Dinner 2020

[Shelby]

@liamsaunt I also had to look up malfatti.  Looks like something I'd really like....I'd have to add some sort of meat with it to make Ronnie happy.  Maybe some Italian sausage?

 

@Kim Shook  Even though the salad isn't Caesar, it still looks really good.  I'm hungry for a good salad.

 

Venison meatloaf last night

 

[rotuts]

@Kim Shook 

 

disappointing to hear about your Pizza experience 

 

then I thought about it , a dangerous thing to do :

 

maybe they don't know how to get the dough ' right '

 

but you said the meats were tasteless 

 

Odd  :  I doubt they make the pepperoni .  

 

and the sausage /  hard to say

 

then there is the sauce :  sauce is a key to good pizza , as is the crust

 

maybe their is not enough " Italian Tradition "  off  The corridor 

 

so you get FrancoAmerican , or my current ' Contents "  Chef BoyAreDee

 

I never had italian sausage growing up in CA , SF area   

 

but they had outstanding Pizza !   people on the W. coast travel , and maybe had it elsehwere

 

and insisted on a certain standard or you establishment would fold.

 

that's my take on your results.   Ill stop now

 

as Id take a crummy pizza just now , but that's in the future , and a better one

 

Uno's  Fz peperoni would go down nicely , w a few ice cold Hoponius Unions right now

 

Ive developed a thirst thinking this over !

[weinoo]

6 hours ago, rotuts said:

@weinoo 

 

I take it avo is avocado oil.

No, it's actually just the avocado sliced on top.  I do have avocado oil that I keep in the fridge and use for its high smoke point.

[weinoo]

Yesterday I undertook a fairly laborious cooking process of making meatballs. As well as gravy for said meatballs and pasta. I haven't made meatballs in a long time. They're more work than I remember.

 

I took equal parts of ground pork and beef and mixed it with sautéed onion and garlic, various seasonings, soaked bread crumbs from some house bread, grated pecorino and parmesan, 2 eggs, and some fresh chopped parsley. I fried up a little piece  to taste and correct the seasoning; done, the first batch of meatballs went in, but they weren't able to stay balls...too soft. I'm all out of bread crumbs and bread to make bread crumbs, but remember I have some matzo meal in the pantry. Out comes the matzo meal, added like 1/4 c to the meat mixture, let it sit for 15 minutes and bang...that worked much better!

 

 

Still a little flat, but I could deal. My sugo di carne is generally pretty rich with pork and/or beef, and cooking the meatballs in this sauce really made it so. The meatballs didn't go in the sauce until the sauce had cooked for an hour and a half; when they were added, it cooked for another hour at least...

 

 

Pretty intense, so much so that I thinned the sauce out with some stock for serving our portions.  There were enough meatballs to feed like a family of 8; 12 of them went immediately into what little freezer space I have. And for dinner, alongside some carrot salad with beets, Significant Eater's fave...

 

 

Sedani con sugo di carne.  And a meatball.

[chromedome]

36 minutes ago, weinoo said:

No, it's actually just the avocado sliced on top.  I do have avocado oil that I keep in the fridge and use for its high smoke point.

High temperatures are an issue in your fridge?


(C'mon, I resisted for HOURS...)

[Captain]

12 hours ago, CantCookStillTry said:

Can I ask what kind of salt you use?

Salt is salt.. Just different shapes and size.  I've never seen Kosher salt but I believe it's more of a flake and the name is miss leading.

I buy a bag of rock salt and grind it in a morter and pestle to a size I need.  For pasta or a brine I drop it in whole.

[TdeV]

2 hours ago, weinoo said:

carrot salad with beets, Significant Eater's fave...

 

Could you please say more about this, Mitch?

[gfweb]

Sous vide pork roast (140F,  3 hrs) with garlic and rosemary (and spinach), potatoes and saba braised veg

 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Asparagus with gribiche sauce

 

Polish sausage, choucroute, caramelized apple

[BKEats]

On 5/8/2020 at 8:09 PM, liamsaunt said:

Cooking class is over.  Confession: I got the recipes in advance and did not want to wait until 7PMish to eat, so I prepped everything this afternoon 🙂  Well, not the cocktail.  The cocktail was called "A Taste of Spring."  It had lemon juice, simple syrup. creme de violette, and gin--shaken over ice and topped with sparkling wine and fresh violets.  There were 115 people on the zoom class, and not one person other than me seemed to have actually made the cocktail!  Even the chef was drinking rose.  When I joined I blocked my video and muted my mic, but I almost came out of hiding to show that I made the recipe.  I even went to my parents' yard to pick the violets haha!  So, now I have a whole bottle of creme de violette (obtained via contactless curbside pickup at Total Wine) to add to my giant liquor cabinet of obscure cocktail ingredients that I will likely not ever use again.  

