Dinner! 2002

[tommy]

foodman, that's purdy. did you cook the sauce?

roasted another chicken with sage and potatoes and onions in the pan. roasted acorn squash on the side. so cheap, so easy, so good. tis the season for roasting?

[FoodMan]

foodman, that's purdy.  did you cook the sauce?

roasted another chicken with sage and potatoes and onions in the pan.  roasted acorn squash on the side.  so cheap, so easy, so good.  tis the season for roasting?

Yes the sauce is cooked (I've never tried uncooked pizza sauce--on my to do list though). My pizza sauce is a basic tomato sauce: plum tomatoes, lots o garlic, onions, and fresh basil added at the end. I then whiz it in the blender for a few seconds to get it smooth and easily spreadable on the dough.

FM

[Priscilla]

Roast chicken (sage spring inside), frites, zucchini gratineed with Pecorino Romano and a little bit of sage-infused tomato sauce from the last, the very last, of the Romas.

[Miss J]

I found some cheap, reduced-to-sell oyster mushrooms in very good shape. My off-the-cuff dinner went something like this:

1. Render (leftover) smoked bacon lardons until crisp

2. Add cheap oyster mushrooms, saute

3. Add a slug of leftover new world chardonnay (one of those ones that I alwasy find too oaky for my taste - but it was a gift, so who's complaining?)

4. Reduce until liquid is slightly syrupy

5. Add a blop of dijon mustard

6. Add a swizz of extra thick single cream

7. Add some freshly cooked penne

Serve with crisp green salad dressed with lemon and olive oil.

It was nice. And easy. And I felt virtuous as I managed to use up everything in my fridge that was at its this-needs-to-be-used-now point.

[tommy]

miss j, don't you find that oaky chardonnays are yucky to cook with? i've found that the taste is unpleasant in the dish as much as in the glass. unless, of course, it was just my cooking.

[Miss J]

It wouldn't have been my first choice, but I had most of a bottle sitting in the fridge because I felt ungracious about throwing it out. And since last night's dinner was very much a quick weeknight event, I seized the opportunity to include it in my using-up-leftovers binge. (And I think the mustard, although not an obvious flavour in the finished dish, did a lot to counteract the oak.)

In other words, now that I've used a glass AND a slug of it, I feel okay about throwing out the rest of the bottle.

[SobaAddict70]

SA,

If you have the time and are comfortble doing so, would you mind providing a more specific recipe for the baighan bharta - it sounds delicious.

Many thanks

Your request is my command.

Sorry I've just gotten back to you, I've been spending time recovering and not browsing on egullet for a while.

Baighan Bharta

eggplant -- either baked, roasted or broiled

ghee

minced hot green chiles

asafetida

cumin seeds

ground coriander

salt

peas (optional. I like to use fresh peas when I can get them, altho frozen will do just as well.)

finely chopped fresh coriander

finely chopped fresh mint

unflavored yogurt or sour cream

garam masala

1. Slice the eggplant in half lengthwise and scoop out the pulp. Discard the skin and coarsely chop the pulp.

2. Heat the ghee in a large nonstick frying pan or saucepan over moderate heat, then add the green chiles, asafetida, and cumin and fry until the cumin seeds darken. (Be careful not to burn them.) Add the eggplant, ground coriander, and salt, and cook, stirring frequently until the mixture is dry and thick, almost paste-like, about 10 to 15 minutes.

3. Remove the pan from heat and let cool to room temperature. Stir in the fresh herbs, yogurt or sour cream and garam masala. Serve hot, at room temperature, or chilled.

Try making this with baby eggplants, or use as a sandwich spread.

SA

[Adam Balic]

Sauted hedgehog mushrooms on crostini

Fancy free range French chicken roasted with truffle slices slipped under the skin.

Roast potatoes, Roast Fancy Violet de Cadours garlic, Extra fine green beans with Italian Alpine butter, crisped sage leaves as garnish.

Bottle of 1997 Guigal Cotes du Rhone that a local shop is foolishly selling as the '99.

Glass of 15 year old Bruichladdich for desert.

