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Pan-fried Copper River sockeye salmon (salt & pepper).  Cooked Bineshi wild rice tossed in the pan residues after frying the salmon.  Celery stewed w/ tomatoes (canned), sautéed garlic & shallots.

 

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Cantonese-style steamed black sea bass.  White rice.  Kai-choy (芥菜) (large mustard greens) stir-fried w/ garlic.

 

Here's looking at ya.

[Anna N]

huiray,

Your meals as always look delicious. I am still hoping that you'll answer my question about the duck in post number 53.

[huiray]

huiray,

I find I have very little success with baking/roasting duck leg. If I open braise duck legs I can produce something almost ethereal but without the liquid of a braise I end up with a very tough piece of meat. After you had pan-seared the leg atvwhat oven temperature and for how long did you roast it. Your meal looks delicious.

 

It was not a roast-roast.  It was a semi-braise/semi-roast.  Note that I said I added water to the vegetables and cooked it down then added it to the duck legs in the tray that sat in the oven, so there was a certain amount of liquid in the "roasting" tray in which the legs sat.  Oven temp was around 350ºF for about 40 minutes.  Also, I did more than just "pan-sear" the legs, I pan-fried them on both sides in the rendered fat for a bit after they might be considered to be merely "seared", with the heat turned down to low when I was doing that. ( I never said I merely "seared" the legs. You did) The duck meat was not falling-off-the-bone but had a certain toothsomeness to it (but was not tough), which I liked.

Edited February 8, 2015 by huiray (log)

[Anna N]

It was not a roast-roast.  It was a semi-braise/semi-roast.  Note that I said I added water to the vegetables and cooked it down then added it to the duck legs in the tray that sat in the oven, so there was a certain amount of liquid in the "roasting" tray in which the legs sat.  Oven temp was around 350ºF for about 40 minutes.  Also, I did more than just "pan-sear" the legs, I pan-fried them on both sides in the rendered fat for a bit after they might be considered to be merely "seared", with the heat turned down to low when I was doing that. ( I never said I merely "seared" the legs. You did) The duck meat was not falling-off-the-bone but had a certain toothsomeness to it (but was not tough), which I liked.

Thank you.

[Dejah]

Mustard greens is something that I love but don't get very often. I like using it in soup with lots of ginger. But, my favourite is when my Mom makes the sweet deep fried dumplings for Chinese New Year, then she stir-fries the mustard greens WITH the dumplings for afternoon snacking.

Edited February 8, 2015 by Dejah (log)

[Anna N]

After my rather disastrous dinner yesterday evening, I had said I would make instant noodles tonight but I really needed to get back in the saddle. With some inspiration from huiray I roasted duck leg, made some crash hot potatoes served with the little lingonberry sauce. This was the first time I managed to get a duck leg that wasn't tough as leather without braising it. I only partly followed huiray's method. I opted for a little white wine in the pan to provide some moisture. The skin stayed very crispy.

[Kim Shook]

JoNorvelleWalker – I’ve failed at lima beans before.  Even frozen ones.  I’ve burnt them, cooked them to complete mush and cooked them forever and had the skins never get tender.  The fault was in the beans, not you!  Lima beans are one of the few vegetables that I like. 

 

Shelby – I adore this baked spaghetti.  This particular friend does NOT share recipes.  She’s given me exactly ONE recipe in the 25 years we’ve known each other  . 

 

rotuts – I loved your meatloaf that wouldn’t ‘loaf’ story!  For years my ‘meatloaf’ inevitably became Bolognese because it crumbled and wouldn’t ‘loaf’!  Benton’s – always!

 

We had a potluck at our church today.  I made Taffy Apple Salad:

A recipe from my MIL.  Sort of a trashy version of Waldorf with Cool Whip instead of mayo.  You do make a nice custard with the canned pineapple juice, cornstarch, sugar, vinegar and eggs, though. 

 

ET Bacon Crescent Rolls:

My version of something I found at another website.  Crescent roll dough spread with a mixture of cream cheese, green onions and Worcestershire sauce and sprinkled with bacon.  Rolled up, brushed with an egg wash and topped with dried onion bits, roasted garlic and poppy seeds.  Both things were very popular – I took three 2-quart containers of the salad and 24 of the rolls to church.  I came home with 1 quart of salad and 2 rolls.  Leftovers for dinner tonight, so I’m posting this here!

[liuzhou]

Last night I made a chicken liver curry. It looked terrible, so no photos, but it tasted better than I would have imagined. I'll definitely do it again, but try to pretty it up a bit.

[Ann_T]

Kim, I like the sound of Taffy Apple Salad.

 

Huiray,  I really need to start steaming fish.  Your fish  look amazing.  So vibrant.  East to imagine just how delicious it must be. 

 

 

Penne Alla Vodka

[BonVivant]

One partridge and one pigeon. The poultry stall at the market had only one partridge left...

Brushed with olive oil and browned all sides, together with the garlic. NZ Sav Blanc was next to be added, followed by chopped Moroccan salted lemons, and many big rosemary twigs. The lemons were salty enough I didn't add any seasoning.