 

 

The main course was malfatti con pomodoro.  The sauce was really great.  I am glad I doubled the recipe for later use.  I should have doubled the malfatti too.  When I brought the plates to the table, my nephew asked me if I thought I was feeding a bunch of 98 year old ladies 😆   Frankly it was more than enough food for everyone except him.  I only ate four, myself.

 

 

I am not sure how similar my version is to the one the chef made, because once I found out that all participants were being emailed a video of the class, I left to eat 🙂  Quarantine has my family on a weird food schedule.  Pre-quarantine, we ate dinner at 8:30-9PM.  Now, people get antsy if dinner is not on the table by 6PM at the very latest.

 

very cool!  I almost made these the other day... Looks great 

[BKEats]

I made three different burgers yesterday with three different kinds of ground beef... I think we may have found a new burger for our menu.. But, either way. i ate way too much beef which then had me eating barely anything today... 

 

These are 3 ounce patties flattened in a tortilla press and then seasoned.. dry aged 

 

 

 

 

Trying to record and make notes and things... this was for another double burger with bacon. 

 

\\

 

 

This was a 6 ounce burger that was cooked in the style of this restaurant I use to go to as a kid, called White Rose System... Lots of onions... Grass fred beef. 

 

 

anyway, 

 

 

 

Today, I went to the farmers market and bought some lovely fish... I just had a little raw tuna for lunch... Like literally 5 small pieces. 

 

I could have made it prettier but, then I would be cutting off tuna.. So, play it as it lays... Channeling nobu.. basically smashed a piece of garlic on the morter, then drag the piece through.. Pour a little combo of yuzu and soy over it, place a jalapeno on top...  A little cilantro.  

 

 

 

Then dinner, fried calamari and fried lemon slices.  Made a simple tomato sauce.. Combine carrots, onion and garlic in some oil.. cooked for a bit, added some water, brought to a boil, added bay leaf.. then cooked for a bit,, the blended the mixture, let the water cook off almost completely and then added the tomato sauce.  Wanted to infuse flavor without cooking the sauce really.. then added chile flake and a little salt, sugar, pepper, basil.. 

 

Sent this picture to our buddy who closed his restaurant and opened a wine shop.. "Kind of like everyone":  So, we stop in the last night to support him.. 

 

Anyway, the burgers had me out of commission. Tomorrow I am thinking like a black sea bass bo sam but, with a middle eastern  twist. 

 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by BKEats (log)

[Smithy]

17 hours ago, CantCookStillTry said:

Can I ask what kind of salt you use? Despite a lot of reading, I still don't really understand the translation of Kosher salt etc. 

 

5 hours ago, Captain said:

Salt is salt.. Just different shapes and size.  I've never seen Kosher salt but I believe it's more of a flake and the name is miss leading.

I buy a bag of rock salt and grind it in a morter and pestle to a size I need.  For pasta or a brine I drop it in whole.

 

Sorry these questions got lost in the shuffle! Kosher salt is a fairly coarse salt. It gets its name not because it is a kosher material but because it's used for drawing blood out of meat...i.e. for koshering the meat. For more information see this article in kitchn.com. 

[liuzhou]

29 minutes ago, Smithy said:

 

 

Sorry these questions got lost in the shuffle! Kosher salt is a fairly coarse salt. It gets its name not because it is a kosher material but because it's used for drawing blood out of meat...i.e. for koshering the meat. For more information see this article in kitchn.com. 

 

 

Yes. Just a relatively rough sea salt. "Koshering salt" would be a more logical name, but...

[Bernie]

Also because its actually fairly larger crystals, it will not be the same in weight as fine salt for the same volume. There is a table somewhere that says how much kosher salt extra you need for seasoning compared to table salt.

I just taste it to see if its enough salt. 🙂

[liuzhou]

Chicken with garlic, shallots, chilli, capers, olives and asparagus in white wine. Chardonnay. Served with rice and a slurp or two of the same wine.

