What's Cooking (Take Two!)

[Jenise]

I love the sound of that corned beef. And yes removing the fat is hard, especially if you got a point cut rather than the flat. Our corned beef was made by a friend--organic grass fed brisket she corned herself using the Ruhlman method. FANTASTIC. With that, a kale-based colcannon, and oven roasted carrots and cabbage--cooked until the cabbage blackened a bit on one side. YUM.

Tonight is our neighborhood wine tasting, theme Bubbles Around the World. I'm going to make a shrimp and chorizo (Mexican style) mac n cheese.

We enjoyed our St Patrick's Day meal of corned beef and cabbage with Guinness at 99 Restaurant in Dover, NH. Yum!

Furnace not behaving -- 53* in the house when I woke up -- so Carbonnade Flamande tonight. (A friend recently gifted me with two 750s of Belgian ale so here we go.)

[Jenise]

53! That sounds like my recent life. We were furnace-less for almost three weeks.

Tonight we're having a new neighbor for dinner: a Boston cardiologist who just retired and moved out here for a whole new life/adventure and his wife, a nurse. Yesterday I emailed them about specific dietary restrictions and preferences, "In light of your profession, perhaps I should consider serving three courses that are variations on tofu and broccoli." They wrote back: "NO TOFU."

I've decided on a menu in which every course will feature something local. All the wines will be Washington. He wants to talk wine cellars--he's going to build one in their home. So for that part of the evening, I'll serve (in the cellar) a Washington champagne and duck foie gras terrine on flatbread topped with a 'caviar' of locally grown Jerusalem artichokes. Salad will follow and be various greens with thinly sliced watermelon radishes in a roasted Hazelnut-lime vinaigrette. The main course will be locally raised heritage pork, chops that I'll grill and slice and nest with mashed regular-and-sweet (2:1 ratio, the sweet potato makes the mix incredibly silky) potatoes, fried cabbage, and an arugula pesto. After dinner, some local cheese, local honey and few pieces of fruit.

That meal would have any new resident happy!

Last night, I made chicken with zaatar and sumac, out if Ottolenghi. Served it over rice with roasted cauliflower. It was a hit,

Last night's dinner was Chinese marinated chicken wings. The marinade contains light soy sauce, garlic, fresh ginger, five-spice powder, sliced scallions, shao hsing wine, lemon juice, and sesame oil. Typically the wings are deep-fried after marinating overnight. This time around I gave the marinade a little Thai twist by using galangal as well as ginger and lime juice instead of the lemon juice. I grilled the wings instead of deep-frying them. I also made a sauce out of the marinade by boiling it down a bit and then straining off all the solids (couldn't bring myself to just throw away all those good flavors).

-Paul W.

Furnace fixed. Seafood chowder last night.

[Jenise]

I shouldn't read these while I'm hungry--I now have the flavor of Chinese seafood chowder in my mouth, and it's not working for me.

We ended up having a chicken caciatorre-like dish last night because I'd bought whole chickens (2) the day before and then forgot to move them to the freezer. (sigh) So, giant pot of stewed chicken plus the other dish to take care of it all. I'll be making food out of cooked chicken all week. Tonight: chicken pot pies.

Over our weekend in Maryland -- on Friday we had my Pargiyot, chicken long marinated in an onion/parsley sauce and then cooked directly over charcoal on skewer "swords." Came out tender and flavorful this time, and we ate it over Persian rice with a nice crust -- tadiq.

Our "Nowruz" meal on Saturday was smaller than planned, my niece and her husband were sick and couldn't come. But my in laws knocked themselves out, and the most spectacular dish was a duck Fessenjan. This was duck meat cut up and cooked until very tender in a stew made up largely of pomegranate juice, with saffron and other spices and minced up walnuts. It was also served with Persian rice. One interesting thing was that you really couldn't exactly tell that it was duck meat with all the other stuff going on in the stew. Even the texture was a bit like beef. But that wasn't a bad thing. My brother in law made lamb chunks marinated and cooked over charcoal -- he had these clever little cages, he didn't want to skewer the lamb. It was way more tender than most lamb kebabs that I have had. I was responsible for the appetizers, the usual lavash bread with panir, or French feta cheese, wrapped around herbs like dill, scallions, mint, cilantro, basil, etc. Last year I did all of the cooking for Nowruz but this time they wanted to try out Persian recipes (which they remembered from living in Tehran in the 1970's) and I am glad that they did. Janan said that it was kind of an honor if someone invited you to their house and served Fessenjan (and gave you some of the Tadiq when serving the rice). I can see why.

[Jenise]

The Fessenjan sounds fabulous, Frank, it's not a dish I've ever had. (Will look into.)

Wait, just did. It's actually in the Time-Life book "Cooking in the Middle East." Upon being served the dish, the narrator says: "The second was an even more splendid stew called fessenjan, which consists of duck or chicken simmered with walnuts and pomegranate juice and scented with cardamom. Both had the tartness of citrus juice or peel, but it was subtly curbed just short of the point of astringency."

