Dinner 2016 (Part 2)

[sartoric]

A Burmese chicken curry with rice, crunchy tomato salad and pappadams.

 

For more details see link below.

 

Here

 

 

 

 

 

[BonVivant]

Skate wings, Vietnamese style. (with fresh turmeric and dill)

 

 

[ElsieD]

Tonight I made a recipe that I got from the NY Times Called "Mario Batali's Spicy Shrimp Sauté".   I made one change to the recipe in that I decreased the fish sauce by half.  It was very good.  

[rarerollingobject]

Tonight, I forgot to adult, so this was the entirety of my dinner:

 

Two weeks ago, in Melbourne, I bought a jar of Luxardo maraschino cherries. When I got home, I promptly drained all the syrup out of the jar and replaced it with kirsch.

 

Tonight I made a chocolate ganache, flavoured it with some of the kirsch, spooned out dollops of it, pressed a highly boozy cherry into each one and then coated them in tempered dark chocolate.

 

And decided they looked shambolic as hell, so got out the rarely-used edible gold leaf to bring a little bling.

 

[shain]

Early dinner today (BTW, out of curiosity, do you usually eat dinner around midday or by evening?)

 

Fatayer pitta.

These are one of my two favorite "fast foods", the other being hummus (happily, those are the only fast food I really get to eat). While hummus is a weakly affair, those pittas are sadly less common on my table (so many tasty things - so little time  ).

They are made in a near by town, at a small family business. They mostly sell vegetables during weekdays, but at weekends they prepare many cooked dishes and baked goods.

 

 

These are made using strong elastic pitta sough, rolled paper-thin and essentially laminated with good olive oil.

Then a variety of chopped seasonal herbs and plenty of spinach is layered on top. This time of year Iv'e noticed malva leaves (here it's called "hubezza", a wild mallow) and white chard.

The laminated dough is folded to enclose the leaves, rested, then stretched thin, with great skill, using only the two hands.

It is baked on a large flat gas fired saj oven (a domed sheet of metal used as a griddle, heated from below). It is grilled on very high heat from both sides, until charred in spots and mostly browned.
The high heat allows the dough to stay soft and mist, yet flavorful and crisp at the charred spots, very much like a Neapolitan pizza.
The leaves cook and soften inside and lose some green notes, yet retains their fresh herbal flavor. The plentiful high quality olive oil gives them  richness and also it's own flavor.

Served while still very hot, This bread is a meal of it's own.

 

Iv'e tried to make it myself a couple of times, but to inferior results. I am sadly lacking the proper oven, and more important, lacking the skill of of stretching the dough this thin after being filled.

 

Served with a tabbouleh salad, made with parsley from our garden, mint, cucumber, tomato, scallion, bulgur, plenty of lemon juice, sumac and olive oil.

 

Labbaneh with zaatar mixture made by a friend. Both are amazing, the cheese is perfectly tart and just slightly bitter. The zaatar is warm flavored, with dark toasted sesame, warm and herbal dry zaatar leaves and a little tart sumac.

 

 

Ate it with tomatoes, onion and green olives (pickled with lemon, onion a little clove).

 

 

 

Also bought rice filled cabbage. Those will be for later on today. They are gently flavored with allspice, and perhaps something more.

 

 

Edited March 5, 2016 by shain (log)

[Shelby]

Dinner is in the evening for us.

 

I had some super tough steaks to use up and I was hungry for Mexican food so I cubed the steaks and threw them in the pressure cooker along with onions, Hatch chiles, a jar of my canned tomatoes, garlic, cumin, s&p, allspice, bay leaf, chili powder, lime juice...you name it, it went in lol and some beef broth.  Kind of like a pork chili verde except beef and red tomatoes.  Steamed some black bean tamales, RG beans and white rice to go with.

[rotuts]

IP'd ?

[Shelby]

Just now, rotuts said:

IP'd ?

I used the Cuisinart PC for the beef because I wanted to steam the tamales in the IP (the Cuis doesn't have a  steam function).

[rotuts]

close enough

 

looks so tasty.

 

there may or may not be a second IP on my horizon.

[Shelby]

1 minute ago, rotuts said:

close enough

 

looks so tasty.

 

there may or may not be a second IP on my horizon.

I told my husband last night that if an IP ever gets around $70-$80 I'm going to get two more.  One for me and one for my mother-in-law.  I could have used 3 last night.  As it was, I did the rice first in the IP and then kept it warm on the stove while I steamed the tamales.

[rotuts]

Sooo  the Hubby good with Live-Wire Electricity ?  i.e. more Amps, Watts, Joules  etc in the kitchen ?

 

that's on my agenda

 

very hard to find a good electrician that does fine work, at a fair +++ price.

 

My father was an electrical engineer.  I made more extension cords in the 5 th grade than anyone ever.

 

some had switches on them.  I still have a few.

 

 

one think I learned from him :

 

the screwdriver is your palm's worst enemy  ( i.e. the Other Hand that holds the 'Screw-ie i.e.  where the Screw Is [ Ed: can we use 'Screw-ie here ? ]

 

and electricity has to be shown a great deal of respect :

 

i.e. hire some one else.

 

just saying

 

BTW  @Shelby  

 

Id troll

 Id troll for a CSB at $ 225 delivered.

