Dinner! 2002

[Adam_Balic]

Mussels with creme fraiche/pernod/shallots/white wine.

Roast Guinea-fowl, green beans, rosemary roasted potatoes.

Peaches bakes with mascapone and amaretti soufle.

[Jinmyo]

They ate my leftover brandade.  Now I can't make bunuelos.  

[Wilfrid]

Jinmyo, bunuelos clearly require patience and restraint.  Bad girl!  

Combined pre-cooked and homemade last night.  My local Dominican restaurant roasts a big leg of pork every day, juicy and thick with crackling.  They will carve you a huge protion for five or six dollars.

Having saved myself a few hours of roasting, I made a bitter orange sauce.  Two parts juice, one part veal stock, seasoned and decorated with strands of zest.  Add a little sugar or regular orange juice to reduce bitterness if you wish.  Plain rice on the side.  And a middling Sancerre rose.

(There was also some baklava and amaretto, I confess. )

[Jinmyo]

I made agedashi tofu. I roll the silken tofu cubes in cornstarch five times to develop a sturdy and crusty crust. The shoyu, mirin, and bonito dashi is served seperately as a dipping sauce. Salad of slivered scallions and grated daikon (always wring out the daikon after grating) with togarashi. Gari and takuan. Large tempura shrimp (eaten shell and legs still on). Fried shrimp heads. Sake.

[SobaAddict70]

Wednesday:  Chicken breasts rubbed with olive oil, smeared with a tablespoon of eggplant chutney, and broiled until done; roasted potatoes; steamed cauliflower, finished with chopped fresh herbs and a pat of unsalted butter.  Lemon sorbet (Haagen-Dasz).

Yesterday:  Hiyayako tofu (chilled tofu topped with bonito flakes, minced scallions, toasted laver which I crumbled into flakes, and toasted sesame seeds); dipping sauce of mushroom soy and mirin; broiled marinated flank steak; steamed rice; kale sauteed with garlic and olive oil.

[Priscilla]

Last night pizza, one BLT, and one with sauteed escarole and Pecorino Romano, and a nice arugula salad with plenty of blooms included, now that I'm hip to that concept.

Priscilla

[nyfirepatrolchef X]

last night at work....for them...fusili with bolognese, garlic bread..I had the 8PM watch so no time for cappucino...for me..bolognese with turkey steadof beef, no garlic bread, and rice vermicelli.

I hate my diet sometimes.

[Liza]

Tonight, Tonight...I feel like Maria in "West Side Story". We had the pleasure of dining with Alex and Stephany, from whom we purchase most of our fish. They provided us with two gorgeous striped bass filets, and two pounds of scallops. As the fish was divided up for a few cooks, I'll just speak about what I made. For the scallops, I boiled some new potatoes, removed their jackets, and sliced into spheres, then brushed with butter and roasted; sprinkled with scallops with fleur de sel, guajillo pepper powder and sauteed; so the individual serving pile was potato, scallop, and a few salmon roe.

For the bass, I employed (yet again cause it always works) Rocco DiSpirito's method: wrapped each portion in plastic wrap and poached at 160 degrees for 15 minutes. Topped with a sauce of loose butter, caviar, lemon zest. The poaching in plastic keeps the protein incredibly moist, and come on, how can you go wrong with heaps of butter? (and cat hair, of course).

[tommy]

in light of the sun being out (groan), i gilled chicken breast and served it on a baguette with a basil/mint pesto-mayo and red onion, tomato, and watercress.  simple, but effective lunch.  

someone here mentioned homemade mayo not to long ago, which kind of put this in my mind.  the mayo wasn't homemade in this case, but the pesto added quite a bit.

i would have marinated the chix in the pesto had time permitted.  but it weren't.

click here for the sandwich. and here to see the non-sandwich that mrs. tommy decided to make.

[Toby]

Last night I had a dinner party for old friends from San Francisco visiting New York.  When I lived in San Francisco, we had a lot of great, endless, good wine dinners and I wanted to make one lot that, especially since we hadn't seen each other for a long time and this last year has been so hard for everyone.

I started with chickpea flour flatbreads -- socca -- with fresh ricotta cheese, and roasted little Italian eggplants marinated in olive oil with anchovies and shallots and mint and lemon juice, and French lentils dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil and a salad with some kind of strange, very peppery cress that I got at the Union Sq. Farmers Mkt. from Paffenroth with soppresatta and chopped hard boiled egg.  Then for the main course we had slow roasted pork shoulder with sage and hot pepper flakes and spinach with lemon and oil.  For dessert I made strawberry shortcakes (with biscuits).  We started with a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand and then all the other wines were Austalian -- Mad Fish Shiraz, Charles Cimicky 1998 Reserve Shiraz (which was remarkable), and Yalumba Old Sweet White dessert wine.  It was great because I really wanted to make one more dinner where I could use the oven a lot before it gets too hot here (New York) and it was cool and rainy all day and the food was kind of dark without being too heavy.

On the subject of Australian wines, does anyone know a wine store in NY with a good selection of Australian white rieslings and semillons?

