What's Cooking (Take Three!)

We had a UK family (she Scottish, he Welsh, the children grown-up) to supper so I did it up: Roast Goose (with a citrus and Five-Spice rub) and gravy, our house stuffing (craisins, pecans, Grand Marnier), cranberry sauce (made with red wine, Cointreau, and more pecans), a green salad with Green Goddess dressing, and a half dozen desserts: two ice creams, pumpkin pie (to remind that they are in America!) with Cream Chantilly, a proper English pudding (made by a different UK-based friend's mom), and a commercial chocolate orange (served in a quaiche, for good measure).

I'm exhausted.

The guests pulled their weight, however... they brought the starter:

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I’m not surprised you are exhausted! You are such a generous host. While there is not much work involved in bringing foie gras it is pretty good!
It all sounds amazing. When the dust settles from this mad time of the year we might start a conversation about goose.
Happy New Year to you botha

Sounds like a fine Christmas, Barb. I'm glad you had a good one!

Thanks Robin, I hope you and Mary had a wonderful Christmas and I wish you both all the best for the year to come.
Andthanky you for providing this forum, (these fora?) for me it is a community where I enjoy friendship and share stuff about things I enjoy.

...for dinner grilled lobster tails with a champagne vanilla sauce

Oh, outstanding that someone still servers lobster with vanilla!

I’d never come across it before, although now i think of it Rick Steins Aussie restaurant does a shellfish platter with vanilla in the dressing.

It was a classic of the Nouvelle Cuisine -- the movement in the 1960's/1970's that shook up the stagnant old French establishment.

I’m not surprised you are exhausted! You are such a generous host. While there is not much work involved in bringing foie gras it is pretty good!
It all sounds amazing. When the dust settles from this mad time of the year we might start a conversation about goose.
Happy New Year to you botha

Happy New Year to you and yours, Barb!

I'd be very happy to talk about goose... later.

[Jenise]

Coming out of a three-week long food funk fueled by a bad cold, I decided I've become lazy about diversifying my menus the way I used to. So I spent a day in bed reading Cooking With Daniel Boulud, which inspired me to, the next day, take the baggie of leftover raw cauliflower out of the fridge and turn that into a curried cauliflower soup. There had been a recipe for same in the book, but I didn't follow it except to loosely include the ingredients in the book: cauliflower, stock, cream, an apple, madras curry powder. I used fuji for the apple and pan-fried a couple dozen thin slices in butter for the garnish--which MADE the dish. So did the mature Viognier I paired with it--one of those stratospheric wine-food matches.

Last night I made Veal Parmesan with roasted celery. Nothing clever or unordinary about that, just an old standard we like and something I haven't made in probably 10 years. And tonight I'm testing another Boulud dish, lamb chops baked between two layers of potatoes and onions with some herbs. I'm having a dinner party for ten in two weeks and I think this will be an easy-entertaining dish for a crowd.

I typically don't bake much but this holiday season I made 4 breads. The last was rolls with peoples names on them, written in cocoa/flour paste and piped on. I joke that I am the most Pinteresting man in the world... The idea and recipe was from blogger Clotilde Dusolier's French Market Cookbook, but she adapted this from the no-knead bread folks. A bit involved since you have to fling a cup of water into a skillet underneath the pan of rolls, but a lovely crust.

I also made Parker House rolls from Joy of Cooking to go with a true prime rib for Christmas, those turned out well, as did biscuits from the same 1975 source, made with leaf lard. The latter needed a bit of salt, I always forget to use salted butter in Joy recipes.

And finally, due to a death in the family we moved our Christmas celebration a day later and had to come up with an extra day's worth of meals. So I made pizza dough from this NYTimes recipe, which is my go-to. It's incredibly easy, and can be made entirely in the KitchenAid with a dough hook. Though I find when I'm in the mood for baking I'm in the mood for kneading by hand. The biscuits especially, I think, benefit from being worked with fingertips rather than kneaded, so that they crumble rather than flake. Anyway, what made the pizza dough special was that my niece, who claimed she did not like pizza, participated in the pizza making and now likes pizza. Made me feel good.