To be honest the garlic had more truffle flavour then the truffle. Except to my wife, who is a super-taster and tests off scale for certain aromas when it comes to detection threshold (tested for her work). I looked up my Big Book of Truffle Trivia and it says that only a portion of the population can detect certain componants of the truffle aroma. I am not one of these it seems. .

[Gavin Jones]

Bottle of 1997 Guigal Cotes du Rhone that a local shop is foolishly selling as the '99.

I had a rather unexciting spag. with roast plum tomatoes (roast with evoo, anchovy more evoo & parsley, flat) followed by two meaty italian sausages.

The reason was I'd bought them from a local salumeria which was selling an astonishing chianti - Giorgio Primo, La Massa, 1997 at around £10 (top of my usual range for wine).

This must be way below retail, it has the power of a northern rhone wine & felt like velvet curtains opening over my teeth. Developed in structure and intensity over the evening - almost a struggle to get through - but such a pleasure to find a wine more complicated than myself (& only slightly cheaper).

[Miss J]

Cooked some thai red curry paste in oil, then browned some chicken thighs in it. Added coconut milk and left to simmer while blanching tinned bamboo shoots, soaking black cloud ear fungus, and chopping up some butternut squash. Added the vegetables to the curry around 10 minutes before serving time. Finished with a bit of palm sugar, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaf and some slices of fresh chili.

Served with jasmine rice. Ate in front of the football. Wept bitter tears (but not about the curry).

[tommy]

grilled cheese, in a cast iron grill pan. the *only* way to fly.

[Charlene Leonard]

I found some cheap, reduced-to-sell oyster mushrooms in very good shape. My off-the-cuff dinner went something like this:

1. Render (leftover) smoked bacon lardons until crisp

2. Add cheap oyster mushrooms, saute

3. Add a slug of leftover new world chardonnay (one of those ones that I alwasy find too oaky for my taste - but it was a gift, so who's complaining?)

4. Reduce until liquid is slightly syrupy

5. Add a blop of dijon mustard

6. Add a swizz of extra thick single cream

7. Add some freshly cooked penne

Serve with crisp green salad dressed with lemon and olive oil.

It was nice. And easy. And I felt virtuous as I managed to use up everything in my fridge that was at its this-needs-to-be-used-now point.

similar to my dinner last night. Onion and garlic fried in a little oil add about two handfuls of chopped up pancetta fried until crisp then added left over roast chicken from Sunday and a glass of red wind, reduced until about 2 tbsp left. Spooned chicken over buttered toast whlist adding some more butter to the juices in the pan and poured over toast.

[SobaAddict70]

Tuesday night -- the first night I've done something besides soup/citrus/Theraflu/bed rest:

I think I've discovered something new with brussel sprouts:

Sliced, roasted brussel sprouts, tossed with caramelized onions (1 anchovy fillet cooked w/ the onions, so that the anchovy melts into the EVOO and lends a deep, bass note of flavor to the onions), and a few drops of wasabi oil (this is EVOO with a little powdered wasabi incorporated into it)

brown rice; broiled tofu topped with miso and a sprinkle of gomasio; green tea.

---------

Wednesday evening:

cream of roasted carrot soup (onions, one or two leeks, lots of carrots, a Granny Smith apple (optional), one potato, sliced (optional. adding a potato will give the soup additional body.), unsalted butter, roasted vegetable stock, salt, pepper, light cream. roast carrots. saute onions and leeks in unsalted butter. add carrots (and apple and potato if using). add veggie stock. season to taste, simmer briefly (if using the potato, until the potato is cooked through). puree in a blender or with a hand blender. add light cream, adjust seasoning and serve.);

hot soba noodles, topped with chopped and deboned roast duck (from a local Cantonese takeout palace), minced scallions, crumbled toasted nori, and a sprinkle of gomasio; dipping sauce of dashi, mushroom soy and a little mirin;

green tea. bananas.

SA

[Liza]

Caramelized fennel in a roasting pan with chicken thighs, celery, onion, garlic, tomato pulp and paste, chili flakes. Roasted for an hour or so.

Grapes and frangipane tart with cherries and peaches.

