Dinner 02-12-2012

Monkfish was being sold at the grocery story.  That meant opportunity to try this (as it turns out) slightly sweet, mild, and meaty fish.   Not knowing about it, I turned to Thomas Keller for guidance.

The French Laundry Cookbook has a dish pairing the fish with a braised beef cut (oxtails).  Wow...fish and a rich braise.  This must be some fish, I thought.  Sure enough, it really holds its ground and pairs well with the sauce.  A lot of earthy flavors in this dish, with the salsify (another new ingredient for me), and porcini mushrooms.  All in all, pretty easy to do, and worth the effort since I had a lot of sauce left over and enough fish for a second meal.

I also have been trying to play with sugar decor.  I haven't gotten the results that I wanted (not pictured), but I did something simple, which you can see above.  This is simply a caramel drizzled onto a silpat in a pattern and then folded over on itself.

I whipped up a simple chocolate cookie wafer and had some pistachio gelato in the freezer, which I framed with the caramel decoration.  Fun stuff.

Dinner 01-20-2012

Roasted beet  salad, marinated in grapefruit juice and red wine vinegar, with chopped tarragon, chives, shaved red onion, and a drizzle of olive oil.  Sweet and refreshing as always. 

 

I think braising is my favorite technique. Makes a great sauce, and tenderizes cheap, tough cuts of meat. Beef short ribs pan seared then braised. Braising liquid starts with sweated bell pepper, jalepeno, onions, garlic. Then added san marzano tomatoes, tomato paste, 2 cups of strong coffee. Sauce is finished with a cup of unsweetened chocolate. Garnished with chopped cilantro.

This dish was great.  I like things that really concentrate their effects on the nose rather than fooling you into thinking tastes are on the palate. The coffee and chocolate give this dish a mysterious aroma  that pairs extremely well with the browned meat.  The red bell pepper you don't taste directly, but I think it adds a very subtle sweet highlight, which accentuates the chocolate aroma.  The cilantro and jalapeno give this dish an earthy/spicy balance.

Gateaux aux amandes. So tender and light in texture. Elegant flavor of almond. Served with a spoonful of a strawberry-rhubarb compote like thing, and whipped cream (siphon method).

Merveilleux

I do love to make (and eat, of course) desserts.

Merveilleux, a French confection. Two sweet meringue cookies with a layer of chocolate mousse, then covered with vanilla flavored whipped cream and shavings of chocolate.

Start by forming a french meringue.  I used two egg whites, a quarter teaspoon of citric acid, and about 200 grams of sugar.  In the mixer, I whipped the eggs and acid to a froth, then added the sugar all at once.    I then let the mixer go on high speed until stiff peaks.  Once the meringue reaches the right consistency, I put it into a piping back with a 1 cm plain tip.  

The whipped cream is made in similar fashion, but no acid.  I put a cup of heavy cream with a half teaspoon of vanilla extract and maybe a third of a cup of sugar.  I let this whip until stiff peaks as well.

The chocolate mousse I made by melting chocolate in a steel bowl over a saucepan with simmering water.  I added some cream and whipped like mad over an ice bath.  

Now that the components are made, time to bake.  The meringues were piped into 4 cm disks on parchment paper and baked at 195 F (90 C) for 1 hour, then 185 F (85 C) for another hour. I cut one open to make sure the centers were baked through.  If not (mine were not since I made them a little thick), bake for 10-20 minutes more.  Let cool completely

To finish, I spread chocolate mousse on one disk and placed another disk on top.  I covered the meringue sandwich with whipped cream using an offset spatula.  Finally, roll in chocolate shavings.  

Dinner 12-17-2011

I think this may be the last dinner before the new year.  We had another old friend visiting and the wife decided to invite some people over.  So I was cooking for 6 guests plus myself. One was the former head of her department at the college, now retired, and his wife.  The other is a current professor in the same department, and his wife.  Both couples are experienced travelers and eaters in Europe.  I know they've been to some fine restaurants there, and here in the U.S.  It would be fun to cook for them.

I decided to go with a little tour of French cookery.  Mostly to get their impressions given I have no reference point for what most things ought to be like.  (Impressions were favorable...whew!)

First  up was a little charcuterie plate with cornichons and dijon mustard.  I served fennel salami, smoked prosciutto, and rabbit pâté.  The only part of this I made was the pâté.   Lacking a meat grinder, I put the meat and fat through a food processor several times.   This was a fun one to make.  After cutting up the carcass of the rabbit, I deboned it and let it marinade with thyme, salt, bay leaf.  Then this is ground up with some pork fat back and pieces of bread soaked in milk.  The last touch before cooking is the addition of some mustard with cognac.   This is wrapped in bacon and then baked.  Once cooled, it is compressed with weights and left to chill, sliced, and served.

