Archive for the 'Dinner' Category

Bay scallops in basil cream sauce

Published
by
marc
on June 18, 2008
in Dinner, Pasta and Seafood
. 17 Comments

I’m back from Oregon! During my short trip to attend my step-fathers graduation, I picked up 6 bottles of Willamette Valley wine (mostly Pinot Noirs) and a sunburn (I didn’t get the memo about the 4 hour ceremony being outdoors).

I actually got back on Monday, but the past 2 nights have been occupied working out the details of the Tastespotting replacement project I’ve started with a friend. It’s not quite done yet, but if you want to check it out, leave a comment and I’ll invite you as we need beta testers.

I honestly haven’t been in the mood to cook but this is a simple classic no-brainer for bay scallops. The tartness of the wine and lemon offset the cream and the caramelized onions and scallops add an enormous amount of umami it’s by no means a light dish, but it’s also not too heavy or cloying.

For those of you that know me, you know I’ll eat almost anything, but licorice flavored things are a rare exception. That said, I enjoy challenging myself to take food I don’t like and turn it into something I like so I’ve found uses for anise flavored things. Pernod in particular goes pretty well with seafood and I’ve even found myself craving the combo sometimes. I still won’t touch those black tar sticks though.

The basil in this dish goes well with Pernod and if you have a fennel bulb sitting around, add it in with the spring onions. Tarragon would work too. If you want to do something different, try replacing the basil and Pernod with saffron and ginger.

1/2 lbs dry bay scallops (see footnote here for info about dry scallops)
1 Tbs butter
1 tsp olive oil
1 spring onion chopped small
1/2 C white wine
1 Tbs lemon juice
1/2 C heavy cream
1 tsp Pernod (or other anise flavoured liqueur)
1/4 C basil chiffonade
salt and pepper to taste
8oz pasta (I used homemade pappardelle)

The trick with this recipe is to make the sauce ahead, then time the pasta and scallops so they are done at the same time. Depending on the type of pasta you’re using it will take different amounts of time, so I’ll leave it to your discretion as to when to start the pasta.

For the sauce, heat the olive oil in a pan. Saute the onions until soft and starting to caramelize. Add the wine and lemon juice and reduce until thick and gluggy. Add the cream and Pernod and turn down the heat to keep it warm.

Clean and dry the scallops. Heat a non-teflon pan over high heat until hot. Lightly salt and pepper the scallops. Add the butter to the pan and swirl to melt. When the bubbling subsides add the scallops in a single layer without overcrowding the pan. Sear undisturbed until brown then flip with tongs. Cook until the top 1/3 and bottom 1/3 of the scallop is opaque and the middle 1/3 is still translucent.

Transfer the scallops to a plate then add the cream sauce to the pan that the scallops came out of and deglaze. All that brown fond on the pan adds umami to the sauce. Add the basil to the sauce then put the drained pasta in the sauce and stir to coat.

Plate the pasta then top with the scallops and drizzle any remaining sauce on top.

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Roast duck with mango riesling glaze

Published
by
admin
on May 25, 2008
in Dinner, Fusion, Poultry and Roast
. 13 Comments

Normally I could go on waxing poetic about the wonders of duck, but as of right now our relationship is tenuous at best. So to is my unflagging admiration of the Cooks Illustrated publications. I just spent over 2 hours of my weekend preparing what has to be the most complicated roast duck recipe ever and it just didn’t live up to expectations.

I should first start off by explaining why I love duck so much. Not only is it incredibly flavourful, it’s a self basting wonder-meat that comes out moist and juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside with little to no effort. Normally I’d just salt and pepper it, stick it on a roasting pan and pop it in a 350 degree (F) oven, forgetting about it until it is ready to serve.

My only gripe (if you can even call it that) with the ducks we get around here is that they are obscenely fatty. While a lot of the fat does render out, there is still usually more fat between the skin and the meat than I’m comfortable eating.

