Fooddoings
with Deb and SteveWednesday, February 2, 2005
Thanks for the notes. I'm glad you're still enjoying the food. I really did enjoy the time I spent in your kitchen preparing the food, sharing the work, various people hanging out, and the range of conversation. It was a lot of fun. And I really enjoyed my lunch with mom even though we were sopping wet! What a downpour at such a propitious time!
Today we went out to lunch and had a spit roasted leg of lamb sandwich with horseradish salsa verde and aioli on country brown bread served with a fingerling potato and fennel salad side. I believe I can recreate both of these very superb dishes. Our friend Jackie, who wrote that book we gave to Mike's girls last summer, is planning on trying her hand at teaching writing. So she is going to have a trial session of this by teaching a writing class with her friends. Steve is going to participate. There will be about six of them. It will be at a local church and I will cater the lunch. So I'm about to email her with the suggestion of this lamb sandwich idea. I'll let you know what we will finally do.
On Friday night, we've invited some new folks over - some people I work with and like but Steve has not met - for movie night. We plan on doing individual pizzas that folks comprise themselves from ingredients provided. Steve is at the moment reviewing his pizza dough recipes in preparation for this. Each person will stretch his own pizza dough and add whatever ingredients to the top and we'll bake it.
Pat, Kellie and Ryan will
be coming over for dinner a week from Friday. I'm not yet sure what we'll
serve then.
Today, we bought our first asparagus of the season. We will do a stirfry
with mushrooms, red peppers, red onions and thyme.
That's the update on food happenings here. We enjoy it all.
Monday, February 21, 2005
So Pat and my friend Leslie
(and CEO of where I work - it was her husband's band who played at our
wedding) came over to try out our hors d'oeuvres adventures. Here are
the results:
ESCAROLE AND FONTINA EMPANADITAS
Reasons for choosing: I wanted to try out this dough and filling. I have
never made anything like this. I started experimenting with pastry doughs
last year - I had been wary - but never tried empanadas.
Outcome: The dough works well.
It was easy to work and fill. It can be made ahead and reheated, so it
works well for a large party. One recipe was supposed to make four dozen,
but it doesn't. We did like the taste, BUT, the escarole wilted down so
you would get a puffed up little pastry crescent with this small amount
of filling. Also, fontina is not strong enough of a flavor. I would choose
perhaps gruyere instead. We talked about adding ham to bulk out the filling.
But Pat pointed out that this would eliminate the vegetarian aspect of
this dish, which was a quality that had initially attracted me to this
recipe as part of a mixed array.
CHICKEN, APPLE AND CHEDDAR EMPANADITAS
Reasons for choosing: same
Outcome: We all liked them
and this worked better. The flavor was more assertive and didn't wilt
down so much. The takeaway learning is to really stuff these babies -
the dough stretches, so it can take it. Also, set up the prep station
so you can take just one layer of cut rounds out of the refrigerator at
a time, because the dough works best when cold.
SCALLOP CEVICHE WITH AVOCADO PUREE IN TOASTED CORN CUPS
Reasons for choosing: basically the same. I've never made ceviche, although
like it, and I wanted to try out these corn cups because they could be
used in other ways. Plus, it used an expensive ingredient like scallops
but spread it out over a large number of servings. The recipe takes scallops
and marinates them in a mixture of lime juice, orange juice, a little
bit of cider vinegar, jalepeno, and sliced red onion. You marinate for
16-24 hours. The acid "cooks" the seafood. Then you make corn
cups by cutting out rounds of corn tortillas; brushing them with oil;
pushing them down into miniature muffin cups, and baking them. Then you
make a sort of salad with little pieces of cut up blood orange, regular
orange, lime, one-inch slices of red onion and cilantro. Right before
assembling, you puree some avocado with lime juice. To assemble, you take
a cup and pipe some avocado puree in the bottom, then layer some little
pieces of the scallop on that, and top with some of the other mixture.
