Dinner 2016 (Part 8)

[sartoric]

A very simple minestrone sprinkled with parmigiana reggiano. Served with ham, shallots and two cheese toasties.

 

 

[BeeZee]

Supermarket had big sale on lobsters 1-1.5 lb and I was determined to take advantage, but it's been hot and we wanted something light/refreshing...so cold salad with lobster was the answer. Found a simple recipe online from Mario Batali which had a lemon dressing and it hit the spot...lobster, tomatoes, celery, arugula. Had a glass of vinho verde, too.

[Auro]

Rainy and cold day = soup 

[Okanagancook]

20 hours ago, Steve Irby said:

We had BBQ shrimp the other night and had some left-overs.  Thinking ahead to the next meal I tired to extract that last little bit of goodness from the shrimp heads.  I have a juicer that I inherited from my mom  and I used it to squeeze the fat emulsion from the carapace.  Definitely liquid gold. 

 

More seafood last night.  A southern fritto misto.  Shrimp, oysters, squash, and vidalia onions.

The juicer is I picture no. 2.  A simple hand operated two piece unit which is probably from the 1950's.  Everware is the make I believe.  If you ever see one of these snap it up.  It does a great job on limes.

[Anna N]

 

Tomatoes, peas, chicken in a cream sauce with pasta. 

[ElainaA]

The cherry tomatoes are ripe so it is time for slow roasted tomato sauce with garlic and basil. I guess i could make this with supermarket cherry tomatoes at any time of year but somehow that just seems wrong. It's a seasonal dish for me, made only when my tomatoes are ready. Ans sooooo good.

 

Served with salad and garlic toasts.

 

Whenever I make these bruschetta I think of Marcella Hazan's story from Marcella's Italian Kitchen:  "When many years ago and recently arrived in America, I was asked at the table of friends if I would like some Italian garlic bread. I thought, as I accepted, how nice, they know about bruschetta. After a while a steaming bundle in a napkin was brought to the table and unwrapped to disclose a steaming loaf of bread, split in two, its redolently garlicky inside drenched in butter. I rethought, no, they don't know about bruschetta."

(And I also do like the American version of garlic bread.)

[kayb]

4 hours ago, shain said:

Yesterday I made briami, which is a dish that I really like.

 

A Greek dish, it's simply baked vegetables, but when making it you bake all the regular "rules " for grilling veggies - everything is mixed and baked closely together, so the vegetables are all quite soft, the flavors join together, and the plate is lines with a thin layer of delicious juices and olive oil.

The vegetables used are eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, onion, potatoes, okra, green beans, and my nontraditional addition of sweet potato. Everything is flavored, with oregano, cumin, anis seeds, fennel seeds, chili, plenty of dill, parsley and black pepper. Drizzled generously with olive oil, and baked until softened. Then topped with some feta cheese and broiled until it is all browned and charred on top (after taking those photos, I've decided to put it back from further browning).

Lemon juice an more fresh herbs to finish, then everything is eaten with a good crusty bread, which you let soak all of the juices. 

That...looks...amazing. I believe I must make it this week!

 

[ProfessionalHobbit]

 

Clockwise from top left: 1/4 cup soy sauce; 1 tbsp. sugar; 3 minced scallions; shredded ginger; 9 crushed and peeled garlic cloves; 1/2 cup rice wine; 3 tbsp. sesame oil. Not shown are 4 chicken legs and 4 chicken thighs.

 

 

Warm sesame oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot or wok. (Sam Sifton's recipe: http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017456-three-cup-chicken has you do it in a wok but I've made this successfully in a Dutch oven.)

Add aromatics and fry on high heat until fragrant, about 1-2 minutes.

 

I will get a wok eventually ... one of these days.  

 

 

Add chicken, skin side down. Reduce heat to medium and fry until chicken starts to crisp. Sam has you do it for 5-7 minutes, but I like to brown the chicken for longer than that. 15 minutes should do the trick.

 

 

Add sugar, soy sauce and rice wine. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the sauce begins to thicken.

 

 

Shut off heat and stir in a generous handful of basil leaves, then serve.

 

 

Three-cup chicken.

You'll note that the pic has the addition of crushed red pepper flakes. That's because my partner doesn't like spicy food so I omitted them from the recipe and added a pinch to my portion.

[liuzhou]

Dinner tonight turned out to be very strange. Not the food perhaps, but the circumstances.

 

I had arranged to meet two former colleagues, one male, one female at a nearby mall. It has several popular and busy restaurants in addition to a load of over-priced fashion shops in which I never see any customers.

As soon as we met, I could feel there was something wrong. We headed upstairs to their restaurant of choice - a grilled fish place I'd considered many times but had never visited. We took our seats and ordered, but I still felt something was less than right.

After a few minutes the female colleague excused herself and disappeared. Male and I made some idle chitchat then his cell phone rang. He also excused himself.

