12 posts tagged “dinner”

Thanksgiving just happened to coincide with my birthday this year. How happy was I to be able to cook on my birthday??? While most people might label themselves exempt from chores on their birthday, nothing pleases me more than to cook for my loved ones. I especially love dreaming up crazy, extravagant menus where most of the dishes never even have a glimmer of hope of coming to fruition. Oh, If only I had all the time in the world... and a sous chef or two wouldn't hurt either. :)

I was going for a traditional/non-traditional Thanksgiving meal, meaning familiar fall flavors reinvented. I found this Wolfgang Puck recipe for blinis with mashed taro. Interesting right? Mashed sweet potatoes, a Thanksgiving favorite, could easily stand in for the taro. Perfect. My first appetizer was a sweet potato blini with goat feta mousse and onion sprouts.



My second appetizer needed to be a bit heartier, so I went with broiled shrimp marinated with olive oil, thyme and paprika.


Sides included dijon mustard roasted Brussels sprouts (these were my favorite), buttermilk mashed potatoes (also a favorite) and mushroom gravy (vegetarians present).

Since I decided to forgo the Turkey, I roasted a whole Red Thai Snapper with tarragon, parsley and red onions and also made duck confit!


Sorry... No pictures of the duck confit, but I served it with this salad of mixed greens, feta and dried cranberries (another ode to Thanksgiving). I meant to also add orange supremes, but in the chaos that is my kitchen, it slipped my mind. Oops. That's where a sous chef would have come in handy.

Hope you all had a lovely and filling Thanksgiving!

If you read my post on pistachio caramels, you'll remember that I had some temperature issues that weekend. It was so warm in my air condition-less apartment, that my first batch of caramels started getting all melty and greasy. Definitely not suitable for the public. I was heartbroken, but there was work to be done, so I shoved the rejects into the cupboard to deal with later on. Later on arrived and I thought back to a soy caramel sauce that I had had at Ludobites a few months ago. I believe that theirs had accompanied a fish dish. Another savory and sweet winning combination. For the soy caramel sauce, I simply melted down the caramels and added a few dashes of soy sauce. That's it. Easy enough, right?
I had a few pounds of oxtails in the freezer that I had been dying to use. Oxtails are one of my favorite foods in the world. Top five for sure. The meat is extremely tender and full of gelatinous goodness. I braised the oxtails in my soy caramel sauce, red wine, onions, carrots and celery. After a six hour braise the meat was falling off the bones and the yummy gelatin in the bones had flavored the broth nicely. I skimmed the fat from the broth and reduced it to concentrate the flavors. It would serve as the base to my noodle soup. Chestnut noodles lent just the right amount of sweetness. Here's the assembly of the bowl... Swirl a nest of fresh pasta into the bottom of the bowl, sprinkle with blanched rainbow carrots, add baby mizuna leaves and shredded napa cabbage to the bowl (it'll get wilted when it's swirled in by the eater), garnish with scallions and finally add a ladle of broth. Brush oxtail meat with the caramel sauce and place it on top of the noodles. I removed my meat from the bones, just because I had some squeamish eaters coming over.

This meal get an A+ for slurpability! I still have tons of soy caramel sauce left. Any ideas guys?

E-mail from my sister the week before Christmas:
"Hey Julie... You should be expecting a 22 lbs package on Tuesday."