Outcome: The scallops, the
citrus salad, and the avocado puree all came out great. BUT, first of
all, those corn cups were labor intensive. I wasn't sure they would even
turn out looking like anything, but they actually did. BUT, when you put
all this together, the corn cups just don't work somehow. Too crunchy
or something. And it doesn't all meld together. Pat tried one sometime
after we first served them and said that the corn cup had softened with
the juice and it did work. But then Steve tried one a little later and
it had gotten soggy. So, it's out. I still have some of the marinating
scallops and some citrus salad in the refrigerator, and I think I'm going
to toss it all with some couscous tonight for dinner, maybe with some
olives. It's possible that the corn cups could bear more experimentation
with some different fillings, but it seems a lot of work for not much
outcome. But I walk away with making a successful seviche and some new
flavor options.
SPICED CHICKPEAS
Reasons for choosing: Well, I guess they are the about the same again.
I've never seen a recipe like this and had my doubts. I've made a few
different recipes for spiced roasted nuts lately and like them a lot.
I thought that if you could do the same thing with garbanzo beans, that
would be good. Plus, this recipe roasts the canned, drained, spiced garbanzo
beans in the microwave, which is where I had my doubts.
Outcome: Well they do get
crispy with this method. But they did nothing for either Leslie, Steve
or me. Pat liked them, but for what I considered an unusual reason. She
thought they were good in that you could just have a little and feel satisfied
and not need to keep eating. The remaining chickpeas went home with her.
BROWNED BUTTER, LEMON AND CAPER BISCOTTI
Reasons for choosing: Well, of course, the same. I once made traditional
biscotti cookies that are actually not that sweet but certainly not savory.
These were decidedly a non-dessert item and could be made ahead as well.
Biscotti, as you probably know, are Italian in origin and are twice baked.
First you make a dough of butter, flour, eggs, milk and, in this case,
add capers, lemon zest and parsley. You form this into logs, refrigerate,
and then bake. Then you refrigerate the logs, cut them into diagonal slices,
and bake the slices.
Outcome: We all liked them.
They were kind of crumbly and I might do some research about various biscotti
recipes/techniques to see if there is something more to learn about this,
but I think they are probably in. Martha also has a recipe for orange,
pistachio, and black olive biscotti that I might do as well. There's also
a parmesan, fennel and raisin one that is a possibility.
SMOKED SALMON CREAM CHEESE WITH CUCUMBER CANAPÉ
Reasons for choosing: Okay, this time it's different. Martha's book has
the most gorgeous pictures of an array of different types of geometrically
sliced canapés with different artfully arranged toppings. Ii mean,
they look GREAT. My problem with these type of things is, first, they
are a last minute item with a somewhat work intensive preparation. Second,
you need good thinly sliced bread. Most bread is not cut thin enough.
I've never been a big fan of those cocktail sliced rye and pumpernickel
loaves myself. They just don't taste that great to me. But I found a locally
made rye and pumpernickel sandwich sliced bread that Ii thought Ii would
try. It wasn't thin enough, but I thought I would try flattening out the
bread with a rolling pin; toast slightly; spread with cream cheese, smoked
salmon and lemon puree; top with really thinly sliced cucumbers (with
a mandolin), then artfully cut up these babies. If it worked, I could
include several different types of canapés, each with their own
look.
Outcome: Well, the bread was
too springy to make it thinner, but it worked really well anyway. Amazingly,
Steve and I both ranked these as one of the best, if not the best, of
the options. We really liked the biscotti - although it was crumbly. We
really liked the chicken empanaditas - although some of them had shrunken
fillings as well. BUT there was not anything negative to say about these.
So, Grand Central Bakery has a local outlet (not the maker of the bread
we used). But I'm going to try out their sandwich-sized loaves of bread
and ask them if they can slice it thinly. If so, we will probably include
some canapés
Okay, that's the summary. My two experimenters, Pat and Leslie, (plus
Steve, who qualifies as a cook as well) seemed to enjoy the experience
a lot, and they were helpful to me. They seem to think that spending a
Sunday afternoon taste-testing, weighing in on opinions, sipping some
wine, and watching a good movie on a big-screen TV was a pretty good deal.