With the charcuterie I served two breads that I've made before: a sourdough baguette and brioche.  I need to work on my shaping skills....I'm masterful at making exploding baguette, which is caused by the loaf splitting at invisible seams in the dough rather than the scores I make.   The brioche was probably the best I've made so far.  This is Keller's recipe in Bouchon.

For a first course, I decided to do a "fruits de mer" platter.  I like this because the food is cooked simply, with finesse, and presented in a way that signals abundance and festiveness.

A few of the items are poached in court bouillon.  This poaching liquid consists of water, veggies (leeks, onions, carrots), herbs and spices (bouquet garni), dry white wine, lemon, and vinegar.  The lobster, crab, and shrimp are all poached for a few minutes in the liquid before being chilled.  The PEI mussels are cooked simply in a thin layer of boiling water before also being chilled.

I had fun with the oysters and clams, having never shucked either before.  It turns out to be pretty easy, and there's something gratifying when you feel the shell first pop loose.   These were served raw with three sauces.

 Starting at the top image, a cocktail sauce (easy: ketchup, worcestershire, mustard, horseradish), a mignonette (red wine vinegar, shallot, black pepper), and dijon mustard mayo (egg yolk, oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice, mustard)

The next course was a meat.  I love duck so much that I made it yet again.  I switched up the spicing and used finely ground coffee, salt, and pepper.  I made the port wine-sherry beurre monte again to sauce the meat.  This time served with sauteed spinach.    The other side with this was a red rice cooked in chicken stock with chestnuts and garnished with thinly sliced burgundy truffles.   This clearly isn't presentation for haute cuisine, but my oh my did the red rice-truffle-chestnut combo work, especially with the duck and the sauce.

Dessert came in two stages.  Again, not winning any awards for presentation, but still...so delicious.  First was a plate with baked balls of pate a choux, a pastry dough that we've seen before in the form of gougeres and eclairs.  This time is a form of 'profiterole' where vanilla ice cream is sandwiched between the two halves of the hollow ball of dough.  Topping this, admittedly somewhat haphazardly, was a simple chocolate sauce.  

On the side of the dish were poached prunes.  These were so so flavorful, and sweet, so meltingly tender, that I am sure to do this again with other fruits.  The prunes are left to marinate in red wine (cabernet sauvignon), with cinnamon sticks, star anise, and honey.  I added thai long peppercorns and some nutmeg, which I think are complementary flavors.  After sitting in this mixture overnight, the prunes and liquid are brought to a simmer only briefly to soften them, and  then left to sit and chill at least for a day. 

After dessert, we had some digestifs.  Available were cognac, scotch.  We also had some coffee.  Along with these, I made a strawberry-rhubarb tart and a cocoa flavored cookie topped with chopped walnuts.

Braised Pork Belly, Coffee, Orange, Chocolate, Black Pepper

I have an old friend visiting for a few days, so posting has been light.   Tonight we collaborated on a dish and produced a nice outcome.

Here we have pork belly, which was brined overnight in whisky, maple syrup, and dijon mustard.  Then braised for 6 hours in orange juice.  The meat itself is finished with a saute.  I added half a cup of additional orange juice and a couple tablespoons of red wine vinegar to the braising liquid and reduced to just a sauce consistency.  The acid and syrupy-citrus sweetness really helped cut some of the richness. The dish is garnished with a coffee-chocolate fondant tuile made from isomalt and glucose, which is also dusted with fresh ground black pepper.

Every aspect of this dish supports the rich succulence of the pork belly, which has been infused with the flavor of oranges.  I really need to comment on the use of coffee and chocolate though.  Not only do these flavors pair well together, but the black pepper on the tuile is complementary as well.   The really great part is how the coffee melds with the meaty aspects of this dish without clashing with the sweet/acid/floral flavors brought by the use of oranges.  I think that while coffee is often associated with the sweet/cold side of things, it has a tremendous potential in savory/hot dishes as well.  Some ideas are to use coffee as a braising liquid, or to cook something like short ribs en sous vide with coffee grounds, letting the natural juices of the meat infuse the coffee into the flesh.  Another idea would be to use a pressure cooker so to preserve the coffee's flavor with a shortened cook time.  I think the chocolate needs to play a background role in all this, if it is used at all, but it is a really nice touch that served to highlight the coffee.  Also, like in some hot chocolate preparations, the pepper works nicely to add a spicy kick to the whole thing.

I'm sure I'll be playing with this dish in the future, trying to bring forth the flavors more clearly, and balancing out the flavors as well.   As it stands, I think this dish is a nice start.