[Priscilla]

Tonkatsu, (fried pork cutlet), mirin-simmered cabbage, seasoned spinach, rice. Kikkoman tonkatsu sauce continues to beat all comers, unlike the Angels last evening.

[Adam Balic]

Risotto with chanterelle. Rice stored with Truffle for two days. Truffle shaved over-top.

[Miss J]

Dinner for one:

A teeny partridge roasted with a slice of pancetta over the breast and a few sprigs of thyme in the cavity

Steamed spinach with butter and nutmeg

Cauliflower roasted in OO with fleur de sel and cracked black pepper

Two squares of that insanely good Chocolate Society organic dark chocolate bar. Mmmmmmmmm.

[Liza]

A riff on Thomas Keller butter poached lobster - additions to the butter of sambhal powder, thyme, and turmeric. Creamed kale. Mashed turnips and carrots. Sauced with corn jus. Really quite lovely.

[Malawry]

Wilted baby spinach salad with grilled broccoli raab and roasted red pepper

Potato gnocchi w tomato concasse and EVOO, sauteed shrimp, garlicky ruby swiss chard

Apple pie with braeburns, honeycrisp and granny smith apples, caramel sauce

[tony h]

I finally made it to Borough market (london) yesterday. What a wonderful place. If you live in London & haven't made it yet - do go.

Anyway - last night - fillet steak from the Ginger Pig - lighy seared.

Port & Maderia reduction with homemeade lamb stock.

Lots of baby veg - fennel, carrots & turnip.

The baby fennel was braised in stock with cardamon, bay & thyme for 1.5 hours (a al Blanc Mange). Meltingly wonderful.

I used the braising liquor from the carrot & turnip to make the couscous.

Baby turnips had a bitter aftertaste - the only downside.

Tonight - I have a very large bag of wild mushrooms to play with.

[clb]

Some fine plaice fillets from Kensington Place Fish Shop coated with a lemon-zesty herby breadcrumb mixture and with a Pernod-garlic butter drizzled over them. With some mashed pots. From one of Simon Hopkinson's excellent books.

Also a head of romanesco. How best to cook this? I steamed it over the potatoes and it retained its looks but could have done with some additional flavour. Anchovy oil (but not with the plaice, I think)?

Some rock hard little Josephine de Malines pears cooked in Marsala and sugar in the oven, as suggested in the Chez Panisse Fruit book. Unbelievably delicious with cream, which made a sort of toffee sauce.

clb

[tommy]

my first duck ever.

roasted it for about 3 hours.

served as a thai dish, with peppers, onions, scallions and chili.

i was hoping for a crispier skin. i think i'll baste it more next time, as i hardly did at all this time.

to start, duck confit on puff pastry, with a dab of hoisin and some sliced scallion. a tiny bit of cinnamon serves as the "secret ingredient," as always.

as usual, it looked and tasted better than 1.3 megapixels would lead you to believe.

[CathyL]

Tommy, I own that blue platter. Conclude from this what you will, and then tell me all about it.

Gawdjus duck confit. At what temperature did you roast the duck? What did you do to it before it went into the oven?

[tommy]

Tommy, I own that blue platter.  Conclude from this what you will, and then tell me all about it.

Gawdjus duck confit.  At what temperature did you roast the duck?  What did you do to it before it went into the oven?

cathly, da blue platter was a gift, probably from a friend with whom i no longer speak. do you have a friend like that too? itsanice-a blue platta for doz tings.

the duck for the entree was roasted at 375 and then 350. scored and rubbed with s/p and orange zest. stuffed with 1/2 orange, head of garlic, and ginger. had i actually used the pan juices, i'm thinking this routine might have had that much more of an impact. however, i did use the drippings to do the onions and peppers, and i refuse to put any type of carcass in the oven without stuffing it with *something*.

the confit i roasted to crisp the skin at 375 or so. my oven has the heating element in the oven part (as opposed to a broiler part beneath), which aids in that task. duck confit (from d'artagnan) just goes right in sans prep.

[nervousnelli]

To get a crispy skin on a roast duck you must put lots of tiny holes in it before putting it in the oven. Also, pour a little ice water over the bird a couple of times during the roasting process. I don't know why this works but it does result in a nice crispy skin.