Dinner 2017 (Part 6)

[ProfessionalHobbit]

 

Hardly any cooking this weekend which is rare for me but understandable given that today is my birthday. Anyway, last night B and I went to a Japanese New Year celebration. This spread was not as Japanese-y as in other years but there were still some favorites.

 

Clockwise from center, foreground:  chirashi with ikura, tamago and edamame; tangerines clementine oranges; kurikinton (mashed chestnuts and sweet potatoes, topped with sweet chestnut); cherry and apple pie; red bean soup with green tea mochi and regular mochi; fruit salad; cheese plate (blue cheese, brie and Gouda); salmon two ways (lox and broiled); spiral sliced ham; white chocolate with matcha powder; toasted rye bread; beef stew with potatoes, carrot and onion. Not shown are spring rolls with chicken and cheese. 

Edited December 25, 2017 by ProfessionalHobbit (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

7 hours ago, chefmd said:

Your potatoes look amazing.  How did you cook them?  

 

Thank you.  This was one mammoth hexapartite russet prepared by the most recent Kenji method -- except that I left on the skin.

 

The pieces were dropped in boiling, salted water, to which 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda had been added.  After 10 minutes the pieces were drained and returned to the pot to dry (and allow the starch to retrograde).  When the pieces had cooled a bit I tossed them in duck fat and steam baked on the middle rack position 400 deg F. in the CSO for 20 minutes.  Following the first 20 minutes I turned the pieces, sprinkling them with hand crushed rosemary, and continued cooking on steam bake for another 25 minutes or so until my copper Béarnaise pot was washed and dried.

 

Kenji specifies sauteeing garlic and rosemary in the fat.  The flavored fat is then strained before tossing with the potato pieces, and the herb mixture reserved for a final garnish.  I omitted this step last night.

 

[lindag]

Enjoying my pre-dinner Dirty Martini.

Still snowing lightly but the driveway has been cleared...all is good.

Edited December 25, 2017 by lindag (log)

[kayb]

 

Clockwise from lower left, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with praline pecan topping, rolls, cranberry salad, gravy, asparagus, Brussels sprouts (sauteed with salt and pepper in EVOO, then hit with some balsamic glaze; simple and good); ham, roast beef, mac and cheese. We had chocolate pecan pie that someone ate a piece of, and a cheesecake that no one touched.

 

La Branca Prosecco and Coppola claret.

 

And much shrieking and Christmas chaos from the littles, who mostly filled up on the appetizers (cheese, charcuterie, veggies, pickles, nuts).

 

And a nap.

 

[Steve Irby]

Oysters to start followed by turkey cooked sous vide (breast and tenderloins) and conventionally (thighs and wings).  The breast was stuffed with homemade chorizo.

 

 

 

[liuzhou]

This is part of my miserable Christmas dinner. Actually it tasted OK, but looked less so.

 

Roasted everything on this plate: duck leg, potatoes, carrots and onions. There were also stuffed cabbage rolls and gravy which didn't make it through the photo quality control man in my head. This picture just scraped through on compassionate grounds. I have a new oven which I'm not quite used to yet, so bits were overdone and bits were just done.

 

Edited December 26, 2017 by liuzhou
typos (log)

[Norm Matthews]

We had a buffet at my sisters today. I took some raw veggies and a couple dips plus stuffed mushrooms. I made mini sausage meatballs with leftover filling.  Sorry about the blurry picture of the mushrooms.

Edited December 26, 2017 by Norm Matthews (log)

[liuzhou]

@Norm Matthews

 

Haha! One of my local restaurants here copied you, but they cooked the veg. The locals don't do raw.

Edited December 26, 2017 by liuzhou (log)

[Ann_T]

We had roast duck for Christmas dinner.

 

Served with a Fig, Cranberry, Orange Port Sauce.

Sides were roasted potatoes, red cabbage, roasted Brussels Sprouts and mashed sweet potatoes. 

[gfweb]

Lunch and dinner Xmas extravaganza.

Smoked turkey salad for a birthday lunch

 

 

 

 

Salmon "log"

Roasted and pickled veg as a mid Monopoly game snack

 

Butternut squash soup pre dinner. Sloppy ladling by me.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I do not celebrate holidays but tonight's dinner was chicken with nut sauce from Carla Capalbo's Tasting Georgia (p350), said to be a speciality of Restaurant Diaroni.  Here is the nut sauce just after incorporating the wine vinegar and before I gave up and transferred everything to the Waring and settled down to a mai tai and a Celebrex.  Just joking about the Celebrex but may reconsider before bed.  This pounding in a mortar business is overrated.

 

 

 

 

I may have overdone it with the Waring as the walnut sauce ended up the consistency of mayonnaise.  The chicken is rubbed with olive oil and baked with paprika, savory, and black pepper.  In addition to walnuts the sauce is garlic, coriander, marigold, fenugreek, and red pepper.

 

For anyone following along at home this is a far larger platter than I usually show.  They say Georgian meals last for hours which I can well believe.  I had a pomegranate I intended to serve but I gave up and went with cranberry instead.

 

 

Edit:  oh, and I forgot the bread.  I notice some of the pictures of Georgian meals show a couple of flat breads on the table and three or more raised breads.

 

Edited December 26, 2017 by JoNorvelleWalker
eGullet software broken (log)

[rarerollingobject]

Of the hundreds, thousands of Cantonese meals and millions and millions of dim sum dishes I’ve made in my time, the one thing I’ve never made is my own har gau/gow gee/prawn dumpling/蝦餃.

