What's Cooking (Take Two!)

Tonight's dinner was pad prik gai bai grapao (Thai stir-fried bird chiles with chicken and basil). Just the thing for the current hot, humid New England weather.

-Paul W.

After weeks of prepping for our anniversary parties, 16 family members coming and going, for over a week, kids filling up the swimming pool all day long , today is our first day alone with no pressing obligations. All I can think about is making a pot of chili, with a bunch of my myriad garden peppers, and adding onions, garlic, and yes beans! It has been so hot that my San Marzano peppers actually cooked on the vine, so will be throwing those in, as well. None of the other peppers cooked, however.

Yesterday's dinner for two:
1st course: Mushroom terrine as described in previous post

2nd course: lamb loin in coffee crust with apple and mashed potatoes

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Dessert: Strawberry-Joghurt-Mousse with strawberry salad and fresh strawberries

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2nd course: lamb loin in coffee crust with apple and mashed potatoes

Nice touch using the mint(?) leaves on the apple.

Is the sauce just an au jus?

Adobo Chicken with coconut Jasmine rice, and a stir-fry of broccoli, mushrooms and green onions.

[Jenise]

Heinz, looks incredible as always. Your desserts are so perfect, they almost look like they're made of wax. Amazing.


Here at Chez J, on the stove right now is a pot of pork rib bones simmering with onion, star anise, a few shitake mushrooms and some star anise. The resultant broth will be the soup base for wontons I'll make from the meat removed from the smoked pork ribs. No recipe, just an idea I had for how to use up the leftovers from the 40 lbs I smoked yesterday. Haven't figured out how I'll season the wontons just yet, but since I'm going Asian with this, green onions should be part of it.

Beautiful pictures Heinz...lovely flavors going on there.

I have the remains of a batch of merguez sausage that's timing out in the fridge, so tomorrow night I'm going to form them all into kofteh (meatballs), brown them in olive oil, and finish them off in a tomato sauce. Moroccan "spaghetti and meatballs".

-Paul W.

[Robin Garr]

Thai-style chicken curry (Gang Gai แกงไก่) with white Asian eggplant, fresh tomato, tofu (pinch-hitting for the chicken), coconut milk, Thai red-curry spices and lots of fresh cilantro.

I have the remains of a batch of merguez sausage that's timing out in the fridge, so tomorrow night I'm going to form them all into kofteh (meatballs), brown them in olive oil, and finish them off in a tomato sauce. Moroccan "spaghetti and meatballs".

-Paul W.

This was timely. I made merguez on July 4th. Have about half-dozen or so left. Your Moroccan spaghetti is inspired, and will be my dinner tomorrow night. Thanks for that!

Nice touch using the mint(?) leaves on the apple.

The leaves on the apple are lemon balm leaves.

the sauce just an au jus?

The sauce is made of 150 milliliters dark lamb jus, 20 g crushed coffee beans, 40 milliliters dry red wine (see below), 40 milliliters fresh orange juice, 20 milliliters brown rum and 25 g cold butter to thicken the sauce.

We had a 1991 Vino nobile di Montepulciano Reserva il Macchione with the course.

Nice touch using the mint(?) leaves on the apple.

The leaves on the apple are lemon balm leaves.

the sauce just an au jus?

The sauce is made of 150 milliliters dark lamb jus, 20 g crushed coffee beans, 40 milliliters dry red wine (see below), 40 milliliters fresh orange juice, 20 milliliters brown rum and 25 g cold butter to thicken the sauce.

We had a 1991 Vino nobile di Montepulciano Reserva il Macchione with the course.

Thank you, Heinz. Coffee and orange juice - interesting!

And a nice old wine for it, too. It all sounds excellent.

Tonight we grilled for the first time in weeks because of constant rain. We grilled burgers over charcoal and mesquite chips, and enjoyed them with sliced tomatoes and potato chips.

Multi-dinner grilling here, too: shell steaks, spatchcocked Cornish hens, and hot dogs.

Catching up a little here. Saturday night was chicken breasts stuffed with thin slices of truffled salami, mozzarella, and sauteed chard. They were served with mashed potatoes, a tomato-cucumber salad, and roasted brussels sprouts.

The chicken came out beautifully, but I would have liked it more had I been able to get more of the stuffing into it. I'll have to work on that.....

Tonight it is bone-in grilled pork chops with a nice rub. Green beans sauteed in a bit of butter and evoo, then a little sugar, garlic salt, white pepper, sweet basil and cherry tomatoes are added at the end. Thick tomato slices with Himalayan pink salt and Thai Basil.

Thai-style chicken curry (Gang Gai แกงไก่) with white Asian eggplant, fresh tomato, tofu (pinch-hitting for the chicken), coconut milk, Thai red-curry spices and lots of fresh cilantro.

Red-curry spices, so specifically Gang Gai Pet. Looks yummy!

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I'm swimming in leftover ribs. Today's project: repurpose! So I'm imagining a wonton soup made with a smoked pork filling. That is, copying Daniel Boulud's hamburger technique of mixing cooked shortribs into raw beef, I've ripped a bowlful of meat off of some of the bones, braised it a bit further for plusher texture and will mix it with raw ground pork, rice wine, ginger, green onions and a fine dice of waterchestnuts to make a filling. The bones were simmered with yet more ginger and shitake mushroooms to create a flavorful broth.

We had penne in pesto with basil straight from our deck planter, garlicky Italian sausages, and sliced tomatoes. It made for a beautiful plate, sorry no pictures from this technical incompetent guy! We washed it down with a 2010 Knapp, Finger Lakes, Cabernet Franc. Delicious!

[Robin Garr]

The season's first okra from our garden goes into a medium-dark roux gumbo with Field Roast smoked apple sage "grain meat" sausages, chopped tomatoes, the Cajun "holy trinity" of onions, celery and green peppers, red and yellow peppers, garlic and piquant spice.

That dish looks beautiful Robin!

At our house tonight is grilled turkey burgers, with bread crumbs, fresh lemon juice, fresh thyme, lemon zest, a red serrano pepper, on warmed on the grill onion rolls. Toppings will be butter lettuce, a huge sliced tomato from my garden, and carmelized sweet onions. Home made oven fries tossed with evoo, maldon sea salt and chipotle pepper.

I'm swimming in leftover ribs. Today's project: repurpose! So I'm imagining a wonton soup made with a smoked pork filling. That is, copying Daniel Boulud's hamburger technique of mixing cooked shortribs into raw beef, I've ripped a bowlful of meat off of some of the bones, braised it a bit further for plusher texture and will mix it with raw ground pork, rice wine, ginger, green onions and a fine dice of waterchestnuts to make a filling. The bones were simmered with yet more ginger and shitake mushroooms to create a flavorful broth.

You are so creative. I used to cook like that too, but now, we keep it simpler. I remember one time I had two dishes of my creation going on in the kitchen with three kids running around. There were so many ingredients ready on my prep board. The kids distracted me, and I mixed up the ingredients. I was so upset, what to do...
I said nothing, did my best and it turned out just fine....although I knew and was not to happy about it. Kids and Gene ate it all up.

I said nothing, did my best and it turned out just fine....although I knew and was not to happy about it. Kids and Gene ate it all up.

Funny. Reminds me of my mom's complaint about cooking: it didn't matter what she did or how long she spent on it, the men folk ate it all in 15 minutes anyway.

Nothing too crazy but we're really getting into summer and earlier this week had orecchiette with chanterelles, basil and pecorino romano. Hard to complain. Tonight will be rigatoni with the first fresh tomato sauce of 2013, eggplant, and basil. At least something good comes out of summer heat!