Toby

[Orik]

Duck seems to be a popular bird here recently. Yesterday we roasted one, stuffing it with a ground mixture of duck eggs (soft boiled), duck liver, mushrooms (sauteed in butter), breadcrumbs (panko, cheating, etc.) spiced with some thyme, salt and pepper (had no bacon, would have worked here, I think). We cooked the rest of the duck innards and its neck in 1/2 bottle of red wine and some beef stock together with garlic for about 30 minutes, strained and reduced, finally adding some truffle pate (la rustichella, favorite cheapo truffle brand) and butter. The sauce and stuffing were terrific, but next time I think I'll carve the duck, sautee the breasts, confit the legs and use the rest for stock.

[Wilfrid]

My version of tripes a la mode de Caen on Saturday.  Tripe, calf's foot, vegetables, bayleaves, boiled, then simmered for about forty five minutes in chicken stock.  Place the meat and veg in a clay casserole and cover with cider.  In a slow oven for an hour or so - it is almost impossible to over cook tripe.  I added some scraps of smoked bacon too.  When it was done, I drained some of the juice into a saucepan, mixed a spoonful of it with a little beurre manie, and stirred that back in.  Cooked until I had a nice tripe 'n' cider gravy to spoon over the potatoes.

Last night I tried poaching Copper River salmon in plastic wrap.  I slightly overcooked it - doesn't really need more than about five minutes in warm water - but it was delicate and interesting.

[Adam_Balic]

Haggis with Boiled cabbage & bacon, Neep mash (UK. "Swede", USA "Rutabaga"). Bottle of Chianti.

[tony h]

5 for dinner on saturday night:

Roast scallops w hot broad bean & asparagus salad

Several different fish poached in chicken consome (sp?) served as a chunky soup

raspberry sable w white chocolate ice cream (homemade, of course)

If I say so myself, I was particularly impressed with the consome - I used egg whites to clear the stock - worked a treat.

[Liza]

I think the trick for poaching in plastic is to keep the temp around 160 or so. Just a light trembling o'er the surface, as if the water is contemplating vegetarian haggis.

[Jinmyo]

Wasabi flavoured rice; grilled ahi tuna steaks with Sichuan peppercorn and dried lemon crust; sauteed scallions and asparagus; clear golden mushroom broth. Made crispy rice, broken into chunks, strewn with gomasion.

[Adam_Balic]

Sounds great, but what is "gomasion"? Also, all this incredible food for you and yours or is there a professional side of this (Sorry, no Jinmyo Bio., so I am a little nosey ).

[tommy]

with Sichuan peppercorn and dried lemon crust;

wasn't the crust overpowering?  as we've discussed, this is one *very* strong spice.

[Jinmyo]

Sorry, gomasio (toasted sesame salt). I'll msg you the rest, Adam.

[Wilfrid]

I think the trick for poaching in plastic is to keep the temp around 160 or so. Just a light trembling o'er the surface, as if the water is contemplating vegetarian haggis.

And for how long?   Assume I am cooking two perfectly sculpted rectangles of salmon filet, five inches by two inches and one inch thick.

Ta.

[rich]

Friday night I deep-fried some soft shell crabs coated with red, white and yellow cornmeal, lentil flour and a pinch of smoked medium paprika.

I served them with some creamy rice (not risotto) baked with red peppers, gruyere cheese and scallions. Grilled yellow squash after brushing with lemon, olive oil, tarragon mixture.

For dessert some Driscoll Strawberries macerated in a combination of equal parts Grand Marnier and Sambucca and a splash of lime juice - refrigerated until very cold.

[Ron Johnson]

Wasabi flavoured rice; grilled ahi tuna steaks with Sichuan peppercorn and dried lemon crust; sauteed scallions and asparagus; clear golden mushroom broth. Made crispy rice, broken into chunks, strewn with gomasion.

Jinmyo,

Another great side for ahi tuna steaks is gohan balls stuffed with umeboshi and pickled mango and rolled in shredded nori.  

[SobaAddict70]

roasted little Italian eggplants marinated in olive oil with anchovies and shallots and mint and lemon juice

Welcome to egullet, Toby.

I'm a little curious whether you used fresh anchovies or the usual kind, or a paste of some sort.  I'd like the recipe, if you don't mind.  Sounds like a nice first course.

Tonight I'm going to cheat a little bit.  Short of cooking an entire duck, I'm going to order half a duck from one of our local Cantonese take-out joints.  Then I'll remove the bones, shred the meat and skin, and stir-fry the lot with some minced ginger, scallions, spicy pickled turnips and cut up veggies (probably cabbage, broccoli and peppers).  Steamed rice.  Orange sorbet.

Hey!  Even egulleteers like moi get lazy sometimes, don'cha know.  

Soba

[helenas]

salmon potato gratin: slices of boiled yukon potatoes layered with cured and fresh salmon and a lot of dill and chives; with creme fraiche and gruyere for the topping...

[Liza]

Wilfrid,

I'd reckon about 15 minutes - honest. Really low temp water (I even drag out the meat thermometer) works for the bass.

Soba, that's not really cheating. You're applying the heat after all!

Tonight: three pounds o' cod are comin' my way. So that means codfish cakes for Tuesday!