 

The reason for that is that the wrapper dough is a giant pain in the arse; wheat starch AND tapioca starch AND potato starch and a bit of lard then boiling water at the exact right temperature to melt your hands off, but you have to knead it hot and then roll each wrapper individually and pleat them till you can barely feel your fingers. I think I’ve made every dim sum dish in existence, but never these.

 

Did it today. Prawn, pork fat, bamboo shoot, Shaohsing wine, seasonings and the remnants of my scorched fingertips. Very good. 

Edited December 26, 2017 by rarerollingobject (log)

[KennethT]

My wife and I don't celebrate Christmas, but since I have a day off from work, and many local restaurants are closed (gasp!) or have expensive fixed menus for the occasion, I decided to cook this year.  Last year, we went down to our favorite place in Chinatown but it was a madhouse and the quality certainly suffered.  I wanted a bit of time to relax and work on new projects, so I didn't want to make something that required tons of time, but it would be very different from what we normally have.

Dry aged, prime, NY strip steak, potato galette, sauteed asparagus and sauteed pears.  I asked the butcher to save the trimmings from the ridiculously marbled steak - what's cool is that this place, unlike others, only weighs for pricing purposes after trimming!  So I got all this great beef fat for free.  I made a nice fat-shake and then rendered on the stove top - got tons of great beef fat.  Steak was put in the freezer for about 30 minutes just prior to pre-searing in copious beef fat and butter that surprisingly didn't set off the smoke alarm - although it definitely should have.  It then went in the bag (along with the cooled fat used for the searing) and cooked sv for about 2 hours (it was almost 2 inches thick) to a core temp of 125F.  Post searing done with propane torch.  My wife and I agreed that this was the best steak we had ever had - even in a steakhouse.  The beef was crazy tender, juicy, and ridiculously beefy.  Even though it was cooked SV, it had a great grilled flavor, due to it being cooked in the smoky fat.  At 125F, the beef did not lose even an eyedropper full of liquid - the only liquid in the bag was the fat.  Potatoes were yukon gold sliced in the mandoline, cooked with beef fat and butter and some fresh thyme.  Asparagus was the healthy part - just a little grapeseed oil.  The pears are a nice thing I haven't done in a long time.  Sliced thin, sauteed in better and copious black pepper, then flambeed with cognac.  Is there anything better than the combo of butter and cognac?  I wonder...

 

Washed down with a glass of:

which was incredible.  I rarely drink alcohol anymore, so when I do, I want it to be worth it.  We have lots of great wine in our wine fridge that was either gifted to us, or procured at great prices, and thanks to the Coravin, we don't have to worry about needing to drink a whole bottle when we only want a glass or two.  This means that there will be more of this wine on another occasion!

[Shelby]

I hope everyone had a wonderful day yesterday!  We sure did

 

The usual deviled eggs

Green bean, mushroom, blue cheese tart

@Kim Shook's scalloped tomatoes--kind of lol.   I didn't add any sugar because we don't care for the sweet.  The toasties on top with the parm cheese=YUM

 

Prime rib.  Perfect (for us) 120F in the middle.  

 

 

[KennethT]

Wow, @Shelby that prime rib looks amazing!  When I was a kid, my parents would make it for me for special occasions... brings back nice memories.

[Paul Bacino]

Santa was very Good this yr!!  and bought his selve an Arcobaleno 10 extruder  

 

First Batch of Buccatini/  100% durum  ...I made this in about 15 mins from start to finish

 

 

[rotuts]

@Paul Bacino

 

wow  very nice.

 

what sort of extruders came with it ?

 

should you get the chance , would you take a pic of them ?

 

the web site didn't say

 

and their vid of the machine does not play 

 

https://arcobalenollc.com/products/extruder-mixer-counter-top/#product_AEX10

 

Edited December 26, 2017 by rotuts (log)

[ChocoMom]

Just discovered that the pics of main dishes, etc. have been deleted from my phone. I recovered pics of the Christmas tree veggies and cheese platters though, and three desserts.  You will have to imagine the the smoked turkey, mashies, stuffing, cranberry sauce,  two beef roasts with roasted red peppers/pearl onions/sundried tomatoes/artichoke hearts/olives,  cubed & roasted hubbard squash, salad, and rolls. It looked so nice, but I fear some mischievous kids were doodling with my phone.  Also missing is that blessed Spinach-Artichoke cheese dip. Good stuff. 

 

[Duvel]

Venison "Wellington". Roasted brussel sprouts. With a close to perfect sauce ... Very, very content. Maybe because of the digestif ?

 

Nope

 

 

 

Edited December 26, 2017 by Duvel (log)

[mgaretz]

Soup with shrimp, chicken stock, celery, carrots, snap peas, yu choy and rice noodles.

 

 

[Paul Bacino]

@rotuts

RT

Well u get two brass extruders of your choice..  I got the buccatini 4mm..i believe, the linguini  3 mm and the chitara--textured spagetti ( sp )   2 mm\  so I bought 1 extra--they have about 160 dies that can fit these machines

 

Happy Holidays  Paul

[rotuts]

@Paul Bacino

 

what do you do with so much pasta ?

 

do you dry it ?

 

if you cook right away , do you treat it as ' fresh HomeMade Pasta '

 

sonds like a foolish question , 

 

but when Ive made HomeMade , it had egg yolk in it.

 

would you Machine make pasta w eggs in it ?

 

I can see this as a really fine hobby

 

for sure !

 

the web site is a bit clunky

 

is there a way to see all the dies ?

 

just for fun

 

Edited December 26, 2017 by rotuts (log)

[rotuts]

@ChocoMom

 

nice !

 

what it that Fruit Item , the last pic ?

[rotuts]

@Ann_T

 

your crust on the ' pie ' looks devine!

[rotuts]

@Shelby

 

that Prime Rib looks perfect

 

Nice !