 

just to Review  :  I got mine for $ 179 No Tax Deliverd

 

one more time :

 

[liamsaunt]

14 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Tonight I made a recipe that I got from the NY Times Called "Mario Batali's Spicy Shrimp Sauté".   I made one change to the recipe in that I decreased the fish sauce by half.  It was very good.  

 

I have been meaning to try that recipe.  I have it save in my NYTimes Cooking app.  Glad to hear it was tasty. Maybe this week...

 

Thursday I made pasta primavera, subbing in half zoodles for some of the pasta.  Other veggies were broccoli and mushrooms.   I should have added carrots too.

 

[kayb]

It was binge-watching time for House of Cards Season 4 last night, which called for finger food. 

 

Potato skins, deviled eggs and pickles.

 

Followed by the first strawberries of the season. Well, not local berries, but better imports than the imports we've been getting.

 

[Anna N]

 

 Dinner last evening. Tomato, broccoli and chicken breast (SV’d) on pasta. 

[sartoric]

Stuffed mushrooms with a mixed salad.

The mushies are stuffed with a sauté of onion, garlic and bacon, fresh breadcrumbs, garlic chives and bits of bocconcini.

 

[Norm Matthews]

Cassie has been telling me about Bechelmeyer Meats which has a very good reputation for meat and the Mexican food next door.  I decided to go there on Wed. and get a brisket and use a lot of the flat for corned beef for dinner later in the month. Today I smoked the point and remainder of the flat.  I smoked it for 8 hours and it looked like it could go two or three more hours but I ran out of patience and fuel so it is done and moist but not falling   apart tender. 

 

Edited March 6, 2016 by Norm Matthews (log)

[ElsieD]

Tonight's dinner - Chicken, Shrimp and Mango Salad from the Australian Women's Weekly.  

[sartoric]

Looks great @ElsieD although I bet they call them prawns.  

I have half a dozen of the AWW cookbooks. Good basic and Australian centric recipes.

Did you know that it used to be a weekly magazine, then got changed to monthly editions ? There was controversy at the time about changing the name to Women's Monthly ! Didn't happen....

[rarerollingobject]

Ugliest but tastiest dish contender; Pacific oysters, dusted in potato starch and flash-fried till crispy, then stirred into a sauce of ginger, green onions, Shaohsing wine, white pepper and oyster sauce.

[rotuts]

@Norm Matthews

 

"""   use a lot of the flat for corned beef for dinner later in the month.  ""  

 

interesting  would you explain ?

 

what temp was the smoker ?  did you 'temp' the meat at the end ?

[liuzhou]

Another breakfast for dinner. The twist: A Full Chinglish Breakfast.

 

 

Bacon, Sausage, Black Pudding, Mushrooms, Fried Egg and Fried Tomato. Toast and butter.

 

The bacon is regular. The "black pudding" is a blood sausage from a nearby town (宜州血肠  yí zhōu xiě cháng). The sausage is from the far north of China, but originally imported by Russians. It resembles Polish sausage. Harbin Red Sausage (哈尔滨红肠  hā ěr bīn hóng cháng). The mushrooms are fresh flower shiitake. The egg is from a duck. The bread for the toast is home made. The butter is Anchor from New Zealand.

 

Sadly, I had no HP Sauce to raise it to fine dining.

 

If my arteries survive this, I'll get back to healthier tomorrow.

 

Here are some of those lovely mushrooms.

 

Edited March 6, 2016 by liuzhou
punctuation (log)

[kayb]

Ahi tuna poke with pineapple over rice, cucumber salad, stir-fried brussels sprouts in a ginger/soy reduction.

[Norm Matthews]

1 hour ago, rotuts said:

@Norm Matthews

 

"""   use a lot of the flat for corned beef for dinner later in the month.  ""  

 

interesting  would you explain ?

 

what temp was the smoker ?  did you 'temp' the meat at the end ?

I cut a large amount of the flat off the whole brisket and am curing it for corned beef to have on St. Patrick's Day.  Temp at the end varied from place to place around the brisket but average was just under 180, but by now I can tell if it is done just by the feel of the thermometer when I stick it in. 

[ElsieD]

10 hours ago, sartoric said:

Looks great @ElsieD although I bet they call them prawns.  

I have half a dozen of the AWW cookbooks. Good basic and Australian centric recipes.

Did you know that it used to be a weekly magazine, then got changed to monthly editions ? There was controversy at the time about changing the name to Women's Monthly ! Didn't happen....

Yes,  they did call them prawns.  Years ago AWW also put out cookbooks in a magazine type format that were devoted to specific cuisines/topics.  I had a bunch of them, including one on Vietnam.  I no longer have them, but I wish I did, particularly the cuisine specific ones.  I bought them more out of curiosity than to actually cook from, as those cuisines had yet to hit the mainstream where I live.  Different story now, and I'd love to get my hands on them again.

[liamsaunt]

 I did a soup bar for family dinner last night.  Three kinds of soup.  Corn and cheddar cheese chowder

 

 

Black bean soup

 

 

Vegetable tortellini soup

 

 

Cornbread

 

 

and soft pretzel sticks for dipping

 

 

My favorite is the corn chowder, but the vegetable tortellini ended up being the most requested.