I was flying home for the holidays, so she had been thoughtful enough to remember my disdain for checking luggage. I'll do anything to avoid it. My impatience. Get me in and out. Chop chop. But if you write "David Hasselhoff" all over your luggage you get it quicker. There's a story related to "the Hoff", but that's for another time and another blog. Back to the email. What could it be I wondered? 22 lbs? Quite a hefty load. I had been talking about lining the oven with terra cotta stones. An inversion machine, perhaps? After much thought, I emailed back, "Is it a bulldog puppy?" Fingers crossed. An apartment dweller can dream can't she? :)
Needless to say, it wasn't a bulldog. Not even close. Tuesday night came around and before my door appeared the said package. Removing the first brown box revealed a white Crate & Barrel box. Getting interesting now. I ripped the tape off to reveal (Hooray) a kitchen appliance. Cheer. Drum roll please... a 5-quart Crock Pot!!! How much more perfect can you get? I love kitchen appliances with a passion.
Crock pots are perfect for cooking all things low and slow. I had to think long and hard about what to make in my new toy. Vegetarian-wise, I could only think of beans and that just wasn't doing it for me. I wanted to be excited. And it was hard to be excited about beans when all I could think of was juicy, flavor infused, fork-tender, falling off the bone meat. There was my internal turmoil that lasted two seconds before I made up my mind and grabbed my bison short ribs out of the refrigerator. I browned them in my cast iron and braised them in a mixture of coffee, chicken broth, onions, garlic and maple syrup for six hours. I also threw in a few marrow bones for good measure. Think osso buco. A scoop of marrow on the meat, crunch of fleur de sel. Oh la la. C'est bon! That's heaven for me.
After much deliberation at the farmers' market, I purchased some Jerusalem artichokes, aka sunchokes. I've passed by them numerous times, but have never taken the bait. They're the knobby, gnarly roots of a wild sunflower. Honestly, they looked like a bitch to peel and that's why I had been avoiding them. See for yourself: The vendor swore to me up and down that this was not the case. All they needed was a good scrubbing, much like their tuberous cousins. I'm all about trying new things, so why not? I boiled them in salted water until tender and mashed them with just a pat of butter. I'm sad that I've been missing out on these for so long. They taste divine. They have a great creamy texture and a flavor reminiscent of mild artichoke hearts. They were also perfect for soaking up the savory bison marinade.

Good things: crock pots(and the sister that got it for you, duh)//meat on the bone//sunchokes//EATING

Eat your vegetables!!! Admit it... how many of you have resolved to have a better diet in 2008? To swear off fast food? To eat all your vegetables? To, dare I utter the words, give up fried foods (gasp)? I'm not big on making resolutions, but after my overindulgences this holiday season, I too, could use a little recommitting to get my eating back on track. More than likely, my next few posts will be touting the virtues of vegetables and all things high in fiber. Don't you worry though... I'll be sure to trick you by making tasty food that your tummy will thank you for.

B returned from his holiday travels this Saturday, so a home cooked meal was in line. I was feeling awfully lucky to have access to a FM year round, so a feast of vegetables was an obvious choice. I had picked up two beautiful bunches of kale and delicious, earthy parsnips. I peeled the parsnips and boiled them until tender. I pushed them through my tami (my absolute favorite kitchen tool) and added some unsweetened soy milk to thin it out. Staying true to my vegan themed meal, I rehydrated some porcini mushrooms for the gravy. These have such a delicious, meaty flavor. Next, I simmered some red lentils with onions, garlic and a pinch of saffron. Lentils are a great source of fiber. Finally, I sauteed my cleaned kale in olive oil and simply seasoned with salt, pepper and a spritz of lemon juice. I garnished the lentils with a few slices of raw, red onion and paper thin serrano peppers. The parsnips got a sprinkle of chopped parsley. Healthy, yet flavorful. It is possible.

Thank you for the adorable plates, Misa. Somehow having great dinnerware, makes the food taste that much better!:)

Wishing you all a wonderful 2008! Hope it brings you health & happiness.