[Jenise]

Walt, how fun re the niece.

And I love that you love baking. I'm very interested in the no-knead pan of rolls. Could one adapt any no knead bread to that method? I'm not much of a baker, I'll admit. I've made bread, and I've made rolls. I never thought about the differences in the doughs.

Speaking of baking, I'm having 22 women to lunch tomorrow. I'm sharing the duties with two other women who are making several soups. I agreed to make all the salads, plus a bundt cake. (Another lady is making brownies.) The cake is a recipe I stumbled over that guarantees to taste JUST like an old fashioned buttermilk donut. The batter uses half oat flour (put rolled oats in a food processor, whiz to death), nutmeg and lots of buttermilk. My husband, a major fan of that donut, almost fainted when he heard about it.

I almost never bake because I have no interest in eating the results, but this one looks pretty. Wish me luck tomorrow.

I don't see why you couldn't, I will try to remember to post the recipe here, it is very standard and only requires AP flour, yeast, and salt.

My wife loves buttermilk donuts, if you could post that I would be grateful.

Tonight's dinner will be chicken thighs with Creole seasoning, sauteed and then slow-cooked over porcini and oyster mushroom dirty rice.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Like the sound of that dirty rice, Paul!

Last night I was planning to make a blanquette de veau. Had an exceptional thick slice of veal on hand, but we both felt like Italian food so I braised the veal with onions, tomatoes, wine, mushroom etc etc to make a meat sauce that I then thinned out with broth and cooked the pasta in. Light and delicious.

Tonight we're going to a local deli/cheese shop/wine shop for the once-monthly prime rib.

The "Creole mushroom dirty rice" uses 1/2 cup dried porcini reconstituted in boiling water then diced, 3 cups diced other mushrooms (I used oyster and fresh shiitake). You saute the mushrooms for 8-10 minutes in the fat that was used to brown the chicken. Remove the mushrooms, saute diced onions and garlic until soft, add the rest of the Cajun Trinity (diced green bell peppers, diced celery) and a minced serrano chile, and a few teaspoons of Creole seasoning and saute a few minutes. Then add one cup of crushed tomatoes, the (filtered to remove sand) soaking water from the porcini, the sauteed mushrooms, and one cup of rice (I prefer Uncle Ben's for this sort of dish). Simmer covered on low heat for 30 minutes.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

The "Creole mushroom dirty rice" uses 1/2 cup dried porcini reconstituted in boiling water then diced, 3 cups diced other mushrooms (I used oyster and fresh shiitake). You saute the mushrooms for 8-10 minutes in the fat that was used to brown the chicken. Remove the mushrooms, saute diced onions and garlic until soft, add the rest of the Cajun Trinity (diced green bell peppers, diced celery) and a minced serrano chile, and a few teaspoons of Creole seasoning and saute a few minutes. Then add one cup of crushed tomatoes, the (filtered to remove sand) soaking water from the porcini, the sauteed mushrooms, and one cup of rice (I prefer Uncle Ben's for this sort of dish). Simmer covered on low heat for 30 minutes.

-Paul W.

Would you be surprised if I said I was surprised to get to the end of that list and see *only* one cup of rice?

[Jenise]

By the way, tonight I'm making two Chinese pork meat loaves. The mixture involves soy sauce, oyster sauce, chopped water chestnuts, sesame oil, white pepper, eggs, panko, and lots of green onions. No recipe, I just mix until it tastes right. Started with 3 pounds of ground pork. I'll make three that will be small and narrow and coat the exteriors with oyster sauce. Once baked, I slice thin and tile them on a bed of steamed gai lan. Looks pretty, and good to eat for a crowd at a big red wine tasting.

[Jenise]

Tonight we're having roast chicken. It's been soaking in buttermilk and seasoned salt for two days. Never done that before--should be good!