 

 

 

[Shelby]

Ham, asparagus and raclette cheese wrapped in puff pastry with a poached egg--also some runny hollandaise sauce (I think I didn't get the butter heated up enough). And a tomato salad.

 

[TicTac]

23 hours ago, weinoo said:

No, it's actually just the avocado sliced on top.  I do have avocado oil that I keep in the fridge and use for its high smoke point.

An alternative (arguable even superior) is Rice Bran Oil - has become my go to cooking oil for all things medium-high heat and beyond. 

 

Shout-out goes to our very own @liuzhou for pointing me onto it years ago!

 

 

[KennethT]

1 hour ago, TicTac said:

An alternative (arguable even superior) is Rice Bran Oil - has become my go to cooking oil for all things medium-high heat and beyond. 

 

Shout-out goes to our very own @liuzhou for pointing me onto it years ago!

 

 

@PedroG had talked about using rice bran oil for high temp searing of SV'd foods years ago also.... I miss his posts around here!

[weinoo]

On 5/8/2020 at 8:09 PM, liamsaunt said:

 So, now I have a whole bottle of creme de violette (obtained via contactless curbside pickup at Total Wine) to add to my giant liquor cabinet of obscure cocktail ingredients that I will likely not ever use again.  

 

 

 

There's always an Aviation.  And a dozen or more others...https://kindredcocktails.com/ingredient/creme-de-violette

 

15 hours ago, TdeV said:

 

Could you please say more about this, Mitch?

 

Shit, now I forgot what I have to say more about...hang on. Oh - the carrot salad with beets - it's a French thing (carottes râpées), and since buying a mouli-julienne on eBay, it's become super easy to make. Here's @David Lebovitz's recipe for them. I punch up the mustard a lot, often leave out sugar altogether as the carrots are super sweet, and the recipe in his book suggests beets as an addition, though they will change the color of the salad. I've been making this with yellow and orange carrots and it's quite good.

 

13 hours ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

 

 

Great stuff, as per usual. I really like those mustards, too!

[chromedome]

22 minutes ago, weinoo said:

 

Shit, now I forgot what I have to say more about...hang on. Oh - the carrot salad with beets - it's a French thing (carottes râpées), and since buying a mouli-julienne on eBay, it's become super easy to make. Here's @David Lebovitz's recipe for them. I punch up the mustard a lot, often leave out sugar altogether as the carrots are super sweet, and the recipe in his book suggests beets as an addition, though they will change the color of the salad. I've been making this with yellow and orange carrots and it's quite good.

 

I usually grow golden beets as well as red. That'd be a slam-dunk usage for them, I think.

[BonVivant]

German style "meatballs" with tempeh.

 

Also made the meat version. (Look up "Königsberger Klopse". Lots of recipes out there, though I used one in German.)

 

[liamsaunt]

Pizza with dough made from sourdough discard.  

 

[shain]

Forest themed pasta. Hand cut pasta, boiled with green pine cones (for piney aroma) with shiitake and champignon mushrooms, lightly browned. The sauce is made with a little onion and garlic, sauteed in butter, thickened with egg yolks and flavored with rosemary, thyme, chives and tarragon. Finished with toasted pine nuts and some mulberries (I usually use blueberries or dried cranberries).

 

[mgaretz]

When Amazon substitutes bok choy for broccolini, one must make a stir fry!  Char siu, bok choy, carrots, celery, onion, mushrooms and noodles.

 

 

[David Ross]

One of my favorite quick pickles that I make any time of year, Pickled Red Onions.  I was thinking about this recipe the other day when I was looking through some of my recipes.  Easy to make and they are great as a garnish for Mexican dishes, salads and sometimes I'll put them on top of scrambled eggs.

 

Ingredients-

1 large red onion, thinly sliced

2 cups water

1 cup apple cider vinegar

1 tbsp. salt

1 tbsp. granulated sugar

 

Instructions-

Cut the ends off the onion.  Use a mandoline style vegetable slicer to slice the onion into thin rings.  We set the slicer to cut thin onion rings no more than 1/8" thick.  Cut the slices of onion in half.

 

In a saucepan, add the water, apple cider vinegar, salt and sugar and bring to boil.  Take the saucepan off the heat and add the sliced red onion.

Let the brine and onions cool to room temperature, then place in a container, cover and refrigerate overnight to pickle.  The onions will turn a bright pink during pickling.