I sat there for a good fifteen minutes as the food arrived, then got a text message to say that, when they had been waiting for me, the female (who lives with her aunt and uncle) had spotted her uncle in another restaurant, tête-à-tête with a woman who definitely wasn't her aunt. Not only that, but uncle had claimed to be out of town for the night on business. My female colleague not only challenged him, but called her aunt, who had come racing across town to confront her errant husband. Apparently, another Chinese civil war was launched.

The male colleague promised to be back soon. I did what any good e-gulleteer would have done and got stuck into the food by myself. Male did come back to collect female's left behind belongings and take them to the war zone which I'm told was several floors below, then returned to join in eating the little food I hadn't already scarfed. The female never returned.

But you don't want to hear all that.  You want to know what I ate.

Chongqing Grilled Fish with Soft Tofu (重庆豆花烤鱼 chóng qìng dòu huā kǎo yú )

 

Tofu in the corners of the 18" x 10" dish which is sitting on a hotpot burner. In the centre a fish is buried under a mound of cabbage, onion and a ton of red chillies and Sichuan peppercorns. Oh, and a sprig of mint.

For no good reason, here is another pic.

 

The fish is a bone-in, head-on* ocean sunfish or mola. A first for me, but I'd definitely go there again.

*Actually the fish is nearly all head. See image in the link.

The "numb and hot (麻辣 má là)" tastes were powerful, but did not overwhelm the delicate taste of the fish. We also had a bowl containing potato, lotus root, enoki mushrooms and kelp for us to cook in the remaining stock once we had done justice to the fish and tofu.

 

 

And some spring rolls in a bucket. The Chinese is simple the name of the restaurant.

 

 

A weird evening, but good food.

(Chonqing was, until 1997, Sichuan's second city (after Chengdu, the provincial capital). In 1997 it came under direct administrative control of  the central government in Beijing.

Gastronomically, however the huge city remains de facto Sichuanese in style. In fact, many of the famous 'Sichuan' dishes originated in Chongqing. It is particularly noted for hot pots.)

Edited August 22, 2016 by liuzhou (log)

[Spork]

Dinner was piece meal last night, operator error induced.

 

Polenta with strawberry marinara loosely based on the MC version.

 

 

Deep fried cucumber.

 

 

And deep fried cod.

 

[Shelby]

That was a weird evening, Liuzhou.  I'm not sure I would have been able to keep my nosy self from sneaking down to the war zone LOL.  At least the food was good!

 

SV'd pork loin last night.  

 

 

 

[huiray]

1 hour ago, liuzhou said:

I sat there for a good fifteen minutes as the food arrived, then got a text message to say that, when they had been waiting for me, the female (who lives with her aunt and uncle) had spotted her uncle in another restaurant, tête-à-tête with a woman who definitely wasn't her aunt. Not only that, but uncle had claimed to be out of town for the night on business. My female colleague not only challenged him, but called her aunt, who had come racing across town to confront her errant husband. Apparently, another Chinese civil war was launched.

 

Maybe if she had watched Moonstruck before she might have thought about whether to call her aunt right then - or not... :-)

 

The food looks good, did you scarf down basically *all* of it?

[liuzhou]

4 minutes ago, huiray said:

The food looks good, did you scarf down basically *all* of it?

 

I'd say about three-quarters. Of course, as with much Sichuan/Chongqing food, the chillies are not eaten.

[ninagluck]

thank you @Okanagancook, I will keep my eyes open!

[kayb]

8 hours ago, ProfessionalHobbit said:

 

Clockwise from top left: 1/4 cup soy sauce; 1 tbsp. sugar; 3 minced scallions; shredded ginger; 9 crushed and peeled garlic cloves; 1/2 cup rice wine; 3 tbsp. sesame oil. Not shown are 4 chicken legs and 4 chicken thighs.

 

 

Warm sesame oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot or wok. (Sam Sifton's recipe: http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017456-three-cup-chicken has you do it in a wok but I've made this successfully in a Dutch oven.)

Add aromatics and fry on high heat until fragrant, about 1-2 minutes.

 

I will get a wok eventually ... one of these days.  

 

 

Add chicken, skin side down. Reduce heat to medium and fry until chicken starts to crisp. Sam has you do it for 5-7 minutes, but I like to brown the chicken for longer than that. 15 minutes should do the trick.

 

 

Add sugar, soy sauce and rice wine. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the sauce begins to thicken.

 

 

Shut off heat and stir in a generous handful of basil leaves, then serve.

 

 

Three-cup chicken.

You'll note that the pic has the addition of crushed red pepper flakes. That's because my partner doesn't like spicy food so I omitted them from the recipe and added a pinch to my portion.

That looks outstanding, and I am headed to the NYT site right now to find and save that recipe. Thanks!

 

6 hours ago, Spork said:

Dinner was piece meal last night, operator error induced.

 

Polenta with strawberry marinara loosely based on the MC version.

 

 

Deep fried cucumber.

 

 

 

Please elaborate on strawberry marinara; I'm intrigued by that and the deep-fried cucumber. Never occurred to me to deep-fry a cucumber; how was it?