Would you be surprised if I said I was surprised to get to the end of that list and see *only* one cup of rice?

That was my first thought, too, when I read the recipe. But during the long cooking the mushrooms and Cajun Trinity end up very much reduced in volume. Also, Uncle Ben's Converted rice normally requires a lot more water than conventional rice--about 2 1/2 cups--and takes longer to cook. The dish comes out moister than plain steamed rice, but not soupy or mushy.

-Paul W.

It's not the most radical preparation but it was a break from the usual routine, so in that sense this weekend's oven-steamed whole black bass was a treat. With ginger, green onions (so fresh and pungent, picked hours earlier by the farmer), and soy sauce, so succulent and delicious. I will be doing this again!

[Jenise]

Cool, so much fun to do whole fish. I might do blue line snapper the same way tonight (I'm in Hawaii). If I don't find them again, then maybe grilled blue marlin steaks.

...I'm in Hawaii...

!!!

Sounds great. Enjoy some great food and local fruits for us mainlanders!

[Jenise]

I'm home now and going through withdrawal.

Came home to an empty fridge yesterday but pulled together enough ingredients to make homemade pizza for dinner last night. Today, it's 20 flipping degrees so dinner's going to be a pasta dish wherein the noodles cook in a two-our tomato/beef/onion broth and creates something between soup and stew, texture wise. It's a food from my childhood that I adore.

... It's a food from my childhood that I adore.

Similar situation here" empty fridge, 32 degrees and freezing rain. However, my childhood memory was Campbell's Bean with Bacon Soup. I cut a half pound of bacon into 1 inch squares and sweated it with 3 cloves of garlic, a large yellow onion and small amount of water because I did not want to crisp the bacon. The Campbell's has a slight orange cast, which I attribute to carrots, but I didn't have any, so I added about a Tbsp. of paprika, plus black pepper, 6 cups of chicken stock and 3 - 14 oz. cans of Navy beans, including canning liquid. I simmered it for an hour or so and have been eating it for 2 days. Quite tasty and comforting.

[Jenise]

Howie, sounds great. My childhood kick continues: the other day I saw a whole fresh pork leg--the one that would otherwise become a ham, for $14. It's something my dear beloved Grammy made often when I was growing up. This one is 9.83 pounds--that's only 1.45/lb. Dumbfounded at the value, I bought it, and it's in the oven right now for a five hour roast. Will have friends over and we'll dine on Grammy food while watching the Grammys. No idea what I'll do yet for the rest of the meal. Green salad with purple daikon radishes for sure, but haven't decided whether or not to go with mashed potatoes or something else. (Had dinner with some of the same people last night and mashed potatoes were also part of that meal, so that's why I hesitate)

...it's in the oven right now for a five hour roast. Will have friends over and we'll dine on Grammy food while watching the Grammys. No idea what I'll do yet for the rest of the meal. Green salad with purple daikon radishes for sure, but haven't decided whether or not to go with mashed potatoes or something else. (Had dinner with some of the same people last night and mashed potatoes were also part of that meal, so that's why I hesitate)

Baked apples, or even cobbler.

[Jenise]

...it's in the oven right now for a five hour roast. Will have friends over and we'll dine on Grammy food while watching the Grammys. No idea what I'll do yet for the rest of the meal. Green salad with purple daikon radishes for sure, but haven't decided whether or not to go with mashed potatoes or something else. (Had dinner with some of the same people last night and mashed potatoes were also part of that meal, so that's why I hesitate)

Baked apples, or even cobbler.

Cobbler sounds good! Apples are actually baking under the roast, plan to blend them into the gravy. Gives an interesting hint of sweetness you can't quite put your finger on to the finished dish.

Howie, sounds great. My childhood kick continues: the other day I saw a whole fresh pork leg--the one that would otherwise become a ham, for $14. It's something my dear beloved Grammy made often when I was growing up....

My Mom would make fresh hams sometimes, when I was a kid. She was quite a character. The name of her vacuum cleaner was J. Edgar.