In the top left-hand corner we have a homemade buckwheat pasta (my take on soba noodles). As you can see, I've been taking full advantage of my new Kitchen Aide Pasta maker attachment. I just subbed out half of the  all-purpose flour for buckwheat flour. These were a breeze to make and just took a few minutes in boiling water to cook. In the bottom left-hand corner, we have stir-fried shishito peppers with shitake mushrooms, carrots and tofu. Shishito peppers are delicious, mild Japanese peppers that are available at your local Japanese market. I got mine at the Mitsuwa on the corner of Venice and Centinela, for those of you Angelenos out there. So far we have our soft, silky noodles, our meaty mushrooms, our crisp peppers... all we're missing now is the crunchy and the creamy of our meal. For our crunchy  element, I made curry potato korokke (Japanese croquettes) with some leftover mashed potatoes I had on hand. I coated them with flour, egg then panko and fried them until they were golden brown. The creaminess of the meal comes from the spicy dipping sauce I made for the korokke. It was a simple aioli that I flavored with sriracha. Hope you enjoyed my presentation of a bento box dinner minus the box! :) Happy eating!

Oh gnocchi... love to eat them... hate to make them! These guys are tricky... one wrong move and you've got yourself two pounds of good for nothing potato pellets. I've attempted to make gnocchi a total of three times in my entire culinary history and each time they were mediocre at best. I had come to the conclusion that gnocchi was one of the foods not worth making (other foods in this category include masa and baguettes, IMO). Not only were they time consuming, but they demanded a certain amount of precision that I did not seem to possess. Light, airy, cloud-like gnocchi eluded me and I had resolved to satisfy my gnocchi cravings outside of my kitchen.
My attitude suddenly changed last week when I realized that I had no idea what I was doing. My technique was all wrong. I had been boiling my potatoes, which added moisture to them and as a result I had to add more flour to the dough. I had also been mashing the potatoes with a hand masher. This method did not yield the consistency needed for heavenly gnocchi. I received two essential tips for gnocchi making: 1. Bake your potatoes in a bed of salt to draw out moisture from the potatoes 2. Rice your baked potatoes with a tamis to get the finest consistency (Thanks, Frankie!). With these two rules to cook by, I had a renewed desire to make gnocchi. I just love  learning things like that. Does that make me a nerd? :)
After a quick trip to Surfas and a brand spanking new tamis in hand, I was ready to rock. I heated the oven to 400 degrees and laid about an inch of kosher salt on a sheet pan. I pricked my russet potatoes and laid them on top of the salt to cook until tender (1 hour). I had decided to jazz up the dumplings a bit by adding saffron. I toasted up a pinch  of saffron threads and crushed them up into a fine powder with a mortar and pestle. Afterwards, I moved onto the sauce. I toasted up some Marcona Almonds and pureed them with a bunch of flat-leaf parsley and olive oil for a simple accompaniment to the gnocchi. Once my potatoes were ready to go, I peeled them (watch your hands guys... the potatoes are piping hot still) and ran them through my tamis. I looked at my big pile of perfectly airy potato powder and got the feeling that this was going to be good. I let them potatoes cool down before adding my beaten egg, saffron and finally flour. I tried to knead the dough as little as possible and added just enough flour to get rid of any tackiness. I rolled the dough into strips and cut each strip into little squares of dough. The pillows of  dough proceeded to take a trip down my gnocchi board to get its sauce-holding ridges (as shown picture above).
I boiled some salted water. I threw them into the simmering water (not all at once of course) and once they floated to the surface, I fished them out. Next, I browned the gnocchi in a pan with butter. Once they got a nice golden crust on them, I piled them in the middle of the plate, drizzled the Marcona almond sauce around it and topped it all with a fried quail egg.
The gnocchi came out just the way I had always wanted it to. Light and airy on the inside, with just the slightest textural contrast from the browning. If you're feeling adventurous today, give it a try. It's not as intimidating as it looks, especially with a few pro tips.

As a recent owner of Chef Ludo Lefebvre's cookbook Crave: The Feast of the 5ive Senses, I just couldn't wait to try out one of the recipes from his gorgeous book. The pictures literally make you want to lick the book. Here's my attempt at his Skate Wing with Salsa of Cucumber, Tomato & Seaweed. The colors of this dish are beautiful and just pop off the plate. Yummy!