 

[Spork]

8 minutes ago, kayb said:

Please elaborate on strawberry marinara; I'm intrigued by that and the deep-fried cucumber. Never occurred to me to deep-fry a cucumber; how was it?

 

 

 

Strawberry, tomato, onion, white wine, garlic, basil and tarragon. It's an MC at Home recipe, so I'll leave the explicits out.

 

I think cukes are great deep fried, I've eat them since I was a tot. Peel, slice, press in a towel. Salt, fridge for an hour, then press with a towel. Roll in cornmeal, and give them a 375 degree bath. Creamy ranch to finish.

[huiray]

Caprese salad.

Black Krim tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, Maldon salt, black pepper, Alziari EV olive oil.

 

A "dry ramen" plate.

"Ibumie Penang Har Mee, Mi Perisa Udang" (see here also), yu choy sum, bubbly plain omelette.

[sartoric]

A Burmese feast. I promised to cook for two teachers from Myanmar who are here on a teaching exchange.  They have been "enjoying" lots of pasta and barbecues at their host family. Last night was different.

 

Yellow split pea fritters.
250 g split peas are rinsed thoroughly and soaked overnight. Drain well and pat dry, then put them in a food processor with, 1 chopped onion, 2 cloves of garlic, same amount of grated ginger, tsp salt, half tsp of turmeric, a big handful of chopped parsley, and as much chopped chilli as you want. Pulse to mix, form into patties and fridge for at least 4 hours. Shallow fry in hot peanut oil about 2 minutes a side. Drain on paper and serve with tart chilli sauce.

Tart chilli sauce is made with about half a cup of our home grown birds eye chillies roughly chopped then simmered in half a cup of water, with two diced garlic cloves, 2 tbs sugar, 2 tbs apple cider vinegar, tsp salt. Cool, then blitz in a food processor to a sauce. 

 

 

Beef and tomato curry.
450 g of gravy beef cut into cubes then rubbed with a little salt and turmeric. I add one diced tomato, a large French shallot diced, a tsp of grated ginger, tsp of chilli powder, tbs oil, mix well and marinate for an hour. Fry in peanut oil, add water and simmer partially covered for two hours.

 

Grilled chicken.
Winglets marinated in 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp chilli, 2 cloves of garlic, ginger, fish sauce and salt.
Grilled for 30 minutes or until cooked, served with lime wedges and tart chilli sauce.

 

Sautéed cauliflower with chickpeas. 
I fry lots of chopped shallots, garlic, green chill and some chicken powder. Add cut florets of cauliflower, water and salt. Simmer a few minutes then add canned rinsed chickpeas. Serve sprinkled with fried shallots.

 

Green and red tomato salad. 
Slice tomatoes, slice shallots, sprinkle with a little chickpea flour, chopped roasted peanuts, fish sauce, and peanut oil. Top with fried shallots.

 

Pickled ginger and cabbage salad.
I wash Japanese pickled ginger and finely slice it. Finely slice cabbage and mix with the ginger, add sliced mint leaves, add dried shrimp powder, lime juice, garlic oil, and top with crushed peanuts plus toasted sesame seeds.

 

Shan style chicken & spinach soup.
I fry chopped onion, garlic and ginger, add homemade chicken stock and bring to a simmer then enrich with baby spinach leaves and a few rice noodles.

 

All served with steamed jasmine rice.

 

 

[ElsieD]

Wow, Sartoric, that's quite the feast!

 

[ElainaA]

@sartoric  That looks just wonderful. I'm putting a few of those items - especially the split pea fritters and the ginger and cabbage salad on my "must make" list.

[chefmd]

Heirloom tomato (red, yellow, green), cucumber, pepper salad with basil, olive oil, lime juice dressing.

 

Wild caught rainbow trout with shiitake mushrooms and basil /mayo/lime juice sauce 

[Captain]

Pickled pork leg smoked low & slow then pulled.

I did this as an experiment for Xmas ham.  It's a definite but I won't take the internal temp this high for the next because I want to slice.

[ProfessionalHobbit]

3 hours ago, kayb said:

That looks outstanding, and I am headed to the NYT site right now to find and save that recipe. Thanks!

 

 

Please elaborate on strawberry marinara; I'm intrigued by that and the deep-fried cucumber. Never occurred to me to deep-fry a cucumber; how was it?

 

 

Thanks @kayb.  We're fans of most of Sam's recipes.

 

It's essentially a Chinese version of braised chicken.  

 

Ignore the instruction to use a whole chicken cut up into 8 pieces.  The key to making this dish work IMHO is dark meat.  Old habits die hard.

[scubadoo97]

Tonight I made a chicken roulade with part of a chicken I boned out over the weekend.  Lightly pounded half a breast and rolled it up with the beet greens that were in the fridge and covered it in the chicken skin of the breast.  Cooked it SV @ 143f for about 2 hours.  I could have pulled it earlier but my wife had a late meeting she wanted me to attend so SV seemed like the best way to go

 

 

[Norm Matthews]

Our dinner was KC strip steak on the grill, stuffed mushrooms, baked potato and asparagus.  The little tomato was the first one from the garden. We split it.