 

Normally I eat this with pasta but this time I had quinoa for a change. Red wine for the other half and white for me (I prefer white with poultry).

 

 

 

[Steve Irby]

Here's the lead up to dinner.  Local chicken smoked with sweetbay and two types of sausage that I prepared about three weeks ago during a sausage marathon (5 types, 45#'s total).  I grilled four links of Toulouse sausage and three links of longaniza.  Dinner was served with a mixed greens salad.  

 

[Dejah]

Cut up 2 chickens, marinated overnight in citrus slices, juice, oregano, honey, soy sauce, chili pepper. Roasted at 350F for supper last night. We've eaten a lot of roasted cauliflower. so I steamed and mushed it up into "mashed potatoes", topped with grated Parmesan and broiled for a few minutes to get a crust. The veg. were from a package - high fibre ...Unusual mix but did the job - as vegetables, I mean.

 

A breast slathered with the juice from the pan.

 

 

[Ann_T]

I have had a craving for meatloaf since Rotutus posted earlier this week.

 

I've never made a turkey meatloaf before.   My son is visiting and he won't eat veal so I stopped at the butcher and bought 1 1/2 pounds of ground turkey breast and winged a meatloaf.

 

[rotuts]

looks delish.

 

how did you make it ?

 

if it was acceptable, try the regular ground turkey which must have dark meat in it.  I like the 97 % lean.

[Kim Shook]

Mr. Kim came home from work last night with a recipe that he wanted to try for feta and bacon stuffed chicken breasts.  It turned out very well.  He served it with Brussels sprouts and rice pilaf:

It was from allrecipes.com and was oddly written as a lot of them are at that site.  The first step was to make a sort of marinade/cooking sauce.  The second was to place the chicken breasts in the baking dish and cover with the sauce.  The third step was stuffing the breasts.  Lucky for him, he had me to interpret  .  Mr. Kim has a great palate and is actually better than me at figuring out ingredients in a restaurant dish.  But he is also a very literal cook.  He follows directions precisely.  If a recipe says something will take 30 minutes to cook, out it comes at 30 minutes on the dot!  We’d have eaten raw chicken if it were up to him, because it said that the breasts would be done in 30 minutes.  So we checked the temp at 45 and it was perfect.  Bite:

Definitely a keeper!  

[Okanagancook]

Kim, I 'liked' your dinner but I have to retract the 'like' for the Brussels which are my all time least favourite veggie to the point where should I be admitted to hospital my husband has instructions to list Brussels as an allergy 

[Anna N]

Chicken marsala with egg noodles.

[huiray]

Recent meals.

 

 

Steamed buns w/ pork, cabbage & shrimp [commercial]. Large mustard greens (kai-choy) stir-fried w/ pork meatballs [commercial] & garlic.

 

 

Pan-fried sliced king oyster mushrooms, pan-fried/loosely scrambled/browned soft tofu slices, scallions. Tai Yee Ma Kar Lui (大姨媽嫁女) in the pan (oil, garlic, soaked dried shrimp, fuzzy squash, cellophane noodles).

 

 

Enoki & bunapi-shimeji myshrooms, sliced wong nga pak (Napa cabbage), chopped scallions & coriander leaves - in chicken broth (2 stewing hens, chopped up; ginger, salt; barest simmer ~6 hrs).  

 

Sliced pork belly (skin on) slow braised (~2-3 hrs) w/ oil, ginger, garlic, fermented bean curd in rice wine w/ chillies (辣椒腐乳) (the liquids were added too), fresh winter bamboo shoots (trimmed, sliced, simmered in salted water for a while before draining & adding to the braise), seasoning adjusted. Pickled Persian cucumbers & scallions w/ toasted sesame seeds. White rice.

 

ETA: Added in the characters for the fermented bean curd.

Edited February 11, 2015 by huiray (log)

[Smithy]

"Fuzzy squash"? What is that, please, huiray?

[huiray]

"Fuzzy squash"? What is that, please, huiray?

 

"Fuzzy squash" is a hairy gourd (it's a gourd, actually, rather than a squash) widely used in some regional Chinese cuisines.  Also known as fuzzy melon, hairy melon, fuzzy gourd, mo kwa/gwa (毛瓜), chit kwa/gwa (節瓜) (simplified: 节瓜).  An old eG thread on this dish.

[Norm Matthews]

Dinner tonight was grilled chicken, boiled then grilled artichoke halves with clarified butter and aioli, and orzo with mushrooms.  Dessert was some chocolate raspberry torte.

 

Edited February 12, 2015 by Norm Matthews (log)

[Dejah]

Fuzzy melon named thus because of the "hairs" on the melon.

[Smithy]

"Fuzzy squash" is a hairy gourd (it's a gourd, actually, rather than a squash) widely used in some regional Chinese cuisines.  Also known as fuzzy melon, hairy melon, fuzzy gourd, mo kwa/gwa (毛瓜), chit kwa/gwa (節瓜) (simplified: 节瓜).  An old eG thread on this dish.

 

 

Fuzzy melon named thus because of the "hairs" on the melon.

 

Thanks for the explanations.  In my world, a fuzzy melon is past its prime and destined for the compost pile.  I'm glad I asked!