The movie we watched is Love, Actually which, if you have not seen
it, is really very good.
Bon appetit.
Friday, March 4, 2005
I told mom about our last weekend's
adventure in creating Chinese turnip cake and Chinese taro cakes. They
are a savory cake, filled with Chinese bacon and sausage that are first
steamed, then sliced and fried. Ii had never eaten them nor had read about
them. So, in my newest attempt to try something new each week, we went
for it. We shopped at the Asian food store to get the ingredients. Taro
roots look like knobby potatoes and have a similar consistency. They have
a bit of an herby smell to them. We substituted daikon radish for the
turnips, because the recipe allowed us to. You boil and smash up the taro.
You shred then boil the radish. Then you use rice flour (which looks like
powdered sugar), and mix it with the saved broth you cooked -- either
the radish or taro. It looks like watery glue. You mix it in with the
vegetable matter and the chopped up meat matter. We dumped ours into small
ceramic casserole dishes and then steamed them (each in turn) in a large
stock pot (a very large pot). They come out looking like glutinous masses
the color of grayish-white (remember, this is an adventure). Then you
refrigerate them overnight and unmold them the next day. Now you have
solid square masses of glutinous looking stuff. We are, at this point,
really beginning to wonder about this adventure, but we forge ahead. You
make small slices - two inches by a half inch and sauté the slices
in peanut oil. They do look better after sautéing, and they taste
pretty good -- something you would definitely find in a dim sum type of
place. But, a little bit goes a long way. I recall that the article where
I found these talks about how families made these around the new year
and then just served them one slice at a time when guests families dropped
by. I now see why that is. We had a few of them a couple of days in a
row, but I didn't need any more after that. Recall that we made TWO of
these babies. So, basically the equivalent of one and a half of these
glue-cakes, as we referred to them, went out in the trash. I don't believe
we will be making them again.
This week's adventure? Much tamer. You've heard about dry-aged beef. Well,
supposedly you can do it yourself at home. We've taken a roast, dried
all the moisture from the surface, wrapped it in cheesecloth. It will
sit in our downstairs refrigerator for a week before roasting it.
Today, I am making a four-bean cassoulet with lamb and sausages to take
to a potluck tonight. Tomorrow, we go to a friend's house for dinner.
I am starting to work on the menu for our kitchen party on April first.
It will depend on how many people RSVP to come. About 80 have been invited.
So, this is the latest word from Steve & Deb's kitchen.!
Sunday, March 6, 2005
Okay, I've just taken one thawed
thigh from the big bags of boneless, skinless thighs you can get at Costco.
I cut it into 1-1 1/2 inch squares. Rubbed ras hanout on these and am
about to stick them into the oven. I'm trying this out as a potential
hors deuvres for the kitchen party. I'll let you know how it goes.
There are many recipes for ras hanout on the Internet.
Here's the one I used:
Take equal parts of the following:
ground ginger
long pepper (never heard of it and skipped it)
paradise seeds or guinea pepper (ditto)
cumin seeds
allspice seeds
cress seeds (ditto)
black cumin seeds (don't have)
anis seed
coriander seeds
cayenne
iris root (ditto)
ginger root or galingal root (I skipped it because I wanted a dry powder)
siamese ginger (don't know it)
lavender flowers (I have fresh lavender but I skipped)
mace
nutmeg
turmeric
cinnamon
cloves
cubeb pepper or piper cubeba (?)
saffron (I have it but I can't believe it would not get lost in this mixture
and it's expensive, so I skipped it)
cantharide (sounds like something from chemistry class. don't have)
nigella (?)
damascus rose buds (only had Portland's so I skipped. just kidding. although
I did skip it)
I toasted the seeds and ground in a coffee grinder I use as a spice grinder.
I toasted the powders and put it all together.
© 2005, 2006 Deborah Young