The other day, I was thinking about what would make the perfect glaze for roast duck. I was picturing a reduction of wine and mango creating a shiny caramelized sheen over the crisp underlying skin. Given my past issues with the fat content I also wanted to find a way to get the crisp skin and moist meat without the ticking coronary that usually comes along with it.

My first stop for any technique related question is almost always Cooks Illustrated. They’ll literally test hundreds of combination’s of ingredients, proportions, and cooking methods to come up with the “perfect” recipe. They’ve never let me down (until today), and I have to credit their publications for a good deal of culinary training. I flipped open my copy of The New Best Recipes cookbook and sure enough there was a recipe for “crisp roast duck” that promised less fat due to a 2 step cooking method. It seemed like a lot more work than duck is supposed to take, but I decided to give it a try.

To give you an idea of the Thomas Kelleresque amount of work that went into this recipe, you first steam the duck (to let some of the fat render out), then cut it apart, then roast (constantly removing fat from the pan), taking the breast out early then returning to finish. The roasting time (post steaming) seemed awfully long given that the steaming almost completely cooks the duck, but I was determined to see it through.

By the time the breast meat was supposed to come out of the oven (so the legs and wings could cook longer), the breasts were about 1/3 of their original size and were starting to look more like jerky than duck. I decided that enough was enough and glazed all of it and threw it under the broiler to try to limit the remaining cooking time. If I’d actually cooked it for as long as I was supposed to I’m sure I would have been eating cardboard.

While the breast meat was overcooked, the legs were still okay. The really disappointing part though was that the skin wasn’t crisp at all (probably because I took it out of the oven prematurely in an effort to save the meat). The only part of the recipe that worked was that the meat was less fatty than usual.

I read and re-read the recipe to see if I’d done something wrong, but I had uncharacteristically followed the recipe exactly as printed. On my scale of personal cooking disasters, this was a 10.0 on the Richter scale. I wouldn’t have even posted it were it not for the glaze that I made. Caramely sweet, slightly tart, and full of Asian flavour, it was about as perfect a glaze for duck as I can think of.

Next time, I do this, I’m going to try to steam it for a little less time (to get some of the fat rendering benefit without as much of the meat being cooked), then just stick the whole thing on a roasting pan to roast like normal. I’m also wondering if a slow roasting technique, like one you might use on pork shoulder, might work for duck (though I’m a bit doubtful because duck meat itself is actually quite lean without much marbling).

I’m not going to post the roasting technique since that part failed, but I’m curious to hear how you normally roast a duck?
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Pizza and a dream (grilled lettuce pizza)

Published
by
marc
on May 16, 2008
in Dinner, Vegetable and Vegetarian
. 16 Comments

Do you ever hear people talking about their technicolor dreams that defy the laws that govern our conscious minds and wonder… “hmm… is this person making this up?” I’m one of those people that purges his memories of any dream on my way to consciousness and as a result I never remember much of my dreams. I’m always slightly envious of those that can remember their dreams and am downright jealous of people that have those so-called “lucid dreams” where you realize you’re in a dream and can alter the course of it.

So why am I going on about dreams on a cooking blog? For me, day dreams are often a source of inspiration for new and interesting ideas. I’ll see someone eating a banana and wonder what I could do with the peel.

The other day, I was strolling through SoHo when I noticed a huge crowd outside a new restaurant. It was literally a hole-in-the-wall with a glass case showcasing their signature pizzas with ovens in the background wafting the irresistible aroma of fresh baked bread and savory cheese onto the street. Up above was a chalk-board menu with about a dozen pizza’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard of. Being the maximizer that I am, I read through every item on the menu with pizzas such as:

  • * grilled lettuce, anchovy and pecorino
  • * scrambled eggs with gruyere, caviar, and truffle oil
  • * bacon, sea urchin, beet greens and béchamel

I waited patiently contemplating my choices and watching people around me light up as they got their orders. Do I go simple with the grilled lettuce and cheese pizza or go for something more extravagant…

Before I was able to put in my order… I woke up! Still dark out, I was in my bed disoriented clinging to the memories of my tasty dream. So I did what any sensible person does at 4:30 am and got up to go make some pizzas… Well not really, but I did get up to write down the entire menu before I forgot it. The following recipe for grilled lettuce pizza comes straight from my dream, the crust comes courtesy of Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Dough by way of Smitten Kitchen.