The ingredients listed in the recipe are: onion, turmeric, walnuts (3 1/2 cups pulverized!), water, salt, black pepper, a duck, pomegranate syrup, lemon juice and sugar. Amusingly, no cardamom. Wonder if that was an oversight or a deliberate attempt to make the recipe itself, regardless of authenticity, less daunting to the cook who, in 1971, wouldn't cook anything if she or he couldn't find the ingredients at Safeway. (As this series was somewhat wont to do.)

[Jenise]

Btw, speaking of duck: this weekend I'm making duck a la orange for the very first time. I've roasted a number of ducks but always cleaved toward an imitation of a version I/we fell in love with at one Chez Gregoire on Paris' left bank, finished with a brown sauce into which a handful of blueberries is thrown at the last minute. We loved it SO much we went back to the same restaurant the next night and had it again. But this time I'm going old school: it's the Bobster's birthday, and this dish is what we both ordered the very first time we ever had dinner together.

What duck a l'orange, and duck fessenjan, and even some Chinese duck dishes have in common is that duck meat "loves" a sweet sauce. One thing that Janan did differently -- I had to go to the store and get 8 CUPS worth of Pom Wonderful. The last time we made Fessenjan (many years ago) I don't think pomegranate juice was at all easy to find. You had to rely on the flavor of the pomegranate molasses. Janan sent me to various different stores looking for fresh pomegranates or pomegranate "arils" (the seeds) but they seem to be flat out of season. She just loved the color picture of the stew with the fresh red seeds scattered across the top. Blueberries might have worked?

Actually, the duck loves a bitter sauce: you want to use Seville oranges, not sweet orange, to make the sauce.

Jeff, you may have a point, but Chinese Duck Sauce is not bitter, more sweet/sour, and neither is pomegranate...

[Jenise]

Frank and Jeff: Re the duck, I'm going to make the sauce with Cara Cara oranges. They're the best of what's available right now--Seville? Not available. The sauce will acquire some bitterness via the rind and since I'm making it, it won't be very sweet because I won't let it be. I'll be using the recipe in the Italian cookbook, Silver Spoon.

Frank, re pom seeds? Saw them just last week at Trader Joe's.

I had half a pack of fresh rice noodle sheets left over from the mahogany fire noodles, so I made beef chow fun last night. Now I have half a flank steak left over. This will probably become stir-fried beef with oyster sauce.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I had half a pack of fresh rice noodle sheets left over from the mahogany fire noodles, so I made beef chow fun last night. Now I have half a flank steak left over. This will probably become stir-fried beef with oyster sauce.

-Paul W.

MMMMMMM. Do you marinate your flank steak in advance?

We enjoyed a typical Easter Dinner with half our family present; consisting of baked ham (nitrite free) scalloped potatoes, green beans, and carrots. Washed it down with a Knapp Finger Lakes Riesling. Yum!

Nothing special made for Easter here. We had a typical 'full oven' dinner of roast chicken, baked potatoes, and roasted butternut squash.

MMMMMMM. Do you marinate your flank steak in advance?

Both the chow fun and beef with oyster sauce recipes call for the thin slices of beef to be marinated about 1/2 hour in a mixture of soy sauce and cornstarch. That's pretty much standard for Cantonese-style stir-fries.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

First halibut of the season last night! The store I bought it at also had fresh plump gulf shrimp, about U-12 to 15 size. The briney element of the cooked shrimp with the brine of olives inspired a Halibut Vera Cruz, wherein the Vera Cruz sauce was raw vs. cooked and topped with three each of those shrimp. A pair of scorched and buttered corn tortillas accompanied each serving. A riper styled 2012 Chablis was our wine.

[Robin Garr]

Mushroom risotto kicked up with all manner of umami to make it a serious match with a dry red wine, specifically a Rioja for Wine Focus.

shroom-risotto-20160402.jpg

Mushroom risotto kicked up with all manner of umami to make it a serious match with a dry red wine, specifically a Rioja for Wine Focus.

Boy that looks good. What kind of rice do you favor for your risottos, Robin?

[Jenise]

Having a new couple over for dinner tonight. New because he was married to someone else until very recently. My house is one of the few places they can safely socialize in public.

Both are in the wine business, so it's going to be a geeky dinner.

An appetizer upon arrival: taleggio cheese and raddichio tartlet.
First course: white asparagus in a tarragon vinaigrette with roasted hazelnuts
Second course: seared polpettano slice on leek risotto with fresh oregano vinaigrette
Final course: lamb osso buco with purple broccoli sprouts and roasted fennel

Will serve a variety of Italian wines, including a Petit Manseng from Umbria. THEY'LL NEVER GUESS.

No dessert.