The thin, football (or rugby ball) shaped pizza is crusty, savory and chewy with a crisp layer of romaine lettuce made smokey and sweet by the high heat. The Pecorino Grand Cru adds a potent dose of briny umami bringing a depth you just wouldn’t expect from a lettuce pizza. I skipped the anchovy this time opting for fleur de sel since I didn’t have any in the pantry, but I have no doubt this would have made for a nice addition.
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Tacos al pastor

Published
by
marc
on May 4, 2008
in BBQ, Dinner, Mexican, Party and Pork
. 15 Comments

I think the 3 things I miss most about California are owning a car, having a grill, and the Mexican food. The later two are especially salient around Cinqo De Mayo which for me used to signal the start of the grilling season.

Like the Mexican food in NYC, Cinco De Mayo is a bit misguided here in the US. Most people think it’s the Mexican equivalent of July 4th, but it’s actually not even a federal holiday south of the border (Mexican Independence day on September 16th however is). I suspect its prominence in the US has a lot to do with the marketing engines of big tex-mex chains looking for a way to sell more burritos (ironically, this is a food item that doesn’t have the wide popularity in Mexico that it does here). Still, it is a good excuse to cook Mexican food especially something a bit more elaborate that takes about a day to make.

One of my favourite taco’s, Tacos Al Pastor (”shepherd style”) likely originated from Lebanese immigrants who made their way to Mexico and brought with them Shawarma. Like any food that emigrates from one place to another, changes are made to include locally available ingredients and to suit local palettes. In this case, the meats were flavored with various chiles and then topped with a pineapple while roasting.

The pineapple, aside from adding some sweetness and acidity, also has an enzyme called bromelain that breaks down proteins making the meat very tender. Since we don’t all have shawarma spits at home, I’ve adapted this recipe to work in an oven or on a cooler grill. The pineapple goes into the marinade which gets layered into the roast and is then left to marinade for a short amount of time.

The meat is stunningly tender with a distinct earthy-smokey flavor coming from the dried chiles and a nice balance of sweetness, tartness and salt. I like my taco’s simple (like they serve them at taquerias in Mexico) and load up a double layer of corn tortillas with meat then add a bit of minced sweet onion, cilantro and salsa verde on top.

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Banana peel steamed pork and rice

Published
by
admin
on April 25, 2008
in Dinner, Experimental and Pork
. 21 Comments

Last week, I was sitting in a product meeting at work. Our CTO was eating a banana and as he set the peel down on the table it struck me that it would make the perfect vessel to hold food. Since then I’ve been mulling over all the different ways one could cook food in a piece of the fruit that’s come to symbolize rubbish.

I began to fantasize about fork tender hunks for moist pork surrounded by rice infused with the flavors of banana and the savory pork. Over the following week I decided that a Cuban mojo would make a fine marinade (although I’d considered using a tamarind based marinade).

My biggest concern was that the astringent taste of the peel would ruin the contents. Upon doing some research I found that banana peels are used in some regions of India to make chutney. I also learned that there are some nasty pesticides used on bananas so I decided it would be best to use organic bananas. Beyond that I found nary a reference to cooking with banana peels.

My first inclination was to roast them at a low temperature, but after thinking about it for a bit, I realized that the dry heat would make it take a lot longer to make the meat tender. I was also thinking that it could potentially render the rice inedible. In the end, I decided to steam the bundles.

As with most things one fantasizes about for days on end, this didn’t quite live up to the high expectations I had, but that’s not to say it wasn’t good. As expected, it had a fairly strong banana flavor, so if you don’t like bananas, this might not be for you. The meat came out incredibly moist and tender and the rice was cooked perfectly, soaking up the flavors of the peel along with the juices from the pork.

The next time I do this, I’m going to try serving it with a salsa… maybe a mango coconut celery salsa.

      

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